Guild Wars: 4 Years and Still Kicking

In order to play a game for four years you either have to really love the game or there has to be a lot of game to play. Luckily for me, both are true for Guild Wars. I started playing shortly after the game went live and I still play today. To keep us from getting bored Arena Net has released a total of three stand alone games that can be linked by account and one expansion pack. Now that we are awaiting GW2 we know that there will be no more expansions or stand alone games. So, how did ANet celebrate GW's 4th birthday? Instead of creating a whole new game ANet has given us reasons to relive the game we have come to know and love.

If you are like me and you still have your original character from the Prophecies campaign you might be ready for a change. Now you have the opportunity to give your character a make-over. Make-over packs are $9.99 and available through the NCsoft store. Not only will you be able to change your hair, body type, and facial features, but you are now able to change your gender. You will also be able to give your character features across all campaigns! With a change in appearance you may also want to update your name, with a slightly higher cost of $14.99 per character.



The Zaishen Menagerie is an outpost that was added in the update and is located in The Battle Isles. The Menagerie holds every type of pet that you have unlocked account wide. Now you will be able to switch your pets, for you or your heroes, without having to re-level them. There are different NPCs in the menagerie including one that will tell you about the different kinds of pets, how they fight, and where to find them. If you are like me and never spent much time playing as a ranger you have the option to buy an unlock pack from the NCsoft store. For $9.99 you can unlock all the standard pets and all their evolutions. As I said, this will unlock the standard pets, such as black bear, lynx, or the polar bear, it will not unlock prestige pets such as black moa or the rainbow phoenix.

Now maybe the reason why you have not played a ranger is because your ranger is currently carrying runes, hats, weapons, or any number of other in-game items. I hardly have to mention that after four years we have all accumulated a lot of stuff and have not had enough places to put it. Well, equipment packs might be the help that you need. These packs can be added to your character storage and hold weapons and armor. They can hold 5, 10, 15, and 20 items and can be bought from different merchants. Plus, for a limited time you can get a free Xunlai storage pane from the NCsoft store. If you still need more addition storage panes can be bought from the NCsoft store for $9.99.

One of the things I have found frustrating about GW over the years is my inability to try new builds at whim. Things got better once skill tomes were introduced, but it only helped if you have already unlocked the skill on your account. Obviously, if all my characters were used as storage I have not had much opportunity to unlock many of the skills the game has to offer. Now you have the option to buy skill packs ($9.99 each) from the NCsoft store. Once the skills are unlocked on your account you are free to use them for any of your heroes. You will also be able to unlock the skills for you character through skill tomes.


I understand that not everyone will be running out to spend money, especially in today's economy. The good news is that the team at ANet has added two other aspects to the game that are free to enjoy. The first is Nicholas the Traveler. Well, he is not actually new to GW, but if you have not been to pre-searing in four years he might as well be new. Every week The Traveler shows up in a new location collecting a different item. For these collectibles The Traveler will give you one gift of the traveler (5 gifts per account per week). Opening one of these gifts will give you a random item. These items can be summoning stones, alcohol, weapons, and more. I am not a huge fan of farming, but since the introduction of The Traveler I have found myself "hunting" in locations I have not spend much time in before. This also gives the opportunity to gain faction depending on the location.


The most exciting part of the update, maybe second, is the Zaishen Challenges. Each day three new challenges are posted on signs in The Great Temple of Balthazar. There are three types of quests (mission, bounty, and combat) with rewards in experience, faction, gold, title points and Zaishen coins. The Zaishen coins can be exchanged to collectors for some valuable items such as keys, scrolls, tomes, and equipment packs. The mission quests will send you off to complete different missions and possibly even give you a bonus for doing it in hard mode or according to specific directions. Furthermore, if you bring along the appropriate book you can also get the entry for it. With the bounty mission you will be asked to fight a boss. As it might be a dungeon boss this again gives you the chance to complete another entry in one of your books. Lastly, the combat quest is PvP and might be a GvG, hero, Jade Querry, and so on.

Guild Wars has provided us with an amazing four years of game play with no monthly fees. Now they have given us a chance to revisit people and places that we may have forgotten with new sets of rewards. We now have the chance to make-over our characters without actually deleting and starting over and we have all the storage we need to be able to play all those characters that have become level 5 storage dumps. ANet has given us not only GW2 to look forward to, but also new weekly and daily quests. If you have never played Guild Wars now is a great time to start and if you stopped playing in years past it is an amazing time to come back.


Guild Wars Trilogy (Prophecies, Factions, and Nightfall)
Guild Wars: Eye of the North Expansion Pack