Guild Wars

Guild Wars 2 Trailer Released at GamesCom

Browncoat — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 12:08:30 GMT

NCSoft has a multitude of MMOs under its umbrella, but one particular title has been flying under the radar for quite some time. That title is Guild Wars 2, sequel to the first Guild Wars. Guild Wars' unique features, such as a non-subscription model, heavily instanced content, and lack of grind have won it plenty of fans, but we hadn't heard much about the sequel - until now.

ArenaNet released their HD trailer for Guild Wars 2 at GamesCom, and I do have to tell you - it's definitely worth taking a look.

Check out the trailer:

(Please visit the site to view this media)

You can also feast your eyes on the Guild Wars 2 FAQ, which answers some basic questions about the game. Here's an excerpt:

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How is Guild Wars 2 different from other MMOs?

While Guild Wars 2 adds a persistent-world experience, it retains the unique characteristics of the original game, including strong narrative, extensive instanced gameplay, anti-grind design philosophy, and strong support for competitive play.

GW Devs explain the recent skill changes

Zyuu — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 18:42:52 GMT

The Guild Wars developers explain the goals with their balance updates that were pushed out in a patch June 12. They go on and tell us via their wiki that the main goal was to improve a few underpowered skills and to resolve certain PvP balance issues.

Some players have objected to changes in the last update to Ether Renewal and Shadow Form. We have not seen any actual negative impact from the Ether Renewal change, but we are still evaluating the high efficiency of Shadow Form farming builds. We will continue to monitor this issue and may make adjustments in the near future. Similarly, we know that the powerful Ursan Blessing is always the subject of much discussion. Some players feel it makes the game too easy while others think it is fun. We have not chosen to make any changes to Ursan Blessing at this time, but we will consider the matter as we move forward. Finally, we know there are continuing concerns about Wounding Strike from some PvP players, but we do not believe that changes to this skill are warranted at this time. We have, in this update, altered several other skills that are commonly used in conjunction with Wounding Strike in GvG. We will observe the consequences of these changes before revisiting the Wounding Strike issue.

They go into detail in their Wiki, curious? Check it out.

Dev Update: PvP/PvE Skill Balancing

Zyuu — Sat, 24 May 2008 03:48:14 GMT

Recently the developers of Guild Wars posted an update about their plans and thoughts in regards to PvP and PvE skill balancing.

With this week’s update we will introduce a new system to split certain skills into separate PvE and PvP versions. With this system we can update skills for one game type without affecting the other. To prepare players for the changes, we have decided to post this Dev Update as a preview

These changes went live the 22th May.

Skill Balancing

Zyuu — Mon, 12 May 2008 20:26:52 GMT

ArenaNet have posted an developer update on their skill balancing plans for Guild Wars.

Rather than introducing another skill update this week, we're finishing a new system to balance key skills separately for PvP and PvE. Within the next few weeks, we'll introduce PvP versions for a handful of skills. These skills will work the same way as normal skills, but have different number values (damage, healing, cost, recharge, and so on). We will do this as sparingly as possible and start with very few skills. So that we don't confuse players, we intend to keep as many skills unchanged as we can.

PvP versions are designed to target only specific skills. With such a system we can revert high-impact nerfs, such as Light of Deliverance and Defensive Anthem, to make them strong again in PvE. When we see something becoming severely imbalanced in PvP, we'd like to avoid harsh PvE nerfs without creating different versions of a large number of skills.

Skills that differ in PvP will have (PvP) at the end of their names when in PvP outposts and matches. These skills will automatically be adjusted within PvP outposts and matches. All players have to do is equip the skill as normal, and it will use the PvP version where appropriate.

We've decided to release our next skill balance update simultaneously with these changes. We can take full advantage of the new skill balancing mechanism and avoid multiple balances over a short time frame.

