New update: Shop's Back

I figured out the purpose of 26 extra slots. LOTSA storage like 1440 slots for junk.....

I doubt you have to join your gw account to a playNC account. If the only place to purchase new character slots is at playNC, then you'll probably only have to create an account with them to purchase a slot. then once you've done that you'll likely get a key that you can join to your guildwars account.

That's just my guess. But i wouldnt do anything as of yet anyway. There will be instructions when the update comes out. I'm sure when you go to purchase a slot it will guide you through what you need to do. so, ya... i would just wait if i were you.

Ok cheers

i was thinking about the PlayNC account thing-

I ordered Factions from plaync.com using my old Account from my old City of Heros game (ick)- i have my factions cd key in that account, and it did not effect my account at all.

Im sure you can input your cd keys into plaync.com without FUBARing your game- but like these guys&gals are saying= Id just wait til they figure this thing out before making any moves. Give em time- they WANT you to have an easy time doing this.

I know the store is down, but even with it down is the picture of the store in the upper right corner still gone? I just want to make sure, because I don't have the picture. AND I hope that it guides you through the creation of a PlayNC account as you buy a slot because I do not know how lol.

Well, they will want this added before the preview weekend, but looks like theres more server load than they planned on, perhaps they will release this thing in the small hours when few people are awake/online hoping to stagger the load as people slowly log on throughout the day.

I'm gonna buy at least 20 new slots, so that ANet can hire real voice talent for the next game, instead of just finding people on the streets.

If they found a problem, they need to diagnose the problem, decide on the course to solve the problem (which might be "put this off a week", "put in a hack right now" or "scrap extra slots"), implement the problem on a test environment, thoroughly test everything about extra slots again, and then roll it out on the live server.

They might not have even picked a course of action yet. It could be a while.

Or maybe they are in the process of rolling it out to the live servers. Who know? =)

As you no doubt noticed, we did a Live build to remove the store for a short time while we work on that access bottleneck. As you'll note, we hadn't even put it in the Update Notes when it was rather heavily visi... Ok, when it was slammed. Now, we're prepared for slammage, but there was a small bug that we're going to correct before we roll out the store again.

Should be not too long from now, I'd think.

In the meantime, I'd like to invite discussion of items that could be carried in the store. I'm going to start a thread on that subject, and hope to hear from you guys on what you'd like to see.

To address any question you might have, please read below:

Will we add a monthly fee? No, Guild Wars will not have a monthly fee. This online store is not a precursor to "sneaking in" a monthly fee!

Will we offer other things in the online store? Yes.

Do we have a list of things that will be offered in the store? No, not yet. I think that the team is still reviewing ideas and options -- we'll have more news on that in the near future.

Will that mean we offer less content in upcoming titles? No.

Will you still get character slots if you purchase an upcoming campaign? Yes.

Will you ever need to buy something to remain competitive or to have a level playing field? No, never.

Will we offer promotional or pre-order items from other countries? It's a possibility, but it's too early to say.

Will we offer unlock packs, as were available in the European 2006 version of Prophecies? That, too, is possible. Such things may be driven by player request or desire.

Which leads to the final question:

Will you accept ideas from the community about items to offer in the store? Yes, definitely. In fact, I'll start a thread about that very subject. But I hope we can avoid the editorial, the "gloom 'n' doom," "the sky is falling," "here comes the monthly fee" speculation. :P The thread should not be used as a way to moan about your new choices or to try to start rumours about the future, or drive speculation into some sort of warped view of the coming campaigns. It should be about what you would like to see offered in the future. With that said, I'm up for gathering your ideas and sharing them with the team.

well with more than 2 million people (just going on factions sales- probably close to 3 mil now)- id say the average amount of slots will be TWO... Id like 3 and some people wont get them... we will say 50% of the people playing GW will get 2 slots- sound fair?? Anyways=

1 million people get two character slots... over the course of the weekend... 20 million dollars.

ANet you are gods among men, I applaud your marketing strategy! ANet FTW!!!!

Awsome thanks for the update Gaile

Nice Gaile. It's good to see guildwars will remain balanced. I've seen other games get ruined due to a buy-yourself better system(buying items with real money).

Thanks Gaile.

that's rude, the guy who did the voice for the main male hero is the voice of spike from Cowboy Bebop.

He is a pretty famous voice over guy among nerds.

You would know, man most of NPCs honestly sucked, maybe not so much the player voices

Some voices are ok but some other *cough*Shiro*cough* are absolutely terrible. I do agree with Merdle that many voices seem like they've been done by a group of high school kids. Incidently, there aren't that many dialogs overall so this is one area that could really need some "investment". If you want to hear the very best voice acting, check the Thief Trilogy or Grim Fandango.

Back on topic, kudos to Anet for implementing additional character slots. I will surely take advantage of it as there are some class combos I want to try out.

Hmmm, why does it seem like GW has now become another one of those free online games you can download (like FlyFF, Conquer, etc) where it is free to play the game, but you can buy items to supplement your game and characters.

I can see it now.

For the low low price of $49.99 (USD), 100 ectoplasms can be yours. Get them today while the buying is hot. Order more than $100.00 (USD) worth of items and apparel, and get a 15% discount and 15 free Obsidian Shards.

Only 1440 - dag nabbit, that still won't be enough!

In response to Gaile, I would like to see the option to purchase special items, and other similar things that weren't available world wide, like the EU special order. Items like the Pre-Order and Collector's Edition bonuses should not be offered, because they were available worldwide for anyone to purchase, but those items that were limited to a specific area only should be purchasable for a nominal fee. It makes no sense to just keep buying full copies of the game at retail price just to get those items, but I would still like to have the option to add them to my account.

On a third note, I hope we don't have to create/add our GW accounts to a PlayNC account just to get the slots. I have one, but have no desire to link it to the two GW accounts I currently have.

Hanok Odbrook
Real Millennium Group Guild
Truth * Knowledge * Peace

lol 100ectos for $50.... um... I don't think so. Go farm it yourselves not gonna spend $50 for ectos

Anyways; great marketing strategy $9.99 for a character slot good price

You don't think it would happen? People complain about the grinds here and there to get such and such. If the online store sold Ectos, Shards, unique looking items, do you really think that no one would buy that? What about online gold? People buy accounts and gold online everyday, at least GW is cutting the overhead of ebay and killing gold farmers at the same time by selling it themselves.

Come on, a lot of people out there are lazy with money and this would be ideal for them, or for those that don't have a lot of time to farm it for themselves. ^^

Do you really think it WOULD happen?Hmmm ectos would be 100g each at trader...while people selling them for 50g.