Guild Wars 2 Launches in China!

[Karizee]

Guild Wars 2 Launches in China

Today we’re happy to announce that we’ve reached another major milestone for Guild Wars 2: the game has officially launched in China. A massive event in Beijing today marked the momentous occasion, including a presentation by ArenaNet co-founder and president Mike O’Brien in which he introduced the upcoming Festival of the Four Winds release, the game’s first truly global game update.

“We wanted to provide the best possible MMO experience for Chinese players, so we joined forces with KongZhong, an ambitious partner who shared our passion for quality,” O’Brien said. “Together we’ve spent eighteen months preparing – meeting with Chinese players and guild leaders to get their feedback, and working on every little detail of the game. Finally we’re ready to open our arms and join with China as one global community.”

We’ll be hosting the celebratory Festival of the Four Winds in Guild Wars 2 starting on May 20 for the NA and EU regions. This in-game festival brings back some well-loved moments from the first season of the Living World of Guild Wars 2 and is meant to bring players together in celebration.

At the event in Beijing, ArenaNet and KongZhong shared the stage with China superstars and a 30-foot statue of Rytlock Brimstone. The event’s biggest celebrity performer was singer and songwriter Jike Juan Yi, also known as Summer. As a treat for both her fans in China and Guild Wars 2 fans around the world, Summer recorded a music video blending live action and game play to debut a Chinese version of the Guild Wars 2 anthem Fear Not This Night, a song of hope sung by the mystical Pale Tree to her sylvari children.



https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/g...ches-in-china/

Congratulations ArenaNet and Welcome China!

[1001]

Video is funny, did they cut out Meatloaf?

[Karizee]

Video is funny, did they cut out Meatloaf?

Meatloaf out, Snoop Dogg in. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pokncdMIDxs

[zed zebes]

I thought it was launching Thursday?

[Karizee]

Yeah, I was a little confused on the dates as well.

China is experiencing insane queue times to get into WvW. KongZhong published the average queue numbers for the Eternal Battlefield. The spectrum goes from <50 up to >900. The data are from May 12th 15:00 local time. http://gw2.kongzhong.com/news/20140512/1645.html

Telecom District
Dolma > 500
Send Modesto <100
Balthazar > 300
Abberton > 250
Lion's Arch > 900
De Weina > 900
God of the Language > 200
Green lake <100
Dawn Heights <100
Soul of the Island > 100
Titan Claw > 250
Fear Gulf <100

Telecommunications Second District
Ke Mier <100
Gulan Si <50
Zetan > 200
Blade of Destiny > 400
Friedman Congregation <50
Lata Som <50

Unicom, a district
Deep Sea Dragon > 300
Night Watch > 600
Carat Cato <50
Merlin duo <50
Passphrase Mission <50
Lisa > 200

They added 9 more servers today. I have a feeling they are going to need much much more.

- - - Updated - - -

A player attended the Guild Wars 2 Beta Festival in Beijing and put together an album, enjoy!

http://imgur.com/a/JwXRE

(in b4 why do they get all the cool stuff QQ)

[zito]

They have the WvW overflow map though right?

[barackopala]

Gonna have fun with the lost in translation servers !

I got a feeling that "God of the Language" is going to win, can't beat a god, i mean, sending modesto is just blergh and well de weina sounds like weiner, kinda like that lata som, OMG A MERLIN DUO o3o!
Lisa... oh god nobody likes doing lyssa.

[Karizee]

They have the WvW overflow map though right?

They do. Hasn't seemed to slow down the up to 24 hour queues for EB tho.

Ok, now they are giving away CARS.
http://gw2event.kongzhong.com/gw2event/celob/index

[zed zebes]

The GW2 Mazda 3, with overflow seating in the back.

