anniversary

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  • Double XP and giant cake mark Champions Online's fourth anniversary

    September 1st marks the fourth anniversary of the launch of Champions Online, and Cryptic and Perfect World feel like celebrating. Players logging in to Champions Online after Thursday's regularly scheduled maintenance will be able to attend an anniversary concert, enjoy an enormous cake, and talk to special NPCs to receive free gifts containing new action figures, costume pieces, and water balloons. Also on deck for the celebration is a double XP and double Questionite weekend, which kicks off Friday at 1:30 p.m. EDT (10:30 a.m. PDT) and ends Monday at 1:00 p.m. EDT (10:00 a.m. PDT). The special anniversary events run until September 13th.

    Mike Foster
    08.29.2013
  • Wizard101 gives away presents for its birthday

    Happy birthday Wizard101! Starting today, the magical kid-friendly title celebrates turning five years old by offering gifts to players. Besides a confetti cannon to put in their houses, players will also receive other mystery gifts based on how old their accounts are; the longer you've been a Wizard101 player, the more gifts you'll receive! But why have a birthday when you can have a birth month? The festivities will continue all through September. Until the 30th, there will be decorations throughout Wizard City and special sales in the Crown Shop. Additionally, five new hairstyles and a brand now mount, the Arcus Cloud, are also available.

    MJ Guthrie
    08.29.2013
  • ArenaNet's Mike Zadorojny reflects on one year of Guild Wars 2 and its 'absurd' content pace

    Birthdays are great for a number of reasons. There's the cake, the gathering of friends, some jubilant cake-chomping, and even the ability to get violent with anyone who goes near your stack of gift-wrapped loot. If something doesn't go as planned, feel free to cry if you want to. Fun aside, these anniversaries also serve as a great time for reflection. Guild Wars 2 officially turns one today, so ArenaNet Lead Content Designer Mike Zadorojny spoke with us in San Francisco about the challenges the team faced in the first year and how it opened the doors for the living world and future content.

    Gavin Townsley
    08.28.2013
  • Guild Wars 2's first birthday by the numbers: 3.5M sold, 460K peak concurrent

    Today Guild Wars 2 celebrates the first anniversary of its official launch day. On the one hand, it's hard to believe it's been a year already. On the other hand, the game has seen so many changes and content updates that my adventures in Tyria today don't resemble what they were like this time last year. According to the anniversary blog post just released by ArenaNet's president, Mike O'Brien, my experience is exactly what the team is aiming for: "I think the real mark of a success of an online world is how that world grows and evolves, and the extent to which players can take the world and make it their own," he writes. In addition to the blog post, ArenaNet has released a fancy infographic, announced a special anniversary bash, and answered a few of our questions via press conference. Read on!

    Richie Procopio
    08.28.2013
  • Fan-made infographic summarizes Guild Wars 2's first year

    How would feel about a year-one infographic for Guild Wars 2? There's one floating around the intarwebs, only it wasn't made by ArenaNet. Nonetheless, it does a decent job of summarizing GW2's content updates over the past 12 months. Redditor omlech says that "this is from a post I made over at Neogaf for the anniversary of the game. Just thought I'd share it here." "Here" is of course the Reddit link we've posted below. If you'd like to see the graphic without heading to Reddit, you can click past the cut.

    Jef Reahard
    08.17.2013
  • Guild Wars 2 throws anniversary bash at PAX

    ArenaNet is throwing its own mini-convention during PAX this month. The studio's rented out the Madison Ballroom in downtown Seattle's Renaissance Hotel to throw a grand anniversary bash for Guild Wars 2. The event takes place on Saturday, August 31st in the afternoon and all of the evening. The anniversary bash kicks off with an address by President Mike O'Brien, followed by a sneak peek play session of exclusive new content, a panel on the living world of the game, a PvP invitational tournament, and a fun party. It is first-come, first-served and the event has limited capacity. Can't come? Don't worry: ArenaNet will be livestreaming the event of anyone who would like to attend virtually. [Thanks to Paul for the tip!]

    Justin Olivetti
    08.17.2013
  • Release page for Guild Wars 2's upcoming patch vandalized by marauding villain

    If there were any hope remaining that Jennah's state of the nation address will go off without a hitch, it's been utterly dashed. Guild Wars 2 players should probably plan to put their destroyer farming on pause when August 20th rolls around because the enigmatic Scarlet definitely has some unpleasant plans for Divinity's Reach. The bold foe has vandalized ArenaNet's official release page for the upcoming GW2 content patch, The Queen's Speech -- and she seems to have a love of bright colors, a talent for abstract painting, and a frightening level of hatred for Queen Jennah. As if that weren't foreboding enough, fansites like Guild Wars 2 Guru and our own Richie Procopio also received a pocketwatch accompanied by an ominous poem, the contents of which are tucked behind the break.

