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User:Fyren/updates/2006

< User:Fyren‎ | updates
Revision as of 03:30, 20 November 2006 by GW-Fyren@legacy41688417 (talk | contribs)
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Update - Friday November 10

GuildWiki notes


Update - Tuesday November 7

GuildWiki notes


Update - Friday November 3

GuildWiki notes


Update - Thursday November 2

End of Halloween Event

Now sadly, the madness is ended
Laughs abounded and no tears were shed
King Thorn has returned to the Underworld
Pumpkin still very much on his head.


No more scares for Elona and Tyria
No more transformations or spooky décor
Peace comes at last, though we can’t help but ask:
Will the Mad King return once more?!

Game Updates:

  • Modified damage text so that its size scales based on the distance from the viewer.
  • Fixed various quest NPCs that were inappropriately body-blocking players.
  • Added an option to adjust the damage text size.
  • Fixed a bug that allowed Heroes to equip more than one elite skill.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented some dyes from stacking.
  • Fixed a bug that caused skills requiring upkeep to be removed whenever cinematics began.
  • Fixed a bug that allowed the Lightbringer Title bonus to be used during PVP matches.
  • Modified the Trade panel to report offered trades in units of gold, not platinum.
  • Removed the previously enforced time delay between fighting and salvaging or identifying an item.
  • Increased duration on the skill "Exposed Defenses" (sic) to 5..20 seconds. (This update was missing in the previous skill update.)

GuildWiki notes

  • Total size of this update is about 70 MB.
  • There is one 25g Dye that you may get from the quest "To Dye For". It still doesn't stack, and is not intended to, with the normal 1g Dyes.
  • The icon for resurrection shrines in the Mission Map has changed to a circle with an ankh inside.
  • Air, Earth, Fire, and Water Attunements now give the proper amount for all skills (energy cost * 30% + 1). There was a previous bug that caused 10 energy skills to only give back the 30%, which has now been fixed.
  • The condition runes for all professions have been changed to major runes and are now non-stacking; before, equipping 5 runes made the player immune to 2 conditions NOTE: This is not totally true, before having 5 of them made you immune to some condition sources - The effectiveness of having 5 runes seemed to depend on the source of the condition (IE: Where as standing in the Student of Bleedings circle might not give you bleeding, using Signet of Agony would still make you bleed for about 5 seconds)
  • Weapon modifers to conditions (example: crippling) now note that they are stackable. Stackable with what is unclear, but it is assumed to be skills that increase the duration of these effects.
  • The option to adjust damage text size is found in the options general panel.
  • The Character Select Screen now seems to remember your sorting option.
  • Some xp scrolls still don't stack.


Update 2 - Friday October 27

Emergency Maintenance: 7:20 p.m. PDT

We performed emergency maintenance this evening to correct a matter that required urgent attention. Players were disconnected, but were immediately able to reconnect and resume playing. Thank you for your patience, and we apologize for any inconvenience that this brief interruption may have caused you.

GuildWiki notes

  • Added extra effects to /dancenew command in Nightfall.
  • New EULA must be accepted, even if the EULA was accepted on October 25.
  • Removed "Coming October 27, 2006" under logo of Nightfall in the login screen.

Update - Friday October 27

Ahai, Sunspear!

You have been selected from among your fellow heroes to be trained as a leader of our Order of the Sunspears. The members of our Order are the guardians and protectors of our nation of Elona, and travel throughout the land, dealing with threats to our people. Though you may have the basic skills of a hero, you must now learn how to use them in conjunction with others whom you will lead into battle. Congratulations on your promotion!

You initial assignment will be in the Province of Istan, where our Order’s Great Hall is located. Istan is a thriving land of heroes, located near the ruins of our earliest cities. Here you will find threats ranging from relentless predators and animated, carnivorous plants, to the ever-present threat of the corsairs that plague our shores.

Yet Istan is not the only concern of the Sunspears. Kourna, across the channel, has a large standing army and is ruled by its Warmarshal, Varesh Ossa, but still has needs of heroes to inspire its people. Further north is the Province of Vabbi, a wealthy region controlled by indolent merchant princes, yet regularly threatened by inhuman tribes. As a leader of the Sunspears, you will journey through these lands, and beyond them, into the Desolation from which the undead lord Palawa Joko first invaded our land. Wherever the people of Elona are threatened, the Sunspears should be there to protect them.

The Order of the Sunspears is an ancient order, dating back to our earliest dynasties, but we need capable and inspired leaders now more than ever. A new darkness has been spreading across our land, causing native creatures to become more savage, and spawning new abominations never before seen. Dark times loom before us, and we must be prepared.

Again, congratulations on being selected to become a Sunspear leader. You will have your work cut out for you, but I am confident you will be up to the tasks ahead.

As a Sunspear, you never fight alone.

Kormir

Spearmarshal, Order of the Sunspears

Elona Awaits You!

The Guild Wars Nightfall campaign is now available for purchase at retail stores and through the online Guild Wars store. Players who purchase Guild Wars Nightfall may now create new Paragon and Dervish characters, bring existing characters to the region of Elona, acquire new skills, armor, and weapons, recruit Heroes to join their parties, and participate in new Hero Battles against other players!

Heroes

  • Heroes are NPC party members who can join your party, level up with your character, and use weapons, armor, and skills of your choosing. You recruit Heroes by completing certain quests and adventuring throughout Elona, but you can bring only three at a time into your party. Since you and a friend can each bring three Heroes into a mission, two players can now complete any eight-player mission.
  • After recruiting a Hero, you can use the “Add Hero” interface in the party formation panel to invite the Hero into your party whenever you’re standing in a town or outpost.
  • If you and another player both invite the same Hero, one of them will be the “real” Hero who will interact with NPCs in cinematics and other scripted sequences, and the other will be an “imposter” who will use a generic name for the duration of the mission.
  • Whenever you control a Hero, you will see a button next to the Hero’s name, which you can click to bring up the Hero Control panel. This panel provides advanced options for direct control of the Hero. You can use it to adjust the Hero’s AI mode between fight, guard, or avoid combat, to order the Hero to cast a certain skill, or to order the Hero not to cast a certain skill unless directed to do so by you.
  • Whenever you control a Hero, you will also see a button on the Compass that you can use to give orders to the Hero. To use it, simply click the button, then click anywhere in the Compass or in the world where you would like the Hero to walk.
  • Heroes level up like players do and acquire attribute points at the same rate, except they do not need to complete quests to gain their final 30 attribute points. Instead, they get 15 bonus attribute points when they reach level 10, and another 15 bonus attribute points when they reach level 15.
  • Whenever you recruit a Hero while playing through the campaign, that Hero becomes unlocked for use with your PvP characters. Heroes that you recruit also come with skills, and those skills become unlocked on your account when you recruit the Hero.
  • Heroes don't maintain their own inventory of skills. Instead, they are able to use any skill that you have unlocked on your account.
  • Heroes don't maintain their own backpack or inventory of items. Instead, you can drag items from your inventory onto a Hero to equip him. Your Heroes can use weapons that you have customized for yourself.
  • Hero Trainers, located in various locations around Elona, will teach you a skill (and unlock it on your account for use by your Heroes) in return for a Hero Skill Point. You get a Hero Skill Point each time you gain a new rank of the Sunspear or Lightbringer titles.
  • Hero Armor NPCs, located in the outposts of Challenge Missions in Elona, can craft upgraded armor for your Heroes in return for certain items that you can acquire inside the Challenge Mission. Players can find enough of these items to upgrade their own Heroes, but not an unlimited supply, so we encourage players to spend these items on their own Heroes rather than selling them or giving them away.

Hero Battles

  • Hero Battles are a new PvP game type that allow players to compete head-to-head for the first time.
  • Each Hero Battle pits one player and his three Heroes against another player and his three Heroes.
  • To access Hero Battles you must unlock at least three Heroes onto your account. If you haven’t already unlocked the first three Heroes, just complete Zaishen Basic Training with a PvP character, then talk to the Priest of Balthazar, who will give you free unlocks.
  • To enter a Hero Battle, travel to the Hero Battles outpost on the Battle Isles, invite three Heroes into your party, then click “Enter Battle.” You will be automatically matched against an opponent of similar skill level.
  • To win, you must score 20 points before your opponent does. You get one point for every enemy you kill, and one point for every 30 seconds that your team holds the center shrine.
  • There are also a number of strategic points around the map, which can grant you a strategic advantage against the enemy if your team controls them.
  • If neither team has scored 20 points when the game clock reaches 10 minutes, the game goes into sudden death, where the next team to score a point wins.
  • There is no death penalty on this map, and all players and Heroes respawn every 30 seconds.
  • Players get 20 Balthazar’s faction for each point scored and 100 faction for winning.

Lightbringer and Sunspear Titles

  • The new Sunspear title can be earned by completing quests in Elona and fighting Sunspear enemies. By earning ranks in this title you can gain Hero skill points and the new PvE-only skill Sunspear Rebirth Signet. This skill increases in effectiveness as you gain more ranks in the Sunspear title.
  • The new Lightbringer title can be earned by hunting demons in Elona. For each rank of Lightbringer, you gain increased damage and damage reduction against demons. You can also earn the PvE-only skills Lightbringer's Gaze and Lightbringer's Focus, which can be used to fight demons. These skills also increase in effectiveness as you gain more ranks in this title.

Guild Observer Mode

  • You can now watch your guild compete in Guild Combat regardless of your guild’s rank. Just open the Observer panel and then look for your guild’s game under the heading “My Guild Games.”


Update - Wednesday October 25, 2006

New Features of Guild Wars Nightfall

Today we are publishing the new features of Guild Wars Nightfall in anticipation of the campaign’s release this Friday, October 27 at 12:01 am PDT. Players won’t be able to acquire Heroes or participate in Hero Battles until they can play through the Nightfall campaign, but many of the other features of Nightfall are available today as free updates.

Skills and Attributes

  • Skill selection, attribute adjustment, and secondary profession selection are now centralized on the new Skills and Attributes panel.
  • Your characters can now change their secondary professions whenever they are standing in a town or outpost. PvP characters can change to any secondary profession, while Roleplaying characters can change to any profession that character has previously learned.
  • You can now save and load templates containing Skill Bar setup, attributes, and professions. This allows you to switch a character between different roles quickly, and to share your strategies with your friends.
    • To save a Skill Template, click the disk icon inside the Skills and Attributes panel, then click “Save to Template.” The template will be saved to a small file in the Templates/Skills folder below the Guild Wars installation directory. You can copy this file to other computers, share it with your friends, or post it on the Internet.
    • To load a Skill Template, click the disk icon, then click “Load from Template.” You can load any template that matches your character’s primary profession.
    • If your character doesn’t have as many attribute points as the character who saved the template, the attribute levels will automatically be adjusted down for you.
    • If your character doesn’t have access to skills that were saved in the template, those skills will appear grayed out.

Equipment Templates

  • PvP characters can now save and load Equipment Templates containing a complete set of armor and weapon selections.
  • To save an Equipment Template, click the disk icon inside the Inventory panel, then click “Save to Template.” The template will be saved to a small file in the Templates/Equipment folder below the Guild Wars installation directory.
  • To load an Equipment Template, click the disk icon, then click “Load from Template.” You can load any template that matches your character’s primary profession.
  • Loading a template will replace your character’s current weapons and armor, unless your character is using weapons or armor that were acquired through roleplaying.
  • If you load a template that uses item upgrades that are not currently available on your account, the items that require those upgrades will not be created.

Equipment Builder

  • Equipment can be made for any PvP character, including PvP Heroes, using the new PvP Equipment panel.
  • You can open the PvP Equipment panel whenever your PvP character is standing in a town or outpost by clicking on the PvP Equipment icon within the Inventory panel or by pressing “J” on your keyboard.*

To create an item, click on the portrait of the character you would like to build the item for, then select the tab for the type of item you would like to create. Choose the item, upgrade components, and color from the list of available selections.

  • If you would like the item to be equipped immediately, select the “Equip Immediately” option before clicking “Create.” The new item will be placed onto your character, and the old item that your character was previously wearing will be destroyed. If you choose not to equip immediately, the new item will be placed into your character’s inventory instead.
  • Items created with the PvP Equipment panel cannot be upgraded or salvaged.

Armor Insignias

  • New armor crafted in Elona or through the PvP Equipment panel can contain swappable insignias, which provide the same types of bonuses that previously were permanent parts of the armor, plus new bonuses that are being introduced with Nightfall.
  • With the use of armor insignias, you can now mix and match different armor bonuses with different armor appearances. *Additionally, the use of insignias simplifies the process of creating armor with the PvP Equipment panel because you can choose the armor appearance and bonus separately.
  • Outside of the PvP Equipment panel, you can only place an insignia on a piece of armor if that armor has a blank insignia slot. Certain types of armor crafted in Elona include blank insignia slots.
  • Like other types of armor upgrades, insignias must be unlocked on your account before you can use them in the PvP Equipment panel. Because some insignias are replacements for bonuses that used to be inherent properties of PvP armor, those insignias are already unlocked on your account.
  • Because insignias allow you to place bonuses on certain types of headgear that could not receive bonuses in the past, some existing high-end headgear from Tyria and Cantha is being updated with this build to include new bonuses.

Weapon Inscriptions

  • New weapons found in Elona or created through the PvP Equipment panel can contain swappable inscriptions, which provide a variety of weapon bonuses and enhancements.
  • Like armor insignias, weapon inscriptions allow you to swap bonuses between different items you acquire by playing through the roleplaying content, and they simplify the process of creating items with the PvP Equipment panel by enabling you to choose the base weapon and the weapon bonuses separately.
  • You can only place an inscription in a weapon if that weapon has a blank inscription slot. Inscriptions and inscription slots are sometimes found on rare weapons dropped by monsters in Elona.
  • Inscriptions must be unlocked on your account before you can use them in the PvP Equipment panel. Inscriptions that provide bonuses that were previously inherent bonuses of PvP weapons are already unlocked on your account.

New Item Upgrades

  • Shields, wands, and focus items created through the PvP Equipment panel or found in Elona can now have upgrades applied to them.
  • Shields can have a Shield Handle upgrade plus one inscription.
  • Wands can have a Wand Wrapping upgrade plus one inscription.
  • Focus items can have a Focus Core upgrade plus one inscription.
  • These new upgrades are equivalent in power to inherent item bonuses that were found in previous campaigns.

New Salvage/Upgrade System

  • Salvaging an item with upgrade components now gives you the ability to pick which item you would like to salvage.
  • If you salvage an item to extract a magical component, there is now a 50 percent chance that the base item will not be destroyed.
  • When you upgrade an item with an upgrade component, you now see a preview of what that item will look like after the upgrade.

New Dye System

  • The new dye system improves the appearance of base dye colors and mixed dye colors. The new system is used when you newly apply dye to an item. Existing item colors are not affected.
  • Newly crafted armor now starts out gray. If you dye it to another color and then later want to restore it to its original appearance, just dye it gray. Vendors now sell gray dye instead of dye remover.
  • White and brown dye colors are now available as loot drops.
  • Silver is now an equipment color option during character creation.
  • A new Dye Preview panel lets you preview the effect of dye color combinations on your items before applying the dye.

New Damage Interface

  • The new Damage Monitor panel shows all skills that your opponents have recently used against you. You can hover the mouse over any skill icon to get a tooltip explaining that skill.
  • The numbers that float above characters’ heads are now bigger, and use different animations to help distinguish between damage, healing, and experience.
  • When an enemy uses a skill against you, the skill icon will display next to the damage number. The Options panel allows you to switch from displaying skill icons to displaying skill names.

PvP-Only Character Creation

  • The PvP character creation process has been simplified. During character creation, you now choose only the character’s primary profession, character appearance, and name.
  • Newly created PvP characters start off with a set of equipment and six basic skills for their primary profession, so you can start playing immediately.
  • To outfit your PvP character with other skills and equipment, you can use the new Skill and Equipment Templates systems.
  • So that your PvP characters have immediate access to skill and equipment swapping, new PvP characters you create now start in the Great Temple of Balthazar once you have unlocked Random Arenas on your account.
  • You can still access Zaishen Basic Training by walking from the Great Temple back into the Isle of the Nameless and talking with the Master of Paths.
  • First-time PvP players must complete Zaishen Basic Training to gain access to the Random Arenas and to gain the ability to purchase unlocks from the Priest of Balthazar.

Balthazar’s Faction

  • The rate of Balthazar's faction has been doubled for all types of PvP!
  • In high-level arenas, players now earn 40 faction per unique kill, 50 faction for winning, 50 faction for a flawless victory, and 50 faction for a five-game winning streak.
  • In Heroes' Ascent, players now earn 40 faction per unique kill, 200–800 faction for winning (depending on the map), and 200 faction for a flawless victory.
  • In Guild Combat, players now earn 40 faction per unique kill, 1,000–4,000 faction for winning (depending on their guild rating), and 200–800 faction for a flawless victory (depending on their guild rating).
  • In Alliance Battles and Competitive Missions, players now earn 6 faction per kill.

Henchmen Controls

  • Henchmen controls are now available on the Compass. To direct your henchmen, click the Henchmen button on the Compass, then click anywhere on the Compass or in the world to select where you’d like your henchmen to go.

Improved Hero/Henchmen AI

  • Heroes and Henchmen now take into account Conditions and Exhaustion when choosing which skills to cast. They also consider attribute levels for stolen skills, and combo states for Assassin skills.
  • They have improved combo awareness for some important skill combinations.
  • They have improved knowledge of skills, so that they make smarter decisions about which skills to cast.
  • They manage their Energy better.
  • They are better at kiting opponents.
  • They are better at getting out and staying out of AoE damage spells.
  • They move in formation around their leader, with melee characters in front and ranged or casting characters in back.
  • They follow their leader whenever they haven’t been specifically directed to move to a point. The leader for Heroes is the player who owns the Hero, and the leader for henchmen is the party leader.
  • They also know how to have fun.

