User:Regina Buenaobra/Journal

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The Mad King's Steward Would Like a Word With You... - 5 November 2009

We hinted a couple days ago in various forums that the quests that began during Halloween would eventually reach a conclusion.

The Game Update notes read:

"The Mad King's Steward will soon depart to serve his master, but he has one last word for all the brave souls willing to join the battle against Dhuum's minions."

The Mad King's Steward is offering a new quest today, but he will not remain in Lion's Arch and Kamadan for too long, so if you're willing to answer the call to arms against Dhuum, you will need to speak to him while he's there. After he's gone, you won't be able to accept that quest.

Please also note that the "waiting" referenced in the quest text is not a matter of hours, but days.

Mad King's Steward Called Away - 2 November 2009

The Mad King's Steward has been called away on an urgent request from Mad King Thorn (e.g. you may have noticed it missing from Lion's Arch and Kamadan), and the Steward will return tomorrow.

Halloween Art Contest Issues - 2 November 2009

We have been made aware of issues related to a couple of the Halloween Art Contest entries. While every effort is made to check each entry to ensure that the artwork submitted was not plagiarized, the internet is a big place, and we are not able to check every single corner. Thank you to community members who contacted us to make us aware of those issues. Entries that the team judges to be plagiarized work will be removed over the next couple of days. One submission was affected so far. When we are confident that there are no further issues with contest entries that are displayed on the web site, we will then start the process of awarding prizes to the next highest ranking creator(s). This whole process may take at least a week. Thank you for your patience and understanding in this.

November 1: Erroneous Fraud Blocks - 2 November 2009

On November 1, a few Guild Wars accounts were blocked in error due to payment fraud, however those purchases were legitimate. We sincerely apologize for this error. The Support Team is aware of this error, and they're devoting more people to reinstating the affected accounts. If you have been affected by this, and have not already done so, please open a Support ticket. For additional information and steps you can take, please refer to the Support Issues page on the wiki. Again, we apologize for this error on our part, and we're doing everything we can to reinstate those accounts.

Happy Halloween from ArenaNet - 30 October 2009

A bunch of staff dressed up for the occasion today. Check our their awesome costumes on our page on Facebook!

PvP Henchmen and Heroes in Guild Halls - Updated - 30 October 2009

You should be able to add Heroes to your party in Guild Halls now.

PvP Henchmen and Heroes in Guild Halls - 30 October 2009

Yesterday's update introduced the new PvP Henchmen into the game. Players also discovered that they could not add Heroes to their party in their Guild Halls. The dev team is aware of this concern, and Joe, our programmer, is looking into a way to address this. Joe told me that he can't make any guarantees, but he's pretty optimistic that he can make it happen.

A Note on the Mad King's Guard Miniature - 29 October 2009

Contrary to rumors and hearsay, the Mad King's Guard Miniature is not dropping anywhere in the world. You cannot obtain it through killing monsters or completing quests. The Mad King's Guard Miniature is being introduced as a prize for the Halloween Art Contest of 2009. At this time, there is no other way to obtain it.

Quick Reminder About Frequency of Halloween Quests - 29 October 2009

Hey, everyone. There seems to be continuing confusion about the Halloween quests. Please note that the Halloween quests are not daily quests. As we noted on the official web site, players will be treated to a "series" of quests, meaning there are multiple quests, but these quests are not daily quests.

Thank you. :-)

Automated Tournament Issues - 23 October 2009

Evening, all.

As some of you probably have noticed, there has been an issue with the last two Automated Tournaments.

As a result of that, many guilds were not able to get the remaining Qualifier Points they would need to compete in this weekend's MAT.

We will reduce the required amount of QPs for this Monthly Automated Tournament to 10.

We will also temporarily revert the changes to the Automated Tournament times.

Izzy and a couple of other coders are currently looking into the issue.

We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.

Halloween Art Contest Deadline Extension - 23 October 2009

We've received a report that a couple players have had issues sending Halloween Art Contest entries to contests@arena.net. We had our IT Team on it to resolve the issues as quickly as possible. All told, there was a one hour window during which we were unable to receive mail. Because of this, we will extend the deadline. Players now have until 5:00pm Pacific time to submit their art contest submission.

