guild-wars posts

The Daily Grind: How do you juggle multiple games?

by Eliot Lefebvre Nov 23rd 2009 at 8:00AM

Filed under: Culture, Game mechanics, Opinion, The Daily Grind

So you're jumping back into playing your favorite character on, say, Champions Online, and you press the button that you're pretty sure is bound to your energy-building power. It's only a minute later as you stare at an empty gauge and watch your health slowly disintegrate that you realize you hit the button bound to your opening skill in Guild Wars, because you've been playing that more lately. So then you mentally adjust to the keybindings that are, you soon recall, for your Fighter/Monk in Dungeons and Dragons Online... and then you remember what you had bound on Champions Online, but it doesn't matter because you've died.

Everyone has done it. (Probably.) If you're reading Massively, you very likely have more than one game that you play on a regular basis. That means there's always the issue of remembering different keybindings, abilities, playstyles, et cetera. And all this doesn't even mention the problem of varied amounts of playtime. So, how do you juggle multiple games? Do you allot certain times to certain games, do you follow your interest at any given moment, or is it all more or less random? If you've tried multiple methods, what's worked the best for you?

Tags: champions-online, co, culture, ddo, dungeons-and-dragons-online, forgetfulness, game-mechanics, guild-wars, gw, multiple-games, opinion, tdg, the-daily-grind

Guild Wars updates Halloween quest, bringing permanant changes

by Rubi Bayer Nov 22nd 2009 at 8:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Guild Wars, Events, in-game, Game mechanics, Free-to-play

We can all stop making "Waiting for Godot" (Godhuum?) jokes. Thursday evening ArenaNet quietly updated "The Waiting Game", the Guild Wars quest we all picked up back around Halloween. Dhuum is awake, he's not happy, and the Shadow Form debate rages on.

The update to The Waiting Game revealed that Dhuum will appear once all of the Underworld quests have been completed, and defeating him is now required to "complete" the Underworld. With a skill set including things like "Judgement of Dhuum", this new addition to the Underworld is most likely the challenge that bored Guild Wars players have been looking for.

Shadow Form continues to be a hot topic, however. Many players expected this to be the thing that put an end to Shadow Form Underworld farming, but one of the earliest reported successes proved that wrong very quickly. Players responded quickly with one commenter summing up many people's thoughts: "It's...disappointing that even a God of Unholy Death can't bypass shadowform...". (Community Manager Regina Buenaobra stepped in to mention that the goal was new content, not a nerf of SF farming.)

In the meantime, Dhuum seems to be the biggest challenge around in Guild Wars -- kudos to ArenaNet for the new content!

Tags: arenanet, dhuum, Game-Mechanics, guild-wars, shadow-form, the-waiting-game, underworld

The Daily Grind: What features would you like to see combined?

by Eliot Lefebvre Nov 22nd 2009 at 8:00AM

Filed under: Game mechanics, Opinion, The Daily Grind, Academic

Some things don't go well together. Like peanut butter and soap, or open PvP in a neutral quest hub, or melee attacks for a spellcaster. On the other hand, there are some things that seem as if they'd go together so perfectly that it's a wonder it hasn't already been put into place. Final Fantasy XI's multiple jobs paired with the unique nature of Warhammer Online's classes, for instance. Or the skill-based approach of Guild Wars in a classless game such as Fallen Earth. Or Sword of the New World's multi-character system combined with, well, more or less anything.

When you've played enough games, you start seeing how systems could be stapled together to produce something very different in the end, and possibly even something better than either system individually. What systems would you like to see combined? Would you want them to be in a current game, a new game, or in a sadly-deceased game that would have been uncommonly excellent with the two things put together? Or would you not even look at systems, and just like to port the engine of one game (such as the gameplay of City of Heroes) into a totally different setting?

Tags: city-of-heroes, coh, combine, fallen-earth, ffxi, final-fantasy-xi, game-mechanics, guild-wars, gw, sword-of-the-new-world, system, systems, tdg, the-daily-grind, war, warhammer-online

One Shots: Bark at the moon

by Krystalle Voecks Nov 19th 2009 at 2:00PM

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

With Halloween now giving way to Thanksgiving next week in the United States, we figured it was a great time to show this one last Halloween image we recieved from Guild Wars. Thorband caught this image of his character howling at the lunatic moon during the recent Mad King celebration. The other thing we really dig about this image is the lovely fall colors, like those of a roasting turkey -- and of course, tasty pumpkin pie. Mmm, pie.

We love holidays in MMOs almost as much as we love pie -- maybe even more, depending on the game! So if you have a chance to grab some holiday celebration screenshots while you're out and about, please send some our way! We love to see what's up in the different worlds out there. All you have to do is email them to us at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, the name of the game, and a quick description. We'll post them out here and give you the love.

