This week in Guild Wars 2

Written by  //  March 9, 2012  //  Editorials  //  1 Comment

This week didn’t see any big news released (although, from past experience, if anything big is announced it’ll be about 5 minutes after I post this column…). While the folks at ArenaNet have been quiet in their preparations for the next beta event, the fan community certainly hasn’t been quiet. As you can see below, there’s still lots of interest and enthusiasm bubbling over.

On a personal note, I’ve been spending a lot of time over the past few months trying to fill out my Hall of Monuments, which unfortunately also meant I was spending less time playing with fellow guildies and our allies. Last night I took a break to help a group of allies go through the Vloxen Excavations to kill Zoldark the Unholy. We were limited to normal mode, as we had a new player along, but we had lots of fun along the way. When we finished, I realized I’d probably been spending too much of my gaming time trying to achieve those HoM points and not enough time just playing for enjoyment.

After noticing a few fan fiction posts this week, I’ve added a new section for fan fiction (“fanfic”). If there’s enough material, we may break that out into a separate regular posting.

Some idiot (that’d be me) accidentally published an earlier version of this post and a few of you may have seen it on the site or showing up in your RSS feed. My apologies: I pulled it from the site as soon as I realized what had happened.

Official Guild Wars 2 news

  • ArenaNet blog — It Is On Like Pong: ArenaNet Hosts Penny Arcade. “Mens sana in corpore sano — when not working on developing Guild Wars 2, some of us here at ArenaNet like to engage in sports activities. You might know that we have a company soccer (Fussball) team, but in secret we have been working on assembling a ping pong squad that will make other game studios tremble.”
  • A couple of posts from Eric Flannum on the Guild Wars 2 Guru forums: one on the trinity, and a slightly longer post on why the trinity is dead.
  • Post Magazine — Audio for Games. “Creating multi-layered, multi-tiered experiences is not an easy feat.” [Raphia: An article in a PDF magazine, not a web page or blog posting. You can download the whole PDF if you prefer not to drag-and-zoom in the native interface.]

Recent GuildMag posts

  • Heroes Are Made, Not Born. “From finally seeing the mesmer in action all the way down to the few people buzzing about there finally being timestamps in the chat log, there has been a slew of new information since the Press Beta Weekend. There has been a torrential flow of intelligence gathered by my data-mining ninjas programmed to scout YouTube and the rest of the web about everything Guild Wars 2 including the reveal of the (somewhat) final state of traits and attributes.”
  • Jormag — Frigid Shadow of the North. “The Elder Ice Dragon is one of the world-shattering, draconic entities. Jormag commands over the domains of ice and mind, and uses it all too often to twist and corrupt his victims. The start of the Ice Serpent’s machinations reaches all the way back into the 11th century, when heroes from all around Tyria battled and defeated the Great Destroyer. Primordus, the Elder Fire Dragon, wasn’t the only one who made his influence felt and foreshadowed the dark days that were to come. Jormag, frozen and entombed somewhere in the farthest reaches of the north, harnessed power to bring forth his awakening, using a mysterious champion as a vanguard of his will.”