[Karizee]

Fun facts from the China launch:

• Launch day ratio of female to male characters is 2:1
• Launch day choice of profession: guard 14.9%, ele 13.01%, ranger 11.56%, mes 10.7%, necro 9.4%, thief 11.74%, war 22.38%, engie 6.3%
• Launch day choice of race: human 53%, norn 15%, asura 12%, charr 10%, sylvari 10%
• Number of times downed players got revived on launch day: 2,191,573
• Player Xfire锟 from server Lion's Arch reach level 50 within 14.13 hours, and level 80 within 2 days. He's also the player with most achievement points.
• May 2nd, 22h30m: Shadow Behemoth became the first world boss killed. He dies an average of 4 times a day since.
• 50,000 players completed Wall Breach Blitz. The toughest JP(s) claimed a total 167,327 lives thus far. (Not sure if the second line is referring to just Wall Breach Blitz, or all JPs. I believe it's the latter.)
• Only 1 out of all 500,000 "beta" (which is equivalent to our headstart) players completed Shattered Ice Ruins jp.
• 1 particular player bought 20 makeover kits.
• A total of 5,290,000 hours played across all players within first 2 days of launch.
• A total of 10,432,445 player deaths thus far. 3,346,543 player deaths are from WvW. 1 particular player killed 14,976 players.
• Average world completion progression is 30%. There are players already with 100% world completion.

http://news.17173.com/content/2014-0...840063_1.shtml

[Deleted]

Difference between CN version and US version is, as of currently, are kinda acceptable. Skills unlock with leveling but level 1-20 seem to be designed to be insanely fast. (I visited a vista in Queensdale at level 8 and it gave me half my XP bar), while after level 20, the leveling speed is a lot slower. I leveled an engineer so I can only shoot from my rifle in the first 20 levels...kinda boring, but since it took about only 3-5 hours, it should be okay.

Dungeons and crafting don't give much experience; tome of knowledge give less than 1/5 of an XP bar so you have to level up the hard way.

VIP mode costs 728 gems per month, that's about $5. Not really unreasonable, though it almost forces you to complete all daily quests, including PvE, WvW and PvP ones (for each daily you complete you get 1 VIP point, you can earn a maximum of 12 per day, 2 of which you can earn simply by logging in, so you need to complete 10 dailies per day to receive max VIP points).

VIP progresses pretty slowly though. There are a total of 20 ranks, rank 1-2 needs 24 pts, 2-3 is 36. So if it increases like this, it requires 210 days to reach maximum rank, which will grant you a legendary precursor. VIP abilities can be powerful in PvE however, especially in jump puzzles. I used VIP revive for a clutch revive in some jump puzzles where there are tough mobs on the way.

[Gumboy]

Hilarious how it is 53% human :O what is the rest of the world race stats? maybe it isn't so funny.

Also one guy having 14,976 players killed seems kind of..glitchy/broken?

[LilSaihah]

Hilarious how it is 53% human :O what is the rest of the world race stats? maybe it isn't so funny.

Also one guy having 14,976 players killed seems kind of..glitchy/broken?

If the queues are as they sound... It sounds definitely possible. You can make a lot of kills if you're sitting on an arrow cart in a good spot.

[draykorinee]

Another terrible video by Anet, although far less terrible than previous ones.

This will do well in China no doubt, hopefully anyway. Just not so well that people have to link that is sold X amount like it actually matters.

[Karizee]

This will do well in China no doubt...

No doubt ;-)

http://www.gamesinasia.com/the-top-1...hina-may-2014/

[Iseeyou]

Already beating WoW in China ?

That´s quite impressive. Curious to see the subs drop in China next Q.

[draykorinee]

Already beating WoW in China ?

That´s quite impressive. Curious to see the subs drop in China next Q.

Really? A launch title beating a title in a content lull, about as impressive as my ability to dead lift 10kg...

[Karizee]

The guy that tracks it said to a similar comment:

"Meh...I've been doing this list every month for a year, it's extremely rare for a new game to do this. The only other one I can remember is Blade & Soul when that came out in China last year. Generally the list doesn't change much from month to month. Top 3 haven't changed at all ever that I can remember."

[draykorinee]

I'm not taking away from GW2 strong release, I'm just saying the exact same thing happened in the West with xfire its not impressive in anyway to 'beat' an ageing gaming in a content lull in its first month, where is mount and blade now in China and where is Gw2 on xfire?

[zed zebes]

I don't know what this hot list is based upon. Is it based on web hits for game content on the Chinese site they cite as a source? Or is it based on actual activity numbers that site has attained? Xfire is pure self-selection and easily manipulated by promotions, so I can't really equate the two without knowing what sort of numbers the China list is based upon.