Hey, everybody! I’m Matt Wuerffel, one of the game designers on Guild Wars 2. I wanted to take a moment to talk about some of the things we’ve been working on recently: new rewards and updates to the achievements system.

New Rewards—Laurels

One of the first new reward systems we’re adding is based on a new currency: the laurel.

In addition to the normal rewards, players can earn one laurel for completing their daily achievement category and ten laurels for completing their monthly achievement category. Laurel merchants have been added to all of the major cities of Tyria, and they have a wide range of rewards to choose from. Some of the highlights:

• Utility Infusions—a new category of infusion that provides powerful boosts to noncombat statistics, like gold find and experience gain.
• Ascended Amulets—offensive, defensive, and utility variants of the next slot of ascended gear.
• Ascended Rings—non-agony versions of the ascended rings from the Fractals of the Mists.
• Crafting Starter Kits—one-time account purchases that contain everything you’ll need to get your feet wet in each of the eight crafting disciplines.
• WvW Blueprints—everything you need to rain fire on your enemies in the Mists.
• Support Items—new boosters, advanced harvesting tools, and crafting trophy bags.
• Unique Minis—Goedulf, the mythical wolf-cub spirit that protects lost norn kids, and (my personal favorite) the runner-up in the Divinity’s Reach Fanciest Cat competition: Chauncey von Snuffles III.

The list of rewards will continue to grow and expand as we add content to the game, but we’re committed to the philosophy that you should be able to get the most powerful rewards simply by playing the game the way you want.

Achievements System Updates

In addition to laurels, we’re adding a new achievement tracking UI (user interface) to provide relevant information and quick access to the achievements panel. We’re also adding new daily achievements, and we’ll rotate daily achievements each day.

These updates are just the first step. We are reexamining the way that daily and monthly achievements work and how they plug into the achievements system as a whole. In the future, we’ll be adding support to allow you to complete your dailies by finishing a subset from a larger list. We want to give you the freedom to play the content that interests you. The list will change daily to provide an array of options for earning your laurels. Pick what interests you, play, and be rewarded!

Down the road, we’ll also be adding a reward structure to total achievement points, and we’ll be looking at revamping portions of existing UI to help players understand all the different kinds of content they can play and the types of rewards available. Once we have that framework in place, we’ll be able to really expand on the content accessible through the achievements system and provide you with even more new and exciting ways to play the game.

Achievements aren’t the only thing we’re looking at. We’ll continue to implement new systems and rewards to support the living world of Guild Wars 2, and we’ll share more information as we get closer to releasing them. But for now, thanks for your time, and see you in Tyria!