User:Regina Buenaobra/Journal/Archive Jan-Mar 2009

Preparations - 27 March 2009
We continue to prepare for the April updates: the regular monthly maintenance update, and the content update. Work has been very busy for all of us. Most of us are working extended days, sometimes nights, and even weekends. Much of my increased workload has involved writing for the website. As with many efforts, it is team-based, and the approval process for a piece of written text can take a long time.

I'm sorry that my status has been set to Busy on messenger lately. It's the nature of my workload right now. I need to focus on writing and on trying to hit my deadlines in preparation for the April update. Hopefully things may ease up a little more, but I don't expect them to. Thank you to everyone for being so understanding when I can't reply to your IM immediately (or sometimes not at all, because I am in that Zone of Concentration). =) I really appreciate it.

I've spoken with Linsey about what we can do to address your desire for more information about the April content update. I've made some suggestions to her, and we're going to be discussing these in detail when she's far less busy.

One piece of news that you may or may not find interesting is that Joe, Linsey, and I have moved offices to the other side of the building. The three of us, including a writer who's working on some text production for the Live Team, are now in one room. Linsey, Joe, and I were previously in an extremely cramped room with James Phinney, Isaiah Cartwright, and a bunch of other designers, but eight of us in one room was getting much too... Cozy. :-P

Anyway, that's all for now. Have a great weekend. =)

Champion Point Farming - 17 March 2009
There have been ongoing questions among players about Champion Point farming and whether it's against the rules. We view Champion Point farming as against the provisions in the Universal Tournament Rules, under the section titled "Player/Guild Responsibilities". Organized movements to farm Champion Points are an example of match manipulation because players and guilds are not competing and playing in good faith. If reported to us, we will investigate, and if we find evidence that supports the reports, we will take action, up to and including permanently banning the players and/or guilds involved. A first offense may result in a temporary ban. Further infractions may result in permanent bans for the players and/or guilds involved.

Regarding Info About the April Update - 12 March 2009
There've been questions in the community regarding the April update and when we're going to release information about it. We know you're all curious (and in some cases anxious) for information. Linsey and I talked about being more open about the development process at the beginning of the year. With that in mind, she's been posting on her journal since the start of the year, with updates on her progress. We can't go into a lot of detail, unfortunately, but hopefully it's given you an idea of how much work this has been for the Live Team. As April nears, she's becoming busier and busier, and as you've all probably noticed, she hasn't had as much time to post journal entries. However, she finds some time to post answers to her talk pages now that they've been unlocked again.

Lack of information about the April update does not indicate lack of progress or lack of work. Please be assured that we are all hard at work in preparing for it -- the Live Team, the community team, the marketing team, the web team, the QA team, and the support team. As I have communicated in a few other places, the April content update is separate from the April maintenance update. The maintenance update is the one that generally comes at the beginning of the month, where we change the tonic, there are skill balances, and you get Tournament Reward Points. The content update will arrive separately from this.

The wiki community has probably noticed that our philosophy towards developer interaction with the community has shifted. With the formation of the Live Team, this has become more evident. As you can tell by Linsey's and others' increased participation in the wiki, we (and I) feel that developer interaction with the communtiy is a positive thing. Having said that, not every developer necessarily has the time or inclination for it. Developers who participate in the wiki community do so because they either have some extra time, or they specifically make time outside of work. I know a lot of you get upset when Linsey has to lock down her talk pages, but the reality is that her primary job is Game Designer. Any interaction developers have with players is time that they are taking away from doing their game development work, or extra time they are taking away from their relaxation time at home (if they post outside the office).

What do CMs do?
I'll copy and paste here what I've said before about my own work, since I get questions from time to time what community managers do. I realized that the answer is rather buried on the wiki, so I'm pasting it here (with some edits) so it's more visible to those who are curious.

