Yesterday Mythic released a new chunk of notes about the most interesting features among those planned for this patch: an UI for guild management, carryable banners on the battlefield and a “social panel” directly ripped off WoW.

I don’t feel the need into the details because I already commented everything. It’s just the exact same pattern reapplied and all my considerations are valid for all the new additions. Even for this reiteration we have more and more stacking bonuses, more stolen ideas from WoW and more insane moneysinks. I do not like this approach to the design but at least this time there slightly more gameplay involved in the form of the carryable banners… even if based again on bonuses.

The other positive note is that this time the presentation of these new features isn’t awful as in the past, so everything should be accessible and usable without the player being forced to learn and read the patch notes (take it as a rule: if a player need to read the patch notes to know about a feature or its precise use -> the feature is broken and must be redone).

I don’t comment in detail the guild mission system because, while the principles are good, the implementation sucks badly. The grind in PvP is slightly more acceptable than PvE but this doesn’t hide the fact that Mythic’s designers are unable to offer interesting forms of gameplay. Grinding missions to gain more pointless bonuses isn’t involving nor helps to achieve the purposes listed:

The purpose of the Guild RvR Missions system is to build a sense of unity within the guild by encouraging guild members to work together with each other to achieve common goals. Accomplishing Guild RvR Missions provides meaningful rewards to the guild as a whole.