Colin Johanson Outlines Guild Wars 2 Live Game Development

As we’ve always said, Guild Wars 2 is a living, breathing, dynamic world. ArenaNet’s commitment to this has been a crucial part of the game’s development since day one, and it’s an important part of who we are and what Guild Wars 2 represents. Today I want to talk about our philosophy and plans for developing the live game.

Our goal is to continue to raise the bar by keeping the game constantly updated with more high-quality content than any other game has offered before. We think Guild Wars 2 is one of the most enthralling online worlds ever created, so we are dedicated to a live game that impacts this world with events and milestones that are immersive and possibly permanent. We want this to be a world where you share memories of pivotal moments and exciting experiences for years to come.

To meet our goal, rather than have one small live team as is normally provided in traditional MMOs, we have formed multiple live teams focused on expanding Guild Wars 2 in the long term. I’ll cover the teams in broad terms below to give you an idea of the kind of support to expect. As our teams update the game, they will give you more specifics in the form of update notes, media interviews, and blog posts like this one.



Live Security—

You’ve heard from this team’s coordinator, Mike Lewis, already on our forums, so you’ve seen some of their early work and long-term plans already. Our security team is focused on fighting bots, spammers, and account thieves. They work closely with customer service in those areas.

Live Response—

The Live Response team is focused on fixing bugs, addressing game feedback, and balancing the game. You’ve seen a lot of their work already in the update notes.

Living World—

The Living World team is focused on adding new content to the game world. This team will be adding and refining the types of content you already know in PvE and WvW, as well as developing new features and rewards.

PvP/E-Sports—

This team is dedicated to supporting and building the competitive PvP community. They will be building new features that help support the growth of Guild Wars 2 as a competitive game. Jonathan Sharp will be sharing more on this in the near future.

Holidays & Events—

Our Holidays & Events team will be creating a variety of special holidays in Guild Wars 2, building on the long tradition of amazing holidays in Guild Wars. You can likely guess which holiday you will see from this team first, and I recommend that everyone check our website next week for more information about this exciting first event.

On top of holidays, this team will also be creating in-game one-time events that occur and can change the world or drive narratives that come to a finite conclusion across the world.

Mac & Performance—

This team is focused on development for Guild Wars 2 for the Mac. You’ve seen them recently release the Mac Beta Client as their first major project. They’ll also be focusing on client performance, helping ensure the game runs well on the widest range of hardware going forward.

Bonus teams—

We will sometimes be creating additional teams not listed above. These teams will build specific cool features or events we decide we want to do outside of the scope of the other live teams. (Spoiler: We have some of these teams hard at work right now, and you’ll be seeing the first results of their efforts in November.)

Lastly, we have our Commerce team. You’ve heard from John Smith, our economist from this team, recently, and you’ll be seeing many additions from our friends in the Black Lion Trading Company in the future.

We hope this look at Guild Wars 2 live development gives you some insight into how we’re hoping to push the envelope in managing our live game. For those familiar with the original Guild Wars, you know we have a long history of adding incredible free content and features to the game. With a dedicated live team more than ten times the size of the Guild Wars live team, we think you’re going to be blown away by the size and scope of live additions to the world of Tyria for a very, very long time.