Hello again, everyone!*After reading tons of fan reactions to our World vs. World blog post, there were a number of comments and questions that we wanted to touch on to hopefully clarify some things.
If you have a question or two about World vs. World that I don’t answer here, join me tomorrow on Reddit for an Ask Me Anything session! Starting at 8AM PST on Friday, Feb 24, I’ll be fielding all your questions about WvW as fast as I can type!

Siege Blueprints


A number of folks were discussing quite a few things regarding the cost and availability of siege blueprints. Here are a few more points that should answer many of the questions we saw:

  • Blueprints are always available to purchase with gold from a siegemaster, but you can also find them as drops from guards and dolyaks.


  • Costs are still not set in stone, as we’re still tweaking numbers. (Currently, blueprints cost between 10 silver and 1 gold depending on the type.)*Siege weapons are a necessary part of attacking and defending WvW fortifications, so while we don’t want the costs to be extraordinarily high, there will be some cost associated with obtaining them.


  • Blueprints are purchased with gold as it’s the main currency of the game, but don’t worry, you still earn gold in WvW from drops and events, so it’s entirely possible to buy your blueprints with gold you earned in the Mists if you just can’t stand the idea of spending gold you earned in PvE for WvW.

Our goal is to create an environment where people will use siege weapons whenever they would be useful, but we also want to limit the number of siege sites on the field. Adding a small cost to the blueprints creates a situation where most players will only create a siege site if it’s necessary. We want to avoid having players clutter the battlefield with unused siege sites—which is exactly what we would expect if the blueprints did not have any tangible costs.
Bonuses

WvW has a couple of bonuses that are earned and applied in different ways.*I just wanted to go over them again real quick to try and clear up some of the differences between them.

  • World Bonuses: These are earned by holding objectives in WvW and gaining enough points to cross certain War Score thresholds.*This bonus applies to everyone from that world in both PvE and WvW.
  • Orb Bonuses: These are earned by claiming Orbs of Power for your world.*This bonus applies to everyone from that world in WvW.
  • Guild Bonuses: These bonuses are earned by guilds researching them and placing them at objectives they have claimed.*They apply to anyone from the same world as the guild, but only in the vicinity of the claimed objective.

Server Transfers

Some of our more astute fans asked about the complications involved with switching servers and how it would interact with world bonuses.*Every account has a home server where your characters are created. You can only fight for your home world in WvW.*You can visit other servers, and while you are visiting, you still get the world bonus from your home world instead of the bonus for the world you are visiting. If you switch your home server, you lose the bonus from your previous home world and are not eligible for the bonus for your new server at least until the beginning of the next battle for the Mists.*We may extend this disqualification into the next match or possibly even longer to discourage people from switching servers right before a battle ends in order to get an awesome bonus.*You will have to pay a fee to change your home server (price undetermined), and that will also discourage people from server hopping to chase world bonuses.
Waypoints

Every team has one permanent waypoint in each map, located next to the asura gates that lead to other maps (see below). Every keep in WvW can be upgraded to gain additional waypoints for your team.

Map Population Cap

Some folks were curious if we would start a new WvW instance if a map fills up. Due to how the game is structured, this is not really something we can do.
Once we hit a population cap on a WvW map, we will have to let players either queue up to get into that map once space allows or select another map to fight in.*We hate queues as much as you do, but they’re an unfortunate necessity for WvW, so we‘ll be focusing on trying to get our map population cap as high as possible before release to try and limit how often this will occur.*But no matter how high the cap is, it’s just not possible to completely eliminate the possibility of a map filling up, so there is a chance of encountering a queue if you play on a server that tends to be very active in WvW or during times of high WvW population.
One important thing to note, though: one team will not be able to lock other teams out by “flooding” a map. You do not count against another team’s population cap.
Day/Night Cycle


A few people wondered if WvW has a day-night cycle, and it does!* Let me tell you this: seeing a trebuchet fire in the night is something you have to experience.*Words just can’t accurately describe the sight of a giant flaming arc of doom sweeping across the night sky!
Now You Know… And Knowing is Half the Battle!


Well, I hope this answers some of your questions about the original blog post!
Oh, I’ve got one last little tidbit. We’ve seen a couple debates about how world versus world is (or should be) abbreviated. If there are 3 servers involved, shouldn’t it be WvWvW?* Just so you know, around the office it’s always just written out as WvW, and many of us have taken to just pronouncing it “wuv-wuh”!
I’d also like to take a second to thank all of the participants in our recently completed Closed Beta Event. We got so much great feedback and had so much fun playing with all of you over the weekend, and we can’t wait to do it again! We had so many great battles in WvW and PvP, a ton of dungeon runs, and untold numbers of personal legends created in PvE.*Along the way, we found a bunch of things we need to do to make the game even better for the next Beta Event, and that just wouldn’t have happened without your help testing the game.
Once again, if you have any questions about World vs World, ask me tomorrow morning (Friday, Feb 24 at 8AM PST) on Reddit during our Guild Wars 2 Ask Me Anything session. I’ll see you on Reddit tomorrow and I’ll see you all on the battlefield soon!



More...