The Janthir Wilds expansion is coming to Guild Wars 2 on August 20th, and ArenaNet is already giving us a taste of what's to come in the expansion's first update: the game's first new raid in five years, as well as updated Convergences.
Raids take time and development resources to create, and in the past, the team chose to create 10 player raids with their own self-contained stories. The upcoming raid will instead be integrated into the main storyline of Janthir Wilds. The 10-player raid will be part of the greater overall experience.
The team's point of view is that those who might have just been hesitant to try joining a raid group might be more encouraged with this tied into the rest of the narrative and their personal story, rather than introducing a new narrative with new NPCs. It keeps the focus on the enemies to fight and the mechanics.
Among the reasons to integrate the raid into the storyline was also to fit it into their new release cadence. Raids take a lot of development resources for separate content many don’t take part in. By focusing it around the main storyline, it lets them use some of the same story content and assets into the raids. This raid will be a kind of test to determine when--or whether--they make more.
The 50-player version will be built as a Convergence, so if you are familiar with those from Secrets of the Obscure, you will have some idea what to expect. Both versions will be somewhat different from each other, but the team is looking to keep a sense of continuity, which also serves with the lower barrier to entry and encouragement to try the content.
As for Convergences, this time around they've worked to tune the bosses to make this more challenging. There are significant rewards if you take them on. When you complete Janthir Wilds Convergences, you will get essences that you can use to craft legendary gear.
After the raid is released, there will be a challenge mode and for those who participate in the 10 player raid, there will be a legendary mode later.
