Guild Wars 2 Sold 3 Million Copies, Outlines Plan For 2013

Written by: Richie Procopio (@richieprocopio) | January 15, 2013 10:55 am

23 Comments

ArenaNet Unveils Their 2013 Plans for Guild Wars 2

ArenaNet’s Colin Johanson revealed today that Guild Wars 2 sold 3 million copies since its launch in late August 2012. He also discussed their high-level plans for the next six months of the game, during which they will be applying what they’ve learned from their previous content patches.

Mr. Johanson states that the key pillars of Guild Wars 2 are the sense of community and the dynamic, living world. In 2013, they are aiming to build upon those areas by adding more content, events, and stories to the open world and incentivizing all players to explore and experience them.

How will they reward players of all levels to experience new content in lower level maps? They are planning on leveraging the achievement system, granting tokens for accomplishments that can be traded in for ascended gear and infusions. They also want to add variety to daily achievements so they are different each day of the week and, eventually, give players the choice to skip a few requirements and still get their daily rewards.

He also reaffirmed that they are not looking to turn Guild Wars 2 into a gear grind. They are aiming to provide a new rewards system that is exciting and has things that you seek over time, but does not have a new tier of gear every six months. He even went as far as to say that we will not see another tier between ascended and legendary in 2013. Beyond that, it’s anyone’s guess.

We’ve spoken at length on GuildCast about there not being much for guilds to do together, especially in PvE. Well it seems like ArenaNet is aiming to address this. In early 2013, they are going to add guild missions which can either be something your guild has to accomplish together within a certain time limit or can be creations your guild makes that can be experienced by everyone in the world. Details are scarce on guild missions at this point, but I look forward to hearing more about them in the coming months.

On the World vs. World side of things, they will introduce a prestige and advancement system that will allow players to earn new WvW exclusive abilities and bonuses. They are also making strides towards eliminating that pesky culling issue that causes enemies to not appear on your screen for several seconds.

Paid server transfers with time limitations are also on the horizon, which should help stabilize server populations and impact World vs. World matchups. It also opens the door for the guesting feature to finally be added, which will make many of us jump for joy!

PvP enthusiasts aren’t left out of the plan and can expect many improvements and a new system in 2013. Improved rewards will give players a reason to log in and compete every day. Custom arenas will give teams a private area to set up scrimmages and practice strategies. A match-making system will be added to pit players of similar skill levels together and the long-awaited spectator mode will be making its debut.

In addition to the scads of features listed above, ArenaNet is also looking at adding leaderboards, revamping and expanding dungeons encounters, continuing the fight against botters and hackers, and improving the looking for group tool. For a complete look at the lengthy blog post, click here and let us know what you think of the Guild Wars 2 roadmap for 2013 by leaving us a comment below!

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Pete Cuellar

Looks like Richie is finally gonna have his dream come true guesting!
- http://twitter.com/Salamolign Salamol
  
  Guesting is coming? You mean like how guesting has been coming since release? I wouldn’t count your chickens just yet.
  - Karizee
    
    Now don’t you feel silly!
- balen arenas
  
  The proof is in the pudding
  
  I think the guild cast was on the mark in saying that there has to be an exploit issue that they are working on and can’t figure out yet to put in guesting.
  - http://www.facebook.com/people/David-Hatcher/100000111448255 David Hatcher
    
    Have 2 accounts on 2 servers. Guest into each others servers and you get double the resource farming of two solo accounts (because of resource node cooldown per character per server). Three accounts on 3 servers and get triple node farming.
    
    Thats one simple guesting exploit.
    - dawolv
      
      You can do that with alts too!
      Just park them in a material rich environment and then log in to those characters every 65 minutes and re-gather.
      
      Besides, they did cap the questing servers to 2 every 24h – so that should help.
http://www.facebook.com/samuel.fard89 Samuel Fard

Funny with the Guild Missions, I wrote on the facebook post about the expansion rumors that we should get some kind of Personal Story for a guild that could in some way act as a Raid. Seems these Guild Missions are just that =)
http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

Good to hear. Been seeing Guild Wars 2 on the sales charts, was wondering when they hit 3 million sales.
Jado Cast

I’m really looking forward to the WvW patch.
- Pete Cuellar
  
  So glad that Feb is a short month WvW patch coming sooner
http://profile.yahoo.com/KMMYFK5MJ2APHGWIL2MEKPH3AM the_founder

“communal experience” rofl.. ya ill believe it when i see it. the social aspect, teamwork aspect of GW2 = 5 man faceroll dungeons where communication is completely unnecessary, faceroll zergfests in WvW and dynamic events, and complaining in mapchat in Lions Arch.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=862175353 Gavin Morgan

