World Preview Event

Guild Wars Pre-Order FAQ


When does the pre-order period for Guild Wars begin ?

You can pre-order Guild Wars at any time. The pre-order product will be in stores in mid-September.

When will the pre-order product become available ?

The Guild Wars pre-order product will be on shelves on or about September 13th. Check with your local or on-line retailer for the specific date that the pre-sale will be offered through that particular vendor.

How much does the pre-order product cost ?

When you place a deposit on a pre-order for Guild Wars, you will receive a copy of the pre-order product. That deposit will be applied to the retail cost of the game. We anticipate that most retailers will have a deposit requirement of $10 in order to obtain the pre-order product.

Why should I pre-order Guild Wars ?

Pre-ordering assures that the store will have a copy of the game for you on the first day of release. In some instances, a game that is pre-ordered through an Internet retailer will be shipped to reach you on the first day of release or will reach you very soon thereafter. Beyond that, the pre-order product for Guild Wars offers a long list of assets, including access to Guild War Beta Events, the ability to reserve your character name, a Tournament Guide from Prima, screenshots and concept art, music files, the Guild Wars game client, and more.

What is in the Guild Wars Pre-order Product ?
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The pre-order product varies between retailers. There are certain standard items and then one or more than one that is specific to that individual retailer. Here is a list of items that can be found in the Guild Wars pre-order product:

* Pre-account registration for game launch
* The ability to save your character name for launch of the game
* Exclusive access to every Beta Weekend Event, which will take place the first weekend of each month until release
* Store-specific in-game item – varies by retailer
* Friend’s Pass that allows you to invite one guest to join you for one of the monthly Beta Weekend Events
* Folded Poster
* Prima Mini Quick Start Guide
* 15 Pieces of Game Concept Art
* 9 Desktop/Wallpaper Images
* Several musical tracks from award winning composer Jeremy Soule; Guild Wars original music score

Will the pre-order product be available everywhere?

At this point the pre-order product is slated for delivery to a large number of stores in North America. Our Sales and Marketing Teams are working with distributors and retailers to make arrangements for other areas of the world such as Asia, Australia, and Europe


Can I have the pre-order product shipped from the U.S ?

Yes, there are several on-line retailers who offer shipping outside of North America. Visit your favorite on-line retailer for information about pre-orders and shipping costs.

If I pre-order Guild Wars for shipment to me, will the retailers ship me the pre-order product immediately when it becomes available ?

The question of shipment of various components of an order needs to be addressed to the specific retailer with whom you are considering placing a preorder. It is our belief that you should receive the pre-order product in September, and the retail version of Guild Wars upon release of the game. But that really depends on the shipping policies of the individual company, and should be verified with them.

I already placed a pre-order for Guild Wars. Can I still get a pre-order product when it becomes available ?

It is our intention that retailers provide a copy of the pre-order product to everyone who preorders. So if you pre-ordered before the pre-order product was available, you should be able to visit the retailer, show your receipt, and receive a free copy of the pre-order product, providing you paid a sufficient deposit. In other words, the retailer is asking $10 deposit in order to receive the pre-order product and you placed a deposit of at least $10, you should obtain a pre-order product when you present your receipt as proof of deposit.

I live in a location outside the U.S. If the pre-order is not available via any means in my location, will I still be able to participate in the monthly Beta Weekend Events ?

We will have more information on this as it becomes available. It’s our belief that pre-orders will be possible just about everywhere, but we’ll provide details at a later date. The pre-order program will depend on the region and their thoughts about the costs-benefits of a pre-order process. However we are very much trying to have world access for our Beta Weekend Events – but this can be from a variety of means and may not require a pre-order reservation)

Is the Friends Pass in the pre-order product good for just one friend and one weekend ?

Yes, you may invite a friend to join you during one Beta Weekend Event. Those friends who subsequently pre-order the game and obtain the pre-order product will also receive an invitation for a friend to join one Beta Weekend Event.

What exactly is a “Pre-Order Product” and how does the Pre-order process work ?

A pre-order product is essentially a collection of content related to the game experience that is assembled into an official item for retail sale or distribution. The product is provided from the developer/publisher to the retailer for free or at a very nominal cost. (Some retailer systems require that all items have a cost and therefore publishers provide the product at the cost of $0.01 per unit to the retailer) The retailer then offers the product to the consumer for a price that can vary but which averages around $10. It’s important to note that all of the amount paid at the time of the pre-order is applied towards the retail purchase price of the official product when the consumer returns to the store or when the retailer ships the game to the customer. Effectively, neither the publisher nor the retailer makes money on the pre-order product.

Why is ArenaNet doing a Pre-order for Guild Wars ?

In a Pre-order event, the developer/publisher provides a product that costs development time and money. The retailer sacrifices precious shelf space but yet receives no actual revenue, since the cost of the pre-order product is applied to the cost of the game. Therefore it might be asked why anyone offers or participates in a pre-order campaign. The answer is fairly straightforward for both the developer/publisher and the retailer:

The Retailer:

Retailers need to keep their eye on inventory. They want to purchase enough stock to fulfill the needs of customers, but they don’t want to have excess inventory that remains unsold. Pre-orders allow a retailer to gauge the interest in a game and give them confidence that they are wisely investing their money in inventory costs and promotional expenses for that game. In addition, pre-orders help a retailer establish a relationship with a consumer for the future purchase of a product well in advance of the product’s release.

The Developer/Publisher:

For the developer and publisher the pre-order product serves two purposes. The first of these is being able to prove consumer demand to the retailer. The computer game industry is extremely competitive, with console and PC products fighting for increasingly limited shelf space. Retailers seek to manage risks and often choose to focus on established franchises. For a new title, this means there can be a challenge in earning retailer support and getting a title on the shelf. In some cases, a successful pre-order product is becoming a requirement for retailer support of any kind.

