We’re using the April 2014 Feature Pack as an opportunity to introduce some improvements that we’re really excited for: account-bound World XP and ascended and legendary gear! We want you as a player to feel appropriately rewarded for the time you spend in-game, no matter how many characters you choose to play. Devon Carver and Linsey Murdock are here to explain these updates:

Account-Bound WXP

Hey everybody! I’m World vs. World Coordinator Devon Carver, and I’m here to talk about a topic I know is near and dear to the hearts of all WvW players. Account-bound WXP is coming with the April 2014 Feature Pack! We’ve been working hard at getting this change ready, and we are very excited to make the conversion from a character-based system to an account-based one.

There are some important things to know about the way the transition will work when the feature pack goes live. To begin with, you will need to log into every character on your account that has earned WXP to have their WXP total added to your account total. You don’t have to visit WvW for this to work; any map will do. Once every character has logged in, your account is good to go. From that moment on all WXP you earn on any of your characters will be applied to your account total!

As a part of this change, we will be resetting everyone’s spent World Ability Points on the day of the build. This gives everyone the opportunity to re-allocate their points on each of their characters. You will have the same number of World Ability Points to spend on each of your characters, and you’ll be able to uniquely allocate those points. For example, if you want your necromancer to be a Supply Master but your ranger to be a Ram Master, you can do that.

We’re very excited to take a great system to the account level. We look forward to seeing you on the field of battle, and can’t wait to see WvW continue to grow!

Legendary and Ascended Binding

Hey folks, game designer Linsey Murdock here to tell you about an update we have coming to legendary and ascended equipment. I’m going to be brief because the awesomeness of this update really speaks for itself:

In the upcoming April feature build, we will be converting all legendary and ascended equipment to be account-based. This means ascended equipment will always remain account-bound and will not soulbind to a character when equipped. Legendary weapons will continue to be tradeable until equipped, at which point they will become account-bound (rather than soulbound). As part of this change, we will convert all the existing ascended and legendary equipment that is soulbound to be account-bound instead.

The big reason for this change is that we believe acquiring a legendary weapon or piece of ascended gear is an accomplishment that should not be limited to a single character. By all means, share your rockin’, unicorn-shootin’ bow between your thief and your ranger! Pass down your set of Zojja’s gear when you decide to go for a more balanced build. Above all, take pride in the accomplishments of your account and enjoy those accomplishments to the fullest!

As exciting as they are, these changes are just one part of the April 2014 Feature Pack! Visit the feature pack’s release page to learn all about the new systems, updates, and improvements coming April 15.