arenanet posts

It's almost hard to believe that the first Guild Wars game was released just over five years ago in 2005, but has had an impact that continues to resonate as fans eagerly look forward to Guild Wars 2. This fifteen minute video briefly recounts the history of ArenaNet and gives fans a more intimate look at the designers and a game company that takes a very artistic approach toward development.

Download HD ArenaNet Guild Wars Retrospective Video (919 MB)
Check out all Guild Wars 2 downloads

While the team at developer ArenaNet are not giving us much clues as to when Guild Wars 2 will be released, the upcoming MMO has just made its second tie-in prose novel available. Guild Wars: Edge of Destiny is technically supposed to be released on December 28 but Amazon.com shows the novel as being in stock.

Written by J. Robert King the novel takes place a few years before the story events of Guild Wars 2 and tells the tale how the team of fantasy adventurerers known as Destiny's Edge came together. The characters in the team will appear in Guild Wars 2. The ArenaNet web site has a sample chapter of the novel to check out right now. It also has an interview with King about his work.

[Via Massively]

Guild Wars is not your typical MMO game and today the development team at ArenaNet have launched a new content update that ends with, of all things, a wedding. Hearts of the North is the second content event for the game that's designed in part to give players a transition to the events for the long awaited sequel Guild Wars 2.

The new quests in the game tell the story of one of Guild Wars's main characters Keiran Thackeray who was thought to have sacrificed his life at the end of the first Guild Wars content event the War in Kryta. In fact he he is alive and the Hearts of the North quests have your character looking for Thackeray. In the end you end up playing as Thackeray himself as he fights his way back to his true love Gwen and ends with a wedding ceremony between the two.

Players of developer ArenaNet's Guild Wars game have been racking up achievements in the games since the first title was released many years ago. Now ArenaNet has revealed that those achievements will figure into the game's MMO sequel Guild Wars 2. In fact you can go ahead and find out about what kinds of Guild Wars 2 rewards you can gain right now.

Today ArenaNet launched a Hall of Monuments Reward Calculator web page. All you have to do is put in your character's name from the original Guild Wars and the calulator will figure out the rewards that will await you when Guild Wars 2 is released. There's more info on this feature on a FAQ page and more info on the feature can be found on this news posts. You might be able to gain access to things like in-game pets, special weapons and armor pieces and more. You can even let other people see what kinds of rewards you get via social networking pages like Facebook.

Earlier this month our sister site Massively reported that developer ArenaNet was creating applications for smartphones and Apple's iPad that will link to ArenaNet's upcoming MMO Guild Wars 2. Today the game's official web site revealed more about its plans for the "Extended Experience".

As you can see from the image above the iPad and other devices (including the iPhone, the iPod Touch and smartphones using Google's Android OS) will let players see a 2D map and watch and chat with their friends as they play in the world of Guild Wars 2. But ArenaNet also plans to release " a series of apps that will share information with each other and the Guild Wars 2 system in ways that simply haven't been done before." Examples include using apps to examine a player's character (stats, equipment, achievements, etc.). Another app will let players place a finger on the 2D world map. That location will be seen by other players in the game world itself.

Guild Wars 2 will be joining the mobile app revolution, according to a report from our sister site Massively. During PAX Prime 2010 the site learned that the MMO game's developer ArenaNet is developing applications that will run on various smartphones as well as Apple's iPad device.

While it doesn't sound like you will be able to play the game itself through these apps, the development team plans to let you check up and message your friends that are playing the game through the software as well as follow your friends' progress on a map. More unnamed features for these Guild Wars 2 mobile apps are also in the works.

More and more of the Guild Wars 2 onion is being peeled off at the upcoming MMO's official web site. This week's update features the reveal of the game's necromancer player class which, as you might guess from its title, deals with the dark mystical arts.

Players who decide to pick the necromancer class will find a character that feeds on the life forces of others. If a necromancer "dies" in battle the character can continue to fight via a mystical Death Shroud form. If he or she kills off an enemy they can return to their body. They can also generate minions to battle for them. Developer ArenaNet will likely show off the class next weekend when Guild Wars 2 is shown in playable form at PAX Prime 2010.

The team at ArenaNet promised that the first actual live gameplay demos for Guild Wars 2 would be shown at Gamescom this week and it looks like that's indeed the case. While there's still no "official" footage of the upcoming fantasy MMO sequel from publisher NCsoft it looks like the Italian-based site Multiplayer.it has filmed a monitor with live gameplay from the Gamescom exhibit hall.

The video footage on YouTube is not exactly the best quality (people are walking in front of the camera at one point) but it does show quite a bit of combat and magic action from the demo build of the game along with what looks like some player controlled turret action. Hopefully NCsoft will provide a gameplay trailer that's much clearly and in higher resolution later this week.

[Via Massively]

It's been some time since the developers working on Guild Wars 2 wrote a manifesto on the official blog. With this video, they showcase all the features that will set it apart from all other MMORPG games and move the genre forward from the same old gameplay and experience.

Download HD Guild Wars 2 'Manifesto' Video (389 MB)
Check out all Guild Wars 2 downloads

If you can take yourself away from the launch of StarCraft II on July 27, you may also want to pick up something at your local bookstore. That's where you might find the first Guild Wars 2 prose novel, Ghosts of Ascalon, on sale. The previously announced novel from authors Matt Forbeck and Jeff Grubb is now set for a July 27 release date.

The official Guild Wars 2 web site now has a page devoted to the novel that includes an FAQ, a map of the book's fantasy setting of Tyria and the first chapter of the novel which takes place one year before the story and events in ArenaNet's upcoming MMO title. This should be just the first in a series of novels set in the Guild Wars universe. You can check out an advanced review of the novel at our sister site Massively which also has a chat with the book's co-author Jeff Grubb.