Ok, Some of use have experienced the issue where the game window is drawn off screen after the initial loader/patcher is displayed.
I have done some research, testing and experimenting. I'm not finished yet. Tho as it will take some time I figured I would share what I have so far.
As far as I can tell, the game stores the window position in the Gw.dat file in its install folder which of course is just a vfs that has basically all of the games resources in it and you can't tamper with it. I have confirmed that ONLY replacing the Gw.dat did restore normal windowed mode behavior.
This is only evidence that supports the information is stored in Gw.dat and is related to cause of the effect.
I have currently restored the original Gw.dat file which DOES cause the issue to return and am testing the results of running the game with the --image option to update/repair the Gw.dat. I will update this topic with my results once I have completed testing the various methods available thru the limited command line switches.
NOTE:
Running the --image option tells the game to download all the resources (maps, sound files, etc) in addition to repairing any bad data stored in the Gw.dat.
As that is the case, and my broken Gw.dat is from a clean install, it will take some time to run thus I'm making this post now and updating later.
Once confirmed results are in, I'll update the Tips & Tricks section, Tho I honestly hope it does not sum up to needing a reinstall in effect.
There is a whole list of things left I have yet to test, just wanted to go ahead and make known what I do have results with at this point. I will continue until I have something more definitive to share.
There are no reports of this fixing the issue anywhere else that I have read of this same issue and there is not switch to force full screen mode that I am aware of.
The debug information as well as other information gathered thru searches indicate that the window is destroyed when it is moved off screen.
It is suspected that if this behavior occurs and you sigkill (kill -9 Gw.exe) the new screen co-ordinates are not stored. (unconfirmed)
Related information:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Talk:Guild_Wars_on_Wine/before_1.3.0#Cannot_see_main_Window
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/guildwars-gw-exe-switches-command-t94814.html
I don't see the need to upload my debug logs currently.
(of course staff can request them)
Sorry if this is gibberish, No sleep, no Coffee, and busy. ;)
Update
running with --image does not resolve issue.
running with --repair on a net install does not resolve issue. ( May work on retail versions aka CD based installs, unable to test this.)
Many many more things than I care to list currently in my state of rest, or lack of.
Bug exist in wine for this:
http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=16783
Only known fix for window state is to DELETE the Gw.dat and launch the game, it will replace the missing file and it will be a 500mb or so download to get going
again.
On the Bugs page, a poster suggest that you hit Alt+Enter at the update/patch screen to gain full screen mode again. This reportedly does work but does not restore it to working order in windowed mode.
The value does indeed seem to be stored in the Gw.dat and no reliable method short of replacing it has been identified to correct this value as of yet.
I will continue poking it with a stick, tho so far All I can do is confirm the bug (matching debug statements, behavior, etc) and that it's effecting rather a few people across multiple versions of wine. (Application data issue, cause unclear. Effect very clear...)