Last night, ArenaNet launched a pretty hefty update for Guild Wars. The update prepared for the annual Halloween bash, my favorite annual MMO event, with Costume Brawl, Mad King Thorn and new Halloween-only quests in the Underworld (where it’s rumored players become actual candy servants of the Mad King). The weightiest heft in the update was by far the removal of Hero Battles and Team Arenas counterbalanced by the addition of the Codex Arena.
The Codex Arena is a 4-player sealed deck arena with 3-simple rules. First, each profession will only get to use 20 randomly chosen skills each day, 5 of which will be elite. These random skills will be the same for all players. Second, players can only use elite skills from their primary profession (a welcome addition, in my opinion). Finally, the team of four has to have four different primary professions. No four Warrior/Monk teams allowed.
The Codex Arena I think will be a great addition to Guild Wars PvP. My one holdback is the “activation energy” to play. If the skills change every day how much time is going to be spent creating a team versus actually playing? My hope is that the elite PvP’ers will create some sort of quick and dirty template (likely they already have) where a team makes one melee, one healer, one harasser, and then something else so jobs can be given out to individual teammates. I still think that new sealed skills every day might be too high of a turnaround, but I am guessing the Guild Wars Live Team is going to keep a close eye on their new baby. Things like the amount of skills each day and the skill turnover rate should be easy to adjust. Either way, it looks like it is going to be a great addition to the Guild Wars PvP gametypes.
–Ravious
imperiled in every single battle