Quote:
From the earliest days of development, we knew that we wanted to include some form of large-scale PvP combat in Guild Wars 2, but how would it work? We knew right away that we wanted three teams fighting against one another on a series of huge maps in the Mists (our world vs. world battleground) and that each team would be composed of an entire server full of players. Including three forces in world vs. world acts as an excellent balancing factor, preventing one team from growing too powerful and ruining the competitive balance of the game. Two teams can gang up to counter a more dominant third team, a dynamic that simply isn’t possible with only two opposing factions.
We dreamed of a game where players could work together to capture objectives on the battlefield, like keeps and towers, claiming them for their guilds, then fortifications before defending them against hordes of attackers. With players from three different servers fighting each other, we knew that we would need a lot of different areas for them to fight over, and we wanted to have plenty of locations for guilds of all sizes to claim as their own. With this in mind, we created a number of different objectives that are designed to be captured and contested by large groups, small groups, or even just a few players.
To provide enough area to hold all these objectives and a wide variety of terrain, we needed to make some absolutely gigantic maps—four of them.
We gave each of the three teams a home map called the Borderlands, where they would have some advantage as the home team. We also created a fourth, central map called the Eternal Battlegrounds that has its own unique features, including a massive central keep. These are the largest maps we can make in Guild Wars 2, and we use as much space as we possibly can in order to accommodate over a hundred people from each server fighting on every map.
Each objective on a map is worth points for the team that captures it. We periodically tally the point total for each server and add that total to their War Score, which accumulates over the length of a persistent two-week battle.
Every Guild Wars 2 server competes in battles in the Mists.
At the end of each battle, every team is given a new ranking. Once a battle ends and team rankings are updated, servers are matched up based on their new ranking and a new battle commences. Downtime between these epic battles lasts only a few minutes—just long enough for us to tally the final scores, update the server rankings, and create new matches—so there’s almost always a battle for the Mists going on.
...
From the earliest days of development, we knew that we wanted to include some form of large-scale PvP combat in Guild Wars 2, but how would it work? We knew right away that we wanted three teams fighting against one another on a series of huge maps in the Mists (our world vs. world battleground) and that each team would be composed of an entire server full of players. Including three forces in world vs. world acts as an excellent balancing factor, preventing one team from growing too powerful and ruining the competitive balance of the game. Two teams can gang up to counter a more dominant third team, a dynamic that simply isn’t possible with only two opposing factions.
We dreamed of a game where players could work together to capture objectives on the battlefield, like keeps and towers, claiming them for their guilds, then fortifications before defending them against hordes of attackers. With players from three different servers fighting each other, we knew that we would need a lot of different areas for them to fight over, and we wanted to have plenty of locations for guilds of all sizes to claim as their own. With this in mind, we created a number of different objectives that are designed to be captured and contested by large groups, small groups, or even just a few players.
To provide enough area to hold all these objectives and a wide variety of terrain, we needed to make some absolutely gigantic maps—four of them.
We gave each of the three teams a home map called the Borderlands, where they would have some advantage as the home team. We also created a fourth, central map called the Eternal Battlegrounds that has its own unique features, including a massive central keep. These are the largest maps we can make in Guild Wars 2, and we use as much space as we possibly can in order to accommodate over a hundred people from each server fighting on every map.
Each objective on a map is worth points for the team that captures it. We periodically tally the point total for each server and add that total to their War Score, which accumulates over the length of a persistent two-week battle.
Every Guild Wars 2 server competes in battles in the Mists.
At the end of each battle, every team is given a new ranking. Once a battle ends and team rankings are updated, servers are matched up based on their new ranking and a new battle commences. Downtime between these epic battles lasts only a few minutes—just long enough for us to tally the final scores, update the server rankings, and create new matches—so there’s almost always a battle for the Mists going on.
...
-----signature-----
E Pluribus Unum
ou're a weird dude, Tenkly. Knife fights with women and you dress your cat up in sweater vests."- ZigmundZag