Guild Wars 4th Year in Review

edit: oops i fail at math (and can't change the title)

This is just a thread to look back at what GW brought in its 4th year and to thank Anet (aka im bored).

The 3rd Year Anniversary kicked us off by introducing the new end-game area for Prophecies, which gave us the new Deldrimor weapons (apparently, I've heard these weapon skins were already mostly created beforehand anyways, but oh well).

Shortly after in May, we got introduced to the Zaishen rank. Zkey prices skyrocketed and shortly became the new "ecto" in some circles. XTH also helped out with this. As well, this month brought us the Monthly Automated Tonic, which we would then enjoy month-after-month. One of the more exciting updates (or unusual depending on how you look at it), was the PVE/PVP skill split. This was going to change greatly the system of balance and deeply affect gameplay....or would it?

The summer was kind of slow, with no big updates, and not even any sign of putting the PVE/PVP skill split to good use. We received mostly minor changes during this time. However, [[Shadow Form (PVE)] farming was born and all shadowsteps receieved an aftercast, so all the sins migrated to PVE land. But sins weren't the only one which rised in popularity in PVE, mesmers as well with the almighty [[Energy Drain (PVE)] PVE buff! Okay, not really, but mesmers were dominating now in PVP with fastcasting elementalist skills.

[[Ancestor's Rage]/[[Splinter weapon] got nerfed not once, but twice; [[Ward Against Melee] no longer affected NPC's; [[Blinding Surge] got changed like 8 or 9 times; but these nerfs were nothing compared to what was going to happen next: VOD gets removed. Oh and smiting monks broke the game more than anyone could have imagined. I don't know which QQ was worse--the nerfing of [[Smiter's Boon] or the nerfing of [[Ursan Blessing].

September was all happy again with the introduction of the cuddly lovable M.O.X. And of course his Igneous Summoning Stone sidekick to promote the new Guild Wars Trilogy boxed release.

Blah blah blah skip a month...we get a rebalance of Reputation Point Titles. Kurzick/Luxon/Sunspear/Lightbringer are now less grindy, but stilly grindy. No more HFFF bots. Yay! Now we get the awesome benefit of having to instead deal with bots in "PVP-like missions" Jade Quarry and Fort Aspenwood.

New Story Books, new Summoning Stones and more Monthly Tonics, your inventory is starting to look pretty packed. Don't worry though because in 4 months (thanks to our ingenious project management skills) we'll give you more storage for the low low price of $10 a tab!

Happy 4th Year Anniversary Guild Wars!

(I probably missed a whole bunch! Feel free to share your precious 3rd year GW moments!)

Great post Snaek

Is it not somewhat sad that skill nerfs/buffs were the most exciting events of year 3? :>

Most memorable for me probably was the sound of crickets in Gate of Anguish the day after the Ursan nerf. Lol (ToA after the next skill balance maybe?)

Then the sudden rush of new farming spots as SF gained popularity. Notably the VS farm and UWSC. Dungeons were not too far behind... Keg farming also became mainstream.

Anet sold a bunch of new accounts as people started realizing the XTH can be exploited.

Euro English servers started running dry as everyone left and moved over to American servers.

Who could forget the incremental “Server maintenence“ induced lag spikes?

Last mention goes to the Grogg weekend.

What a year!

Surely this has been the 4th year of guild wars?

Nice summary, but it is the 4th year! That's why Guild Wars is turning 4! If you don't believe me follow my flawless logic:

2005-2006 1st year
2006-2007 2nd year
2007-2008 3rd year
2008-2009 4th year

April 28th 2009 will mark the beginning of the 5th year.


I think the introduction of Zaishen-Title had the biggest impact.

Ummm. Doesn't an anniversary mark the *end* of a year, rather than the beginning? So, the 4th anniversary marks the end of the fourth year of GW, not the third year.

Edit: Seems I was a bit slow.

Anet neglects game for 4th year in a row, pvpers continue to desert the game in mass, significant skill updates are put off so that April Fools jokes can be coded.

PvE continues to rule the game, it has actually come full circle with tank and spank dominating, and people think it takes skill.

In sum, nothing has really changed.

that is a very true statement. GW started with tank and spank, then to anti-tank. Now its back to tank and spank(sadly)

so, natural evolution?

evolution? you mean theres no higher power? balthazar save us!!!!

elite skill buffs like UA and Hundered Blades ;-) was awesome when UA had limitless rage

I definetly thought the best part of year three was the tonics. I hope they have another BIG update like that again or something entertaining (with unlimited uses.) Although I am disappointed that they have the same ones each month. I hope that balthazar daily quest zaishen challenge thing will be fun and have good rewards as well.

Looking back at the year, it actually seems better than i thought, SF could have done with a nerf and there could have been more skill updates other than that but it wasn't too bad considering they spent the last four months working on a supposedly big update.

And the QQ post of the day goes to!

What? Were you with the nerfing Ursan crowd thinking it would encourage creativity? Whoever told you was misinformed. Tank and spank ruled PuGs before Ursan and it's only natural that it's come full circle now. GW was never meant to be a full time job where you had to commit yourself hours upon hours to become "good" enough to beat the game.

If Anet decides to nerf every gimmick in-game people will just stop playing altogether. Our brief GW history has shown signs of this already.

Very good summary

That was a good year, I was just really getting into gw, I bought and beat all the games that year.

See gw year 3 (my first year of gw) on my xfire blog its the one behind my bad week. my blog

POST 100 !)) IOO

i'm just upset that i didn't hfff more. got into it way too late. free money.

For me the best change for the game was making Kurz/Luxon faction more attainable (along with SS/LB in vanquishes)

The biggest change (in an all encompassing manner) was the Ursan nerf. There was some good and some bad with that.

The worst thing the past year is the utter void of info about GW2.

Makes you wonder how there are any PvP players left then. If they're deserting the game in mass. Or is it they deserted the game, but continue to whine on the forums?

Its all the loud ones are stopping and making a big deal out of it. There's tons of new people, and tons of quieter players in the game.

I'm sorry, but PvE and PvP are both part of the game though there is a larger and more loyal PvE player base it seems. Arena net does not Ignore the PvP player base. It is reasonable to assume they would focus on the larger player base first and then the smaller. Arenet (at least to me) has done a good job at trying to balance both PvP and pvE areas with the time and resources they have available to them. I'm sorry it the PvP player base feels left out from time to time, but I'm sure your not forgotten. Bussiness models always target largest demographics first then the fringes. Don't leave if you don't get your skill updates for a month. I'm sure you will get them next month.

Yeah, this seems to have happened pretty suddenly. What was the cause?

The Germans conquered Europe. As simply as that. There are some French players left. But the British went to America.

What the Nazis did not manage to do, ANet did it. So have some confidence in their ability to make GW2 a great game.