    Anatoli Ingram
    08.14.2013
  • Flameseeker Chronicles: Guild Wars 2 election postmortem

    We were young. We were trusting. We didn't understand the power we wielded. When the voting booths closed and the last ballots were cast, a dark portal yawned wide in Lion's Arch, unleashing the terrible titan version of candidate Ellen Kiel upon the unsuspecting Guild Wars 2 playerbase. ArenaNet didn't see fit to warn us of the true consequences of the Cutthroat Politics update, but at least we can take some comfort in the fact that Evon Gnashblade didn't win the election. He's got claws. And really pointy teeth. Fortunately, the citizens of Tyria have been distracted from their inevitable doom by the current Queen's Jubilee patch, which is showering us with loot in the manner of a quenching summer rain. I'm the kind of person who will happily farm for multiple hours if given the opportunity, but I'm going to try to drag my hollow eyes from the slaughter long enough to talk about how the previous living story chapter was a great experiment in evolving the world of GW2 -- and how it didn't quite hit the mark.

    Anatoli Ingram
    08.13.2013
  • Lend your ears to Guild Wars 2's Queen's Speech update

    Have you been aching for clues as to what ArenaNet has in store for the first anniversary of Guild Wars 2? We've received word that Queen Jennah is preparing to deliver her state of the nation address to the citizens of Kryta, but ArenaNet isn't ready to spoil what might happen next. The answer to whether Tyrians should await further developments with anticipation or dread may literally be up in the air. Players, on the other hand, have plenty to look forward to: As characters created at launch reach their first birthdays, they'll receive a gift in the form of a miniature Queen Jennah, a 24-hour birthday booster item, and an experience scroll. Completion of the event meta-achievement will award an infinite watchknight tonic that will allow you to turn into one of Jennah's spooky clockwork gynoids whenever your heart desires. Other features include a new trebuchet mastery trait line and Healing Oasis skill in World vs. World, as well as an increase to the rate of world experience gain. From August 23rd, the Black Lion Trading Company will run a 10-day sale during which limited weapon skins and items from the past year will be available for purchase. The Queen's Speech update goes live on August 20th, and GW2 will mark its one-year anniversary on August 28th.

    Anatoli Ingram
    08.13.2013
  • Guild Wars 2's Johanson hints at the game's anniversary plans

    Have you gotten Guild Wars 2 a present yet? It's celebrating its first birthday in just under three weeks, so it'd be rude if you didn't get it anything. Even if you're not getting the game a present, director Colin Johanson has dropped some hints about the presents that characters and players will be getting from the game, including a promise that characters will receive annual gifts as seen in Guild Wars. Johanson is adamant that the update on the anniversary will change the world forever and will bring together all of the stories that have been in motion over the past year. He goes on to explain that the changes will help give players a hint as to where the game is heading in the future. Exactly what the changes will be and how well several disconnected stories will tie together remains to be seen, but fans have to wait until August 28th to see what goes down on the one-year mark.

    Eliot Lefebvre
    08.09.2013
  • NASA to broadcast Curiosity's 1st anniversary celebration on August 6th 10:45 ET

    It's hard to believe August 5th marks Curiosity's first year on Mars -- it seems like only yesterday that we were on tenterhooks during the rover's precarious landing on the red planet. Within that time, it hasn't only fulfilled its initial mission of finding evidence of extraterrestrial water, but it has also discovered traces of carbon-based materials and captured an astounding number of Mars close-ups. To celebrate everything Curiosity's done thus far, NASA JPL will broadcast its first anniversary event via Ustream on August 6th, 10:45AM EDT. The program kicks off with a series of pre-recorded interviews with the mission's team, but a live stream with NASA officials and the crew aboard the ISS will follow. Folks itching to pick their brains can ask them questions in advance via Curiosity's Twitter or Google+ accounts, or during the event by using the #askNASA hashtag. Even if you're not a fan of the rover, you might still want to tune in -- NASA will also be chatting about its preparations for the first human mission to Mars and to an asteroid.

