ArenaNet's Mike Zadorojny has penned a new letter on the Guild Wars 2 site entitled "What's Next?" In it, Zadorojny reiterates the company's core philosophy that, according to the post, has not changed. The team believes that "the Living World of Guild Wars 2 is a great way" to accomplish each of the five pillars of the game.
The staff that remains at the company after the layoffs earlier this year is being reorganized into "four fully staffed content teams with additional teams dedicated to supporting the core game like Skills and Balance, Rewards, WvW and sPvP". Each of these teams will have flexibility to make decisions that make the most sense to them for any given release.
Moving forward, players can expect the Season 4 finale once the Super Adventure Festival is over. Episode 6 is nearly complete and an announcement of its release date should be coming soon. However, "it won't fall within the two-to-three month window....because of the adjustments we had to make in February, but stay tuned -- more info is coming soon".
As to Living World Season 5, "the commander's tale will continue", but there are several features that are in the works:
- legendary runes and sigils, the "final components of legendary core equipment"
- "long-requested feature of build templates is in the works"
- max cooking level will rise to 500
- world restructuring is important to WvW initiatives
- Swiss tournament support is the next major sPvP component
Even further down the road:
- "changing matches so that scoring matters in 8-hour intervals"
- jewelcrafting will be extended
- a new festival is in the works that "highlights both sPvP and WvW"
Read the full letter on the Guild Wars 2 site.