Fan articles and blog posts

  • Tales from the Void — Guild Wars 2: There are many reasons to like it, but these three are mine. “You know, there are a gzillion “reasons to love GW2” lists out there, naming 10-20 details from graphics, to music, to the “no holy trinity” combat model, but in defense of recent sidelong glances fearing that I might be going a little loopy in my fanaticism for the game, I felt the need for a short, pragmatic and largely straight, pure fact based list of my own. Even if half of the subjective hopes of quality and “sparkle” fall on their faces, here are my clear, calm reasons why this game will still be amazing and worth every bit of excitement being aimed at it.”
  • Guild Wars 2 Guru — The Sky Is Falling! Traits Are Here! “I don’t suppose that was the reaction ArenaNet were hoping for when they revealed the new trait system. After what has undoubtedly been months of development time spent fine tuning the intricacies of major and minor traits alongside trait lines, it has all been eclipsed by the prospect of having to return to your trainer to refund your points at the cost of a small fee. To add insult to injury, trait builds have already begun to appear that propose to revive the holy trinity (isn’t that just a horrible phrase?). As someone who’s heavily invested in Guild Wars 2 and who was fortunate enough to play it during the last beta phase, it’s been interesting to watch such developments unfold, not just the theorycraft behind such builds but the anger and hysteria from a very vocal minority that have overshadowed what is a wonderful system of customisation.” [Raphia: A very informative article, and well worth your time to read.]
  • Guild Wars 2 Live — Traits and Attributes. “This Tuesday, Anet flashed a plethora of information about attributes, traits, and of how they work together. Naturally, that means that it’s time to figuratively dissect the post, and see what it all means for gamers. Let’s start with attributes. Grouped in three categories, offense, support, and profession specific attributes, these new attributes co-exist with the older system of base attributes (power, vitality, precision, toughness). What sets them apart is that while all attributes are increased via gear and traits, the base attributes automatically increase upon level up.”
  • Dragon Season — ArenaNet Beta Development Update. “It’s been a while since “The Tyrian Times” brought you news. Lots of things have happened these last few weeks, so today I’m planning on beginning with our coverage. As you are already aware of, the press beta has come to an end. Articles, videos and a handful of information hit the web keeping all of us busy, while trying to understand every tidbit of them. In order to further explain some of the new aspects of the game, ArenaNet posted several times on the official blog. To begin with, Eric Flannum gathered some of his fellow designers and together they gave us an in-depth presentation of some either new or revamped mechanics of Guild Wars 2.”
  • Rev Gaming — Guild Wars 2 Build Tool [Raphia: Another way to test sample builds for your Guild Wars 2 characters-to-be.].
  • Yoshi’s Guild Wars 2 Hub — No Holy Trinity: Can It Work? “Good evening everyone! Tonight I thought I’d talk a little about ArenaNet’s stated goal to abolish the “holy trinity” in gaming. Since most MMORPG’s have the trinity hard-coded without option, I’m really going to look at this in comparison to Guild Wars and talk about why it can/will work and how we’ve seen it start there from the players rather than from the company.”
  • Yoshi’s Guild Wars 2 Hub — R.E.S.P.E.C…. T? “With last week’s blog post from ANet about attributes and traits, everyone has been completely up in arms. Why? They announced they would be adding respecs at an NPC for a fee. Yep. That thing that the major MMORPGs of today have; they’re raging over it. Who’s doing the QQing? Mostly GW players that weren’t around to remember when Guild Wars had its own respec system and how much everything sucked back then.”
  • The Border House — Imagine All the People: An Interview With ArenaNet Writer Angel Leigh McCoy (Part 1). “This past year at Geek Girl Con 2011 I had the distinct pleasure of having lunch with Angel Leigh McCoy, one of the writers at ArenaNet working on Guild Wars 2. Bonding over pizza rarely, if ever, fails and so it was that day. In meeting someone whose philosophy on games — that they were important and could change the world for the better — so perfectly matched with mine, I proposed an interview where we could explore some of these issues.”