    Mariella Moon
    08.06.2013
  • Massively's Guild Wars 2 Queen's Jubilee patch preview

    It's party time again in Guild Wars 2! The young ruler of Kryta, Queen Jennah, is pulling out the stops to celebrate human resilience and ingenuity at the ten year anniversary of her reign. All of Kryta's allies are invited -- yes, even you. Yes, even after that unfortunate incident with the cake. This is a time of healing. All is forgiven. ArenaNet recently invited Massively to take a peek at what it has in store for the latest living story release, Queen's Jubilee. While the developers were careful not to spoil any plot details, we did get a preview of some of the new content, features and quality of life improvements GW2 players have to look forward to. Jump past the break to check it out!

    Anatoli Ingram
    08.05.2013
  • Wargaming grabs Total Annihilation and Master of Orion IPs

    Wargaming has ambitious plans for the company's 15th anniversary this year, starting with the acquisition of two well-known IPs: Total Annihilation and Master of Orion. Master of Orion is an acclaimed 4X sci-fi strategy series that began in 1993, while Total Annihilation was a popular RTS from 1997. CEO Victor Kislyi teased the possibilities that these IP pickups represent: "Total Annihilation and Master of Orion are strategy game classics. Although it's too soon to disclose any details, we are more than willing to give a new lease of life to these games most of us grew up playing. It's exactly where our major focus will be." Beyond that, Wargamming announced that it has opened a new office in Austin, Texas to help smooth the flow of communication and production processes between its teams and studios. The team also announced the inclusion of British planes in World of Warplanes, which you can see in the reveal video after the jump. [Source: Wargaming press release]

    Justin Olivetti
    08.02.2013
  • Wargaming.net celebrates 15 years with World of Tanks XP boosts and sales

    Wargaming.net has been around for 15 years, and the World of Tanks creator is marking this milestone anniversary by throwing a slew of offers at tank captains across the globe. From August 2nd to August 5th, players will receive a 15% credit discount on Tier X vehicles, triple crew experience for every fight, and discounts on premium ammo, crew training, garage slots, barracks, and camo skins. Special anniversary tank and gold bundles will also be available over the three-day period. August also brings an anniversary garage theme to all players, one free tank in the form of the Soviet LTP tier II light tank, and new repeatable missions.

    Mike Foster
    07.31.2013
  • EVE Online shows off Second Decade Collector's Edition

    EVE Online's 10th anniversary is a big deal to CCP, which is why the studio is coming out with a special collector's edition of the game. In a new video the team reminisces about the origins and growth of EVE Online (spoiler: beer has something to do with it), after which the devs reveal the contents of the new edition. The CE is full of physical items, including a model of one of EVE's ships, a copy of the board game that helped to fund EVE, a book of the history of EVE, and a music recording of a symphony orchestra playing EVE's score. There are also plenty of digital items packed in for both EVE Online and DUST 514, which you can see in the picture above. Check out the anniversary video after the jump!

    Justin Olivetti
    07.18.2013
  • Chaos Theory: Been there, done that, got the guardian event t-shirt in The Secret World

    The hardest part about writing about The Secret World's anniversary Guardians of Gaia event was stopping long enough to write! No, seriously, it was completely addicting; you kept thinking, "Oh, just one more guardian," and soon the entire day and half of the night was gone. And then the weekend. I should know because I hardly left the game this past week! (But let's keep that between us, shall we?) What could be so compelling that it kept me logged in for more hours than I'm willing to admit even to comrades at a gaming site? It all started innocently enough: I simply came to the aid of someone trying for a guardian pet reward. Quite the critter aficionado myself, I was more than happy to help, Sounds harmless enough, right? Wrong! That was only the beginning. Little did I know what I was truly in for as the event turned out to be a veritable smörgåsbord of AP, SP, and loot as well as a shining example of community cooperation. And I got a t-shirt! Unfortunately, it couldn't all be sunshine and kittens... I mean gloom and golems (this is TSW after all!). Something invariably has to go wrong, or it wouldn't be a true MMO, right? There was a definite black cloud that hung over the otherwise festive occasion. And I hope it is one that Funcom will address and dispel for any future events.%Gallery-193850%

    MJ Guthrie
    07.15.2013
  • BioWare talks KOTOR tenth anniversary, influence on SWTOR

    If you haven't felt old yet this week, here's your punch in the gut: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, BioWare's beloved RPG, turns 10 today. The studio is celebrating KOTOR's birthday in a number of small ways, one of which being a loving blog post from studio creative director James Ohlen that talks about how KOTOR influenced the development of Star Wars: The Old Republic. According to Ohlen, BioWare put a premium on bringing several core components of KOTOR into SWTOR. He mentions epic narratives set in the Old Republic era, cinematic storytelling, being a Jedi, owning a starship, traveling to different worlds, an internal conflict between good and evil, and hanging out with companion characters that actually matter. Here's a clip from the post: All of these were key elements that we knew we wanted included from the very start of development. The good news is that all of these elements are featured prominently in SWTOR. These features also make SWTOR unique amongst MMORPGs, and helped forge what has become one of the strongest game communities in the history of online RPGs. Players of SWTOR can join in the celebration of KOTOR's birthday by purchasing the Revan's Heir title from the Cartel Market for 10 Cartel Coins. The title will be available only until 3 a.m. EDT, July 16th. So, tonight. Additionally, you can read through some of the memories offered by people who worked on KOTOR and score yourself a handful of wallpapers on this official BioWare post.

