guild-wars posts

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

Guild Wars PvP project updates

by Rubi Bayer Oct 9th 2009 at 9:00AM

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

Back in August, Linsey Murdock, game designer for ArenaNet, gave news of a large Guild Wars PvP project the Live Team was working on. Community Manager Regina Buenaobra gave an update yesterday, working through a laundry list of items in the project and their status.

The PvP henchmen contest seems to be the primary focus of the Live Team at the moment. Winners were announced last week, and after the initial flurry of perusing the new skill bars and congratulating the winners, the Guild Wars community wondered "What now?". Will we see the new henchmen anytime soon, and more importantly, will we really have henchmen named Rolol Lololol and A Papaya In There? As it turns out, the Live Team is working on that very thing -- contacting winners, working out appropriate in-character names, and anticipating the fun of finding models. While the team is working hard on this, Regina didn't neglect mention of the many other items on the list.

The switch from Team Arenas and Hero Battles to the Sealed Deck format is taking longer than planned, as team members had to build the project nearly from the ground up. A few items, like GvG Tiebreaker and a new Hall of Heroes map, have been put on hold until the Test Krewe is in place. Several small items are taken care of and ready to go, while other things are on hold for now; one of them being the next skill balance.

More details can be seen in Regina's journal entry, and we hope for even more soon.

Tags: arenanet, guild-wars, linsey-murdock, ncsoft, pvp, regina-buenaobra

Guild Wars 2 blending RTS with PvP

by Kyle Horner Oct 7th 2009 at 6:00PM

Filed under: New titles, PvP, News items, Guild Wars 2

Kill Ten Rats recently picked up some interesting information regarding PvP in Guild Wars 2. Essentially, world PvP will be mimicking the RTS model. Resources such as stone mines can be conquered by players and will deliver stone to catapults by caravan. These deliveries can be intercepted by enemy players unless manned watchtowers are defending your roads and scouts are keeping track of enemy forces. Or, as ArenaNet put it, players can simply look for lost PvPers and smack them around a bit.

Complex is the operative word here, as making this system work with large numbers of players will be almost as difficult as making it work with very few. Plus, developers will be dealing with all the regular idiosyncrasies associated with grouping in an MMO such as PUGs, communication and unruly parents demanding for chores or homework to be completed. Even all that considered, we hope they can pull it off so we can reap the fun.

If you're looking for more information on Guild Wars 2, check out our recent interview with ArenaNet.

Tags: arenanet, guild-wars, guild-wars-2, gw, gw2, kill-ten-rats, ncsoft, pvp, real-time-strategy, realtime-strategy, rts

One Shots: Overlooking the quarry

by Krystalle Voecks Oct 4th 2009 at 2:00PM

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

When you see screenshots like this that almost seem to hover on the very verge of looking like paintings themselves, you can definitely see why the artists at ArenaNet have won several awards for their work on Guild Wars. With the art for Guild Wars 2 out, we can't wait to see more of that world. For now, though, we'll just enjoy today's great One Shots and long description, sent in to us by Sunspear. If you'd like to join the fun, send in your own image and note to oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, the name of the game, and a description. We'll do the rest. Now, on with the note!

Quarrymaster Bohanna: "Hail, Sunspear! I am Quarrymaster Bohanna. I am in charge of the quarry at the Cliffs of Dohjok, and I need the help of a strong player like you. You see, we deliver stone to support the sculptors creating our monuments. But we've been unable to meet our quotas recently and construction has stopped. Every time the miners try to excavate more stone, they get attacked by mandragor."

The Cliffs of Dohjok is a forested ridge situated in southern Istan, between the swampy lowlands to the southwest and the flat plains to the east. A beautiful waterfall lies to the west. Istanis are currently carrying out quarrying work in the cliffs to the east of the waterfall. The Quarry you see on the screenshot is deserted and overrun by corsairs and mandragor.