  • The Border House — One Pixel Among Many: An Interview with Angel McCoy, Part 2. “The first part of this interview talked specifically about the Sylvari race in Guild Wars 2 and what goes into constructing a fantasy world from scratch. The second and final part of our talk centred on the role of the writer as well as the role of games themselves. Last time, she discussed how creativity necessitated both thinking outside the box about culture and the provision thoughtful explanations for culture. Here, she articulates a vision that certainly inspired me, and speaks also to why I play and write about games.”
  • Hunter’s Insight — Much Ado About Traits. “Let me preface this post by saying I don’t think this is a big deal. That the amount of attention it’s getting is ridiculous. That I would be perfectly comfortable using the system as it stands if it isn’t changed. This post in my own opinion is not very important. But…”
  • Yoshi’s Guild Wars 2 Hub — The Crafting Profession Confession. “So, I don’t actually have a lot of time for writing a blog tonight, and I probably won’t have a lot tomorrow night either. I’m still going to get posts for you all; they’re just going to be short. Tonight, I thought I’d just talk a little about crafting in Guild Wars 2 and sort of explain it. It’s one of the least controversial and least talked about aspects of the game.”
  • Under the Pale Tree — Fellowship of the Fans. “As I’ve mentioned already in previous blog posts, Guild Wars 2 fans are an…interesting bunch. We crash websites in our zealousness to sign up for betas and view beta counters (and apparently this past week’s Guildcast was another site crasher). We flip the hell out at anything we don’t necessarily like. And sometimes? Some really, really cool things are created by the community.”
  • Hunter’s Insight — Quick Note on Sea of Sorrows. “This post is going to be so short it may as well have been tweeted. I was curious as to whether the release date of Sea of Sorrows had changed and went to Simon & Schuster, which own the small publisher that put out Edge of Destiny and Ghosts of Ascalon and couldn’t find anything.”
  • Plyturon’s Forgotten Forge — Sketchbook: Fear and horror in MMOs. “Being a huge fan of Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Minecraft, I wanted to talk about a very specific topic in my first sketchbook article: The feeling of fear and horror in games and how this could work in Guild Wars 2. Please turn off your lights, put on your headphones and plug-in some dark ambient music before you are starting to read this article. I like scary games. What I like most about them are those moments of shock. I think Amnesia and Minecraft achieved this quite well. Let’s see if we can achieve those moments in an MMO like Guild Wars 2.”
  • MMORPG.com — Guild Wars 2 Previews: The Necromancer Preview. “Guild Wars 2 has eight professions to toy with, and they all do feel like toys… in the sense that each one is extremely unique and each one brings its own brand of awesome to the table. Before we dive into how I felt about the Necromancer in GW2, let’s give you some details taken right from the official site. It’s a mix of many different deathly tricks, and players who like their magic to be of the dark variety won’t be disappointed.”
  • Yoshi’s Guild Wars 2 Hub — WvWvW, WvWvWvWvWv…vW, WvW, Dub V Dub. “I don’t there’s any competition or debate; the single most hyped feature in Guild Wars 2 is a PvE/PvP format known that we keep changing our minds on what to call it. It was originally called World vs. World vs. World or WvWvW. People then called it WvWvWvWvWvWvWvWvWvWvWvWvW. ArenaNet finally accepted that nobody would put all three in there, so now it’s just called World vs. World or WvW. I personally go with Gary Gannon at Gamebreaker TV and call it dub v dub. Of all the things in GW2 that are supposed to be completely new or unique, this one takes the cake. The only problem with it, is that it’s so hard to choose a place to explain. So, let’s look at it and see if we can come up with a nice way for you to advertise it to your friends when they ask you what the big deal is.”
