If not for the outage, would I have played Guild Wars today? I don’t know for sure, but I doubt it. Yet, because the Guild Wars servers were down, I got a little curious. I actually tried to log into Guild Wars twice today – once this morning and once this afternoon. The first attempt was unsuccessful. The second attempt worked. I logged into game, fought through the Fort Ranik mission and everything seemed fine.
But clearly, the community was concerned about this issue. I decided to check the server logs to see why people were visiting this website. Here are the top 20 search terms…
- guild wars outage
- guildwars.us
- guild wars planned outage
- guild wars outtage
- list of nicholas the traveler items
- arena.net jobs
- arenanet down server
- arenanet war in kryta
- arenanet writer
- best loot drops guild wars
- fastest way to fill hall of monuments
- getting survivor in drunk boxing gw
- guild wars almost survivor
- guild wars beat the game
- guild wars down august 2010
- guild wars live data outage
- guild wars not down august 2010
- guild wars people look weird
- guild wars servers moved
- guild wars shut down 2010
Without a doubt, the outage brought more traffic to this website. It wasn’t a lot, but it was noticeable. I suspect that things won’t pick up around here until Guild Wars 2 nears release. It makes me wonder how things would be different if Guild Wars was more like a traditional MMORPG. Also, I experienced life without Guild Wars. It was nice to log back in again. Guild Wars should not fall.
However, I still feel that the lore is not for me. There’s a certain detachment with the original and it seems it will be even worse with the sequel. While it would be bad if Tyria ceased to exist, life in that world is far from pleasant. I watched the latest video from ArenaNet. I don’t feel that it’s my story. It still feels like ArenaNet’s story.
When I saw the Charr walking behind the human, I became concerned. I thought the human was about to be killed, but then I remembered that this is Guild Wars 2. We’re supposed to be friendly with Charr. How’s that my story?
In ArenaNet’s quest to eliminate grinding, eliminate downtime, are they removing the elements that build strong gaming communities and give players a reason to keep playing? In ArenaNet’s “Walking the Walk” blog post, by Mike O’Brien, it still feels like more talking. The original was supposed to have interactive environments and there wasn’t supposed to be tedious game elements. Instead, we got things like a tiny avalanche on the Borlis Pass mission and we got Zaishen keys. If I used one key every day, for the next 50 years, I still wouldn’t complete the related title.
I’m skeptical. That’s too bad, because I liked being a big advocate for Guild Wars. Although, I started playing the game before the Charr and before the mythological gods were introduced into the game. Almost seven years ago, I learned about Guild Wars. It feels as if not much has changed — but I have changed. Running and killing just isn’t entertaining to me anymore. Will the fun ever return, or did I see the best the franchise has to offer with the conquering of Cavalon? I’m still watching the progress though. There is a little bit of hope. Historically, ArenaNet has listened to feedback from the community.
Now that the servers are back online (operating from NCsoft’s Austin, Texas base) the next big move happens in Germany. ArenaNet will be showing off Guild Wars 2 at the gamescom convention.
Hah yeah … those titles are one pain in the ass. But if you don’t get ya ass movin’, you might miss out on those undisclosed rewards.
Doesn’t make getting there any less of mind-numbing grind though.
I remember the pre-release info that Arenanet sent out: no grind-based gameplay and the use of instances to allow tactical destruction of parts of the environment, such as “torching down bridges”, not to mention distribution of all products through your local retail stores.
For those who’ve been around from the open betas, not many of the few promises haven’t been broken over the years.