ArenaNet's Chris Whiteside says lessons have been learned then listed what features players can expect in the future.

Last week saw the release of the first mini-expansion for Guild Wars 2 which included a major one-time event chain that ran through the weekend. Since the end of the one-time event on Sunday there have been lots of discussions both praising the new and great as well as complaining about what was done poorly. Even ZAM’s own Senior Contributing Editor Gareth “Gazimoff” Harmer chimed in giving his own thoughts about the issues that plagued the event.

It didn’t just stop with talk. Those who were paying attention to their emails earlier this week (or for many their spam folder) saw an email from ArenaNet asking players to fill out a survey on how they felt the mini-expansion and weekend turned out.

Then today Chris Whiteside took to the official ArenaNet blog to recap the lessons learned and evolution of Tyria.

“We’re very excited about the new content, and from the reactions we have seen, so are many of you. Having said that, we’re also aware that there were certain aspects of the event that could have worked better than they did, and thanks to your excellent feedback we’ll be working toward strengthening this type of content moving forward.”

Whiteside also took this opportunity to list some of the things that ArenaNet is working towards over the coming months:

• Revamping all Existing Dungeons (both Story and Explorable modes) through rebalance and overhauled encounters.
• Adding new dungeons to the Fractal of the Mists
• Adding more variation to creatures
• Enhancing the Open World Scaling System
• Evolving Events and Experiences across Tyria
• Fixing and improving existing content, and better tying it into an overall sense of player progression
• Building on the Southsun Cove’s persistent content
• Adding new Guild content and Guild progression features
• Continuing to evolve PvP into an E-sport
• Adding brand new content to WvW as well as adding new reward progression
• Continuing to build upon the story and adventures of Guild Wars 2

Martin Kerstein followed up on the forums by explaining the vagueness of the list: “We will talk in more detail about the things Chris outlined when we get closer to releasing them.”

In their continuing effort to engage the community and answer their questions, Chris Whiteside will be hosting a Reddit AMA on Monday, November 26th at 12pm PST (the first day back in the office after the holiday weekend in the US). He will be answering questions about the recent updates as well as questions on ArenaNet’s philosophy for moving forward with Guild Wars 2.

Matt "Mattsta" Adams