This week in Guild Wars 2

Written by  //  March 2, 2012  //  Editorials  //  3 Comments

We now know that the next beta event will take place at the end of March. That’ll seem like an eternity for a lot of us (unless you’re one of the lucky invitees to that event), but at least we know that progress is still being made. It doesn’t make the waiting any easier, though.

One thing that I’ve found in watching many of the video clips from the CBT is that I’m much less certain about what professions I’ll be playing. My first Guild Wars character was a ranger in Prophecies, so I will probably create a human ranger as my first Guild Wars 2 character. But watching the awesome capabilities of the other classes keeps me uncertain about what to do next (I’m a relapsed alt-oholic) — and that’s ignoring the race question.

The GW character I’ve played the most is my monk, and I’m tired of watching red bars, so it’s a good thing for me that there are no GW2 monks. I thought Guardian would be of little interest, as it combines some of the melee style of warriors with some of the support aspects of monks, but watching the Yogscast “Guardian Spotlight” showed that that profession has lots of interest. My GW necromancer is one of my least-played characters, but the death shroud mechanism of the GW2 necro makes it a totally different experience. Engineers look fascinating — complex as heck, but fascinating. And the last GW character I created — my mesmer — turned out to be far more fun than I expected, and GW2 mesmers look even more amazing. For crying out loud, Totalbiscuit even managed to make the warrior look like a lot of fun in his latest video!

As soon as I think I’ve decided, some other video comes up or another persuasive article is posted, highlighting just how cool some other profession is and I’m back to square one again.

Official Guild Wars 2 news

  • ArenaNet blog — Link Roundup: WvW and Beta. “It’s been an incredibly exciting week in the ArenaNet offices, and we were thrilled to see all of you enjoying the festivities along with us. We had a great response to last weekend’s beta event and this week’s beta signups, so it’s time to take a look at what everyone had to say!”
  • Guild Wars 2 Guru — Colin Johanson on dynamic events and meta-events. “In the beta weekend, there were generally 2 or more large meta dynamic event chains in each of the maps available. These meta event chains are made up of usually in the ballpark of 5-20+ events chaining and branching in various different directions. They stand out because even if no events are currently running, you’ll see unique UI for them that tells you the state of the world as a result of the events that occurred in the area. Meta events generally have the largest amount of world impact of any event chains, making large sweeping changes to huge chunks of a map in the world. Dynamic events have varying impact from small (new merchant who sells stuff) to massive (explosions!!) depending on the scope and important of the event.”
  • Kill Ten Rats — Interview with ArenaNet’s Rubi Bayer. “ArenaNet officially announced a couple weeks ago that Rubi Bayer would be joining the Community Team. I met Rubi personally (and finally) at the Fan Day, but I’ve known her for much longer for her Guild Wars work. I jumped at the chance to interview her when she crossed the threshold in to ArenaNet, and I am very thankful that she was able to take some time to answer a couple questions a midst a major life change (access to Guild Wars 2) as well as taking on a new job, tons of beta feedback, and learning Martin Kerstein’s… intricacies. Without further ado.”
  • ArenaNet blog — Play Your Way: Jon Peters on Traits and Attributes. “Hey everybody, Jon Peters here with a look at how traits and attributes provide a deep level of customization to your Guild Wars 2 character. Put simply, attributes are characteristics that players can invest points into in order to increase their effectiveness. We have four basic attributes – power, vitality, precision, and toughness.”
  • Guild Wars Official Wiki — Guild emblem poll. “Hi Guild Wars Community! We need your help with a small task. We’d like you to tell us what is the emblem design of your Guild capes in Guild Wars. This is purely for the purpose of gathering statistics that would be difficult to find otherwise.” [Raphia: You've got until Monday to get your votes in.]

Recent GuildMag posts

  • Short in Stature, Broad in Perception. “Where do we begin with the asura? Oh, right, you couldn’t possibly understand them, and they’re far better than you’ll ever be. That’s perhaps the best introduction one can make for the diminutive race that has arisen from the Depths of Tyria. As a matter of fact, that’s rather how they would introduce themselves. However, that’s not the focus here, our focus is on how they view their place in the world of Tyria and the world’s place in everything.”
  • Guild Wars 2 Press Closed Beta Test Aggregation Page. Not a new post, but one that Dutch Sunshine kept fully up-to-date for more than a week and almost certainly has links to Guild Wars 2 material you didn’t see.

Fan articles and blog posts

  • Reddit — First Image of the Auction House. [Raphia: Screen captures of the Trading Post's top items list and items for sale page UI.]
  • Hunter’s Insight — The Auction House. “This image from this video (at about the 9 minute mark) has been floating around various sites. It is our first look, as far as I or others can tell, of the auction house. As you can see the UI is dominated by various categories of items. These categories essentially lay out what is going on in trade. Interestingly most of the visible items appear to be crafting items with few exceptions. Of note is the grumble cake, which I assume is some sort of consumable.”
  • Demajen — “An Unlikely Krewe”: Forming Guilds in GW2. “While I’m sure a ton of players were in the same position as me — starting (or restarting) late to try and bag some of those Hall of Monuments cosmetic rewards — it wasn’t enough for me to start interacting with other players any more than the limited extent I had to for trading for minipets or birthday cupcakes. In some ways I’ve become more antisocial the more MMORPGs I’ve played. Not to labour the point of previous blogs, but I think this is mostly down to kill stealing and competitive quest design. Yes, I am flogging a dead horse there…”
  • Demajen — Entitlement Culture & Supporting the Developers. “Ah the Internet. How I love it and its diverse points of view, hidden behind a layer of comforting anonymity. And by “love”, I mostly do indeed mean “love”. But sometimes, in specific circumstances, I also mean hate. Loathe. Abhor. What’s got me riled up, I hear you ask? (Not literally. My hearing isn’t that good.) Let me explain!” [Raphia: Demajen really hits all the issues that have bothered me about internet whining on ArenaNet's business model and Guild Wars 2 in particular. All in all, a lovely rant.]
  • Guild Wars 2 Junkies — GW2 World Map and Zone Labels. “With the help of Guild Wars 2 Guru’s community memeber carralpha, we now have a sliced up map of Guild Wars 2′s world map and where you should expect to go for each level range.”
  • Kill Ten Rats — [GW2 Press Beta] The Richest PvE Experience, Part 2. “In continuance with apologies to Zubon for ending my Guild Wars 2 beta content a little late. Blame it on eye infections and little ones with fevers and gastronomic pursuits.”
  • Flamethrowing — Why the Squad Comments Caught My Attention. “During last week’s Reddit AMA, ArenaNet posted about Squads, which I hadn’t seen mentioned before. I got super excited. Here’s why”
  • Hunter’s Insight — Another Beta In March. “Guild Wars 2 announced this morning, in my case via Twitter but most peopled linked me to mmorpg.com, that the next beta phase would begin at the end of March.”
  • Tyrian Stories — Role Playing a Sylvari: a Sprout’s Guide. “So you are crusin’ along on kotaku when you run across an article on *ahem attractive plant people. You think to yourself those look kind of cool, but I’m a hard core RPer from the halcyon days of SWG and DAOC how do I pretend I’m a plant? The obvious answer is to spend a few hours talking to you plants at home to get a general feel of their ideals. (I have also heard that it helps them grow, so win-win). Once you realize your plants can’t respond verbally you make your way to Google and search “Sylvari Role Play” somewhere on search page fifty you find this guide. Jump past the break for a rundown on some basic information and recommendations about role playing plants.”
  • Nerdy bookahs and their travel guide — GW2: waiting for the beta. “Unfortunately, it seems to still be a few weeks until we get our chance to be in the beta (and really, with a million sign ups, how big are our individual chances? *insert long dramatic sigh* ^^). ArenaNet released information to press sites like MMORPG.com that the next beta will start “late-March”. The interesting part is “(…) while helping the team load test the servers.” – Sounds like something like a stress test.”
  • Reddit — A gift for Rangers. A skill chart for Rangers. [Raphia: My planned first character in GW2 is a ranger ... this is a useful resource.]
  • Massively — Flameseeker Chronicles: I hope you like PvE stuff. “Guild Wars 2 folks: What a week it’s been, am I right? After the flood of impressions and videos after the select press embargo lifted, ArenaNet decided to whip fans into a veritable frenzy by accepting beta signups from Wednesday to Friday. Fan response was insane — over 1,000,000 signups in under 50 hours. While a few cool kids on the internet have tried to scoff at that number, I really can’t — it’s just staggering to me.”
  • MMORPG.com — Beta Reflections. “It has been a week since I had the chance to play the ArenaNet’s Guild Wars 2 Beta, and I miss the game already. It was really nice to finally have a chance to get a look at the title after all these years of just reading information and watching videos of other people play. It was a real treat, and with a bit over a week of reflecting on my experience, I think I appreciate the game even more than before.”
  • MMORPG.com — Guild Wars 2 Previews: The Engineer Preview. “Most of my time during the recent Guild Wars 2 Closed Beta weekend was spent with my Norn Engineer. I couldn’t get enough of the guy once I realized how many wicked choices to lay down destruction he had. The Engineer is all about traps, bombs, things that go boom and ways to crowd control and burn down your opponents’ health over time. Basically, you’re like Batman but with a utility belt that makes Bruce Wayne look like an underfunded amateur inventor. The class is one that will require a lot of experimentation, but there’s a different flavor of Engineer for everyone too: from pistols to rifles, to turrets, bombs, grenades, flamethrowers, and more. It’ll take some time for you to find your niche, but the beauty is… you never have to pick just one. The ability to swap between toolkit load-outs makes you a roving death machine and it is glorious.”
  • IGN — Guild Wars 2: Playing the Guardian. “You might think playing a supporting role in an MMO sounds boring. Maybe you’ll activate a few group buffs to boost your friends’ critical chance or armor rating and then generally keep your distance to avoid capturing the attention of the enemy and stay alive. Guild Wars 2‘s Guardian profession has several skills that benefit a group, but the way they’re designed means the play style is far from boring. “
  • Twitter — AsuraActionNews. “The Seraph, in conjunction with @ArenaNet, are providing citizens with enemy visual identification guides.” [Raphia: If you're on Twitter, remember to follow the latest breaking news from AsuraActionNews.]
  • The Feral Engineer — My first day in Tyria. “Have you ever wondered what you will do the first day you get your hands on Guild Wars 2? Most likely, the answer to this question is one of the toughest to give. But I reckon you can blame this on ArenaNet. It attempts to create a video game that each time you play it will feel like the first. In the real world, the rule that everything appears to be so beautiful because they will never exist again, is the truth. However, in a video game this is not happening. Despite Guild Wars 2 definitely being a video game, everything in it have been so perfectly designed that every time you play it your only thought is that you have one less day to enjoy it.”
  • Under the Pale Tree — The Great Armor Debate! “So one of the new things we’ve learned recently is that Guild Wars 2 is going to have an armor repair system to it. Cue all sorts of freak-outs about how it’s going to work, that it’s just going to be a goldsink, that it’s going to force people to waste their time going back to town all the time to fix their armor…”
  • Demajen — Closer to the Grave: Minion Mayhem. “Last week I posted a potential build for my Necromancer — which I called Minion Mayhem, because alliteration is cool — but even as I wrote it I had the sneaky suspicion that we were missing information about how traits work. Turns out, I was right. In his blog today, Jon Peters added a bit more insight into how traits work that places slightly more structure into how you use them while leveling up, as well as providing some possibly-needed balance — I suspected that the Minion Mayhem build was a little overpowered as it stood.”
  • Hunter’s Insight — Trait Theory. “I’m pretty sure one of the traits of a good game is customization. At the beginning of this blog I posted a lot about Runes of Magic. That game had a lot of faults but where it really shined was the customization. Customization in skills and roles, customization in both stat and cosmetic gear, and customization in what you did with your time. Guild Wars 2 is looking like it will have a lot of customization.”
  • Guild Wars 2 Guru — When do things become Pay-to-Win? “A little more than a month ago, there was a discussion in the “Tyrian Assembly” forum addressing the concerns of the Free-to-Play (F2P) pay model for MMOs. A little past halfway in the thread there was an unconfirmed leak of information regarding things like experience boosters, damage boosters, and similar consumable items that many regarded as the opposite of ArenaNet’s original stance on how microtransactions and the in-game store would work. That is, the sale of items that are purely cosmetic and that provide no advantages in combat, leveling, and loot gathering.”
  • The Vigilant — How will you choose your Traits? “Today on the ArenaNet blog Jon Peters posted about the new Traits system. What we’ve now seen is a system that is deeper and more complex than it appears on the surface. For those who were lamenting the lack of variety in builds that the new skillbar system introduces, I think the Traits system will more than make up for it.”
  • GW2Tools.com — Guild Wars 2 Tools. “Welcome to the preview of the GW2Tools.com Traits Calculator! We’ll be launching the site soon with more Guild Wars 2 related tools.” [Raphia: Want to experiment with the various traits for each profession? This tool lets you get a sense of how to allocate your trait points and what benefits are available in each trait line. H/T to Thrangis the Red for the link.]
  • Demajen — The GW2 TraitStorm: Community Reaction at its Worst. “After finishing my Closer to the Grave post this morning, I was pretty much done with blogging for the day and was going to leap straight into some actual work. However, I made the mistake of checking Twitter before I did so, and noticed a #GuildWars2-tagged tweet that spoke of a “shitstorm” being “kicked up” about the Jon Peters blog post I linked a couple of hours ago. Intrigued, I hit the link up, and promptly ran into a 60 page wall of vitriol and bile that in many ways just reinforces the points I made in my “Entitlement Culture” post. The sheer amount of crying, bitching, and self-entitled moaning in the thread was staggering.” [Raphia: I managed to avoid reading much of the wailing — thanks to all the bloggers who didn't indulge in a temper tantrum — and again I fully agree with Demajen on this issue.]
  • Yoshi’s Guild Wars 2 Hub — Disposable Heroes: The Mesmer “Welcome to the final post in a series examining skill and build potentials of the eight professions in Guild Wars 2. Today we’re looking at the mesmer, possibly the most popular profession once they were finally all confirmed. The mesmer’s unique mechanic are its illusions, of two types. The first type the game alternates calling clones and just illusions, which look like you and are paper-thin. The second type are called phantasms and have more health and a more specific purpose. Mesmers can shatter their illusions for damage and conditions on enemies or a defensive shield.”
  • Reddit — Necromancer skills chart. [Raphia: Including the underwater skill that summons a swarm of vampiric shrimp.]
  • Under the Pale Tree — Trait-orous Fandom Scandal? “Dak here again, to provide my not-a-longtime-player-of-GW1 perspective on a big explodey thing that’s popped up. It seems that Jon Peters’ blog post on how the new system of traits and attributes work has caused quite a stir among the… shall we say, powergamers? Complaints about everything from the fee for respeccing to the fact you require Trainers to the trait lines themselves, and how mathematically speaking this system will make GW2 RUINED FOREVER.”
  • luna-atra.fr — Guild Wars 2 Skills tool. [Raphia: Another tool (available in French or English) to allow you to experiment with weapon and skill combinations for your character.]
  • Guild Wars 2 Junkies — Weapon Set Themes by Class Infographic. “In an effort to help those who might be confused with the trinity-free class system ArenaNet has employed, we’ve created a easy reference guide to how weapons and roles (offensive, defensive, and support) breakdown. We have broken down, class by class, each weapon and assigned it a Defensive, Offensive, Healing and Support “theme” to them. While most healing weapons can be considered Support, we’ve split Healing and Support apart. Many of these weapons can be called something else because a lot of them do damage, support and other controlling effects. We assigned weapons certain categories based on an overall theme and not something hard coded into the class.”
  • Yoshi’s Guild Wars 2 Hub — Ascalon Catacombs or Pre-Searing: Where They Are Now “Tonight we’re looking at the story mode of first dungeon in Guild Wars 2, Ascalon Catacombs. It’s the first of eight dungeons in the game and the only one we’ve seen thus far. It’s a level 30 dungeon, and has a lot of cool things for Guild Wars players. For those who never played the original, you start off in the kingdom of Ascalon, which was all beautiful. Then the Charr came through and destroyed everything in an event we call The Searing. This time period in the game is the equivalent of “noob island” in a lot of games and is referred to as “Pre-Searing”. You meet a lot of different trainers in this area for the different professions and even go through the Catacombs themselves. You then venture off chasing one Charr while the rest come wreck your homeland. Thus began Guild Wars. Now, in Guild Wars 2, ArenaNet has brought the area back with some familiar faces.”
  • Demajen — Traits: Putting the “Role” Back Into Roleplaying Games. ““Roleplaying”. It is a word with many connotations depending on context. Some people may immediately think “interesting bedroom antics”; others may immediately shy away from the “dirty” word as something that “weirdos” do in public venues with their black leather coats and goth makeup, pretending to be vampires.”
  • Guild Wars Insider — WvW Map breakdown. “Our very own, Beliasta, just showed us a breakdown of the WvW map that he has been working on and frankly, we are more than impressed. Here is his explanation of his work”
  • lolcharr. [Raphia: On the lighter side, the world of LOLcats comes to Tyria.]
  • Gamebreaker.tv — Nine Reasons Guild Wars 2 Will Rule. “I have a fever, and the only cure…is Guild Wars 2. I cannot remember being this excited for a game purely from its quality. Yes I wanted Everquest II in a bad way — I claim temporary insanity — but that was due to my hopes for a continuation of the best bits of EQ. Oh well. I was excited for SWTOR, but the IP had a lot to do with it. Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve played Guild Wars and I have a lot of respect for the game, but it didn’t hold me under its sway consistently. Yet for Guild Wars 2 I’m foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog being force-fed Alka-Seltzer. To highlight why GW2 is so anticipated — as well as to try and prove to myself I’m not going crazy — here are my nine reasons to believe Guild Wars 2 will be a phenomenon.”
  • GWOnline.net — Musings of an Arm-Chair Mesmer, Part 1. “Previously, I wrote up an initial synthesis of what was known about the mesmer profession then. With the closed beta weekend, a lot of new information has emerged giving the community a much deeper inside look into the workings of the illusionist. Another round of synthesis is necessary. Now before we start, I just wanted to say that this article is not meant to be an all authoritative source of truth. It is merely an article written out of passion for the profession, meant to start a discussion among the many arm-chair mesmers (for this is all we can be at this time) out there in the community. With that in mind, let us dig deep into the details and just focus on the different land-based weapon sets! As with other professions, each weapon wielded by the mesmer contains a certain theme. Recognizing these themes can help putting together a build that will ultimately match a player’s preferred play-style.”
  • Yoshi’s Guild Wars 2 Hub — Durability and Repair. “So, a lot of people have been up in arms about the item durability and repair mechanic in Guild Wars 2. A lot of people say it’s too steep and will prevent them from completing dungeons or will just take too much time if they have to leave the dungeon to repair. A lot of people are crying for repair bots to be able to repair in the dungeons as they go. Today, I’m here to talk about a few of these issues and why those views aren’t as valid as their proponents think they are. For anyone who isn’t familiar with it, in GW2 if you go past downed and into defeated, one of your pieces of armor becomes damaged. After all six of your pieces are damaged, if you become defeated again, your armor begins breaking in the same one-by-one pattern.”
  • MMORPG.com — Guild Wars 2 Previews: The Mesmer. “During the recent press beta event, I spent most of my time in Guild Wars 2 as the Engineer, but I also got a good amount of time with the Mesmer. The Mesmer is a unique blend of magic, crowd control, boons and debuffs making for a very interesting profession that will definitely make players think in order to best experience all it has to offer. There’s nothing in any other MMO (except maybe GW1), and fans of tricky professions will love how the Mesmer focuses on creating illusions, shattering them, and making the enemy look like a horse’s arse in general. It’s the kind of profession that starts off slow, but turns into something really special as the options open up. But then, that’s the beauty of character progression in general, isn’t it? Let’s take a look at some of the stock skills, from the official site.”

Videos and podcasts

  • GameTrailers.com — Invisible Walls #199. “We discuss the great Pokemon swindle, Syndicate‘s legacy, and go in depth with Guild Wars 2!”
  • GameTrailers.com — Guild Wars 2 Video Game, Preview. “See how the fantasy sphere Of MMOS is about to change! “
  • Shewstr — Guild Wars 2 Theme: Piano. “Inspired by the Guild Wars 2 beta hype, I spent the other day transcribing the piece at the beginning of ArenaNet’s MMO Manifesto for piano, and I finished recording a video of myself playing it this morning. Luckily, the entire piece (without voice-overs from the trailer) was uploaded to YouTube, making my job a little bit easier. Considering I have multiple midterm exams this week, I’m relieved to have gotten this out-of-the-way. Below you’ll find the sheet music, both downloadable and printable, and the video of my demonstration.”
  • Youtube — Yogscast GW2 Beta: Guardian Spotlight. “Today, we take a look at the guardian, a defensive support soldier with weapons that range from staves and scepters to hammers and shields. He has some badass moves and this is one of my personal favourites – again beta is beta so everything is subject to change, and I reserve the right to miss important things out or make huge mistakes!”
  • Tales of Tyria — Aftershock. “Despite the 3 hour show we had last week, there was still tons of info that we needed to follow up with this week. Two major blog updates, another Reddit AMA (ask me anything), and a tangent here or there. We also discuss the possible upcoming beta test, or do we?”
  • YouTube — xbubbalubberx’s Channel. His recent update includes commentary on each of the Guild Wars 2 profession reveal videos (not from the CBT).
  • Game Bandits — Guild Wars 2: New Crafting Video. “The recently released press beta for the upcoming online RPG Guild Wars 2 is starting to yield dividends. We have been treated to a video, among many that will crop up to be sure, that highlights one key aspect of the upcoming game title-crafting. As any serious RPG gamer can attest to, crafting and skills development are some of the key elements of any RPG worth its salt.”
  • PC Gamer — Guild Wars 2 graphic settings walkthrough. “Guild Wars 2 is pretty, everyone knows that. But it’s also designed to scale down smoothly so that the game can run on lower-end machines as well. In this video, Gavin and Josh walk you through every graphics option available in the beta, and show you step-by-step how they effect the visual fidelity of the game in a variety of settings.”
  • YouTube — Yogscast Ranger Spotlight. “Today, we investigate the Ranger – a class dedicated to pets and bows! Not sure I covered this one too coherently, as it was the first one I recorded in the beta and we’re very busy today – and of course everything we say is beta information and after 48 hours in the game we’re not the best informed people, so please forgive our amateurishness.”
  • YouTube — Arawulf’s The Five D’s of Guild Wars 2. “After last weekends press beta, I’ve put together 5 reasons why Guild Wars 2 gets a “D”. “
  • Gamebreaker.tv — First Impressions: Gary Steps Into Guild Wars 2 Norn Country. “The first moments is any MMO can have a lasting effect on the player, especially for one that claims to be as game changing as Guild Wars 2. Our very own Gary Gannon takes his first steps into the Norn starting zone for ArenaNet‘s up-coming MMO. I think it’s safe to say that he is a excited about it. Are you as enamored with it as he is?”
  • YouTube — Yogscast Elementalist Spotlight. “The supremely complex and colourful Elementalist is the focus of today’s video. Switching between fire, water, air and earth, this class has a blend of healing and support, combined with heavy AOE damage and conditions. This one is particularly long as a result of the vast number of different skills! Good luck following this!”
  • YouTube — SageLikeOne Traits rework. “After the wonderful article by Jon Peters I compiled a short clip showing off some of the new traits and giving you a runthrough of the material available to date.”
  • YouTube — Totalbiscuit GW2 beta: Warrior Slaughterthon 3000. “Totalbiscuit shows you a high level warrior and its many aspects.”
  • YouTube — Totalbiscuit GW2 beta: Jumping Puzzle. “Totalbiscuit presents one of the numerous puzzles present in Guild Wars 2.”
  • YouTube — Yogscast: GW2 Thief Spotlight. “Today, we take a look at the thief, a sneaky class that doesn’t actually have permanent stealth – more a series of temporary and evasive abilities that can really ruin someone’s day. Apparently I missed a big chunk of skills out of this video – when stealthed your first ability changes and I had no idea! Hopefully next beta I’ll have a chance to examine this one more closely. 48 hours was simply not enough to sleep properly and cover this game in any decent amount of depth. “
  • YouTube — Guild Wars 2 Gameplay: Elementalist. Part of the Charr elementalist personal story from GWOnline.net: the search for the supply crate.
  • YouTube — Guild Wars 2 Traits Rant. A refutation of the traits panic by WoodenPotatoes.
  • YouTube — Guild Wars 2 Traits and Attributes. More on traits and attributes from Bonk Studios.
  • YouTube — Totalbiscuit’s Mailbox for March 2nd. Lots of WvW footage, with the Cynical Brit’s trademark commentary (it’s not all commentary on GW2, but you can just watch the WvW if you like).
  • Gamebreaker.tv — GuildCast: Peer Pressure. “Hype still holds people fixated to ArenaNet‘s latest venture into the MMO world. Everyone feels the pressure to play Guild Wars 2. And why not? It holds nearly everything an MMO gamer is looking for: easy-to-join PvP, a dynamic world, and — just discovered this week — an auction house that appears to rival the best of them. Elisabeth, can you tell us more about that? No? An NDA? I see; well, maybe we can convince to talk about it during the show.”
  • wartower.de — Interview with Jeff Grubb, part 2. The introduction is in German, but the interview itself is in English.

Community Events

No community events to advertise this week, I’m afraid. I did hear from hardcoregamersradio.com to let me know that they’ll be doing some music and entertainment events in the future (their current event is on Saturday, but it’s not Guild Wars-related).

This section is intended to help you to publicize your guild or alliance event, and as long as your event is open to the whole Guild Wars community, we’ll list it here. Send us the details at community@guildmag.com and we’ll get it out to the fan community (given that we only do a weekly wrap-up, try to send the information at least a week in advance).