The ArenaNet community team has always been smaller than what it was before I joined. We had three people working community at ArenaNet just before I joined (one part timer), for a total of six globally. In the first months of my work here, we had four community managers on the team, including me. In October, that number was down to three after Julien Crevits moved on to another job. The community team is currently myself and Martin Kerstein. However the ArenaNet community team will expand in the long run. In the short term, we'll have a little more on our plates.

To give you some deeper insight into what it's like for me here... I work about 40 hours a week. I usually go over 40 hours. I try not to be a workaholic, for my general health and sanity. In the videogame industry, community managers often get burnt out, and they can get burnt out in a relatively short span of time compared to other jobs in the industry. There's a joke among us community managers in the games industry that if you're able to stay in this job beyond two years, you're completely insane. I don't think that regularly working more than 8 hours a day is healthy or sustainable in the long run, not if you want to have a healthy life outside work and maintain good family relationships.

I spend about 8 hours a day, 5 days a week working. I spend anywhere between 4 and 12 hours a week in meetings. I receive 100 - 150 emails per week to just one public-facing community email address. There are four community-related public email addresses I manage. I also have a work email address, which I use to communicate with my coworkers -- I receive between 25 and 100 email messages per day. Depending on many factors, the time it takes to parse the information and compose and respond to messages can vary. Some messages need more information before I can reply, and that information either has to be found, or awaits the action of other coworkers. I have made my MSN Messenger address and my Xfire IM address available to players precisely because I cannot spend every single second of my workday in-game, but I still want to be accessible. During specific periods (e.g. in the lead-up to the April update) or events (e.g. Halloweeen, Wintersday), my workload significantly increases.

I summarize player feedback, forum threads, and so on. I am also involved in research activities related to the games industry, community strategies, social media, etc. Community isn't only about fluffy and soft issues, but also about hard numbers and metrics, so there's been research activity on my plate for the past several months. I also consult with other functional departments. For example, I work closely with website content and marketing efforts. I also work closely with the Live Team. I coordinate with Localization and to get our Developer Updates translated. I manage the entire editorial process for the Developer Updates, and this process can take some time. I work very closely with the Live Team to discuss policy decisions. Support consults with me on issues like offensive names. Likewise, I work with support, sometimes escalating issues to them from individual players. On the GW2 side, sometimes designers and artists consult with me to get my opinion from a player/community perspective if they need another viewpoint, or if they specifically need my viewpoint, and I also give them my perspectives based on what I see in the commnity. These are just a few of the things I'm involved in.

I check about half a dozen forums, the wiki, my GW Google Alerts, and my GW-related RSS feeds. On the forums, I reguarly receive Private Messages, which like emails, vary in terms of the time it requires for me to respond. I typically spend between 2 - 3 hours a day reading all the forums and the wiki, though that number can vary depending on what and how much I have on my plate and how high priority those tasks are. Since I don't read and participate in just one forum, it's difficult to maintain what many players feel is an 'acceptable' volume of post count, and it's difficult to avoid criticism that I'm favoring one forum or another because I am actually spread pretty thinly over the various different places I participate in and read. So, like Martin regularly says to the German community: just because I do not post does not mean I do not read.

And those are just things I do when we don't have a big workload. Every single hour of my day is precious. With last month's changes at NCsoft West, and with the fast-approaching April update, this means my workload is significantly higher. Though actually, I have to say that there's rarely ever a day when I don't have a full workload.

Community management differs from game to game. I know that some community managers working at different games that wear even more hats, for example some of them also act as producers or are even design-oriented. Anyway, I hope that gives you a little more of an idea of what I do specifically, and of what community managers do in general. Sorry that was so long, and hopefully that was interesting to a few of you.

Hope you all have fun this weekend, and good luck in getting those Shamrock Ales and Four-Leaf Clovers. I may drop in on MesCon either on my work character or on my play character if I've got some time to spare over the weekend. So if you see me there, feel free to say "Hello". =)

Xunlai Tournament House - March - 05 March 2009
Hey, everyone. We're aware of the problems with this months' Xunlai Tournament House.