Gallery: One Shots

Tags: guild-wars, one-shots, screenshot, screenshots, sunspear

Guild Wars announces winners of the henchmen skill bar contest

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

Filed under: Fantasy, Guild Wars, Contests, Events, in-game, PvP

As part of the PvP love update that Linsey Murdock mentioned back in August, Guild Wars will be removing heroes from Guild vs. Guild and Heroes' Ascent, replacing them with brand new henchmen. Heroes in these formats were a bit of a problem, as they sometimes put players at a disadvantage if they didn't have access to heroes.

These aren't just any henchmen, though. This new group comes straight from the Guild Wars community, courtesy of the henchmen skill bar contest. Players were invited to submit henchmen skill bar suggestions via Dizhou, a temporary NPC placed in the Great Temple of Balthazar until the contest closed on September 10th. ArenaNet chose forty skill bars from these submissions. Each of the lucky winners will receive a henchman named after them (or by them, if they preferred) and an everlasting henchman tonic that temporarily transforms them into their namesake.

Check out the winners in both the Guild vs. Guild and Heroes' Ascent categories, and congratulations to all of you!

Tags: Arenanet, contest, Guild-Wars, henchmen, Linsey Murdock, PvP, skill-bar

Guild Wars 2 art book to not be included in the collector's edition

by Seraphina Brennan Sep 24th 2009 at 1:00PM

Filed under: At a glance, Fantasy, Business models, MMO industry, New titles, News items, Guild Wars 2, Free-to-play

If you've been keeping your eye on that very gorgeous artbook that's currently residing in the Guild Wars 2 store/Penny Arcade store but have been holding off on your purchase, you might want to reconsider. ArenaNet has recently confirmed, via Twitter, that the art book in the Penny Arcade store will not be coming with the Guild Wars 2 collector's edition box.

So if you were really looking forward to this artbook, looks like you're going to have to put down the 30 dollars and pick it up separately. On the bright side, it's a hardbound 128 page book of what looks to be some really beautiful art.

As to what will be included in the collector's edition, well, your guess is as good as ours right now. ArenaNet is being tight lipped on those features, and it looks like we're just going to have to wait.

Tags: arenanet, art, artbook, collectors-edition, guild-wars, guild-wars-2, gw2, penny-arcade, penny-arcade-store, twitter

PAX 2009: ArenaNet offers a variety of videos for fans at home

by Krystalle Voecks Sep 16th 2009 at 7:30PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Video, Guild Wars, Events, real-world, New titles, News items, Guild Wars 2

While we've brought you all manner of tasty insights and asides into what happened at PAX 2009 this year, there's something to be said for being able to catch the panels yourself. Knowing full well that their fans were going to go completely berserk when they heard all the juicy details about Guild Wars 2, ArenaNet has gone to great lengths to make sure to record all of their panels at PAX 2009 for you to check out. How awesome is that?

The topics for this year were two completely different question and answer panels on the Art of Guild Wars 2, an insightful talk with the Guild Wars Live team who currently take care of the game, and a really interesting panel on the Fall of Ascalon novel that will give us the backstory between Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2. So if you weren't able to make it, be sure to check out the other half of the above lore video behind the jump, then head over to ArenaNet's official video channel to enjoy the rest!

Tags: arenanet, art, guild-wars, guild-wars-2, live-team, lore, panels, pax-2009, video

Sony, Turbine, Jagex, Blizzard, and NCsoft named in patent infringement lawsuit

by Seraphina Brennan Sep 16th 2009 at 4:30PM

Filed under: World of Warcraft, EverQuest, Guild Wars, Lord of the Rings Online, Business models, News items, Runescape, Legal, Virtual worlds

It seems to be a World of Lawsuits (TM) recently in our industry. Bloggers are being sued for libel, NCsoft is being sued for patent infringement, Linden Labs is being sued for trademark violations, Turbine is suing Atari, and now five companies are all being sued over a patent dispute.