  • Team Legacy — WvW Scoring, consider it napkin math. “Disclaimer: Point values are likely to change due to balancing and other scoring or game systems changing. These numbers are all from the Februrary Press Beta and may not be as meaningful in the future.” [Raphia: A nice bit of detective work on how scores are calculated in WvW]
  • Team Legacy — Victory by Planning: How to Start With a Bang. “There have been discussions saying that Stonemist must be held at all costs, but not much has been decided on the rest of the objectives. From the released information, it’s fairly simple to hypothesize that supply will be the most important resource during the match. Each supply camp, with 100% up time, will put out over 20000 supply, so holding one third of the supply camps in the game will net about 160000 supply. Supply will be used in everything from building siege weapons to defending and upgrading keeps, so 160000 over two weeks is not necessarily a huge number, especially considering the massive numbers of siege engines that will likely be built during this period.”
  • Massively — Flameseeker Chronicles: How do trinities work? “People have had varying reactions to Jon Peters’ post on ArenaNet’s blog last week, which explained the newest system of traits and attributes for Guild Wars 2. There’ve been all sorts of thoughts about it: that it’s awesome, that it’s unnecessary, that it’s a whole lot of words to keep track of (I’m saying that, in fact, and I’m firmly in the camp of folks who think it’s all pretty great). Specifically, the inclusion of the compassion attribute, which improves a character’s healing output, has raised a glaring red flag for some players who are afraid this is the first step toward holy trinities and dedicated healers. I respectfully disagree.”
  • Talk Tyria — What Will Guild Wars 2 Do to Me? “Now, I’m not saying RIFT is a bad game; by all means, RIFT is a very fun and polished experience, but it’s safe. It’s full of functionality that you would expect, and nothing keeps you guessing. Playing it feels like clockwork because it’s fine-tuned to play like all other MMORPGs: get a quest, complete its very typical (killing or gathering, usually) objectives, gain experience and repeat. It’s nothing innovative, honestly. Now, my question still stands: if Guild Wars 2 is everything and the kitchen sink when it comes to MMORPGs, is fun to play and innovates the genre as we know it, will I really be able to play something stuck in the last decade of online gaming? Will there even be a point to it other than for nostalgia’s sake?”
  • ZAM.com — An Interview With Guild Wars 2‘s Jon Peters. “It’s no secret that I’ve been a huge proponent of competitive PvP in MMORPGs from the very beginning, and even though many attempts have been made to generate a robust tournament-friendly MMO (Fury, World of Warcraft 3v3 arena, the original Guild Wars), the results have been less than stellar. That being said, Guild Wars 2 probably has the highest chance of any MMORPG to break into the mainstream competitive light and I, for one, could not be more excited. Throughout my experiences in the press beta two weeks ago, I spent much of it testing out all sorts of PvP builds, and near the end of the testing window, I also got the opportunity to grill ArenaNet Game Designer Jon Peters about the various design choices made to give GW2 the tools it needs to succeed as a competitive MMORPG.”
  • Distilled Willpower — IG or OOG? Your Extended Experience. “I was thinking about this kind of intrusion in terms of the upcoming Guild Wars 2 Extended project which ANet are working on. At the moment all we know is that it likely extends to a downloadable app.”
  • Plyturon’s Forgotten Forge — Elementalist Introduction. “The Elementalist is one of the professions that is easy to get into but hard to master. Due to the sheer number of skills and weapon combinations there is a lot to keep in mind when trying to master the four elements. This introduction will give you an overview over the Elementalist profession. I will talk about the basic playstyle as well as attributes and weapons.”