Gallery: One Shots

Tags: arenanet, guild-wars, gw, ncsoft, one-shots, screenshot, screenshots, thorband

NCsoft releases teaser trailer for Blade and Soul

by Rubi Bayer Nov 16th 2009 at 11:00AM

Filed under: Fantasy, Trailers, New titles

When we say "NCsoft" it usually brings to mind their big, highly-promoted titles like City of Heroes, Aion, and Guild Wars. However, NCsoft enjoys quite a bit of popularity in their home country of Korea, and a lot of people are looking forward to another upcoming title. Blade and Soul hasn't enjoyed the worldwide hype that some other NCsoft titles have, but it's still got an excited fan base looking forward to it.

News for eager fans has been on the skimpy side, with the biggest announcement lately being a recent mention from the NCsoft CEO Jaeho Lee: "I believe there will be certain public events in the year 2010... at least a closed beta test for those titles. Commercialisation will be expected, at this point, probably some time in the year 2011."

Yesterday NCsoft delivered a little surprise via Twitter for those anticipating Blade and Soul: a teaser trailer is coming soon, and a 30-second teaser is available now. Take a look at the teaser after the jump, and we'll keep an eye out for the full length version for you!

Tags: aion, blade-and-soul, city-of-heroes, guild-wars, jaeho-lee, ncsoft, ncsoft-korea, teaser, trailer

NCsoft hints at Guild Wars 2 beta in 2010, launch in 2011

by Rubi Bayer Nov 10th 2009 at 12:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, News items, Guild Wars 2

Fans of Guild Wars have been waiting for well over two years for Guild Wars 2, ever since ArenaNet fired up the hype machine in a big way back in March of 2007. Anet announced Guild Wars 2 and Eye of the North at the same time, and anticipated that the beta for GW2 would arrive in the second half of 2008.

Since the announcement, the Guild Wars player base has become intimately familiar with various versions of the phrases "We haven't released that information" and "TBA", punctuated occasionally with new information.

While the bits of information given here and there add up to something relatively substantial, fans are still asking the big question: When? Obviously the planned 2008 beta didn't happen, and now fans will have to wait a bit longer.

CEO Jaeho Lee referred to GW2 and Blade and Soul in a recent conference call with investors: "I believe there will be certain public events in the year 2010... at least a closed beta test for those titles. Commercialisation will be expected, at this point, probably some time in the year 2011."

At least fans have plenty of time and motivation to finish filling their Hall of Monuments. Silence and delays aside, when Guild Wars 2 finally arrives, most fans trust ArenaNet to give them something well worth the wait.

Tags: arenanet, beta, guild-wars, guild-wars-2, GuildWars, gw, gw2, jaeho-lee, ncsoft

One Shots: A toast to your doom

by Krystalle Voecks Nov 7th 2009 at 2:00PM

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

Every year in Guild Wars, the Mad King Thorn invades, demanding that the residents there laugh -- or die. But for all that this may sound incredibly ominous, you can't help but appreciate just how utterly cool the ArenaNet team has made their game look. Today's spooky yet gorgeous screenshot comes to us from Thorband, who captured this image during the recent Guild Wars Halloween events. Add in those especially awesome wings, the grinning moon, and a ghoulish visage, and that's a hard Halloween image to beat!

Have you seen something really, really cool but unquestionably evil? We'd be thrilled if you'd share with the rest of us. Just email it to oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, the name of the game, and a quick description. We'll post it out here and give you the credit. (Meanwhile, we'll be turning it into our desktop image for the day!)

Gallery: One Shots

Tags: arenanet, guild-wars, gw, halloween-2009, mad-king-thorn, ncsoft, one-shots, screenshot, screenshots, thorband

NCsoft responds to City of Heroes speculation

by Eliot Lefebvre Nov 5th 2009 at 4:00PM

Filed under: Super-hero, City of Heroes, Business models, Interviews, MMO industry, Opinion, Rumors

A couple days ago, we had a post detailing some speculation on what City of Heroes: Going Rogue meant for NCsoft West, City of Heroes, and the future of the entire branch of the company. Ryan James, director of corporate communications for NCsoft, took the time to issue a direct response to us regarding that post. We also got an opportunity to ask him a few questions regarding NCsoft's current and future direction, which helps provide some context and some behind-the-scenes information to offset the speculative nature of the aforementioned post.

The official response is as follows:

"We wanted to respond to your post from November 2 on City of Heroes and clarify a few points for you and your readers. In short, the piece offers a rather sensationalist view of NCsoft West and our success thus far.