The Boston Globe has reported that Paltalk Holdings Inc. has filed a complaint in Texas against Sony Corp., Activision Blizzard Inc., Turbine Inc., NCsoft Corp., and Jagex Ltd. all for games that violate their patent on computers sharing data so that all users can see the same virtual environment. The games in question are EverQuest, World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Guild Wars, and RuneScape (in order of the companies as named above.)

What makes this lawsuit different from the standard patent shakedowns that we've been reporting on is that the patent has already been successfully used in court. Paltalk has already sued, and won against, Microsoft.

Tags: activision-blizzard, blizzard, breaking, everquest, guild-wars, halo, halo-2, jagex, lawsuit, legal, lord-of-the-rings-online, lotro, microsoft, ncsoft, paltalk, settlement, soe, sony-corp, turbine, world-of-warcraft, wow

GW2 interview with Jeff Grubb goes deep into lore

by Brooke Pilley Sep 9th 2009 at 11:00AM

Filed under: Fantasy, Interviews, Lore, Guild Wars 2

If you're a Guild Wars lore-junkie, we have found the perfect Guild Wars 2 interview for you. Ravious over at Kill Ten Rats claims he can talk GW lore for hours and after reading the deep questions he put forth to ArenaNet World Designer and Writer Jeff Grubb, we'll take his word for it.

If you're looking for information about instancing, world PvP, and progression rates, this isn't the interview for you. If, however, it makes you giddy that one of either the Bahltek, undeciphered Asuran banner, or giganticus lupicus will be further explained in GW2, then it might be right up your alley. Jeff also drops some hints about the origins of humans, the dragon prophet Glint, the complex relationship between the world of Tyria, the human gods, and dragons, and a number of other things. The anticipation for everything GW2 related is heating up, so stay tuned to Massively as our very own Shawn Schuster will be speaking with someone from ArenaNet soon.

Tags: arenanet, glint, guild-wars, guild-wars-2, gw, gw2, interview, jeff-grubb, kill-ten-rats, lore

Guild Wars reveals large content changes

by Seraphina Brennan Sep 2nd 2009 at 1:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Guild Wars, Game mechanics, MMO industry, Patches, PvP, News items

For those of you who spend their time in Guild Wars-landia, you might want to stop for a moment and take a look at game designer Linsey Murdock's most recent journal entry. In it she details some major changes coming to the PvP formats of Guild Wars, specifically the closing of the Hero Battles format and the conversion of Team Arena into a new Sealed Deck format.

Sealed Deck is a game type that has been used at past Penny Arcade Expo showings of Guild Wars, and it has become popular enough to warrant being added into the game. The main drive behind changing up Team Arena and Hero Battles are due to the waning number of players that participate in those formats, as well as some very brutal flaws in the Hero Battles format.

Beyond the addition of Sealed Deck, Linsey also details some other changes to PvP, such as the addition of henchmen that have builds designated by the community, temporary downtime for the Xunlai Tournament House, and many other tasty tidbits. If you're looking for the full info, check out her post over on the Guild Wars wiki.

Tags: arenanet, game-designer, guild-wars, gw, hero-battles, linsey-murdock, pax, pvp, sealed-deck, team-arena, xunlai-tournament-house

The art of Guild Wars 2 to be available in book form

by Kyle Horner Aug 28th 2009 at 10:00AM

Filed under: New titles, News items, Guild Wars 2

Feeling in an artsy mood? Then you'll be happy to know that Guild Wars 2 now has a forthcoming official art book entitled The Art of Guild Wars 2. The book will be hardbound and stuffed with 128 pages of work by ArenaNet's award-winning artists.

The official website touts that this book is a must-have for Guild Wars fans. If the concept art available online is any indication, that doesn't really seem like an overstatement. We wouldn't be too shy about putting some of these pieces of art on our walls in a nice frame, so huge a hardbound art book wouldn't be such a bad coffee table item. If you don't believe us, just take a look at the gallery.

