ArenaNet blogs

The following lists the recent news from the official ArenaNet blogs (archived). The blog and posts were taken down in March 2013, though no posts related to Guild Wars were added following the release of Guild Wars 2. All links are current archived using web.archive.org.

July 25th, 2012 - Forge Your GW2 Legacy with Guild Wars Platinum Edition

Experience where it all began! Discover Tyria through the original Guild Wars and forge a legacy that lives on in Guild Wars 2 with the Guild Wars Platinum Edition, now available for just $19.99 in the NCsoft Store!

July 25th, 2012 - John Stumme’s Guide to the Hall of Monuments

Countless new players have been introduced to the world of Tyria thanks to the overwhelming excitement building for Guild Wars 2. But did you know that you can acquire unique rewards in GW2 based on your accomplishments in the original Guild Wars? Thanks to the Hall of Monuments, you can—so if you’re looking to make sure that you’re starting GW2 in style, then this guide can help get you started on the path to prestige!

February 14th, 2012 - Winds of Change Wrap-Up

The curtain has fallen on Winds of Change. This chapter in the story of Miku, Ashu, and the Ministry of Purity has come to a close, and it’s time to take a look back at our Canthan trilogy.

February 8th, 2012 - Miku’s Tale-Winds of Change Part Three

Tomorrow, February 9th, we unveil the third and final chapter of Winds of Change, our epic Canthan saga. As part of Guild Wars Beyond, this story helps bridge the gap between Guild Wars and the time of Guild Wars 2 by thrusting players into the middle of pivotal historic events in the eastern island nation of Cantha. Winds of Change has portrayed the rise in power of the Ministry of Purity and the far reaching implications this has for Cantha.

Winds of Change has been our largest free content expansion in Guild Wars to date, and this final chapter sees the addition of 9 new quests, exciting new rewards, and a number of hidden scenes for players to discover that flesh out the story. Make sure to check out our impressive Canthan costumes in the In-Game Store and the NCsoft Store, and visit our Winds of Change website (which we’ll update on Feb 9) for more background information. Before the third chapter goes live, we thought we’d give you a recap of sorts told from the perspective of the assassin Miku, one of the pivotal figures in our tale…

October 28th, 2011 - Wish You Were Here – ArenaNet’s Environmental Postcards

One of the things I love most about my job is hunting for cool art in the vast digital landscape of our network. I can pull from a museum’s worth of Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 concept art for our blog, web sites, newsletters, merchandise, tradeshow material, and for press. During my travels I often stumble upon hidden treasures—little nuggets of awesomeness tucked away in remote directories.

Today I want to share my favorite find with you.

July 13th, 2011 - Video: ArenaNet Community Open House 2011

A few weeks ago we hosted members of the Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 community, including the winners of our “Become a Guild Wars 2 Ambassador” video contest, in our new offices in Bellevue, Washington for a day-long “open house” event. Our guests tackled the formidable Ascalonian Catacombs dungeon, hung out with devs, got a grand studio tour, and much, much more. Check out our new video for a look inside ArenaNet’s first ever Community Open House!

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:

May 26th, 2010 - Design Director James Phinney on the Recent Account Bans

This is an important day for Guild Wars.

Today we terminated more than 3,700 accounts for botting and match manipulation. In cases where guilds were found to be involved in these activities, the guilds were also disbanded. More than a dozen such guilds were disbanded and many others are under continued investigation. Today’s actions are significant not simply because of their immediate impact but also because they represent a new era in enforcement for us.

As many of you know, Guild Wars has seen a significant increase in the number and sophistication of bots in recent months. Particularly visible were new types of bots used in PvP. As with any hacks or exploits, our primary concern is the potential negative impact on the experience of other players. To a varying degree, cheaters hurt other players by inflating the economy, devaluing hard-earned accomplishments, or annoying everyone with RMT chat spam to sell gold gained through botting, but cheating in PvP is especially odious because it so directly affects the play experience of others.

As anyone who’s followed online gaming knows, bots and hacks are difficult to fully address. Every game of decent size works to keep the problem in check, but no single, absolute solution exists. Although our support team has worked for years to combat bots and actually bans accounts for botting every day, we realize the fruits of their efforts are not visible to players. Further, this new upswing in bot activity showed that our existing processes were not adequate to address the problem. Having made that determination, we’ve been working to improve things on several fronts: staffing, identification, detection, visibility, and enforcement.

April 28th, 2010 - Five Years in Tyria

The last day dawns on the Kingdom of Ascalon. Five years ago, with those words, the world of Tyria came alive. For many of us, that was the beginning of an epic journey that included warring kingdoms, an unexpected change in scenery, a mysterious doppelganger, a crystal dragon, and a treacherous lich.

In the years since, we’ve fought the Iron Forgeman, saved an empire, battled a god, befriended new races, and single-handedly defeated Palawa Joko, the Scourge of Vabbi, at the Battle of Jahai. We’ve watched guilds compete for international championships, gained and lost the Favor of the Gods, unlocked elites at a Priest of Balthazar, and witnessed the corruption of the Tombs of Primeval Kings. We’ve started and broken win streaks, run relics and captured altars, reconnected with friends, observed ATs, and invented builds and tactics no one else had tried before.

We’ve opened birthday presents, used a Signet of Capture after killing a boss, coveted Koss’ hair, groaned at the Mad King’s jokes, applied inscriptions and insignias to make exactly the gear we wanted, collected holiday hats, put crafting materials into storage, visited an anatomical engineer, chugged transmogrifier tonics, tracked down the Traveler, and yelled “This is Hard Mode!” We’ve formed guilds, helped out strangers, argued politics in Lion’s Arch, and made real-life friends who we’ve never actually met. In short, Tyria has been not just a place for our characters to adventure, but a home for all of us who have spent much time in these lands.