Exclusive Guild Wars 2 Interview: Mike Ferguson talks WvW

We sent in a short interview not too long ago, right after the big World vs World blog post, and when I came back from EU Fan Day yesterday I found this interview with Guild Wars 2 game designer Mike Ferguson waiting for me in my inbox.

I'm glad I can post this today, as Mike was able to share some very nice insight about the WvW game mode in Guild Wars 2, and I'd like to thank him again for taking the time.

Exclusive Guild Wars 2 Interview: Mike Ferguson talks WvW
GW2Journal: How has WvW changed since first conception? For example did you have any ideas or features you were looking into that you had to throw out during development, if so why?

Mike: One big thing that stands out in my mind is the supply mechanic. Supply was originally slated to be two different resources (wood and stone) that would be used to build siege weapons and upgrade objectives. Only one type of resource was available from each resource camp but you needed both runescape gold types to be able to build siege weapons or upgrade your locations.
After playing the game for a while with two resources, we realized that it was actually a very confusing and frustrating mechanic as players were never quite sure which resource camps were actually more important for their team to accomplish their goals and it would cause strife between players who wanted to pursue opposing goals. Converting to one resource type that is available at every camp removes that potential conflict as players can focus on just gathering and using supply from any resource camp because it is always useful for their team.

GW2Journal: You have previously mentioned in interviews and on the ArenaNet blog that the number of players participating for each world may be limited. What happens when that limit is reached - are players put in a queue, can additional instances open up, or what other mechanic is in place wow gold to balance player participation and server performance?

Mike: Each map has its own population cap so we can ensure the servers will be able to handle the load without causing massive lag or crashes. If a map is full you can choose to enter a queue for that map or select one of the other WvW maps to play in.
We do not open up new instances or overflow servers for full WvW maps as the way the game is structured is not compatible with those concepts. We also would not want to open up a new instance of maps meant for hundreds of people when we may only need slots for 3 or 4 people from a World that try to enter a particular map when it is full. We'd also have to find ways to consolidate people from those overflow maps and reconcile what happened in those maps when the 'real' maps have spaces that open up and we wanted to move people back to that version of the game, which is a rather significant and very complicated problem buy swtor credits to overcome.

GW2Journal: What role does each shard’s home map (borderlands) have? Are they contested at all times or do they only come into play once a world has control of the central battleground and wants to push further?

Mike: The home maps are available to fight in at all times. They are the only place you can find Orbs of Power that your team can capture to give your entire team bonus health. The Borderlands also give the home teams a starting point that is positioned to give them easier access to surrounding objectives so it's hopefully easier for them to capture the surrounding objectives and keep them out of enemy hands.
The home teams also start the game with a couple of the objectives surrounding their starting point in their possession.
We originally designed the flow of the maps to be such that players would start in their home map and work their way in to the Eternal Battlegrounds or the gw2 gold home maps for other teams. One interesting thing we've seen is that since we allow access to all maps at all times, player behavior has actually tended to be the opposite of what we intended and people tend to start in the Eternal Battlegrounds and working their way back out to the Borderlands.

GW2Journal: It was mentioned that players would be able to change shards fairly easily. Can you share with us how you try to balance this feature in regards to switching sides in WvW?

Mike: We will charge a small fee to change your home World to discourage people from shard hopping to get the best world bonus. Players switching teams also will not receive the world bonus for their new shard for the duration of the current battle and potentially during the subsequent battle as well. It's important to note that you can visit other Worlds for free to play PvE with your friends, but if you have a friend on another shard that you want to play WvW with, one rift platinum of you will have to change your home World.

GW2Journal: What are the rewards that a shard gains for coming out on top in their WvW match-up, do they carry over into PvE and how long do they last?

Mike: When a battle ends, we will send tokens to people that participated in that battle.The number of tokens you get will depend on where your team finished in that battle. These tokens can be redeemed at a merchant to acquire certain items.

GW2Journal: Can you explain the purpose of supply as an additional resource for WvW instead of only having gold? Also: Can players loot supply from enemy resource caravans or players?

Mike: Supply gives us a way to limit the amount of siege weapons that can be built at any one time, as we can limit the rate that supply enters the game and it also gives players a way to contribute without having to farm up a lot of money before playing WvW. You can currently loot supply off of caravans, and we are hoping diablo 3 gold to be able to loot supply off of players as well, although we don't have that part in the game yet.

GW2Journal: In some games that allowed for siege warfare, often the defenders were at a disadvantage and had to attack into their own keep because the attackers made it inside before the defenders could even get there. Is there anything in place to help defenders hold their objectives? For example can they quickly teleport to a keep if it is under attack?

Mike: Our goal is to make it so defenders have a slight advantage over attackers unless they happen to be massively outnumbered. We have siege weaponry that can be built at every tower and keep to help defenders hold off attackers. This allows a smaller contingent of players to hold off a larger group and give time for reinforcements to arrive and drive the attackers off.
Keeps can be upgraded to contain a waypoint for easier travel across parts of the map, but players cannot use those waypoints if the location is under attack. However, attackers are in a position to choke defenders out of a location if they keep any dolyaks from delivering additional supplies and they can continue doing enough damage to make the defenders use all their supply on repairing the walls and gates. Once a location runs out of supply, defenders will have a much tougher time holding out against attackers and the balance or power shifts to the attackers as they can continue to do damage to eventually break though while the defenders role changes so they must push out and knock the attackers back or eventually lose the objective.

For more information about World vs World make sure to check out the latest post about squads on the Guild Wars 2 blog, the original WvW blog post as well as the Reddit AMA.

There will also be a few more previews of Guild Wars 2 PvP and the Ascalonian Catacombs soon from this week's EU Fan Day, so make sure to keep an eye on our front page or social networks over the next few days.