Guild Wars / Alienware Laptop Sweepstakes

Kody — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 05:26:40 GMT

It's hard to believe Guild Wars has been around for three years already. Looking back, I remember personally playing the beta for the game and now it's had three expansion packs -- most recently Eye of the North -- and five-million units sold across the base game and expansions.

So what's NCsoft doing to celebrate this occasion? They're running an anniversary sweepstakes that includes a new Alienware laptop as the grand prize, as well as video cards, sound cards, and Logitech products. It'll be running from April 28th to May 31st, so it's definitely something worth checking out.

To find out more, check out the quote section below, or head over to the sweepstakes pages for North America and Europe.

ArenaNet is celebrating the third anniversary of the release of its global hit, Guild Wars, with a prize-packed online sweepstakes starting April 28 and running through May 31.

The Guild Wars franchise, made up of the original Guild Wars, Factions, Nightfall and Eye of the North, has become one of the most successful online role-playing games on the market, having recently surpassed the five-million units sold mark.

ArenaNet has marked the success of Guild Wars with the release of Guild Wars Factions Platinum Edition, available at retailers in North America. The Guild Wars Factions Platinum Edition bundles the original Guild Wars Game of the Year Edition and Factions.

Additionally, ArenaNet is conducting the Guild Wars 3rd Anniversary Sweepstakes with a grand prize of an Alienware Area 51 m15x laptop computer. Other sweepstakes prizes include ATI Radeon HD 3870 512MB video cards, Logitech speakers, keyboards and gaming mice as well as Creative X-Fi Xtremegamer SoundCards.

To sign up for the Guild Wars sweepstakes, go to www.guildwars.com. No purchase is necessary to be eligible to be a sweepstakes winner.

Guild Wars Third Anniversary Celebration

Zyuu — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 21:25:25 GMT

Guild Wars celebrates it's third anniversary! Rollerbeetle Racing and the Dragon Arena can be accessed again. Birthday Cupcakes will drop from creatures and there's New End Game Rewards. There's also Returning Rewards for those of you with either a one, two or three year old account.

It's that time again! Three years ago this Monday, Guild Wars was launched and players entered the world of Tyria for the very first time. Now, the franchise stands tall with two additional campaigns, an expansion, and an eagerly anticipated sequel on the way.

We couldn't have done it without the loyal support of each and every one of you. Whether you stepped into Ascalon in 2005 or if you've just created your first character, we'd like to thank you with a celebration in your honor.

The festivities begin on Thursday, April 24 after the live update, running until Noon on Tuesday, April 29. Read on for details about all the fun!

Read about all the details here!

New addition to the Community Team

Zyuu — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 07:05:43 GMT

The Guild Wars Community Team just had a new member joining their team. Her name is Regina Buenaobra.

You can check out her Wiki page here.

Real-Money Trading Policy

Zyuu — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 02:42:21 GMT

The folks behind Guild Wars have released information regarding their Real-Money Trading Policy.

It is our goal to provide an enjoyable experience to every Guild Wars player. That's why we take the topic of real-money trading (buying and selling gold or in-game items for real-world money) very seriously. Every week, we ban thousands of accounts used by real-money trading companies, because those companies harm the game for other players by running large networks of bots to farm gold and items, spamming chat channels with their advertisements, and even attempting to steal login credentials from unsuspecting players.

Why we crack down on real-money trading

Real-money trading and related activities such as botting and spamming are breaches of the User Agreement and Rules of Conduct. These rules help protect the entire Guild Wars community from abuse by providing a set of guidelines for fair play that allow all players to enjoy the game. Real-money trading activities negatively impact the fun of many players.

For example, real-money trading companies set up networks of computers to constantly spam players. Message spamming in cities and towns can be irritating to many players who wish to use the chat channels to legitimately buy or sell items, look for a group or a friend, or get advice on some aspect of the game. These messages clutter the chat screen, upsetting regular players because their own messages get lost in the clutter or scroll off the screen too quickly due to all that computer-generated spam.

