Tag: Arenanet

Guild Wars Dropping .05% Of Players, Old Windows OS


As a college student living off of what I can, I am sympathetic to the plight of people who cannot afford to buy a new computer. Unfortunately, the time comes in any game’s life where those who for one reason or another are unable to upgrade, are left behind, and generally developers ensure that this comes at a time when it affects as few customers as possible. After all, no one likes having a game they bought and probably invested in subscriptions or cash shop items stripped away from them.

For Guild Wars, Arenanet has announced that on June 14th, 2012, the game will no longer support Windows 95, 98, 98SE, and Millenium Edition. According to Stephane Lo Presti, this should impact less than .05% off the community.

Since the launch of Guild Wars in 2005 we’ve stayed locked into our original minimum system requirements. Unfortunately, the game has reached a point where this is preventing us from deploying important features.

For Wine users, whether or not Guild Wars will still function is up in the air as it is unsupported.

(Source: Guild Wars forums)

Yea, Well, The Old Republic Will Fail When…


You may not be aware of it, but here at MMO Fallout I have a very lax policy of commenting. I don’t require you register, or for that matter even fill out your username or email address (a good portion of the comments here are entirely anonymous). There are well over five hundred comments spanning 1,100 articles, and in the two and a half years since MMO Fallout was funded, I think I’ve had to delete one legitimate (not a spam bot) comment but only because the person was using a large amount of racial epithets. Still, there are a lot more comments about this website off site than on site.

I think it has something to do with not wanting to risk looking like a fool on the off chance that your premise is inaccurate and you are unable to edit the message, which is also why I receive more emails than I do comments. With The Old Republic, I managed to hit a nerve with a few people every time I referenced the game this past year as clearly “the biggest release of 2011.” First I was told to wait until I’d played the game. Truth be told, I started playing The Old Republic around the time the Electronics Entertainment Expo was still running, so I already had experience. Then the closed beta weekends started and those same people told me to wait until open beta for the game to flop.

Naturally, closed beta turned to head start and I was told to wait until launch, that was when the game would flop. Forget that, by this point, The Old Republic had already been referred to as the best selling preorder for Electronic Arts. Finally the game launched, and this is where those same people started sending me actual “proof,” in the form of empty guild channels. I was told to wait until the dreaded first month passed, and that is when I would see subscriber numbers drop off and the server mergers start.

Well now Bioware has stated that The Old Republic has sold two million copies and retained 1.7 million subscribers, most of whom are past the first month. No doubt the next step will be waiting for the initial three and six month subscribers to drop off, and then we’ll play it by expansion. Will The Old Republic grow or decline? I don’t know, I don’t claim to foresee Bioware’s production schedule to ensure players at end-game don’t get bored too quickly.

In other words: I’ve already talked about how Guild Wars 2 will be insanely profitable and popular, and some of the fans shouldn’t take good news for The Old Republic as a personal assault on their game of choice.

Guild Wars 2 Opens Door For Non-Cosmetic Cash Shop


By now, I hope that I don’t have to lecture any of you on how important wording is in this industry. When Realtime Worlds said that they had no intention of shutting down All Points Bulletin, they didn’t factor in the results of their ongoing chapter 11 bankruptcy forcing the game to shut down. When Turbine stated that they had no intention of selling equipment with stats at the time, they technically spoke the truth. When Sony answered the free to play question by saying they would not alter existing player’s game, and launching a separate product, they were telling the truth.

Guild Wars Guru has noticed an alteration made to the Guild Wars wiki by user JohnSmith, who is a confirmed Arenanet employee. Previously, the article read:

Yes, micro-transactions will exist. These will be cosmetic additions which will not affect balance or gameplay, similar to the transactions offered by Guild Wars.

Now the article reads:

Yes, micro-transactions will exist. Be assured goods and items bought for cash in GW2 do not offer any advantage over those available in the game through the investment of time.

So the wording changes from only cosmetic items to not being more powerful than existing items. Now, this could simply be referring to Arenanet’s plan to include mission packs and transmutation stones in the cash shop, or the possibility of boosters, or it could open the door for selling equipment that is only as powerful as equipment found in-game. Martin Kerstein of Arenanet weighs in later in the thread.

As usual, everybody just needs to calm down a bit. This change was done to actually make the wording easier to understand – seems like that was not the case.

