There have been a few mentions of PvP when it comes to Guild Wars 2 over the past few months. While the team is not officially discussing the topic yet, they have made some mention into what their theory is behind PvP and how it is shaping up in the game. Let’s look at what we know and why Guild Wars 2 PvP is going to make some players drool at the prospects.
First, let me mention that Eric Flannum, one of the lead designers on Guild Wars 2 is a former Dark Age of Camelot player. This can be considered by many as a good thing when it comes to PvP. Keep in mind that Jeff Kaplan and Rob Pardo of Blizzard were former EverQuest players. The impact on World of Warcraft I always felt lead to PvP almost becoming an afterthought in that game, at least at launch. Dark Age of Camelot has been honored as one of the best PvP MMOs ever created. Unfortunately, Mythic did not replicate the process with Warhammer Online. My conclusion on this is that Eric Flannum coming from playing DAOC into designing Guild Wars 2 renders that good prospects for PvP simply because of his roots in a game that is known for having some of the best PvP game play ever.
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Continuing this PvP trend is the concept of three servers being clustered together in Guild Wars 2 for end game PvP. So instead of having your server’s factions to fight against, you are actually battling against other servers as well. Very little information has been announced about this format, but the development team has mentioned it in interviews and on the official blog as well. This being true, it will create a very strong PvP environment for players at the end game. Using the basis of a three realm system, similar to DAOC, Guild Wars 2 will have a lot of server pride added into the game. This gives players a reason to advance and a reason to fight against their foes. No longer are there just two factions going against each other in static battles. When you add the element of a third opponent into a fight the battle starts to move, change, and offer loads of different options. Three servers fighting also open up different battle fronts for players. If one area is slow, then players can go check out another.
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Beyond these two facts, I know very little about the PvP plans for Guild Wars 2. I do know that the entire team has said that end game PvP is a very big priority. This is something that gives me hope for the game. If servers are battling each other then all the players on a given server will be working together for advancement, even in raids and PvE content. The better gear you get, the better your army will be when it goes off to fight other servers. This is an amazing concept and one that really looks to create realm pride. I know I mentioned it earlier, but this is something that is sorely lacking in Warcraft. I think the main reason is that WoW is designed around guilds. Guilds get advancement, work endless hours on raids, and strive to be the best on their servers. Never once do we hear how one server is better than another; well I guess in terms of raids you do. I think Guild Wars 2 plotting the server vs. server system will create a reason for players in different guilds to play together and also to help each other.
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I am very excited about the PvP aspects of Guild Wars 2 and honestly cannot wait to see what ArenaNet and NCSoft have planned. Hopefully in 2011 we will get a good look at how this system will be fully structured. Developer interviews will be great because from what we heard in 2010 the team is very excited about PvP, they just cannot give all of the details. So as we all wait for Guild Wars 2, we wait knowing that what little we know of PvP is already awesome information!
