Filed under: Guild Wars

Flameseeker Chronicles: Keeping an old game new

by Rubi Bayer Feb 8th 2010 at 1:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Guild Wars, Opinion, Flameseeker Chronicles

"Guild Wars is an old game." As the game approaches its fifth birthday and Guild Wars 2 continues production, that's a phrase you'll hear more and more. While it's true that the game has been around for a while now, age doesn't necessarily equal stale or boring. On the contrary, it means you've got an established game with an experienced development team behind it, and they've had time to work out all those bugs, kinks, and emergency patches that are so common in new games. Even better, you've got a strong player base that knows their way around.

The largest factor in what makes a game fun for you is your attitude and outlook, so let's take a look at some ways to keep from falling into the trap of assuming there's nothing left for you to do in Guild Wars.

Guild Wars fans to raise money for Haiti

by Rubi Bayer Feb 6th 2010 at 8:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Guild Wars, Events, in-game, News items

Gaming World Events, a fan-created organization, will be holding their first ever Guild Wars in-game event tomorrow: Gamers Giving Back to Haiti.

The fans behind Gaming Gamers Giving Back to Haiti will happen in Lion's Arch International District 1, from 10AM - 4PM PST. The six hour event will offer quite a few in-game prizes of items and gold for participants.

The group has set a fundraising goal of (of course) $1,337.00, but a look at their Red Cross donation page shows that they are already approaching the $700.00 mark. Gamers are known to be a generous bunch, so maybe Gaming World Events can reach their goal twice: once before the event and once after. You can donate via the donation page, and read more about the event on their Facebook page or the forum announcement.

We at Massively join the community in thanking Gaming World Events for organizing the event, and all of the players for their support.

The Flameseeker Chronicles: A guide to the Canthan New Year festival

by Rubi Bayer Feb 1st 2010 at 3:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Guild Wars, Events, in-game, Flameseeker Chronicles

Token farming, Rollerbeetle racing, and AFK-ing the rings. Hot on the heels of Wintersday Redux comes Canthan New Year 2010. Guild Wars players joke about the AFK-fest, and while it's a great opportunity to work on those lucky and unlucky titles, there is much more going on. ArenaNet puts together a great festival every year, with old favorite quests and NPCs returning to dole out Lunar tokens and Fortunes as well as a heap of other treats. There is a lot going on, and it can be a bit overwhelming if this is your first Canthan New Year, so let's take a peek at the festivities.

One Shots: Chained

by Krystalle Voecks Jan 26th 2010 at 2:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Screenshots, Guild Wars, One Shots

One of the things many people love about Guild Wars is the tremendous imagination and feel of the artwork in the games. While we didn't get a description to go with this interesting screenshot taken by Logen, it reminds me of a gorgeous piece of art from Guild Wars. The work in question won a prize at the Into The Pixel showing at E3 2008. Thankfully, the artwork is available on the Into The Pixel site for everyone to enjoy. Check out today's great One Shots full size, and then look at the ITP gallery piece from artist Tyler West. We think you'll see the connection too.

Are you one of the people who really love the artwork in Guild Wars? We'd love to show off more, but we need your screenshots to make that happen. Send your best screenshots (all MMOs welcome) to us here at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, a description of the area, and the name of the game. We'll post them out here for everyone to enjoy and give you the credit.

Gallery: One Shots

The Flameseeker Chronicles: Community guide to Guild Wars

by Rubi Bayer Jan 25th 2010 at 5:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Guild Wars, Opinion, Guild Wars 2, Flameseeker Chronicles

Welcome to Tyria! The Flameseeker Chronicles will be a regular feature here at Massively, in which we cover all things Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2, beginning with this handy-dandy community guide.

Guild Wars has been around for a while now, and has the advantage of a strong, knowledgeable fan-based community. There are literally hundreds of fan sites and forums, Twitter pages and Facebook pages all devoted to Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2. It's very easy to get overwhelmed, so view this as a guide to where you can find the most comprehensive information for whatever you are looking for, be it gameplay information, news on game development, skill and build help, and much more.

Guild Wars releases preliminary skill update notes

by Rubi Bayer Jan 23rd 2010 at 1:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Guild Wars, Patches, PvP

No, they are not nerfing Shadow Form. Yet. But Guild Wars community manager Regina Buenaobra released a preview of some skill updates and updated GvG restrictions that are coming. Since they'll be released shortly before a Monthly Automated Tournament, and affect PvP heavily, the preview is being offered to give players a chance to plan for the changes. Regina does note, however, that these are preliminary notes, and subject to change.

