Game updates:2024

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Update -- November 14, 2024[edit]

  • Fixed a bug where the incorrect amount of texture memory was computed on some systems with integrated graphics that share RAM and VRAM.


Update -- November 12, 2024[edit]

  • Second build today fixed a typo (no user visible changes)


Update -- October 1, 2024[edit]

  • Server maintenance build.


Update -- September 25, 2024[edit]

  • Fixed a bug where the network error code was printed incorrectly for a certain set of errors.

NOTES: The number "4294967" is the first seven digits of a small negative integer printed as an unsigned integer. Most importantly, the last three digits were not printed, and so this error number represented a potentially large range of errors. Error 4294967 was most often associated with trying to apply The Eye of the North expansion to an account that didn't have any of the main campaigns. Going forward the negative number will be printed. I can't tell for sure, but the EOTN error is probably -152.


Update -- September 17, 2024[edit]

  • Fixed a bug where the "rolloff" distance for sounds was very large. In some cases this resulted in waterfalls or fireplaces being heard throughout a map. Now the sound is much more localized.

NOTE: sound volume is relative to the camera position not the player position.


Update -- September 5, 2024[edit]

  • Added a new game client command line option "-stress <n>"
    • <n> is the time to run a stress test in milliseconds.
    • The test will run for <n> milliseconds each frame.
    • The stress test runs during loading screens and NOT while the game is running.
    • -stress without a numeric argument is the same as -stress 0, which does no stress testing.
    • -stress 10 is not particularly noticeable in terms of visibly slowing down the loading screen.
    • -stress 100 will make your loading screen update at 10 fps as it spends 100 ms each frame doing the test.
    • -stress 1000 will make your loading screen update at 1 fps.
    • -stress 10000 will make your loading screen update at 0.1 fps.
    • If the test fails, it will display a dialog box with this text: "Guild Wars detected a possible hardware malfunction. This may be due to a faulty or overheating processor or memory chip. The application will now terminate." Your only choice is "OK".

This code was a part of the game until 2018. It was originally put in because a long time ago, some new vendors got into the x86 processor business, and some of their CPU chips and/or motherboards were not stable. We removed this code because it slowed the game down when loading or minimized for no apparent benefit. Chip stability was fine, we thought, until just recently when we've had reports of some chips having stability errors. This might help diagnose those problems.


Update -- August 13, 2024[edit]

  • The text on the account create dialog has been updated to match the user agreement.


Update -- August 7, 2024[edit]

Note: A player reported to me that Tolkano was not showing the tournaments in some outposts. Upon investigation it seems he has not done so for a very long time. I always worry when the game doesn't do something obvious - there is usually an underlying reason. But I couldn't find anything in the code so as an experiment I've added the three lobbies mentioned above. If there are no issues found, I'll roll this change out to other PvP lobbies.


Update -- July 31, 2024[edit]

  • Server maintenance build


Update -- June 28, 2024[edit]

The User Agreement presented in-game has been updated to match the ArenaNet agreement.

The updated version will be displayed to you after you login and is based on your language setting in the game. You can change the language setting while the User Agreement is displayed by pressing F11 and changing your language selection.

The User Agreement has been localized into French, German, and Spanish.

The Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Russian, and Taiwanese language versions are in English.

There is a more pleasantly formatted version at https://www.arena.net/en/legal/user-agreement .


Update -- June 20, 2024[edit]

  • Server maintenance build


Update -- June 5, 2024[edit]

  • Fixed a bug where taking out a Destroyer of Flesh mini would sometimes crash game clients with characters within reporting range.


Update -- May 14, 2024[edit]

I want to add some clarity around our policy regarding addons. Our general policy is to prohibit addons that provide a player with an advantage over another player. To increase the specificity of this policy with respect to GW1, I want to make it clear that using any addon in PVP violates the policy.

