Arenanet have announced plans to take the already popular Guild Wars 2 PvP to a new level, by announcing plans to have their first ever professional tournament for organised play at Gamescon 2014, flying in 16 players from each region (voted for by the community) from all over the world to Germany for the event.
The tournament will also be streamed on Twitch, live from the convention floor. Poor timing considering the recent poor news surrounding the streaming site, but it hopefully affect the event. Well, unless they wanted to archive any of it as a VoD anyway. There will be three legs to the event, which will take place over the course of the convention. Kicking things off will be China vs. Europe on Thursday 15th of August at 6am PDT or 3pm CEST. The next day will be the US vs. China, starting at 8am PDT, or 5pm CEST. Finally Saturday will see Europe Square off against the US, at 9am PDT or 6pm CEST.
Of particular interest is the community voted team lineup. Europe will consist solely of members of the already established ‘Team Mist’, while the North American team will be a mashup of members from teams such as Team Sync, Team Oil, and even pinching a member from Team Mist themselves. The biggest mystery is the Chinese team however, who will all be lone wolves with no affiliated team.
Unfortunately, the prizes for the event don’t quite match up to the hype Arenanet are building up. All prizes will be varying in-game items, with no cash prizes or even real life loot. At least you get free plane tickets and hotel, I suppose.