Japanese GW Site

I found the Japanese Guild Wars site to be very interesting (here is the Babelfished version). There are a lot of interesting cultural differences in the site (anime-Gwen!) but more interestingly is the part about the "Guild Wars month amount system (30 days) play fee decision to 980 yen."

This sounds like The Japanese have to pay to play (980 yen is about $8.30 USD). Anyone have any insights on this news topic? The news article does not exist anymore (though it appears on the front page), but it is very interesting.

Just bringing that up for discussion, and also letting people know that the US and Japanese sites vary greatly!

I love the Anime Gwen and Warthog comics! Translated versions should be posted on this site.

afaik there are some types of payment , not only 30 days , there is 7 days , and unlimited version like we have.
at least in macau ive seen this kinds.

OMIGOSH! o_O
Chibi-Gwen, and a Mhenlo that looks like he's about to re-enact Dragon Ball Z...

Credit Card is also mentioned; Who knows, maybe either it, or a plaync account in general is pay-to-play.
For some companies, you can buy a subscription that is license to play any of their MMORPG's for that time period, or at least a certain set.

I know City of Hereos and City of Villains are tied in such a way, along with Phantasy Star Onlines

Whatever the case, I wouldn't bank too much on speculation from a babelfish translation.

Edit:
You know what? I had forgotten about that. Yes, it was mentioned in a fansite friday that they were considering releasing an alternate, pay-to-play version of Guild Wars, wherein, rather than buying a key for $50, you could pay for a month or two at a time for less. [but eventually adding up to more if you kept playing]

Sigh. I love marketing don't you? It's funny how some people's perception of other cultures can be so blatently stereotypical. For instance check out some of the wallpapers. See the nice Cynn render that we've seen before where she has one arm up and the other behind her in this "cool" looking pose. But note that whoever edited the picture for the Japanese site added what appears to be wires trailing from her right arm...... ninja slicing wires . WHYYYY??? For **** sakes she's NOT a ninja. Then there's another shot of her in the group pic doing a kung fu pose. Funny I thought she was an elementalist.... but here she looks like she could own Chuck Norris. And how about Mhenlo and his DragonBallZ/StreetFighter pose. I don't recall Mhenlo ever letting off a frickin fireball with his bare hands.... let along looking all that intimidating in the first place cuz whenever he gets hit he drops like a sack of potatos. Is it a wonder I don't have much respect for marketing people sometimes..... don't mind my bitterness, I'm an engineer

All must bow before the prize winning pig with all the answers to life, the universe and everything related to gw.

Right.... back on topic....

The Korean site actually has a button that runs an ActiveX control that launches Guild Wars. I cannot get the site to translate however.

I wish my box copy would just get here. Should've had key read off before it was packed and sent with goods. NEVER trust standard post service >:|

No, but he is able to set himself on fire. Close enough.

The tiny bit of moon language at the bottom confuses me. No changes to account-related stuff on kayoubi (not as if I would plan to do anything), why, when NA/Euro doesn't have weekly downtime?

For those that are too lazy to find the link to the comics, go read.

I'm not seeing the ninja trailing wire. Can you please give a comparrison of the two?

Also, can someone explain these?

http://www.guildwars.jp/library/movie.aspx

I don't remember ever seeing their english counterparts...

http://www.guildwars.com/gallery/video/default.php
I've never seen the top one before...second one is the "Cinematic Trailer" towards the bottom of the English page. With (unnecessary) subtitles.

The top one "could" be a commercial? Its pretty short and to me just seems like it would be a promotion commercial. Who knows

Ummm, the japanese wallpapers have them.... and the original renders don't?

For the record I'm joking around. But really, I dunno why they added those 2 funny looking blur lines. They wanted to make it look like Cynn struck that pose with her arm really fast? Were they trying to make it look like she was manupulating wind? But if so why not add more than 2 lines? Hence it looks like a pair of ninja trailing wires in the thumbnails.

Anyways, I find it kind of funny that the japanese site seems to function better than the official guildwars.com site, even if I can't read all of the links....

FFS if you say David Caradine or Van Damn or Steven Segal next I'll invent that way to reach out through the net...

Kung Fu does not = Norris *shudder*

at least that Vin Diesel site was funny

http://www.4q.cc/index.php?pid=fact&person=vin

See, you can't take the thumbnails :-p
The picture is just "wind" lines... pointless, but surely not ninja related.

I think it's actually worse than the official/Korean/Taiwan pages since it appears horribly broken in my browser (whereas the others appear perfectly fine).

Ooh look!

http://www.guildwars.jp/gamedata/map02.aspx


Very nice flash map...