Although there is already a successor with Guild Wars 2, Guild Wars 1 continues to run happily. Even a server explosion in 2017 did not stop Guild Wars 1, thanks to the efforts of two developers from ArenaNet who dedicate their free time to improve the game.
Guild Wars 1 was released in 2005, making it 13 years old. In 2013, ArenaNet officially ended support for the game. Although Guild Wars 1 continues to run, it hasn’t had an actual team since then. But there is still a little bit, as two developers have taken on Guild Wars 1. And thanks to their help, a server literally exploded.
This was the initial situation: The hardware of the previous Guild Wars 1 server was running on an outdated platform. ArenaNet therefore wanted to migrate the servers to the cloud computing provider Amazon Web Services (AWS). The studio’s Technical Director and long-time Guild Wars fan, Stephen Clarke-Willson, was tasked with this.
This is what happened: Clarke-Willson was in the process of transferring the data to AWS when the uninterruptible power supply exploded.
2 developers help Guild Wars 1
The explosion caused considerable damage, so Clarke-Willson called for reinforcements. The programmer Bill Freist was brought in to assist with the repairs. Like Clarke-Willson, Freist began his career with Guild Wars 1.
Further problem discovered: While both developers were trying to transfer the servers, they found a bug. A similar one already existed in Guild Wars 2, and it caused some players to suffer from a very high ping. For Clarke-Willson, this was the reason to do more for Guild Wars 1 than just transferring the server.
Community excited: So he reluctantly opened a thread on Reddit. He did this with some hesitation, as from the team’s perspective, subreddits should only be led by the community.
Nevertheless, the two developers decided to host an “Ask Me Anything”. During this, players could ask the developers all sorts of questions. The team expected 5-10 questions, but there were 380.
Guild Wars still popular – developers want to improve the game
Contact with the community motivated Clarke-Willson to do more than he originally planned. He wanted to further improve the player experience in Guild Wars 1.
Extensive graphic update: In 2005, Guild Wars had numerous technical limitations. However, today’s computers are many times more powerful. Therefore, the small team wanted to lift some restrictions and was able to significantly enhance the graphics of Guild Wars 1.
Working in their free time: What the two-person team did had little to do with their official jobs at the studio. Although ArenaNet supported them in some areas, the programmer Freist also invested his own free time. He needed over 30 hours to fix the bug that had caused the high ping. Freist told the US site Kotaku that many ArenaNet employees personally thanked them. Many at ArenaNet still loved the first Guild Wars 1 and its community.
No new content, but plans for the future
However, new content for Guild Wars 1 is not to be expected. Two developers are simply too few. There are also issues with the developer tools. Nevertheless, Clarke-Willson and Freist have some plans for the future.
Combating bots and spam: In particular, bots are a nuisance for the team. However, they are already working on a possible solution. The “Click to Move” control should become slightly less precise over longer distances. From Clarke-Willson’s perspective, this does not pose a problem for players. However, the bots cannot handle this. They rely on absolute precision. Thus, a small team can solve large problems.
Keeping the game alive: Clarke-Willson and Freist want to keep Guild Wars alive for as long as possible. According to Feist, Guild Wars is designed to run forever.
What do you think? Should MMOs be developed to last forever? Or is it perhaps better if old games die to make way for something new?