Real-money trading also upsets the game's economy. Many players spend countless hours of game time earning gold so they can purchase skills, weapon upgrades, or runes to improve their characters. However, regular players cannot compete with the huge bot networks run on hundreds of computers that real-money trading companies use to constantly farm the game. These bot farms can make it nearly impossible for casual and hard-core players alike to reap the benefits of the time they spend in the game. Players may find that the value of their hard-earned items has dropped due to a glut of bot-collected items, or they may find that the cost of their upgrades skyrocket due to all that purchased gold flooding the market.

There is also a shady side to real-money trading that players may not realize exists, but which has a serious impact on many players. Real-money trading companies hack into and steal legitimate accounts, often by distributing keystroke-logging malware to steal passwords. In fact, simply purchasing gold from these companies may open you up to a later hacking attempt. These hacked accounts are then stripped clean of any valuable in-game items and/or used for botting.

We are concerned that this kind of illegal activity happens more and more often in the games we all love to play. Ask any player who has had an account hacked (or fallen prey to a fraudulent scheme in the game) how he or she feels about it, and you will surely begin to understand how this growing problem affects the game.

How we deal with real-money traders

To help protect the Guild Wars community from the problems caused by real-money trading, we aggressively pursue these companies and try to stop them from abusing our players and the game. Listed below are some of the measures we take to protect Guild Wars players from the abuses of real-money trading companies.

We identify and ban accounts—typically more than 5,000 per week—being used by real-money trading companies.

We attempt to identify stolen accounts and return them to their rightful owners.

Our GMs monitor the game around the clock so they can remove botters and spammers from the game, often within hours of account creation.

When we detect a large amount of abuse from a single Internet address (IP address), we block that address from accessing the game.

We block open proxies (open Internet servers which can relay traffic from anywhere in the world) from accessing the game.

We identify players who purchase gold from real-money trading companies, and we suspend their accounts and remove the purchased gold. We also encourage these players to seek restitution from their credit card company. Real-money trading companies are not legally authorized to sell Guild Wars gold. They don't own the gold — ArenaNet does. Credit card companies know this, so buyers of gold can generally call their credit card companies and get the charges removed.

Remember, if you purchase gold for real-world money, you are funding these companies and supporting their behavior. These companies cause real grief to you and your fellow players on a daily basis. If you don't like them spamming, botting, hacking, and stealing accounts, then don't buy their gold.

Midline Shutdown, Part Two: Rangers

Zyuu — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 02:01:06 GMT

Another "State of the Game" article have been released over at the Guild Wars website. This time it briefly covers how Rangers are quite useful and certainly have a presence when it comes to the midline. They are capable of shutting down others very well and they are also quite the flexible class.

Objectives

Rangers' roles are similar to those of Mesmers, but often broader in scale. As a Ranger, you typically have responsibilities to disrupt, pressure, and skirmish.

Disruption: using the skills on your bar to interrupt key opposing skills at appropriate times.

Pressure: applied through spamming conditions, as well as controlling position and movement.

Skirmish: providing solid split capabilities, both offensively and defensively.

The Skills

The discussion in this article uses the currently most popular Ranger template in the metagame: the "Cripshot." The typical Cripshot bar is Apply Poison, Crippling Shot, Distracting Shot, Savage Shot, Troll Unguent, Mending Touch, Natural Stride, and Resurrection Signet. While this group of skills can be broken down and thought of as a couple skills for applying conditions, two for interrupts, and three for self survival, it is important to remember that these skills have multiple uses. For example, players use Savage Shot as both an interrupt and a way to quickly apply conditions. The same goes for Mending Touch; while players tend to use it for self-removal of Blindness or Cripple, it can also be used for cheap, stack condition removal to clean Daze from Monks or Deep Wounds from a split partner.

Full article can be found by clicking here.

