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Guild Wars Wintersday 2008 Art Contest
Following in the tradition of past holidays, ArenaNet has announced this year's Wintersday 2008 Art Contest for Guild Wars where you can win a special edition Razor Death Adder Mouse, a Radeon graphics card or a variety of signed art prints.The rules are simple enough: craft a piece of seasonal art with a holiday tone and a Guild Wars theme. Any medium is accepted, and you can even incorporate screenshots, renders, concept art or other Guild Wars assets to create your entry. The entries must be received by Monday, January 5, 2009 and the winners will be announced on January 23, 2009. Check out the complete contest details, and be sure to check out previous winners to help spawn ideas for your own creations. Good luck!
The Daily Grind: Has the fantasy genre been addressed?
Warhammer Online is out, Wrath of the Lich King is out and Mines of Moria has also been released into the wild. Each of these games cover a wide range of features and fantasy settings, and World of Warcraft pretty much has the fantasy MMO archetype covered mostly on its own. So until someone figures out "WoW 2.0" -- something that's got all the good parts, but much less of the bad -- should any new fantasy game bother at this point?We think Guild Wars 2 is probably safe because it'll be without a monthly subscription, which is usually a big barrier to entry for a lot of possible players. Beyond that though, have Blizzard, Turbine and Mythic completely monetized the fantasy genre to its fullest potential for the time being or is there room for another title in the next year or two?
ArenaNet's Linsey Murdock speaks out on recent Guild Wars update
The large, now-infamous balance update for Guild Wars two weeks ago is still causing a buzz among players, so Ravious at Kill Ten Rats took this opportunity to interview ArenaNet's Linsey Murdock to discuss the process and effect that these changes have had so far.Murdock explains the importance of this update and some of her favorite or most-anticipated aspects. Of special note is the mention of the Luxon and Kurzick Challenge Mission reward changes, and how she hopes that it will actually get players back into those areas introduced with Guild Wars' first chapter, Factions. Check out the entire interview for a walkthrough of the update process and more from one of ArenaNet's most important Live Team game designers.
Massively week in Review
Joystiq's sister site Massively.com has all the news you'll need about MMOs. Here's the best, brightest, and most interesting stuff from the last week, all in one convenient place for your MMO minute. Massively's exclusive pre-launch Moria interview with Jeffrey SteefelMassively chats with Jeffrey Steefel, Executive Producer for Lord of the Rings Online the night before the release of LotRO's first expansion. Mines of Moria is now live, and from the sounds of things the servers and players are having a great time of it. Massively's ArenaNet interview: The past, present and future of Guild Wars PvP Massively catches up with ArenaNet Game Designer Isaiah "Izzy" Cartwright for a brief interview regarding the past, present and future state of PvP in Guild Wars. Follow along after the cut for the full interview and some exclusive PvP screenshots supplied to us by ArenaNet. Massively checks in on The Agency with Lead Designer Hal MiltonMassively talks over the current state of The Agency's development with the animated and always-interesting lead designer Hal Milton. Hal shares with us a bit of insight into what they're currently working on, give us a few fun facts to chew on, and makes us actually look forward to next year's summer con season.
Buy one Guild Wars, get one half off!
If you're in the market for a great MMO deal this holiday season, ArenaNet has just announced their 2008 holiday promotion for Guild Wars. From now until January 5, 2009, when you purchase the Guild Wars Game of the Year Edition, Factions or Nightfall from PlayNC.com or the Guild Wars in-game store, you will get a second campaign for 50% off.This may just be the promotion you've needed to complete your Guild Wars trilogy, with the added bonus of unlocking the M.O.X. hero on your account. What more could you want? For more information and complete rules, check out the FAQ at the main site.
Massively's ArenaNet interview: The past, present and future of Guild Wars PvP
Since the game's launch in April of 2005, ArenaNet's Guild Wars has set the bar a bit higher for future MMOs in relation to gameplay, their unique business model and skill balance. Their constant attention to detail when balancing literally hundreds of game skills between PvP and PvE has been an ongoing progression for everyone on the ArenaNet team. Often seen by hardcore players as the name behind this constant balance is Isaiah "Izzy" Cartwright, Game Designer at ArenaNet. We were able to catch up with Cartwright for a brief interview regarding the past, present and future state of PvP in Guild Wars. Follow along after the cut for the full interview and some exclusive PvP screenshots supplied to us by ArenaNet.
