There were a couple of interesting– if somewhat vague– PvP updates issued on the official forums over this past weekend. One of which was concerning the public, non-beta release of Custom Arenas. The other was a hint of sorts by Devon Carver directed toward future WvW and matchmaking updates.

Originally posted by John Corpening (Source)

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Hey guys, thanks for the question. There are a few issues and updates we want to address before we make Custom Arenas available to everyone. At this time there is no announced date for the end of the beta period. We are eager to get these out to you but we want to make sure known issues are addressed first.

Originally posted by DevonCarver (Source)

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In the coming weeks, nay months, you’ll see many changes to WvW. We should have something to announce regarding the matchmaking in the coming weeks.

‘Many’ changes to WvW? Let’s see what ArenaNet’s definition of many is, shall we?

Over the weekend, ArenaNet published a video starring Guild Wars 2 Narrative Designer Scott McGough as he talks a little about the ambitions and goals for the Consortium, who play a large role in the events currently going on in Southsun Cove. Watch out Black Lion Trading Company– it seems you’ve got a bit of a competition. He also touches on the goals and ambitions that ArenaNet has concerning May’s content update and the Living World story arcs as a whole. Jump past the cut to take a look.

Oh, yeah, and it seems ArenaNet is gearing up to release additional information on the next phase of May’s Southsun event. On the Secret of Southsun information page, there is a new teaser box for a May 28th update known as “Last Stand at Southsun.” The box doesn’t link to a page just yet, but that will change in the near future we’re sure! All we know so far is that it involves “A desperate villain– a monstrous plan!”

As a preamble of sorts to today’s new Secret of Southsun content update, the ArenaNet team posted a few interesting information tidbits on the forums yesterday regarding the update and the changes we’ll see. First off, there will be parts of this Southsun update that will be permanent and others that will be temporary. The story part, in particular, will stick around for only one month. The story will also be more condensed and not so spread apart like Flame and Frost‘s story content often was. Today’s update will also bring other lasting changes to the island.

Originally posted by Robert Hrouda (Source)

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The Southsun Shore stuff will not be like the previous Flame and Frost stuff in regards to how time-spanning it was. We’re a separate team than that one, and we have been working on this content while you all were playing F&F content.

Our story will last a month and then be over with, and as a result is more condensed. We’ve been listening to the feedback on F&F, and tried our hardest to adjust where possible. So our temporary content will last just the month, but we are making some permanent changes to the island that will persist after the living story bit is over.

In another thread, Anthony Ordon also told players that the system to travel to Southsun Cove will change a bit with the update. We still won’t be able to skip on over to the island via the open world (boo!), but we will be able to finally use the standard practice for traveling across Tyria– an asura gate.

Originally posted by AnthonyOrdon (Source)

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There will indeed be a new asura gate linking Lion’s Arch to the new resort on Southsun Cove.

I agree that it seems possible to travel to Southsun from other areas when you’re looking at the map, but we’ve never had support for travel to other zones by swimming across the sea. In the context of the game world, I believe there are some pretty nasty things out in the deep water that would make it difficult to swim that far.

Scott McGough and Angel McCoy, two of the Narrative Designers working on Guild Wars 2, published an interesting developer blog last Friday detailing some of the lore and living world-centered reasons as to why exactly we’re taking a sharp turn of sorts back toward the not-so-paradise-like Southsun. May’s update, as it appears, is one that’s a bit of a transition phase in between major living world events. Here’s the scoop:

“May represents a transition—the Flame & Frost arc is now complete, and our plan calls for content to build on what came before while also kicking things off in a new direction. With that in mind, Team Spring Break first focused on the essentials: characters, story, and gameplay.

We needed to get players from the Shiverpeaks and Diessa Plateau down to Lion’s Arch and its environs so they could be a part of the story’s next phase. Savvy lorehounds will no doubt remember that the Consortium offered its help to those displaced by the Flame Legion/dredge alliance, but the Consortium isn’t exactly a charity organization—they want something in return for their assistance. Following the refugees’ progress and challenges on the Consortium’s Southsun Cove settlements proved to be the stepping stone we needed to bridge Flame & Frost with what comes next.”

Interesting little tidbit there. Make sure to check out the full developer blog for more info.

In a forum post yesterday, Colin Johanson shared some thoughts on what direction ArenaNet may take Magic Find in the future. Many players, as well as the developer team for the most part, agree that Magic Find in Guild Wars 2 is kind of a poorly-implemented stat in hindsight. The team wants to change Magic Find, but from the sounds of it, they are still working on an overall plan with no ETA in clear sight. Here’s what Colin had to say in one thread where players have been responding with some great ideas for altering Magic Find for the better:

Originally posted by ColinJohanson (Source)

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Some fun ideas in here, we’re also actively discussing ways on how we’d best like to alleviate having to make players choose between having better stats, or using magic find. It’s not a choice that’s great for game play and there isn’t really anything that fun about it, even more so when group composition is taken into account. Ideally we’d also like to keep the ability to slowly build your magic find over time, but doing this at the cost of using better stats isn’t the right way to do that.

