In an interview with VideoGamer.com, global brand director Chris Lye, stated that Guild Wars will remain open even after Guild Wars 2 launches, if an active player base remains.

The only incentive we need is to have an active player base. Guild Wars is a very cost effective game to support and because there is no active cost to maintain both a Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 account. We could see a lot of players keeping both.

To me that sounds like ArenaNet will be leaving it up to players to decide if Guild Wars remains running and for how long. There will obviously be a major shift to GW2 once it’s released, so the question is will enough players remain playing the original to keep it cost effective.

From that statement it seems that it would take a massive amount of players leaving for them to decide to shut down Guild Wars, but you never know.  If GW2 turns out to be as good as ArenaNet is making it out to be, players could start their GW2 journey and never look back.

Welcome to this week’s MMOries of a Gamer, today featuring Guild Wars; the original and different online game Arenanet got to the top. The story of me and this game is quite curious and, thinking about it, taught me something so important in the life of a gamer. Come along with me, after the jump, and read how things can change drastically when you change the way you play.

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The video above represents the first look we’ve had at the Guild Wars 2 Ranger class, and as ever it looks awesome. Shown are examples of the ranger skills Barrage, Hunter’s Call, Spread Shot, Serpent Strike and Whirling Defense in that order. While much of the video is no doubt staged to some extent for dramatic demonstration purposes, much like in the GW2 Warrior reveal, a few key moments definitely stand out to me.

The first is the vicious hilarity of Hunter’s Call – I’m not a huge fan of birds flying near my head in real life, but the concept of turning the tables to treat my enemies to a flock of them pecking them to death fills me with a deep and terrible joy. Spread Shot’s clip is also quite intriguing, not so much for the named ability itself, which seems to do pretty much what it says on the tin, but for the preparatory action the character is shown taking beforehand – lighting an area on fire in order to create on-the-fly fire arrows. Finally, the Whirling Defense section is almost too cool for words, I’m so impressed by it that I’m wondering if it’s too good to be true – is this simply an incredibly well-staged clip or will the reality measure up?

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Guild Wars 2 recently published the fourth installment of their “Combat” series of articles, this time written by Jon Peters, one of the game’s designers. The article discusses death and the traditional trinity of MMO group combat roles (healer, tank, DPS).

Peters starts with some good news: “As weird as it might sound, we decided to look into what would make dying a more enjoyable and memorable play experience.” This means that the death penalty in Guild Wars 2 will be quite mild. Additionally, players will have a chance to redeem themselves before they die. A character with no health will enter “downed mode,” where they can use a limited skillset to fight for their life. Players who then fail to beat their opponent will go into a “defeated state,” meaning they are officially dead and have to resurrect to return to the battle.
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ArenaNet’s John Stumme has explained on the developer’s blog how Guild Wars 2 is about more than just heroically battling monsters for the good of the people – it’s also about getting absurdly drunk on ale and smashing up a tavern. Magnificently unconcerned with setting a responsible example for bar dwellers everywhere, ArenaNet is including the “bar brawl” activity as one way in which players can relax and let off steam in between their epic, world-saving quests. According to Stumme, not only is it possible to “kick someone into a table, splintering it into pieces”, but if you really see yourself as a hardened criminal during your off duty hours, feel free to “use your broken bottle to shank people!”

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Apologies for the tautology in the title, but the fact is that Guild Wars really is updating the wars of guilds. Those of you who may have played Guild Wars and been distracted by its lengthy and engaging campaigns have clearly missed the point, as what the name refers to is the ongoing PvP battles between player guilds. Entitled “GvG balance”, the tuning of this feature is what ArenaNet will apparently be focusing on in the months to come.

In this vein, the recent game update has addressed a few issues with battles resulting from the attack of one guild upon another’s guild hall. ArenaNet claims the changes are addressing a tendency, given the risky proposition of an attack, for aggressors “to employ an excessively cautious, defensive strategy focused on taking advantage of the tiebreaker mechanic rather than killing the enemy Guild Lord. Typically this strategy involves bringing a team equipped to stall out the match along with a character who can “plink” the opposing Guild Lord from a safe spot.” In response to this, several tweaks have been made to Guild Lord and NPC positions and abilities, as well as to a particularly problematic PvP ability known as Defy Pain.

For the full details, visit the official site.

The Guild Wars 2 Warrior class has been unveiled by developer ArenaNet, and it is brutal. One of my pet peeves in MMOs based on personal combat is that the attack animations, and reaction animations from the targets, often seem a little tame. It is often difficult to discern if the enemy has been struck at all, with a hit causing no visible effect or reaction. As a rule, if I have to see damage numbers to tell if I’m beating down the enemy, I’m at least slightly underwhelmed. This does not appear to be a problem for the Guild Wars 2 warrior!

Click below to see the warrior in action for yourself.

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Internet security company Symantec revealed this week that it had discovered a server containing the “credentials” – username, password and other information – of 44 million stolen game accounts. The credentials themselves were gathered by some sort of traditional malware botnet, but the new and terrifying twist on the story is that they were being validated by a distributed network of computers infected by a Trojan virus. What this means is that unsuspecting internet users were helping the hackers validate the account details of these 44 million accounts with their own computers, due to the presence of a Trojan in their system.

The theft appears to be targeted mainly at Chinese gaming company Wayi Entertainment, but around 2 million of the accounts were registered with PlayNC, a service that includes Lineage 2, City of Heroes and Guild Wars, among others. Around quarter of a million were also spread between Aion and World of Warcraft.

As always, make sure you keep antivirus protection and general internet security in mind on any computer that is online.

While other companies have ban hammers, ArenaNet, creators of Guild Wars, has been flexing its ban scythe this week. Nearly four thousand accounts were banned from Guild Wars, but rather than a simple denial of service message, the other players of the game were treated to the cheaters’ executions by Dhuum, former God of the Underworld. Enjoy his terrible justice for yourself below:

According to a recent survey by the NPD Group, Dungeons and Dragons Online: Eberron Unlimited is the third most popular MMORPG, replacing Guild Wars. NPD surveyed 19,000 gamers (68% male vs 32% female) and the first place is of course taken by World of WarCraft with 30% of the gamers surveyed playing it and Runescape is second with 10%. Guild Wars was in third place for the past three years, but was apparently defeated by Turbine’s beloved MMO. Dungeons and Dragons Online: Eberron Unlimited continues growing in popularity after shifting from a subscription-based model to a microtransaction based one. I say – great job Turbine, you definitely deserve it.