ArenaNet blogs

The following lists the recent news from the official ArenaNet blogs.

February 14th, 2011

 * Assuring Quality – QA at ArenaNet

Hi, I’m Jerramen “Yamen” O’Donnell, a member of ArenaNet’s Quality Assurance (QA) department. As a longtime Guild Wars player, I was lucky enough to join the company just in time for the big unveiling of the Guild Wars 2 demo at gamescom last year. During my time here, I’ve been really impressed with how ArenaNet incorporates QA as an integrated part of the development process, and I’d like to share with you what we’re doing to make sure Guild Wars 2 is the best game it can possibly be.

January 7th, 2011

 * Fans Support ArenaNet in Year End Awards

As one year ends and another begins, it’s a natural time for gamers to take a look at what they loved/hated in the past year and what they’re looking forward to in the year ahead. In other words, it’s time for end of the year awards! Let’s take a look and see how Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 did this year.

November 24th, 2010

 * Link Round Up: Hearts of the North

Last week we introduced Hearts of the North, the next phase in the ongoing Guild Wars Beyond series. In this all-new content you’ll reunite the legendary heroes Gwen and Keiran Thackeray and you can look fabulous doing it in one of our elegant new wedding costumes! For this week’s Link Roundup, we’ve collected a lot of the recent conversations and coverage about Hearts of the North, so let’s get to it!

October 20th, 2010

 * Pink Day in LA Raises Over 10 Grand for Breast Cancer Research!

Last weekend, the Gaming World Entertainment Network (GWEN), Malibu Barbie, and the good people at Gamers Giving Back hosted Pink Day in LA, a huge in-game event to raise money for breast cancer research. The event was a big hit, raising over $10,000 in one weekend! We talked to Malibu Barbie, one of the tireless coordinators who helped make Pink Day in LA such a success.

October 18th, 2010

 * What Does it All Mean? John Stumme Discusses War in Kryta Survey Results

The results are in! More than 10,000 people responded to our War in Kryta survey, and we’d like to share not only the results with you – but also how the information we received is going to impact things moving forward, when we take Guild Wars Beyond into the realm of Cantha.

But first, allow me to take a moment to say a big thanks to everyone that took the time to respond. We hope you’ll join us again for more surveys in the future. Now on to the details!

October 5th, 2010

 * Oppressor’s Weapons—Now in the Hall of Monuments!

The voices of over ten thousand combatants from the War in Kryta have spoken, and the Live Team has heard them. Many people took the time to fill out our survey, sharing with us their experiences, joys, and frustrations with the first episode in the Guild Wars Beyond saga.

After reading through the feedback, one point that stood out to us was how much time and effort it took to obtain an Oppressor's weapon—the equivalent of obtaining a Tormented or Destroyer weapon! After discussing it here amongst the team, we decided to commemorate the players’ hard-fought victory over the White Mantle by adding the Oppressor’s weapon set to the Monument to Valor inside the Hall of Monuments. This new set will forever honor those who helped bring peace back to the troubled lands of Kryta.

Thank you to all who have responded to the War in Kryta survey. If you haven’t taken the survey yet, it will be available for another week, so you can still share your feedback with us. We’ll be talking more in the coming weeks about how your feedback affects the next chapter in Guild Wars Beyond, “Crisis in Cantha”—it’s not really named this…at least not yet.

September 29th, 2010

 * Take Our War in Kryta Survey!

Are you a Guild Wars player who’s had your face stomped into the ground by the White Mantle recently? Hang on—stand up and spit the dirt out of your mouth before you answer that. Or maybe you truly are a god walking among mere mortals, and even a Mursaat in genie pants can’t touch you? Whatever the case may be, we want to hear about it!

Now that the War in Kryta has reached its conclusion, we’d like to take a moment of your time to ask you to share your impressions of the journey.

Our War in Kryta survey centers mainly on the difficulty and accessibility of the War in Kryta content. We’ll be using this information as we move forward with Guild Wars Beyond to ensure that we’re delivering the best possible content to you. This is your chance to make sure your opinion gets heard!

If you’re interested in sharing your feedback with us, head over here and take our short survey!

September 17th, 2010

 * Party with ArenaNet at New York City Comic Con

We love New York, so we’re packing our bags and flying out to the New York City Comic Con, which runs from October 8-10 at the Javits Center. We’ve planned some interesting panel discussions at NYCC and a Friday night fan party that will include the East Coast premiere of the Guild Wars 2 demo!

Come party with us on Friday night, October 8, at the NCsoft Meet and Greet! Hang out with ArenaNet and NCsoft devs and get your hands on the Guild Wars 2 demo. Yes, we’ll have a few demo stations at the party, so you’ll definitely want to attend! We’ll have more details about our NYCC party soon, so stay tuned for more information.

On Saturday, October 9 at 1:30PM, lead ArenaNet designers Eric Flannum and Colin Johanson will present a panel discussion, Guild Wars 2: Building a Better MMO, which goes behind the scenes of our game design process. At 5:15PM we’ll be participating in MMORPG.com’s panel discussion, The Future of Online Gaming. Both of these events take place in Panel Room 6, so be sure to pick up a NYCC pass if you’d like to attend.

See you in New York!

July 23rd, 2010

 * Passing the Torch: Designer John Stumme Joins Live Team

Here at ArenaNet, we’re constantly striving to improve the game and the way we do things. Positive change is something we embrace. With that in mind, some big changes are coming to the Live Team, those folks responsible for Guild Wars. Longtime Live Team Lead Linsey Murdock is moving on to a cool new position in the studio, and veteran designer John Stumme will be taking her place right away. We’re excited for both Linsey and John, and we thought we’d give them a chance to say goodbye and hello in their own words: