According to a post on the unofficial Guild Wars website, the Guild Wars' Wintersday Event will have to be re-run.

The original Wintersday event, which took place over the holidays, was apparently plagued with a variety of bug-related issues that almost rendered the holiday event unplayable. In particular, while players complained heavily about the lag of the burdened Guild Wars servers, a large amount of the player base was simply unable to get their Wintersday hats.

Upon discovery of this bug, however, Regina Buenaobra, the ArenaNet Community Manager, did some fantastic footwork communicating between the players and the team to fix the problem as quickly as they could. Now, however, as a way of making it up to the players who just didn't get their hats, Regina has promised that the team will be re-running their Wintersday event, so everyone will be happy!

Halloween is less than two weeks away and NCsoft has its hands full with plans for holiday events in Aion, City of Heroes, Lineage, Lineage II, Guild Wars and Exteel. We've already told you about Aion's "Harvest Revel" event, which begins Oct. 25 and runs through Oct. 31. We've also reported on the festivities in Lineage and Lineage II, so let's jump right into the other MMOs.

The annual Halloween event in City of Heroes returns today as zombies, werewolves, Jack-o-Lanterns and other monsters descend upon Paragon City and the Rogue Isles. The attacks will end on Nov. 3, so you'll have plenty of time to participate.

Mad King Thorn returns in Guild Wars from Oct. 23 to Nov. 2 with a bag of tricks and treats. You can also participate in a new series of quests and a costume PvP brawl. Orange and purple paint will be free in Exteel from Oct. 28 to Nov. 4, and players will receive +50% bonus credits during the Halloween celebration. You can read all of NCsoft's holiday plans after the jump.

You might remember reading about a seemingly obscure company called Worlds.com filing a patent infringement lawsuit against MMO developer NCSoft (Aion, City of Heroes, Guild Wars) last spring. It was widely covered in the video games press, and widely criticized by most community members. The suit revolves around a set of patents filed by Worlds.com back in the late-90s for its Starbright World project; a "social network" for sick and terminally-ill children.

Around the same time, Worlds.com CEO Thom Kidrin announced he planned to go after other major MMO publishers like Activision-Blizzard (World of Warcraft) and Linden Labs (Second Life), essentially claiming that every MMO on the market today owes Worlds.com patent infringement damages. In addition, MMO developers and publishers would have to pay Worlds.com a licensing fee to use its"interactive virtual world system" technology (more on that later).

Meanwhile, another patent troll stepped up to the plate last week, hoping to make a quick buck at the MMO industry's expense, à la Worlds.com. As we reported a few days ago, Paltalk Holdings Inc. filed suit against a handful of developers, including Turbine Inc., Activision-Blizzard and NCSoft, among others. The suit claims the MMO companies are violating its patents for its HearMe technology (an inconsequential, business-oriented "online meeting service"), which Paltalk bought the rights to in 2002. Will the MMO industry collectively stave off these lawsuits, or is this just the beginning of a multi-million dollar litigious gang bang?

Earlier this month at PAX, ZAM had the chance to speak with a few of the developers from ArenaNet about its upcoming MMO, Guild Wars 2. A sequel to the successful Guild Wars (published by NCSoft), Guild Wars 2 is currently in full production, with a predicted release date sometime in 2010 to 2011. We learned quite a bit about the project, including its new and revamped engine, what to expect from PvP, and the story and lore behind it all.

ZAM sat down for a Q&A about the upcoming sequel with Jeff Grubb (Game Designer), Daniel Dociu (Art Director) and Mike O'Brien (Founder and President, ArenaNet) to find out what players can expect to see in Guild Wars 2, which will be featured on ZAM in a few days, after the weekend. Before the Q&A, though, we had a brief chat with the team about the history of the franchise, and why they decided to make a sequel, rather than continue supporting the original Guild Wars.

According to a Boston Globe article, Paltalk Holdings has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Turbine, Sony Corp., Activision Blizzard, NCsoft and Jagex. Paltalk claims the data-sharing technologies used in MMOs like World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Everquest, Guild Wars and Runescape violates two patents that Paltalk purchased from a company called HearMe in 2002. The patents cover technologies for sharing data among connected computers so all users see the same digital environment.

Some readers may think Paltalk has no chance of winning this lawsuit. However, Microsoft settled with Paltalk in 2006 by paying an undisclosed sum after Paltalk sued the industry giant for violating these same patent rights in Halo multiplayer features. As the article states, "Microsoft has conceded the validity of Paltalk's patents, making it tougher for Turbine and the other defendants in the current lawsuit to challenge them."

Various abilities in Guild Wars have been rebalanced this month, with a total of 24 different skills undergoing changes. Most of the changes involve reducing the effectiveness of certain "spike damage" builds in PvP, although some more general and PvE changes are also included in the update.

Full details of the changes can be found on the official Guild Wars website.

NCsoft has reported its earning for the first quarter of 2009 and the company has seen sharp quarter-to-quarter increases in sales, operating profit and net profit. According to a press release, on a consolidated basis sales came to $107.7 million, which is a 34% quarter-to-quarter increase; operating profit came to $34.3 million, a 221% increase; and net profit came to $27 million, a 422% increase.

In first quarter sales by region, Korea brought in $72 million, which is incredibly high compared to Japan's $14.6 million and North America's $8.7 million. According to the release, "The successful launch of Aion influenced sales growth in Korea and expected sales of the Lineage series increased the significance of Japan. On the other hand, a decrease in Guild Wars sales due to no retail expansion package releases this quarter led to a drop of sales in the North American and European regions."

Quarter-to-quarter sales of Lineage and Lineage II increased 23% and 33%, respectively. Sales of Aion jumped up 34%, while sales of City of Heroes and Guild Wars stayed low at 5% and 3%, respectively. You can read the full press release after the jump.

Two weeks ago we reported that Guild Wars was to start selling extra Xunlai storage panes for $9.99 each. NCsoft has now decided to give away an extra pane for FREE, for a limited time. Guild Wars players have up until the end of May 31st to claim their extra storage pane from NCsoft's online store.

Instructions on how to claim the free storage pane can be found on the official Guild Wars website.

In case you missed it, we just interviewed ArenaNet's James Phinney, Lead Designer on Guild Wars, to discuss the game's 4-year anniversary, which will be celebrated on April 28. Well, NCsoft and ArenaNet have just made another announcement near the game's birthday: the Guild Wars franchise has exceeded six million units sold!

“We are humbled by how gamers have responded to Guild Wars over the past four years, and we are proud that the game and its community have helped to continually shape, define, and expand the genre,” ArenaNet studio head Mike O’Brien said in a press release. “Our subscription-free business model has proven to be a big hit with gamers, bringing an enormous and diverse online community to the game.”

You can read the full press release after the jump.

Guild Wars celebrates its 4th Anniversary on April 28th, with the usual celebrations taking place in-game from today until the 29th of April. We caught up with ArenaNet's James Phinney, Lead Designer on Guild Wars, to talk about the past four years, what to expect down the road, and even some juicy nuggets of Guild Wars 2 information. Check out what he had to say in our exclusive interview.

ZAM: Hey there. Thanks for sitting down with us to talk about the 4th anniversary of Guild Wars®!

James Phinney: Yeah, it's a huge milestone for us. It's gratifying to be a part of a game that's still being played so actively years after its release.

ZAM: Do you guys have anything special planned in the office for this occasion?