We're sorry about all the inconvenience, consternation, and confusion caused. Looking forward to seeing those art contest entries!

Codex Arena - 22 October 2009

Today we introduced Codex Arena. You should be able to see Codex Arena on your map in the Battle Isles. If it doesn't appear for you, head over to the Great Temple of Balthazar, and check your map again, and it should appear there.

Remember, you can use just a limited set of skills in Codex Arena. When you travel there, you may see that your skill bar has lock images over some or all of your skills. To find out what skills you can use in Codex Arena for the day, please open your Skills menu by pressing 'k'. These skills will change each day. For more information about Codex Arena and about the Codex Title, please head over to the web page.

Team Arena / Hero Battles Closure - 19 October 2009

The Live Team continues their hard work on the Halloween content.

Meanwhile, last week we discussed letting you all know about the closing of TA and HB, and Linsey agreed that it would be a good idea.

Team Arenas and Hero Battles will be removed in the next build. The game update to remove those two formats will arrive this week.

PvP: Current Projects Status Update - 07 October 2009

As a follow-up to my previous update-y post here, Linsey has outlined more details about what the Live Team is currently working on:

• The Henchmen project: Robert has done a major pass on all the PvE Henchmen, changing many of their builds and polishing their stats to a glossy shine. Only some minor AI tweaks remain. Live Team collectively managed to get through the 30k+ PvP Henchmen submissions and picked 40 builds to be used on release. Robert is working with Joe now to make sure the AI knows how to handle the builds. Linsey and Robert are working with me to get in touch with all the winners, nail down (appropriate, in-character) names for the Henchmen. The last bit of fun is going to be digging up cool models to use for them all once we have the names.

• PvP Skins: The work on this is done. Joe miraculously resolved the two "show-stopping" graphics bugs with the EotN skins, implemented the price reductions and added support for ZCoins.

• Sync-ing Random Arena: The GW2 Programming Team had been playing a bunch of GW PvP lately during their lunch breaks and on the weekend. During one play session, the room got into a lively discussion about Sync'ing Random Arena. Next thing Linsey knows, one of the members of the GW2 Programming Team was telling her that he'd found a way to put everyone into the same bucket so that Sync'ing won't be so easy. We decided to push it live as soon as possible and we put it up on September 1st.

• (TA + HB)^Sealed = WIN!: This project has taken a little bit longer than we had expected. Joe needed to pretty much start from scratch in order for Sealed to be robust enough to handle Live conditions as a full format. That's bumped a couple things from this build back on the waiting list. At this point, Joe is working with QA to get the last remains of TA and HB removed and QA has begun their first test pass on the new Sealed format. Sealed has all its basic functionality there now, it just needs to get through the testing/bug fixing phase and on to the final polish.

• GvG Tiebreaker: We've read through lots of feedback, distilling it down to key points and proposals, but other than that, the project has been mostly put on hold. There are so many different opinions about how we should deal with this that it would be best to wait until the Test Krewe is in place anyway so that we have a way to test each approach. Linsey prefers this one to be really solid before we put it out. That means iteration and a lot of testing, which takes a lot of time and people.

• Bug Fixes for Fort Aspenwood and Jade Quarry: These have mostly been put on hold for now since they're primarily code issues.

• New HoH map: As we said before, "we’ll probably wait until the Test Krewe is in place" and that's what's happening.

• New Schedule for Automated Tournaments: The last status update from QA was that they were doing their test pass and this was pretty much just a matter of Izzy pulling the trigger.

• The Next Skill Balance: We have not started production on this yet. Linsey won't be free to think about it until Halloween is set, but James and Robert have been brewing some ideas already. We'll let you know when this project gets further underway.

• Halloween: As I mentioned a couple posts ago on this page, Linsey has been itching do something new for Halloween. She didn't want to just put in a few more terrible jokes. It’s been on her mind a lot and ideas have been percolating and for months on sleepless nights and in daydreams abound. The last couple weeks, in between scrambling around working on PvP stuff, she's been developing something fairly ambitious. She isn't sure yet if we’ll be able to pull it all off, but regardless, we'll probably manage to get at least a little shiny and new in for this year’s celebration.