The Digital Continuum: Fantasy's upcoming vacation
Is the MMO fantasy genre finally ready to relax and take its long overdue vacation? It does seem to be the case, as nearly all of the highly anticipated titles in the coming years are exceptionally not high fantasy or even really general fantasy. So while the sun is setting on the age of fantasy, a new dawn appears to be rising elsewhere. With it comes a tidal wave of new genres into the industry, some new and others a bit more familiar. Don't believe or agree with me? Keep reading and maybe you'll change your mind.
Guild Wars update revamps achievement titles
Before there was the Lorebook in Lord of the Rings Online, there were titles in Guild Wars. Before there was the Tome of Knowledge in Warhammer Online, there were titles in Guild Wars. Before there were Achievements in World of Warcraft, there were titles in Guild Wars. This title system has been in place for a few years now, and has been steadily growing to incorporate achievement recognition for many of the game's favorite activities. In yesterday's game update though, the entire title system got a revamp.One of the biggest problems many players saw with some of the more difficult titles is it felt like pure grind. To remedy that, ArenaNet has adjusted the difficulty of a few higher-end titles, and changed the way titles affected things like Favor of the Gods, Vanquishing bonuses, etc. Check out the complete patch notes at the developer wiki page for more information.
MMO storyline writing: ArenaNet style
In a recent interview with Ten Ton Hammer, ArenaNet's Bobby Stein explains a great deal about the process of creating such an intriguing storyline as we have in Guild Wars. The company's Writing Team Lead speaks candidly about how they were able to concentrate the plot into the most efficient and interesting quest lines, walking that fine line between a boring wall of text and "nothing more than quest dispensers."Speaking briefly on the upcoming Guild Wars 2, Stein adds, "We were able to keep the coolest things from the world while letting the rest remain in the annals of history. Despite all that has changed, Tyria is very much in need of heroes. A lot can change in a few hundred years. New races have risen to prominence. New threats have surfaced. You'll see threads of current Guild Wars history, along with some new stories." Even as there's no new information on Guild Wars 2 here, it's still a compelling article for those interested in learning more about the storyline writing process from one of the best in the business.
Comparing GW's Guild Lord to WAR's Keep Lord
There's no denying the similarities between the Guild Lord in Guild Wars and the Keep Lord in Warhammer Online. They're fundamentally the same, whether you're involved in a Guild vs. Guild battle or a Keep assault, when you kill the Guild/Keep Lord, it's all over. In a recent article at Kill Ten Rats, the basic comparison is brought to the next level with an actual explanation of each category of comparisons, from Best Style to Best Loot System to Best Glory for the Winner.So if this aspect of either or both games has ever intrigued you, check out this article for some interesting analysis. Then next time you head out for that main assault on the Keep/Guild Hall, you'll be that much more prepared!
The creative ingenuity of Guild Wars fans
We would surely hate to be the judges at ArenaNet during a recent Halloween contest. Why? Because the entries are all so amazing! In this fourth annual Halloween contest that we first mentioned last month, Guild Wars players and fans submitted their most creative concepts and designs that somehow related the Guild Wars universe with Halloween.Ten winners were ultimately chosen, with one grand prize (shown above). There were also ten honorable mentions and twenty finalists in total. It's contests like this that truly bring out the amazing creativity in gamers, not just for Guild Wars, but across all games and genres. It's good to see when game studios promote and reward such creativity.
Massively.com giveaway: Guild Wars Arena Champion prize packs
Most of us here at Massively can't get enough of Arena.net's Guild Wars. It's gorgeous looking, well-designed, tons of fun to play ... and very, very free to play. So we're thrilled to be able to offer five lucky winners prize packs full of Guild Wars goodness! Each of the 5 packs contains: 1 Guild Wars boxed copy (retail $29.99), 1 Guild Wars 'Shield Bash' pin, 1 Guild Wars T-shirt, and 1 'The Art of Guild Wars' hardcover book (retail $29.99)! Total estimated retail price: $80. We have a couple of different boxes to hand out, just to clarify. We've got one Factions box, one Nightfall box, and three Guild Wars: Game of the Year edition boxes. If you're picked as a winner, one will be randomly assigned to you.To enter, all you have to do is leave a comment on this post! In honor of Arena.net's warped sense of humor, we want you to tell us what your favorite movie quote of all time is! This blogger tends to like the short-and-pithy "Dodge This" from the Matrix, but yours can be longer if you'd like. Just keep it clean! You'll need to comment before 7:00 AM EST Wednesday, November 5th. You can only enter once per person, and after the contest closes we'll ship out these fantastic prizes to 5 randomly-selected winners. Give us at least a week to ship out this massive pile of swag. To win you must be age 18 or up and a resident of the US or Canada (excluding Quebec). For full eligibility details, we suggest you read our official rules. Good luck!