Improved Monster AI

  • Monsters no longer run from AoE damage when they are very healthy, or when they think they’re very close to killing their opponent.
  • Melee monsters are more intelligent about keeping themselves spread out, so that they don’t put themselves into a position where they’re highly susceptible to AoE attacks.

Gameplay Changes

  • The rarity of items within locked chests is now properly randomized.
  • Armor swapping is now disabled during PvP games.
  • Certain situations that caused players to get stuck and not be able to move have been fixed, and a new command “/stuck” has been introduced to help players free their characters if they become stuck.

Title System Changes

  • The Treasure Hunter and Seeker of Wisdom titles now confer a benefit to players who earn them. For each rank of either title earned, the chance of an item not being destroyed when salvaging a magical upgrade component is increased by 3 percent from a base of 50 percent.
  • The Hero, Gladiator, and Champion titles now confer a benefit to players who earn them. Gaining ranks in these titles increases the maximum cap of unspent Balthazar’s faction. The cap increases by 2,000 faction points for each of the first five ranks of the Hero title and 5,000 faction points for each subsequent rank, and the cap increases by 5,000 faction points for each rank of the Gladiator and Champion titles earned.

Materials Storage

  • The Materials Storage panel, which was previously a feature of Guild Wars Factions, is now available to all players.

User Interface Improvements

  • While forming a party, you can now control+click on your Skill Bar to announce your skill setup to your party members.
  • Called targets now remain active for up to 30 seconds after being attacked by their caller, and do not go away when the caller changes targets.
  • During Guild Combat, a countdown timer now displays the amount of time remaining until the team that holds the shrine will gain a morale boost.
  • In all types of PvP, the new score screen option “Team Status” shows a summary of the Health and morale of your entire team, including allied NPCs.
  • A new option “Hide UI” on the login screen allows you to use the login screen as a screensaver. The client continues to download game assets in the background while in screensaver mode.
  • The text and audio languages can now be independently selected in the Options panel.
  • Other new options enable you to keep windows open when pressing escape, to disable tooltips on Skill Bars, and to disable tooltips on effect monitors.

Equipment Balance Changes

  • Reduced the cost of all armor sets found on Shing Jea Island.
  • Updated the Henge of Denravi Axe to have +5 inherent Energy instead of +25 inherent Health.
  • Updated the Henge of Denravi Bow to have +5 inherent Energy instead of +10 inherent armor.
  • Updated some Fiery Flame Spitters that had a 15% recharge chance instead of the normal 10% chance.
  • Green item staffs, crafted staffs, and collector staffs with any sort of recharge bonus have been updated to reduce the recharge time of all spells with a chance of 20% instead of the attribute-specific bonuses they had previously.
  • Updated a sword received from a quest in pre-Searing Ascalon to remove the inherent +5 armor while enchanted bonus. It now deals an additional 15% damage while Health is above 50.
  • Updated the Warrior’s Dreadnought and Dragon armor suits to +10 vs. elemental to match how the armor bonus works under the new insignia system.
  • Updated the Warrior’s Sentinel armor suit to +20 vs. elemental (req. 13 Strength) to match how the armor bonus works under the new insignia system.
  • Updated the Necromancer’s Tormentor armor suit to add 6 holy damage on the chest, 4 on the leggings, and 2 on all other pieces. It was previously 5 damage for all pieces.
  • Updated the Assassin’s Saboteur, Infiltrator, and Vanguard armor suits to have +10 armor vs. all physical damage and an additional +10 armor vs. a specific type of physical damage. The Condition reduction bonuses were removed to match how the bonuses work under the new insignia system.
  • Updated all instances of Stonefist Gauntlets to remove the -5 armor penalty to match how the bonus works under the new insignia system.
  • Updated all instances of the Lieutenant's Helm to remove the -10 armor vs. physical penalty to match how the bonus works under the new insignia system.
  • Updated maximum level headgear found in Prophecies and Factions with a +1 Energy bonus to equalize it with possibilities found in Nightfall and at the new PvP Equipment panel. Warrior headgear that already had built-in armor bonuses will remain unaffected.

Skill Balance Changes

Assassin

Elementalist

Mesmer

Monk

Necromancer

Ranger

  • Archer's Signet: increased number of bow attacks affected to 1..7.
  • Call of Protection: increased damage reduction to 5..20.
  • Concussion Shot: decreased recharge time to 5 seconds.
  • Debilitating Shot: reduced Energy reduction to -1..10. This skill now falls under the Marksmanship attribute.
  • Dual Shot: increased recharge time to 10 seconds.
  • Expertise: For each rank of Expertise, the Energy cost of all of your attacks, Rituals, touch skills, and Rangers skills are decreased by 4%. Several skills, especially those related to Energy costs and skill recharge times, become more effective with higher Expertise.
  • Heal as One: decreased recharge time to 10 seconds. This skill now resurrects your pet.
  • Marksman's Wager: increased duration to 18 seconds.
  • Run as One: decreased recharge time to 25 seconds.

Warrior

Start of Halloween Event

When the moon shines down on the Elon
Like the eye of a ravenous drake

Keep a lantern close by and the darkness at bay
For on this holiday night, they say

A spirit returns, pumpkin on head
Wicked deeds (and bad jokes) will abound
He’ll bluster and shout
Spread chaos about
’till a banishment for his mischief be found

Heed my tale, ye brave heroes
From lands north and south
Listen wherefore I say:
Bind your sanity close, lest you lose what you love most
When the monarch of madness appears.

GuildWiki notes

  • Monster AI is currently erratic. Monsters will break aggro from one target if they take damage, but instead of re-establishing aggro (on the same target or new ones) they will get stuck on a target (to the point of just standing there doing nothing). Minions also act in the same erratic manner. The new AI is being dubbed as a huge nerf to Spiteful Spirit as it has made it very difficult for 2 man Underworld groups.
  • Henchmen can now spread disease to human players.
  • There was a bug with henchmen that occurred when they tried to use Resurrection Signet. It seems to have been fixed.
  • This update introduced six new runes that can be used by any profession. Specifically, runes of Vitae, Attunement, Clarity, Purity, Recovery and Restoration. Runes of Vitae and Attunement are core runes, while the other four are Nightfall runes.
  • PvP character creation is now identical to PvE character creation, leading some to believe they were unable to create a PvP character.
  • Some green staves have their prefix and suffix modifiers missing for some accounts. The bug appears to have been fixed.
  • Expose Defenses has not changed.
  • Prophecies characters may purchase the Material Storage upgrade in Lion's Arch.
  • All types of alcohol now have a disclaimer stating excessive alcohol consumption will result in intoxication.
  • An item description stating the item's effect has been added to Red Bean Cakes and Candy Canes.
  • The "while under the effects of an Enchantment" modification has been reverted back to the shorter "while Enchanted."
  • The guild status tab no longer displays when members leave the guild.
  • The mouse cursor when salvaging an item with mods/inscriptions/insignias or green items has been changed. Items that ONLY give crafting materials when salvaged will still retain the old salvage cursor so as to differentiate between salvaging clean items and modded items.
  • The skins for vials of dye have been changed.
  • There was a bug causing previously acquired vials of dye to not stack with newly dropped or purchased vials of dye, but it was fixed.
  • A new slot for Diamonds was added to material storage.
  • Imperial Commendations now have a gold skin rather than the usual silver. New and old Monastery Credits, Imperial Commendations, and Equipment Requisitions do not stack.
  • The icons of some 'dyed' unique items incorrectly appeared 'undyed', however the items appear normal when wielded.
  • The total size of this update is approximately 160 MB.
  • Players have to re-accept the EULA.
  • The Ghostly Hero now holds a Chaos Axe.
  • For a while you could salvage and sell the weapon upgrades from weapons included with the Prerelease Bonus Pack. This was fixed in a second update.
  • The original update notes (~11:50 PM CST) stated that the base chance to salvage-without-destroying was 75%, with a bonus of 1% for each rank in the Wisdom and Treasure Hunter titles. The notes were changed overnight to the current reading (50% base and 3% bonus) with no indication that the edit occurred.
  • Compass size and location are reset to default.
  • The art shown for the Ritualist in the class selection screen has been changed.
  • The patch client has been translated into Polish, however Polish in-game text is still unavailable.
  • Occasionally, the door for Blue team will open prematurely in the Heroe's Ascent map The Underworld.
  • The daily cap on Balthazar Faction gained from training and challenge arenas has been doubled to 2000.
  • Characters can now go back to Lion's Gate, regardless of their Campaign.
  • Players can visit Nightfall guild halls via Canthan Ambassador NPCs.
  • The Guild Emblemer offers a different screen.
  • Amulet of the Mists is now a green item.
  • When salvaging an unidentified item, a new verification message appears.
  • The title bar of the Mission Map now shows the name of the zone you are in.
  • Introduced weapons for all non-offensive caster attributes: Energy Storage, Fast Casting, Inspiration Magic, Healing Prayers, Protection Prayers, Soul Reaping, and Restoration Magic.
  • Air, Earth, Fire, and Water Attunements do not actually give 30% + 1 energy; instead it seems to be (30% + .5 energy), as 10 energy cost spells still give 30%, while all other energy cost spells returns have been rounded up to the next whole number. They might be working on this now, as there are conflicitng reports that is is or is not fixed.
  • The Eternal Forgemaster will now craft 'blank' Obsidian armor which will accept Insignia.
  • Although the update notes do not specifically mention it, salvaging crafting materials out of an item will always destroy it.
  • When you attempt to salvage an item with upgrade components, you also have the choice of cancelling the salvage attempt.
  • Upgrade componints can now only be salvaged from identified items. If you try to salvage an unidentified blue, purple or gold item, you will receive a warning, and will have the options of either salvageing the item or cancelling.
  • Impale was changed from a hex spell that triggers and ends the next time the foe is hit with a dual attack to a direct damage skill which must follow a dual attack.


Update 2 - Monday October 23

  • Added the PvP Editions of Guild Wars Prophecies and Guild Wars Factions to the online store. These PvP Editions provide access to PvP for those who don't already own the underlying campaign, and they also provide all skill unlocks for the entire campaign.

GuildWiki notes

Update - Monday October 23


Update - Friday October 20

  • Made preparations for the Factions Boardwalk weekend event.


Update - Saturday October 14


Update - Thursday October 12

  • Made preparations for the Factions Green Drop Weekend.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented some skill effects from being displayed the first time they were used.

GuildWiki notes

  • Bug: Numbers next to districts in the District Selection menu did not show correctly. This bug has now been fixed.


Update - Thursday October 5, 2006

UPDATES TO HEROES' ASCENT

  • Removed Burial Mounds from rotation.
  • Raised the team count for Broken Tower to 3.
  • Reduced the play time for Broken Tower to 4 minutes.
  • Reduced the play time for Courtyard to 4 minutes.
  • Added levers to Scarred Earth so that players can open gates leading out of the center region of the map. Gates still open automatically as teams are defeated.

GuildWiki notes


Update - Monday September 25, 2006

GuildWiki notes

  • Free accounts created for the Nightfall World Preview Event were disabled.
  • Existing Guild Wars Nightfall Characters were locked.
  • The temporary changes to Contemplation of Purity and earshot range have not been reverted.
  • Skill icons show a generic hourglass icon briefly before the actual icon shows up in the Skill Bar or in the Effects or Skill Monitor. (The effect was added with the Nightfall preview, but it persists after this update. This is not intended and will be fixed later on.)


Update - Sunday September 24, 2006

  • Fixed a skill bug that was being exploited in PvP matches.

GuildWiki notes

  • The skill in question was Signet of Might. It was able to target allies and enemies while in the range of an allied spirit. Using the skill caused the target to die after 10 seconds, during which the target had a moderate attack damage boost.
  • Signet of Might now can be used while targetting allies and enemies, but the effect defaults to the nearest spirit, in a way similar to Consume Soul.


Update - Saturday September 23, 2006


Update 2 - Friday September 22, 2006

  • Changed default positions of Dialogue, Mission Goals, and Unlock boxes.
  • Fixed miscellaneous preview event bugs.

Skill Updates:

  • Arcane Zeal: Changed the maximum amount of energy gained from 5..7 to 1..7.
  • Trapper's Speed: Fixed a bug that caused this skill to decrease the time to place traps more than intended.
  • Spirit of Weariness: Fixed a bug that caused this spirit to remove more energy than intended.

Update - Friday September 22, 2006

Note: This update was listed on the Guildwars.com site as two separate updates, Thursday 21st and Friday 22nd

We had difficulty distributing the Live build using our normal distribution process, so we have been distributing it manually to file servers around the world, one server at a time. Therefore, players on some servers will receive the update sooner than players on other servers.
We expect to complete distributing the build to all servers within the next 15 minutes, and when the distribution is complete, we will open access to Elona and start the preview event.

Update - Thursday September 21

Please join us for the Guild Wars Nightfall Preview Event, starting this Friday, September 22 at 12:01 AM PDT (07:01 GMT). For three days only, players can get a sneak peak of Guild Wars Nightfall, create Paragon and Dervish characters, use Nightfall skills, and play through a portion of the Nightfall roleplaying campaign.

All active Guild Wars accounts will automatically have access to the Preview Event. Players without a Guild Wars account can download the client from www.guildwars.com and then create a free account for the weekend by using one of the following access keys.

America: 2BBQF-MG981-PRQD7-KDM6Q-C78H3
Europe: 944NC-B1LJ4-MD6L9-718L6-1HM38

Please note that all Nightfall content and features are being presented in beta form, and are subject to change and improvement before the final release.

Campaign Overview

  • As a newly inducted member of the legendary Order of the Sunspears, you will be able to explore all of Istan, the great island province of the nation of Elona.
  • While playing in Elona, you will have the opportunity to meet and recruit Heroes into your party. Heroes are party members that follow your orders and use skills and equipment of your choosing.
  • During this preview event, any new characters you create in the nation of Elona are temporary and will be reset prior to the release of Guild Wars Nightfall. These beta characters cannot travel outside of Elona, cannot access account storage, and cannot sell items to traders.

Heroes

  • You can recruit new Heroes by completing certain quests. After recruiting a Hero, you can choose to bring him along in any mission or explorable area by adding him to your party using the party formation interface. Regardless of how many Heroes you recruit, you can invite a maximum of three Heroes into your party at any given time.
  • Other players in your party can also bring along Heroes. If the maximum party size of a mission is eight, you and another player can play together and each bring three Heroes.
  • Heroes have skills, attributes, weapons, and armor just like players do. You can use the Skills and Attributes panel to select their skills and attributes, and the Inventory panel to select their equipment. (During this preview event, you cannot yet customize your Heroes' armor.)
  • When a Hero is in your party, you will see a button next to that Hero's name, which you can use to bring up the Hero Control panel. Within that panel, you will see that Hero's portrait, current Health and Energy, Skill Bar, and combat mode (aggressive, defensive, passive). The Hero Control panel is an advanced interface that you don't need to use, but if you would like to change a Hero's combat mode or force him to cast a specific skill, you can do it there.
  • While playing the game with one or more Heroes in your party, you will also see flag buttons next to the Compass, which you can use to give them orders. To order a Hero to move to a certain spot on the map, click the flag button and then place the flag on the map. To undo that order, double-click the flag button.
  • Heroes don't maintain their own inventory of skills. Instead, they are able to use any skill that you have unlocked on your account.
  • Heroes don't maintain their own backpack or inventory of items. Instead, you can drag items from your inventory onto a Hero to equip him. Your Heroes can use weapons that you have customized for yourself.

User Interface Changes

For the duration of the World Preview Event, the game will use certain elements of the Guild Wars Nightfall user interface.

  • The new Skills and Attributes panel centralizes management of skills and attributes, both for player characters and Heroes. It replaces both the old Skill panel and the Attributes page from the Hero panel.
  • The updated Inventory panel contains a character selector, so it can be used to manage equipped weapons and armor for both player characters and Heroes.
  • The Compass includes new controls that allow the player to issue orders to both henchmen and Heroes.

All of these user interface changes are being presented in beta form. After the conclusion of the weekend event, they will be removed from the game again until the release of Guild Wars Nightfall.

Nightfall World Preview Event Limitations

The following features will be part of the release of Guild Wars Nightfall, but are not available during this preview event.

  • Skill Templates - In Nightfall, you will be able to save and load skill and attribute builds to disk, enabling you to quickly switch strategies and outfit your Heroes.
  • Hero Battles - After the release of Nightfall you will be able to unlock Heroes for your use with your PvP characters, and you will be able to bring Heroes into a new type of PvP where players can compete head-to-head for the first time.

Also, the following issues are known to exist with the features being previewed during this weekend event.

  • Hero AI for using skills is still under development.
  • Heroes cannot capture skills using Signet of Capture, nor can they control pets using Charm Animal.
  • Hero armor cannot yet be upgraded using runes.
  • The visual appearance of Hero armor in the Inventory panel, and the text descriptions of the Hero's attributes and items, do not take into account the sex of the Hero.
  • The tutorials in Prophecies and Factions have not been updated to reflect the Nightfall user interface changes.

GuildWiki notes

  • Clicking on the skill bar in-town now shows the new Skills and Attributes panel.
  • Re-enabled the ability to call your health and energy in team chat which was probably mistakenly broken in the previous update.
  • The game no longer automatically loads all skill icons. Instead, it loads icons as soon when they are needed, displaying a dark grey hourglass icon as a placeholder while they load.


Update - Wednesday September 20, 2006

Preparation for the World Preview Event

GuildWiki notes

  • The "icon" for the store has been changed to an Elonian design but there appears to be no new content inside.
  • The amount of health gain provided by Contemplation of Purity was also slightly adjusted.
  • The wording of the modifier "while enchanted" was changed to "while under the effects of an Enchantment"
  • Henchmen (other than Talon Silverwing) now mimic most of your emotes but react to some. When you dance, they will provide you with a band. When you play an instrument, they will provide accompaniment. When you play rock-paper-scissors, they will play against you. They will also perform random emotes when idle.
  • The formation in which henchmen position themselves around the player has been changed. While not moving or fighting henchmen will try to maintain a 3x3 square formation with the player in the middle or front row, depending if they are wielding a ranged or melee attack weapon. Monks will always take the back row while the front row will be occupied by warriors, then assassins, then rangers. Other casters will fill the middle spots in a seemingly random pattern.
  • Nightfall campaign skills are now visible on the PvP character creation screen, however they are locked and their descriptions cannot be seen.
  • Players are unable to call their health or energy.
  • The "foley" sound effect mentioned in the update description indicates the type of armor the character is wearing. Metal armor produces a low clanking noise, while cloth armor produces a rustling and jingling noise.
  • The "random" option in the Observer Mode window selects the game only from the list of observable games.
  • The interface in Observer Mode can be turned off as usual using the UI suppression keybinding (by default Ctrl+Shift+H). Selecting the "hide" check box in Observer Mode starts a 15 second timer after which the UI is hidden.