Using addons always has risk. ArenaNet does not support any of these tools and using one can cause undefined behavior, especially now that there are more internal changes being made to the game. That said, I have been in contact with the GwToolbox developers. They have worked on a new interface to the game that should be more resilient to changes. And I asked them to ensure that Toolbox is not active in PVP maps which they have also done. As such, GwToolbox in its current state is permitted for use in PVE maps, though ArenaNet reserves the right to change this determination in the future.

We plan on adding this policy clarification to ArenaNet’s Code of Conduct in the coming weeks. As a side note, I am aware that there is an outdated user agreements in the GW1 client and am working on updating it to match the current agreements, which are available at arena.net/legal.

"PVP Maps" includes at least the following competitive maps and their lobbies:

Thanks for your attention,

Stephen Clarke-Willson, Game Director, Guild Wars

Guild Wars Wiki notes[edit]


Update -- May 3, 2024[edit]

  • Server maintenance build.


Update -- May 2, 2024[edit]

  • Server maintenance build.


Update -- May 1, 2024[edit]

  • Server maintenance build.


Update -- April 22, 2024[edit]

Happy 19th Anniversary!

As many of you know, I've been part-time game director, programmer, janitor, etc., for Guild Wars since 2018. I'm happy to report that starting two weeks ago my time allocated to Guild Wars changed from 10% to 80%. I'm very excited to focus much more of my time on Guild Wars. I'd like to thank the studio leadership for working with me to figure out how to allocate my previous duties and roles to other staff. I'd also like to give a shout-out to other long-tenured staff in the company who have helped me with their knowledge of how and why things work the way they do in Guild Wars.

I'd like to set your expectations appropriately - there is still a lot of work to do on our back-end systems so not everything I do will be visible to players. But I'm happy to say I've recently spent more time in-game and fixed some long-standing problems. The game is still in "maintenance mode" and there are no plans for new content. That said, I hope to improve your overall experience with Guild Wars and I'll see you in game!

Stephen Clarke-Willson Game Director, Guild Wars


Update -- April 10, 2024[edit]

  • Fixed a bug where ctrl-clicking on your XP bar (which announces your XP level and progress) when at max XP would crash any game clients that received the message.


Update -- April 8, 2024[edit]

  • Fixed a bug where loading a character with 4,294,967,294 internal XP would crash the game client as soon as any additional XP was added.
    • Now, anytime a character would gain additional XP which would exceed 4,294,967,295, that character will instead receive zero XP and remain in the game.
    • This new behavior appears as "+0 XP" (rather than the XP earned) floating above your character and will appear only for extremely old characters.


Update -- March 26, 2024[edit]

  • Dishonorable has been re-enabled.
  • Leech reporting is only disabled in Random Arenas.
  • The maximum number of times a player can Report (of any type) is now 20 times per 24 hours (previously the limit was 50).


Update -- March 22, 2024[edit]

  • Server maintenance build


Update -- March 18, 2024[edit]

  • The leeching system has been disabled due to abuse of the system by bots.
  • A player can now only resign a match once every 120 minutes, also due to excessive abuse of the system by bots.

Stephen Clarke-Willson, Game Director, Guild Wars

Update -- February 15, 2024[edit]

The title music has been updated to commemorate 6 years of uninterrupted service without downtime. The title music now features:

  • Prophecies Theme (remastered at a higher bitrate)
  • Factions Theme
  • Nightfall Theme
  • Eye of the North Theme
  • Various pieces of ambient music

Upgrades[edit]

Over the past six years, we've introduced numerous upgrades to the game, all accomplished without any downtime:

  • Enhanced graphics with extended draw distance, more detail, and anti-aliasing support
  • Camera field-of-view improvements, particularly beneficial for large or vertical displays
  • Chat upgrades to mitigate spam
  • Expanded friends list capacity
  • General latency enhancements
  • Establishment of a new datacenter in Korea to better serve players in Asia and Oceania
  • Introduction of the 15th Anniversary Weapon Set
  • And many other miscellaneous improvements.

Thank you for your support.

Stephen Clarke-Willson, Game Director, Guild Wars

Update -- February 12, 2024[edit]

  • Server maintenance build.
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