Wow. ArenaNet, and more specifically Mike Ferguson, dropped a brain rattling blog post today about the large-scale PvP combat in Guild Wars 2. World vs World, where three whole servers will be fighting across four maps, is going to be one massive ordeal. Two weeks of keep capturing, castle sieges, supply escorting goodness. I'm going to sift through some of the content in the ArenaNet blog post. There really was so much stuff there that I just have to get off my chest.
To start, wow. WOW! To be honest I had never expected WvW (World vs World) to be this huge. I had this gut feeling that it might turn out to be more than I anticipated, but it's gone far above my assumptions. You can really tell years of hard work have gone into making this, which in my opinion, will become one of the most epic PvP experiences to date. Call me a fanboy but just reading about the information has gotten me already plotting battle strategies in my head.
So let's start with that, strategy. Something I feel that has been lacking in MMO's. Sure you have basic strategy, use this skill after this one and voila. But ArenaNet is really digging it's heels in, rooting itself and saying here. Take skills, siege weapons, a gigantic map, hundreds of players and fight for your server. Join together, a united rallied force, and clash with the enemies. Take all the tools ArenaNet is throwing at us and use them as effectively to our disposable. It won't be a battle of better gear or who has grinded the most. And it definitely won't be a battle of button mashing. It will take teamwork, coordination and smart use of your surroundings. Use terrain to your advantage, neutral races that can rally by your side, friendly keeps that can give you buffs and an arsenal of deadly siege weapons. So many good things have come together, united under a familiar Guild Wars 2 banner, to create real strategy. Where you can think, plot a course of action and undertake that. It's bloody revolutionary.
Now another thing that if given the chance I would praise ArenaNet by kissing their shoes with. A single unified form of resource. "Supply" as they have deemed it. Created at resource camps and escorted by dolyak caravans. This resource is used in pretty much everything. Want to build a siege weapon, you use supply. Structures in need of upgrading due to pressure of enemy invasion, use supply for that too! They have simplified and universalized what is needed to repair, upgrade and spend. And with so many uses of supply there is much more incentive to escort these dolyak caravans and defend the resource camps with your lives. This had been one of my biggest fears. Players would ignore these supply sources if they weren't significant and would focus purely on killing/attacking enemies. Why run to defend some silly resource camp if purely rushing their base would suffice? I am extremely happy ArenaNet gave huge advantages to those who would take the time to upkeep their resources. This will be crucial to a worlds success and I'm sure glad for it.
The final thing prodding my mental mind would be keeps. It appears ArenaNet has gone for a sort of claiming system. Where there are keeps out in the map and you can secure them as your guilds own home sweet home. Also another interesting map technique that owners of keeps can assign buffs to said keep in an area surrounding it. So it will be crucial to choose smart locations for keeps, and of course whichever is the most bad ass. I'm curious as to how to obtain these keeps, will a first come first serve method be used? I'm wondering if that might just cause a swarm of people to run out as fast as possible to capture the closest/furthest keep. I'm hoping ArenaNet can find a more tactical way to assign keeps. Maybe the smaller guilds applying for specific areas through some sort of system. Like maybe the top 5 or so guilds on the world being able to vote yes or no to these smaller guilds pleas. But again, they are trying to avoid manipulation and too much player influence so that's definitely still up in the air.
Well. My confidence in this WvW system has yet to be dwindled. I know for sure that even though PvP was definitely a pass for me in the past, it will be on my main agenda for stuff to do in Guild Wars 2. What about you? Has the ArenaNet blog post affected your stance on PvP in Guild Wars 2? Let me know, I would love to get your opinions.
Ramble complete.
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