The Future of Competitive Guild Wars is Here

Hello again Guild Wars fans!

In three previous articles, I talked about the history of competitive Guild Wars play, what we have learned from recent experiments, and an overview of the future. Well, the future is here, and now it is time to give you the details.

1v1 Competition
What we?ve already said
Starting in 2007, alongside GvG, we will run a similar series of tournaments for 1v1 Hero Battles (1 player and 3 Heroes vs. 1 player and 3 Heroes).

This new format has the same support as GvG, including its own tournament ladder, automated tournaments, and championships.

And, with the advent of this system, we will also track individual account statistics! This means we can acknowledge both individual accomplishments and accomplishments of competitive guilds.

The New Stuff
1v1 competitive play and tournaments roll out in April for everyone to start testing and playing. Because we want to make absolutely sure everything works before the big prizes start, the 1v1 tournaments initially have no entry fee or prizes (though they have a higher K rating ¨C see Appendix B in the Universal Tournament Rules). Once we are sure everything is perfect, the tournaments will cost tournament tokens to enter and will reward in-game prizes. After that, in May, the Guild Wars ?100,000 tournament series begins with real-world prizes.

Details
We can most easily describe all features of 1v1 competition by comparing it to GvG. Everything offered for GvG is duplicated for 1v1.

This means there will be a 1v1 ladder where you can keep track of how well you are doing, rated and unrated free play games just like GvG, and 1v1 automated tournaments for prizes. There will even be Xunlai Tournament House support for the 1v1 championships where tens of thousands of Guild Wars PvP fans may be predicting YOU to be the next champion!

Before we get too far down the road, we need to explain account naming. You might have already wondered how we plan to keep track and announce to the world your success in 1v1. GvG players are listed under their guilds and 1v1 players are listed under their account name. This is NOT your personal account information (we would never give that away); rather, it is one of your character names, which you?ve chosen to represent your account.

Before you can play any 1v1 matches, you will need to register your account with a Tournament NPC (found in the Hero Battles outpost and in the Great Temple of Balthazar). To register your account, simply select one of your character names. This name will be used to identify your account in the ladder and in tournaments. You may only change this once every 30 days, so pick the character name you most identify with.

After you have registered, you can compete in free play 1v1 matches. Just click on ?Select Battle? in your party formation window. Choose "Join a Rated Hero Battle Match" or "Join a Random Unrated Hero Battle Match." A Rated Match pairs you against another player with a similar rating to compete for rating points. An Unrated Match pairs you against a player with a similar rating but you don?t gain or lose ladder rating points.

You can also join automated 1v1 tournaments (detailed below) and compete for fame (winners are commemorated on the Guild Wars web site), glory (high ranked players are interviewed for articles like "Player of the Week"), and exciting in-game and real-world prizes.

source: http://www.guildwars.com/competitive/articles/stateofthegame/20070405-futureofcompetitive.php