Guild Battles

The Age of Wushu site has been updated with a terrific new developer blog post that details how guild battles will play out in the game that is set to hit retail launch on Wednesday, April 10th. Guilds will be able to control and defend territories within the game, setting the stage for epic GvG action.

Three Interesting Closures

The economy continues to hit the games industry hard including the recent announcements of game and possible studio closures. We take a look at three very compelling closures in our latest Free Zone. Check it out and then head to the comments.

Leaderboards Arrive

ArenaNet has posted a new developer blog and other information about the newly added leaderboards for Guild Wars 2. Leaderboards will cover three categories: PvP, WvW, and Achievements. As a start, the first 100 players in each region have been listed.

GUILDS

In this new bi-weekly comic, artist Blaz Klaric brings us his irreverent look into the foibles of the MMO worlds we love, and love to hate. Check out the latest comic, GUILDS.

Free Trial Keys Incoming Next Week!

We’re going to have thousands of Guild Wars 2 weekend free trial keys that we’re going to give away beginning next week. Keys will grant access to the game for the entire weekend of 4/19 to 4/21. Players need to only have a free ejeet.net account to claim a key, and we’ll have more specifics on WHEN the keys will be available and when players can download and access the game shortly.

Improvements Realized

In a second developer blog on the Defiance site, Executive Producer Nathan Richardsson writes about improvements that have occurred over the weekend including the stabilization of the XBox server issues. While things are getting better, however, Richardsson said the team is still actively monitoring several key issues and working to resolve them.

What It Is...and Isn

Neverwinter is poised on the edge of its soft launch at the end of the month (Open Beta). Many people have questions about Neverwinter and we’ve got a few answers to share. Check out what we believe Neverwinter is and isn’t and then leave us your thoughts in the comments.

Server Woes Acknowledged & DLC Plans

Defiance Executive Producer Nathan Richardsson has posted another blog article that acknowledges that game servers are still suffering from lag issues (and more) and also lays out some details on forthcoming DLC plans. Most notably, the team is working on XBox cluster issues, PC server crashes, connectivity and patching, and chat/VOIP issues.