Guild Wars plans the year ahead

By Oli Welsh Published 16 January, 2009

Fewer content updates, more stuff.

The live team looking after NCsoft's MMO Guild Wars has posted its plans for 2009. These include doing less frequent, but more substantial content updates.

Rather than including a drip-feed of new content in the usual monthly maintenance, alongside balance changes and bug fixes, developer ArenaNet will do content updates separately every three to four months, enabling it to "tackle larger and more difficult projects that, previously, would've been impossible".

The first of these big updates, due in April, will include increases to account-based storage, improvements to character-based storage, and account-based changes to the Hall of Monuments.

Readers may have noticed the lack of news on major Guild Wars updates since Eurogamer MMO launched late last year - and we're not sure this new update schedule will change things. The new content update plans still fall some distance short of what players of other MMOs can expect.

Of course, Guild Wars doesn't take monthly subscriptions to fund that kind of work. But with no new retail campaigns or expansions on the horizon either, all eyes must surely be on the sequel, Guild Wars 2.

NCsoft and ArenaNet have been very quiet on Guild Wars 2 so far, and we don't expect a release in 2009, although we could be wrong. We'll bring you more as soon as we have it.

Picture of Oli.

About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (7) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • DFawkes #1 3 years ago

    Nice to hear, but you're right in that Guild Wars isn't really about the expansions. Sure, the core game releases and Eye of the North were enough to shout about, but the content updates are generally just tweaks.

    Still love Guild Wars though.

  • Ferral #2 3 years ago

    Guild Wars is great for a free to play MMO. Havn't played it now though for a good few months. I find it really difficult to get into teams for some of the missions. Currently stuck in Nightfall trying to take out the Soceress in a mission and there is hardly no one about to get into a team and it is nigh on impossible to do with henchmen as they keep running forward even though I set the waymarker at the top of the ramp. Also stuck on Alassio Seaboard on the Factions campaign for the same reasons.

    Stuff like that tends to put me off playing, hit a part where a decent team is needed to continue and get past a mission and no one about making it extremely difficult and the enjoyment goes and becomes tedious.

  • stepneg #3 3 years ago

    I dip in and out of Guild Wars every now and again, was hoping for GW2 this year though. Once I finish EOTN thats it for me and can't see myself playing it much beyond that.

  • UncleLou #4 3 years ago

    NCsoft and ArenaNet have been very quiet on Guild Wars 2 so far, and we don't expect a release in 2009, although we could be wrong

    Oh, somehow I had imagined this would be out soonish.

  • Sunyavadin #5 3 years ago

    Minipet storage is REALLY a must. Dye storage would be nice too.

    About 5 of the characters on my account are purely used to store stuff. Storage improvemenyts have been a demand from players for years.

  • Anufea #6 3 years ago

    @Sunyavadin

    And don't forget the bookshelf ;)

  • Orange #7 3 years ago

    Guild Wars was a great game, the amount of stuff they release and the special events put most sub based mmos to shame.