Normally I don’t post about Guild Wars game updates, but today’s one fixes some long standing AI issues with heroes, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s been driven mad by some of these.

From the changes log:

Assassin

Heroes are more likely to use offensive Shadow Step skills before their Health reaches 50%.
Heroes will now use Black Lotus Strike against non-hexed foes when appropriate.

Dervish

Heroes are more likely to use Attacker’s Insight during combat.

Elementalist

Heroes are more likely to use attunement skills during combat.

Mesmer

Heroes will now more appropriately use hex spells that require an interrupt to take effect.
Heroes will now maintain Mantra of Inscriptions both in and out of combat.

Monk

Heroes are more likely to scatter appropriately when affected by Ray of Judgment.
Heroes will now use Life Sheath to remove conditions out of combat.
Heroes will now use Boon Signet more frequently.
Heroes are now more likely to use Spotless Mind and Spotless Soul in conjunction with other hex and condition removal skills.
Heroes are now more likely to use Restore Condition if their target is suffering from multiple conditions.
Heroes will now use Dwayna’s Kiss more frequently when hexes and enchantments are present on the target.
Heroes will now use Words of Comfort more frequently on characters suffering from conditions.
Fixed a bug where the AI only used Healing Burst as a self-targeting spell.
Fixed a bug where the AI did not recognize Unyielding Aura as a hard resurrection skill.

Necromancer

Heroes can now cast Lingering Curse off-target.
Heroes will now use Blood is Power and Blood Ritual on casters holding bundle items.
Heroes will now maintain Aura of the Lich in and out of combat.

Paragon

Heroes will now check if Angelic Bond is active on all party members before using the skill.
Heroes will only activate Angelic Bond if a party member is under 50% Health.
Heroes are more likely to use “Incoming!” outside of combat.
Heroes will only use Chest Thumper against foes that are suffering from Cracked Armor.
Heroes will now use “Never Surrender!” both in and out of combat.

Ritualist

Heroes will now use Resilient Weapon, Spirit Light Weapon, and Weapon of Warding to overwrite non-defensive weapon spells when the target’s Health is at critical levels.
Heroes will now use Offering of Spirit more frequently and will now use it out of combat.
Heroes will now use Mending Grip as a self-targeting spell.
Heroes will now only use Brutal Weapon on targets who are engaged in combat.
Heroes will now cast Weapon of Quickening on spell-casting classes regardless of weapon type equipped.
Fixed a bug where the AI would not use Renewing Memories while holding a bundle item.

Warrior

Heroes are more likely to use Defy Pain at 95% Health to make better use of its damage-reduction feature.
Heroes will use “or Great Justice!” as is appropriate for their weapon type.
Heroes are less likely to overwrite Rush with other stances.
Heroes are less likely to overwrite Frenzy with other stances unless Health is low.

General

Fixed a bug where Heroes would not use zero-Energy skills when low on Energy.

Bug Fixes

Fixed a bug that would cause GvG matches to end in a tie if a Guild Lord died when the tiebreaker triggered. All Guild Lords will now become non-combatants when the match ends after 28 minutes according to the server clock. Note that this time may differ slightly from your client’s timer.
Fixed a bug that prevented Depravity and Ether Phantom from displaying Energy loss.
Fixed a bug that caused Depravity to affect all nearby foes.
Fixed a bug that caused the following Ritualist skills to use an incorrect casting animation: Agony, Anguish, Empowerment, Gaze of Fury, Recovery, and Rejuvenation.

Miscellaneous

Xunlai Tournament Agents now offer prizes for the May tournament. These agents can be found in the Great Temple of Balthazar, Lion’s Arch, Kaineng Center, and Kamadan.
Reduced the amount of wins needed for the base objective and second bonus objective on the Random Arenas Zaishen quest.
Increased the Zaishen Coin rewards for all Zaishen Mission quests and Zaishen Bounty quests.

Like all Guild Wars updates, this is a live change that will download when you start the client.

Just in time for the fourth anniversary celebrations, ArenaNet have announced they have sold six million copies of Guild Wars.

Pretty impressive, and shows just how well the casual “pay once, play online forever” model can work when twinned with a slick, compelling game.

With the run away success of Guild Wars here’s hoping that we’ll continue to see more content appear in the game - and that Guild Wars 2 will soon be entering beta.

You may have noticed the extra download time when starting your client, but if you haven’t logged in today yet, now is the time to fire up Guild Wars. The extra content to celebrate Guild Wars‘ fourth anniversary is now live, and it’s pretty impressive.

The first thing you’ll want to do is claim your free Xunlai storage slot. This is time limited so you’ll need to get in quick. To unlock the free upgrade, you’ll need to:

- Go to the Guild Wars section of the NCsoft Store, select Xunlai Storage Pane and click on the Buy Now button.

- You will go to the Xunlai Storage Pane information page—click on the Buy Now button again.

- You will be prompted to log in to your NCsoft account (NOTE: This is different from your Guild Wars account). If you do not already have one, please click the Create Account button and follow the prompts.

- Once you have logged in, select the Guild Wars account that will receive this upgrade. If you have not already linked your Guild Wars account to your NCsoft Master Account, you will have an option to link your Guild Wars account now.

- Once you’ve selected your Guild Wars account, you will see a screen where you can enter a coupon code. Please enter FREESTORAGE and click the Apply Coupon button.

- You will receive a page confirming that you were charged $0.00 for your storage pane. Please click on the Continue button.

- Congratulations! You should now have a new pane of Xunlai account storage for your account. If you were logged in to Guild Wars during this process, please make sure you log out and back in for this upgrade to apply.

I’ve previously posted about the Guild Wars fourth anniversary content update, but ArenaNet kept a few things back. This is almost an entire expansion, with a lot of new features aimed at all different types of players.

For the full list of these updates, head over to the Guild Wars game update summary.

We’re quickly approaching the fourth anniversary of Guild Wars. ArenaNet took a bit of a risk at launch - an MMO with no monthly fees? Buy once and play free forever? Regular new content updates and expansions? Committed support from the developer for the future?

Madness. But they made a great game, and not only is Guild Wars still here, it continues to grow. To celebrate the fourth anniversary, ArenaNet have announced some new content for us all.

Along with the standard birthday gifts of special miniature pets, ArenaNet will also be delivering a Guild Wars update which will give us:

• Storage upgrades! Four more slots to store weapons and armour, along with a special fifth slot which can only be obtained during the fourth anniversary celebrations
• Zaishen Menagerie - a place to store your pets. You can also unlock new pets, get full stats, and ask the Zaishen to evolve your existing pets. Run your own zoo and show off the bizarre creatures you’ve tamed from across the world
• Zaishen Challenge Quests: Mission, Bounty, and PvP. Head to the Great Temple of Balthazar to replay specific missions and quests from the three Guild Wars campaigns. Or hunt down a boss within dungeons, or expand on the existing Zaishen PvP battles.

The celebrations will start on April 23rd, with the opening of the Shing Jea Boardwalk, and the return of everyone’s favourite games and challenges across the three campaigns.

More content for Guild Wars will be coming through April - keep on eye on ArenaNet’s fourth annniversary page for more information. The birthday event calendar also has the full run of events over the fourth anniversary weekend.