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

Heart of Maguuma

We were able to confirm that the Heart of Maguuma is a region that will consist of multiple maps. Colin said that with this region they are focusing on the depth of the experience, not on creating a whole bunch of maps that you tear through quickly and leave a wasteland of unused content with no long term value.

“That is often the strategy that a lot of games use when they grow into an expansion,” Colin said. “Our focus is instead on a smaller number of maps that have an incredible amount of deep replay value.” The new maps will have an incredible amount of depth with a huge amount of content to discover and explore with more places that reach as you spend points into the mastery system. “We want that sense that as you are progressing through a map you are seeing all these areas and challenges and you are saying to yourself ‘I can’t wait until I can get there or defeat this!’” These maps were designed to have a huge amount of 3D space and content depth with an amazing amount of replay value so that players can always go back and play the map and while still progressing and building. “That’s going to be our focus. We want something that is meaningful and stands the test of time rather than a whole bunch of maps that you tear through.”

Recently during the Living World, we have seen maps that focus their rewards around map-specific mechanics, such as the Sandstorm and Zephyrite Favor in Dry Top and the different phases of action in the Silverwastes. We wanted to know if this model of tying rewards to map specific mechanics was something we were going to see carried over into HoT. Colin said that the model in those maps has been an evolution of them continuing to learn how to make more exciting maps and content using the dynamic event system. Not only rewards, but these maps show the lessons they learned through Season 1 to bring the events that happen in the map and the storyline that happens in instances into one cohesive experience. It is about having the things you are doing in the map feel meaningful toward a broader goal that you are always building towards, he explained.

The model is something they really like and is a step toward where HoT is going, but Heart of Thorns will be taking it to a whole other level. “The Maguuma Jungle is the deepest, richest content experience that we have ever done,” Colin said while talking about replay value. Things like the map mechanic rewards are the type of stuff that adds replay value to the gameplay experience for those maps. They are not one-and-done maps; you play there a lot and have different experiences. That is absolutely the content experience HoT is going to deliver.

Legendary Weapons

When talking about rewards, it only made sense to try to get more information about the new Legendaries and their precursors. In HoT, players will be able to complete collections to earn their precursor. There will be a unique collection for each of the precursors, including the existing precursors used for the legendary weapons currently in game. “You will be able to build every precursor, unlock all of them in your wardrobe and eventually unlock all of your legendaries,” Colin said, “if you are so inclined.”

With these new collections, we were curious if the precursors would still be obtainable through other means such as drops and the Mystic Forge where they are currently acquired. The original precursors will definitely remain available through those means, but the new precursors will be different and revealed when they are ready to roll out the new legendary weapons. The collections are just a very clear path that outlines every step to getting a precursor, which Colin says is important to them as well as a bulk of players that will see these collections as an epic journey to crafting their precursor. For the handful of players that like to roll the dice and play the Mystic Forge, those options will still be available for the original precursors for those who enjoy that and find it an exciting experience.

Specializations

Specializations are really like a second profession, Colin explained to us. You can still mix and match, where if you are a Druid you will still have the capacity to use a lot of the things that the Ranger could, but your fundamental profession mechanic is different. While a Druid will be able to use some of the skills and traits that a Ranger could, the Ranger will not be able to use anything from the Druid unless it is functioning as a Druid. Becoming a Druid won’t be a permanent decision, as players will be able to change to and from their specializations any time they are outside of combat, similar to how players can currently change skills and traits.

Each profession, including the Revenant, will have its own specialization that will expand the skills and traits available to the profession, as well as add new mechanics specific to that specialization and the ability to use a new weapon. These new weapons will not be entirely new, however, just new to the profession as no new weapon types are being added with HoT.

With all of these changes to a profession with specializations, we wondered if they are going to feel like a completely different profession complete with its own unique profession icon. Colin said that we are going to have to wait to see all of the little details that they are doing to play with them, but that they definitely want them to feel like more than just a little collection of skills and traits. “It is something bigger than that, and is fundamentally a new way to play a profession entirely. For Ranger that is growing into something else that is a Druid.”

We also asked how we were going to be unlocking specializations and the new skills tied to them, but ArenaNet is not ready to talk about that yet. Colin did want to affirm that unlocking them is not part of the mastery system, as the mastery system is an account progression and specializations are a progression for each individual character.

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