Hear ye, hear ye! Lots of news in the air! Wintersday is coming (pause for dramatic effect) back to Guild Wars 2, ya holly jolly gamers! Popular items from past holiday events are back as well, such as the Snowflake Glider, Winter Chimes dye kit, Messenger’s Travel Package, and Fire Quiver Backpack! And, of course, Tixx the Toymaker and his infinirarium return to challenge you once more. If you’re not sure who or what that is – he’s the neighborhood toy-making elf!

Just kidding. He does make toys, though.

Tixx is actually an Asuran who runs Tixx’s Infinirarium – a dungeon available only during the Wintersday holiday event for Guild Wars 2. His loyal golem companion is Toxx. The dungeon is located in the Kryta region. It is chock full of malfunctioning toys. If you’re an achievement hoarder, you may want to participate (hint: they’re needed for the “Disassembly” achievement). Full details have not been released by ArenaNet yet, but the event starts December 13th! Less than a week away. Make sure to look out for the presence of Game Masters (a.k.a. developers of the MMO) that may be tagging along and enjoying the event beside you!

There’s also some hefty changes coming to PvP. They will be implemented in the upcoming 5th season. Take out of it what you will, though some of these were some much needed changes voiced in the community. Here are the details, according to Guild Wars 2:

Better Matches

• Pips no longer have a place in matchmaking
  • A larger demographic of players will meet each other, and queue times won’t be quite as long
• Ranked Arena will allow only a max party size of 2 players
  • Know what this means? Coordinated, pre-made groups won’t dominate PvP

Measuring Skill

• Every player will earn a visible skill rating. You will be placed in Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, or Legendary
  • There will be 10 Placement Matches to determine where you start off in the season
  • The leaderboard is wiped clean at the beginning of each season
  • Inactivity means a gradual decline in your skill rating as well, not just lost matches
• The top 250 in each region will be placed onto a separate leaderboard to duke it out for exclusive PvP titles

Rewards/Loot

• Instead of an influence on matchmaking, the only role pips now have in PvP is giving you the ability to earn rewards
• Backward progress on pips will be removed, as well as a re-balance on required pips for the completion of each reward tier
• An increase in ways the system distributes pips. That’s right – even match losses will earn you pips!
• A new currency will be added
  • This new currency will allow players to purchases ascended weapons and the Ardent Glorious ascended armor set
• The PvP Legendary, the Ascension, will still be obtainable through league play and pip rewards

Personal Score

• All stats have been chiseled down to a handful of categories
  • Damage Dealth, Healing Given, Kills, Deaths, and Revives
  • Two game-mode specific stats – Offense and Defense – which track effort twoard gaining team score

Maps

• Skyhammer will join the rotation of ranked maps. Stronghold, however, will be leaving

Wow, that is a bunch of information! Now that we’ve got that over with – are you all excited for Wintersday to be back, or what? Are you happy about the changes being made, starting with Season 5? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section down below! We would love to hear from you. Of course, be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Twitch!