Snippets of news...

[Centaur]

Here's another small tidbit of news. It looks like one of the upcoming builds will also feature an update related to your 'deaths' count. If you currently type /deaths in Guild Wars 1, it will not only show you how many times you died (as it did before), but also tell you that you've earned experience since dying. This appears to signify an update to the Survivor title, possibly enabling people to restart Survivor from scratch after dying.

John Stumme's initial comment to this was:

These are not the droids you're looking for.

which only seemed to confirm people's suspicions. In a later comment he went a bit further:

The reason for not saying things like that in advance is simply that it will stop people from playing (affected content) until it goes in, which will in turn make them bitter at us for not getting the update out faster, now that they know about it. Think of it this way: if you know everything that you're getting for Christmas (or other similar gift giving occasion) it feels like it's just taking longer to get them. If you don't know, then it's genuinely a surprise to be happy about. People's perceptions can take something that is good, and skew it to "This was owed to me/this was promised" where it then becomes a negative. It's kind of sad but true, and you can see this happening on the forums all the time. The short of it is yes, we're changing a couple of titles that are less than ideal to make them better. We're changing still more beyond that, which makes it hard to keep things from slipping to the Live server sometimes when a build is this big. But at least people don't have to wonder about it for that long.

So updates to a few of the titles are indeed in the works...

[Centaur]

For those of you still playing GW1, I thought I'd post a small update from John Stumme, last week on his talk page:

Sorry I haven't responded sooner, things have been super busy with the anniversary build. We are getting closer to putting out the first part of WoC - Andrew has been spawning like a wild-man. A wild-man on fire. It's actually a little disconcerting to watch. Maybe I'll show off some of the new art that we've gotten after the anniversary, the new armies are pretty spectacular. I do appreciate that people have been waiting patiently, and I would like to stress that when the content drops, it will be a pretty significant drop - not just a quest or a scene. WoC as a whole is getting close to a small expansion's worth of new story, and it's something we'll continue to add to over the year.

[Centaur]

And here's a (google) translated preview of a Spanish announcement regarding the anniversary celebration. Looks like, in addition to the in-game updates and celebrations, there will also be a big sale at the story:

... But the party does not end there, as NCsoft and ArenaNet will give to the players, new or existing, six weeks of the anniversary special discounts and exciting contests through Facebook and the Guild Wars website ( http:// / es.guildwars.com ). From 28 April to 9 June, Guild Wars players can find items such as rebates weekly sets of costumes, character slots, mission packs, etc., All reduced to half price at the official store NCsoft ( https: / / secure.ncsoft.com ). The rebates are updated every Thursday at 21:00 during the six weeks does this celebration.

So if you've always wanted one of those costumes, or a new character slot, but you thought prices were just too high... now is your chance!

[ComplexNuber]

I hope the 50% sale includes merc slots, those are way too expensive at full price. I'll be sure to grab the 3 merc deal if so.

[Centaur]

The Massively article had this info:

Six weeks of sales kick off in the NCsoft store today with a generous markdown on the costumes introduced with Hearts of the North. Have you been considering purchasing more storage, an extreme makeover, another character slot, the Bonus Mission Pack, or Eye of the North? You might want to hold off on that, because over the next six weeks you'll have a chance to get each of those at a discount.

Stephane said:

This sale will have one or more items on sale per week, for a duration of six weeks.

So I think it's fairly safe to assume that the items mentioned in that Massively article, are the kind of updates (1 per week) that we can expect for the next couple of weeks. Mercenary Slots aren't on the list, and as they are still relatively new, I doubt they will receive such a big discount already. But storage panes and character slots are...