14 DAY TRIAL // The development team at ArenaNet is getting ready to launch a new season of the Living World content for Guild Wars 2 on July 1 of this year and the company says that it is delivering a number of changes to the experience and the Journal features of the MMO to make the entire content feel more personal, while also making all the included rewards and content permanent.
An official announcement explains that the same user interface will be used for the Living World content as for the character’s personal story, with a green star used to mark location and a summary used to show what step of an adventure a character is currently working on.
ArenaNet says that it will only use the gold star UI for special festival holiday events in the future.
The studio states, “the Season 2 story will take place after Season 1, which in turn occurs after your character’s personal story and the story of Zhaitan in Guild Wars 2. For dialogue purposes, NPCs in Season 2 will assume your character completed their personal story and Season 1, even if they did not.”
The Hero Panel is also getting modified in order to allow the story journal to reflect all the new content that is being added to Guild Wars 2.
The developers add, “you can play the open world content and the story content (if you’ve unlocked that episode) anytime you want, on every character you ever make on your account! You’re no longer limited to completing the episode during its two-week release window. This means that going forward, all of the content and all of the rewards for Living World will be permanent.”
This also means that all the choices that gamers make in the story content are permanent and that the episodes cannot be replayed at the moment.
For the second season of the Living World content of Guild Wars 2, gamers will no longer get meta-achievements, but instead, they will receive a reward at the end of each season, with more rewards available in the open world.
The Achievements associated with the MMO have also changed, with ArenaNet increasing the difficulty level and adding a set of unique challenges for each character linked to an account, all of them designed to appeal to those who have played Guild Wars 2 since it was launched.
At the moment, the game is running the Festival of the Four Winds, which celebrates the Chinese launch and offers players some clues about the season 2 of Living World.