Guild Wars 2 in 2013

[Vayne]

Happy 2013 everyone! I wanted to take the time to provide insight on some of the exciting features, events, and stories we intend to bring to Guild Wars 2 in the first half of the New Year.
It’s been a fantastic ride so far – in the few months since Guild Wars 2 launched we’ve sold more than three million games and have become the most critically acclaimed MMO of 2012. We’ve introduced the new Fractals of the Mists dungeon experience, brand-new PvE and PvP maps, events of all sizes, our Lost Shores world event, and two massive holiday events.
And this is just the beginning. Our goals for the New Year are to build on the areas of the game that were successful in 2012, to learn and apply lessons from things that didn’t work as well, and to make sure that 2013 is a year none of us will ever forget.

You can read the entire article and see the accompanying video here.

I'm definitely happy with the direction the game is going. What about you?

[meglobob]

Those are my favourite statements:-

Our reward systems need to be exciting

The rewards in GW2 are abit bland atm.

we don’t want to force our players on endless gear treadmills for new tiers of gear we add every 6 months

You won’t see another tier between Ascended and Legendary in 2013 for example



guesting ability, which allows players to visit friends on other servers in every part of the game

About time!!! Should have been in from day 1.

To make playing in our open world worthwhile, we’ll make it rewarding enough for players to spend their time there across all levels. It’s extremely important that we stay true to our philosophy that you should be able to play Guild Wars 2 the way you want to play the game in order to reach the most powerful rewards.

Every gamer is a individual and likes playing the game there own personal way, so a game should offer as many options as possible.

One of our focuses is expanding and leveraging our achievement system. The concept behind this is to allow players to earn new rewards for achievements, as well as progressing down achievement paths that take advantage of the open world experience. We’ll add tokens for your achievements that you can turn in to select from a list of rewards, including new reward types like Ascended gear and Infusions. We’ll add support so daily achievements will be different each day of the week, which will help drive players to different areas of the world and play together. Later, we’ll also be adding a system that lets you complete a subgroup of achievements to fulfill your daily. For example, if there are 6 daily achievements available, you’ll only need to do 4 of the 6, so you can choose the achievements that you’re most interested in.

This all sounds very good.

We’ll be adding systems that make it easier for players who are less competitive to get matched only against people with similar skill sets, and stronger methods for players learning PvP to do so in a safe and fun environment with more information to help their skills grow.

Ranking players by ability is a must, otherwise the best players will be bored and the worst players will just give up.

[Improving the new player experience to make it easier for new players to learn how to play GW2, enter the game world, and more quickly learn the game without being overwhelmed.

Anyone who didn't buy the game in the first couple of weeks is at a huge disadvantage. So new players need to be encouraged, given greater not lesser rewards and generally a helping hand to catch up. The 'elite' players are always going to be way ahead no matter what anyway.

Improving the “looking for group” tool to make it easier to find other players to play with in the game.

Again, about time, should have been in the game from day 1.

[Fey]

Guilds are extremely important to the game. We need to ensure there is a volume of content to foster this strong community/social bond. To that end, we’re working on adding new types of content to the game in early 2013 that will allow guilds to go on missions together. Some of these missions may be content designed specifically for the guild to accomplish within certain constraints or time requirements, while others will see the creation of new content by a guild/s everyone in the world can experience. Over time we’ll continue to expand this system with new guild rewards, missions, and tools to allow guilds of all sizes to play a stronger part in solidifying the communities of the GW2 world.

Thank you ArenaNet! You really DO listen.

Leaderboards on our website where you can compare your abilities with other players to find out who is the best in the world.

Also: Lol what? I wonder if that means achievements or specific types of leaderboards? So much for no competition. Hah.

Aslo #2: I think it's worth pointing out that GW2 has grown from it's initial 2million to 3million coppies sold. Obviously we don't know the number of active users, but that's irrelevant. People keep saying the game feels dead, yet they've sold an additional million boxes.

I swear, internet. I hate you sometimes.