Attend your eyes, squire. We’ve managed to root out a flyby video of the new PvP map heading to Guild Wars 2 on 26 February as part of the Flame and Frost: The Gathering Storm update. Spirit Watch will see players fighting over the Orb of Ascension (let’s, for the sake of clarity, call it the flag), pushing to gain possession and then bring it back to one of three capture points. As you’ll see in the video below Arenanet are putting a focus on verticality, you’ll have denizens of Tyria fighting above you on bridges, below you in gulleys, and beside you atop a giant stone bear.
It looks like quite the thing.
According to Arenanetgame designerTyler Bearce’sblog post, if you manage to grab the orb you’ll still have access to all your skills but will suffer a “40% movement speed penalty” and won’t be able to”stealth or gain swiftness.” You then need to hasten to one of the three capture points, those big ol’ stone statues. If your team have control of that point then you receive double points for the capture.
One of the nifty little touches is that if the enemy team controls a capture point and you take the orb to ityou neutralise its ownership.
As Tim wrote last week, Spirit Watch will be the first rated PvP map released for Guild Wars 2. Rated matches will see a level of matchmaking being added to PvP. Two teams of an equal average ratingwill be assembled from a pool of waiting players. After the match each player will have their rating adjust dynamically, meaning you should always be thrown into a game that is matched to your ability.