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Tag: arenanet

  • Super Adventure Box Comes To Guild Wars 2 [April Fools’]

    Some companies and developer like to create fake products on April Fools’ Day, but a few adventurous types make their pranks a reality. Guild Wars 2 developers ArenaNet took this road less traveled and created an entirely new area within the popular MMO.

    ArenaNet announced today that Super Adventure Box, an 8-bit homage to the games of yesteryear, is a new area that will be available to Guild Wars 2 players for the entirety of April.

    I usually dread April Fools’ Day, but ArenaNet has made my day with this little stunt. The fact that it’s a real area within the game makes it even better. I stopped playing Guild Wars 2 months ago, but I might just have to jump back in for this.

    [h/t: Kotaku]

  • Guild Wars 2 Hosts The Lost Shores Event This Weekend

    Many gamers are looking forward to this weekend as the Wii U launches on Sunday. Before that happens, however, MMO gamers will want to check out the massive event that ArenaNet is hosting this weekend on Guild Wars 2.

    Starting today and lasting until this Sunday, a massive world event will emerge in the land of Tyria. Guild Wars 2 players will be tasked with uncovering the mystery of The Lost Shores over the weekend, and discover all the new content that it has to offer.

    Unlike a normal expansion, The Lost Shores will only be available this weekend. It sounds like ArenaNet won’t be brining it back either so Guild Wars 2 players had better get on it before it’s gone for good. Of course, the game will be bringing these content updates throughout the game’s life to those who yearn for more content after hitting the level cap and maxing out every world area.

  • Guild Wars 2 Final Beta Weekend Event Will Feature Sylvari & Asura

    As someone who has been playing Guild Wars since the initial alpha testing event Arenanet (A-Net) conducted over 7 years ago, I’ve been hooked to the world of Tyria, Cantha, and Elona (the three main continents of the Guild Wars-verse). Guild Wars 2 looks to be an even greater game than the original, if the first two beta weekends I’ve taken part in are any indication. Plus, there’s an actual release date. The excitement level is sitting at around 10 out of 10 at this point.

    Along with the announcement of the release date, Arenanet let it be known that the final beta weekend event would take place on July 20-22. Today, A-Net has made yet another announcement regarding BWE3, aptly named for being the third event, stating the two previously unplayable races, the sylvari and asura, will be added to the weekend. So if you’ve been looking forward to trying either of these races, you’ll be able to adventure through their starting areas, up to level 20.

    Asura Rata Sum

    The asura reside in a technical behemoth of a berg, called Rata Sum. While the sylvari’s home is a mystical area called ‘The Grove’.

    The Grove

    They’re also adding a new conquest based PvP map, which should be a big announcement for those who played the structured PvP portion of the game during the previous two BWE’s.

    Guild Wars 2 will release 08-28-2012; see you in Tyria.

  • Guild Wars 2 Finally Gets A Release Date

    Guild Wars 2 Finally Gets A Release Date

    The guys at Arenanet have been pretty forthcoming about all of the features and details we can expect from Guild Wars 2. Through a series of successful beta weekends and constant developer diaries, players have come to know the ins and outs of Guild Wars 2. There has been one question constantly nagging us though – when will the damn game come out?

    A short video released this morning by Arenanet reveals the answer to that very question. Guild Wars 2 will officially launch on August 28. That leaves us only a little under two months to get ready for the biggest MMO launch this year.

    While EA is currently trying to salvage Star Wars: The Old Republic and launching The Secret World on July 3, Arenanet is coming to the beleaguered MMO players side. The verdict is still out on The Secret World, but TOR has already proven to be just another WoW clone with Star Wars skins. From what players have been saying thanks to the aforementioned beta weekends, Guild Wars 2 is going to change the game on what to expect from MMOs.

    Of course, Guild Wars 2 could just become like all other MMOs and die out within a few years. I don’t really see that happening though as it’s going free out of the gate with only a one-time up-front purchase of $60. The developers at Arenanet will be constantly supplying the game with new features and expansions as the years go on as well ensuring that Guild Wars 2 remains in the minds of many.

    While the game will be launching in August, Arenanet can still take the time to work a few more kinks in the game. They announced that the final beta weekend will take place on July 20 and last through the 22. You can still pre-order the game and get in on the last beta weekend if you’re so inclined.

    If you are so excited about Guild Wars 2 getting a launch date and must talk to somebody about out, there are plenty of folks at our Guild Wars 2 forums who would be happy to oblige. Start up a chat and set up your parties for August 28.

  • Guild Wars 2 Second Weekend Beta Coming June 8

    Guild Wars 2 is probably the most anticipated MMO coming out this year. With that anticipation comes a lot of pressure on the ArenaNet to create the best game they possibly can. That’s why there’s no actual release date beyond sometime in 2012 (contrary to GameStop’s own predictions). To help prepare for this year’s launch, the team has started up hosting beta weekends in hopes to squash any bugs and test their servers.