  • MMORPG.com — Guild Wars 2 Previews: The Warrior Preview. “Sluggers and thugs unite, your profession has arrived. The Warrior in Guild Wars 2 epitomizes brutal in every way. They may not be as sleek and cool as the Thief or Ranger, but it sure gets the job done, even if it is a bit messy. The Warrior follows the classic guidelines you would expect from the profession with a few solid twists in design to give it plenty of personality. While of all the professions have differences that make them unique this one seems the most traditional to your normal MMO style; it is the Guild Wars 2 skill system that brings flavor to the warrior you want to create. Let’s start by listing out the special mechanics of the class from the official site.”
  • Kill Ten Rats — Level Flow by Numbers. “One really interesting piece to come out of the press closed beta test was this map of the content in Guild Wars 2. It appears incomplete not only with the “??-??” zone, but also because it is clearly missing a level 1-15 zone. ArenaNet’s Martin Kerstein was nice enough to confirm that there will be 5 starting zones corresponding to each race (e.g., Metrica Province for Asura and Caledon Forest for Sylvari). So take these infographs with a grain of salt.”
  • Dragon Season — ArenaNet: Mike Ferguson takes your WvW questions. “Following up Eric Flannum’s article, Mike Ferguson, the man behind World versus World, posted on the official blog, clarifying several things. Moreover, in order to further explain questions regarding WvW, ArenaNet organized, once again, an AMA session on reddit. In this article, I’ve compiled the major points of both the blog post and the reddit Q&A. You’ll find links of the original posts further below.”
  • Yoshi’s Guild Wars 2 Hub — Of Cats And Men… And Gods. “So, I thought I’d take a break from talking about content in GW2 and do my next several posts on some of the lore. ANet created so much lore in GW that it’s hard to even pick where to start. However, I’m mostly going to go semi-chronologically and semi-topically. Let’s start with the very beginning of Tyria.”
  • Guild Wars 2 Junkies — The Loss of the Trinity: Confusion, Denial, Anger or Acceptance. “There has been one constant in MMOs for the last eight years. There have been casual MMOs, raiding MMOs, MMOs in space and MMOs in the future but, through them all, the Holy Trinity has been a constant. The concept of the tank, the healer and the DPS has been ingrained in our heads over years of constant use. When we face a boss, be it with four of our friends or nineteen of them, it has almost always been with a tank leading the way, a healer healing him and DPS killing the boss. Sure, there have been a few exceptions, the Shade of Aran from Karazhan being a notable exception, but the exceptions have been few and far between. The Trinity has always been there.”
  • Demajen — Videogame Storytelling: Humanity, Triumph, and Tragedy. “Before I begin, I would like to issue a SPOILER WARNING for FFXIII-2. While the majority of this post will be about GW2, various parallels to games released this year are about to be drawn, and I don’t wish to ruin the experience for any of you. If you intend to play FFXIII-2, do so before reading this blog.”
  • Talk Tyria — You Said There Was No Holy Trinity! “Now that the 20th of February has come and gone and we’re all drunk on GW2 news — holy crap, *beta registration* much? — I’d like to toss out a thought I had about their Holy Trinity-less combat while I was introducing this epic game to my friends. Of course, my greater goal — besides bringing more revenue to ArenaNet — was to have people to play with so I wouldn’t be stuck swinging a lightsaber alone. Oops, that was the lonely, bitter, SWTOR-playing, side of me talking.”
  • GWOnline.net — If I Were In Guild Wars 2 Beta – Shawn’s story. “If I were in the Guild Wars 2 beta, well… it would probably play out similar to my previous ArenaNet testing experiences. I’ve been an alpha tester of Factions and Nightfall, as well as on the Test Krewe. This testing thing is old hat, to be honest. While I can’t give specifics from anything while I was in, some general information was obvious even from before then. Members of my then-guild would run off into Ventrilo’s passworded alpha channel at certain times, saying it was “all call” time, but nothing else. Of course, now I know the specifics of this, and how they compile their feedback. Perhaps I should turn this around, and say what you should do if you get in the Guild Wars 2 beta.” [Raphia: There's some excellent advice here: if you're one of the lucky ones to be invited into the next beta event, please take this article's key tenets to heart.]
