30 spalio, 2024
The warclaw mount has long been a favorite in the World vs. World (WvW) community, but with its recent revamp, this agile mount now roams the open world, thanks to the release of Guild Wars 2®: Janthir Wilds™. What started as a support-focused mount has evolved into a fast, versatile companion for exploring all of Tyria. Today, we’ll give you an inside look at how the warclaw made its leap from WvW exclusivity to open-world adventure (with some help from some feline friends, no less).
A Shift in Design
When the warclaw mount was first developed, the goal was to create a utility-based mount that provided a tactical advantage in World vs. World. While it served its purpose well in that game mode, as player feedback came in, the team’s vision began to evolve. Over time, as we refined our approach to mount design—especially with the success of the skyscale in Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure™—we saw an opportunity to do something similar for the warclaw in Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds.
Looking at the warclaw, we noticed it was underutilized and had the potential for significant expansion and improvement. We started exploring how the warclaw could navigate the open world of Tyria; the idea was that it would no longer be confined to WvW battlefields, becoming a key tool for players in dynamic events and pivotal story moments in Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds.
Leaping into Player vs Environment (PvE)
Several factors were crucial in making the warclaw’s transition into PvE a reality. The success of the skyscale and the lessons we learned from its implementation in Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure gave us valuable insight into how to repurpose existing mounts for new content. We took the base mechanics of the warclaw and, with feedback from multiple teams and the community, identified its growth opportunities and weaknesses. And of course, we can’t overlook the influence that cats—our internet-favorite feline friends—had in shaping the warclaw’s personality and movement. Who would turn down studying cats at work?
The main goal of revamping the warclaw mount was to make it feel like a living part of Tyria’s world. We wanted to create a mount that had a lot of personality and was fun to move around the world on, while also helping players on their own journey. We leaned into capturing the essence of a cat’s playful nature and incorporated feline behaviors into the mount’s design. Watching how cats sneak, pounce, and explore places they shouldn’t be in gave us the ability to make a mount that feels not only functional, but also full of personality.
As such, the warclaw was crafted to be the premier mount for Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds, offering a versatile, all-around experience. Unlike other mounts, which often excel in specific areas, the warclaw was designed to be more of a generalist. It features a dash, but not one as powerful as the raptor’s. It can go vertical, but not leap as high as the springer. It’s fast, though not as quick as the roller beetle. And while it can navigate aerial spaces, it’s not as adept as the skyscale. While the team didn’t set out to make a jack-of-all-trades mount, that’s exactly where the design landed, and the result is an incredibly fun and adaptable mount for a variety of situations.
Given that the warclaw’s movement was inspired by the mischievous nature of cats, it also made sense to grant it no fall damage. Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds has a lot of verticality, and this feature makes the warclaw a great choice for navigating dangerous drops. Just don’t go testing your poor warclaw’s limits too much!
Overcoming Design Challenges: The Double-Jump Dilemma
Designing the warclaw came with its fair share of challenges, and one of the trickiest was perfecting its abilities—especially the fan-favorite double jump. There was a series of prototypes and iterations, each refining the mount’s abilities to match both the team’s vision and player feedback. Using the ability in various environments and increasing its speed and turn rate to test how it performed was crucial in getting the warclaw to feel just right in a PvE setting.
The real breakthrough, however, came when the team decided to embrace the playful, exploratory nature of cats. Their instinct to sneak into places they shouldn’t be served as inspiration for the mount’s double jump and fluid movements. Never underestimate the power of researching cats!
In the spirit of transparency, we have to admit that, while cats played a big part in the design process, so did a bug we encountered early on. This bug allowed players to leap higher each time they connected with the ground, causing each jump to get progressively higher. While it wasn’t intended, it sparked the idea to explore different jumping concepts. After several iterations, the team settled on the double-jump mechanic because it was both practical and easier for players to control. Of all the versions tested, it was also the most fun, capturing the core goal of warclaw’s design and bringing the pure joy of movement to the mount.
A New Standard for Mounts
In the end, the warclaw transformation is a testament to the power of player feedback and the collaborative spirit of the development team. The transformation from an underutilized mount to one of the community’s most beloved companions has been very rewarding for the Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds team. Experiencing the joy of movement is what makes a mount truly special, and whether you’re tearing across the WvW battlefield or leaping across Tyria’s vast landscapes, the warclaw is there to make every journey a little more thrilling. Just don’t forget to visit your feline friend in your homestead from time to time for scritches!
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29 spalio, 2024
Extra Life 2024 Donation Bundle
Join us this year in making the world a better place! Purchase the Extra Life 2024 Bundle and receive cool in-game goodies while donating to an amazing cause.