The second reason for offering a pre-order product is to support and increase the word of mouth discussion of a game. Having one enthusiastic gamer recommend the game to a friend or to several friends is a very important factor in a game’s success. A well-constructed pre-order product helps this because it reinforces the fan’s enthusiasm and allows him or her to tangibly demonstrate to others the quality of the upcoming game. This increases interest in the game.

Isn’t there a risk in doing a pre-order ?

Yes, there are risks. For the developer/publisher the risk of the pre-order process is the cost of the material and the cost of the time in putting together a product. Such costs are significant because you have the unit costs multiplied by as many as several hundred thousand units. This is not counting the cost of time to create the assets themselves nor advertising and promotion costs, both of which are also considerable. Equally, every moment spent by the developer on creating the pre-order content is a moment not focused on development of the game. So while the pre-order product presents a terrific opportunity to reach out to fans and to enlarge both knowledge of and enthusiasm for the game, these positives must be balanced against the significant costs involved.

What are the goals of a pre-order ?

Many gamers learned about Guild Wars during our E3 for Everyone Event in May of 2004. About 200,000 people joined us for that five-day Guild Wars experience, an unprecedented event given the alpha stage of the game. More and more gamers are learning of the many advantages of Guild Wars, such as free online play, instanced missions, the lack of a leveling grind, streaming technology, and the promise of a game that rewards a player more for skill than for hours played. Nevertheless, Guild Wars is a new product and the pre-order product will provide additional support with our retail partners for creating the best possible product launch.

For gamers, we want to provide great content without affecting the game development process or detracting from the final game experience. There are many twists and turns in the Guild Wars story, and to reveal these experiences prior to release would be an injustice to the gaming experience. Key highlights that we wanted the pre-order product to provide include showing the beautiful world and art style of the game, providing access to the game experience and specific features as we move through our beta development process. We also wanted to develop a way for a Guild Wars fan to share these elements with a friend.

So to highlight the graphical game experience and the unique style of the game we chose our favorite electronic assets such as screenshots, concept art, wall papers and music from our E3 event. Much of this content is new but some elements have been used before in potentially limited press sources. These assets include some of our favorite game visuals and we wanted to provide them in a comprehensive public format that saves gamers the hassles of having to download large files.

How does the pre-order product and the World Preview Event affect beta testing ?

We spent a great deal of time considering the ongoing testing needs for Guild Wars and determining how to provide game exposure in our pre-order product. After much discussion we have opted for a testing plan that includes continuous testing, a free public event and a series of monthly events that are connected with the pre-order product.

Testing:

Testing will continue until release. Internal testing will take place on a daily basis, and members of our Alpha Tester team will continue through the Beta Test. We will be expanding that test group by means that we will announce in the near future. Due to the features we will be testing – guild features, skill balancing, world server technology – we will specifically include testers who match profiles necessary to specifically test these features and this process will not be part of the pre-order process and we are not accepting tester applications.

World Preview Event:

We are committed to providing continued public exposure to the game and we will host a World Preview Event October 29 through 31, with free access for everyone. Simply download the 90KB client for a number of host websites and you can play. The pre-order product also will provide the game client that allows access to the October World Preview, but a pre-order is not required to participate in the event. Public events on this scale require a significant investment of development resources and infrastructure costs. Basically, each event is equivalent to an open beta and most games undertake such a event just once prior to release. The October Guild Wars World Preview Event will be our second free public event with unlimited access.

Beta Weekend Events:

We feel that the optimum balance in the use of development resources and in increasing the pre-order product game exposure will be derived by having Beta Events on a regular basis. Scheduled for the first weekend of each month, each 48-hour period will focus on a new experience in the game such as new regions, new missions, new monsters, and new game mechanics. The pre-order product will provide an exclusive Beta Event access code as well as a pass code for one friend to participate in one of the events. This combination allows us to minimize development interruption, to reduce support costs and yet still provide additional game exposure for passionate fans who want to experience the evolution of the game in the beta development process.

- Les combats entre guildes. C'est fantastique ça !!! Mais, combien de joueur au maximum dans une zone de combat inter-guilde ?

- Est-ce qu'on pourra pré-commander le jeu (à la mi-septembre) en version french ?

- Si je pré-commande le jeu le 13 septembre, est-ce que je devrais quand même télécharger le client BETA ?

- Si je pré-commande le jeu, je reçois quoi ? Une boite avec un CD et une clef, ou juste la clef CD par e-mail et je télécharge gratuitement le jeu ?

- J'ai pas compris. Le prix du jeu sera de $10 ou ce sera en plus, pour la pré-commande ?

Pour le moment le jeu n'est pas traduit en français

Tu recevras le jeu le jour de sa sortie avec la boite contenant le CD une clef. Ils envisagent la question de donner la possibilité de commander et télécharger le jeu en ligne également dans le futur.

Le fait de pré-commander le jeu t'assure d'avoir un exemplaire disponible le 1 jour de release mais en plus donnera le droit à divers bonus :

Attention, selon les revendeurs les bonus peuvent être diffèrent et rien n'est encore précisé mais ca peut aller de la réservation du nom de ton personnage, à un poster, des items spéciaux en jeu, un pass pour inviter un ami à la béta pour les week ends events, un guide spécial , des concepts arts, fonds d'écrans, musiques originales ...

En fait la pré-commande coûtera selon les revendeurs environ $10 puis tu seras débité du prix final de la boite du jeu le jour de son envoie selon le mode de paiement des différents revendeurs.