User:Endrosz/noteworthy updates 2005

Update - Wednesday, May 11, 2005

• Major changes to PvP Arenas! Previously, each Arena had a separate outpost. When you joined an Arena, you continued playing on that map repeatedly until you lost. Now, the various high-level Arena maps all share a common outpost. When you enter the high-level Arena, you'll play on many different maps with many different victory conditions, and you'll need to master all the maps to keep on winning.
• You can now store gold in your account storage vault! The vault can store up to 1000 platinum pieces, and individual characters can now hold a maximum of 100 platinum pieces.

Update - Wednesday, June 1, 2005

• Added language-specific districts to European servers. There are now different districts for each supported language: English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. Players are placed by default into the district that matches their current language preference, but can still travel freely to any available district or to the International District.

Update - Wednesday, June 8, 2005

• Changed Signet of Capture so that it now targets dead boss monsters. When you use the signet, you are presented with a menu of all of the dead boss monster's skills, and can capture any skill of your choice. This eliminates the need to keep boss monsters alive while trying to capture their skills, and will substantially reduce the difficulty of capturing certain skills that are rarely cast by boss monsters.
• Added rune traders. Be aware that these traders specifically deal with already-identified runes, so runes you buy from them are for the purpose of wearing, not unlocking.
• Added traders for rare crafting materials.
• Improved Tournament and Team Arenas so that if a player drops out during a mission, that player will be replaced by a henchman for the next mission.

Update - Wednesday, June 29, 2005

New Guild Wars PvP Reward System:

This week we're implementing a new reward system for Player vs. Player (PvP) combat. When playing in cooperative missions and in explorable areas, you will continue to earn normal experience. But when fighting in Arenas, Tournament, and Guild Battles, you will gain faction with Balthazar, the god of war, instead. Faction is shared by all characters on your account and is awarded for kills and for winning battles. Faction can be redeemed to unlock runes, weapon upgrades, and skills, which then become accessible by any new PvP Only Characters for your account.

Other PvP changes:

• In PvP matches, each player in the party now shares Faction Point rewards for each kill, regardless of whether the player was alive or involved in the combat.

Other changes this week:

• Added a way for multiple players to more easily synchronize their emote animations. By following your emote command with a space and an asterisk, you indicate your emote should begin on the next 10 second pulse. For example, typing “/dance *” causes your character to wait until the next 10 second pulse to begin dancing. If several players do this before the next pulse, they will all begin dancing simultaneously.

Update - Wednesday, July 13, 2005

• Fixed the following area-of-effect (AOE) spells so that they are no longer cancelled if the target dies while you are casting them: Chaos Storm, Deep Freeze, Desecrate Enchantments, Earthquake, Enfeebling Blood, Eruption, Feast of Corruption, Fireball, Ice Spikes, Maelstrom, Meteor, Meteor Storm, Panic, Phoenix, Plague Sending, Rodgort's Invocation, Rust, Searing Heat, Shadow of Fear, Soothing Images, Suffering.

Update - Thursday, August 11, 2005

• Improved traders so that they maintain more stable prices and closer spreads between buy and sell prices.
• Improved traders so that traders from all regions (America, Europe, and Korea) now buy and sell from the same stock and charge the same prices.

Update - Thursday, August 25, 2005

Ranger

• All Spirits: The effects of Spirits no longer work on other Spirits (example: Fertile Season no longer adds Health and armor to other Spirits); also, when a Spirit is cast, it kills all other allied Spirits of the same type within its range

Update - Wednesday September 7, 2005

Sorrow's Furnace

• Sorrow's Furnace consists of two new, large and challenging explorable regions located deep in the Shiverpeak Mountains between Spearhead Peak and Snake Dance. These areas contain the following:
  • Seventeen new quests, most of them fully repeatable and offering high XP rewards.
  • Four new cinematics.
  • A variety of new monsters, including new Stone Summit Dwarves that are the strongest in the Shiverpeak Mountains, and entirely new types of creatures that are being introduced to the game for the first time.
  • Boss monsters named after the contest winning entries.
• Boss monsters in the new Sorrow's Furnace regions drop newly-introduced green "unique" weapons that are named after the boss.

Chests and Loot

• The landscape of Tyria is now dotted with new, randomly positioned locked chests, which are guaranteed to contain uncommon or better items. These chests largely replace the old system of unlocked chests with predictable positions and common loot.
• Whenever your party finds a new, locked chest, multiple party members can each use their own keys to unlock the chest and get their own loot.

Faction Gain

• The Priests of Balthazar are now located in PvP map outposts instead of towns, so you don't need to have or use a high-level role-playing character to spend your faction points.

Attribute Points

• The concept of Attribute Refund Points has been removed from the game. You can now refund and reassign your attribute points as much as you like, whenever you are in a town or outpost.

Guilds and Guild Combat

• For 100 gold you can now invite someone to be a guest of your guild. As a guest, he can enter your Guild Hall any number of times over the next 8 hours, join your team and participate with you in Guild Combat. If he has been a member of his own guild for long enough to receive full Faction for guild battles, then he will also receive full Faction for playing with you as a guest of your guild. (However, to engage in Guild Combat, at least half the members of your team must be members of your guild.)

Other PvP Changes

• Arenas can now match teams with opponents from around the world.

Update - Thursday September 29, 2005

Skill Monitor Improvements

• The skill monitor now displays skill warm-up using a progress bar.
• The skill monitor can now display two skills being cast simultaneously, such as a Stance or Shout plus a normal skill.
• The skill monitor now uses animations to indicate when a skill completes successfully or is interrupted during casting.
• When you select a new character, you now immediately see which skill that character is currently casting.
• You can now control+click on the skill monitor to announce the skill being cast to your team.

Update - Thursday October 20, 2005

• Added information to skill tip windows, including Energy, casting time, recharge time, upkeep cost, and Adrenaline.

Update - Thursday October 27, 2005

• Halloween 2006 festival

Update - Thursday November 10, 2005

• Improved AI so that henchmen and monsters can now detect and flee from area-effect damage spells.

Update - Wednesday December 21, 2005

Observer Mode

• Whenever a top 100 ranked guild plays in the Tombs or in a rated guild challenge, the game is automatically available for everyone to see. Other "special event" games will also be available for viewing.

• Everything that observers see is delayed 15 minutes from the original game, to prevent cheating. Games become available for observation approximately 15 minutes after they start, and remain available until approximately 15 minutes after they finish.

• While you are watching a game, you can chat with your fellow observers. There is no limit to the number of people who can simultaneously observe a game, but for purposes of chatting, observers are randomly assigned into groups of about 100 people.

• In Observer Mode, the Map Area window displays the positions of all characters on the map. You can click on any character to jump there. Alternately, you can use Auto Camera mode to let the game pick the most interesting targets for you.

• A new heads-up display automatically shows you the Health of teams that you are currently watching. If you prefer to use the Party window to view party status details and to select players to watch, you can easily switch the Party window back and forth between teams, or you may choose to view multiple Party windows and watch different teams in each window.