Update - Monday September 18


Update - Friday September 15

GuildWiki notes

  • The updated graphics for existing character faces is to prepare for animated facial expressions due to appear in Nightfall.


Update - Thursday September 14

GUILD BATTLE UPDATES

SKILL UPDATES

Assassin

Elementalist

  • Mind Burn: decreased Energy cost to 5, decreased recharge time to 5 seconds.
  • Mind Freeze: decreased Energy cost to 5, decreased recharge time to 8 seconds.
  • Mind Shock: decreased Energy cost to 5, decreased recharge time to 8 seconds.
  • Ether Prodigy: increased damage per Energy to 3.

Mesmer

Monk

Necromancer

Ranger

Ritualist

Warrior

GuildWiki notes

  • This is a typical skill balance update. ArenaNet has done it a few times before, usually between GvG ladder seasons, when the ladder has been frozen but not yet reset.
  • Updated the character selection screen to show Elonian scenery.
  • The Catacombs' mini map had already been added in a previous update.
  • The increased amount of healing from Wielder's Boon is the conditional heal.
  • Some character faces/hairstyles are more detailed or are different shades of color.
  • Sometimes Emotes and Skill auras fail to show.
  • New Shader graphics options were added.
  • Updated the art used for ritualists' spirits. Now, all non-attacking spirits except for the Spirit of Life resemble the spirit of Destruction with the arms chained to the shoulders. Attacking spirits like Bloodsong still have the look of a Banshee.
  • The gamma has been decreased.
  • The names of locked elite skills in PvP character creation screens are now gold.
  • Players leaving a guild are now listed in the Guild Status.
  • Some unsupported characters in chat are now shown as spaces, instead red square. Sending of this message is now possible. (Works for Czech and Polish chars for instance, but not for Russian or Arabic chars)
  • Currently, many players are experiencing sound issues, such as no ping when calling targets, no sound when swapping inventory items (ie. equipping armor), and many battle effects such as attacks and spells are silenced. This is similar to the bug caused by setting the sound quality too high.
  • Updated the Target Monitor so that now when an ally/foe uses a skill you see what the energy cost/casting time/recharge time of the skill is.
  • After the update a character's inventory will open on the first occasion that they pick up a dropped item from a foe.
  • Although it is not stated in the update notes or the skill description, the Spirit of Pain created by Anguished Was Lingwah also does increased damage.
  • The "Please take a break" timer now shows total time the client has been open.
  • The Upkeep Monitor is now re-sizable.
  • The green quest exclamation point shown above quest involved NPCs will not show on occasion.
  • Longbows with the feathered skin are now known as Feathered Longbows.
  • Soul Vortex graphic is now a more visible purple sphere instead of a flashing light.

Update - Friday September 8

  • Fixed a flaw in the online store that prevented some users from purchasing account upgrades.


Update - Wednesday September 6

  • Fixed a bug that prevented some players from making purchases in the online store.


Update - Tuesday September 5

  • Completed the weekend event and restored the Heroes' Ascent party size to 8.

GuildWiki notes


Update - Friday September 1


Update 2 - Thursday August 31

  • Monk and Necromancer skill packs were incorrectly unlocking the other Profession’s skills. This has been corrected.

Update - Thursday August 31

Was Previously

  • We are preparing additional functionality for the online store.

GuildWiki notes

  • The Unlock Packs are priced at 9.99 USD / 8.99 EUR / 5.99 GBP per profession, or 39.99 USD / 35.99 EUR / 23.99 GBP for all six.
  • Each Pack includes all core and Prophecies-only skills (including elite skills) for the corresponding profession.
  • A Factions-only account cannot currently purchase an Unlock Pack.


Update - Friday August 18

GuildWiki notes

After this update players had to re-accept the End-User License Agreement due to document updates to cover e.g. the new Guild Wars in-game store.


Update - Thursday, August 17, 2006

SKILL UPDATES


Guildwiki Notes

The following new rare weapons have begun to drop in the game, as hinted by The Scribe in his report:

At least some of these weapons are Honorable Mentions from the Design A Weapon Contest. Multiple other new weapons are rumored, but still unconfirmed.


Update - Saturday, August 12, 2006

GuildWiki notes

  • Warrior runes of absorption now indicate that they do not stack.
  • Seems to have reintroduced the bug that causes sound to fail.


Update – Friday, August 11, 2006


Update – Friday, August 4, 2006


Update 2 - Thursday, August 3, 2006

  • Made preparations for the upcoming Elite Weekend event.
  • Fixed a bug that caused some clients to crash during Elite missions.
  • Eased excessive messaging filter restrictions for party chat, guild chat, and whispers. Restrictive filters for these forms of chat were inadvertently reintroduced in the previous update.

Update – Thursday, August 3, 2006

  • Returned Zaishen Supply Masters to the Great Temple of Balthazar. The Supply Masters will remain until August 7, 12:01am (Pacific daylight time).
  • Fixed a bug that caused crackling sounds and static on some sound cards.
  • Added support for additional European credit cards to the online store.

GuildWiki notes

  • European players were unable to log in for part of the day. The problem has been corrected.


Update – Tuesday, August 1, 2006

SKILL UPDATES

GuildWiki notes

  • Removed Zaishen Supply Masters from the Great Temple of Balthazar.
  • Zaishen Medallions are no longer awarded to players after winning PvP matches.
  • You no longer have a blue cape when joining a group in Team Arenas before going to combat.
  • The "Enter Mission" button in Challenge Missions has been changed to say "Begin Challenge," differentiating Challenge Missions from other missions.
  • The "Enter Mission" button in Arenas has been changed to say "Enter Battle."
  • The henchmen bug was not fixed although the update claims so.
  • Players sometimes do not show their class and level above their heads when not in a party.


Update – Friday, July 28, 2006

  • Updated the store so that Europeans no longer need to enter a state.
  • Reduced the restrictiveness of the excessive messaging filter for party chat, guild chat and whispers.
  • Updated the appearance of party member health bars so that they no longer overlap.

GuildWiki notes

  • A link to the Guild Wars Official Store was added to the character selection screen, and extra character slots are now available to purchase.
    • A minor bug caused international transactions to fail with a "no US state selected" error. A workaround was to in this case pick USA as country, set its state to "Other", and then set your country again to your actual one. This has been fixed in build 18334.
  • Fixed the previous bug of not earning of faction from killing the opposition party in the Training Arena.
  • Changed Sand Shards to only work with Scythe attacks missing.
  • The graphics corruption on the choose a sex screen while creating a new character has been fixed.
  • Calling a corpse of an ally will result in saying 'i'm moving to the corpse of [ally name]'.


Update – Thursday, July 27, 2006

  • Updated the list of available PVP character templates to include the templates designed by the Esoteric Warriors guild.
  • Added key bindings for the following game functions: Drop Item, Follow, Suppress Action, Zoom In, and Zoom Out.
  • Modified cinematics so that minions no longer decay and mission time no longer elapses while cinematics are playing.
  • Updated the Trade dialog to reduce the likelihood of a common scam. The Trade dialog now displays a message whenever the trade offer is modified.
  • Added a secondary profession changer to the Great Temple of Balthazar.
  • Added a Championship Trophy to the Great Temple of Balthazar.
  • Moved the positions of the Xunlai Agents in the Great Temple of Balthazar.
  • Updated the appearance of the Guild roster. Invitations are now issued from within the invitee and guest lists, and the number of online and total members is displayed for each guild rank.
  • Updated the appearance of the Options dialog. Option settings are now divided into tabbed categories.
  • Updated the art used for Health bars.
  • Added a new effect that desaturates screen colors when your character is dead (will only work if postprosessing is enabled in graphics menu).

Skill updates

Temporary skill balance changes

The following skill balance changes will be in effect only during the Nightfall PvP preview event:

GuildWiki notes

  • Churranu Island Arena and Sunspear Arena were added.
  • A few skin tones appear to have been changed.
  • The wording on the description of the Ranger's expertise attribute has been changed. Instead of saying "For each rank the Energy cost of Attack skills, Preparations, and Traps decreases by 4%." it now says "For each rank of Expertise, the Energy cost of all of your non-Spells decreases by 4%. Several skills, especially those related to Energy costs and skill recharge times, become more effective with higher Expertise.".
  • The casting bar now shows a green color when casting, a yellow color when completed and a purple color when interrupted.
  • Loading screens, energy and XP bars and other miscellaneous UI parts have been altered.
    • Conditions and hexes yield a duller color than before.
  • Added Nightfall campaign selection in Roleplaying character creation with small screenshots of the upcoming game.
  • Graphics for wands and offhands were updated. Mesmer wands and offhands now have glowing effects to represent the difference between illusion and domination. Elementalist wands now have animated effects surrounding them.
  • Added a delay to map zoom out.
  • PvP character creation screens now allow "pinning-down" the attribute panel so that it does not fade out when not hovered over with the mouse.
  • Added 3D and EAX sound options to sound tab.
  • The skill window now remembers your sort option after logging out and in again.
  • After selecting an item on the ground you can now call picking it up by ctrl-clicking the targeting window. For example: "I'm picking up a Tribal Blade."
  • The chat command /resign, which did not previously, now works in PvE explorable areas and missions. When used by all party members, the whole team dies, does not resurrect at a resurrection shrine and the leader may press the 'Return to outpost' button.
  • The Kurzick and Luxon victory cutscene when winning Fort Aspenwood (mission) no longer plays.
  • The gamma has been increased.

The following are most likely bugs and will be fixed in the near future.

Coruptsex

The corrupted character creation screen.

  • Corrupt graphics on the 'choose a sex' screen while creating a new character. This seems to only happen when running Guild Wars in windowed mode.
  • Adding a Barbed Bowstring to a bow has been reported to cause a game crash. This crash affects others in the district or guild hall.
  • If you send a lot of messages into the chat, you will receive an excessive messaging warning even if all of your messages are sent to different chats or persons.
  • In towns and outposts, overhead level displays of ungrouped players are not always shown.
  • There's a bug with necromancer armor that will make it look like it has been changed in the character creation/selection screen. However, in game it looks normal with no changes at all.
  • Vizunah Square mission is occasionally impossible to complete.
  • Dead pets and Flesh Golems reveal wireframes when highlighted. The same effect has also be seen with a Dervish.
  • The secondary profession quests, such as The Elementalist's Path are no longer available. Attempting to change profession in the Great Temple of Balthazar will be prevented as if you are not ascended.
  • A bug was introduced which caused some people with Tyrian bows to lose their crippling, silencing, or barbed bow strings. (More info on http://forums.gwonline.net/showthread.php?t=412996). Reapplying the bow string to the bow will not give the bow the correct attribute; i.e. the bow string will be wasted.


Update - Tuesday July 25, 2006


Update - Monday July 24, 2006

  • Pets now receive a Morale Boost when the team they are on earns a morale boost.
  • New character sorting options are available on the character selection screen.

GuildWiki notes

  • Changes in the Character Selection interface:
    • Added a sort button for the character selection screen. Sort option does not remain after logout at this time.
    • Added arrows behind characters.
  • Double-faction from the weekend has stopped.
  • Started downloads for weekend event.
  • The money bug, that caused the money dropped to be displayed incorrectly, seems to have been fixed.


Update - Friday July 14

GuildWiki notes

  • The fix of the Guild Lord was actually added as a second update.
  • Pets now receive Death Penalty in PvP. Multiple testings can be seen in the discussion at http://forums.gwonline.net/showthread.php?t=410690. Early in the thread, Gaile denied any knowledge of this as being part of the update. On page 23 of the thread, however, Gaile stated that she finally tracked down the dev team responsible, discovering:
    • This change was intentional.
    • The dev team failed to follow procedure, so it didn't make the update notes.
    • This is a test of the code, and as soon as they are sure it is stable, this will be rolled out to PvE as well.
  • If a player drops more than 255 gold coins onto the ground, the displayed number of coins on the ground will be incorrect. The correct value will be received if the gold is picked up.
  • Signet of Strength: multiple hit attacks now count as multiple attacks for this skill, so Hundred Blades on 10 targets counts as 20 attacks.


Update - Thursday July 13, 2006

SKILL UPDATES

All

* Note: Like all reduction caps, these only affect the cap from multiple sources. Any single skill that exceeds this cap will still work. Thus, skills such as Lingering Curse or Ritual Lord still gain their full effect.

Assassin

Elementalist

Mesmer

Monk

  • Air of Enchantment: added a minimum 1 Energy cost; increased recharge time to 8 seconds.
  • Divine Spirit: now reduces energy cost for Monk spells, not all Monk skills.
  • Infuse Health: fixed a bug that occasionally caused it to execute without healing the target.
  • Life Sheath: now renews damage reduction when it is cast on a target that already has Life Sheath on it.
  • Signet of Rejuvenation: reduced recharge time to 8 seconds; increased the conditional heal to 15..75 Health.
  • Spell Shield: no longer disables skills more than once when renewed.

Necromancer

Ranger

Ritualist

  • Displacement: Changed the skill's description to match its behavior.
  • Draw Spirit: reduced cast time to .25 seconds.
  • Lamentation: increased the target's needed proximity to a corpse or Spirit to "in the area".
  • Wielder's Boon: increased conditional heal to 15..60 Health.

Warrior

Amended Update Notes for July 13, 2006 (added July 21)

  • Updated Ranger pets to acquire Death Penalty when they die. This currently applies on PvP maps only.
  • Updated the wording of Shouts to use the phrase "within earshot". This is not a change to how the skills work. It is only meant as a clarification of how large their range is. The size keywords for area-of-effect skills are now:
    • Adjacent: Melee attack range.
    • Nearby: One and a half times Adjacent range.
    • In the Area: Two times Adjacent range.
    • Within Earshot: Three times Adjacent range.

GuildWiki notes

  • The material storage upgrade costs 50g for each character.
  • Newly created characters no longer receive pre-order items automatically. To retrieve them, you can still use "/preorder" or "/bonusitems" in an outpost.
  • Weapon upgrades and Runes now indicate which kind of weapon/armor they attach to. For example, a dagger tang will have the text "Attaches to: Dagger".
  • If you had in your inventory a collector's Crimson Carapace Shield 16AL req 9 tactics 45hp, -2 dmg while in stance, its stats has been changed to +60hp, -3 dmg while hexed, req 9 strength. This only happens if you got your shield from the Shiverpeaks, Crimson Carapace Shields from the collector in the Scar are unchanged.


Update - Friday, July 7th 2006

  • Updated the Hall of Heroes so that 3 teams compete instead of 5, games take place every 6 minutes instead of every 12 minutes, and the winning team is awarded 2 Celestial Sigils instead of 3.
  • Changed the requirements to earn a Champion title. Fewer points are needed and players now receive a point for defeating any guild with a rating of 1200 or more. Points are earned only when the guild ladder season is open.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented some players from leaving the Dragon Arena.

GuildWiki notes

  • Observer Mode will now show the Hall of Heroes matches regardless of whether a top 100 ranked guild is playing in that match.
  • Live henchmen are now relocated at resurrection shrines with players when the party respawns.


Update - Wednesday, July 5th 2006

Attention fellow citizens of Cantha,

On behalf of Emperor Kisu, I extend warm thanks to all those who fought for the empire during the past few days. Though the Dragon Festival is a time of celebration for us, this year's holiday was marred by violence spurred on by demonic outsiders. It was only through the efforts of those willing to lay their lives down for the empire that the portals that spawned these vile beasts were torn asunder.
Let these past events serve as a reminder: no matter what adversities threaten to dismantle the Dragon Empire, we shall endure.
This marks the end of this year's Dragon Festival. Go in peace and prosperity. Long live the emperor!

- Captain Leifei

Other Updates:

GuildWiki notes

  • All merchants in Kaineng City (instead of just Kaineng Center) have been updated to sell the wine and the cakes.


Update - Friday, June 30 2006


Update - Thursday, June 29 2006

The Dragon Festival has begun! Characters who wish to receive their Dragon Helm must collect 250 Jade Wind Orbs, which can be earned by undertaking quests, competing in the Dragon Arena, or taking part in the festival games. Emperor Kisu will honor us by appearing at the Shing Jea Monastery every 2 hours on the final day of the festival to reward those who have gathered 250 orbs. If you cannot attend the final day of the festival, take heart! The emperor has stationed an Imperial Supplymaster at the monastery, who will stay for a few days after the festival’s end to give Dragon Helms to those who have gathered their 250 orbs.

OTHER UPDATES

GuildWiki notes

See Dragon Festival 2006 for additional information on the event, including quests and mini-games.


Update - Wednesday, June 28 2006

Attention fellow citizens of Cantha,

On behalf of Emperor Kisu, it is my pleasure to announce this year's Dragon Festival, a five-day celebration of games, dance, drink, and revelry, where we commemorate the dawning of the Age of the Dragon and all those who helped to rebuild our great lands after the Jade Wind. Throughout the duration of the festival, citizens of our great empire convene at Shing Jea Monastery to socialize with others, partake in carnival activities, and amass collections of Jade Wind Orbs to be redeemed for special prizes. Fans of sport can flex their muscles in the Dragon Arena, where battle prowess and longevity are recognized and rewarded.

There will be no shortage of engaging entertainment, so we hope you make the journey to our lush island and join us in revelry.

OTHER UPDATES

GuildWiki notes


Update - Saturday, June 17 2006

  • Fixed a bug that occasionally prevented the victory chest in the Hall of Heroes from dropping items.


