What's new in Guild Wars?

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For returning players: Welcome back and here's what you need to know

This article provides an overview of noteworthy changes that have been made since 2011, after the War in Kryta and Hearts of the North.

The game has received some notable updates since March 2018. There is little new content since then, but many tweaks and improvements have been made.

Account management[edit]

  • The website for account management was changed from the original NCSoft website to https://account.arena.net/, support can now be reached via https://help.guildwars.com/hc/. If the Guild Wars account was linked to a Guild Wars 2 account, the same login details apply to both games.
  • In June 2018, two-factor authentication was introduced for accounts that have activated this in Guild Wars 2 (under the name 2-step authentication). You need access to the two-factor authentication method set in Guild Wars 2 in order to log in to Guild Wars. Possible methods are: Email, SMS or authenticator app/device. If there are any problems, read this article, this article in case of error 244, and otherwise contact the Guild Wars 2 support. Due to the more secure log-in system, the game only runs under Windows XP or newer.
  • The game client and PDF versions of the manuals and manuscripts are available at https://www.guildwars.com/download.

General[edit]

Early April 2018
  • ArenaNet has noticed that /report has not worked for over ten and a half years and has now fixed the bug. Gold sellers should be reported as spam.
April 23, 2018
  • The ping has improved. Interrupting is now noticeably easier.
May 09, 2018
  • The maximum number of friends and ignored players has been doubled to 100 and 20 respectively.
  • Custom chat filters are now possible. To use this feature, you must create a ChatFilter.ini file in the %USERPROFILE%\My Documents\Guild Wars folder (save it in UTF-16 LE encoding, as other encodings may crash the GW client). The file layout is as follows:
[ChatFilter]
userFilter1 = Censor, Any
userFilter2 = Suppress, Any
June 06, 2018
  • Whispers will no longer be lost while loading maps or switching characters.
  • The chat log will no longer clear on map change or switching characters.
  • Added an option to show timestamps for chat log entries.
  • You can now double click a name in the chat window and it will select the player if they are in the same district and in compass range.
February 06, 2019
May 01, 2019
  • Added an in-game clock.
  • Added a Master Volume slider.

Graphics[edit]

April 28, 2011
March 22, 2018
  • Added a command line parameter “-lodfull” which forces the game to render using higher resolution models. The low poly representation of the own character with zoomed out camera was thereby fixed. This specific improvement has always been active since May 9, 2018.
May 09, 2018
  • Added a new 8X MSAA anti-aliasing option.
  • Added windowed Fullscreen support.
  • The “Use best texture filtering” option will now take advantage of 16x Anisotropic filtering.
  • A new “Advanced” option checkbox has been added to the Graphics options panel. This will replace the “-lodfull” command line option that was added recently.
June 06, 2018
  • Added an Ultra shadow setting.
  • The camera maximum zoom-out distance has been slightly increased.
  • Added a new Field of View slider. Field of View now uses a vertical calculation—previously diagonal—which will result in a much better view of the world on widescreen and ultra widescreen monitors.

Game content[edit]

PvE[edit]

General[edit]

March 03, 2011
April 28, 2011
June 02, 2011
  • The Titan quests are now available as Hard Mode quests. The entire questline must be completed in normal mode before the hard mode versions are available.
July 07, 2011
December 15, 2011
  • A new ramp has been added in the 3rd section of Urgoz's Warren. It's no longer necessary to teleport to reach the gate lever.
January 05, 2012
February 21, 2013
April 22, 2020

Pre-Searing Ascalon (Prophecies tutorial)[edit]

March 03, 2011
  • Lieutenant Langmar now has a daily quest for characters that are at least level 10. Enemies appear at a higher level and completing the quest rewards 1,000 experience points. As long as the quest is not completed, opponents can be farmed (Vanguard Rescue: Farmer Hamnet is popular for XP farming).
June 06, 2018
  • The gate now remains open twice as long as before, allowing The Northlands to be entered alone, thus removing the need for Gate monkeys.

Heroes[edit]

March 03, 2011
  • You can now add up to 7 heroes to your team; all game content can be done with heroes, experience assumed. You still can't exceed the party size limits for 4 and 6 man areas, of course.
  • Mercenary Heroes can be purchased in the ingame store. They have the profession, name and look of characters on your account. This allows to play teams consisting of e.g. 8 mesmers if you like, or simply have your favourite, great-looking characters in your team all the time.
April 28, 2011
  • The bug that Razah's primary profession cannot be changed contrary to the manual (which has existed since the Nightfall release in October 2006), has been fixed.
February 05, 2019
  • The AI for Heroes, Henchmen, and monsters has been improved for several skills.
  • Hot keys for flagging and commanding Heroes 4 through 7 have been added.

PvP[edit]

April 28, 2011
  • PvP in Guild Wars is now globally affected by Flux, an effect that changes the PvP game slightly every month.
June 02, 2011
September 25, 2014
  • Heroes' Ascent can now be played with 7 henchmen. Heroes are still not allowed.
  • The amount of fame in Heroes' Ascent per day was limited to 300 points. The limits are doubled during bonus weeks.
January 29, 2015
  • The amount of PvP title points per day has been limited to 200 gladiator points (only 100 in the first week), 100 codex points and 10 champion points. The limits are doubled during bonus weeks.
  • 20 Zaishen keys can be purchased per day and 5 Zaishen Strongboxes per day and type can be obtained.
February 5, 2015
  • 25 Zaishen keys can be purchased per day.
April 20, 2015

Events[edit]

April 1, 2011 (April Fools' Day 2011)
April 1, 2012 (April Fools' Day 2012)
  • From 2012 onwards, a new second prank quest, Annihilator 2: Searing Day, is available every April 1st, from "W20 Corporal Bane" in Embark Beach.
August 17, 2012 (Wayfarer's Reverie)
May 16, 2013
April 20, 2015 (10th Anniversary Celebration)
April 22, 2020 (15th Anniversary Celebration)
  • In addition to the Decade weapons, perfect inscribable golden weapons with previously unseen attribute requirements, such as a shield with Fast Casting requirement and a sword with Expertise requirement, are now also available at the Ancient Anniversary Weaponsmith for 5 Proofs of Legend. Proof of Triumph is also available.
    • Anniversary weapons have unique, unreplicable attribute requirements that allow them to facilitate unique builds.
    • While carrying the Proof of Triumph, 4 new bosses will spawn, which possess unique PvE-only elite skills that can only be captured from them.

Profession overhaul[edit]

Dervish[edit]

February 17, 2011
  • Dervishes were given a new skill type: Flash enchantments; they have neither activation time nor aftercast delay, can be used while attacking and moving (although not while using a skill or knocked down) and thus turned the dervish into a more active profession.
    • Many skills now remove dervish enchantments upon use and trigger powerful additional effects when an enchantment has been removed. The enchantments themselves often have little effect.

Elementalist[edit]

January 05, 2012
  • Many elementalist elite skills have been changed.
  • There is now a doublecast skill on each attribute that affects the caster and, if desired, an ally.
  • Exhaustion now alters the effects of some skills.
  • There are now skills that cause only 5 points of exhaustion, not just 10 as before.
September 13, 2012
  • Many elementalist skills have been changed.
  • From now on, the exhaustion game mechanic is referred to as overcast.

Miscellaneous[edit]

June 02, 2011
April 20, 2015

Preview[edit]