Guild Wars Halloween event returns
Celebrating what is now the fourth annual Guild Wars Halloween event, ArenaNet has just announced the return of the Mad King and his cheesy sense of humor. Guild Wars players can rejoice in the fact that this event will bring with it the best features of the previous years, including the popular Costume Brawl which was first introduced during last year's event.While decorations for the event will begin on October 23rd in Lion's Arch and Kamadan, the event officially begins on October 24th and runs through November 2nd. There will be tricks and treats available as rewards for each event, and the Mad King himself will make his appearance every three hours on October 31st to tell jokes, play some Mad King Says and literally slay the audience. Check out the announcement on the Guild Wars main site for more information.
Guild Wars PAX Panel video released
If you missed this year's Penny Arcade Expo, or you simply didn't get a chance to attend the packed ArenaNet panel entitled "Three Years of Guild Wars", now you can watch the video of the entire discussion from the comfort of your own computer chair.You can download the full high quality, 51-minute video from the Guild Wars website, or watch it in six parts on the official ArenaNet Youtube channel. Either way, you'll get to see a fantastic Q&A session with ArenaNet's James Phinney (Lead Game Designer), Ree Soesbee (Game Designer), Jeff Grubb (Game Designer), Chris Lye (Director of Marketing), Katy Hargrove (Artist), and Katy Perry (Artist). This discussion panel includes the information on the series of Guild Wars books to be released before Guild Wars 2, as first reported by Massively during PAX08. Check out the entire video for some incredible information on the history of the game from the developers themselves.
Guild Wars Halloween art contest announced
It's that time once again for players and fans of ArenaNet's Guild Wars to break out the creativity for the Guild Wars Halloween Art Contest 2008. Last year's contest conjured some amazing images of costumes, sculptures, paintings and more from the dedicated GW community. This year, the concept is the same: Dream up your own way to bring a Halloween twist to Guild Wars.The prizes this year include a Guild Wars-themed Razer Death Adder Mouse, a VisionTek Radeon HD3650 video card, signed copies of the Nightfall Collector's Edition, GW Series 2 skill pins, skill and character slot unlock keys and much more! Get your entry in by 12:00 Noon PST on Monday, October 27th, 2008. From there, the winners will be announced on or before November 3rd, 2008 and will be posted on the Guild Wars main site. Check out the complete rules for more details. Good luck!
David Reid sets the record straight on NC West: Part 2
Massively: Great. So it's actually more towards NC West as sort of a general umbrella under which these specific studios can have their own names, and really carve out their own places within the company? David Reid: Absolutely. Think about it this way: the reorganization and the establishment of NC West is more of an acknowledgement that we as a company can be doing better on the publishing side, in terms of taking these great products that these veteran leadership studios have been able to crank out, and turn them into much bigger phenomena. Right? I mean, we've had great success with City of Heroes, we've had great success with Guild Wars, but we think it can be bigger. What we're not doing is changing the studio organization, other than the studios all now report in to Jeff Strain, who has moved on from the day to day management of ArenaNet – Michael O'Brien is now the studio head there, and is leading the Guild Wars 2 team and other projects there – but Jeff serves as a manager across the studio organization. "... we've had great success with City of Heroes, we've had great success with Guild Wars, but we think it can be bigger." And in parallel, what I get to do for Jeff and those studios is make sure that we do the best we can to deliver triple-A world class launches across our Western territories, and make sure that the marketing, the sales, the customer support – all the elements that great developers look to great publishers to do – are being done here. There's going to be some common platforms and things on the technology side, and a common team that helps serve the business, but nothing really changes on the product development side. Massively: Okay. So you're saying nothing much is going to change on the product development side, but to that end it seems like as part of the NC West conglomeration, there are some folks moving around. There's a little more... we guess you could say refinement in what people are doing in a couple of these different studios. Could you talk generally about what we're seeing, as far as people moving on to new positions, people moving on from Austin to Seattle, those sorts of things? David Reid: I should say one thing: that the decision about moving out NC West in the way we're doing it is, while there's no real change happening at the studio level, there is this ratification of 'NCsoft is going to be in the triple-A MMO space day in and day out', right? We've done some interesting things and had some success with smaller titles, things like Dungeon Runners and Exteel are doing well for us, but the company by and large is the company that Lineage built, and this reorganization is a ratification of getting back to that