Update - Friday, June 16 2006

  • Added Priests of Balthazar to all Alliance Battle outposts.
  • Added 4 new maps to the Random Arena and the Team Arena.
  • Fixed a bug that caused the caravan to stop moving in Gyala Hatchery.
  • Fixed bugs and made improvements to the following quest: The Shadow Blades.
  • Fixed the descriptions of several Ranger skills, which were displaying incorrect values after the last update.
  • Fixed a bug that caused henchmen to drop gold when they died.
  • Fixed a bug that caused monsters to drop loot even if your party had no part in killing them.
  • Fixed a bug in PvP that caused dead players to receive morale boosts for the deaths of opposing team members.

GuildWiki notes

  • After this update, some players saw the following line repeatedly in their chat window: "Reattempting connection to the server (Code 50)." The game client refused to load new areas most of the time when map-travelling or walking through area portals. This problem seems to have been transient and/or has been resolved.
  • After this update, it seems you can no longer farm for rewards for The Captured Son quest.


Update - Thursday, June 15th 2006

  • Added the winning items from a recent community contest to the game. (See The Scribe for more information.)
  • Added faction bonuses for individual kills in alliance battles and competitive missions. Each kill awards the team's members with 1 Luxon or Kurzick faction point and 3 Balthazar faction points.
  • Improved faction bonuses awarded at the end of an alliance battle. Both the winning and losing teams' members earn 2 Luxon or Kurzick faction points for each point scored during battle. The winning team's members receive an additional 250 Luxon or Kurzick faction points.
  • Improved faction bonuses awarded at the end of the Jade Quarry competitive mission. For each jade slab brought to a team's base, the team's members receive 40 Luxon or Kurzick faction points. The winning team's members receive an additional 250 Luxon or Kurzick faction points.
  • Improved faction bonuses awarded at the end of the Fort Aspenwood competitive mission. For each gate that was knocked down at least once, the Luxon team's members receive 80 Luxon faction points. For each percentage point of progress toward Gods' Vengeance, the Kurzick team's members receive 4 Kurzick faction points. The winning team's members receive an additional 250 Luxon or Kurzick faction points.
  • Added a confirmation dialog when attempting to sell an equipped or hot-keyed inventory item.
  • Corrected the levels of several NPCs in The Divine Path.
  • Updated the location of the dye trader in Kaineng Center.

Item Upgrades

Updates over the past several months have improved a number of weapons and armors; these updates applied only to newly generated items, not to items already in player inventories. This update applies past improvements to the following inventory items:

GuildWiki notes

Bugs

  • Several Nature Rituals were affected by a bug that swapped the level of the spirit and its associated effect. For example, Edge of Extinction at 9 Beast Mastery claimed to make a level 36 spirit that does 6 damage, when it should say a level 6 spirit that deals 36 damage. This was only a display bug; the spirit was still the appropriate level when summoned.
  • This update introduced a bug in the drop system. Creatures killed near the party but not by party members (i.e. mobs fighting each other) would drop loot for the party. Henchmen who died after gold started dropping for the party would also drop gold when they died.
  • The chest for the winning team in the Hall of Heroes will not drop items most of the time. About 1 in 5 chests will actually drop the items.
  • Creatures no longer gain experience for killing you as they used to.

New Unique Items

Bestiary Updates

Item Changes
  • Armor Penetration 10%(Chance: 10%) ⇒ Armor Penetration 20%(Chance: 20%)
  • Energy +3 (condition) ⇒ Energy +5 (condition)


Update – Friday, June 9th, 2006

GuildWiki notes


Update – Friday, June 2, 2006

  • Opened alliance chat to all members of the alliance, not just guild officers.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented players from sending alliance chat messages while observing a game.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented ignored players from being ignored in guild and alliance chat.


Update – Thursday, June 1, 2006

SKILL BALANCE CHANGES

All

Assassin

Mesmer

  • Stolen Speed: reduced casting time to 1 second; reduced recharge time to 3 seconds; corrected the wording on this skill.
  • Arcane Languor: increased duration to 1..8 seconds.

Elementalist

Monk

Warrior

Ranger

  • Archer Signet: the number of attacks now update when reapplying this skill.

Ritualist

GuildWiki notes

  • Faction points gained now show up as a number above characters heads (like experience points), Luxon Faction in red, Kurzick Faction in blue.
  • The names of Mission NPCs and Quest NPCs who speak are now in a darker blue shade than those who speak in team chat.


Update – Monday, May 29, 2006


Update – Friday, May 26, 2006

GuildWiki notes

  • Changed the graphics on the minimize, maximize, and exit buttons.
  • Chat now disallows a large number of non-alphanumeric symbols.
  • The chests in Raisu Palace (explorable) are now Forbidden Chests, not Canthan Chests.
  • When starting one of the two missions on Shing Jea Island, the party leader will be given a warning that the party contains non-Factions characters. All members of the party will not be awarded skill points if the party includes non-Factions characters.
  • Similarly, when starting any mission prior to Lion's Arch, the party leader will be given a warning that the party contains Factions characters. All members of the party will not be awarded skill points if there are any Factions characters in the party.


Update – Tuesday, May 23, 2006

GuildWiki notes

  • If WTB or WTS (not case sensitive) is typed in the Local Channel in the Chat window, the text is automatically put into the appropriate Trade Channel. These words can occur anywhere inside the message, but must be an isolated word (ignoring punctuation characters). The following are some illustrative examples:
    • "gold 20/20 pan galactic gargleblaster wts" (redirected)
    • "Awtsome interrupt!" (not redirected)
    • "W T B ecto" (not redirected)
    • "::WTS:: dragon minipet" (redirected)


Update – Friday, May 19, 2006

Guildwiki Notes

  • The German translation has been improved. Now weapons upgrades read "d. Tapferkeit" instead of "Des Tapferkeit", for example.


Update – Wednesday, May 17, 2006


Update – Wednesday, May 10, 2006

  • Fixed a bug that was preventing some players from completing the Aurios Mines mission.


Update – Tuesday, May 9, 2006


Update – Monday, May 8, 2006

GuildWiki notes


Update – Thursday, May 4, 2006


Update – Tuesday, May 2, 2006

There has been no official notice for this update, the information is based solely on contributor observations.

GuildWiki notes


Update - Thursday, April 27, 2006

Pahbahzhen, Brother Mhenlo,

Our worst fears have been realized. A plague is spreading across Cantha the likes of which I have never seen nor even imagined. Our healers have found no way to combat this affliction, and all our attempts to learn of previous outbreaks in the imperial archives or through consultation with the spirits of the dead have proven fruitless.

Truly, Mhenlo, I have never known a monk with a greater gift for healing, and though you are young, you have traveled far and wide. I would not ask this of you for myself, for I know full well that the last few years have shown you more than enough misery and strife, yet I do ask. I ask you to come and lend us your insight.

I ask in the name of all you love and remember about Cantha. The sweeping grandeur of Shing Jea Isle. The towering spectacle of Kaineng City. The breathtaking majesty of the Jade Sea. The dark beauty of the Echovald Forest. And, of course, all of us who have been proud to call you friend these many years. Return to us, Brother Mhenlo. We need you.

Master Togo
27 Suzhen, 1582

CANTHA AWAITS

The great continent of Cantha is now open to all accounts that have an active Guild Wars Factions key.

On accounts with both Guild Wars Factions and Guild Wars Prophecies, players may take characters back and forth between the continents of Cantha and Tyria. The first journey to a new continent must be done through a quest. After that, characters may travel quickly and easily using the Ship Travel icon on the world map.

UPDATES

  • The Day of the Tengu event has come to a close.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented guild scrimmages while a guild battle or another guild scrimmage was underway. There is no limit to the number of guild scrimmages a guild may conduct at one time. Guild scrimmages do not prevent a guild from participating in a guild battle.
  • Ensured that all monster-dropped uncommon and rare armor pieces have the appropriate runes.
  • Introduced a new command: /resign. This command allows a team to forfeit a mission as a group. All party members must type "/resign" for it to take effect.

GuildWiki notes

  • There was a significant problem with the Alliance and faction system, therefore that feature was disabled until a solution was found. It has since been fixed.


Update - Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Pahbahzhen, Brother Mhenlo,

Today marks five years since you completed your studies with us and returned to your homeland in the distant northern kingdoms. You were one of the last Tyrian students I trained. Therefore I want you to be among the first Tyrians to learn that, although Shing Jea Monastery remains closed to foreign students, our noble emperor has reopened the port at Kaineng Center to ships of every nation. Trade and travel between Tyria and Cantha are once more returning to something resembling normalcy. And it is with even greater hope that I look upon this year's crop of new students at our humble monastery. It has been some time since I have seen such a promising group of young Canthans so eager to take up the mantle of the hero.

At long last, we have forged what I believe is a permanent peace between the Tengu and the humans of Cantha. The last of the Tengu Wars, which you saw for yourself when you trained here, has been over for almost a year now. Emperor Kisu has declared a day of celebration marking the one-year anniversary of the peace treaty, and I would invite you to join us if you are able (though I certainly understand if you are not, with the troubles Tyria has recently faced).

And yet, I am troubled. In my many years, I have learned to trust my instincts, and my instincts tell me that despite peace breaking out from Shing Jea Island to the Canthan mainland, my homeland stands on the verge of dark times. There is talk of a strange disease that strikes the remote settlements, and the piratical cultists of the Crimson Skull grow bolder by the day. The two warring vassal factions—the Kurzicks and Luxons—have been brought to the negotiating table through Emperor Kisu’s efforts, but I cannot help but feel that the two sides are not sincere. The emperor is hopeful, and I serve his wishes, but each faction seems to see only the immediate threat posed by their lifelong enemies. My instincts tell me that their conflict, if it continues, only serves to aid this dark force I cannot yet name.

Be watchful, my young friend. Though you call Tyria your home, Cantha may soon need your help.

Master Togo
23 Suzhen, 1582

Welcome to Cantha

Travel to and from Cantha

In order to travel to Cantha for the first time, a Prophecies character must take the "Mhenlo's Request" quest from Firstwatch Sergio in Lion's Arch. Following the quest steps will unlock ship travel to Cantha for that character. Your account must have an active Guild Wars Factions key or Guild Wars Factions Preorder key in order to travel to Cantha.

Similarly, in order to travel to Tyria for the first time, a Factions character must take the "Chaos in Kryta" quest from Guardsman Chienpo in Kaineng Center. Following the quest steps will unlock ship travel to Tyria for that character. Your account must have an active Guild Wars Prophecies key in order to travel to Tyria.

As always, PvP-Only Characters cannot leave the Battle Isles.

Day of the Tengu

Players using the Guild Wars Factions Preorder key for early access may travel to Shing Jea Monastery and talk to the Master of Celebration to take part in a special event called the Day of the Tengu. Native Canthan characters will find their way to the monastery very quickly. Characters coming from Tyria will need to take the following steps:

Features

Alliances

Alliances will not be available until the official launch of Guild Wars Factions on April 28.

Titles

Players will now be able to earn titles, which can be shown to other players. Use the Titles tab in the Hero panel to select a title for display. Only titles toward which you have made any progress will appear in the list.

Titles apply to a single character or a whole account, as appropriate. A player can display only one title at a time but may earn any number of titles. Many titles have multiple levels, with each new level indicating an increasingly difficult level of achievement.

Sample Titles:

  • Canthan Explorer. You must explore 60% of Cantha to earn the first level of this title. (Character based.)
  • Skill Hunter. You must capture 90 Elite skills to earn the first level of this title. (Character based.)
  • Gladiator. You must have 25 win-streaks of 10 consecutive wins in the Random Arenas maps to earn the first level of this title. (Account based.)
  • Champion. You must win 50 high-rated GvG battles to earn the first level of this title. (Account based.)

Guild Services

A Guild Lord NPC now appears in guild halls outside of combat. Guild members may talk to this NPC to hire service NPCs for the guild.

Guild Scrimmages

Guilds now have the ability to fight scrimmage battles. Scrimmage battles occur between two groups in the same guild hall and do not count toward ladder standing. To initiate a scrimmage, a group of one or more players must initiate a guild battle and choose "initiate a scrimmage match." Any other group of one or more players in that guild hall may then choose to join the scrimmage battle, which will initiate after a short countdown.

User Interface

The general appearance of the user interface has been updated to mark the arrival of Guild Wars Factions. In addition, several new features have been added:

  • While zoomed-in, the world map now shows the names of all explorable areas your character has visited previously.
  • In addition to showing the map name, the large text that appears when you first enter a new map now features a second line indicating the type of the map and, if applicable, which alliance owns the map.
  • The Party window indicates if a member is out of compass range by dimming that character's name.
  • Health bars in the Party window and Target Display can now indicate when a character is under the effects of a Weapon Spell.
  • The icon that appears in the Party window when a party member calls a target now shows the hotkey to select the called target. (As always, hold down CTRL when attacking or using skills to call your target.)
  • New customizable targeting hotkeys have been added for Target Next Party Member, Target Previous Party Member, Target Party Members 9 –12. In smaller parties, these hotkeys will target NPCs in the Allies section of the Party Window.
  • Clicking on an enemy while holding a bundle item now causes you to follow that character instead of causing an error message.
  • Henchmen now sometimes chat during a mission. In outposts, players can talk to henchmen by double-clicking on them.

Skill Changes

The arrival of Assassins and Ritualists has caused many core professions to re-evaluate their skills. (Please note that the number ranges below, such as 3..8, are for attribute 0 to attribute 15.)

General

  • Signet of Capture: now gives 250 XP for each level you have when used to capture an Elite skill.
  • Without Death Magic, you can control no more than two undead servants. For every two ranks of Death Magic, you can control one additional undead servant.
  • The number of undead servants you control is now displayed.
  • Attempting to use a healing skill or to cast a Hex or Enchantment spell on a Spirit now causes a warning message to display.

Mesmer

Necromancer

  • Barbs: decreased recharge time to 20 seconds.
  • Mark of Pain: decreased recharge time to 20 seconds.
  • Weaken Armor: decreased recharge time to 20 seconds.
  • Unholy Feast: decreased cast time to .75 seconds.
  • Wither: increased Health degeneration to 2..4.
  • Verata's Sacrifice: decreased Enchantment duration to 5..10 seconds; increased recharge time to 60 seconds; skill now instantly recharges if you have 3 or fewer undead servants; this skill now only affects undead servants you control.
  • Blood of the Master: decreased Energy cost to 5; decreased recharge time to 2 seconds; decreased sacrifice to 5%; this skill now sacs 2% more Health per creature healed.
  • Animate Bone Minions: decreased Energy cost to 15..
  • Death Nova: this skill no longer damages the caster and the caster's allies when an uncontrolled creature with Death Nova dies.

Elementalist

Monk

Warrior

  • Mighty Blow: increased damage to 6..35.
  • Staggering Blow: increased Weakness duration to 5..20 seconds.
  • Axe Twist: decreased adrenaline cost to 7.
  • Skull Crack: increased attack speed to .5 seconds; decreased Dazed duration to 10 seconds
  • Savage Slash: increased Energy cost to 10; increased recharge time to 20; decreased attack speed to .5
  • Flourish: this skill now recharges Pet Attack skills.

Ranger

  • Call of Protection: decreased recharge time to 90 seconds.
  • Dual Shot: increased recharge time to 7 seconds.
  • Comfort Animal: no longer disables your skills if used to resurrect your pet.
  • Edge of Extinction: this Spirit no longer damages creatures that are outside of its effect.
  • Antidote Signet: Fixed a bug causing this Signet to remove Conditions other than Blind, Disease, and Poison.

PvP NPC Changes

New Guild Battle NPCs have been recruited from Cantha for the remainder of the Guild Wars Factions Championship.

Guild Lord Upgrades

  • Weapons were upgraded to match standard PvP weapon damage.
  • The Guild Lord now deals a bonus damage against other NPCs (including the enemy Guild Lord and Thief).
  • Improved the Guild Lord's attribute assignment and equipped him with the following skills: Cyclone Axe, Cleave, Warrior's Cunning, and Power Shot.

Ghostly Hero

The Resurrection Priest now wields a Smiting staff instead of a hammer.

Armor Changes

New armor designs from Cantha have begun to influence armor crafters in Tyria. Existing armor sets will not be updated yet, but a means to upgrade existing level-20 armor for free will be provided in the near future.

Elementalist

Mesmer

  • Rogue's armor: no longer provides less Energy than standard armor.

Monk

Warrior

Obsidian Armor

  • The word "obsidian" has been added to armor names, in accordance with the naming convention introduced in Guild Wars Factions. For example, the Monk leggings that provide additional armor against physical damage are now called "Judge's Obsidian Pants" instead of "Judge's Pants." (This change does not affect armor crafted prior to this update.)
  • Now includes new armor sets using the same statistics as armor only available in Cantha.
  • No longer includes multiple armor sets with the exact same appearance and attributes.

Weapons, Shields, and Focus Items

  • Significantly improved the quality of rare (gold) and uncommon (purple) items.
  • Restricted Vampiric and Zealous weapon components to occur only on rare weapons.
  • Upgraded Sundering weapon components to provide a maximum Armor Penetration of +20% (Chance: 20%).
  • Added weapons with +5 Energy to PvP-Only character creation.
  • Added weapons with +15% damage and -5 Energy to PvP-Only character creation.
  • Added weapons with +15% damage and -10 armor while attacking weapons to PvP-Only character creation.
  • Added new Focus items to PvP-Only character creation.
  • Improved bonuses on wands in the PvP-Only character creation screen to better match what is dropped by monsters.

Runes

  • Increased probability of finding Superior Vigor and Superior Absorption runes.
  • Changed new rare (gold) armor to only provide superior (gold) runes.
  • Changed new uncommon (purple) armor to only provide major (purple) runes.
  • As always, you must use an expert or superior salvage kit to extract a rune from armor. These changes will not affect loot that dropped prior to this update.