We're going to do another build to correct the errors in point distributions. Any extra points you earned, you will keep. We will not be subtracting any reward points.

We're really sorry about the recurring issues with XTH. I know it's annoying when you don't get the correct number of points. We're not happy either when issues pop up and cause so much inconvenience to our players. (I think our QA manager is considering going into one of our sound booths to let out some screams -- maybe we'll have the audio team turn on some recording equipment so we can use it for GW2 :-P).

We're actively exploring ways to improve XTH and streamline the (relatively complicated) backend process. With the small Live Team deep in development for the April update, we're getting squeezed for time. But we want to let you know that we do know there are issues, and we do know that these issues are causing dissatisfaction and irritation, and it is on the To Do list to improve XTH. Once again, we apologize.

Planning - 26 February 2009
You all know that the Live Team is busy designing and programming everything that will go into the April build and the monthly maintenance builds. On my side, I have been working very closely with the web team to prepare for the April build, too. Game content is only part of a big update. We also have to coordinate information pages (for example, the page about M.O.X. that introduced the new Hero to the world), Developer Updates, news posts, FAQs, and other pieces of copy that need to be written to support the game updates. Several people, including myself, are responsible for writing the content that goes on our web site. We've had a series of meetings regarding this web content. These meetings involve scheduling, decisions on what to release when, how long pieces of copy should be, which team members will be writing what, etc.

I've also been working on some policy documentation and collaborating with other departments as well as Martin on those tasks. This sort of thing is not as simple as just going forth and writing what's in your head. Some research and analysis goes into it before you even sit down to write anything. I apologize that I can't really talk about it at this time.

Aside from that, I've also been pretty deeply buried in planning work for GW2. I mentioned in a previous post that I'd been doing research on community strategies. Over the past months, I've been reading a lot of white papers, articles, and research papers from community and social media experts. The goal behind accumulating this knowledge is to help make better strategic decisions.

It's really important for any professional to stay updated on best practices in her industry. For example IT people study for and take certification tests to make sure they have up-to-date knowledge. Any good manager will encourage their employee to develop themselves professionally. We're encouraged to stay informed and knowlegable about our field, while at the same time doing all the heads-down daily work that is probably more familiar and visible to you as players. I keep on top of trends in social media and community management and try to apply and relate this knowledge to a gaming context. This professional development side of my work is probably something you all weren't aware of, so I thought I'd touch on that.

On another note, I'm pleased that many of you enjoy chatting with me on messenger. I once again apologize if I can't immediately respond to your IM. Sometimes I'm AFK or I have a deadline and can't chat. I'm thankful that you feel comfortable coming to me with your questions and concerns, and I'm happy to speak with you even if it's small talk and not about the game.

Community News Page
I'd just like to remind everyone that you can submit event information for inclusion on the Community News page on our official website.

This is the information we need to publish your event:


 * Event name/title
 * Organizing guild, alliance, and/or player
 * Location of the event
 * Date, time, time zone
 * Event description/details (no more than roughly 175 words)
 * Link to your event web page (web page, forum post, wiki page, blog post, etc.)

Things to keep in mind:


 * We need to build time in for localization. Please don't submit your event or news one day before you'd like it published. We need at least one week of lead time before we can publish. More than a week would be ideal.
 * We prefer to publish multiple items at the same time.
 * We generally publish on a Thursday or a Friday, generally once a month, but more if we have more content.
 * If no one submits event information, the Community News page doesn't get updated.

To aid us in spotting your message more quickly and to organize our inboxes, please title your email with the subject: "[Community News] Title of Your Event". A lot of email gets put into the spam folder, and while we do check the spam folder, sometimes the subjects are not recognizable enough for us to take notice. Emails with the subject "Re:" will not get your message noticed.

You can send information about your event to: community @arena.net.

