Community News - July 18, 2008

[RSS FEED]

• During the Wintersday in July weekend, Daniel Frozenwind and Blade Radio are holding "Winterfest: The Battle" on July 19 and 20. During the event, you can support your favorite deity, Grenth or Dwayna, for a variety of in-game prizes to be awarded by Daniel Frozenwind. Blade Radio will be awarding players real-life prizes, including graphics cards, digital cameras, AMD CPUs, and more! For more information, see the event page here.
• A member of the Presearing Community, Silhouette Eyes, is hosting the "Survivor: Pre-Searing" competition. This is your chance to outwit, outplay, and outlast the rest. Get placed on a tribe, compete in weekly photo challenges, win weekly prizes, plus have a shot at winning the grand prize and the title of Soul Survivor! The competition promises jaw-dropping twists and shocking surprises to keep you on your toes the entire time. Applications are open from June 24 to August 5. For more information head over to the "Survivor: Pre-Searing" forum thread.
• Guild Wars Vault has recently published an editorial comparing Guild Wars to subscription-based MMOGs.
• The Photics.com Guild Wars Video Guides for the Nightfall Bonus missions (1-15) are now available at a higher resolution. Previously, they were 320 x 240. Now they're 640 x 480 - that's double the size! To view them, head over to Photics.com.
• Scions of Loki is a group journal which uses the setting of the Guild Wars campaigns and chronicles the adventures of the House Scarabae, a family of Necromancers.
• Fansite Update: Congratulations to the Italian language Guild Wars fansite, The Black Fire! They have been added to the roster as a Listed Fansite.

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[Jizato]

Originally Posted by RSS FEED

• The Photics.com Guild Wars Video Guides for the Nightfall Bonus missions (1-15) are now available at a higher resolution. Previously, they were 320 x 240. Now they're 640 x 480 - that's double the size! To view them, head over to Photics.com

Actually, it's quadruple the size, not double. But it's good to see the site listed in Guild Wars news again.

Maybe that's what we needed to get people back to the site/forums.

[Photics]

Originally Posted by Jizato

Actually, it's quadruple the size, not double. But it's good to see the site listed in Guild Wars news again.

Wow... that's right. Now I feel even better about increasing the size of the videos. Quadrupal sounds cool! I thought they were only double the size... 320 to 640... but it's a 4:3 shape, so you have to figure the area of the rectangle. 320x240=76,800 pixels, but 640x480=307,200 pixels.

Maybe that's what we needed to get people back to the site/forums.

ArenaNet has been great about posting Photics.com site news. Just about everything I send them makes it to the community section. I just haven't been sending them things to post about. Don't worry about site traffic right now. I believe that it will pick up. I'm working on two plans to increase traffic. The second one is amazing. I'm not kidding. It could change everything.

I was working on it last night and even for a few minutes this morning. (I'm that excited about it.) I can't publically share the details right now. I'm keeping my idea mostly secret. But I will let you know this. Dialogue with Gaile Gray has helped to make this project possible. Gaile's last few actions as community relations manager were truly awesome. I've been known to make noise about things that I don't like, but I'm very happy with the fansite program. I have enough creative freedom to work on some realy awesome projects.

For those of you that might not know me very well, you might think that I'm boasting. Nope, just like the days of Cavalon, I'm good with planning and making big things happen. This is one of those times.

Oh, ArenaNet doesn't know about the second project. That's how secretive it is.

So, what to do in the meantime? Unfortunately, this is a solo project. I don't know how to divide up the work and still get the quality that I want. Yet, there are plenty of volunteer projects to do while you're waiting.

• The guild is inactive. Someone could take charge and lead the guild to glory. A popular guild can lead to a popular site.
• Flash games - I could install an arcade mod, but I'm really fussy about legal issues. For example, I don't feel comfortable posting clones of Arkanoid or Tetris, even though they're great games. There's enough time before Guild Wars 2 launches to create a Flash game. A Flash Game Developer could use Photics.com as a testing area and make the game better. Once complete, an original game could be sold to websites all over the world... or a Guild Wars Flash game could be made just for fun.
• Post - If everyone posted once a day, there would be lots to discuss. For example, what did you think about the Electronics Entertainment Expo? Did you see the new Batman movie? What do you think about the new iPhone? There is so much to discuss here. While this site is mostly about Guild Wars, the conversation is not limited to just that game.

Right now, I'm thinking that visitors of this website will just chill out until Guild Wars 2 nears release, and then we'll see some action. I've accepted that the site will be sleeping until then. But if you want to start some action, I think posting is the easiest way to do it.

[Crispie]

A flash game would be fun...:P