Jonathon Sharp brings us news about Structured PVP (sPVP) and what to expect. Here teams will come together and be able to set up tournaments and private custom arenas.

Structured Player vs. Player (sPvP) is a core feature in Guild Wars 2, and it’s quite massive. The features we want to add to sPvP, to use an analogy, are like an iceberg…It’s more than we’ve been able to say so far. And like all our other game types, we talk about sPvP features when they’re ready. We shipped the game with some key features, but a lot of features we wanted to show at release simply weren’t ready. So now we’d like to start talking about some coming features that, until now, have been beneath the surface of the ocean on our metaphorical iceberg.

First, let’s talk about free automated tournaments, the new paid automated tournaments, and the differences between them. After that we’ll talk about another new feature – custom arenas.

You can read the rest of the post over on the official website.

Originally posted by Mike Ferguson (Source)

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Hey everyone, sorry to not post about this sooner, the last few days have been a little hectic and I wanted to verify a couple things first about the issues we’ve been seeing with the queues before posting anything.

As many of you know, it is possible for someone to queue up for a map after you and get in first. We’re trying to get that fixed as soon as possible but unfortunately we still need a bit more time to solve the problem. We will definitely keep you updated when there is any news on our progress.

I have been checking the queue sizes and wait times for each matchup, and there are a couple interesting things I’ve observed so far that may help reduce queue times for some of you.

Worlds at the top of the rankings can have queues that reach multiple hours (particularly for the Eternal Battlegrounds map), but most of the worlds in the bottom half of the ranking quite frequently have open spots in at least a few maps, and the lower ranked the server is, the more likely it is that there are spots available. I’ll be posting the up to date world rankings shortly.

When there are queues for every map, the wait time for borderland maps tends to be shorter. Enemy team borderlands tend to have the smallest queues for just about every team so you may want to try entering those maps first before attempting to queue for the Eternal Battlegrounds. If you are just entering the queue for the battlegrounds and not checking the borderlands maps first to see if they have space open, you could be missing out on playing in the Borderlands while you wait for a spot to open up for you in the Battlegrounds.

Make sure to continue reading.

That being said, while we still have worlds that consistently have open spots for more players, it would be fantastic if some players out there could help us spread the WvW population out a bit so we don’t have a few heavily stacked populations facing large queues on some worlds while many other worlds still have room to support people.

While I know this isn’t what most of you wanted to hear, I also want all of you to know that we are still investigating numerous other options we can take to help resolve some of these ongoing queue issues and we’ve been discussing them internally every day to see what would provide everyone with the best long term solution, but we wont have anything ready on that front for quite a while.

Ideally, we would see some people move from worlds with extreme queue times to worlds that need additional people and start building up active wvw communities there as well. Having more worlds with heavily active populations in WvW will be a very good thing for the long term health of the game, and spreading out the population will help reduce the queue times on the worlds with the longest queues.

While queues do indeed suck, the fact that they are this bad is because so many of you are trying to play and that is actually one of the best possible problems we can have at this point. It may sound silly, but it means that there are quite a few of you out there are enjoying the game and we’re thrilled that so many of you are out there trying to fight for your world. We will do our best to make sure you can.

Finally, I would like to ask everyone to post any additional queue comments to this thread only from now on and refrain from creating additional threads about it.

Thank you all for your understanding and patience.

This is the current status of the most important issues we’re tracking with Guild Wars 2 live service.

Account security – We’re seeing an uptick in reports of account theft and attempted account theft. We believe hackers are using databases of email addresses and passwords stolen from other games and web sites, and pre-existing trojan horses, to search for matching Guild Wars 2 accounts which they attempt to compromise. To prevent this, we have temporarily disabled the “reset password” feature, and we’re working to bring email authentication online. To protect yourself, please ensure that you use a unique password for Guild Wars 2 that you don’t use for any other game, email account, forum or web account.

Email authentication - Email authentication is a feature that notifies you if someone tries to log into your account from a location you’ve never logged in from before. Thus, even if someone guesses your game password, he can’t log in unless he also guesses your email account password. You can make email authentication even more secure by using an email provider that supports two-factor authentication, such as Google or Yahoo, and taking advantage of that. We’re currently preparing email authentication and intend to deploy it in a phased rollout, starting on Thursday, August 30.