Beware of Phishing Sites! - 05 October 2009

This is an important message for all players. We have recently become aware of a phishing site offering players access to the Guild Wars 2 beta after you input your existing Guild Wars account information (username and password). This site, ncsoftinternational.tk is not affiliated with or owned by NCsoft. Do not access this site or give this site your account information!

Henchman Skill Bar Contest Winners - 01 October 2009

The results are in, and the winners list is up! As a reminder, here were the prizes as listed in the official rules: Prizes: Twenty (20) winners will receive one (1) of each of the prizes below:

• A henchman named after the winner’s character or an appropriate name of the winner’s choosing. Please note that all names must abide by our Naming policy and are subject to the approval of the Development Team.
• One Everlasting Henchman Tonic. This unique item will grant the winner the ability to temporarily transform into the image of the henchman that they are named after.

The list of winners, in no particular order are located on the web site for both Guild vs. Guild and Heroes' Ascent.

Congratulations to the winners!

FAQ

• There are 40 winners listed. What gives?

Because of the overwhelming number of great submissions, the Live Team decided to accept a total of 40 submissions, 20 for each format. We predicted we’d get a lot of awesome submissions, so that’s why we included this line in the official rules: “We reserve the right to declare additional winners and award additional prizes in our sole discretion.”

• Will everyone get a henchman named after them?

Yes! Each player-character listed will get a henchman named after them, or an appropriate name of the winner’s choosing. Each winner will be contacted individually to coordinate naming their henchman, and also to coordinate receipt of the tonic.

• Will the new henchmen be able to use the winning builds effectively?

This was a concern at the start of the contest. We posted that, if appropriate, henchman AI could be tweaked and improved so they can use those skills effectively.

• What went into judging the builds submitted in the contest?

As stated in the official rules, entries were judged "on the basis of merit and appropriateness to game design considerations as determined by the Development Team." The contest asked players to "devise potent, effective skill bars for the new henchmen in GvG and Heroes Ascent" and to submit competitive henchman skill bars.

Linsey explained things a little further in terms of why she and Robert picked the skills they did for the winners:

Magic: The Gathering has a similar situation to Guild Wars: good decks are good decks. Individual players do not hold exclusive copyright or trademarks to use those decks. Lots of people play the same kinds of decks (i.e. those decks are popular), sometimes with slight variations, for one reason: they are effective. There are sites out there devoted to Magic: The Gathering strategies, on how to build the best decks, what cards to put in those decks, etc. This information is available to the public.

Likewise, in Guild Wars, good builds are good builds. Linsey was looking for builds that would be competitive and effective for GvG and HA. This is why the contest rules asked players to "devise potent, effective skill bars for the new henchmen in GvG and Heroes Ascent" and to come up with "great, competitive, henchman skill bars". There are certain builds that meet all of the design criteria that Linsey and Robert were looking for. Linsey and Robert had to balance a lot of needs and wants when judging the entries for this contest. Because there are certain builds that are more appropriate for this than others, one expects a certain amount of duplication. Many of those builds and strategies are publicized on places like PvXWiki, but also in guild forums, alliance forums, strategy guides, etc. They are out there in public for a reason: players have found them to be effective. Now, this doesn't necessarily mean that there's no room for innovation or imagination. Only two of the winning skill bars had more than 50 duplicate entries. All the rest had less than 10 others submitting the same bar, and 23 winning skill bars were completely unique in the contest. Keep in mind another fact: Linsey and Robert wanted those henchmen to be equipped with skills that they know players will know how to use and will want to use.

• Were all of the winning skill bars unique?

Of the 40 winners, more than half were unique skill bars that no one else submitted, out of 30 000 total submissions.

Here's the breakdown:

1 Build -> 62 submissions

1 Build -> 51 submissions

1 Build -> 9 submissions

1 Build -> 5 submissions

3 Builds -> 4 submissions

2 Builds -> 3 submissions

8 Builds -> 2 submissions

23 Builds -> 1 submission

In the case of duplicate submissions, the winner was decided by a die roll.

• Will those henchmen skills ever be changed in the future?

It's possible. The design team may decide to modify the henchmen in the future if they feel it's appropriate, this includes tweaking their AI, or even changing their skills.

• When will we see the new henchmen?

You'll see them in an upcoming game update, so keep your eyes peeled!