Eventful Week - 19 February 2009
It's been pretty eventful here recently. Last week we learned that many of our collegues in Europe and Austin had to be let go. ArenaNet felt the impact in our the Community, Web, Localization, and QA teams. Other teams throughout NCsoft have felt the ripples from the restructuring as well. In the long run, though, this will mean better information flows, workflows, and better cohesion across different departments. Short term, we're going to try our hardest to minimize any negative impacts.

German fans may have heard that ArenaNet was able to extend an offer to Martin Kerstein to come work here at ArenaNet. Martin posted this news on the German forums earlier today. We're super happy that he accepted. But let's not get ahead of ourselves or raise our hopes too high. Nothing is written in stone, because we still have to get past another hurdle -- the work visa. Yes, it all depends on the United States Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services now. So, please keep your fingers crossed for Martin and hope that the immigration process goes in our favor.

We truly regret that we were not able to offer a position to Peter Verhelst. Unfortunately, we are under budgetary and head count constraints, so we were told that it was not possible to bring Peter over, too. I'm really sad about this, as Peter is a super worker and it has been great working him over these past months.

I want to reassure our non-English speaking players that we are going to make every effort to ensure that you have a voice here at ArenaNet. Our Localization team in Europe was unfortunately affected by the restructuring. I know this message is ironic, because we currently don't have a localization pipeline, and it's not likely that our non-English speaking fans are checking my wiki page anyway, but for what it's worth... I am keeping track of website content that we published after the restructuring, and I will try and get those translated as soon as our localization flows are restored. We're hopeful that Martin can come over, and we will be looking for additional community managers in the future (though I can't give you a time frame on that right now).

I'd like to thank everyone who has messaged Martin, Peter, and I in the forums and on instant messenger with greetings of support for the Guild Wars community team. And of course thank you to all the people who posted supportive comments in the fansite forums and on the wiki. It was very thoughtful of you to think of Martin and Peter and to pass along your support. Sometimes when you think about a company, you don't necessarily think of the people behind the products, so it was pretty heartening that many players don't see us as an anonymous corporate monolith. It's nice to know that many of you think of us as real people with real lives (and feelings), so we really appreciated your greetings.

This morning I had a conference call with Martin to get synched up on our short and long term ideas for community, which I discussed with some of the bigwigs last week. At the end of our conference call, Martin and I concluded that these ideas were full of possibility, and will mean a lot of work. I can't talk about them at this time, though, because I can't make any promises and I don't want to raise expectations in case some of them don't materialize.

The prospect of having Martin work here in the studio is pretty exciting. Even though I'm fully aware that it's not 100% certain he's going to be able to come over here, I can't help but look forward to it. It would just be so rad to be able to work with him without having to do conference calls all the time, and there are a lot of creative, ad-hoc ideas that arise spontaneously when you're surrounded by teammates who you have a great working relationship with and who are genuinely awesome people to be around.

Next week, our Senior Vice President of Global Business & Legal Affairs (long title!), Randy Price, is going to be at the Xfire Debate Club to talk with other panelists about MMOGs business models. The title of that Debate Club is "Free to Play Vs. Pay to Play". I think ArenaNet will have some interesting insights to add to the panel, since Guild Wars kind of straddles the line between the two business models. If you'd like to attend, head on over to Xfire to check it out. Transcripts of the chat will be posted later on over on the Xfire site.

I'm going to wrap this up now. Thanks a bunch for reading this far. I hope everyone has an awesome weekend, and please keep Martin, Peter, and the other affected NCsoft staff in your thoughts. Cheers.

Changes at NCsoft West – 11 February 2009
You've probably all heard the game media’s reports about NCsoft West restructuring, and so you've probably got a lot of questions about how this affects Guild Wars, Guild Wars 2, and community support. The changes at NCsoft West basically mean we at ArenaNet will have more control over our games and game-related services like community, localization, and QA. With these departments located in-house, ArenaNet will be better positioned to provide world-class quality games and service to our players.

