Guild Wars 2

Today is Guild Wars' eighth anniversary. Depending on which tradition you follow, I should be getting the game either bronze, salt, linens, or lace as a gift. Since I don't happen to have any of those handy, I'd like to reflect upon the rich life that Guild Wars has led so far. The game didn't start out with all of the neato features that it has now, so I'd like to look a bit at its evolution over time. I can't hit every update ever, but I thought we'd take a stroll down memory lane and look at some of the key moments in the game's life.

ArenaNet has been searching for a solution to Guild Wars 2's WvW reset problem for a while now. See, thanks to the way that not everybody is on the same time, finding a unified reset time for players in both Europe and North America has been a real pain in the Alpha Siege Golem. The solution? ArenaNet is simply separating the reset times. Starting with the next matchup, North American WvW matches will reset Fridays at 9:00 p.m. EDT, while European matches will reset at 2:00 p.m. EDT (7:00 p.m. GMT). This is meant to lead to a smoother (and more sleep-friendly) experience for everyone.

Have you been meaning to try out Guild Wars 2 but afraid to commit to the box price? If you have been exceedingly clever, you might have noticed that several sites around the internet have been doing their best to throw trial codes at you for a free weekend experience. If you missed that or have exciting plans for the weekend, however, you might not be quite yet out of luck. Digital and Digital Deluxe editions of Guild Wars 2 are on sale on the official site until the 28th. You can pick it up for roughly 30% less than you would normally. Given that the Super Adventure Box is going strong until the end of the month and Flame and Frost: Retribution will be wrapping up this living story arc, this seems like a pretty promising time to check it out.

Meanwhile, the team has also released a dev blog chronicling the creation of the Super Adventure Box commercial mocked up for the April Fools' Day events. Turns out that the game the boy in the commercial is playing is called Rytlock's Critter Rampage; it's a real retro platformer game dreamed up by ArenaNet's Delly Sartika, and here's the best part: It's playable right now, by you, in your browser.

Right after finally crafting The Flameseeker Prophecies, I took my in-game efforts down a couple of notches. As a result, I've had a few fairly quiet weeks in Guild Wars 2. It's not for lack of things to do or of goals; I've still got plans for oodles of armor sets, a few of the pseudo-legendary weapons, a double-handful of additional level 80 characters, and some titles. I've just been taking a more laid-back approach to achieving those goals. For the last month or so before getting my shield I was running two to three dungeons a day along with other things like camping meta events and going into Orr for T6 mats, which is by no means hardcore but has made for a very pleasant experience switching into a lower gear. I've been taking time to enjoy the simpler pleasures of Guild Wars 2.

Some days, saving the world from Elder Dragons just feels like such a drag. Every time you put a dragon lieutenant down, you know that another one is, even then, being knit together from crystals or rotting corpses and it won't be all that long before it's time to save the world again.

That sort of knowledge can really take a toll on a girl.

Making full use of the magic of technology, I've started escaping the pressure of dragonfighting by going back into Guild Wars. Because it's the game that most directly relates to the state of affairs in Guild Wars 2, I've been playing the original Prophecies campaign. I've also been streaming the experience for the uninitiated, so if you'd like to catch up and live the adventure vicariously through me, you can check out the first bits on Massively's Twitch channel. If you'd like to quickly familiarize yourself with where Prophecies sits in the grand scheme of things, I recommend acquainting yourself with our brief history of Tyria.

It's been a neat experience so far. I'd like to talk about it with you.

Guild Wars 2's big March update introduced leaderboards as an abstract concept. Things were being tracked and ranks calculated, but we couldn't really see what that all amounted to. Those of you who have been unsure of your self-worth up 'til now can rest easy, though: The leaderboards have gone live. You can check them out for yourself.

Right now the leaderboards show the top 100 players for PvP, WvW, and achievement points. The PvP boards are based on tournament matches, which players will need to have participated in at least ten of before their stats are tracked by the leaderboard.

The team is looking forward to expanding the functionality of leaderboards in the future, but at least we've got some sort of stick to start measuring ourselves by.

ArenaNet's April Fools' Day joke on steroids, the Super Adventure Box, seems to be pretty popular. A retro-tastic homage to some of the classics of gaming, complete with a ridiculously camp commercial, the Super Adventure Box is Guild Wars 2's month-long escape into a simpler time without hideous undead Elder Dragons ravaging the world. And the man responsible for it, Josh Foreman, wants to talk to you about it! Skip below the cut for Foreman's explanation of where the Box came from and what the team's vision for it was.

Can't get enough of the Super Adventure Box? Check out the full soundtrack. Still not sure what the Box is? Head on over to our in-depth look at it.