Guild Wars

The Guild Wars franchise is developed by ArenaNet, and began with the original Guild Wars (later dubbed "Prophecies"), released in April 2005.

The Guild Wars games sticks out in the mass of MMORPG:s on the PC-market by combining both PvP (Player versus Player) combat and instanced outdoor environments. The gameplay is also focused more on the obtaining and proper usage of skills then on experience and high-level items, including a level cap of 20.

The use of skills is also quite different then in most other games in the genre. Every character gets to choose two character-classes, and gets access to all skills of both. However, these can not all be used at the same time, since a character can only bring a total of 8 skills into combat at any one time. This makes the gameplay very dynamic, and player focus tend to be big on which skills will prove to be the best combination for the specific challenge ahead.

This has resulted in a very active and dynamic meta-game where teams with a well thought through combination of skills on all its character almost always succeeds against a not equally well prepared foe.

ArenaNet supports the fan community by introducing weekend events and special seasonal events, these have included Halloween and Christmas themed festivities. Additionally, ArenaNet often introduces new items to the game which have unique effects on the character.

CORPG

A competitive online role-playing game (CORPG) is a type of PC Video Game with common features of most MMO's, CORPG's are often labeled as MMO's or MMORPG's due to a lack of a better term. While CORPG's and MMORPG's are very hard to tell apart because of all the similar features both of them offer, CORPG's have significant differences when it comes to Competitive Play and Tournament play, most CORPG's will offer some form of Payed Tournament system which rewards players with Real World money or Ingame Money, Items, etc which in the earlier days of Guild Wars the game did offer Cash rewards based on tournament performances.

There is only one other developer to claim it's game is a CORPG and that was Fury which has since shut down it's servers and closed the game down due to lack of community interest and funds, the game was based solely around PvP and offered Cash rewards based on performance much like Guild Wars.

With the release of Guild Wars 2 on the horizon and Guild Wars 2 development pushing the franchise into more of an MMO / MMORPG game then a CORPG a lot of the hardcore PvP players have decided it's probably best to resist the urge of Guild Wars 2 and simply quit the game after Guild Wars 2 is released, in other words the change from CORPG to MMORPG upset the hardcore Guild Wars player base.

Official Blog

ArenaNet officially began a blog on April 27th 2010 to talk discuss everything Guild Wars and also everything ArenaNet. Though you can expect that it will be used to release details about their upcoming release Guild Wars 2. The blog will contain interviews, videos, news, concept art and even behind the scenes look at the people who work at ArenaNet. It is going to provide the crew at ArenaNet to give information directly to the fans. The blog is going to be primarily written by David Campbell. The Blog can be found here.

Guild Wars 2 Rewards Calculator

With Guild Wars 2 on the horizon, ArenaNet has released the Guild Wars 2 Rewards Calculator. Using the website, players can check how many Guild Wars 2 rewards they have accumulated by completing certain tasks that attain to the Hall of Monuments in Guild Wars: Eye of the North.

As seen in the image below, the calculator takes in to account the player's progress towards each challenge's requirement. The player can then use the Reward Meter to see what they've acquired for Guild Wars 2.

There are 5 areas of the game that the player can use to acquire rewards:

Devotion

This section revolves around how many and what type of Minipets are on display in the Hall of Monuments.

Fellowship

This section pertains to what Animal Companions (must be level 20 to be dedicated) and Hero Statues (Elite armor must be attained for the Hero)the player has on display.

Honor

This section is related to how many Titles the player has on display in their Hall.

Resilience

This section is related to how many complete Elite Armor sets the player has on display in their Hall.

Valor

This section is related to how many Elite Weapons (Destroyer, Tormented and Oppressor) the player has on display in their Hall.