In terms of the Guild Wars Community Team, the NCsoft West changes mean all Guild Wars community managers will work right here at the ArenaNet studio. Unfortunately, in the short term this may mean that Guild Wars Community Team will be a little short-staffed. We will try to ensure the impact is minimal. In the long run, having all ArenaNet community managers at the studio will improve the flow of information between community managers and developers, as well as between community managers and players.

Guild Wars 2 development won’t be affected by the changes at NCsoft West, and in the long term it will mean good things for the quality and support we’re able to give Guild Wars 2.

Tournament Ruling - 06 February 2009
In the most recent GvG tournament, Rebel Rising [rawr] and Survival Rate [zero] tied against each other by coming to an agreement and choosing not to fight while the timer counted down. Forcing a draw at that stage of the tournament guaranteed both teams a place in the Top 16. Based on documentation and reviews of the event, we observed both guilds willfully and knowingly conspiring to intentionally draw the match in this way. It was very clear that both guilds broke tournament rules, which state that participants may not engage in any form of ladder manipulation or unsportsmanlike conduct. Both guilds agreed to tie the match, and they did so knowing that they were breaking the rules.

As a result, both guilds will have their cape trims removed. Rebel Rising [rawr] will have their permanent gold cape trim removed for a period of one month. Survival Rate [zero] will not receive their silver cape trim for placing in the Top 16. The guilds’ rankings will remain the same.

We feel that removing status (cape trims) rather than resetting their rankings sends a stronger signal to the guilds involved, while still being lenient in this first offense. Future offenses of this type may be treated in a stricter manner, including temporary or permanent bans for any players involved.

We are working on updating the ATS mechanics to further discourage this type of ladder manipulation in the future. We will also be updating the tournament rules to provide more clarity on this issue.

If you have any comments or feedback about this decision, please contact the Community Team at community @arena.net or through one of the other methods listed on my user page.

Turnier-Entscheidung
Beim letzten GvG-Turnier kam es zu einem Unentschieden zwischen Rebel Rising [rawr] und Survival Rate [zero], nachdem beide Teams vereinbart hatten, während des Countdowns nicht gegeneinander zu kämpfen. In dieser Turnierphase ein Unentschieden zu erzwingen, garantierte beiden Teams einen Platz unter den besten 16. Nach Durchsicht der Aufzeichnungen und einer Überprüfung besagter Veranstaltung sind wir zu dem Schluss gekommen, dass beide Gilden vorsätzlich und wissentlich vereinbart haben, auf diese Weise ein Unentschieden in dem Match zu erzielen. Beide Gilden haben somit eindeutig gegen die Turnierregeln verstoßen, die ausdrücklich verbieten, dass Teilnehmer Ranglistenpositionen manipulieren, die Rangliste missbrauchen oder unsportliches Verhalten an den Tag legen. Beide Gilden vereinbarten im vollen Bewusstsein, dass sie dadurch gegen die Regeln verstießen, ein Unentschieden als Resultat für dieses Match.

Aus diesem Grund werden beiden Gilden die Säume für ihre Umhänge abgenommen. Die Mitglieder von Rebel Rising [rawr] verlieren einen Monat lang den permanenten goldenen Saum für ihre Umhänge. Survival Rate [zero] erhalten keinen silbernen Saum für ihre Platzierung unter den besten 16. An der Platzierung der beiden Gilden ändert sich nichts.

Wir sind der Ansicht, dass die Wegnahme von Status (also die Abnahme des Umhangsaums) für die beteiligten Gilden schwerwiegender als eine Herabsetzung ihrer Platzierung, aber gleichzeitig relativ nachsichtig ist, da es sich hier um ihren ersten Verstoß handelt. Zukünftige Verstöße dieser Art werden eventuell strenger geahndet und können auch zu vorübergehenden oder ständigen Sperren für die beteiligten Spieler führen.