Winners Announced: Design-A-Weapon Contest

Zyuu — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 02:00:18 GMT

In 2007 there was a quite unique and interesting Guild Wars contest announced -- Design your own Weapon. According to the Guild Wars team this was the most popular contest ever. They received well over one thousand entries. Since so many awesome and well-designed entries were submitted, they've decided to add more and better prizes. so more fans get recognition and the loot they deserve.

About the Judging

From the more than 1,000 entries, through multiple levels of judging, approximately 100 concepts were selected as finalist entries. Then, the entire Guild Wars Development Team judged the finalists. Eleven concepts were selected as winners, and those concepts will be the basis for new items that will be added to the game in the upcoming months. Another fourteen item concepts were selected as Honorable Mentions, and it is possible that those concepts may also become items in the future. In two instances, design concepts from multiple contestants were combined to form a single entry for judging and those combined concepts would be used as the basis for one new item, although each of those contestants will receive a prize.

More prizes! More recognition!

Because the quality of the entries was so high, we've decided to change the prize schedule to recognize even more Guild Wars fans, and to give them the credit—and the loot!—that they so richly deserve. Here is the new prize list:

Winners: Each of the eleven winners will receive their choice of a copy of Guild Wars Nightfall (standard edition) signed by the Guild Wars Development Team or a full set of Guild Wars Skill Pin Set #1 or a PvP Unlock Pack. In addition, each winner will receive a Guild Wars Nightfall t-shirt and a code for a Guild Wars character slot, if character slots are available in their location.

Honorable Mentions: Each of the seventeen honorable mention recipients will receive A Guild Wars Nightfall t-shirt and a Guild Wars character slot and Two (2) random Guild Wars Skill Pins

Finalists: Each of the seventy-nine Finalists will receive two random Guild Wars Skill Pins.

Go here to check out the nice concept art.

Guild of the Week -- Soldiers of Thunderstorm

Zyuu — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 03:52:13 GMT

A new guild is being featured over at the Guild Wars website. This time it's a guild that have been around since 1998. Soldiers of Thunderstorm have played Diablo and Ultima Online together and they are mainly a russian gaming community.

The Soldiers of Thunderstorm [SoT] is a well-established, Russian gaming community. Early on, the core members realized where the future of gaming was going, and their friendship jelled in May of 1998 with the birth of their game child, the Soldiers of Thunderstorm.

Prior to the new millennium, this relatively small band of avid gamers focused on the hottest thing at that time, Diablo. However, the pinnacle of [SoT]'s gaming achievements was the vested interest in Ultima Online from 1999 to 2005. The first Russian UO shard was Lostfort. At this time, the [SoT] leadership split clan projects by assigning in-game squads led by a Guild Master. Guild Masters were responsible for PvP activities and official interactions that the squads established in-game.

Read the rest here.

Midline Shutdown Article - Part One: Mesmers

Zyuu — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 03:27:16 GMT

There's an interesting article from the official Guild Wars website made by a long-time player.

Special note: Each State of the Game presents the opinions and insights of one game observer. These observations are personal in nature and do not reflect the opinions of ArenaNet. While ArenaNet does review each State of the Game article to assure that it offers content that is respectful of all players, we intend to allow our reporters the freedom to inject some personal opinion into descriptions of the current atmosphere of competitive play in Guild Wars, and to express views based on their experience and observation.

Midline shutdown, in general terms, means the removal or disruption of opposing defenses or offense. In a previous discussion, we discussed the importance of frontline coordination. However, without proper midline shutdown, even the best Warriors will fail to kill their targets. In the next few articles, we will focus on the midline and its shutdown role against a typical balanced team.

Read the article in it's full glory here.

Guild Wars Tops Five Million Units Sold

Zyuu — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 23:01:46 GMT

Guild Wars franchise breaks major milestone in less than three years.