Parties, guilds, etc. - Parties, guilds, and other social features are periodically failing. This causes issues such as party members not appearing on the map, and party members not staying in the same overflow servers as they travel between maps. This happens particularly during times of peak usage. We’re working to fix related problems and mitigate this issue with each subsequent update.

Worlds – Many worlds are filling up. We’re keeping the number of worlds constrained so that worlds stay well populated even after the initial surge of high concurrency. However, we will add worlds as necessary. As of Wednesday, August 30, all German language worlds are full and all French language worlds are at high usage, so we’re adding two new German language worlds and one new French language world.

Overflow worlds - During this initial surge of high concurrency, and especially while many characters are low-level and thus playing in the same starting areas, it’s common for players to be directed to overflow maps. If you want to play with a friend, but you’re not on the same overflow map, you can form a party together, then right-click on your friend’s portrait in the party list and click “join”. Note that this functionality is sometimes intermittently unavailable due to the “parties, guilds, etc.” issues noted above.

Trading Post - We’re working to bring the Trading Post back online. To help test, we’ve temporarily made it available to a random 15% of players, while we work to resolve remaining capacity constraints that will allow us to open it to everyone.

Edit: We have completed our live testing of the Trading Post for today and the Trading Post is now in maintenance for all players. Thank you everyone that participated; this test has helped us tremendously.

In-game mail - We detected a potential abuse of the in-game mail system and have temporarily disabled in-game mail to prevent any such abuse. We’ll reenable it soon, hopefully in tonight’s update.

Edit: The fact that in-game mail is disabled means that it’s currently impossible for account hackers to loot stolen accounts, so we’re going to leave it disabled for just a little while longer, while we work to ramp up email authentication.

Botting - We’ll start substantial banning of bots on Wednesday, August 29. Since we’re currently seeing widespread casual, unsophisticated botting, we will start with 72-hour bans for first offenses. In the coming days, as we address the casual botting problem, we plan to switch to our normal policy of permanently banning anyone who runs a bot.

Forums - Our most important priority at the moment is to ensure that the game runs stably and flawlessly. So as to not create additional demand on our infrastructure and on our programming team, we made the decision not to open the forums until the initial mass influx of players has calmed down a bit.

Next software updates - The next update of the game server and back-end server software will take place tonight at midnight Seattle time. The game may be unavailable for approximately 20-60 minutes while we perform the update. We expect this update to have fixes for email authentication and in-game mail. Our continued work on the Trading Post is not tied to game updates, so we will continue to test Trading Post updates throughout the day.

With the launch of Guild Wars 2 just (approximately) 2 Days, 17 Hours and 34 minutes away, you’re going to want to get ready. There is no doubting that if you are going to be there as soon as the servers are going up, you don’t need any game-day launch strategies from us. You have your maps, your gameplans, your strategies to gain power already set. However, there may be one thing you have considered: Repairing your game client!

Keep reading for two very important tips.

The Stress Test and BWE client can be used as the live client, and the game has been updated almost every day. The first tip is to make sure to update your client every night, or every hour if you have ADHD like the staff here. You definitely don’t want to be caught downloading that 500 MB update at midnight EST while hundreds of thousands of people are pounding the servers.

If you’re not doing a clean install, make sure you repair your client! Arenanet is pretty good at keeping their file structure prestine, but it’s always a good idea to clean it up on your own via the repair option. You never know if your very own computer might be plotting against you. Here’s how to do the repair:

Guild Wars 2 Repair Instructions

If you are having problems running Guild Wars 2, the data archive may have become corrupted. Please follow these steps to verify and repair the archive:

1. Locate your Gw2.exe file.
2. Right-click on the file and select Create shortcut.
3. Rename this new shortcut to Guild Wars 2 Repair.
4. Right-click on Guild Wars 2 Repair and select Properties.
5. Locate the Target line and add -repair to the end.
   • Example: “C:\Games\Guild Wars 2\gw2.exe” -repair
6. Click OK.

 

Double-clicking Guild Wars 2 Repair will begin the repair process. The game will launch when it is complete.

Note: Keep in mind that the verification and repair process will run each time you double-click the Guild Wars 2 Repair shortcut. If you would like to play the game immediately without repairing the archive, double-click on Gw2.exe or another shortcut without the -repair command.

Follow these tips and get ready for this years best MMORPG launch! All other client related issues or questions could be answered on the GW2 official homepage.

