Guild Wars: Utopia - Chapter 4?

Photics · #1 12-26-2006, 11:14 AM

ArenaNet has been quiet... too quiet. Where's all the information about Chapter 4? That's when I decided to kick things into "Competitive Intelligence" mode. For those of you that don't know about CI, it's ethical information gathering. It's different than espionage. James Bond I'm not. While I own a Tuxedo, I doubt I could talk my way past the front desk of ArenaNet HQ. I'm fairly certain that ArenaNet has my picture on file. They'd see me, then they'd say something like, "Hi Mike!" Gaile would probably have some freshly baked cookies. (It's holiday time, ya know!) They'd take me on a tour of the place. After seeing the beautiful artwork, the developers would make me swear not to share any secrets. No, even if I was a super ninja, spying could never be successful. I wouldn't be able to share the secret information with you.

That's why Competitive Intelligence rocks. You look for leaks of information. Guild Wars is an online game. As such, there are obvious breadcrumbs - available online. Then, once you find this publically available information, you simply link to it.

First, I did a Google search. I found some chatter about what Chapter 4 could be like. I read a suggestion that the next chapter would be called "Guild Wars: Vengeance". That sounded cool. Yet, the domain name was not registered. What domain names were registered? I figured by now, ArenaNet should have a name for the next chapter of Guild Wars - yes/no? Domain Tools is a site that's great for a search like this. I simply did a search for a domain that started with "Guildwars". There are a lot of them... A LOT! Yet, Domains cost money. Usually, fansites only register one (such as .com or .net). ArenaNet, they register almost the whole block (.com, .net & .org).

For example...

www.guildwars.com
www.guildwars.net
www.guildwars.org

...they all go to the same site.

All I had to do was look for a "GuildWars____" domain name that was registered under multiple suffixes. Ahh... there's Factions... there's Nightfall... what's this? Utopia?! I checked to see who registered it. Sure enough, NCsoft was behind this.

www.guildwarsutopia.com - it doesn't look like a Guild Wars website (at least not yet).

ArenaNet does follow a pattern, and this fits the pattern perfectly, but I don't know what this site is about. What is Guild Wars: Utopia?!

#2 12-26-2006, 08:47 PM

Its a guild website i found a guild on the web called utopia so i think anet is not gona tell any one about it or give info

Photics · #3 12-26-2006, 09:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cdgil

Its a guild website

I don't think it's a guild website. As I mentioned before, fansites (or even Guild sites) tend to register only one domain... usually .COM or .NET. It's expensive to register multiple domains, as that's an annual expense. Nope, this domain name is clearly in possession of NCsoft - the parent company of ArenaNet. The registration information is almost identical to the GuildWarsNightfall domain.

The question is... what are they going to do with it?

Nemisari · #4 12-27-2006, 10:58 AM

Maybe it's going to be set up as Viral Marketing :O

hahaha I have no idea, though it does seem consistent with NCSoft's track record. Utopia would be a neat name .. I wonder what special features they have in store for the next chapter?

#5 12-27-2006, 04:32 PM

Looking for registered domain names is a good way to find info. You also might keep tabs on if they register any new trademarks. This also seems to get done before much other information comes out.

United States Patent and Trademark Office Currently only Guild Wars, Faction, and Nightfall are up at the time of this post.

Photics · #6 12-27-2006, 05:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clone

You also might keep tabs on if they register any new trademarks. This also seems to get done before much other information comes out.

WOW! That's an awesome post!

(Why didn't I think of that?!)

Yah, I did a search and presto, a history of Guild Wars appeared. Is it unusual that a new record for Guild Wars (Chapter 4) does not appear? It seems with Chapter 2 and Chapter 3, the filing was done about 5-6 months in advance. Maybe the record doesn't appear yet because it hasn't reached the "Published for Opposition" stage? I don't know how this stuff works, but maybe there's a lag from when the record is filed until it hits the website?

I wonder what all of this means?

ArenaNet is a creature of habit. While Guild Wars is a game to us, it's a job to them. It's a cool job. but it's still a job. The game making machine has to keep going. We know that it's too early to speak of Chapter 4, as it would hurt sales. I noticed a lot of people found a copy of Nightfall under their Christmas tree, as the Elona noobie zones were loaded with level 2's. Nightfall is still pretty new. We usually don't hear about the next chapter until halfway though the life-cycle.

Historically, ArenaNet has made new announcements with the New Year. The biggest announcement was in January 2004, when the new graphics were unleashed. February 2004, I was playing Guild Wars for the first time. Wow... has it been that long ago?

#7 12-28-2006, 01:42 AM

Photics, I doubt it's Utopia. The domains that are owned by ArenaNet are hosted off of Sedo, while that domain is hosted by Dotster. A simple way to figure out this information though, is by just asking Dotster who registered that domain. OR you could ask Sedo for a list of domains owned by ArenaNet... which I have already done. I will post my results here.

Photics · #8 12-28-2006, 09:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paralda

A simple way to figure out this information though, is by just asking Dotster who registered that domain.

...or you could do a Whois lookup

While the record for GuildWarsUtopia is not the same as GuildWars or GuildWarsFactions, it is consistant with GuildWarsNightfall.

At first, I thought I was following a bad lead. Going to www.guildwarsutopia.com leads to a site that advertises things related to "Sex" and "Dungeons & Dragons Online". Why would NCsoft / ArenaNet do something like that?

My guess - they didn't expect us to find the site. The ads seem to be listed automatically, based on words in the domain name. It's just a placeholder page. Plus, I'm thinking the founders got tired of registering domain names. HA! (Don't forget about this annual expense - http://www.triforge.com.) If Guild Wars does release 10 Chapters, and registers at least three domains for each chapter, that's 30 domain names a year. At $15 per domain name, that's $450 per year. I suppose that's not a lot of money, but it does add up. Why spend that money when Mom and Pop NCsoft can do it for you?

Nemisari · #9 12-28-2006, 10:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paralda

Photics, I doubt it's Utopia. The domains that are owned by ArenaNet are hosted off of Sedo, while that domain is hosted by Dotster. A simple way to figure out this information though, is by just asking Dotster who registered that domain. OR you could ask Sedo for a list of domains owned by ArenaNet... which I have already done. I will post my results here.

Actually, GuildWarsNightFall.com was registered through dotster, which also seems to point nowhere.. I wonder why they don't redirect to guildwars.com like guildwarsfactions.com does

I'm starting to think this name is very likely

Photics · #10 12-28-2006, 11:26 AM

Yes, that is odd. Why doesn't http://www.guildwarsnightfall.com go to the official Guild Wars homepage?