We're very proud of what we've accomplished here in the West – we have several major MMO franchises, including City of Heroes, Lineage and Guild Wars. And our newest addition to the NCsoft portfolio, Aion, has just seen a very successful launch here in the West. As you point out, we have had to make some tough portfolio decisions, but this is very much par for the course for any major game publisher today. That being said, we remain extremely proud of the Paragon team's accomplishments with the City of Heroes franchise. City of Heroes is still the world's most popular super-powered hero MMO. Even with an increasingly crowded landscape, City of Heroes remains the gold standard for comic book-inspired MMOs – it has stood the test of time and we're excited to be bringing Going Rogue to players next year.

As you note, the author of Vicarious Existence is indeed 'alarmist' in his assessment of NCsoft West and our future. We couldn't agree more. On the contrary, we're optimistic about our future."

Following the statement, Mr. James took the opportunity to answer a few questions about the company's game portfolio and future plans. Take a look at the questions and responses after the break.

Tags: aion, aion-the-tower-of-eternity, business-models, city-of-heroes, city-of-heroes-going-rogue, city-of-villains, coh, cov, cox, dungeon-runners, going-rogue, guild-wars, gw, interviews, lineage-2, lineage-ii, ncsoft, ncsoft-west, opinion, rumors, ryan-james

Guild Wars announces art contest winners

by Rubi Bayer Nov 2nd 2009 at 9:00AM

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

At the beginning of October, Guild Wars announced that their annual Halloween art contest was open for entries. After sorting through hundreds of submissions, they announced the winners on Friday. As always, fan creativity shone in the form of costumes, lawn decorations, drawings, carved pumpkins, and even a ceramic siege turtle that fires pumpkins instead of jade.

ArenaNet seemed very happy with this year's entries: "We were so impressed by both the Halloween spirit and the quality of artistic talent in our community that it was hard to choose only ten winners and ten honorable mentions."

Twenty winners were chosen from the submissions for some great prizes. The top three winners scored a signed copy of The Art of Guild Wars 2, the top ten received a signed Guild Wars art print, and all twenty winners won an exclusive Mad King's Guard minipet. Congratulations to all of the winners!

Tags: arenanet, guild-wars, Guild-Wars-2, gw, halloween-2009, halloween-art-contest, ncsoft-europe

ArenaNet grants wish to heart transplant patient

by Rubi Bayer Nov 1st 2009 at 4:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Guild Wars, Culture, Events, real-world, Guild Wars 2

Emily is a high school junior diagnosed with Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy, who is having a pretty good 2009 in spite of that. She received a heart transplant earlier this year, as well as a little pick-me-up from the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Emily became a Guild Wars fan last year while waiting for her heart transplant and during her recovery afterward. She spent a lot of time in Tyria while living in the hospital.

Just last week Make-A-Wish arranged for Emily to travel to Seattle and visit the ArenaNet offices, making her the envy of a few million fans. She spent her morning touring the offices, meeting the staff, learning about what they do, and even meeting with the section heads to discuss her likes and dislikes about Guild Wars. After lunch, time to spend a few hours playing Guild Wars 2 with the ArenaNet team. That's right, Emily got an up close and personal look at the game, giving feedback and making suggestions from a fan's point of view. The best part came at the end: "They pulled us aside and asked if she could stay a couple of extra hours. They convened a group of their eight senior designers and Emily, and they asked Emily to help them design an "Event" for the game."

So when we finally get our hands on GW2, there will be a little something from Emily in there. Congratulations from Massively, Emily, and we wish you continued health.

Tags: arenanet, guild-wars, Guild-Wars-2, Make-A-Wish, ncsoft

One Shots: From the shadows

by Krystalle Voecks Nov 1st 2009 at 2:00PM

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

While many are enjoying the tail end of the Mad King's Revelry event in Guild Wars, there are still wild, eerie battles to be had at other times as well. Today shows off one such encounter, sent in to us by Bob J. who writes in to explain the scenario: Slavers' Exile is a dungeon with multiple parts. The final part contains boss battle is with Duncan the Black, who is trying to absorb the powers of the Great Destroyer, which was killed at the end of the main Guild Wars: Eye of the North storyline. Duncan is a powerful Ritualist and one of the more annoying bosses in the Guild Wars universe. This screen is of one of my friends taking him down with Sliver Armor and Shadow Form.

One Shots relies heavily on great reader screenshot submissions, so if you're playing a game that doesn't get love as much as you might like, please do take a moment and send us some of your favorite screenshots. Just email them in to oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, the name of the game, and a quick description. We'll post them up here and give you the nod for sending them along!