Scavenging through the internet we’ve found a list of changes, tooltip corrections, fixes that people have reported they’ve noticed since BWE3. We’ve heard from Jon Peters that the Thief, Necromancer and Mesmer classes are some of those that need the most balancing. We see a bigger push for Necromancers with this update. What we see that is lacking are Thieves and Mesmers. Time is winding down and we hope Arenanet can get it done! Of course, we have faith that they can.

If you know of any other changes that aren’t listed here, drop them in the comments section. Here is what we’ve found so far thanks to the GW2 community:

Engineer 

Inventions

• Elite Supplies The Supply Crate has extra med packs and a rifle turret. supplies, Elixir X lasts longer, Mortar has increased range.

Tools

• Armor Mods Gain +50 Toughness and 33% chance to cause Retaliation for 3 seconds on critical hit.Gain 3 seconds of Retaliation when critically hit. 30 second recharge.
• Power Wrench Tool kit skill recharge 20% faster.
• Speedy Gadgets Gadget recharges are reduced by 30%. 20%.

Continue reading to see the rest.

Mesmer 

Domination

• Crippling Dissipation (Currently, player Cripples on downed.)

Necromancer 

Blood Magic

• Blood to Power Gain +90 Power Deal 5% more damage while health is above 90%.
• Bloodthirst Siphoning health is more effective. 50% more effective.
• Fetid Consumption Each minion can draw one condition every 10 seconds.
• Quickening Thirst Move faster while wielding a dagger. Move 10% faster while wielding a main hand dagger, move 5% faster while wielding an off hand dagger.
• Vampiric Rituals Wells also siphon health.every time they pulse.

Curses

• Barbed Precision Critical hits cause Bleeding. have a 66% chance to cause Bleeding.
• Deep Breath Warhorn skills recharge 15% faster.and the duration of all warhorn effects is increased.
• Pitch Black When you Blind a target, you also apply Confusion. Chill.
• Spectral Attunement Spectral skills have longer durations.and grant a small amount of Life Force on use.
• Target the Weak Increases 2% increased damage for each condition on a foe.
• Weakening Shroud Cast Enfeeble when entering Death Shroud. Cast Enfeebling Blood when entering Death Shroud.
• Withering Precision 25% Chance to cause Weakness on critical hits.

Death Magic

• Fateful Marks Marks are unblockable. When disabled (Stun, Daze, Knockback, Knockdown, Sink, Float, Fear, Launch) you fear all enemies near you. This effect can only trigger once every 90 seconds.
• Greater Marks Increases area of marks.and marks become unblockable.
• Reanimator Chance to summon a Jagged Horror whenever you kill an enemy. Summon a Jagged Horror whenever you kill an enemy. 30 second cooldown.

Soul Reaping

• Decaying Swarm You are Surrounded by a Locust Swarm at 25% health.
• Gluttony Life force fills faster. 5% faster.
• Path of Midnight Dark Path recharges 25% faster. All Death Shroud skills recharge 15% faster.
• Soul Marks Marks generate life force when triggered. 3% Life Force when triggered.
• Speed of Shadows Move Move 15% faster while in Death Shroud.
• Strength of Undeath Gain up to +100 Power based on how much life force you have. You do 5% more damage if you have at least 50% Life Force.
• Unyielding Blast Life Blast pierces.and causes Vulnerability.

Spite

• Axe Training Axe damage is increased.and axe cooldowns are reduced by 15%.
• Spiteful Talisman Increases focus range.and reduces focus skills cooldowns.

Ranger 

Markmanship

• Signet of the Beastmaster Active effects of Signets affect you as well as your pet. also affect you.

Nature Magic

• Nature’s Vengeance Spirits activate their toggle skill on death. Spirits’ activated skills are larger and trigger when the spirit is killed.

Skirmishing

• Quick Draw Shortbow skills recharge 20% faster. Shortbow and Longbow skills recharge 20% faster.
• Trap Potency Conditions caused by Traps last twice as long.and Traps recharge 20% faster.

Wilderness Survival

• Master Trapper Trap recharges are reduced by 20%. Incomming disables (Stun, Daze, Knockback, Knockdown, Sink, Float, Fear, Launch) are transfered to your pet. This effect can only trigger once every 90 seconds.
• Sword Mastery Sword skills recharge 20% faster. Sword, Greatsword and Spear skills recharge 20% faster.

Warrior 

Arms

• Momentous Greatsword Gain Might on a critical hit with a greatsword. Gain Might on a critical hit with a greatsword or spear. Greatsword and spear skill recharge 20% faster.