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'Guild Wars 2' cheater faces public humiliation before ban
Most cheaters in online role-playing games face an ignominious end. The developers ban them, and that's all she wrote. Not one particularly egregious Guild Wars 2 offender, however. When game developer ArenaNet finally took action against a hacker who had been terrorizing player-versus-player battles for weeks, the security team decided that some public humiliation was in order. It stripped one of the player's characters naked, jumped this persona off a ledge, and proceeded to delete every character linked to the account -- all recorded for posterity on video, as you can see below.
MV Guide: February 6-12, 2012
MV Guide is a weekly rundown of the MMO gaming events planned on Massively TV. Every week, the Massively staff logs in to play various MMOs live and in person, and we'd love for you to drop by the channel and visit. We have a combination of regular weekly games and new surprises, so you'll find a variety of titles to take a look at. During our streamed events, you can participate in the live chat, ask questions to learn about the game, and simply spend some time with Massively staff and readers. (Of course, streaming is subject to the whims of outside forces like server-side gremlins once in a while.) Follow along after the jump to see what's on this week's schedule!
Previously on MV TV: Week of January 30, 2012
Welcome to Previously on MV TV! Our livestreaming schedule has picked up a lot over the past few weeks, and our readers have busy lives, so we know it's impossible to watch every single streaming event live. Fortunately for you, we save all of our streams all for posterity on Massively's Twitch TV channel, so you can view them at your leisure. Even better, we've got a roundup of a few of last week's MV TV highlights from the livestream team. Follow along after the jump for the best of the best!
MV Guide: January 30-February 5, 2012
MV Guide is a weekly rundown of the MMO gaming events planned on Massively TV. Every week, the Massively staff logs in to play various MMOs live and in person, and we'd love for you to drop by the channel and visit. We have a combination of regular weekly games and new surprises, so you'll find a variety of titles to take a look at. During our streamed events, you can participate in the live chat, ask questions to learn about the game, and simply spend some time with Massively staff and readers. (Of course, streaming is subject to the whims of outside forces like server-side gremlins once in a while.) Follow along after the jump to see what's on this week's schedule!
Previously on MV TV: Week of January 23rd
Welcome to Previously on MV TV! Our livestreaming schedule has picked up a lot over the past few weeks, and our readers have busy lives, so we know it's impossible to watch every single streaming event live. Fortunately for you, we save all of our streams all for posterity on Massively's Twitch TV channel, so you can view them at your leisure. Even better, we've got a roundup of a few of last week's MV TV highlights from the livestream team. Follow along after the jump for the best of the best, and check out our full library of videos for the other games we've streamed last week as we begin to ramp up our streaming even more in February!
MV Guide: January 23-29, 2012
MV Guide is a weekly rundown of the MMO gaming events planned on Massively TV. Every week, the Massively staff logs in to play various MMOs live and in person, and we'd love for you to drop by the channel and visit. We have a combination of regular weekly games and new surprises, so you'll find a variety of titles to take a look at. During our streamed events, you can participate in the live chat, ask questions to learn about the game, and simply spend some time with Massively staff and readers. (Of course, streaming is subject to the whims of outside forces like server-side gremlins once in a while.) Follow along after the jump to see what's on this week's schedule!
Flameseeker Chronicles: Efficient Hall of Monuments progress
Guild Wars 2 is drawing ever closer. It may not feel like it sometimes, but it's getting nearer each day. A lot of fans are easing the pain of the wait by playing through Guild Wars 1 in an effort to beef up their Hall of Monuments scores for the day GW2 arrives. The Hall of Monuments in GW might only award titles and cosmetic goodies, but we gamers do love our shinies, so lots of people are diving into present-day Tyria to make some HoM progress while they wait for GW2. I posted a series of Hall of Monuments guides almost a year and a half ago, and while most of it has stood the test of time very well, I want to revisit it. The reason I want to do this is to smooth the path a little more. So many people are still coming into Guild Wars for this reason, and starting from scratch with such an enormous goal can make a lot of them throw in the towel. Thankfully, ArenaNet has added some features into the game in the past few years that can make your Hall of Monuments progress more "hare" and less "tortoise," with the same prizes at the end. They all work together so you can get the most of your travels through Tyria in a much shorter time. This one's for the min-maxers, so follow along to read about three simple things you can keep an eye on to speed up your HoM progress!