Gallery: Guild Wars 2 concept art

Tags: arenanet, art-book, concept-art, guild-wars, guild-wars-2, gw2, ncsoft

NCsoft announces Aion NA and EU open beta details

by Lesley Smith Aug 27th 2009 at 1:00PM

Filed under: Betas, Fantasy, Aion, Guild Wars, Events, real-world, Events, in-game, Lore, New titles, Patches, News items

There have been rumblings for weeks about an open beta for Aion, NCsoft's latest MMO and the company has finally confirmed details about what we can expect. North American and European gamers who may not have gotten access to the Closed Beta Tests will get an opportunity to sample Aion, exploring the beautiful world of Atreia as either an Asmodian or Elyos. The beta will take place between September 6th – 13th and will include the new Westernised character customization options, as well as a chance to see The Shadow of Balaur, the newest patch which was added to the Korean version of the game in August.

As with the final CBTs, the open beta will have a level cap of 30, which means new players to the game can experience ascension to Daevahood as well as the PvPvE area known as the Abyss. Gamers who pre-ordered Aion will also get access to the pre-select and a two-day headstart before the game officially launches on September 22nd in the US and the 25th in Europe. The pre-select will take place on September 18, while Aion's headstart period will begin September 20. So if you want to take part, it might be wise to pre-order now, especially given the new Guild Wars cross promotion we told you about earlier in the week.

Tags: aion, aion-beta, aion-cbt, aion-open-beta, aion-patch-1.5, aion-the-shadow-of-the-balaur, aion-the-tower-of-eternity, aion-tower-of-eternity, asmodian, asmodians, elyos, elyos-daeva-ascension, guild-wars, ncsoft

Do we expect too much from our MMOs?

by Brooke Pilley Aug 26th 2009 at 10:00AM

Filed under: MMO industry, Opinion

Gordon of the We Fly Spitfires blog wrote a post that has generated some pretty good discussion on this very topic. His original argument is that people don't seem to mind spending upwards of $70 on a singleplayer game that will deliver anywhere from 10-80 hours of gameplay, yet you will rarely find someone willing to pay $50 for an MMO to enjoy it for the same amount of time and then put it aside (insert unnecessary WoW tourist joke here).

By their very design MMOs are built for long-term committment. How many times have you been able to hit the level cap in an MMO and experience even half of what it has to offer in a single month of play? The goal of MMOs it seems is to suck players into a long-term committment and get them to either subscribe at $15/month or spend money on microtransactions. Semi-successul MMOs can be quite lucrative, so maybe we aren't expecting enough? That said, a game like GTA IV has worldwide revenues of $1.1 billion (or more) yet gamers don't expect to get as much enjoyment out of it over the long term as they do from MMOs. One wonders how a game like Guild Wars fits into all of this.

Tags: design, expectations, game-design, great-expecations, gtaiv, guild-wars, we-fly-spitfires, wow

Will Guild Wars 2 be your holy grail?

by Shawn Schuster Aug 25th 2009 at 6:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Game mechanics, MMO industry, New titles, Opinion, Guild Wars 2

We've all seen the brand new Guild Wars 2 trailer from last week, right? The one that starts out with lightly-animated concept art, but eventually breaks into actual in-game footage? That in-game footage caused one of the strangest sounds to erupt from the Guild Wars fan community: a mix of a sigh and a squee. It's quite a unique sound. You should try it.

With so much time being taken between our last bit of news and this full-blown trailer, GW fans were beginning to seriously lose hope. I have been an advocate for Guild Wars 2 since the day it was announced, although I did have some reservations about the divulged game mechanics at first. It seemed ArenaNet was giving up on its unique approach to online games and what the founders learned at Blizzard, and converting it into every other MMO out there. The original Guild Wars broke so much ground that it literally raised a new generation of gamers. Solved were the problems of finding a group, grinding for XP, discovering which server your friends played on and camping spawns. Guild Wars popularized the solutions to these problems and offered them in a streamlined package that didn't cost you a dime each month. It's exactly what many gamers were waiting for to get them into the MMO space, including myself.

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