    The first beta weekend was held back at the end of April and saw hundreds of thousands of players taking part in testing Guild Wars 2. The team is back with another beta weekend that will start on Friday, June 8 at noon PDT and conclude on Sunday, June 10 at 11:59 p.m. PDT. It’s another chance for those who pre-ordered the game to see what’s changed since the last beta event.

    The good news is that players who participated in April’s event will not have to create a new character. Existing player characters will be able to continue from they left off before. Players who were able to reach level 35 or higher during the last beta will be able to take on and explore the Ascalonian Catacombs.

    If you didn’t take part in the last beta event, you may want to consider doing so this time around. Participating in these events directly influence the direction the game will be heading in as ArenaNet starts to enter the final months of development. Some of the feedback they have received thus far has resulted in changes to chat functionality, key bindings, server stability and general performance.

    Unfortunately, the only way to get into the weekend beta is to pre-order the game which takes the kind of commitment that some players may not be up for yet. If you want to try out the beta without pre-ordering the game, ArenaNet will be handing out beta keys through contests and other means.

    If you want to talk with other Guild Wars 2 players about the upcoming beta weekend or just the game in general, check out our Guild Wars 2 forums.

  • Guild Wars 2 Delayed To Next Quarter According To GameStop

    Guild Wars 2 is shaping up to be a game changer in the tired MMO genre. It needs a kick in the pants and Guild Wars 2 looks to be the game to do it. Heck, I hate MMOs and I want to play Guild Wars 2, that’s how awesome it looks. Unfortunately, we may have to wait a bit longer to get our collective hands on the game.

    Joystiq is reporting that during a GameStop conference call today, CFO Robert Lloyd mentioned that Guild Wars 2 had been bumped out of the current quarter. That means that the game is now going to come out sometime after July.

    The game is currently listed, even on GameStop’s Web site as having a release date of June 26. It could be a short delay that goes into the next quarter but doesn’t go past August. That would make the wait more bearable, but we could also be looking at a longer delay.

    Arenanet has been implementing some drastic and pretty revolutionary changes into Guild Wars 2. The recent weekend beta tests have been wildly successful with our John Vinson lavishing praise upon the game’s world:

    “Guild Wars 2 is basically the game that reaches into that part of a person who likes to wander around and get lost in an experience. If you go to an amusement park and say ‘screw these maps’, I’m going to just have fun…then you’ll love Guild Wars 2.”

    As Joystiq points out, you can’t trust any news of a delay until you hear it straight from the horse’s mouth. If Arenanet doesn’t have a talking horse, then you’ll just have to settle for a developer representative. I’m sure they’ll let us know soon if the game has indeed been delayed.

    Regardless, you might want to pre-order that sweet special edition now or forever hold your peace. As a consolation prize, you can go listen to the GameStop conference call yourself if you still don’t believe that the most exciting MMO ever has been delayed.

    To express disappointment over the potential delay or to just talk about everything Guild Wars 2, check out our community at guildwars2forums.com.

  • Guild Wars 2 Changing Up The Microtransaction Model

    Guild Wars was always way ahead of its time by being one of the first MMOs to go free-to-play right out of the gate. The much anticipated sequel is continuing that fine tradition of free-to-play, but it’s also hoping to rewrite the book on microtransactions.

    Mike O’Brien, president of ArenaNet and executive producer on Guild Wars 2, wrote on the new microtransaction model that the game will be utilizing. First off, O’Brien confirmed that the upcoming Guild Wars 2 beta will also be used to test the microtransaction platform they have built.

    O’Brien, and essentially everybody who runs a FTP MMO, will tell you that microtransactions are the lifeblood of a FTP MMO. While using the traditional subscription model is definitely one way to go, games that have gone FTP from subscription have seen their profits jump dramatically due to an increase in microtransactions.

    The first thing O’Brien wants to clarify is that Guild Wars 2 is going to be free and always will remain free. After you initially buy the game, and possibly even that sweet Collector’s Edition, all the content in Guild Wars 2 will be free. He wants players to decide how much they want to invest in the game, instead of telling them what they should buy.

    On that same note, he doesn’t want to give players an unfair advantage with the content they do buy. What players pay for in game should only enhance their personal experience, and never become become a detriment to other players.

    The best thing O’Brien says in the entire post is in regards to his view on DLC and microtransactions:

    But it’s never OK for players to buy a game and not be able to enjoy what they paid for without additional purchases, and it’s never OK for players who spend money to have an unfair advantage over players who spend time.

    Going into the actual economy in the game, there are three types of currency in Guild Wars 2 – gold, karma and gems. Gold is the in-game currency that every player has. Karma is used for unique rewards and can not be traded. Gems are bought with real money and support the microtransaction economy.

    To make things fair, players can trade gold for gems and vice versa. This means that microtransaction items that can be bought with gems can also be bought with gold for players who would rather work within the confines of the game for all of their rewards.

    As O’Brien points out, their system is similar to the economy in EVE Online. The key difference is that the economy will always be in the hands of the player, and not companies that deal in gold trading.