Guild Wars is giving players another shot at hats
If you're up in New England, you may be one of the millions of people who got to experience an extra-spooky Halloween this year in light of the complete lack of power to your home. And among the many other problems you faced, you weren't able to take part in the finale of the holiday event for Guild Wars and couldn't obtain your free hat. While the developers behind the game won't replace all of your spoiled food, they are giving players a second shot at getting a hat. If you're wondering how you get hats, the post announcing the extension helpfully explains that they're obtained in exchange for Halloween items traded to a special hat vendor NPC being spawned in Lion's Arch and Kamadan. Said hat vendor will be in town most likely some time next week and will remain in place for about a week, giving everyone a chance at a special holiday hat -- albeit a little belated.
ArenaNet unearths treasure trove of lost Guild Wars concept art
ArenaNet has always taken Guild Wars concept art very seriously, edeavouring to make the in-game graphics match the concept as closely as possible. This is particularly true of Guild Wars and its upcoming sequel Guild Wars 2, both of which feature gorgeous vistas and impressive architecture. A lot of the original Guild Wars concept art has made its way to the public, where it offers us a glimpse of the visual targets for Ascalon, Kryta, Tyria and beyond. In a new devblog, ArenaNet's David Campbell unearths a treasure trove of previously unseen concept art for Guild Wars' Eye of the North expansion. David explains that these five postcard-style pieces were experiments by the art team to create distinctive environments using a variety of colour palettes. Among the postcards, you'll find forested areas, epic cliff-faces, enclosed valleys and even frozen tundra.
ArenaNet blog focuses on the Krait
Arenanet has updated its blog with a new post featuring the serpentine Krait race. Guild Wars players will be familiar with the shape-shifting creatures, but the blog post delves into detail beyond what most players would likely know (that is, how to make them dead). The piece details how the Krait are fond of keeping humans trapped inside great obelisks in the middle of the sea until they are ready to be sacrificed in one of the Krait's dark religious ceremonies (how messed up is that?) and more, including specifics on their society, religion, and dwellings. Also included is behind-the-scenes information from the team regarding why it has chosen to further develop the lore of this "unapologetically evil" race for Guild Wars 2.
Flameseeker Chronicles: It's all Kun Shao's fault
The Xunlai Tournament House in Guild Wars was a great idea in theory. Once favor was no longer tied to PvP, it served as an excellent incentive to keep PvE only players involved in the other half of the game. All players -- whether actively participating in the tournament or not -- could make predictions on the outcomes of the monthly 1 vs. 1 and Guild vs. Guild matches. Points were distributed based on the accuracy of the predictions, then traded to Tolkano for prizes, usually Zaishen Keys. Players responded very well to the concept, with many purchasing second, third, and even fourth accounts to snap up more Tournament Reward Points each month. The Zaishen title helped fuel the enthusiasm, and ZKeys soon rivaled Globs of Ectoplasm in value, even briefly becoming another alternate currency in game. All good things must come to an end, though.
The Digital Continuum: 'Meh' to MMOs?
While the MMO genre appears to be growing at a decent pace (at least for Blizzard) there's still plenty of room for growth. World of Warcraft clones can attract only so many interested players and turning to classic niche designs such as the sandbox MMO ala Fallen Earth won't do anything to pique the interest of people who otherwise have no interest in the genre. So what will appeal to someone who has never felt a desire to play a game both massively and multiplayer?
Flameseeker Chronicles: Keeping an old game new
"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.
NCsoft hints at Guild Wars 2 beta in 2010, launch in 2011
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.
MMOS X: Is CrossOver a solution?
MMOS X is a bi-weekly column dedicated solely to gaming on the Macintosh natively. "Running Boot Camp or Parallels" is not an option here. This column is for people who want to get the most out of their Mac gaming, as meager as it is. In the header blurb to this column, I state that "Running Boot Camp or Parallels is not an option here." I stand by that still. I don't think that dual-booting or loading XP within a virtual desktop is the solution any of us want. Dual booting takes up valuable hard drive space that I could use to store large media files of consenting adults. Running Parallels throws another layer of processor overhead when I run XP within Parallels within OS X. Not to mention Parallels' DirectX support is poor. Note: I haven't tried VMWare's Fusion, which is the competitor to Parallels.A week or so ago, our own Mike Schramm wrote up a little piece on TUAW about CrossOver Games. CrossOver Games lets you run some Windows games within an emulator. It's not a pure virtual environment like Parallels, so you don't have the overhead of running two OSs. When I read Mike's piece, my first thought was, "huh." My second thought was, "Huh, I wonder if there's a middle ground here somewhere." At the risk out sounding like I'm eating my own words, CrossOver might be enough of a compromise that doesn't involve buying a copy of Windows to game on a Mac.