business and going all-in on the Lineages, Guild Wars, Aions, City of Heroes, Tabula Rasas, Blade and Souls, those sorts of games are what NCsoft is going to be doing day in, day out here in the West. Now, there's a specific question you asked there about how does this impact certain people. We are planning to – we're in the process of now porting the internal people that we would like to relocate to Seattle, and have offered a healthy number of folks a relocation up to Seattle to be part of what is principally a publishing headquarters. And so that's where the bulk of the North American and global leadership for marketing, for sales, for PR, aspects like that, we're thinking will be headquartered in Seattle. Seattle for us was the logical place to go because of the relationship with Seoul, and Seattle just happens to be the place where you get the best number of non-stop flights to Seoul and to our West Coast studios, and to our UK office, out of Seattle versus any other city on the West Coast. And so we are also relocating what is now our Eastern games studio, the folks that are our North American and European producer team, for bringing games like Aion and Lineage and Blade and Soul into the Western market. Those folks are moving to Seattle, as well as the publishing headquarters. Continue to Part 3
NCsoft 'very encouraged' by Guild Wars 2
Massively recently got to talk to David Reid, the newly appointed President of Publishing for NC West, about several key NCsoft matters. We took the opportunity to ask David about ArenaNet and Guild Wars, and in particular, what was happening with Guild Wars 2. Massively: Something we know the Guild Wars players are very interested in, is with Jeff Strain now moving into his new position within the company, what does that say for ArenaNet and Guild Wars 2, which is obviously a product that ArenaNet's been working on for some time? Guild Wars players are... well, they're dying for you to let them know what's going on with that game. Is this a good sign or a bad sign for the company, and what should this say to Guild Wars players who are looking forward to the sequel with more than bated breath? David Reid: First thing: I'd be remiss if I didn't acknowledge that we, too, have an enormous amount of enthusiasm for Guild Wars 2! And we're very encouraged by what we're seeing.
The return of Evil in Guild Wars
When a competitive MMO has been around as long as Guild Wars has, there tends to be certain legacies that have evolved over time. A perfect example of this is the guild EvIL, which had dominated the GW PvP tournament scene during the game's infancy. Over the years though, the Korean guild had broken up due to life issues and players simply moving on from the game. However, after taking a few years off, a few of the founding members are back with a vengeance to form a new guild called The Return. Their goal is to return to the top of the tournament ladder and dominate as they once had. The team is participating in 2-3 daily tournaments and are spending close to seven hours per day gearing up for future tournaments. Recently, they practiced 16 hours straight just to qualify for a monthly tournament, then played another seven during the event itself. This type of dedication from a group of players who were in on the earliest days of the Guild Wars beta just goes to show that the game's competitive allure is still going strong after all these years.
"Disgruntled ArenaNet employee" blogger finally admits it was a hoax
If you're a long time fan of Guild Wars, or you're just finely-tuned into the realm of MMO news as any good Massively reader should be, you may remember some controversy that erupted last year regarding a blog that claimed to be written by a disgruntled former employee of ArenaNet. This blog supposedly outed ArenaNet for working with gold farmers in some elaborate scheme to make the company more money, undercut the dedicated player-base and massacre hundreds of thousands of small fluffy bunnies. Okay, we may have exaggerated a bit on that last one.Needless to say, the interwebs were quite worked up over this, and ArenaNet came under fire several times for it. Well, it turns out that the creator of that blog finally admitted that it was all a cruel joke. They apologized (er, kinda) for the trauma they caused the community, and blamed it all on the fact that they were "bored". You may also notice that this "explanation" was created way back in July, but this just goes to show how thoroughly this person's scheme fizzled into obscurity.[Via Aspendawn]
Guild Wars update adds new Zaishen reward and more
Yesterday's skill balance and update for Guild Wars brought with it some large changes for arguably overpowered skills, bug fixes and the addition of the newest Zaishen Reward tonic for September. Despite the creepy appearance of that new Macabre Tonic creature, the main topic on everyone's mind is the change to the Unyielding Aura Elite skill.This skill had previously been the cornerstone for what's known as Ghost Running, where players could take advantage of what could best be described as an exploit. This also worked for many popular farming runs as well. With this new patch, Unyielding Aura now only works "within spell casting range", eliminating the way characters could rez from across the map. Of course many players don't like this fix, but as any veteran Guild Wars player knows, it doesn't take ArenaNet long to remedy unbalanced skills.