Wir arbeiten an einer Aktualisierung der ATS-Mechanik, um diese Art der Ranglistenmanipulation in Zukunft zu vermeiden. Außerdem werden wir die Turnierregeln aktualisieren, um in dieser Angelegenheit für mehr Klarheit zu sorgen.

Falls ihr Kommentare oder Feedback zu dieser Entscheidung habt, setzt euch bitte unter community @arena.net mit dem Community-Team in Verbindung, oder versucht es mit einer der anderen Möglichkeiten, die auf meiner Seite gelistet sind.

Sanctions par rapport au tournoi GvG
Au cours du dernier tournoi GvG, Rebel Rising [rawr] et Survival Rate [zero] ont décidé d'un commun accord de terminer sur un match nul en évitant le combat jusqu'à l'écoulement du temps imparti. A ce stade du tournoi, un match nul garantissait aux deux équipes une place dans le Top 16. Nous avons passé l'événement en revue et nous avons constaté que les deux guildes ont volontairement et consciemment conspiré pour terminer la rencontre à égalité. De toute évidence, les deux guildes ont enfreint le règlement du tournoi, qui précise que les participants doivent faire preuve de fair-play et ne peuvent pas procéder à de telles manipulations du classement. Les deux guildes se sont mises d'accord pour finir sur un match nul en sachant qu'elles enfreignaient le règlement.

Par conséquent, les broderies de capes des deux guildes ont été confisquées. Les membres de Rebel Rising [rawr] devront se passer de leurs broderies dorées permanentes durant un mois. Survival Rate [zero] ne recevront pas leur broderie argentée pour leur place dans le Top 16. Le classement des deux guildes ne sera pas altéré.

Nous estimons qu'en retirant ce symbole de prestige (les broderies de capes) plutôt qu'en changeant le classement, nous envoyons un message fort, tout en nous montrant cléments envers cette première infraction. A l'avenir, il se peut que nous soyons plus stricts envers ce type de comportement, y compris en excluant du jeu de façon temporaire ou permanente les joueurs impliqués.

Nous travaillons sur une mise à jour des mécanismes des Tournois Automatisés afin de décourager ce genre d'abus à l'avenir. Nous allons aussi amender le règlement du tournoi afin qu'il traite plus clairement de tels cas.

Si vous avez des commentaires ou des suggestions à propos de cette décision, n'hésitez pas à contacter notre équipe à l'adresse community@arena.net ou au moyen de l'une des autres méthodes décrites sur ma page d'utilisateur.

Incumplimiento de las normas del torneo
En el último torneo de clanes, Rebel Rising [rawr] y Survival Rate [zero] decidieron fijar un empate y no lucharon mientras el cronómetro llegaba a cero. El empate garantizaba para ambos un puesto entre los 16 mejores. Según nuestra documentación y análisis de la partida, hemos podido comprobar que los dos clanes conspiraron de forma intencionada para empatar de esta forma. Esto supone claramente un incumplimiento de las normas del torneo, las cuales indican que los participantes no pueden incurrir en ninguna manipulación de la clasificación ni en conductas antideportivas. Los dos clanes acordaron empatar la partida, y lo hicieron sabiendo que estaban incumpliendo las normas.

Como castigo, vamos a quitar el ribete de las capas de los dos clanes. Rebel Rising [rawr] estará sin su ribete de oro permanente durante un mes. Por su parte, Survival Rate [zero] no recibirá el ribete plateado por quedar entre los 16 primeros. La puntuación de los clanes no se verá alterada.

Creemos que eliminar el estado (es decir, los ribetes) en lugar de reiniciar sus puntuaciones supondrá un importante aviso a los dos clanes, al ser ésta su primera ofensa. Si en el futuro se producen incumplimientos de este tipo seremos más estrictos, y podremos incluso sancionar a los jugadores de forma temporal o permanente.

Debido a esto, estamos actualizando la mecánica de los torneos automatizados para evitar este tipo de comportamientos. También vamos a actualizar las normas de los torneos para mayor claridad en este sentido.