This incredible bundle contains five Extra Life Karma Boosters, five Temporary Selfless Potions, and the all-new Guardian Angel Pedestal Chair. Purchasing any of these items will also grant you the in-game title “The Extra Life” in blue text. The Extra Life 2024 Donation Bundle is available for 800 gems. The Extra Life Karma Boosters can be obtained separately for 75 gems each or 275 gems for 10 boosters, with all proceeds going to Extra Life.
To thank our generous donors, once we reach our stretch goal of $105,000 in direct donations on the Team ArenaNet Extra Life page, anyone who purchased any Extra Life item in the Gem Store will automatically receive two special selection boxes to choose fan-favorite rewards from past events. Select the Feisty Feline Tonic, Mini Mr. Sparkles, Celebration Hat, or ten Kegs of Liquid Karma.
Visit our Extra Life campaign page Team ArenaNet and help us reach our stretch goal of $105,000 in direct donations this year. And please check out our Extra Life blog for more information about our upcoming 24-hour livestream on November 1.
We sincerely thank our community for always joining us for this incredibly rewarding event.
What’s in Stock
Starting November 1 and continuing for the next few days, select unique chairs will be 20% off, including the Dark Wing Throne, Great Lodge Chair, Legionnaire’s Chair, Qi Focusing Chair, Super Adventure Box Chair, Volcanic Throne, Street Noodles Chair, and Quiet Woods Chair. Long days of adventuring call for rest and relaxation; get your favorite chairs at an awesome discount!
Returning This Week
From today until November 5, Bank Tab Expansions, Armistice Bastion Pass, Lava Lounge Pass, Mistlock Sanctuary Passkey, Noble’s Folly Pass, Royal Terrace Pass, Thousand Seas Pavilion Pass, and Captain’s Airship Pass are available at a wonderful 20% discount. Easy access to everything you need!
Available Now in the Gem Store!
Log into Guild Wars 2 and press ‘O’ to access the Black Lion Trading Company for these great offers and more!
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23 spalio, 2024
Creating large-scale open world events in Guild Wars 2® is no easy task, and when the challenge involves bringing iconic titans back into the game for the first time since the original Guild Wars®, the stakes get even higher. Today, our designers Travis Battig, Peter Larkin, Matthew Burke, and Brian Gilmore share some behind-the-scenes stories about the creation of the new titans and another community-favorite world boss from Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds™. From technical breakthroughs to design philosophy, their journey is one of balancing ambition with careful, thoughtful iteration.
Finding Balance in Open World Event Design: Travis’s Vision
When designing open world events, there’s always the desire to do more, to make it harder, and to delight players with something bigger and more complex than what they’ve seen before. However, as it goes with every studio and project, we need to find ways to push ourselves while operating within our constraints. After a great deal of iteration on what the full experience would be, we decided it was best to allow the titans themselves to carry this world boss encounter—after all, this is their first appearance since the original Guild Wars.
We had decided early on to make Decima and Greer a world boss encounter instead of a meta-event. We also wanted to incorporate our reworked warclaw mount’s mechanics into the design by having them be the solution to the titans’ hardened armor. Early prototypes included porting over existing WvW door functionality onto a creature, armor gadgets we attached to a karka rig, and a dynamic race-gate placement. Ultimately, we arrived at the experience that’s in the game: tripping the titan with your warclaw to make it break its own armor under its weight. When either titan is knocked over, their armor is shattered, revealing their inner core. As an homage to titans in Guild Wars, the resulting destruction generates titanspawn for players to defeat.
Breathing Life into Decima: Peter’s Design Goals
The early concept art for Decima was inspiring, and the idea that she would use conduits in some way struck a chord. As a titan, she incorporates elements of her environment to form thick, rocky armor made of crystalline structures reminiscent of pyrite.
As the Stormsinger, her conduits allow her to manipulate the weather by generating and storing large amounts of arcane flux, a hybrid of air-attuned and raw arcane magic. Decima’s rocky, hefty appearance isn’t what you’d expect from a creature capable of generating and manipulating storms, wind, and lightning. This dichotomy was fun to work with and informed much of her design, especially her love of squashing things!
A key aspect of Decima’s design is her massive beam attacks that fire from the conduit built into her left arm. However, matching visual effects to rectangular attacks of arbitrary length is tricky. Decima is so large that her beam attacks couldn’t shoot directly from her arm, as they’d be too high up and off-center. To solve this, we used an invisible creature to act as an anchor for the beam attack, allowing the system to dynamically scale the beams to almost any length. This will become much more relevant in the upcoming raid!
