Hi guys!
I thought it would be a good idea to collect all PvE-related statements from the official forums and interviews in order to find information a bit faster. As Colin Johanson - the Game director - talks about PvE in the forums, I'll quote him most of the time. I'll do a short summary of the statements if I find it necessary / quote only important parts.
You won't find this here:
-) Personal story stuff
-) WvW stuff
-) sPvP stuff
-) economics stuff
-) bug-related stuff
-) botting
New added quotes will get the "NEW"-marker.
so let's get this going on:
-NEW- January 31st
F: Mini-Activities - where are they?
F: Why aren't you doing this and that (e.g. fixing bugs), instead of THAT (creating new events)?Originally Posted by Colin Johanson
F: Legendaries - Stats and materials - anything new?From a new team we hired to destroy bots, to the recent FOV beta changes we implemented, to a team investigating and fixing events that stall and more. We’ve got peeps building and expanding the game, and entire teams dedicating to working on the parts of it that already exist as well.
These are all separate groups of people, so doing one doesn’t mean we aren’t doing the other.
F: Early 2013 - What can we expect?Legendary weapons won’t be updated to ascended stats until ascended weapons are added to the game in the far future.source
We’re not currently actively working on building any sort of legendary precursor scavenger hunt, this is something we want to do in the future and we’re in the midst of designing how this would function, but no one is actively building this feature and you should not expect in the Jan/Feb/March releases at this point.
We are however working on expanding reward systems to make them more re-rewarding across all parts of the game, making the open world more rewarding, and adding new ways you can earn precursors as rewards via new reward systems taking advantage of our open persistent world. source
To clarify since I think these two statements could be confusing without context, Linsey is indeed working on designing the system by which we’d add precursor scavenger hunts to the game. We are not actively implementing that design yet, it hasn’t been finalized, and building it that will involve a much larger team. source
I just want to quickly clarify to set expectations, nothing in the blog post, nor nothing we’ve said anywhere has said you will be able to buy precursor items directly for crowns, this is not the case. We’ve simply said we’ll try and find some other places to add a chance to get them to the game until we’ve implemented the eventual precursor scavenger hunt.
Long term we’ll be working on the scavenger hunt concept to track down and earn a precursor item as a direct form of earning the reward. source
+ very important info: Interview transcripts (thanks to dulfy!)To set expectations accordingly, the January release will be a relatively small release that sets the table for the stories and features we plan to roll out with the Feb/March releases and beyond. Also, there will be no new race, profession, or new region with these larger Feb/March releases. One of our major goals with these releases is making our existing world as strong as possible, ensuring there are reasons to go to all the locations in the world we’ve already built, and strengthening the core game we’ve provided. source
One of our goals for 2013 will be evaluating all of the bosses and creatures in the game, from open world to dungeons, to try and make them more exciting and fun to fight against. In general if anything has a really high health pool, it needs to have unique abilities to make it exciting for the entire time, or actually change abilities/tactics as it goes down in health to ensure it stays fun and exciting to fight against. We realize there are a number of bosses in the game, from the open world to instances that all can be more fun to fight than they are now. We’ll be tackling that this year in part of our goal to make our core game as strong as possible. source
GW2 Dev Livestream Jan 17 Transcript
GW2 Colin Johanson MMORPG Livestream transcript – Jan 18
F: what about Ascended gear in the next months? - January 22-
Ascended rings will also be available for laurels as well. Back slot items will be made more widely available in the future and will likely tie into a different reward system.
(Please note, the ascended gear purchased for laurels will not have agony resistance built in, since that mechanic is currently unique to progression in the fractal dungeons. They are however statistically the same as any other ascended gear.)
We will also introduce an additional reward system (or systems) in the future to make these items more accessible to WvW players on top of the laurel system.
The remaining ascended item types will be introduced in future releases, and may or may not tie into the laurel system, TBD.
You will also be able to put infusions in the ascended gear from laurels.
Source
F: What can you tell us about the new achievement system? - January 22-
Laurels are only earned through daily and monthly achievements (starting with the feb monthly) and will not reward for previous daily/monthly achievements completed since folks didn’t know this system was coming.
We will however introduce an expanded/new reward system in the future that will reward for other types of achievements, this system will reward previous achievement points earned. (But may require bringing back into line some infinitely repeatable achievements that would bloat/break this system)
F: What can you tell us about the new storyline starting January? January 22
This is not a live storyline that requires you to purchase an expansion to discover the ending. This month is a small lead-in to kick off a storyline that will play out over the coming months.
-NEW- January 31st
F: What's this living story?
Thanks for the feedback on the Living Story portion of Flame and Frost: Prelude. Here’s some context on how it works:
Source
- The Flame and Frost story content progresses over time. You will not see everything today, tomorrow, or even the next day.
- Expect subtle changes at first. Maybe you’ll encounter some familiar characters. Perhaps you’ll be introduced to some new ones. You might see a new structure where there wasn’t one before.
- The Living Story content is initially about the thrill of discovery. We’ll put some markers on your map, maybe send you a letter, or parcel out details through certain characters, but the rest is up to you.
- As the weeks progress, you’ll notice bigger changes in the world. New events may appear. Plots will advance and characters will develop.
Leif Chappelle: Our primary focus right now is expanding the living story of Tyria as all players see it, together. With each month’s content, the world itself and what you do in it will change to reflect the stories and characters affected by them. This isn’t to say that the player’s personal involvement in that living story is diminished in any way, but it’s a different sort of storytelling that we are in the process of developing. We’re always discussing ways to expand or build upon the personal story system, but our focus for now is the core living world.
Source
-NEW-
This month, you’ll be playing through a light preamble, a teaser intended to whet your appetite for the rest of the story. This content will stick around for a couple months, so you have plenty of time to play it before it goes away, and we’ll be adding to it as well.