  • The Feral Engineer — Flaws. “No game is perfect. To say that a game is perfect is to do a disservice to that game. Flaws are something every game has, from Bethesda games being littered with bugs to Final Fantasy being the same rehashed games with similar stories and a few minor changes in the way the turn based combat plays. Games need flaws, because if a game were perfect, there would be no other type of game and the inherent flaw would be that the market would become flooded with the same game in a different skin. Even these days, we see rehashing of games, rehashing of content, games that have huge flaws that are hard to overlook and flaws that are so minuscule, you forget they were even there. But games need flaws just as much as they need perfection in some areas as flaws make games interesting.”
  • Attached To Keyboard — Assortment Box of Beta-ness. “Nope I haven’t quite disappeared. I’ve been lurking in the background, half keeping an eye on Guild Wars 2 stuff, half trying desperately to juggle real life stuff. The job is hectic, the guild has sprung back into life, and to top it all off I’ve exceeded my download limit for the month watching Guild Wars 2 videos. Anyway, here’s a selection of the random thoughts that have been bouncing through my head of late.”
  • MMOsite.com — Guild Wars 2 Class Focus: Warrior. “I will be making daily blog posts focusing on all 8 professions in Guild Wars 2 one at a time, first turning the attention to the almighty Warrior.”
  • Yoshi’s Guild Wars 2 Hub — Prophecies: Never Saw That Coming… “So, picking up where we left off last time in the lore, I’m going to go over the story of the original Guild Wars, now known as Prophecies. The campaign is so named because the ancient dragon Glint prophesied all of the events of the campaign many centuries ago. The actual game begins with an introductory “noob island” type of area completely separate from the rest of the game and inaccessible immediately preceding the Searing. We’ll start there.”
  • Talk Tyria — Cracks in the Patio: Where ANet might trip. “I love my metaphors. Bars and Guilds, Sex and Games etc. Well, here’s another: the Patio.”
  • GWOnline.net — If I Were In Guild Wars 2 Beta – Art Yi Mor’s Story. “First off I’d do as I’m asked — they are needing people to test it for a reason and them choosing me and my below par rig would mean they want me to perform tasks and report back on how my system handled it.”
  • Under the Pale Tree — Guild Wars: The Game of Badass Ladies. “Not too long ago in the comments of a post on Livejournal, a small discussion popped up about diversity in video games and how most of the industry tends to not be very progressive (in terms of including strong women characters, characters that are not white, and characters that are not straight). It was pointed out that, while it’s not entirely perfect, the Guild Wars series is likely one of, if not the most progressive major game series around.”
  • Flamethrowing — What the Multi Guild System can do. “This has been discussed by a ton of people, and a ton of people that have more experience than me in running a guild or switching guilds. However, I’ve been toying around with an idea to form a guild with a non traditional focus.”
  • MMORPG.com — Guild Wars 2 Previews: The Thief Preview. “I usually don’t choose the sneaky path, but I decided to give the thief a go anyways. I’m not sorry I did. The thief was very interesting as I felt that it was the most adaptive profession in the game. I felt like I could get in, deal some serious damage, then fall back and hit the enemy forces from afar. I could move the enemy around a bit, giving everyone a chance to strike the enemy at their backs. Yep, I didn’t wear the heaviest of armor, but I could do some good crowd control. The only thing I didn’t like about the Thief was playing alone, because it shines so much more when you’re in a group.”
  • Yoshi’s Guild Wars 2 Hub — Factions: No, Not Horde/Alliance. “Tonight I’m covering the lore from the storyline of Factions, the first expansion in GW. Like Prophecies, it is set in the year 1072AE but is not set in Tyria. Past the Ring of Fire Islands and across the sea is the oriental-themed land of Cantha. It is here that our story occurs.”