Making Greer Distinct: Brian’s Creative Process
With Greer, the titan of rot, our goal was to embody the theme of “decay without life” throughout the encounter. Greer’s ideal world would be what you would find underneath a kicked over log—rot without regrowth. A key aspect of Greer is his ability to corrupt boons, a mechanic usually not found in open world content, which adds a new layer of complexity for players in the PvE setting. Having a world boss that uses a player’s own strengths against them encourages different builds and strategies, such as utilizing abilities that can cleanse conditions.
With the titans, we also introduced mechanics to the open world that were more commonly seen in strikes and raids. For example, to avoid Greer’s rot eruption, three players have to stack up in the same spot, or decaying thorns will burst up from the ground and impale them. Earlier versions of this attack would simply target the players who were furthest from Greer, and while that did keep ranged players on their toes, it left no room for counterplay. In the end, Eruption of Rot evolved from an attack that harassed ranged characters into one that needed to—and could be—countered by player action.
We also wanted to make sure Greer and Decima felt different to overcome while sharing some similarities. Both have hardened armor and generate titanspawn when it’s broken, but while Decima is more of a dance of death, Greer is more of a stand-up brawl. We can’t wait for players to experience how Greer’s titan-splitting mechanic evolves in the new raid coming soon!
Rise of the Bog Queen: Burke’s Design Journey
When we began research for Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds, we stumbled upon bog bodies and used them as a point of inspiration. Bog bodies are basically mummies preserved in peat bogs, and we decided they would be reanimated due to the maggots infesting them.
The event chain started with the idea that you would be running around and squishing the maggots while riding on the warclaw. After several iterations, it evolved to requiring the players to dash through the maggots to stop them, which was more interactive. Once that system was ready, our attention shifted to designing the source of these maggots—enter the Bog Queen.
To bring the Bog Queen to life, we started with the Risen Priestess of Lyssa model, which hadn’t been used much. Our Character Art Lead, Adam, did an amazing job updating and altering the design into the creepy visage you see in the game. We also upgraded her animations, which allowed her to hover as she commands her army of maggots and bog bodies.
From there, we wrote some voice lines for her summoning poem, like, “Squirm and infest; rot and decay. Find a new home, all soft and warm. It’s time to join my jubilant swarm!” Then our narrative lead, Indigo, fleshed out an incredible backstory for her with the help of some other talented contributors. We won’t spoil anything, but be sure to poke around Janthir Syntri if you want the full story.
We also played around with the idea of having the Bog Queen sing her voice lines during the maggot summoning but ended up deciding against that in the end. Patty Mattson, who also voiced Peitha, absolutely crushed it performing as the Bog Queen. We love giving her nine-feet-tall monsters to play!
Overall, the whole team really rallied around the Bog Queen, and we are delighted to see that she’s become a favorite of the Guild Wars 2 community. She wouldn’t be the success she is without everyone working together to make it happen. Shoutouts to our map artists, design leads, QA, and the music team—the “Queen of Murk” track is unbelievable!
Looking Ahead
Whether you’re facing off against the corruption of Greer, battling Decima’s lightning strikes, or dashing through maggots in Janthir Wilds, these encounters are designed to engage players in fresh, exciting ways. Each of these bosses represents the culmination of months of collaboration and creativity, and we were thrilled to watch the community’s reaction to them when the expansion launched. We’re equally excited for players to experience our upcoming raid and Convergences bosses in our first major update to Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds in November. We’ll see you then!
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22 spalio, 2024
Let your mind relax to one hour of melodic music, calming sounds, and tranquil visuals inspired by our Meditative Garden Homestead Package.
Meditative Garden Homestead Package
Adventuring is exhausting! Every new conflict can take its toll on your spirit—but with this package, you can begin building your peaceful garden. Care for the little piece of heaven that keeps your mind tranquil and your heart at peace.
This package is available for 800 gems and contains the following items:
Meditative Bamboo Fountain
Meditative Bamboo Fence
Meditative Long Bamboo Fence
Meditative Lucky Rock
Meditative Favored Rock
Meditative Sand Circle
Meditative Sand Lines
Meditative Stone Lantern
Meditative Windswept Tree
You’ll receive one of each homestead decoration and permanently unlock the recipe to craft more inside your homestead!
Spirit Silk Appearance Pack
Manifest your elegance with this lovely attire. The Alluring Silk Outfit is a captivating ensemble with its low neckline and classic silky beauty. Make sure to pair your new garment with a flowing scarf graced by air magic. You will embody ethereal charm.