Si tienes algún comentario sobre esta decisión, ponte en contacto con el Equipo de la Comunidad escribiendo a community @arena.net o a través de los otros medios indicados en mi página.

Rispetto del Regolamento dei Tornei
Nel torneo GvG più recente, i Rebel Rising [rawr] e i Survival Rate [zero] hanno terminato la partita con un pareggio decidendo di comune accordo di non combattere mentre l'incontro era ancora in corso di svolgimento. Un pareggio in quella fase del torneo ha garantito ad entrambe le squadre un posto tra le prime 16. Con tutta la documentazione alla mano e revisionando la partita, abbiamo potuto appurare con sicurezza che entrambe le squadre hanno complottato per terminare la partita con un pareggio intenzionale e premeditato. Le due gilde hanno trasgredito palesemente il regolamento del torneo che statuisce la colpevolezza di coloro che sono coinvolti in attività per l'alterazione illecita della classifica e in atteggiamenti poco sportivi. Le squadre hanno negoziato un pareggio pur essendo consapevoli della violazione delle norme di partecipazione,

Pertanto, entrambe le gilde saranno punite con la rimozione della bordatura dai mantelli: ai Rebel Rising [rawr] la bordatura d'oro permanente sarà rimossa per un mese, mentre i Survival Rate [zero] non riceveranno quella d'argento pur essendosi classificati tra le prime 16. La posizione in classifica non sarà tuttavia modificata.

Crediamo che così facendo stiamo mandando un monito severo alle gilde coinvolte, ma trattandosi della loro prima infrazione abbiamo deciso di essere indulgenti e non punirli con la sottrazione di punti; tuttavia, qualsiasi trasgressione futura sarà condannata con maggior severità, inclusa la sospensione temporanea o permanente di tutti i giocatori coinvolti.

Stiamo aggiornando il funzionamento delle dinamiche dei tornei automatizzati per evitare che avvengano cospirazioni di questo tipo in futuro e revisioneremo il regolamento dei tornei per fare maggior chiarezza su questo argomento.

Per eventuali commenti relativi alla nostra decisione, vi preghiamo di contattare il personale della Community all'indirizzo community @arena.net o usare uno dei metodi indicati nella mia pagina utente.

February Tournament Reward Points - 05 February 2009
There were a few technical issues with the Xunlai points distribution this month. We are going to push another build live today to address the problem.

Some people may have received extra Reward Points due to this technical problem. This oversight will be corrected with next month's build. So this means, if you've incorrectly received extra points this month, next month's update will remove the points that were incorrectly given to you.

Update on Tournament Rules Decision - 05 February 2009
A lot of folks have been waiting to hear about the decision about the rules infraction in the last monthly automated tournament. We have been in the process of drafting a public message that will convey our decision. However, because of unforeseen circumstances (staff illness), and because the message needs to go through the approval process, as well as translation/localization, it will not be ready today as we had hoped.

We have not been making this decision in isolation. We have been reading your comments, opinions, and viewpoints and speaking to players about their take on the situation. We have taken a lot of factors into account, however, ultimately we have to take those perspectives into context, and with the tournament rules in mind.

Regardless of the final results of the tournament, rules were broken and the guilds involved will face consequences.

A New Year - 09 January 2009
Most everyone at ArenaNet has returned to the office this week, including the Community Team. During the last weeks of the year at at the very beginning, the State of Washington experienced heavy snowfalls, which saw the ArenaNet office snowed in with people unable to get to work safely. Many of us worked from home during times we were not closed for the holidays. This week, it's been raining all the time, so back to more or less the regular weather patterns.

The Community Team has been catching up on feedback from when our offices were closed due to the holidays. In particular, the Community Team has again relayed feedback asking developers for the removal of Heroes in GvG/HA, as well as the continued issues with synching in RA.

We're going to be releasing some news to give you an idea of what we have in store for GW1 this year. Look for that soon. I think people will be very excited about what we're working on...