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Two senior staff members depart from ArenaNet
ArenaNet is going to be down two staff members in the very near future. Community Team Leader Martin Kerstein and UI Lead Kate Welch are both leaving the company; Welch's final day with the developer is September 4th, while Kerstein has apparently already departed. Both of their farewell letters speak highly of the team and give no cause for the departures, and neither yet has any announcements of future plans. Both Welch and Kerstein have been working on Guild Wars 2 since before its launch. These departures come directly on the heels of the conclusion of the game's second season of living story updates. [Thanks to Sharvis for the tip!]
Guild Wars 2 developer livestream chat discusses the fine art of world improvement
ArenaNet's Game Director Colin Johanson sat down with Community Manager Martin Kerstein to talk about the future of Guild Wars 2 and answer some questions from the community in the latest developer livestream. Johanson confirmed that while players won't be confronting another Elder Dragon this year, there will be three new Fractals of the Mists joining the lineup: fractalized versions of the popular living story dungeons Molten Weapons Facility and Aetherblade Retreat, as well as one of two brand new scenarios to be chosen for development based on the outcome of the upcoming Cutthroat Politics content. However, he warned that Lion's Arch politics aren't necessarily a straightforwardly democratic process; this is a pirate election, and pirates are known for playing dirty. Johanson further discussed the evolution of GW2's living story and the reception of temporary content, and explained some of the difficulties the team faced when the living story was in its beginning stages. While he admitted that the beginning of the year was too heavy on temporary events, the formation of four living world teams will help them deliver more permanent changes to the game. He added that some temporary events, such as trade with the Zephyr Sanctum and popular game-within-the-game Super Adventure Box are likely to return periodically.
ArenaNet implementing mandatory password change for Guild Wars 2 players
If you've logged in to Guild Wars 2 lately and have seen a bright red banner at the top of your launcher suggesting that you change your password, your time is almost up. On February 7, 2013, all players who haven't changed their password since September 12, 2013 will need to choose a new password before playing the game. Interestingly enough, ArenaNet has compiled a blacklist of passwords that have been exploited by hackers in the past, so you might be out of luck trying to use "12345" or "password" or even "massivelyisawesome." Head on over to the account management site to change your password today.
Guild Wars 2 will soon offer paid server transfers and guesting
Paid server transfers and the ability to "guest" to other servers have been in the cards for Guild Wars 2 for, like, ever. Well before launch, players knew that those would eventually be features of the game. Until today, though, we never knew precisely when they'd come about. ArenaNet's Martin Kerstein has given us the final word: Both features will be coming in with the January patch on the 28th. They're part of a series of improvements and updates the company plans to make throughout early 2013. Guesting gives players the ability to join friends on other servers to participate in pretty much everything but World vs. World. Server transfers will cost an unknown number of gems and be limited to once every seven days, so make sure you're on your desired home server before the patch hits on the 28th. Head on over to the official announcement for a full guesting how-to.
ArenaNet prepares fans for Guild Wars 2 beta weekend event
ArenaNet has followed up its recent beta weekend event blogpost with a short video going through the details of the upcoming Guild Wars 2 BWE. The team has also confirmed that emails are being sent out to get BWE participants the information they need to download the beta client and be ready for the weekend. The event, which runs from Friday the 27th at 3:00pm EDT to 3:00am on Monday the 30th, will introduce players to the Charr, Human, and Norn early zones as well as allowing players to get into epic WvW battles and hotjoinable PvP. Lion's Arch, a huge city that's undergone massive changes since the original Guild Wars, will be explorable for the first time. Check out what Martin Kerstein and Mike Zadorojny have to say about it in the video after the cut.
Flameseeker Chronicles: Setting up for success
Community Team Lead Martin Kerstein updated the ArenaNet blog a few days ago with some information about his team's plans for the Guild Wars 2 community. The two big bits of news were that there will be official forums (to the evident skepticism of the Guild Wars 2 Guru mods) and there will not be a typical fan site program. The most interesting bit, to me, is this: "Our goal is to use a scalable, inclusive ecosystem instead of a rigid fan site program that doesn't scale well and excludes large parts of the fan base." What I'm hoping this means is that the team members are opening themselves up to a lot more flexibility in which fan sites they support. This is great if it means that small blogs and niche communities can be more easily promoted; we already see this happening, as the Guild Wars 2 twitter feed is usually full of retweets pointing out various fan creations and posts. The flip side of this is equally true. In his article, Kerstein talks about wanting to promote a mature and helpful community, so hopefully the lack of a rigid structure in fan site support means the team members don't feel pressured to include and support toxic communities just because they've hit standardized milestones. I have high hopes for this scalable community engagement style, and I hope to see it pay off for a lot of smaller fan sites and projects. If the folks at ArenaNet want to demand more of the quality of their community, more power to 'em.