Gallery: One Shots

Tags: arenanet, bob-j, guild-wars, gw, halloween-2009, one-shots, screenshot, screenshots

Guild Wars PvP henchmen have arrived

by Rubi Bayer Oct 30th 2009 at 1:30PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Guild Wars, Patches, PvP, Free-to-play

Back at the beginning of the month, ArenaNet announced the winners of the Guild Wars henchman skill bar contest, promising that the AI would be tweaked to make the winning bars work well. Since then we've been anxiously awaiting the new henchmen to see how well they work and more importantly, what they look like.

They arrived with last night's update, along with a bug fix for Devona, who really wanted to keep "Charge!" on her bar. While it will take some time to get a feel for them in battle, the Live Team clearly had a great time putting them together. The models look great -- a nice variety of looks and styles, and talking to them gives a brief dialogue that says a bit about their personality. In a fun little touch, many of their idle emotes fit their personalities as well. Talking to them will also reveal their skill bars, allowing you to make your selections without resorting to memory or the wiki.

Heroes have been removed for the time being, but don't worry just yet if you want them back. Community manager Regina Buenaobra says, "After yesterday's update our programmer is looking into enabling Heroes in the Guild Hall. He is optimistic that it's possible."

The new henchmen are available in Heroes' Ascent and in guild halls, and while it's a bit disappointing that we didn't actually get henchmen named Hi Captain Obvious or Noodle Legs, we are optimistic that they'll live up to expectations on the battlefield.

Tags: arenanet, devona, guild-wars, gw, henchmen, henchmen-skill-bar-contest, ncsoft, pvp

Team Arenas and Hero Battles not the only thing changed in latest Guild Wars update

by Rubi Bayer Oct 23rd 2009 at 8:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Guild Wars, Game mechanics, Patches

Devona without "Charge!"? No more Firestorm for Cynn? Abasi has...wait, what did Abasi have before? Who is that, anyway?

Regina said a few days ago that Hero Battles and Team Arenas would be removed from Guild Wars this week and that the Sealed Deck/Codex Arena would be added. It looks like the Live Team took care of that, made a few more PvP tweaks, then turned their attention to heroes and henchmen. Our sometimes-trusty sidekicks got quite the makeover. Nearly 70 henchmen skill bars throughout every campaign plus Eye of the North were rebalanced, and the AI for nearly every class of hero, henchman, and Hard Mode NPC was updated. (The AI on Necros and Dervishes got a pass - apparently they used their skills well enough to be left alone.) The full list of changes can be viewed here.

The Underworld got some attention too, fixing bugs, streamlining things, adjusting spawns and adding the ominous statement "Something stirs deep in the Underworld, slowly making its presence known." Hopefully we'll find out more about that something when the Halloween events get into full swing.

For now, we're going to find out if removing Healing Touch from Alesia's bar has taught her that she's not a frontliner.

Tags: arenanet, codex-arena, guild-wars, henchmen, heroes, ncsoft, pvp, update

Goodbye RR Day: Guild Wars to remove Hero Battles and Team Arenas this week

by Rubi Bayer Oct 19th 2009 at 12:00PM

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

No, we're not endorsing RR Day. But ArenaNet Community Manager Regina Buenaobra announced today that Hero Battles and Team Arenas will be removed from Guild Wars with this week's update, and it's safe to assume that a good many players will be mourning that loss. The news shouldn't come as any surprise, given that Live Team Lead Linsey Murdock warned us of this almost two months ago.

So how does this affect the PvP side? Well, after the update this week -- presumably Thursday or Friday -- the Commander title will still exist, but gaining points for it will no longer be possible. It will be replaced by a new title so those who haven't maxed their Commander title won't be left out in the cold. Random Arenas will no longer promote to Team Arenas, and the Hero Battles Ladder will freeze.

Linsey has said that Team Arena will be "renamed and repurposed" for the new Sealed Deck format, and that the Hero Battles maps will be reused, but the only change indicated for this week is the removal of TA/HB. It looks like Sealed Deck and all the other PvP projects are still having finishing touches put on them, so we'll keep watching for them.

Tags: arenanet, guild-wars, hero-battles, linsey-murdock, pvp, red-resign-day, regina-buenaobra, rr-day, team-arena

The top five Guild Wars features we take for granted

by Rubi Bayer Oct 12th 2009 at 5:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Guild Wars, Business models, Game mechanics, MMO industry, Guild Wars 2, Free-to-play

Guild Wars was my introduction into MMO gaming. My husband heard of it on a podcast and decided to check it out. I got curious, asked him if I could try it, and never looked back. My outgoing, chatty personality combined with my love of computer games made MMO gaming an irresistible new world to explore. With all the recent (long-awaited) news of Guild Wars 2, this seemed like a great time to take a look back at some of the features of Guild Wars that are rarely found in other games of its type.

Tags: arenanet, featured, guild-wars, guild-wars-2, gw, ncsoft