The Spirit Silk Appearance Pack is available for 1,800 gems and contains the Alluring Silk Outfit, the Flowing Silk Backpack and Glider Combo, a Mystical Beast Weapon Choice, and a Total Makeover Kit. The outfit and the backpack and glider combo can be obtained separately for 700 gems each.
What’s in Stock
Starting October 25 and continuing for the next few days, select unique weapon skins will be 20% off, including the Gilded Stratus Longbow Skin, the Devil-Rending Dagger Skin, the Synergetics Energized Shield Skin, the Queensdale Academy Wand Set, and many more. Fight new and old foes with some of the coolest weapons in Tyria!
Returning This Week
From today until October 29, Material Storage Expanders, Recharging Teleport to Friend, Black Lion Garden Plot Deeds, and select Black Lion Contract Boards are available at a sweet 20% discount. Be sure to get what you need!
Available Now in the Gem Store!
Log into Guild Wars 2 and press ‘O’ to access the Black Lion Trading Company for these great offers and more!
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16 spalio, 2024
Since 2017, ArenaNet has proudly partnered with Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals through the annual Extra Life gaming marathon, and we’re thrilled to keep the tradition going strong! On Friday, November 1, starting at 12:00 p.m. Pacific Time (UTC-8) we’ll be kicking off 24 hours of gaming and fundraising, rallying our amazing community to help support this incredible cause. Join us for a memorable event that makes a real difference!
What is Extra Life?
Extra Life unites gamers from across the globe to stream for 24 hours, all in the name of raising money for Children’s Miracle Network hospitals. These 170 nonprofit children’s hospitals throughout the US and Canada help critically ill and injured children by covering healthcare costs, purchasing essential medical equipment, and funding vital research. Thanks to events like Extra Life, they’re able to provide 38 million patient visits to 12 million children annually.
Over the years, Team ArenaNet—with the help of you, the community—has raised more than ONE MILLION dollars in donations for this cause, and on November 1, we’ll be aiming to push that total even higher.
Donation Mission: Champions of the Children
Log in to Guild Wars 2® between October 29 and November 19 to receive the title “The Extra Life” if you didn’t unlock it in previous years.
A special enhancement effect will also be available in game:
+5% magic find
+5% experience from all sources
+3% WvW reward track progress
+3% PvP reward track progress
The effect will gain another stack for every $10,000 USD in direct donations to Team ArenaNet. To activate new stacks of the enhancement effect and view hourly donation total updates, just visit the city of Lion’s Arch after you log in to Guild Wars 2.
The 2024 Extra Life Donation Bundle will be available in the gem store from October 29 until November 19. The bundle contains five Extra Life Karma Boosters, five Temporary Selfless Potions, and the all-new Guardian Angel Pedestal Chair. Players can also purchase additional Extra Life Karma Boosters separately. Purchasing any of these items will also grant you the in-game title “The Extra Life” in blue text. We’ll donate all proceeds from purchases of these items to Extra Life.
As always, when we reach $25,000 in direct donations to Team ArenaNet, ArenaNet will match that amount, instantly doubling our impact to $50,000!
For this year’s Extra Life event, we’re also setting a stretch goal of $105,000 in direct donations to Team ArenaNet to make an even bigger impact. To thank our generous donors, once we hit this goal, those who contributed will receive two special selection boxes which feature fan-favorite rewards from past events. Select the Feisty Feline tonic, Mini Mr. Sparkles, Celebration Hat, or ten Kegs of Liquid Karma.
Spicing Things Up for Extra Life 2024!
This year, we kicked off our Extra Life fundraising efforts with a spicy twist! For those who don’t know, ArenaNet’s studio head, Colin Johanson, is a huge fan of tacos and hot sauce. Inspired by this, one of our staff took it upon himself to organize the ultimate prank…for charity! At our Guild Wars 2 studio summit in September, team members who donated to our Extra Life campaign received a bottle of hot sauce. Then, during our Janthir Wilds launch party, over 200 bottles were presented to Colin one by one! We raised over $1,100, giving our Extra Life 2024 goal a nice head start—and Colin now has an impressive hot sauce collection!
How to Join Team ArenaNet
Want to get involved? It’s easy to join Team ArenaNet! Visit our team page and select Join Our Team.
Prefer to create your own team? No problem! You can still be part of the ArenaNet Super Team by choosing “Create a Sub Team” when signing up. You’ll have your own page and goals, but your efforts will also contribute to our overall fundraising total.
You don’t need to stream Guild Wars 2 to participate—any game will do! Or, if streaming isn’t your thing, help us spread the word and encourage friends, family, and coworkers to donate.
We’re so grateful for your ongoing support, and we can’t wait to come together once again on November 1 to make a difference!
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