Tuesday 26th February/... Brighton, UK — NCsoft® Europe and ArenaNet® have announced that the Guild Wars® franchise of online roleplaying games has surpassed five million units sold in Europe, North America, and Asia.

Published by NCsoft and developed by ArenaNet, the Guild Wars franchise consists of the original Guild Wars, Guild Wars Factions™, Guild Wars Nightfall™, and the recently released expansion, Guild Wars: Eye of the North™. The Guild Wars games have been commercial and critical successes since the release of the original campaign in April of 2005. Its award-winning content and innovative subscription-free business model have created a large and loyal following that is highly anticipating Guild Wars® 2.

“Guild Wars is a proven success and has set a new standard for online RPG games with its unique business model and superior playability,” said NCsoft CEO Taek Jin Kim. “ArenaNet is dedicated to creating games that expand the market and provide great new content to our loyal player base. This success has built a great foundation from which the next generation of Guild Wars games will grow.”

With the development of Guild Wars 2 underway, ArenaNet will continue to provide dedicated support to current Guild Wars games and its millions of customers.

“Reaching the five million mark is extremely gratifying for us at ArenaNet because it shows the hard work and dedication we put into our games has resonated with the fans,” said Mike O’Brien, co-founder of ArenaNet. “We are committed to supporting all of our Guild Wars players, and at the same time, we’re extremely excited to work on the game’s evolution. Certainly the future of Guild Wars is as bright as its past and present.”

For more information on the Guild Wars franchise, visit the Guild Wars website at www.discoverguildwars.com. The award-winning Guild Wars series, including the recently released Guild Wars: Eye of the North, can be purchased from retailers or downloaded from the PlayNC store at http://eu.plaync.com/eu/store/.

In game event: Canthan New Year's Festival 2008

Zyuu — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 01:19:28 GMT

In Game Events are rare in MMORPG's these days. At least in the ones I play. This is why I find the news of Canthan New Year's Festival in Guild Wars to be extra interesting.

Each year, Canthans flock to Shing Jea Monastery to prepare and partake in a great feast to honor the celestial animal that will watch over them during the coming year. This year's animal, the Celestial Rat, will descend from the heavens to enjoy Cantha's culinary delights. If satisfied with the meal, the Celestial Rat will bestow good luck upon the populace for the coming year

The Canthan New Year's Festival event begins at Noon Pacific (-8 GMT) on Friday, February 8, 2008 and will run all weekend, ending at Noon Pacific (-8 GMT) on Monday, February 11, 2008. On Sunday, February 10, the Celestial Rat will drop from the sky into Shing Jea Monastery every three hours to sample Canthan delicacies. The feast culminates in dancing, fireworks, and the showering of the populace with gifts...but only if the celestial enjoys its meal.

Head over to the Guild Wars website to find out more.

ArenaNet unveil Bonus Mission Pack

Indelible — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 23:00:44 GMT

Guild Wars has seen yet another addition to its ever growing library of additional content with the release of a brand new Bonus Mission Pack for the hit MMO.

With the Mission Pack, players will experience four historical moments in the Guild Wars lore including the Battle of Jahai and the Tengu Wars. By completing the missions, players will be able to earn rewards including some of the best looking gear in the game!

The missions will play like previous Guild Wars additions, adding a similar length of gameplay, but will be managed through a players Quest Log. They are repeatable and designed for solo play only. You play as a historical figure dependent on the campaign at hand, which means you don't have to trudge through yet another leveling grind.

Gameplay Features

Gather unique rewards as you play a key figure in the Battle of Jahai and go up against Palawa Joko and his undead army.

Experience Cantha's turbulent past when you bear witness to events in the violent Tengu Wars.

Learn firsthand how the White Mantle rose to power in Kryta.

And, finally, discover what became of Gwen after the Charr invaded her home, and the Searing destroyed everything she'd ever known.

The new Mission Pack is available for $9.99 (£5.99) from the official Guild Wars store. If you want to read more about the latest additions, click here.