wintersday-2009
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New information on Guild Wars Wintersday redux and next skill update
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)
Guild Wars Wintersday Art Contest winners announced
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
"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!
Guild Wars Wintersday 2009 art contest announced
Wintersday is approaching in Guild Wars, and with it comes grentches, snowmen, candy canes, and the frenzied hunt for the elusive Mini Polar Bear. We'll explore the festivities more later this month, but in the meantime ArenaNet has officially begun the Wintersday Art Contest. Put your creative energies to use while you wait for Wintersday to arrive and create some holiday art with a Guild Wars twist. Three top winners will receive "The Art of Guild Wars 2" signed by the development team, a signed art print from PAX 2008, and a brand new everlasting reindeer tonic. Seven more winners will receive the PAX art print and reindeer tonic, and ten honorable mentions will receive the reindeer tonic. (It should probably go without saying, but it's a good idea not to plagarize anything for this contest. It won't end well.) Full entry details can be found here, so good luck to all of you!
