When Guild Wars 2 launched in 2012 I was one of the people who got a copy as soon as it hit the shelves. Much liked everyone else, I was pumped to play in this new persistent and dynamic world being offered by Arenanet, developers of Guild Wars 2. Recently, in anticipation of the new expansion “Heart of Thorns”, Guild Wars 2’s core game went free to play. Since it went free to play, the Guild Wars 2 community as a whole skyrocketed in terms of growth; new players were joining the game by the thousands, enticed by the idea of carving their name into the world of Tyria. But what’s keeping them in game?
The answer is PvP. Player versus Player gameplay has been the bread and butter for a successful game in nearly any genre. Look at Dota 2 for instance, that game you’ve heard about but never played for fear of being yelled at by angry Russians, it is the world’s biggest game in E-Sports, accumulating over $18 million for their prize pool at The International this year, the game’s biggest tournament. The competitive yearning that all of us human beings harbour is what draws us to games that offer variations of PvP and when it comes to variations, Guild Wars 2 takes the crown.
Standard PvP in Guild Wars 2 is often composed of two 5-man teams playing against each other in a capture-the-points format. While this may seem generic, the 8 individual professions available to each player, not to mention the variety of playstyles each professions has, ensures that matches aren’t dismal and boring, but most importantly, that you’re not guaranteed to win by hammering on your number one skill. There are other game modes in structured PvP, such as team deathmatch (constrained to only one map for the time being) and a newer, MOBA-style game mode called Stronghold which is expected to release with Heart of Thorns. I said “Standard PvP” earlier because Guild Wars 2 has another form of PvP of a global scale. I’m talking about World Versus World Versus World, commonly abbreviated to WvW and referenced in conversations as Wuh-Wuh. WvW takes the same basic concepts of Standard PvP, except on epic proportions; rather than fight one team over a circle that’s 2 metres in diametre, your server fights a week long match with two other servers over massive keeps, strategically placed towers and the gem of it all: Stonemist Castle. Fights between zergs of 20 players fight for control over these structures across 4 massive maps, sometimes morphing into one “blob” of 50-plus players against two more another “blobs” of similar numbers.
Now the reason I’m waffling on about these two modes of PvP in Guild Wars 2 is because they have evolved and grown ever since their inception and as a result, are the biggest draw to new players of the game. Structured PvP in particular has witnessed the most growth, with events such as the World Tournament Series, an event that sees the best PvP players in Guild Wars 2 compete against each other for grand prizes, which at their height gave the winning team a total of $25,000. Perhaps it’s a testament to how much the PvP side of Guild Wars 2 has grown that recently, Guild Wars 2 announced the ESL Guild Wars 2 Pro League.
In the ESL Guild Wars 2 Pro League, eight teams from each region will compete for a combined prize pool of $400,000 USD over the course of two action-packed, seven-week seasons. Each season will ultimately lead up to our Season Finals event that will feature the top two teams from North America facing off against the top two teams from Europe. At the conclusion of each season, all North American and European teams are guaranteed winnings from the $200,000 USD prize pool for that season.
But what’s absolutely fascinating about this new league is that everyone has a chance of being a pro PvP player and getting a taste of the prize pool. How exactly? With the Pro Leagues. 8 teams per region will participate in the Pro Leagues, with 4 of the slots going to the existing top teams. The remaining 4 will be up for grabs in a qualifier event. And if you don’t make the cut (very likely in my case) you still have a chance to make it to the finals; another league will run parallel to the Pro League, the Guild Challenger League. At the end of each Pro League Season, the top two teams of the Guild Challenger League will face off against the bottom two of the Pro League teams in the Challenger Cup, possibly usurping their position in the Pro League.
With the upcoming release of Heart of Thorns, ArenaNet have already laid in place the foundation of a platform that could potentially catapult them into the centre of the E-Sports scene.