I wish they would sort out the WvW character popping. One minute your on 20 people only to realise that its actually 60+
- http://www.kaiketsu.enjin.com/ Corey “Crimzen” Jenkins
  
  That’s something they are actively working on.
http://twitter.com/AisarGaming Aisar

Looks like they still have not figured out that there is no reason to do dungeons or WvW, aside from the rewards and carrots they are apparently adding to WvW (it’s a start at least). If there’s no incentive or reward, a lot of people simply won’t do the content. There’s no reason to WvW (besides…no, there is no reason) and without valuable rewards from dungeons there’s no reason to run those either. The armor sets are OK, but they offer no actual upgrade. Unless you find the content particularly enjoyable there is no reason to zergfest pointless WvW maps or run mediocre dungeons nonstop. After playing WoW for 8 years everything in GW2 is very bleh and constantly makes me wonder why I log in at all. I realize there’s no sub so a lot of people are indifferent about it and have simply moved on. I also find it very strange that no one seems to care that you can buy currency through the gem store and simply buy all the best gear, no effort required. I guess I just don’t enjoy an MMO that is so casual and thin that I would consider it pointless. MMOs need progression and a reason to keep coming back. That’s how they work and Anet don’t quite seem to understand that.
- 7BitBrian
  
  No, that’s how MMOs YOU like work. Not how they must be or how all people like them. Try to separate your own personal opinions from fact. If it’s not the game for you that’s fine, it’s not the game for everyone, but not everyone feels exactly as you do.
  - http://www.facebook.com/jonathan.hornsby.7 Jonathan Hornsby
    
    Its the internet; at least half of the people who use it are mentally unable to tell the difference between opinion and fact, and tend to get really offended when suggest that their opinions are not facts.
  - http://www.facebook.com/people/Justin-Case/100003772398650 Justin Case
    
    as biased as his reply is,he does have a point,there is no reason for a serious gamer to play GW 2,the game is well made and it brings a new dimension to MMO’s,but did they have to do it so casual?
    - http://www.kaiketsu.enjin.com/ Corey “Crimzen” Jenkins
      
      That’s pretty much a matter of opinion my friend. There are plenty of hardcore gamers who play GW2 pretty hardcore as well. It all comes down to what you want out of a game.
      - http://www.facebook.com/people/Justin-Case/100003772398650 Justin Case
        
        they do hardcore what,jumping puzzles?what is hardcore in this game?There is zero competitive PvE structure,the sPvP is a joke compared to other games in terms of number of pros doing it,and WvW is a mindless buggy zerging fest.
      - http://www.kaiketsu.enjin.com/ Corey “Crimzen” Jenkins
        
        I think you are getting competitive gaming and hardcore gaming confused.
        
        Any game can have a hardcore fan base. They don’t need PvP or raiding to have a passionate fan base who spends a lot of time playing their game. To say a game can’t have hardcore players just because it doesn’t have those things is kind of a noob thing to say. You have hardcore Final Fantasy players, EvE players, Torchlight 2 players, Diablo players etc. Planetside 2 for example. It’s not an esport and would be very difficult to turn it into an esport, but you have a very dedicated and hardcore fanbase, that love logging in to fight in this continual war because they love that game to death and want to get better. Another example could be Warcraft. Not WoW. Just Warcraft the RTS. People played that hardcore before competitive raiding or esports was even a thing.
        
        The same can be said for the guild wars franchise, specifically Guild Wars 2. They have plenty of dungeon content, both story and explorable modes, fractal progression, tons of crafting, good pvp, good open world pvp, and also just tons of lore and pve content. Not to mention we get new content updates every month. So there is plenty for someone who wants to be a hardcore Guild Wars 2 player to get into. Could there be improvements? Absolutely, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a hardcore fanbase or hardcore players who play and enjoy your game. As long as a game has content, depth, and a dedicated fan base. Any game can have hardcore players.
http://www.kaiketsu.enjin.com/ Corey “Crimzen” Jenkins

Awesome news. I have no doubt this game and company will continue to be successful.
http://www.facebook.com/oneniisama Bear Powell

I am glad to see them have the boost from Xmas sales and look forward to the Chinese sales boost a bit later this year. The 3 million sales is quite respectable and close to the 3.12 million that Daewoo projected. As for the Outline Plan I found it to be pretty light in actually giving us useful information. It seems to be business as usual when it comes to giving us information since launch. I look forward to actual patch notes which will give us hope or despair for the actual future of the game.
Pete Cuellar

Guesting is Coming told you!

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