Guild Wars 2 Addresses Queue Concerns with The Edge of the Mists

If you’ve ever attempted to play World V World (WvW) in Guild Wars 2, chances are you’ve found yourself in a queue to enter the battlegrounds at least once or twice. This is never something fun, staring at a screen with absolutely nothing to do but wait, and it’s a problem that rears its head every time something new is added to the feature. Everyone wants to play new stuff.

The latest update to Guild Wars 2 attempts to eradicate the much-maligned queues by giving players an entirely new map – named The Edge of the Mists – to play while they wait for their spot to come up in the “real” map they’ve chosen to contribute towards their world’s score on.

There are plenty of new gameplay elements in The Edge of the Mists too, giving players a reason to actually want to play the new map, instead of just playing it when they’re part of a queue. However, the important part to mention is that players playing on the new map won’t be able to contribute towards their world’s overall score (which is to prevent worlds with a high population having an unfair advantage over worlds with a significantly lower population). That being said, there will be things for players to collect, that they’ll be able to take into whichever battleground they find themselves in once their position in the queue has come up.

The main points of the upcoming update – which will be fully released early next year after a significant beta test – are as follows:

• You can still earn World XP, fight in sieges and skirmishes, and enjoy WvW.

• You will not be earning points towards your world’s score in your current matchup. This is to keep high population servers from having an unfair advantage over low population servers.

• At least one copy of the Edge of the Mists will be open for every matchup—that is, you can still access it even if the Borderlands and Eternal Battlegrounds are not full. If the first copy of the Edge of the Mists is full, a new map will spawn for that matchup.

In order to facilitate for the extensive beta testing that they’re going to be needing for The Edge of the Mists, ArenaNet will soon be accepting applications from guilds wanting to get in on the action. This can be from people that have, or perhaps haven’t, played the game before, and will be looking for a wide range of people and play-styles in order to fully test the workings of the new map.

Be sure to keep an eye out for when applications open during November.