    Mike Foster
    07.15.2013
  • Nintendo's Famicom turns 30: a look back at the console that saved gaming

    Without Nintendo's Famicom there would be no NES. And without the NES, chances are, the video game industry as we know it would never have existed. It's hard to appreciate history while you're living it, but thirty years ago today on July 15, 1983, Nintendo's Japan-only Family Computer debuted and set off a domino effect that would make video games a global, billion-dollar industry and rank Nintendo as synonymous with gaming itself. Rather than look back with the rosy tint we have for the NES' early days, Ars Technica's gone the informed route to celebrate the system's anniversary. From a condensed account of the console's origins (i.e., failed Atari distribution deal, revised prototypes, soft US launch in 1985) to a walkthrough of the silicon circuitry and hardware add-ons (like the Famicom Disk System and Modem) that only saw the light of day in Japan, the retrospective covers all the bases of gaming's golden era. There's a whole lot more Nintendo trivia packed into the retrospective (did you know the original Famicom's controllers had inbuilt mics?), so be sure to check it out and pour one out for that famous grey box. Lead Image: iFixit

    Joseph Volpe
    07.15.2013
  • App Store 5th anniversary: Veteran developers talk about the App Store then and now

    As I was browsing through the lists of apps that TUAW team members bought in the opening days of the App Store, I was amazed at how many of these first-generation apps are still under active development. Yes, some apps have been shuttered, and some developers have departed the App Store, but a surprising number of indie devs are still going strong five years later. We reached out to a few of these veteran coders and asked them how the App Store has changed in the past five years. John Haney from Apps from Outer Space, Flashlight. app I rode the initial wave of excitement when just putting an app on the App Store was enough for everyone to see it. When the App Store launched, making apps was a hobby for me. In the five years since, mobile app development has become my career and I am an independent developer and contractor. Apple providing the App Store has literally changed the course my life and I'm ecstatic to celebrate this milestone. Glenda Adams from Maverick Software, More Cowbell! app I remember when the App Store first launched, there was so much uncertainty and excitement. How many apps would people buy, what could you charge for an app, how would it all work? At first you couldn't get daily download counts from Apple, so you had no idea until the end of the month how well your app did. But it was so much fun, a completely undeveloped country to explore. I was a Mac game programmer for years, but had moved into management and stopped programming. The iPhone and the App Store brought me back when I decided to write a couple [of] games for the store launch, in my spare time away from my day job. More Cowbell started purely as a joke -- we were at a summer picnic at the company I worked at, Aspyr Media, and I was talking with my engineers, playing with our iPhones. The idea of a cowbell app came from somewhere, and it was so funny I went home and wrote it that afternoon. It was just so simple, and stupidly funny. Perfect for the App Store in those early days. I put it in the store on a lark, and was shocked how it went viral. It had 200,000 downloads the first month (all free, but I didn't care). Then it was mentioned in Wired, and on CNN, and for the crowning achievement, became a question on Jeopardy. After the success of More Cowbell, I continued making apps, focusing on kids apps, and had my first money-making hit, More Toast. The App Store was still pretty wide open, and not overrun with knock-offs and bad apps just out to make a buck. I could come up with a cute or fun idea, write it in a few weeks and let it loose in the wild to see how people liked it. This eventually led to our biggest hit, Cupcakes!, a toy baking/decorating app that really started the whole kids food apps trend. It peaked at the #2 app in the world one weekend, and after I ended up making more money from doing apps at home than my day job, I left to just design & write apps on my own. The last couple years have seen a radical change in the store. There are just so many apps, and so many knock-offs of every app you can imagine. It's virtually impossible to get traction, unless you just luck out (or get featured by Apple). And the shift to freemium and aggressive monetization has really hurt small developers. Unless you are just ruthless in badgering the customer to buy stuff, charging for consumable coins/points/berries, it's difficult to stay ahead of the game. But we keep at it, coming up with new ideas and trying new types of games. James Addyman from JamSoft, Hangman. app Back in 2008 when the App Store was still young, it was so much easier to be noticed on the app store, owing to the relatively small amount of apps. Hangman quickly became a popular app, reaching #1 in the UK top free apps for a brief moment. It has since then tapered off, but continues to be a favourite with families and children. Now in 2013 it is a much different story. The App Store is extremely crowded and there are so many fantastic apps that it is difficult to get noticed. My new