But the statement in it is still the same: Nothing you will be able to buy in the in-game store will give you an advantage over people who are not buying anything. That is the baseline.

So the outcome is that Arenanet, for now at least, is being vague on a familiar level to companies of the past. For now we’ll simply have to wait for clarification by Arenanet on an exact list of what will be sold in the Guild Wars 2 cash shop.

Guild Wars: This is How You Charity 10K Edition


Pink Day in LA

“Pink Day in LA” was a Guild Wars event held this past weekend, encouraging players to dye their armor pink for breast cancer awareness. Malibu Barbie teamed up with Gaming World Entertainment Network and Gamers Giving Back to bring cancer awareness to Guild Wars. Players purchased almost three hundred thousand bottles of pink dye, donating almost eleven thousand dollars in the process.

“I was totally amazed when we hit our original goal of $1,337 early,” Malibu Barbie said.

More on charities as they appear.

There's Funcom In My ArenaNet, And I Like It.


You drunk Scottish cyclops.

Those of you in the Age of Conan beta will probably remember various nights spent sitting in a bar, knocking back an ale, and beating the crap out of your up-to-then drinking partner. Of course, along with a few other features heavily advertised (npc raids on player villages, among others) for launch, are well aware that two years after Age of Conan’s launch, most of these features are set for a release date one week after never. Drunken bar fights were silently swept under the rug and haven’t been heard from since, at least until now.

But not in the game you’d expect. Taking a cue and miss from Funcom, ArenaNet announced that Guild Wars 2 will feature drunken bar brawls. Speaking in a recent developers blog, you will not only be able to get insanely drunk, but the ale you drink will have various effects, including a noxious belch that poisons anyone drunk enough to stumble into its cloud. Smash your stein over someone’s head, and use the remaining shard as a shank! Kick someone into a table, splintering it, and then beat them to unconsciousness with the pieces of the table. The goal is to play dirty, you’re in a drunken bar fight, not Sir Lancelot’s jousting academy!

ArenaNet wants bar fights to feel like true bar fights, otherwise “why bother having them?” Of course, there are more lighthearted activities to be had in your city of choice.

More on Guild Wars 2 as it appears.

There’s Funcom In My ArenaNet, And I Like It.


You drunk Scottish cyclops.

Those of you in the Age of Conan beta will probably remember various nights spent sitting in a bar, knocking back an ale, and beating the crap out of your up-to-then drinking partner. Of course, along with a few other features heavily advertised (npc raids on player villages, among others) for launch, are well aware that two years after Age of Conan’s launch, most of these features are set for a release date one week after never. Drunken bar fights were silently swept under the rug and haven’t been heard from since, at least until now.

But not in the game you’d expect. Taking a cue and miss from Funcom, ArenaNet announced that Guild Wars 2 will feature drunken bar brawls. Speaking in a recent developers blog, you will not only be able to get insanely drunk, but the ale you drink will have various effects, including a noxious belch that poisons anyone drunk enough to stumble into its cloud. Smash your stein over someone’s head, and use the remaining shard as a shank! Kick someone into a table, splintering it, and then beat them to unconsciousness with the pieces of the table. The goal is to play dirty, you’re in a drunken bar fight, not Sir Lancelot’s jousting academy!

ArenaNet wants bar fights to feel like true bar fights, otherwise “why bother having them?” Of course, there are more lighthearted activities to be had in your city of choice.

More on Guild Wars 2 as it appears.

Guild Wars: Xunlai Tournament House Dies On Operating Table


PvP Tournament Removed....

Guild Wars players are likely fairly angry at the news that, after nearly a year of operational work, the Xunlai Tournament House will not be returning. A web-accessible portion of Guild Wars, the tournament house acted as a betting spot, where players could attempt to predict the outcome of the game’s player vs player tournaments.

“After much analysis and discussion, we’ve decided to permanently retire the Xunlai Tournament House.”

Unfortunately, at one point during ArenaNet’s seven month trump through the game’s code, it was determined that the entire tournament house would need to be rebuilt from scratch, pulling resources away from Guild Wars 2 that could not be afforded.

I don’t think this news is too surprising to Guild Wars players, although the fact that the house died to support Guild Wars 2 may disappoint and anger some, but hey: Stuff happens. More on Guild Wars as it appears.