GuildWiki notes

In addition to the changes mentioned above, this update introduced the following:

  • Changed the End User License Agreement (EULA) again to include more information regarding Guild Wars Factions and required all users to accept the EULA in order to continue playing.
  • Miniatures were introduced as surprises for characters of the age of one year.


Update - Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Fellow citizens of Tyria,

Due to growing violence between the Kurzick and Luxon refugees we have so graciously allowed to live in Kryta, we have been forced to take drastic measures to ensure your safety. We have purchased passage on separate ships to return the survivors from both groups to their homelands in Cantha until such time as they can learn to live in harmony. If they cannot do so there, they will not be given the opportunity to spread their strife here.

There will be two exceptions: Meika Ulrikar of the Kurzicks and Dalos Ekarus of the Luxons have requested that they be allowed to stay in Kryta and become citizens. After reviewing the situation, the Lionguard has granted this request—both shall be allowed to remain in Kryta as citizens of our land, being the only two (among many) who have found a way to stop fighting each other. Furthermore, they shall be granted property near the city of Lion’s Arch as a gift for their willingness to overcome the ancestral hatreds that so darken the minds of their people. Treat them well, people of Tyria; they may be strangers in many ways, but they have chosen peace and must be shown we of Tyria respect that decision.

 — Lionguard Neiro

Updates

  • Added a Titles tab to the Hero panel. Full support for titles, including the display of titles to other players, will not be available until the release of Guild Wars Factions.
  • In PvP, the victorious players can no longer be killed after a battle ends. This prevents remaining effects, such as Disease or the Edge of Extinction Spirit, from wiping out a winning team after the battle has ended.
  • Improved quest marker support for destinations outside of the character's current map.
    • The zoomed-out world map now shows the location of the destination map.
    • The zoomed-in world map shows an arrow at the appropriate exit for the current map and displays the name of the destination map in green.
  • The entries in the Control Setup dialog box are now grouped by category. Categories and entries within each category are now sorted alphabetically.
  • Added DirectX 9 renderer support for anti-aliasing with GeForce 3 and 4 graphics cards.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented the maintained Enchantment Unyielding Aura from ending if its caster died.

GuildWiki notes

Mysterious Crates

Crates in a guild hall

Mysterious Anvil

Anvil in a guild hall

In addition to the changes mentioned above, this update introduced the following:

  • Changed the End User License Agreement (EULA) to include information regarding Guild Wars Factions and required all users to accept the EULA in order to continue playing.
  • Control Setup dialog provides four new options that can be bound to keyboard shortcuts, for targeting the next and previous items and party members.
  • The borders of wards are now marked more distinctly.
  • Scar Pattern Armor now affected by dye coloring differently (change in resulting color/shade).
  • Scroll foci have been renamed to Earth Scrolls.
  • Upon entering an area, the area type is displayed under the area name.
  • The bundle tank tactics seem to have lost its effectiveness in focusing enemy fire.
  • Meika Ulrikar and Dalos Ekarus have settled in a small home by the farm where Miraba lives a short walk north of Lion's Arch. They offer no quests at the moment.
  • As the Kurzick and Luxon settlers have been evicted, the Caromi Tengu have reclaimed their traditional hunting grounds in North Kryta Province.
  • Lionguard Neiro has left Lion's Arch to attend to his more important Lionguard duties.
  • Gypsie Ettins have retrained themselves using lighter armor, thus not dropping as many rune-infused items anymore.
  • Several Guild Hall changes:
    • The map marker for Guild Hall has been renamed to what map type it is, for example: it says Warriors Isle instead of Guild Hall.
    • The guild map type is displayed on loading along with the guild that owns it in smaller text.
    • Several objects have been added to the guild halls including a storage box, crates, and an anvil. These objects are not loaded during GvG battles.
    • The Kurzick Kommandant, Kurzick Scribe, Luxon Navigator and Luxon Scribe are nowhere to be found.


Update - Wednesday, April 19, 2006

GuildWiki notes

  • This update fixed a glitch that could be exploited by players to hide their weapons and offhand items during combat.


Update - Thursday, April 6, 2006

Attention fellow citizens of Tyria,

As our new friends from the southern continent of Cantha have begun settling into their homes, we have received countless reports of violence raging between the Luxon and Kurzick factions within North Kryta Province and Nebo Terrace.

These societies are longtime enemies, and it appears their war has followed them onto our lands. We ask all citizens of Kryta to report any crimes, acts of violence or cruelty, or other disruptive public displays instigated by members of either faction. In the meantime, the Lionguard will investigate a peaceful resolution to the bloodshed.

-Lionguard Neiro

Updates:

  • Improved account management UI, making it simpler to add registration keys to existing accounts.
  • Fixed a bug that caused some users to experience intermittent audio dropouts.

GuildWiki notes

This update added two new quests:

In addition, players are now notified every hour how long they have played by receiving messages such as: You have been playing for 2 hours.

After playing for three hours, players will receive a message: You have been playing for 3 hours. Please take a break.


Update - Monday, April 3, 2006


Update - Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Attention fellow citizens of Tyria,

You have no doubt gazed with sorrow upon the scores of refugees displaced by the terrible conflict raging in the southern lands of Cantha. Were it not for the noble efforts of hired heroes, these poor souls would be spending another cold night in filthy gutters.

Mukesh the Merciless and his vile undead horde have been purged from the grounds of Nebo Terrace. The Kurzick homeless are pitching camp there as I speak. Likewise, the ettin thugs led by the notorious—and odiferous—Smuush Fatfist have been quashed, making possible the Luxon settlement being built in North Kryta Province.

By order of the White Mantle, I declare both Nebo Terrace and North Kryta Province fit for habitation and trade.

-Lionguard Neiro

Guildwiki Notes

This update introduced two settlements into the Kryta region. The first is the Luxon Settlement in North Kryta Province (north of Lion's Arch and south of the Ascalon Settlement). The second is the Kurzick Settlement in Nebo Terrace (north of Bergen Hot Springs and east of Beetletun). Both settlements are occupied with a few peasants and children as well as two NPCs who seem to be related to possible future quest. Click on each settlement for more information about what's available there.

Related to the two new settlements are two new quests at Lion's Arch:

The update also made the the two quests below no longer available, however you can collect your reward if previously obtained:


Update 2 - Thursday, March 23, 2006

Build number: 16,536 This was an undocumented update. No description appeared on the official website.

GuildWiki notes

This update is believed to have fixed a bug caused by the previous update, where purple and even blue salvage armors were containing Superior Runes. Within a few hours prices for such runes at Rune Traders had dropped by more than 30%.

Update - Thursday, March 23 2006

Build number: 16,514

Please join us for the three day Guild Wars Factions Preview Event, starting this Friday, March 24 at 8:01 AM GMT.

Overview:

  • Two factions, the Luxons and Kurzicks, are engaged in a desperate struggle for control of the continent of Cantha. During this event weekend, players can create roleplaying characters in Cantha, join one of the two sides, and engage in battle for control of territory.
  • We are not yet allowing existing roleplaying characters from Tyria to travel across the ocean to Cantha, but during the preview event, new Factions Campaign roleplaying characters created on the continent of Cantha will start at level 20, with high level armor and a wide variety of skills. (These preview characters are temporary, cannot travel off the continent of Cantha, and will be reset prior to the release of Guild Wars Factions.)
  • After creating a new Factions Campaign character, talk to Senji to choose your secondary profession, then talk to Master Togo who will guide you to the side of your choice.
  • A variety of quests and missions will allow you to gain faction with the Luxons or the Kurzicks. These include Competitive Missions, which allow two random teams of eight to square off in a strategic battle.
  • After gaining faction with the Luxons or Kurzicks, you can spend it for your own personal gain, or transfer it to your alliance to help your alliance gain standing with the Luxons or Kurzicks.
  • You can also participate in Alliance Battles to help the Luxons or Kurzicks gain territory. As a nation gains territory, it rewards those alliances that have the highest standing with that nation by granting them control of territory.

Faction Points:

  • Each individual player earns Luxon or Kurzick faction by completing quests and participating in Competitive Missions and Alliance Battles.
  • The Luxons and the Kurzicks hate one another. If you have more of one faction than another, many NPCs of the opposing side will not speak to you.
  • You can talk to Faction Reward NPC, located in the Kurzick or Luxon capital, to spend faction for your own benefit. For this weekend, the only thing you can get is Amber or Jadeite, used to craft special armor sets.

Alliance Standing:

  • An alliance is a collection of guilds, led by the guild leader that created the alliance. Each guild that isn't in a larger alliance is considered an alliance of one. (During this Factions Preview Event, forming alliances is not supported, so each guild is its own alliance.)
  • Form a guild (which is also an alliance) by talking to the Guild Registrar in the Marketplace. As always, forming a guild takes 100 gold, and players can be invited for 100 gold.
  • The alliance leader may talk to a Kurzick or Luxon Ambassador, located in the Kurzick or Luxon capital, to choose a side for his or her alliance. Doing so costs 500 gold.
  • Once an alliance has chosen a side, alliance members may talk to the Kurzick Scribe in House zu Heltzer (for Kurzick alliances) or Luxon Scribe in Cavalon (for Luxon alliances) to spend the appropriate faction to raise the standing of their Alliance. This is the only way for an alliance to gain standing and have an opportunity to be granted control of a territory.

Territory Control:

  • The on-going war between the Luxons and the Kurzicks is most directly manifested in the form of Alliance Battles, which support 12 players (3 parties of 4 players each) per side.
  • To join an Alliance Battle simply talk to the Kurzick Kommandant in House zu Heltzer or the Luxon Navigator in Cavalon.
  • Every three hours, the nation that has won more Alliance Battles moves the battle lines and takes territory away from the opposing nation.
  • There are several potential Alliance Battle maps. Map layouts vary, but all the maps have the same goal: be the first side to reach 500 points. Points are gained by controlling strategic locations on the map and by killing enemies. Only one map is active at a time, depending on where the current battle lines are located. As the battle shifts deeper into Luxon or Kurzick territory, the Alliance Battles are biased to favor the losing side.
  • Control of territories is granted to the alliances with the highest standing. The best territories -- the ones closest to the capital city -- go to those with the very highest standing.
  • The resurrection shrine closest to a controlled outpost is guarded by Kurzick or Luxon NPCs matching the side that controls the outpost. Players not aligned to that side may not use the resurrection shrine unless they kill or bribe the guards.

Other Changes:

  • Guild Wars Factions uses DirectX 9 if available for video rendering. Guild Wars will still continue to run on systems that have only DirectX 8 installed, but the new Factions content will look much better if DirectX 9 is available.
  • The PvP Character Creation interface now allows players to select the homeland of newly created characters. Canthan characters, which have a different visual appearance than existing Tyrian characters, are available to players who have access to Guild Wars Factions content.
  • The Hero Panel now displays faction earned with Luxons and Kurzicks for Factions Campaign roleplaying characters.
  • The Map Area window now displays the current state of key controllable resource points on certain competitive maps.
  • The skill casting interface has been improved so that attempting to cast a skill while running does not cause the skill to fail.
  • There is now a Sigil Trader in the International District of Heroes' Ascent.

Bug Fixes:

  • Fixed the functionality of the Ritualist preorder staff Spiritbinder. Previously this staff was not giving the +10 energy bonus specified in its description. If you have preordered Guild Wars Factions and have an old nonfunctioning Spiritbinder staff, you can destroy it and then type "/preorder" to get a new one.
  • Fixed the Guild Lord and Ghostly Hero AI so that these characters no longer run away from where they should be standing. The Guild Lord and Ghostly Hero also now carry axes instead of swords, to justify their use of the skill Cyclone Axe.
  • Fixed the AI for the boss monster Maxine Coldstone so that she no longer unequips her bow while fighting at melee range.
  • Fixed a bug that was causing some parties to appear larger than they really were in outposts.

GuildWiki notes

This update introduced a pair of simple quests that prepare players for the Factions Preview Event weekend:

This update also introduced four new NPCs into every Guild Hall:

  • Weapon descriptions now say "Requires" instead of "Req"
  • Non-mission towns now show characters profession and level and the party leader has the party size above their head in the same manner as in mission locations, except for some locations, which include Great Temple of Balthazar and all Pre-Searing locations.
  • The Guild Roster informational text (e.g. ranking) was changed to green.

Game updates/20060323-2

Update - Tuesday, March 14 2006

Build number: 16,322

  • Fixed a bug that caused some users to experience sound dropouts.
  • Fixed a number of audio glitches and performance problems in the Fire Island Chain.
  • Fixed an issue that caused DirectSong to stop playing music after the first song.


Update - Monday, March 13 2006

  • Corrected error in Heroes' Ascent Map that prevented teams from progressing beyond the first level.

Guildwiki Notes

This update erroneously introduced a severe bug that caused prices at all traders to be reset. Most runes and rare crafting materials were set to 250 gold. As soon as players found out about this, they rushed to the traders and purchased copious amounts of these usually fairly expensive items. As the price of Ecto had remained high, many proceeded to sell all of their Ecto to get more money to buy the cheap products. Within 30 minutes, the matter had raised enough red flags that ArenaNet moved to correct the problem. They disabled all traders (none of them had any more goods to offer), then shortly after, map travel was disabled. The entire global network of game servers was shut down for maintenance around 3:00 p.m. PST (23:00 GMT). The servers were back up around 10:20 p.m. PST (06:20 GMT).

The following notice on the official Network News page notes the issue and the implemented remedy.

"Due to a server error, Guild Wars experienced an unintentional reset of the traders. For nearly an hour, traders were selling items at unrealistically low prices. Due to the harmful impact that such an event would cause to the game economy, we are rolling back the entire state of the game to shortly before the problem began, that is, to 1:00 p.m. Pacific Time, 21:00 GMT. We estimate that the game will be accessible at approximately 11:00 p.m. PST tonight (07:00 GMT)."

Later on, the following note appeared on the website and on the game's login screen:

As you may be aware, we experienced some technical issues that resulted in the need to conduct an approximately one-hour roll-back of Guild Wars on Monday, March 13th. What prompted our decision to do the roll-back was the fact that the game economy was at risk, because during a brief window of opportunity, a huge number of items had been purchased for ridiculously low prices. This infusion of items into the economy would have devalued all the items in the game, and would have crippled the game economy.
We have an absolute commitment to take whatever means are necessary to protect the game economy, and by extension, to protect the items that you possess on your account. We apologize for any inconvenience that the roll-back may have caused.
We will continue to investigate the situation to assure that a repeat of today’s incident does not take place.
Thank you for your understanding,
The Guild Wars Team


Update - Saturday, March 11 2006

  • We are continuing to prepare the game servers for the March 24 Factions Preview Event. To pre-stream all the latest Factions content to your hard drive in preparation for the event, you can simply leave your Guild Wars client running and sitting at the login screen.

GuildWiki notes

Pre-streaming seems to exceed 700MB.


Update - Friday, March 10 2006

GuildWiki notes

  • This update also seems to have introduced a problem on the European servers preventing players from leaving towns and outposts but allowing map travel between towns and outposts.
  • There are many reports of intermittent problems with logins (error code 72 or 59) and disconnects when crossing zone boundaries or entering missions (error code 019).


Update - Thursday, March 9 2006

General:

  • This week we are pre-streaming a lot of new Canthan maps and artwork to clients in preparation for the March 24 Factions Preview Event. As always, you can download new data in the background by just leaving your Guild Wars client running and sitting at the login screen.

Arena Combat Updates:

  • When players enter the Random Arenas through an International District, they will now be placed on teams consisting of other players who entered through an International District. Previously, players were always placed on teams with other players from their own territory.
  • Teams in both Random and Team Arenas can now be matched against opponents from anywhere in the world.

Guild Combat Updates:

  • Guild Lords will now walk instead of run out of the base at "Victory or Death!" to give their teams a better chance to keep up with them.
  • Updated NPCs in the Isle of the Dead guild hall map so that they will now patrol the low ground near the flag at "Victory or Death."

Skill Training Updates:

Skill Updates:

Item Updates:

Map and Quest Updates:

AI Updates:

  • Fixed a bug that caused Henchmen and pets to be left behind or to run back to their original locations after cinematics.
  • Updated AI so that creatures and Henchmen no longer try to heal or enchant Spirits.

Audio Updates:

  • Improved the performance of the game's audio engine.
  • Added a new slider to the Game Options panel to adjust sound playback quality.
  • Added support for DirectX 3D sound (DS3D) hardware acceleration.

User Interface Updates:

  • Added a "Sort by Campaign" option to all skill lists.
  • Added the ability to access the options panel (F11) or to logout (F12) from pre-game screens such as character selection and creation.
  • Added the ability to customize the position of the mission goals pop-up window using the Customize Layout interface.
  • Updated the Guild Roster page to display the guild's home territory.
  • Fixed party size numbers shown over the heads of party leaders so that the count includes Henchmen.
  • Fixed a bug that caused the district selection control to lock up when a player canceled party travel, or when a non-leader chose not to leave his party after acknowledging that he did wish to leave the current district.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented detached start menu items from being correctly hidden during cinematics.
  • Fixed the display of skills that are unavailable due to being in a campaign that the player doesn't own. Previously, if such a skill was an adrenaline skill, the skill's adrenaline charge state would override the unavailable state.

GuildWiki notes


Update - Friday, March 3 2006

Fixed the following newly introduced bugs:


Update - Thursday March 2 2006

General

  • Updated Adrenaline behavior so that death removes all Adrenaline.
  • Updated Exhaustion behavior so that if you cast an Exhaustion spell while your maximum energy is below 10, your maximum energy can be reduced to below zero.
  • Fixed a bug that allowed attack speeds to stack past 33%.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented attack debuffs from reducing a target more than 33% (maximum is 50%).
  • Fixed a bug that kept speed boosts from having an effect on you if you had a debuff slowing you by 50%.
  • You are no longer considered "attacking," "using a skill," or "casting a spell" while you are running to get in range of a target.
  • Fixed a bug that caused attack skills with non-weapon attributes to calculate damage and critical hit chance incorrectly.
  • Clarified various skill descriptions

Equipment

Mesmer

Necromancer

Elementalist

Monk

Warrior

Ranger

Guild Battle Updates

Map and Quest Updates

User Interface Updates

  • Expanded availability of Japanese language support to include non-Japanese accounts.
  • Fixed a target calling bug that prevented secondary called targets from being promoted to the primary called target when the previous primary called target expired.
  • Fixed several bugs that caused the incorrect display of Energy.
  • Changed the color of GM chat text from green to purple.