Guild Wars 2 info keeps on comin'
If you're a Guild Wars 2 fan, you're used to the jarring transitions between droughts and floods of information. This week, happily, it's flood time. It's been a busy week for ArenaNet, but the team gives no signs of slowing down. After a successful press beta weekend and opening up a signup form for upcoming beta tests, ArenaNet has kept up the flow of information -- and excitement -- by gracing GuildCast with the presence of a few of its devs, clarifying some points on world vs. world in a new blog post, and setting up a Reddit Ask Me Anything session for 11:00 a.m. EST on Friday the 24th. The blog post clarifies some of the more prominent questions the community has been voicing about WvW over the last few days, while the Reddit AMA is a good chance to get in those nit-picky questions that you're still dying to get clarified (no, "can I have a beta key" should not be one of 'em). The most important information out of all of this? Mike Ferguson put a stop to a debate that might otherwise have been endless: WvW is "wuv-wuh." You're welcome.
Queue no more thanks to Guild Wars 2's overflow servers
Picture this: You've just come home from a hard day of work and you want to relax by gaming and perhaps responsibly enjoying a delicious beverage. But wait -- there's a queue for your server! What are you going to do? You could reroll and get into the game faster, but then you can't play with your friends on your precious main character. You can also sit it out and just twiddle your thumbs for a bit, but otherwise there's not a lot to be done. Or at least, there wasn't until Guild Wars 2 got into the picture. Martin Kerstein, ArenaNet's community team lead, stopped by the Guild Wars 2 Guru forums to give players a peek at the title's server overflow feature. With this feature, the above scenario plays out a bit differently. When there's too much traffic on one server, your character will be temporarily sent to a different server. Once you've reached the front of the queue, you'll be asked if you want to transfer back to your original server, and voila: home, sweet home. Any progress made on the overflow server will be carried back to the home server, so you can even be productive while you're waiting in a queue. How's that for efficiency?
Flameseeker Chronicles: Information overload
Early last week I had a fail-proof strategy in place for handling Gamescom. I'd diligently watch the Guild Wars 2 news coming from the event, and at the end of the week, do a nice neat wrap-up for all of you. It's OK, you can laugh -- I am. Talk about trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon! There is one thing I can wrap up for you: Last week there were ArenaNet blog posts and site updates, over a dozen interviews and articles written, nine photo galleries (one from ArenaNet), 17 video interviews, and over 100 game footage videos. So how do you even begin to process all of that, especially when you consider that there's another wave coming in just a few days? Follow along after the jump and let's take a look!
ArenaNet revealing Guild Wars 2 PvP and customization at Gamescom
Europe's largest game expo is getting ready for plenty of Guild Wars 2 goodness, as ArenaNet will be bringing its highly anticipated fantasy MMO to the Cologne convention that runs from August 17th to August 21st. In a new post on the company blog, Martin Kerstein gives us an idea of what we can expect from the NCsoft demo booth. The playable GW2 build will include all seven professions revealed thus far, the complete Charr starter experience, and a mid-level demo featuring powerful Orrian enemies (and Sylvari and Asura playable characters). Last but not least, gamers will finally get their hands on Guild Wars 2's character customization system as well as its PvP component. Hands-on PvP experiences will be available, and players can also watch exhibition matches between developers and select European players.
'Living, breathing world': Martin Kerstein expounds on Guild Wars 2's dynamic events
We've heard the promises: No more grind. No more quests. A truly dynamic world. But can Guild Wars 2 truly live up to these lofty ideals, or will it come crashing down on us like so many other MMO promises in the past? Speaking with Rock, Paper, Shotgun, ArenaNet's Martin Kerstein says that no, this is the real deal -- Guild Wars 2 will feature a "living, breathing world" unlike anything we've seen to date: "What we try to do with Guild Wars 2 anyway is to break a lot of the existing conventions, like by getting rid of quests and basically totally focusing on dynamic events. So you just run through the world and happen on stuff, and that stuff has an impact on the world... The good thing is those events run even if there are no players involved -- if there are no players, the enemy will take over and you'll have to get it back before you can actually do anything. That's why it feels more organic and breathing." Shattering conventions is a favorite pastime at ArenaNet, as the company has made a public declaration that it is not afraid to go against the MMO flow. In the interview, Kerstein also addresses the cycle of dynamic events, World of Warcraft's subscriber decline ("It's an older game as well -- some people are maybe just tired," he said), and Warhammer Online's flawed Public Quest system.
Guild Wars 2 unleashes a new demo for PAX East!