    From a player’s perspective, RMT companies have all the wrong motivations: the more money they make from selling gold, the more they spam ads in the game, run bot networks to farm gold, and hack accounts to loot them for gold. Conversely, under our system, players have all the right motivations. If a player buys gold from another player, he gets the gold he wants, the selling player gets gems she can use for microtransactions, and ArenaNet generates revenue from the sale of gems that we can use to keep supporting and updating the game. Everyone wins.

    We also like the tradability of gems and gold because it makes the rest of the game’s economy more compelling. We’ll have a player-to-player Trading Post in the game—it’s like an auction house but better—which we’ll discuss in an upcoming blog post. Because gems can be traded for gold and vice versa, we don’t need two different trading systems, one for gold and one for gems. In Guild Wars 2, everything on the Trading Post is traded for gold, but of course, somebody who wants to earn gems can just sell items for gold, and then convert the gold to gems.

    O’Brien obviously has his heart in the right place and I’m sure many players will appreciate the focus on P2P trading, but I can’t help but feel the system will be played anyway. I hope ArenaNet is prepared to combat hackers and farmers who want to break the system they have in place.

    What do you think about Guild War 2’s microtransaction model? Let us know in the comments or our Guild Wars 2 forum.

  • Guild Wars 2 Beta Details Revealed – More Events Coming Soon

    For those, like me, who have been actively anticipating the release of Guild Wars 2 and have been hanging onto every detail Arenanet has released, this is the ultimate tease. We now have beta details.

    Guild Wars 2 Dragon

    “Welcome to the Year of the Dragon!”

    That’s the headline for the Arenanet article, announcing the upcoming beta. A-Net has already started closed beta testing, and looks to expand upon it in the upcoming months. In February, select members of the press will be invited to test the game. In March-April, A-Net will “aggressively ramp up the size” of their beta events. They go on to say the game will release this year.

    Mike O’Brien, president of A-Net, said this of the work put into the project, “It’s been an incredible adventure over the past five years, working with our community and our team of dedicated artists, designers, and programmers to realize this vision. This year, the seeds of that work come to fruition. We can’t wait to play the game with you.”

    As someone who’s been playing Guild Wars since the alpha test back in 2004, the release of Guild Wars 2 is definitely on the top of the most wanted in 2012 list.

    Also, Happy Chinese New Year to everyone! 2012 is the year of the dragon, which I think we can all agree is the best.

  • Traditional Gaming Extends To Mobile Apps

    Traditional Gaming Extends To Mobile Apps

    While many have enjoyed gaming on their mobile devices, there has been little effort to extend traditional gaming on a PC or console to the mobile app arena. A game which looks to release next year, Guild Wars 2, is venturing out by allowing mobile app integration into the MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game) gaming experience.

    Rick Ellis is a tech director at Arenanet, who is developing Guild Wars 2. He’s leading a team towards what is being referred to as the ‘Extended Experience‘.

    The Extended Experience announcement came by way of this blog post, where Ellis explains a bit more about how the company plans to utilize mobile apps, "You shouldn’t be wondering what your friends are doing in-game; you should always be connected to them to chat. You should be able to help or otherwise contribute to your guild or the game."

    He continues to go into further detail how gamers will be able to make these connections through mobile apps, "The most prominent features for mobile and web users will probably stem from the ability to stay connected to the game world and, more importantly, your friends and guildies. We’ll be doing as much as we can to remove the communication barrier that exists between in-game players and out-of-game players. How many times have you been away from your computer on raid night and wished you could connect up with your guild, monitor their progress, share your insights, and ultimately share in their victory?"

    It’s interesting to see how Arenanet will be able to establish this connection between out-of-game players, and those who are actually sitting there engaged in the game. It certainly is a revolutionary advancement, as before a game was something you sat down and played. Now, players will be able to be a part of their virtual worlds when they are out and about at work, or running errands.

    A follow up Q&A was released by GuildWars2Forum.com, where Ellis answered a few lingering questions. Most notably concerning the API, and if they would allow outside developers to take advantage of their system and create apps of their own:

    You stated in the Q&A you plan to provide functionality to general web users. To follow up that Q&A, are there plans to open up the API to the community at all? For example, if a guild wanted to make a specially made app or use the API for a special tool on their site. Or are you keeping the development closer to home?

    Initially, development will stay internal to ArenaNet so that we can control the quality and integrity of the apps our players use. A major concern of allowing others to develop apps that are then distributed to our players is security. We would need to make sure that unscrupulous players don’t develop and distribute destructive applications.So to answer your question, we don’t have any specific plans for this right now. It’s something we’ll have to re-evaluate in the future.

    If you’d like to read the full Q&A, you can find it here.

    Another interesting facet of the Guild Wars 2 Extended Experience is this is an avenue for Arenanet to monetize from the game. Traditionally, MMORPGs have had monthly fees which players had to pay in order to access the game. Arenanet bucked this trend with their first Guild Wars release, and will continue to make Guild Wars 2 free-to-play. However, to balance out having no monthly fees the company is providing extra content which players can purchase to enhance the gaming experience. One would assume this would extend to their mobile apps as well.