ArenaNet announces what’s new for BWE3
Written by Raphia Naon // July 16, 2012 // Official News // 1 Comment
In a post on the ArenaNet blog, the Guild Wars 2 Team gives us a sneak preview of what will be new in BWE3 starting on Friday:
- Create an Asura or Sylvari Character
- Brand-New Map – Brisban Wildlands
- Norn Keg Brawling!
- New in this BWE: Vistas
- New PvP Map – Legacy of the Foefire
- New World vs. World NPCs
- Gem Store is Open for Business!
- Guild Wars 2 Beta Livestream on Twitch TV
“I hope players come away from this weekend with a better sense of the sylvari as a race — their personalities, quirks, interests, and setting,” Ree says. “I hope they’ll love the sylvari voices — the PC ones, in particular, are amazing! — and getting to see the Grove and soak in all its wonders. Personally, I look forward to hearing how players respond to the somewhat inhuman visual choices available for sylvari PCs — something that our artists worked very hard to create. It’s difficult to balance beautiful and not-quite-human!”
“Brisban Wildlands is a remote jungle adjacent to the lands of the asura, sylvari, and humans. For decades the only inhabitants have been a few asura labs too secretive or volatile to occupy space near Rata Sum, and an ever-multiplying population of skritt. Protected by the secluded jungle, the skritt built the city of Skrittsburgh, and have attained an order of civility little seen in other areas of Tyria.”
Introducing the first minigame activity playable in a beta weekend—the wildly popular, incredibly macho norn pastime known as Keg Brawl!
“Vistas are a new addition to our map completion progress. We’ve placed visual cues of these hidden locations throughout the world. Once you have located and navigated to the vista, simply interact with it to activate a sweeping panoramic cinematic of the area.”
We’re introducing a brand-new player-versus-player map this weekend that we call “Legacy of the Foefire,” which draws some inspiration from the lore and design of the original Guild Wars. As with all PvP maps, players will battle over three capture points, but this new map includes NPC guards and team “guild lords,” powerful NPCs that are worth a lot of points… if you can manage to kill them.
This beta weekend we’re introducing objectives for solo players called sentries. As you can imagine from the name, sentries are solitary NPC guards located on a capture point that are worth points if you can take them out. But be warned—sentries are no pushovers!
During the beta weekend, we’ll test our secure Gem Store billing system in a live environment, which means you can purchase gems with your credit card or through PayPal.
Throughout the beta weekend, ArenaNet devs will be livestreaming GW2 gameplay on Twitch TV. From combat tips to PvP match commentary, our developers will give you a deeper insight into the game and will take your questions in the chat channel during each stream.
However, the new and exciting also comes with a bit of a disappointment: the servers are being reset: all beta characters will be deleted before BWE3 and again before the headstart period. Your contact list will be saved, so you can still contact all your friends at launch, but everything else is being wiped.