ArenaNet is always reaching beyond the players' expectations. The demo at PAX Prime received incredible reviews from most people who played it. It even turned the heads of a certain reporter who was there for another game entirely. Unfortunately, Community Manager Martin Kerstein said in a recent entry on the ArenaNet blog that the most exciting thing ANet has planned for the upcoming PAX East is the presence of Game Designer Colin Johanson. The smart-alec Kerstein followed that up with, "Oh, and in addition to Colin, we will have a brand-new Guild Wars 2 demo for you, with loads of new content." He did not elaborate on the specifics but promised to reveal that at a later date. In addition, Lead Graphics Programmer Jim Scott has created an iPad application called Sketch Club, and ArenaNet would like to see what its fans can produce with the creative tool. This month, the team is throwing a Guild Wars 2 armor competition. Use a Guild Wars 2 character model as a start, then create the best armor you can think of with Sketch Club. For all the information on everything ArenaNet is doing at PAX, jump to the announcement, or if you're interested in joining the GW2 Armor Compo check out the contest rules.
ArenaNet team discusses elite skills and PvP in Guild Wars 2
Yesterday's interview with ArenaNet at Kill Ten Rats ended on a promising note: "to be continued." That promise was fulfilled today when Ravious posted part two of the interview. While much of yesterday's discussion revolved around energy usage and potions, today's focused more on skill usage -- particularly elite skills. Elites in Guild Wars 2 will be quite a bit different from what we're used to in Guild Wars. Ravious described them as "ace-up-your-sleeve" skills used to turn the tide of battle when they're most needed. Martin, Regina, Jon, and especially Isaiah had plenty to say about elites and how they work, including a few specific examples. The team also addressed weapon skills and PvP, two subjects of great interest to the community. Head over to Kill Ten Rats to check out the full interview!
ArenaNet talks energy and group dynamics in Guild Wars 2
After the recent Guild Wars 2 news drought, new information is certainly welcome. Ravious over at Kill Ten Rats provides just that today with a new interview with several members of the ArenaNet team. Ravious chatted with community managers Martin Kerstein and Regina Buenaobra as well as developers Jon Peters and Isaiah Cartwright for some fascinating discussion on part of the development process. The group discussed energy use in Guild Wars 2, and gave us some interesting news on how your gameplay style will affect it. They also covered some ground on group dynamics and how you can best work with your teammates in Guild Wars 2. The best part of this interview is that it ends with "to be continued." Head on over to Kill Ten Rats to see the interview for yourself, then join us in anxiously awaiting the next installment! If you are looking forward to GW2 but aren't a current Guild Wars player, you might want to check out the great deal on the Guild Wars Trilogy at Best Buy. What better way to pass the time while you wait for more GW2 news?
Flameseeker Chronicles: PAX 2010 travel diary
It's Sunday night and PAX is over. My iPhone and laptop are screaming for mercy. It's been a wild ride, I have the Con Crud, my feet hurt so much I keep checking to make sure they're not stumps, and all I want is to turn the clock back to last Friday so I can do it again. I had appointments and interviews with so many different game studios, and I was excited about every single one of them, but you guys know I was making Guild Wars 2 a top priority. I squeezed in time to indulge at every opportunity and have a lot to say. When I was spending time with Guild Wars 2 this weekend, something struck me over and over. Every employee whom ArenaNet could possibly spare from the office was there in force. I asked at one point and was told that every person wearing that white shirt was an ArenaNet employee. They were out there doing everything they could to spend time with the fans, and more than one developer told me that it was a huge thrill to finally be able to share all of this with people who love it as much as they do. The inability to share all of this exciting news has been as frustrating for them as it was for us, but it was for a good cause, and I think every fan at PAX this weekend agreed it was worth the wait. With that in mind, it was an easy decision to share my weekend experiences and photos with you guys for today's Flameseeker Chronicles. Follow along after the jump while I go find more Nyquil.
NCsoft Europe launches first podcast
NCsoft Europe launched its first official podcast today, and it's full of City of Heroes goodness. Why should us Yanks bother?Sure, in the inaugural episode Stephen Reid ("Rockjaw" from the CoH EU forums) talks about an upcoming European community event (happening in Birmingham, UK, March 2st-24th), but he also chats with Matt "Positron" Miller (Lead Designer of City of Heroes), and gets the scoop on Manticore and Sister Psyche's wedding from none other then the real life couple behind the heroes themselves, Sean and Jen Dornan-Fish. Sean is the Lead Content Designer on several unannounced NCsoft projects, and works on CoH and Exteel. Jen is a freelance CoH writer (and anthropology professor). There's even some Guild Wars love thrown in for good measure as they speak to Martin Kerstein (European Community Team Lead for GW) about the Bonus Mission Pack.Click on over to the NCsoft EU site where you can download the podcast and the transcript.