Update - Tuesday February 28 2006

  • Fixed unlocking of arenas so that the Team Arenas are unlocked for new accounts after five consecutive wins in the Random Arenas. Previously they were incorrectly unlocked after six consecutive wins.


Update - Friday February 10 2006


Update - Thursday February 9 2006


Update - Monday February 6 2006

  • Added Traditional Chinese translations in preparation for today's launch of Guild Wars in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau.
  • Fixed a recently introduced bug that players could exploit to attack their own teammates.
  • Fixed a problem that could cause players to get redirected to International Districts after playing an Arena battle.


Update - Thursday January 26 2006


Update - Monday January 23 2006


Update - Friday, January 20 2006

  • Improved the visual appearance of the Battle Isles world map.
  • Provided Free-For-All Weekend demo users with the ability to use prebuilt PvP characters without skill restrictions, and also with the ability to unlock skills from the original campaign.
  • Fixed a bug that was preventing players from earning Faction by killing NPCs and players in Guild Battles.
  • Fixed map travel issues that could temporarily redirect players into the wrong districts.
  • Fixed a problem with the skill "Flesh of My Flesh" ignoring "Frozen Soil."
  • Fixed a crash bug with the Assassin skill "Recall," and miscellaneous other crash bugs.


Update 2 - Thursday, January 19 2006

  • Restored item unlocks that had been inadvertently removed from some accounts.

Update - Thursday, January 19 2006

Attention citizens.

The Tomb of the Primeval Kings has been overrun by the enemies of Balthazar. The Zaishen Order recognizes that many of you may wish to help conquer this foe. While this is admirable, only those truly devoted to the teachings of Balthazar should attempt to enter the Tombs.

Those wishing to become as great as we, the Zaishen, should take heart. Members of our order await your arrival at the Great Temple of Balthazar. We will train you in the ways of war, so you may continue the personal squabbles that seem to consume so much of your daily routine.

If you truly wish to better yourself, take the ship to the Great Temple, and hone your skills with the Zaishen.

May the blessings of Balthazar follow you on your journey.

-Commander Kuro of the Zaishen Order

Guild Wars: Factions Free-For-All PvP Weekend

With this update, we roll out the first parts of Guild Wars: Factions, including the new login and character selection/creation screens, boat travel between continents, and a weekend sneak preview of the two new professions. (The weekend event lasts from Friday January 20 8:00 am GMT to Monday January 23 7:59 am GMT.)

All high-level PvP has been moved to the Battle Isles, which can be reached using the ship off the coast of Lion's Arch. On the Battle Isles, you'll find a new explorable area with Training Arenas, NPCs who can help you test all aspects of your character's build, updates to existing PvP Arenas, and all-new Zaishen Challenges, where you and your friends can practice against teams of computer AI opponents. All of this content is now organized into a natural progression, so that players can experience the basics of PvP before moving on to advanced challenges.

New computer AI challenges:

  • Training Arenas: a series of four maps designed to teach the basics of PvP and Arena Combat. Beat all four maps to unlock the Zaishen Challenge on your account.
  • Zaishen Challenge: an Arena where you can play the computer AI team of your choice on the map of your choice. Beat five different computer AI teams to unlock the Zaishen Elite Challenge.
  • Zaishen Elite Challenge: the ultimate AI challenge. See how far you can get in a series of random Arena matches against increasingly difficult AI teams.

New unlocking of existing PvP types:

  • Win five-in-a-row in the Random Arenas to unlock the Team Arenas on your account. (Existing accounts have the Team Arenas unlocked already.)
  • Win five total games in the Team Arenas to unlock the Tournament (Heroes' Ascent) on your account. (Existing accounts have the Tournament unlocked already.)

Changes to Guild Combat mechanics:

  • The Guild Lord's Amulet of Protection now interacts correctly with Deep Wound. (See Fansite Friday #62 for more information about the Guild Lord's Amulet of Protection.)

Miscellaneous improvements:

  • During PvP matches, the Party window now displays your team color.
  • Skill icons for Enchantment and Hex spells are now displayed with a small marker in their upper-right corner.
  • Text descriptions and icons of various magic item upgrades have been improved.
  • The location and visibility of hint popup windows can now be modified using the Customize Layout interface.
  • Equipment labels have been improved. Effects that are stacking or non-stacking have been identified as well as exact values of rune effects.

Miscellaneous fixes:

GuildWiki notes

This update installed many changes in preparation for chapter two of the game "Guild Wars Factions" and also provided some teasers as to what the new professions will look like.

PvP changes
  • All PvP areas have been moved off the traditional Tyria map and onto a separate The Battle Isles map. This makes them equally accessible from either chapter, regardless of whether the other chapter is owned or not. To travel to the Battle Isles from the Tyria map, players click on the new ship icon that appears next to Lion's Arch. The Battle Isles now contain all arenas, the Guild Hall and a new town called the Great Temple of Balthazar.
  • Introduction of a new set of PvP quests and missions called the Zaishen Challenges in the Battle Isles. While these are PvE in nature (players fight computer controlled opponents), they are designed to train players in the various challenges and tactics of PvP. This also includes the introcution of a new explorable area called Isle of the Nameless where players can practice the different aspects of fighting in the game.
  • The various arenas have now been consolidated by type. Therefore, there are now only three types of Arenas: Random Arena, Team Arena and the tournament which is now called Heroes' Ascent.
  • New Accounts will need to advance through the different arena types. No longer will players be able simply create a PvP account and go straight for the tournament. Now players will need to win 5 in a row in the lower arena type to advance to the higher type. This does not apply to new characters made on existing accounts, only new accounts.

PvE changes

  • Introduction of a set of four new explorable areas in place of what used to be the Tomb of the Primeval Kings mission. This new challenge is called the Ruins of the Tomb of the Primeval Kings. Now there is a dark portal at the tombs and upon entering, players are taken through the Underworld, Scarred Earth, Courtyard and Hall of Heroes maps of the old tournament, but they are now overtaken by creatures of the Underworld (including some new creatures). Clearing the monsters in each level advances the party to the next level. In the final level, upon defeating the three new boss monsters (called The Darknesses), new unique items will drop for the party.

General changes

  • Now item descriptions are a lot more specific as to what a weapon upgrade or rune will actually do. So, instead of an item description saying it improves casting speed (which was calculated by players to mean that it halves the casting speed), the game now specifies that the item halves the casting speed.


Update - Friday, January 13 2006

Please do not be alarmed.

Though the strange occurrences you are witnessing outside the Tomb of the Primeval Kings have not, as of yet, been fully explained, we, the Zaishen Order, are here to provide for your safety.

Be advised: Those who dare approach the entrance to the Tombs in the coming days risk great peril. You would do well to leave this matter to the trained Zaishen experts who are already hard at work. We will not interfere with your comings and goings if you do not interfere with ours.

As a service of Balthazar you have been notified.

-Commander Kuro of the Zaishen Order.

GuildWiki notes

This update is part of the preparations for the Guild Wars Factions Global Free-for-All PvP Weekend. As a result, members of the Zaishen Order appear at several places in Tyria (Lion's Arch, Competition Arena, Team Arena, The Amnoon Oasis, Tomb of the Primeval Kings), passing through on their way to investigate a "disturbance" at the entrance to the Hall of Heroes. Henchmen at the Tombs were replaced with Zaishen henchmen.


Update - Friday, January 6 2006

Another Wintersday has come to a close,
And the sun shines anew.
The Grentchies have been banished again,
And Dwayna has smiled upon you.

Happy New Year!!!

GuildWiki notes

This update ended the Wintersday 2005 update.


Update - Friday, December 23, 2005

Fixed a bug that prevented PvP-only characters from being transported by the Wintersday Priest.


Update - Thursday, December 22, 2005

Improvements to Observer Mode:

  • You can now click on a player's name in the heads-up display to center the camera on that player.
  • The map window now automatically repositions and centers itself on the selected character if that character moves outside of the visible area.
  • The list of observable games has better map thumbnails and sorts games by start time.


Update - Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Season's Greetings

(Please sing along to the tune of The Twelve Days of Christmas.)

On the twelfth moon of Wintersday ArenaNet gave to me...
Blessings from Dwayna
Festive decorations
One mighty snowman
Weapons made of candy
Gifts that might kill you
Snow-covered henchmen
New winter monsters
Some really long quests
Lots of drinking Dwarves
Gingerbread Shields
Curses from Grenth
And a new way to watch PvP!

That's right, Observer Mode!

Now you can watch as top-ranked guilds battle it out in the Tombs and in rated guild matches. The upcoming Guild Wars Regional Playoffs and World Championship will also be available for viewing as they happen. The details are as follows:

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.

Guildwiki notes

This update marked the beginning of the Wintersday 2005 event.


Update - Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Fixed a battle axe that was incorrectly allowing two Axe Grips to be attached.

Fixed Incendiary Bonds so that it deals the correct amount of damage as shown in the skill description. Previously the amount of damage shown in the skill description updated according to the player's attribute level, but the actual damage dealt did not.


Update - Thursday, December 15, 2005

  • Added new artwork for the Necromancer's ascended Tormentor's Armor.
  • Improved automatic Guild matchmaking to better match guilds with those of nearby rating levels.
  • Fixed sacrifice skills so that a player who sacrifices all of his remaining Health will die. Previously a bug allowed the player to stay alive if he had positive Health regeneration when he sacrificed all of his remaining Health.
  • Fixed Whirling Defense so that it deals the correct amount of damage as shown in the skill description. Previously the amount of damage shown in the skill description updated according to the player's attribute level, but the actual damage dealt did not.
  • Fixed Spiteful Spirit so that it correctly triggers on any skill use, as specified in the skill description. Previously it was failing to trigger on Stances, Shouts, and other instant-cast skills.
  • Fixed Scourge Sacrifice so that it affects the target foe and his adjacent foes, as specified in the skill description. Previously it was incorrectly affecting foes adjacent to the caster.
  • Fixed the text displayed when you hold down the Ctrl key to announce the use of Cyclone Axe or Crude Swing.
  • Added a new player status choice in the Friends window, "Do Not Disturb," which blocks all incoming whispers.
  • Added mouse wheel zooming to the Map Overlay screen.
  • Added the ability to review the previous game's PvP Score Chart while in an outpost.
  • Improved the Chat window so that it remembers its previous state when switching maps.
  • Fixed the Skill Monitor's mouse tooltips so that they don't disappear while the skill is executing.
  • Improved the Skill Bar so that it displays warnings of skills that are not compatible with your currently equipped weapon.
  • Added an error message that is displayed when an attack skill is used on an invalid target.
  • Changed the Customize Control dialog so that it ignores problematic keys such as Scroll Lock.
  • Improved the organization of the Start Menu.
  • Relocated the Customize Layout function to the Options window (F11).
  • Added support for players with non-Korean accounts typing Hangul in the International Districts.
  • Updated translations.

GuildWiki notes

  • This update also added the display of Energy gain numbers in purple atop a character's head. Previously, only energy loss was shown.


Update - Thursday December 1, 2005

  • Fixed display of Japanese and Traditional Chinese announcements on the login screen.


Update - Tuesday, November 22, 2005

  • Added support for the upcoming Japanese closed beta test.


Update - Thursday, November 17, 2005

  • Added new Rank 12 Fame emote.
  • Increased the range of the Claim Resource skill, which is used by the Ghostly Hero as well as Mages and Priests.
  • Fixed an exploit with the Ghostly Hero that allowed players to lead him off the altar.
  • Fixed an exploit with Quick Shot that allowed players to reuse the skill more rapidly than should be possible.
  • Fixed the lava bridge in The Crag arena so that both teams can start at the same time.
  • Fixed a bug that sometimes prevented henchmen from following the player party at the start of a PvP game.


Update - Friday, November 11, 2005

  • Improved and corrected problems with monster and henchmen AI.
  • Fixed Dark Bond so that it no longer diverts damage to dead minions.
  • Fixed a bug that could return players to the login screen when they attempted to create a new character.
  • Changed the portal from the Tombs of the Primeval Kings so that it no longer divides parties.


Update - Thursday, November 10, 2005

  • Improved the character name and guild name entry dialogs.
  • Improved AI so that henchmen and monsters can now detect and flee from area-effect damage spells.
  • Improved AI so that monsters will eventually stop chasing fleeing players.
  • Slightly reduced the power of the Doppelganger creature.
  • Fixed a bug which could cause certain animated ground cover to not be animated.
  • Fixed a bug which could cause two copies of Gwen to appear in pre-Searing Ascalon.
  • Fixed a bug with certain enemies not attacking players in the Gates of Kryta mission.
  • Fixed an exploit which could allow players to create PvP characters with invalid armor. Thanks to Derek Ravenclaw for reporting this.


Update - Monday, November 7 2005

  • Fixed a bug that was preventing some players in PC Cafes from playing Guild Wars.


Update - Friday, November 4, 2005

As the Mad King's laughter fades
And calm settles over Lion's Arch
While peace comes to Droknar's Forge
And the Primeval Kings return to slumber
We bid farewell to Halloween
Until the coming year.

Guildwiki notes

This update removed the changes in the cities and NPCs that were put in by the Halloween Update.


Update - Thursday, November 3, 2005


Update - Thursday, October 27, 2005

"When the moon rises high over Lion's Arch
And the wind moans through the most hollow of eves

Shutter your homes this holiday
Steer clear of the shadows
For on this night, they say,

A long-addled spirit returns from the grave
Pumpkin upon his head,
A wicked deed within his heart
A pint of witch's brew for all those who misbehave

Heed these words, all ye who dare enter here:
Bind your souls to the mortal realm
For the regent of madness draws near"

Additional changes:

Guildwiki notes

This update marked the beginning of the Halloween 2005 event.


Update - Thursday, October 20, 2005

  • Added information to skill tip windows, including Energy, casting time, recharge time, upkeep cost, and Adrenaline.
  • Added support for the European Special Edition of Guild Wars.
  • Removed color from the names of unlocked items in the Priest of Balthazar interface.
  • Improved the skill inventory so that it remembers the previously used skills and sorting method.
  • Improved random arena map selection so that the same map is almost never played twice in a row.
  • Fixed a bug that allowed players to trade an item with a quantity of zero.
  • Fixed a bug that was causing Tiger's Fury to disable pet attack skills.
  • Fixed a bug that was causing more than one action to occur when pressing a single key.
  • Fixed a bug that was causing the gold amount to appear in red when selling items to a trader.
  • Fixed a bug that was causing some newly created PvP characters to appear without items.
  • Fixed a bug that was causing some players to lose items when taking them from the Unclaimed Items window.
  • Fixed a bug that was causing some players to lose their Menu button.
  • Fixed a bug that was preventing skill use when the skill bar is hidden by the Customize Interface window.
  • Changed the End User License Agreement (EULA) and required all users to accept the EULA in order to continue playing.


Update - Friday, September 30, 2005


Update - Thursday, September 29, 2005

Balance Changes

  • Capped attack speed adjustments at 133% of normal attack speed, down from 150% previously.
  • Changed Enchantments so that if you cast an Enchantment with an upkeep cost and you already have -10 Energy regeneration, you will now lose the last maintained Enchantment you cast.

Mesmer

  • Epidemic - Decreased casting time to .25 seconds.
  • Guilt - Decreased Energy cost to 5.
  • Hex Breaker - Increased recharge time to 15 seconds.
  • Soothing Images - Increased Energy cost to 15.
  • Energy Drain - Skill reworked. New description: “Target foe loses 4..10 Energy. You then gain 2 Energy for each point of Energy target foe lost.” Also increased recharge to 30 seconds.
  • Energy Tap - Skill reworked. New description: “Target foe loses 4..7 Energy. You then gain 2 Energy for each point of Energy target foe lost.” Also increased recharge to 30 seconds.
  • Diversion - Increased casting time to 3; Increased recharge to 10 seconds.
  • Ether Feast - Decreased Energy stolen to 3, increased Health gained per Energy stolen to 17..47
  • Signet of Weariness - Increased casting time to 2.
  • Fragility - Decreased Energy cost to 10; decreased recharge to 5; decreased damage to 5..20.
  • Mantra of Persistence - Decreased duration to 30 seconds. Decreased recharge to 15 seconds.

Necromancer

Elementalist

Monk

  • Smite - Increased conditional damage to 5..35.
  • Divine Intervention - Decreased Energy cost to 5.
  • Shield of Deflection - Decreased Energy cost to 10; decreased casting time to 1 second; decreased duration to 6.
  • Pacifism - Decreased casting time to 2 seconds.
  • Amity - Decreased recharge time to 45 seconds.
  • Mark of Protection - Decreased Energy to 10.
  • Divine Healing - Decreased recharge to 30 seconds.
  • Vital Blessing - Decreased casting time to .75 seconds; increased recharge to 2.
  • Live Vicariously - Decreased Energy cost to 5.
  • Divine Spirit - Increased duration to 1..14 seconds.
  • Holy Strike - Increased conditional damage to 10..55.
  • Draw Conditions - Increased recharge to 2 seconds.
  • Aegis - Increased casting time to 2 seconds.
  • Holy Veil - Decreased Energy cost to 5; decreased casting time to 1 second; increased recharge to 10; added additional effect of removing a Hex when it expires.
  • Balthazar's Aura - Increased casting time to 2 seconds; increased recharge to 25.
  • Zealot's Fire - Decreased damage to 5..35.

Warrior

Ranger

Changes to Ladders and Matchmaking

  • Removed option for rated challenges with selected (named) opponent.
  • Removed the boost that previously caused guild ratings to rise and fall more quickly during the first 30 rated games played.
  • Updated guild matchmaking so that the system attempts to match guilds that are close in rankings for a longer period of time before falling back to matching two guilds farther apart in ranking.