Sarah Brightman meets Guild Wars
If you're a fan of music at all, you probably already know who Sarah Brightman is. Her voice transcends all genres, ranging from pop, rock, musical theatre, core classical and world music. Her career has spanned three decades and her name has become synonymous with the new "pop opera" style. Great, but what does any of this have to do with MMOs? If you check out the cover of her recent album, and you're a Guild Wars player, you may notice some similarities. Symphony, the latest release from Sarah Brightman, features artwork done by ArenaNet Art Director Daniel Dociu. Both the album and her website spotlight Guild Wars concept art, as well as original art created specifically for Symphony.
GW weekend event: Gaile's farewell party
As we reported last week, ArenaNet's Community Relations Manager, Gaile Gray will be switching roles at the company. So this weekend was her final farewell. She appeared in-game in Guild Wars to celebrate her last days with the players, as did the infamous Frog on his farewell tour as well. Every 3 hours, The Frog appeared in each district of Kamadan, Lion's Arch and Shing Jea Monastery, granting special party buffs for players who attended and performed certain emotes at his request. It was very reminiscent of the Mad King's appearances during the Halloween events, complete with that unique humor we can only find at these events. I'm sure the Sugar Hill Gang would be proud of The Frog's rendition of Rapper's Delight.While this special buff was active, players would earn double the points for using party items towards their Party Animal title. This led to an overall heightened festive mood for the entire weekend with bottle rockets, sparklers and champagne poppers flooding our screens. We wish Gaile and The Frog all the best in the future.
Guild Wars franchise hits 5 million unit sold mark
NCsoft announced today that its distinctly non pay-for-play MMORPG, Guild Wars, has sold five million units globally in a little under three years. The Guild Wars milestone takes into account the original game plus its three expansions: Factions, Nightfall and Eye of the North.Guild Wars 2 is currently in development and (if it's still on track) is expected in the second half of this year. ArenaNet, developers of Guild Wars, says it will continue to support the original game and its "millions of customers." For the sake of semantics it's worth noting that this doesn't mean five million players ever consistently played Guild Wars, just that five million copies from the franchise have sold, but it's still a milestone in an arena dominated by the one.
Massively's Massive Giveaways: Guild Wars
Happy one week birthday to us! It's been a tremendous first week, and we've been honored to see such a great showing of support from the MMO community. You all are really making this a launch to remember, and we'd like to thank you for it by yet another crazy day filled with birthday presents -- for you!Okay, enough mushy stuff from us. Today's Massive Giveaways feature that free-to-play sensation, Guild Wars! With many features folks have come to love (hooray henchmen) and the ability to group up with friends all without having to deal with subscriptions, this has become an extremely popular title. If you haven't had a chance to get your own copy (or complete your set of all of them) never fear! We have lots and lots of great Guild Wars prizes to give away today. For this first hour, we're giving away a key for the combined set of all the Guild Wars games! This key includes Guild Wars, Guild Wars: Factions, Guild Wars: Nightfall and Guild Wars: Eye of the North. True, you will have to download the games from online when you register your keys (or perhaps snitch a copy of the installers from that friend of yours who has been pestering you to play) but for four fabulously fun games to play, what's a little download between friends? As always, there's that 18 & up, must be a U.S. resident and all the other official rules business that you know so well by now. But for those eligible, what are you waiting for? You only have until 10:00 am Eastern on Saturday (11/10) to get your name in the hat, so get to commenting!
WoW's "worthy competitors"
The Houston Chronicle has a short piece up about what they call WoW's two competitors: Lord of the Rings Online and Guild Wars. Interesting choices -- LotRO is, obviously, an MMO based on Tolkien's famous books, and Guild Wars is actually not an MMO in the traditional sense at all -- there's no monthly fee, and the whole thing works a lot more like Battle.net does, where you can play a hero both in a solo game and in an online environment (not surprising, considering the developers used to work for Blizzard).While both games are reviewed well, neither of them quite matches up to our favorite game. But as I'm sure lots of you know (I'm guessing that most of you have played either one or both-- I've only played Guild Wars), each game does have some elements that could give WoW a run for its money. Most interesting, LotRO is planning to put player housing in a future patch, and Guild Wars, on its latest product page, advertises "no loot stealing, spawn camping, and endless travel."So while these aren't really "competitors" in the grander sense of player numbers (I'd say WoW's biggest competitor this holiday season might actually be Halo 3), they are definitely biting at WoW's heels in terms of features, and specifically targeting WoW's players with promises of what we've wanted for a long time. Other game companies are clearly getting better at figuring out how to attract the audience that World of Warcraft did, so it seems Blizzard's biggest challenge, from patch 2.2 to Wrath of the Lich King, will be to try and stay ahead of the curve of newer games and their new features.[ via WorldofWar.net ]
