On April 28, 2005, Guild Wars became the latest title to join the MMORPG golden age of the 2000s. Some of these games, like EVE Online and World of Warcraft, are still being actively developed, while others, like Star Wars Galaxies and City of Heroes, are no longer officially available, even if they are still playable via fan-run private servers. Guild Wars found itself somewhere in the middle; while it is no longer receiving updates, as focus has shifted to its sequel, the MMO is still alive and well.
However, something about Guild Wars sets it apart from its competition: it, and subsequently its sequel, have had almost no downtime in over two decades. While most MMO servers occasionally go down for maintenance, ArenaNet’s twin Tyrian titles simply stay running, even with the release of major updates or expansion packs. This promise of uninterrupted access kept over Guild Wars' 20 years of live service is a major achievement that also contributed to its success.
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Guild Wars Server Infrastructure is its Secret Weapon
Server maintenance is not a rare thing to encounter in the live service game industry. Executing software updates is not typically possible while players are connected to servers, let alone improvements to actual hardware. The impossible balance between keeping a game live and implementing updates eventually caused occasional server maintenance to become normalized.
MMORPGs like EVE Online tackle this problem with daily maintenance; by bringing the game down for 15 minutes every day at the same time, it can perform small updates on a predictable schedule. Other games, like World of Warcraft, have occasional brief periods of downtime on weekly resets, combined with longer outages to prepare for major releases. Indeed, updates for MMOs like Final Fantasy 14 can sometimes have maintenance periods of up to 24 hours.
ArenaNet co-founder and server architect Patrick Wyatt was previously employed by Blizzard Entertainment, where he did programming work on games like Warcraft 1, 2, and 3, Diablo 1 and 2, and StarCraft. After he left ArenaNet in 2008, he went on to help release Aion and TERA.
On the contrary, Guild Wars has almost no downtime whatsoever. It accomplishes this primarily through its server design, which utilizes sharded “microservers.” Each individual map from every Guild Wars expansion essentially acts as its own server, meaning individual instances can be updated, shut down, or isolated without impacting the rest of the game.
Of course, this method is not perfect. Over the years, Guild Wars has still experienced occasional downtime, usually due to unexpected circumstances like power outages, inclement weather, and damage to equipment – like when an ArenaNet server in Frankfurt, Germany, suddenly exploded. Even so, Guild Wars prides itself on minimal downtime – it confirmed six years of uninterrupted service on February 15, 2024, which is a record that has ostensibly been maintained in the year since the announcement.
There are several reasons few MMOs have been able to match the Guild Wars server paradigm. Most notably, the technological innovations were initially created by ArenaNet founders Patrick Wyatt, Mike O’Brien, and William Strain. The effort, technology, and resources put into creating this server stability were steps other MMOs were unable or unwilling to take, setting Guild Wars apart from its competitors.
Some games have come pretty close to the Guild Wars standard over the years. Maintenance for major Warframe updates and expansions usually only takes a few minutes at most, and both Diablo 3 and Diablo 4 adopted technology inspired by Wyatt's work to minimize server downtime. Even so, Guild Wars has still been doing it longer than anyone else.
Guild Wars 2 followed in the footsteps of its predecessor with even more secure server stability – and if Guild Wars 3 is ever officially announced, it ostensibly will as well. Either way, as long as ArenaNet is around, Guild Wars fans can rest assured that the original game will always be available to play.
- Released
- April 28, 2005
- ESRB
- T // Use of Alcohol, Violence
- Developer(s)
- ArenaNet
- Publisher(s)
- NCSoft, Level Up! Games
- Engine
- Havok
WHERE TO PLAY
- Genre(s)
- RPG