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.

Display Improvements

  • When you cast a Hex or Enchantment that stays on a character and deals damage or performs healing, you can now see floating numbers showing the result of that damage or healing.
  • When your pet damages another character, you can now see floating numbers showing that damage.
  • When you cast a spell that boosts or drains the Energy of another character, you can now see floating numbers showing the Energy change.
  • The "Drop Item" button and the skill warm-up progress bar are now customizable UI elements.
  • The regional groups in the Quest Log will now remember their open/closed state between viewings of the Quest Log.
  • The "(Completed)" tag in the Quest Log now displays correctly when viewed in French, Italian, German, and Spanish.

Miscellaneous

  • You can now remove your pet's name by typing "/petname" and not providing a name.
  • Shift now disables click-to-walk, making it easier to select targets without accidentally running.
  • Clicking on the ground while auto-running now works properly.
  • Removed old-style chests from Riverside Province and Gates of Kryta.
  • Healer henchmen now prioritize healing party allies whose death would result in mission failure.
  • Fixed a problem with the "Wrenches in the Gears" quest in Sorrow's Furnace where the Spirit Keepers could be killed prior to the player arriving.
  • Fixed problems with the "Wisdom of the Druids" and "Trouble in the Woods" quests.
  • Fixed pathing problems in Grenth's Footprint, D'Alessio Arena, and the Warrior's Isle guild hall.
  • Fixed display glitch in Score window that appeared when first opening the window.
  • Fixed orphaned scrollbar buttons that would appear on the login screen while changing languages.
  • Updated skill descriptions to more accurately describe their effects.
  • Fixed miscellaneous rare crash bugs.


Update - Friday, September 23, 2005

  • Fixed problem with access control for beta test languages.


Update - Thursday, September 22, 2005

  • Fixed problems with random positioning of locked chests.
  • Improved distribution of rare items in locked chests so that most players will get more rare items.


Update - Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Today we (ArenaNet) added preliminary support for new languages that will soon be offered globally to Guild Wars players. The addition of these new languages foretells the opening of Guild Wars in additional regions of the world. We are excited about the opportunity to offer Guild Wars to players from new areas, and we look forward to welcoming those players into the game. The expansion of Guild Wars into these new regions will further demonstrate the global nature of the game, and will add even greater significance to the Guild Wars World Championship, details of which will be provided in the future.

In the short term, the additional languages are in limited testing, and they will not be available for selection by players. Eventually, these languages will be offered as a choice to all players via the language selection interface option.


Update - Friday, September 16, 2005

  • Fixed monster item drops so that in the future Uncommon (purple) and Rare (gold) items will always have at least one bonus attribute.
  • Fixed bugs in the following quests: Defend Denravi, The Last Day Dawns, and Defend North Kryta Province.
  • Fixed a bug introduced in the Sorrow's Furnace Update that was causing unequal loot distribution among party members.
  • Fixed a bug that was placing some players in incorrect districts.
  • Fixed several rare crash bugs.


Update 2 - Friday, September 9, 2005

  • Fixed a rare crash bug.

Update - Friday, September 9, 2005


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.

Titan Quests

The Titan Quests are a series of five new veteran-level quests, starting in Droknar's Forge and spanning the Tyrian continent, that continue the storyline for those who have already vanquished the foes of Hell's Precipice. These quests feature some of the most challenging and rewarding content in the game, with ten new types of monsters, including several never-before-seen creature types.

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.
  • Monsters randomly drop chest keys, and you can also buy chest keys from Merchants.
  • Added Superior Salvage Kits and Superior Identification Kits, which are the same as Expert Salvage Kits and Identification Kits except with 100 charges instead of 25.
  • Improved the quality of most Crafter and Collector Weapons.
  • Increased the drop rate of uncommon and rare items on large maps.
  • Increased the drop rate of all insight scrolls.
  • Added three new insight scrolls: Adventurer's Insight, Hunter's Insight, and Rampager's Insight. These scrolls provide a level of accelerated XP gain for the entire party but are much more common and less expensive than the existing rare insight scrolls.
  • Collectors in Perdition Rock and Sorrow's Furnace now give XP enhancing scrolls in return for collectable monster drops. Conversely, there are no longer crafters for these scrolls.
  • Various low-level quests now give additional gold as a reward for completion.

Skill Acquisition

  • The maximum amount of XP required to gain additional skill points beyond level 20 has been lowered from 20,000 to 15,000. This change retroactively benefits existing characters.
  • The gold cost of learning new skills now follows a price curve similar to armor, rising in cost more quickly than before but capping out at 1 platinum piece after learning 20 skills.
  • Skill trainers in towns now offer a wider selection of skills, and there is a newly introduced skill trainer in Ember Light Camp who sells every non-elite skill in the game.

Faction Gain

  • The accelerated Faction rewards that were temporarily available during the PvP Extreme Weekend have now become a permanent part of the game.
  • 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.)
  • Inviting a new member into your guild now costs 100 gold.
  • The opposing guild's rating and rank are now displayed when you receive a challenge and at the beginning of Guild combat.
  • Balance changes to Guild combat maps make the Guild Lord less susceptible to ganking.
    • Newly introduced banner messages warn you if your base is breached or if your Guild Lord is attacked.
    • The NPC Arcanists have been replaced with Bodyguards who not only cast spells on the enemy team but also heal your Guild Lord. They also now appear in your list of Party Allies.
    • The NPC Archers now use Pin Down on the invading enemy team.
    • New NPC Archers have been added to the Druid's, Nomad's, and Frozen Isle guild halls.
    • The Guild Lord himself, and various defending NPCs, are sturdier than they were before.
  • The "Victory or Death!" cry now comes at 30 minutes instead of 45 minutes.
  • In Guild Combat, your guild cape is now colored red or blue to indicate your team color.

Other PvP Changes

  • Arenas can now match teams with opponents from around the world.
  • Prebuilt PvP characters now include Resurrection Signet.
  • Default PvP character weapon choices are now more appropriate.
  • Pets now stay closer to their owners.
  • Players no longer receive XP or Faction from the deaths of enemies that their party did not kill.

Skill Changes

  • Updated various skill descriptions to more accurately describe the skill effects.
  • Fixed Fevered Dreams so that it doesn't spread conditions to allies.
  • Fixed "I Will Avenge You!" so that it doesn't count dead spirits.
  • Fixed Physical Resistance so that it no longer lowers your elemental armor by more than it should.
  • Fixed Revive Animal so that the health of the newly revived animal depends on the attribute level of the caster.
  • Fixed Symbiotic Bond so that it correctly redirects half of the damage from the pet to the master, and changed it from a stance to a shout.
  • Fixed Well of the Profane so that targets in the area of effect cannot be the target of new enchantments, rather than not being able to cast new enchantments.
  • Fixed Divine Boon, Guilt, Mark of Subversion, Peace and Harmony, Shame, and Zealot's Fire so that when they say "when casting a skill/spell that targets an ally/enemy," they only trigger on targeted skills or spells, not on untargeted ones.
  • Fixed the Resurrection Orb so that it doesn't resurrect dead spirits.

Monster Balance Changes

User Interface

  • The Quest Log now groups quests by importance and region.
  • The green Quest Arrows now guide you towards the next step of the quest even if it is more than one map away.
  • Traders now display a "last paid" price on the sell tab.
  • Item upgrades on Priests of Balthazar are now color-coded to show the enhancement level.
  • The Priests of Balthazar now display information about previously unlocked items.
  • The names of Major Runes now appear purple (uncommon), and those of Superior Runes are now displayed in gold (rare).
  • Faction bonuses for Flawless Victories and Winning Streaks are now displayed with different text in your chat window.
  • The Skill List now sorts skills by attribute in its default setting.
  • The trade window more clearly distinguishes between platinum and gold offered, and displays a warning if the other player offers Customized items.
  • A button on the Guild tab provides easy travel to your Guild Hall.
  • After leveling up, a new on-screen button provides a visual reminder to spend your new attribute points.
  • Added new tooltips to many user interface elements.
  • Updated European and Korean translations.

Bug Fixes


Update - Tuesday, August 30 2005


Update - Thursday, August 25, 2005

Elementalist

  • Meteor: Lowered Energy cost to 5
  • Fireball: Lowered Energy cost to 10 and recharge time to 7 seconds
  • Chain Lightning: Increased cast time to 3 seconds; decreased damage to 10..85; changed recharge to 10 seconds; lowered maximum distance between targets
  • Glyph of Sacrifice: Reduced recharge penalty on next spell to 90 seconds
  • Mark of Rodgort: Reduced cast time to 1 second; increased duration of burning effect to 1..4 seconds

Mesmer

Monk

Necromancer

Ranger

  • Pets: Increased pets' run speed by 20%; increased pets' armor to 80 at level 20
  • Crippling Shot: Decreased recharge time to 1 second; decreased duration of Cripple to 8 seconds
  • Distracting Shot: Decreased attack time from .75 to .5 seconds
  • Punishing Shot: Decreased attack time from .75 to .5 seconds; increased recharge time to 8 seconds
  • Concussion Shot: Decreased attack time from .75 to .5 seconds
  • Nature's Renewal: Modified to no longer remove all Hexes and Enchantments when cast; now doubles the Energy degeneration for maintained Enchantments
  • Fertile Season: Reduced duration to 15..45 seconds
  • Quickening Zephyr: Increased Energy cost to 25; reduced duration to 15..45 seconds
  • 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

Warrior

All Skills

Skills with a recharge time can no longer be reduced to 0 (example: if a spell has 1 second recharge time and you have both Quickening Zephyr and Serpent's Quickness active, the length of the recharge time will not drop below 1 second) Note: All skill ranges are for Attribute Level 0 through 15. For example, "Fertile Season: reduced duration to 15..45 seconds" would indicate that with 0 Attribute points, the duration would be 15 seconds, and with 15 Attribute points, the duration would be 45 seconds.

Other Changes

  • Improved Guild-versus-Guild matchmaking so that high-rated guilds are matched more quickly.
  • Fixed spawns near closed doors in Underworld.
  • Added two Resurrection Shrines in The Crag and improved respawning location so that the party respawns together at the nearest friendly shrine.
  • Decreased match duration for The Crag to three minutes.
  • Killing a pet in PvP no longer rewards Faction.

PvP Extreme Weekend Changes

The following faction rewards will be in effect during the Guild Wars PvP Extreme Weekend from 12:01 AM PDT on August 26th until 11:59 PM PDT on August 28th.

Arenas

  • Unique Kill: 20 in Team/Competition, 10 in Shiverpeaks, 5 in Ascalon
  • Victory: 25 in Team/Competition, 10 in Shiverpeaks, 5 in Ascalon
  • Bonus for Five Consecutive Victories: 25 in Team/Competition, 10 in Shiverpeaks, 5 in Ascalon
  • Bonus for Flawless Victory: 25 in Team/Competition, 10 in Shiverpeaks, 5 in Ascalon

Tournament

  • Unique Kill: 20
  • Victory: 100 in early missions, 200 in later missions, 400 in Hall of Heroes
  • Bonus for Flawless Victory: 100 (same across all missions)

Guild Battles

  • Unique Kill: 20
  • Victory: 500 - 2000 depending on your guild rating (500 at rating 1000, 2000 at rating 1600)
  • Bonus for Flawless Victory: 100 - 400 depending on your guild rating (100 at rating 1000, 400 at rating 1600)


Update - Monday, August 15, 2005

  • Fixed rare crash bug with German text at the largest UI size.


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 - Wednesday, August 10, 2005

  • Fixed a bug that was making some desert teleporters unresponsive.
  • Corrected flaw in Price of Failure skill that was causing missile attacks to miss their targets more than 25% of the time.
  • Corrected Hundred Blades skill to deal damage accurately; previously it was dealing only 75% of its intended damage.
  • Corrected Mind Freeze skill so that damage is dealt regardless of whether the caster's energy is lower than the target's energy.
  • Corrected flaw in Mist Form skill that was preventing it from reducing damage from elemental damage attacks.
  • Corrected "The Price of Steel" quest so that so that White Mantle always drop Ruined Armor for players on the quest.
  • Fixed a bug that was preventing the skill-swap dialog from disappearing after talking to Captain Greywind.
  • Fixed several rare client and server crash bugs.


Update - Friday, August 5, 2005

  • Fixed infrequent server crash issues.
  • Fixed whisper and Friend's List problems that were occurring immediately following new builds.


State of the Game - Thursday, August 4, 2005

Because it has been a few weeks since we've posted a major update, we wanted to let everyone know what's in the works. Typically, a few weeks is a short amount of time in the development cycle of a game, but we know there are many people who play Guild Wars with such dedication and intensity that a few weeks without an update seems more like an eternity. Here's what's on the way...

Ascended Content

As I mentioned in my last open letter, one of our top priorities has been adding content for ascended roleplaying characters. It's on the way. We are now entering a testing and polish phase on Sorrow's Furnace and other new ascended content. The additions will include new quests, new monsters, new items and new accelerated sources of XP and rare items.

Character Advancement

We have been making significant strides in gathering and tracking data about botters. Our belief is that the better we are at combating bots, the more we are able to protect the economy for everyone. As we succeed, you can expect significant changes to the availability of high-quality loot for normal players.

At the same time, we have been able to gather and analyze a lot of data about how quickly players gain new skills and items through both PvP and PvE. This has allowed us to better gauge what improvements we can and should make. In coming updates, you should expect a significant increase in the rate of item unlocking and skill acquisition through both PvE and PvP. In other words, you will be able to get Faction, XP and rare items more quickly.

PvP Playbalance

Given the sophisticated nature of team builds and counters in Guild Wars, we expect to see trends in PvP, as one innovative build changes the landscape, encouraging the use of a counter, which in turn encourages the use of a counter. We have tried to balance Guild Wars to allow for this metagame without allowing the loss of balanced builds and diverse strategies. Since release, we've seen a number of trends come and go, including Warrior Monks, Healing Clusters, Lightning Spike, Enchantment Webs and Spirit Spam. Much, but not all, of the ebb and flow has been in keeping with our goals. Nevertheless, we know that improvements can always be made to playbalance, and we are watching to make sure that no one Flavor of the Month build comes to be too dominant or encourages play in ways that are not fun.

With this in mind, we have been testing a variety of playbalance adjustments internally for some weeks now. We will let players know in advance when playbalance changes are coming so that private tournaments are not disrupted too abruptly. We are also planning to announce our own schedule of ladder seasons and official tournaments. We will try, when possible, to implement most playbalance changes immediately at the start of a new ladder season. You can expect to see another announcement regarding playbalance changes in the near future.

We are also looking into improvements to individual PvP maps, GvG matchmaking for high-rated teams, and ways to ease the burden of needing exactly 8 players to GvG.

Observer Mode

We are looking forward to unveiling Observer Mode a short while after the changes we mentioned above. Through Observer Mode, players will be able to watch (with a time delay) any battles involving their own guild and any important battles going on in the Guild Wars world, such as rated battles involving high ranking guilds, battles near the Hall of Heroes, and the later stages of seasonal tournaments. We believe Observer Mode, along with far more detailed statistics for each battle, will enable a greater number of players to enjoy Guild Wars at higher level of play. And that means more fun for everyone.

James Phinney


Update - Wednesday, August 3, 2005

  • Fixed several infrequent server crash bugs.
  • Fixed a bug that was causing characters to stop displaying spell-casting animations if a skill was used twice in rapid succession.
  • Amended display functions so that when unsupported video hardware is detected, the Guild Wars window properly unminimizes if the user chooses to play anyway.


Update - Friday, July 22 2005,


Update - Wednesday, July 13, 2005

Interface changes:

  • Added new trader interface.
  • Expanded friends list so that you can have up to 50 on your friends list and up to 10 on your ignore list.
  • Expanded maximum permitted length of guild announcement to 255 characters.
  • Improved vendor windows so they remember their last size and position.
  • Improved vendor windows so they show equipped items with a special symbol.
  • Improved information displayed in "/age" command.
  • Corrected the skill monitor and selection bar so that when they are inactive they no longer interfere with mouse interaction.
  • Corrected quest markers on the compass so they update properly after completing a quest.
  • Added tags to highlight fellow guild members in outposts.
  • Improved several error and warning messages, especially related to guild battle formation.
  • Updated icon for Flurry skill.
  • Fixed minor update bugs in party formation window.

Miscellaneous:

  • Updated Korean and European translations.
  • Fixed miscellaneous rare crash bugs.


Update - Thursday, June 30, 2005


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.

The rate at which you gain faction will vary depending on your success and the type of PvP. The high-level arenas provide faction faster than the low level arenas. The Tournament provides faction faster than the Arenas. Because Guild Battles require the greatest amount of organization, they provide the greatest rewards. Faction rewards for guild battle victories increase with higher guild rating. Nevertheless, for all types of PvP, even if you are not victorious, you will gain faction for every enemy your team kills. (Please note: To prevent organized faction-farming, only automatic-match, rated guild battles provide faction. Also, characters who have been in a guild for less than two weeks do not gain full faction for a victory.)

Faction Rewards

  • Unique Kill: 1 in low level arenas, 2 in all other PvP types
  • Repeat Kill: 0
  • Arena Victory: 6 in Team/Competition Arenas, 2 in Shiverpeak Arena, 1 in Ascalon Arena
  • Tournament Victory: 20 for the first, 40 for all subsequent
  • Guild Victory: 200 to 500, depending on your guild rating

To redeem faction, take a roleplaying character to a Priest of Balthazar. There are Priests, each with a different list of skills to unlock, in Ascalon City, Yak's Bend, Lion's Arch, the Henge of Denravi, Amnoon Oasis, and Droknar's Forge.

Rune Unlocking

  • 1000 (Minor)
  • 1500 (Major)
  • 2000 (Superior)

Weapon Upgrade Unlocking

  • 1000 (Minimum Power)
  • 1000 (Maximum Power)

Skill Unlocking

  • 1000 (Basic skills)
  • 3000 (Elite skills)

Runes must be unlocked in order, from minor to major to superior. For weapon upgrades with variable statistics, you must unlock one lower power upgrade before unlocking the maximum power upgrade. For example, the +1 Vampiric Sword Hilt must be unlocked before you can choose a +3 Vampiric Sword Hilt as a reward. Thus, runes and weapon upgrades unlocked through cooperative play will allow you to purchase more powerful items sooner.