app, Whose Tweet is it Anyway, is getting no-where near the same kind of attention as Hangman did. In this climate great user experience and design accounts for so much, on top of the social and conventional advertising required for an app to make it big. The users really care about their favourite apps and it shows. Personally, I think the App Store is one of the best things to happen to the tech world in the last 5 years. It has given me and many other developers jobs doing the things we love most. Indy Khare from Bump Technologies, co-founder and developer of Scribble I've since been working as a mobile lead at Bump Technologies so I've had a chance to be in the thick of things the whole time. Over time, the App Store has loosened a lot of restrictions that would have made our lives a lot easier 5 years ago when we were building zintin and Scribble. Particularly in terms of background modes, APIs allowed and proper age restrictions. With the maturation of the App Store also came the crowds. Building some of the apps we did early on and getting the same type of traction so quickly is a lot harder now. There are definitely advantages to being early and a lot of fun to be had learning about something completely new. I also wrote a blog post not too long ago looking back at the industry in general over the last five years. Ted Slupesky from Plasq, Comic Touch The first day of the App Store was an exciting day and felt like the beginning of a new era. Over the years we've seen that side of our business grow into a very important component of what we do. Dealing with the App Store from the development side isn't always pleasant, especially the random-seeming review process, but it clearly works great for our iPhone and iPad customers. Matthew Crandall from Appy, Inc, Liars Poker "The App Store has gone from being a mystery of rejections and app experiments to a highly desirable, curated marketplace. With a constant, rapid increase in users and developer payout, the App Store has has been settled by companies like Microsoft, Google, and Adobe but has remained a place where small companies and individuals can compete with Goliaths. It continues to be a place of innovation and new product types. It is how we make our dent in the universe. I look forward to the next five years. Jon Zweig from AdColony, developer of Break app by Jirbo I'm not sure if you know about AdColony, but we actually started off as "Jirbo" and were part of the very first launch companies for the App Store, back in July 2008. We had 15 apps of the first 500 apps every launched on the App Store, 14 of which were various casual games, like Break, which you mentioned. The App Store has changed immensely in the past 5 years, mainly with discoverability. Early on as a developer, it was a gold rush, the wild west if you will, as everyone with an iPhone was downloaded everything they could get their fingers on, given the limited number of apps available. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity for those early developers like Jirbo who were fortunate enough to be part of the launch. I'll never forget shaking Steve Jobs hand just off stage at the launch of the App Store at Moscone West in San Francisco, and it glowing smile. Right after that I rushed back to start seeing how many people were downloading Jirbo apps and was astounded! Five years later the landscape is much different. With almost 1 Million apps on the App Store, discoverability is the key question. In 2011 Jirbo pivoted to become AdColony in order to do 2 things : 1) Solve the discoverability problem by running short video clips of apps within other apps to give users the highest quality message about a particular app and 2) Bridge the gap between Television Dollars on Madison Avenue and Los Angeles to the App Ecosystem centered in Silicon Valley. Today, as a result of those early years on the app store starting in July 2008 we are well on our way to achieving that goal.

    Kelly Hodgkins
    07.10.2013
  • App Store gives away popular iOS games and apps to mark its 5th anniversary (update)

    Here's a little treat on a Monday morning. A number of premium iOS apps and games have been discounted to nothing over at the App Store, including the charming and mildly addictive Tiny Wings (and Tiny Wings HD for iPad), Traktor DJ (normally $20), Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP, as well as Infinity Blade II (usually $7). There's no official promotion to explain or list all the discounts, so we're left to guess that this could be a prelude to July 10th, when Apple will mark the fifth anniversary of the App Store. Cupertino has already started sending out promotional material to mark the occasion, listing the usual big statistics to show how far the App Store has come since 2008, so these freebies could well be a part of that. We've linked up a few of them after the break, but the list isn't exhaustive so please add more in the Comments section if you spot any others that merit the storage space. Happy hunting! Update: Apple has officially posted its list of free downloads for the occasion, including 5 games plus 5 utility apps. Beyond than the ones listed above, iOS users can snag Badland, Where's My Water, Barefoot World Atlas, Day One (Journal / Diary), How to Cook Everything, and Over. Click here to check them all out on iTunes.

    Sharif Sakr
    07.08.2013