PvP Progress Update

There are two key PvP features we're looking to enable in the coming weeks - Dueling and PvP tournaments.

Dueling is the ability to challenge another player or party to an immediate PvP match (bypassing matchmaking or queues). As we work on our competitive PvP scene and run more and more tournaments, dueling will be more and more useful as a tool for players to test out their builds with guildmates and to practice for upcoming tournaments. We're mostly set up to turn this on in a patch very soon. It's unlikely it'll be ready for this week's 1.0.3, but we'll enable it as soon as we can.

We've described PvP tournaments in detail before, but essentially they're events structured into Seasons like our race events. Players enter with a specific character (or, for group events, a party) and try to win as many matches as they can in the specified time limit. We're still experimenting with the parameters of the event (for example, whether 30 minutes or one hour feels better, or whether a match is a "best of 3" or a "best of 5"), but we anticipate being able to start running some test events in the near future. Our plan is to test various tournament types for a week or so and then start the first PvP Tournament Season going. I currently expect to start these test events after 1.0.4 has been deployed.

It was initially our intention to have both of these features ready and enabled for release. As time was running low, we delayed them until they could be properly tested. I'm very sorry about the delays - I understand that a sizable portion of our community is eagerly waiting for better PvP support. I'm excited to confirm that their implementation is coming along well and that they're a high priority.

Thanks for your patience! I'm really looking forward to competing in the first PvP tournament season. Have a great weekend! I'll be working on the patch video for 1.0.3 and hopefully the third Build of the Week episode for this season.