We interview Colin Johanson and Mike O'Brien of ArenaNet about the upcoming Guild Wars 2 expansion, Heart of Thorns.

Revenant

Not much was revealed about the Revenant, but what was revealed left us reminiscent of our Ritualists from GW1. We asked if the Revenant was a spiritual successor to the Ritualist and Colin replied that it is the tip of the cap of the Ritualist. Some things from the Ritualist can already be seen in game, such as the concept of kits and turrets that the Engineer uses. The Revenant’s concept of channeling the powers of the Mists is certainly a component that has some ties back to the Ritualist. The Ritualist would tie spirits, and in Colin’s opinion, the Revenant does it in a more interesting way by truly channeling the power of very specific legends to define the skills that are available to you. What the Ritualist did with urns and binding spirits the Revenant takes to a whole other level by changing the way you play and the playstyle available to you. Colin even said the Revenant takes a little inspiration from the Dervish that channeled the gods for their avatars.

World vs World – the New Borderland

World vs World is getting a new borderland in HoT and we confirmed that Eternal Battlegrounds will not be getting a new map. This new borderland will not be replacing the old borderlands, but will be put into a rotation where both will be played. We asked if the rotation was going to mean all three borderlands would be the same map or if there was the possibility for a mixture of the two. The answer is that they don’t know exactly how they are going to rotate just yet. That is something they are going to talk about when they are ready to make a decision; something that they will decide after receiving lots of feedback from beta testing to find out what players enjoy.

What immediately struck us was how much this new borderland reminded us of Edge of the Mists (EotM) with the unique locations and benefits of holding different locations. When we asked if this map was an expansion of EotM, Colin answered very much so. They learned a lot from EotM about what really works and gave them things that they saw they could improve upon when they made this borderland. It is not just EotM, however, as this map is the lessons learned from all of the different maps on what makes an incredible WvW experience.

Every keep is distinct and unique. During the announcement, you saw the earth keep and the crazy structure you are fighting for there. If you hold the shrines around the keep and defend them, then the abilities that come with it will dramatically change the way you play and really become strategically important.

They have also looked at the other structures around the map. Towers are located so they are defending walled choke points that you have to fight through. So holding a tower becomes strategically important, not just for points per tick, but also for holding the choke points and controlling the travel in the map. “We really tried to look at that concept for everything we built in the map and ask ‘Why is this here and what does it add to the WvW experience?’” They want everything to have meaning to it, not just in the new map, but eventually in WvW as a whole.

Stronghold, Guilds & Guild Halls

Stronghold is a competitive PvP game mode and will be available throughout structured PvP. In custom arenas, players will be able to set the team sizes just like they do for conquest, from 1v1 all the way to 10v10. For competitive play, the team size isn’t exactly set. The team wanted to make it more approachable and so has been testing it predominately with 5v5, but they want to wait and let players get in and play it to help decide what number helps create an amazing experience for Stronghold.

For the launch of HoT, ArenaNet is focused on making one fantastic map for the game mode that lives up to the promise of what Stronghold can be. It is once they have that and love the map, Colin says, that they will start thinking and worrying about other maps. Right now it is about delivering one perfect map that defines Stronghold.

If you want to play competitively without forming a guild team first, you will still be able to do that. Guild teams and the guild leaderboard will be an addition to the ladder for individual players that is currently in the game, not a replacement for it. As for specifics like guild team rosters and whether guild teams will only be matched against other guild teams, Colin said that they will go into more details closer to launch. They are really looking forward to just letting people get in and play it to see how it works.

As for guilds overall, Colin said that they are staying really high level and will fill in the details about guilds down the road. We were able to ask if Guild Halls would be on the map or more like GW1 where guild halls were at a place outside the world map, and Colin confirmed that they will be on the world map. Guild Halls will be locations actually on the world map that are instances your guild owns. Players will actually enter them through other maps in the world and this is how you discover them. That’s part of the experience as they plan to really ground the story of guild halls and their experience inside the story of the jungle. We asked if guilds were going to be able to own multiple guild hall locations, but Colin answered that we would have to wait and find out.

Beta and Release

Mike O’Brien told us that they didn’t announce a release date simply because they don’t have one yet. Within the next couple of weeks they are planning to start their deep dives, going in depth into the new features. Then at PAX East, players will be able to play a demo version of HoT. Mike pointed out that they waited to show this until they were ready, and that PAX East is less than 6 weeks away. After that they plan to take a short break before starting off the betas. From there, HoT's release all depends on if players think these systems that will form the foundation that ArenaNet builds Guild Wars 2 upon for years to come is ready.

Thanks to Colin Johanson and Mike O'Brien for taking the time to speak to us at PAX South!

Matt Adams aka the Mattsta

Follow me on Twitter @MattstaNinja