PvP Season 5 Changes & Wintersday Festival Begins

The Guild Wars 2 site has been updated with a pair of interesting news bits. The first reveals that the annual Wintersday Festival kicks off today and is set to run through January 10th. The holiday comes with daily achievements, special holiday weapons, Snowball Mayhem and the Winter Wonderland jumping puzzle.

Secondly, ArenaNet is set to unleash PvP Season 5 today with a series of big changes that should provide a "more competitive environment" and more streamlined rewards. Here's what to expect:

• Overtime is added. Similar to American football, when tied at the end of conquest, the team that scores higher than the other after a scant 5 minutes will win
• League pip will be awarded based on wins / losses and are used as a mechanism for rewards
• better matchmaking that will focus on player matchmaking rating to increase the number of eligible opponents and reduce queues
• leagues have been overhauled for better matchmaking, to be more rewarding and to give better information about skill levels
• personal score and top stats

You can read more on the Guild Wars 2 site.