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.
  • The minimum party size for the Tournament has been increased from 5 to 8.
  • The survival mission that introduces the Tournament has been significantly revamped. It now consists of a single battle against the Unworthy Dead. The quicker your team destroys the enemy, the earlier it can advance to higher levels of the tournament. Your team's initial morale boost is determined by how quickly you defeat the enemy. There is no Faction Point reward in this mission.
  • If a randomly-formed party playing in the Competitive Arenas manages to win 10 times in a row, it will start being matched against players from the Team Arenas.

Other changes this week:


Update - Monday, June 27, 2005


Notes on the Next Update - Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Our next major update will be the introduction of PvP Rewards.

We know that many players right now are having difficulty unlocking items, runes and skills for use in PvP. On our private test servers, we have been testing a new reward system that lets you unlock items, runes, and skills for your pvp only characters through kills and victories in PvP. You'll unlock things faster if you are more successful, but we aren't implementing this system just for the elite players. Our goal is that every player will be able to make progress through normal play.

In that same light, these new rewards are not meant to overshadow other methods for character advancement, but rather to allow you to advance your characters in whichever way you prefer. Because of that, we will continue to examine the rate of item, rune and skill acquisition after ascension through cooperative play.

We expect polishing and balancing the new system to take another week and look forward to sharing the changes with you then. Response so far from our testers has been overwhelmingly positive, and we believe this addition will improve the overall experience for everyone who plays the game.

One final note: Some of you will wonder if we've forgotten that ascended characters with obsidian armor need challenges too... Don't worry. You're next.

~ James Phinney


Update - Friday, June 17, 2005


Update - Thursday, June 16, 2005

  • Fixed crash bug related to language toggle key.
  • Fixed missing characters in large Korean font.
  • Fixed price of Dwarven Ale.
  • Fixed price of Small Girl's Cape.


Update - Wednesday, June 15, 2005

This week we made the first of several steps towards improving the process of gaining skills and skill points after ascension. In coming weeks, we will continue on this path, and will work to address the difficulty of unlocking items and runes for use in PvP.

  • Changed the XP requirements per skill point for advanced characters. Previously, the required XP kept increasing with each successive skill point, making it very difficult to continue earning skill points after taking on a new secondary profession. Now, the required XP caps out at 20,000 per skill point.
  • Doubled the XP gained from killing boss monsters.
  • Introduced rare scrolls which, when used, grant the entire party double or triple XP for a limited duration. We also added traders for these new scrolls.
  • Changed the XP reward for ascension. Previously, when a character ascended, he was automatically advanced to level 20, regardless of his current level. This meant that characters who had already advanced to level 20 prior to ascension received no reward for ascending. Now, ascension gives a fixed reward of 50,000 XP.
  • Updated secondary profession quests so that when a player accepts a new secondary profession, he now gets the starter skills for that profession.
  • Improved Salvage Kits so that they always successfully salvage runes from monster-dropped armor. There is still a chance of destroying a rune when using a salvage kit to try to retrieve it from your own armor.
  • Added confirmation prompt when dragging an item to the ground during a trading session or just after a trading session, to prevent scammers from closing the trading window in the middle of a trade to try to trick their trading partners into dropping an item.
  • New quests: "The Ascalon Settlement" in North Kryta Province; "The Price of Steel" in Silverwood; and "The False Gods" in Temple of the Ages.
  • Added unique artwork for the ascended version of the Monk's Saintly Armor.
  • Updated the descriptions for skills Fertile Season, Balthazar's Spirit, Chimera of Intensity, Irresistible Blow, Mind Freeze, Ice Spikes, Deep Freeze, and Glyph of Energy to more accurately match the actual skill effect.
  • Updated mission victory conditions in Thunderhead Keep and Iron Mines of Moladune, and monster spawns in The Dragon's Lair and Ice Caves of Sorrow, to allow players to capture skills from boss monsters before completing the mission.
  • Updated monster and loot spawns in Sage Lands, Watchtower Coast, Frozen Forest, The Scar, Vulture Drifts, Snake Dance, and Ettin's Back, and for quests Iron Horse War Machine, The Monk's Path, and Seeking the Seer.
  • Fixed issues with last week's update that could cause loot drops to completely stop for some players after repeated map entries, and substantially improved the loot system so that only the most extreme forms of farming will cause monsters to start to run low on loot.
  • Updated boss monster spawns in various explorable areas to fix issues with boss monster distribution and balance.
  • Made numerous changes to the "Undead Horde" quest to add more to the storyline and environment of the quest.
  • Changed the "Behind Enemy Lines" quest so that Aidan uses the correct model and players have a little more time to follow him.
  • Increased the gold reward for completing the secondary mission in Divinity Coast.
  • Increased the energy increment on some Druid Leggings, so that all Druid Leggings now provide 2 additional energy.
  • Updated henchmen in Marhan's Grotto to use infused armor.
  • Updated positions and paths for NPCs in various towns and outposts to prevent NPCs from getting stuck.
  • Updated the Hall of Heroes so that the defender's Ghostly Hero starts on the altar.
  • Fixed the Sacred Temples tournament map so that it is no longer possible to pass a relic through the gate.
  • Fixed elemental damage in the Domain of Elements in the Dragon's Lair so that it does not damage monsters.
  • Fixed Forgotten Cursebearer and Forgotten Necromancer bosses so that they use their skills properly.
  • Fixed problem with quest "The Ambassador's Quandary."
  • Fixed Oink in "Gates of Kryta" so that he recognizes his owner even if another player has already completed the quest.
  • Made text fixes for quests "Tower of Courage," "The Elementalist's Path," and "Unsettling Rumors."
  • Fixed the damage ranges on Raven Staves and Ghostly Staves.
  • Rebalanced Blessed Griffons and Phantoms to better reflect their level.
  • Renamed the version of Defender's Scalp Design which provides a bonus to Smiting to Zealot's Scalp Design.
  • Renamed Mirror Self to Doppelganger.
  • Fixed teleporter effects in the Crystal Desert explorable areas.
  • Fixed various animation and scripting issues in cinematics.
  • Fixed environmental effects in The Crag.
  • Fixed teleporter in Vulture Drifts.
  • Fixed icon for Dwarven Ale so that it no longer appears as "under construction."
  • Fixed various icon issues in vendor windows so that icons do not appear as "under construction."
  • Fixed a bug that sometimes caused Error #95 to be displayed when trying to arrange a guild battle.
  • Fixed a trade bug which prevented trade between two players when both tried to initiate trade at the same time.
  • Added a cursor for item identification.
  • Updated the layout of the login screen.
  • Enabled clicking names in whisper text.
  • Updated European and Korean translations.
  • Fixed miscellaneous rare crash bugs.


Update - Wednesday, June 8, 2005

This week, as part of our in continuing promise to keep Guild Wars free of hacks, cheats, and other exploits, we closed the accounts of more than 100 users of bots. With today's update we are taking further steps to address the bot problem. New changes will improve our ability to identify and ban users of bots, rebalance mission areas that were highly exploited by bots, and reduce the overall effectiveness of bots, exploits, and other highly repetitive forms of gold and item farming. We are taking these steps to improve the game for all players, so that people using bots to farm gold cannot generate a huge influx of new gold into the economy, which increases prices for everyone and encourages other players to engage in repetitive farming just to keep up.

We know that some players currently engage in repetitive farming activities for the primary purpose of unlocking skills and items for PvP. Rather than preserving the effectiveness of farming for this purpose, it is our intention to address the larger issue of the need for farming by assessing how players acquire and unlock items, runes, and skills, and then by taking steps to ensure that players can acquire and unlock these things through normal gameplay. We believe that the most effective way to play the game should also be the most fun way to play the game. You can expect to see the first meaningful changes towards this goal next week.

This week's other improvements:

  • 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.
  • Added magical bonuses to a number of quest and collector items.
  • Improved the guild matching system so that top-ranked guilds can find opponents more readily.
  • 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.
  • Improved drops of Obsidian Shards in The Fissure of Woe.
  • Changed the way armor infusion quests work. The seer now infuses all of your currently worn pieces of armor, but the infusion effect is slightly reduced in power in order to preserve the intended challenge of the following missions.
  • Fixed Henchmen AI to prevent Henchmen from running off after a party respawn.
  • Fixed skills Vengeance and Unyielding Aura so that the effects after resurrection work properly again. These skills were inadvertently broken by last week's update.
  • Fixed skill Enervating Charge to correctly deal armor piercing damage.
  • Fixed skill Wild Blow so that it correctly ignores attempts to Block or Evade.
  • Fixed skill Feral Lunge duration of bleeding effect.
  • Added Dwarven Ale for sale on Dwarven Merchants.
  • Added more storage agents to Droknar's Forge and Arena outposts.
  • Added the option of attaching Collectors Edition account keys onto existing retail accounts to unlock the Divine Aura.
  • Updated the user interface so that platinum pieces are clearly separated from gold. Previously various interface elements would incorrectly display "1000 gold pieces;" now they will display "1 platinum piece."
  • Updated health bar positions on many monsters to more closely track the monster.
  • Updated boss monsters Thul Boulderrain and Eater of Souls to use the correct glow color.
  • Changed the appearance of collector NPCs in many Crystal Desert maps.
  • Adjusted monster spawns in Talmark Wilderness, Ettin's Back, Ice Caves of Sorrow, Riverside Province, Sanctum Cay, Majesty's Rest, Stingray Strand, Nebo Terrace, The Arid Sea, Prophet's Path, The Scar, and rebalanced spawns of Caromi Tengu throughout Kryta.
  • Increased reward for quest "The Villainy of Galrath" from 500 XP to 4000 XP.
  • Fixed loot problems in quests "The Undead Hordes," "The Last Hog," and "White Mantle Wrath: A Helping Hand."
  • Fixed quest drops in quest "Blood and Smoke."
  • Fixed the countdown timer in Elona's Reach so that it now begins after the cinematic.
  • Fixed fame in the Tomb of the Primeval Kings so that it is granted starting from the first competitive victory.
  • Fixed inability to trade bags. Unequipped bags can now be traded.
  • Fixed an error that prevented characters from continuing to play after reaching level 15 in pre-Searing Ascalon.
  • Updated European and Korean translations.
  • Made minor tweaks and improvements to a variety of NPC AI scripts.
  • Fixed miscellaneous rare crash bugs.


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.
  • Added requirement for a guild officer to be present to initiate or accept a guild battle. This can help guilds protect their rating by removing the potential for malicious or careless actions on the part of a guild member.
  • Added more boss-monster locations to high-level maps to make it easier for players to acquire elite skills.
  • Assured that the skills Battle Rage, Crippling Shot, Defy Pain, Punishing Shot, and Warriors Endurance are now used more frequently by the boss monsters that carry the skills, to make them easier to capture.
  • Added new art for unidentified salvaged runes so that the profession and rune quality are displayed. Identifying the rune is still required to learn the rune's attribute and to unlock the rune. This change only impacts newly salvaged runes.
  • Assured that all uncommon and rare armor drops have an unlockable ability.
  • Assured that rare armor drops will always have either a major or superior rune, not a minor rune.
  • Assured that NPC traders, whose price fluctuates according to market demand, will always pay at least the vendor value for an item.
  • Assured that Celestial Sigils now have an inherent value of 1 platinum piece, which allows them to be sold at vendors.
  • Assured that armor provided by collectors can now be salvaged.
  • Added a new "/rank" emote for players who are rank 9 or higher.
  • Improved Henchmen in missions beyond Iron Mines of Moladune. They now have three pieces of armor infused instead of one.
  • Improved or clarified secondary missions in D'Alessio Seaboard, Divinity Coast, Augury Rock, Thirsty River, Ice Caves of Sorrow, Thunderhead Keep, Ring of Fire, Abaddon's Mouth, Hell's Precipice.
  • Increased the gold reward in Divinity Coast that is given for protecting the Chosen.
  • Improved the ambient ongoing fight in the D'Alessio Seaboard outpost.
  • Doubled the duration of the buff that Vizier Khilbron gives to players in certain missions, from 30 seconds to 1 minute.
  • Updated monster and loot balance in Perdition Rock, Vulture Drifts, Prophet's Path, the southern Shiverpeak region, and Hell's Precipice.
  • Made improvements to various mission start locations, NPC locations, gates, levers, and bridges.
  • Made improvements to various map click points and thumbnails.
  • Fixed issues with quests Defend the Temple of War, Hungry Devourer, Supplies for the Duke, Army Life, Duke Ambush, and To Kryta: Refugees.
  • Fixed the glow color of several boss monsters in Crystal Desert and Perdition Rock to match their skills.
  • Improved AL on Elementalist Leggings crafted in Quarrel Falls from 30 to 39.
  • Renamed "Raw Cloth" to "Cloth."
  • Renamed "Enchanted Lodestones" found in post-searing Ascalon to "Scorched Lodestones."
  • Removed the ability to dye certain non-equippable items such as crafting materials.
  • Fixed skill Winter so that all elemental damage is converted to cold.
  • Fixed skill Feral Lunge duration of bleeding effect.
  • Fixed skill Spiteful Spirit so that it deals damage when the target uses a skill.
  • Fixed skill Fevered Dreams so that it does not affect non-foe targets in response to unsourced condition effects.
  • Fixed skill Essence Bond to eliminate the rare incorrect triggering on physical damage.
  • Fixed skill Life Bond so that it always deals the correct damage type.
  • Fixed skill descriptions for Healing Signet, Balthazar's Spirit, Putrid Explosion, Defensive Stance, Symbol of Wrath, and Desperation Blow, so that the descriptions more accurately match the actual effect of the skill.
  • Updated Alt keydown functionality to additionally display henchman names in town.
  • Added overhead chat bubbles for team chat (except in competitive missions, where there are no chat bubbles).
  • Updated auto-run functionality so that players will auto-run when clicking an NPC in the world but not when clicking an NPC in the party allies window.
  • Updated European and Korean translations.
  • Updated Korean character naming rules.
  • Updated art for Geomancer's armor. This is the first of several updates over the coming weeks that will provide unique art for each ascended armor set, such as Enchanter's, Tormentor's, Necrotic, Aeromancer's, Saintly, Gladiator's, and Druid's armor sets.
  • Changed the "Delete Character" dialog to allow the deletion of old characters whose names do not conform to current naming rules. A previous bug prevented the deletion of characters whose names were created under old naming rules and no longer conformed to current naming rules.
  • Fixed a bug preventing alternate characters from logging on when one character on the account was blocked.
  • Fixed Lightning Drakes' air magic ability.
  • Fixed miscellaneous rare crash bugs


Update - Wednesday, May 25, 2005

  • Increased drops of Celestial Sigils in the Hall of Heroes.
  • Broadened the variety of items found in the chest in the Hall of Heroes; it can now contain rare shields or salvageable armor.
  • Improved the Sigil Trader so that prices will more accurately track supply and demand.
  • Removed the "/roll" command from towns and outposts.
  • Updated European and Korean translations.
  • Made minor balance changes to Majesty's Rest explorable area.
  • Fixed issue with Balthazar's Aura skill, so that when multiple copies of the buff are cast on the same ally, only the most powerful is active.
  • Fixed door on Isle of the Dead guild battle map.
  • Fixed miscellaneous rare crash bugs.


Update - Friday, May 13th, 2005


Update - Wednesday, May 11th, 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.
  • After each consecutive PvP victory, the game now displays the number of consecutive wins.
  • A new screen at the end of PvP character creation allows you to choose the starting location of your PvP character.
  • We retired the old "Dazed," "Shock Sniper," "Divine Healer," and "Trapper" PvP-only character templates, and rotated in some new templates, including three new templates created by guilds that won our April ladder contest. Additionally, we tweaked the skills of many other PvP character templates. These changes only affect the creation of new characters; existing characters created with an old template may continue to use that old template.
  • 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.
  • PvP-only characters can now access the account storage vault for free.
  • Entering "The Underworld" now costs 1 platinum piece, the same as entering "The Fissure of Woe." Rewards in both maps have been significantly improved.
  • New quests! In Post-Searing Ascalon: "The Weaver of Nebo" and "Iron Horse War Machine." In "The Fissure of Woe:" "Tower of Courage," "The Wailing Lord," "A Gift of Griffons," "Army of Darkness," "The Eternal Forgemaster," "Defend the Temple of War," and "Restore the Temple of War."
  • Primary quests in Pre-Searing Ascalon now chain together, making it more straightforward for new players to complete Pre-Searing Ascalon and gain entrance to the Academy.
  • Increased drop rates for Uncommon and Rare items in Explorable Areas.
  • Implemented various minor fixes and clarifications to existing quests.
  • Implemented various tweaks to monster difficulty and loot balance.
  • Added new boss monster encounters in the "Ring of Fire" area.
  • Added new bonuses on certain collector and quest items.
  • Instituted skill changes: "Watch Yourself!" correctly affects characters who were already affected by another instance of the skill. "Firestorm" now continues to cast even if the target enemy dies during spellcasting. We'll revise other area-effect spells to work this way in future updates.
  • The party window and account storage windows now correctly remember their position and size.
  • There are many new hints displayed in Pre-Searing Ascalon, and a new option to disable the display of hints.
  • When you gain a level, a button now appears prompting you to spend your newly acquired attribute points.
  • Quest destination points now appear on both the Map Area and Map Travel windows.
  • Most NPC text is now logged to the chat window, as well as being displayed in game.
  • Implemented various minor fixes to UI.
  • Fixed crafters recognizing high-level crafting items.
  • Fixed problems which caused excessive scarcity of Fur Squares, Linen, and Silk.
  • Implemented fixes for incorrect behavior when a player or party disconnects before the beginning of a competitive game.
  • Implemented fixes for miscellaneous rare crash bugs.
  • Added the ability to change postal mailing address on account.
  • Improved hardware compatibility.
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