Open world
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An open world, also known as a persistent world, as opposed to a group instance, is all of the explorable zones on the world map that continue to exist and change even after a user has exited it, and is open to all players. Open world allows players to meet and interact while exploring and participating in various activities like dynamic events. Guild Wars 2 employs megaserver technology for each server region (North America, Europe, or China), allowing players within a region to seamlessly share the open world. The system dynamically creates multiple instances of zones to manage population.
Open world in the Player versus Environment (PvE) game mode is set in the world of Tyria, and is divided into zones, also called "maps". Traveling between zones is possible either through portals that connect neighboring zones, or by using waypoints.
A PvE zone may have multiple identical instances, with new instances created by the server automatically if needed to allocate for more players. Players within the same zone who are in a squad or party can join the specific instance of other party members by right-clicking on another player's icon in the party/squad user interface and selecting "Join in <Zone name>".
Open world in the World versus World game mode functions differently as players are automatically divided into teams within their server region.
Trivia[edit]
- According to The Making of Guild Wars 2 book, the developers created the first zone of the game within Guild Wars Prophecies and modified it to play as a persistent world, prototyping active skills and even dynamic events system using that map.