So what about the rest of the promised skill update? Regina says "While we continue a larger playbalance project that includes drastic changes to Shadow Form, we believe it is important to release a small skill balance to address a few other pressing issues" So the project is still underway, and Shadow Form is still in the crosshairs. (You can either be glad of that, or farm even faster while you still can, depending on your point of view on the entire issue.)

We'll continue watching for further information on the update.

New information on Guild Wars Wintersday redux and next skill update

by Rubi Bayer Jan 20th 2010 at 9:00AM

Filed under: Fantasy, Guild Wars, Patches, PvP, News items

The Guild Wars Wintersday festival had a few issues this year, but ArenaNet kindly offered up a Wintersday redux. Anyone who missed out on their hats or didn't get to participate as much as they wanted thanks to lag now gets a second chance. If you were lucky enough to have smooth sailing on the first round, just enjoy the bonus! We've been waiting on a date for the festivities, and yesterday community manager Regina Buenaobra announced that it will begin January 29 and run until the finale on February 7. (It doesn't look like the event will overlap Canthan New Year, of course.)

Regina's announcement also included new information on the large skill update that the team originally planned to roll out in full this month: "The next skill updates will be rolled out in stages. First, GvG skills will be updated, and this will come next week, before the Monthly Tournament. We will release preliminary patch notes with details of those GvG changes later this week, so that those participating in the Monthly Tournament will have some notice of the changes".

We'll keep a close eye out for those patch notes for you, and happy Wintersday! (Again)

One Shots: Looking forward to the future

by Krystalle Voecks Jan 17th 2010 at 2:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Screenshots, Guild Wars, One Shots

One of the many wonderful things about Guild Wars is the fact that once you've paid for it, you can jump in and out without having to worry about a subscription fee. There's none of that "I'm paying for this monthly, I should play it exclusively" going on. Another of the great things is the care that went into crafting the graphics in-game, such as this lovely scene sent in to us today by Nick. He writes in: I just got back into Guild Wars after some expenses made me quit playing pay to play MMOs -- and watching the trailer for Guild Wars 2. Here we have Moris Linth with his party searching for Arred the Unready near Fahranur, the First City. It was here [that] I saw great scenery with some ruins. Here's to hoping Guild Wars 2 can bring screens like this!

MMOs from big to small, we want to see them all! Just send in your screenshots to us here at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, the name of the game, and a brief description. We'll post them out here and give you the credit for sending them in.

Gallery: One Shots

Guild Wars Wintersday Art Contest winners announced

by Rubi Bayer Jan 16th 2010 at 12:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Guild Wars, Contests, Fan art, Free-to-play

Last month ArenaNet began their annual Guild Wars Wintersday art contest, offering some coveted prizes in the form of signed copies of The Art of Guild Wars 2, signed art prints from PAX, and everlasting reindeer tonics. As always, participants brought some outstanding talent and creativity to the table, and all the winning entries -- including the adorable Yakkington doll -- showed a fun variety of ideas and themes ranging from funny and random to practical to downright beautiful.

The Guild Wars community pitched in to encourage one another in the form of the Wintersday Workshop, a fan-sponsored forum event and contest designed to encourage new artists and old alike. Workshop participants were very happy to see quite a few of their number gaining recognition in the contest.

All of the winning entries can be viewed at the official site, and we at Massively join ArenaNet in offering our congratulations to them all.

ArenaNet promises Guild Wars Wintersday redux

by Rubi Bayer Jan 2nd 2010 at 12:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Guild Wars, Bugs, Events, in-game, News items, Free-to-play

"OMG lag!" "Ugh, I got dc'ed." "Hey, why didn't I get the hat?"

If you were logged into Guild Wars for more than five minutes on Friday, you most likely either saw people saying one (or all three) of those things, or said them yourself. As the Wintersday finale approached and district numbers soared in Lion's Arch and Kamadan, lag -- a typical festival issue -- became the most used word in the game, with Error 007 messages popping up all over the place.

Most players are used to that around festival times and understand that the server load in some areas is much higher than usual. However, another little glitch showed up Friday that players weren't quite so forgiving of: a huge number of players weren't getting their Wintersday hats, and Guild Wars players do not love it when they don't get their hats.

The outcry hit the forums pretty quickly, and community manager Regina Buenaobra logged an extra long workday communicating with the community and the ArenaNet team, trying to fix the bug. Eventually the bug was fixed, with a very welcome announcement from Regina: they will be re-running Wintersday. Dates are still to be announced, but it's welcome news for all players.

Good luck on round two, and thanks to ArenaNet!

Potential smoking gun found for Guild Wars security issues

by Eliot Lefebvre Jan 2nd 2010 at 10:00AM

Filed under: Fantasy, Guild Wars, Exploits, News items, Rumors

It started as a surprise. Guild Wars players reported suddenly finding themselves hacked, their accounts cleaned out, no indication of what could have caused the problem. NCsoft and ArenaNet offered suggestions, security safeguards, new measures being taken, hints that the problem lay in a popular third-party website with an undisclosed name. But with the recent rash of problems that Aion players have been having regarding security, new facts have begun coming to light, and they paint a picture that isn't pretty.

Specifically, some players seem to be finding that it doesn't take any skill to wind up hacking someone's account accidentally. And all it takes is a few log-in attempts to find yourself with access to someone's account name, password, and billing information for all of a player's NCsoft games.

One Shots: Just a few more

by Krystalle Voecks Dec 28th 2009 at 2:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Screenshots, Guild Wars, One Shots

Guild Wars players are by no means immune to the holiday wackiness going on in the MMOGsphere. Indeed, they can be found enjoying costumes, seasonal quests, and more, just as they have every year. Of course, there's also the undercurrent of "hmm, wonder how we'll celebrate holidays in Guild Wars 2" as well, but we can't blame them for being excited! Today's great One Shots comes to us from Stephen, who decided to take a moment from his holiday questing to report back to us with what he's been doing. While playing Guild Wars with the new costumes, I nicknamed my Elemental The Death Mage while wearing the Grenth costume. Here is a quick screenshot during a farming run for Grawl necklaces.

If you've caught a interesting image from your favorite game, we want to see it! Just email it to us here at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, the name of the game, and a description. We'll post it out here and let everyone know all about your experience.

Gallery: One Shots

NCsoft taking first visible steps to improve security

by Rubi Bayer Dec 23rd 2009 at 6:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Guild Wars, Server downtime, News items, Free-to-play

Back at the end of November, we talked about the ongoing security issues affecting Guild Wars players. ArenaNet has been assuring players that they are working hard on the problem, and Monday evening the community saw the first fruits of that labor. Players saw a message in their chat windows that most of them have never seen before: "The Guild Wars servers will be taken offline momentarily for required maintenance."

It was a quick change, but once it happened, players logging in saw a surprising addition to the login screen. Besides the usual username and password combination, you now have to correctly enter the name of any character on your account before you are able to log in.

ArenaNet posted a FAQ on their site along with the update and Community Manager Regina Buenaobra interacted heavily with the community immediately afterward, logging in to Guild Wars to discuss the change with players (and presumably be asked a few hundred questions about Guild Wars 2.) She also spent time on the main fan forum sites, addressing concerns, clarifying the reasoning behind some decisions, and passing some well-deserved thanks from players on to the ANet team.

While not everyone is satisfied -- and when are they ever? -- this first step is a very welcome one to most players, and we look forward to seeing more.

Massively's Guild Wars costume set giveaway

by Shawn Schuster Dec 21st 2009 at 3:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Guild Wars, Giveaways

With this year's Wintersday in Guild Wars comes quite a few new features to the game. One of the most significant is the costuming system. These costumes allow your character to dress as they like with costumes that fit into special costume slots, not affecting your normal armor stats.

Sound like something you'd be interested in trying? Great! Because we have ten of these costumes to give away to our loyal readers. Simply reply to this post before 8am EST on December 23rd stating which costume you'd like -- either Dwayna or Grenth. We will pick and notify five random winners for each set (for a total of ten winners) on December 23rd. The giveaway is open to legal residents of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia, and Canada (excluding Quebec), and everyone who enters must be 18 or older. You may enter only once, and any comments without Grenth or Dwayna will be ignored. The retail value of each costume set is $6.99 USD. Click here to read the official Joystiq Network contest rules. Follow along after the jump for a description of each costume, and complete instructions on how to claim your code if you're chosen as a lucky winner.

[Edit: Comments are now closed.]

Guild Wars adds costumes just in time for Wintersday

by Rubi Bayer Dec 18th 2009 at 11:30AM

Filed under: Fantasy, Guild Wars, News items, Free-to-play

Last night's fairly sizable patch in Guild Wars was a bit of a surprise to players who weren't expecting any Wintersday updates until today, and a quick round of "What was that?" throughout the game led to the discovery of a big surprise from ArenaNet: costumes! In what is hopefully the first of many, special Grenth and Dwayna Wintersday costumes are now available in the NCsoft store.

Each version can be purchased for $6.99 US in the store, but NCsoft has an introductory deal until January 17th -- both sets for $9.99. The costumes are account-wide, headpieces are included, they can be dyed, and you'll get both male and female versions so none of your characters are left out. The costumes are purely cosmetic and can be worn over your existing armor without a change in stats, so feel free to charge into battle dressed as Grenth to put a little extra fear into your opponents.

A brand new feature like this one is bound to bring an avalanche of questions from players, so we suggest you start with the costume FAQ before heading over to the NCsoft store.