No ETA on any changes here, just want to point out we agree there is an issue here that goes against what we want Gw2 to be, and is something we want to address.

Along with this week’s Flame and Frost: Retribution update, Guild Wars 2 received the new Molten Facility dungeon and the epilogue Living World story content that are both pretty awesome and getting rave reviews so far. There is one downside, however. Neither will be around forever. Temporary content is something that– by and large– we don’t see a lot of in MMORPGs except when it comes to holiday events and special expansion releases, but ArenaNet is trying something a little different with Living World content and the changes it brings to Tyria.

Colin Johanson talked a bit about the temporariness factor of Living World yesterday on the official forums. He also mentioned the fact that yes, Living World story content will continue to be a focus in Guild Wars 2 and will cause the game beneath our feet to shift, but not everything will be temporary. Keep reading to see what he had to say.

With the arrival of a new major Living Story update as we saw yesterday, players often log in and feel a little lost as to where exactly to start. ArenaNet published a corresponding non-spoiler starting guide for Flame and Frost: Retribution along with the update’s official patch notes. There is also a schedule for the event that was added in:

• The Molten Facility dungeon will be available until Sunday, May 12 at 12:00pm Pacific, when the entire Flame and Frost saga will progress to an epilogue. At this point, players will no longer be able to earn achievements associated with the previous chapters of Flame and Frost, nor will they be able to earn the achievement Rage against the War Machine.
• The Flame and Frost epilogue will be active from Sunday, May 12 at 12:00pm Pacific until Thursday May 16 at 12:00am Pacific. The epilogue will mostly consist of conversations and story elements; there are no exclusive rewards to be given at this time.

Check out the full guide here.

Last Friday, an interesting blog posted was published on Gamasutra that discussed the downfalls of Guild Wars 2′s economy. In particular, the pre-endgame economy of the game was looked at rather critically. Here’s an excerpt from the article:

Experience is flooded, and thus of minimal value in the marketplace. I would anticipate that experience boosts sell poorly here relative to other games since your level is not so critical in the game and leveling up is very easy. Since there is a maximum amount of experience the demand drops to zero as you approach the cap.

Craft xp is scarce, which is good, lending itself to monetization in the form of selling craft boosts. It also makes anything in the item economy that can give Craft xp more valuable.

Coin is scarce, which is good as it makes the primary currency economy tight. This is essential because the game hosts charge about $1.25 per 100 gems, and players can trade gems for coins with each other. The hosts take a cut of all such transactions, which is about 15%. This acts as a money sink on the economy. Since Experience is almost valueless, but coin is extremely valuable, wealth is the primary achievement metric in the game. Being able to purchase this metric makes the game somewhat “pay to win” as the primary game objects are for sale.

With the exception of craft materials, the pre-endgame item economy is broken.

Interesting observations. For the most part the reviewer’s arguments make a lot of sense, although I personally tend to place more value on a game’s endgame economy than the one that’s present while leveling up, especially in a game where it’s fairly easy to level in like Guild Wars 2. What are your thoughts? For the full article, check it out here.

On April 30th we’re going to be receiving the final update to the Flame and Frost world event, which is being called Flame and Frost: Retribution. Where will we strike our retribution? In a new dungeon! This new Living Story dungeon is called Molten Weapon Facilities and will feature our NPC comrades Rox and Braham as well as an end boss fight that seems mighty intriguing from the looks of the screenshots. We’re also going to finally be able to create our own custom PvP Arena matches and take a peek at matches in progress using the new Spectator mode that will be debuting in beta form with the update.

In addition, we’ll be getting new World vs. World abilities, new guild missions, and guild siege weapons and back banners that can be used during WvW. For more information, check out ArenaNet’s updated Flame and Frost: Retribution information page. There are also a few screenshots of the new dungeon on there, so make sure to check those out as well!

It seems that ArenaNet has finally found a solution to the good ol’ issue time zones bring to our WvW reset times. Beginning on the next WvW matchup this week, the North American and European Guild Wars 2 regions will experience separate WvW reset times. The North American matchup will reset at 9:00 PM EST and the European matchup will reset at 19:00 GMT. The team hopes that this will finally make it a little easier for guilds across various time zones to be around when it may matter most.

Devon Carver shared the announcement yesterday on the official forums, which can be found here.