Videos and podcasts

  • YouTube — Yogscast Dungeon Part 1: Booby Traps and Part 2: The Lovers. “The boys head into an early version of the level 30 story-mode dungeon “Ascalon Catacombs, accompanied by the not-very-talkative Arenanet’s Robert Djordevich, NCsoft’s Aidan Taylor, and someone called “Derpasaurus Rex.” Strap yourselves in for a thrill ride.”
  • YouTube — Guild Wars isn’t worth playing … Or Is It? “I’m not a Guild Wars expert, but this video answers many of the questions that people who are interested in Guild Wars2 have about the original game.” [Raphia: I was amused to watch a clone of my own ranger in this video. ]
  • YouTube — SageLikeOne: Guild Wars 2 Q&A (#10) (technology, names, competitive PvE). “I started this little series, and if you have any more questions, just send them my way. Details are in the video. Today: technology in the game, characters in names and the chance for competitive PvE.”
  • YouTube — Yogscast: Norn Levelling Part 1 – Mining Help. “Some more footage from our GW2 beta as the boys pick up Engineer and Warrior and venture out into the frosty Norn wastelands. In this episode, we help out various people and set fire to things.”
  • YouTube — Yogscast: Norn Levelling Part 2 – Hot Springs Wrestling. “Some more footage from our GW2 beta as the boys pick up Engineer and Warrior and venture out into the frosty Norn wastelands. In this episode, we visit a spa, kill stuff, wake up drunken Norn and mess around with Dolyaks.”
  • YouTube — Yogscast: Norn Levelling Part 3 – A Long Skill Point. “Last of our joining levelling footage from the GW2 beta weekend as the boys pick up Engineer and Warrior and venture out into the frosty Norn wastelands.”
  • YouTube — SageLikeOne: Guild Wars 2 – Why be interested? “I was asked what makes Guild Wars 2 different from other games like World of Warcraft and Star Wars: The Old Republic. As there are loads of good “ten reasons to be interested”-videos out there already I instead decided to look at the differences in design, attitude and intent between these more traditional MMOs and the upcoming Guild Wars 2. Enjoy!”
  • Gamebreaker.tv — First Look At Guild Wars 2 And Esports. “The esport community is growing at an exponential rate — look at our Starcraft 2 and League of Legends coverage just for starters — and MMOs want to capture that audience. Guild Wars 2 is no exception, but can it fit the esport criteria? And just what is required?”
  • YouTube — Guild Wars 2 Remix Trailer Piano Theme Orchestra Music Video HD. “Guild Wars 2 Remix Orchestra : Trailer Theme Remixed, ReArranged & ReOrchestrated by me. A full Orchestrated epic Version based on the Piano Melody that’s been featured in the original trailer. Everything you hear from 1:01 to 2:01 is entirely self composed and meant as as a continuation of the melody that came before. Every instrument and note that you hear has been carefully programmed and mixed by me.”
  • Gamebreaker.tv — Self-Healing Skills In ArenaNet’s Guild Wars 2. “Your first thought when you heard there was no dedicated healing class in Guild Wars 2 was probably “OMGWTFBBQ?” Your second might have been along the lines of “Great, so I have to dedicate time I could be killing to healing.” While that may be true of some of the game’s healing skills — meaning those activated by the 6 key — ArenaNet‘s made sure some of its healing skills pack a punch. Every profession has one or more healing abilities that not only keep you alive but also encourage you to stay in the thick of battle, so you’ll spend less time retreating and more time killin’. Here’s our profession-by-profession breakdown of GW2‘s “healing skills with bite.” (Skills are subject to change before launch.)”
  • YouTube — Guild Wars 2 – Norn Theme – Remix (Re-Orchestrated) by Matthew Weber. “This is my version of the Norn Theme (originally written by Jeremy Soule) One of my favorite melodies in the Guild Wars 2 soundtrack. Orchestrated and Arranged by: Matthew Weber. Original Norn Theme: Jeremy Soule. All of this was hand orchestrated by myself, I did not use any midi files.”
  • YouTube — Guild Wars 2 – Tyria Talk Ep. 18 – SWTOR vs. GW2. “Tyria Talk is a show dedicated to chatting about the upcoming MMO, Guild Wars 2. In episode 18, I compare the leveling experience in Star Wars: The Old Republic to what has been promised in Guild Wars 2. “
  • YouTube — Guild Wars 2 – ZAM‘s Ascalon Catacombs Preview. “Join ZAM Staff Writer Gareth “Gazimoff” Harmer as he narrates his Elementalist’s death-filled adventure in the haunted Ascalon Catacombs of Guild Wars 2.” [Raphia: The YouTube comments are pretty harsh on this video, criticizing the Gazimoff for both his after-the-fact commentary and his in-game play.]
  • Tales of Tyria — Ep. #21: Build Wars 2. “This show mostly focuses on the newly revealed Traits and Attributes system. How flexible is it? Does it pigeonhole people into specific roles again? We also discuss various links from around the community, including a Bridger Rant on players who refuse to learn. Finally, we discuss the pros and cons of being able to change your “build” in the middle of a PvP match. Next week we’ll talk about changing your build in WvW and PvE.”
  • Gamebreaker.tv — Guild Wars 2 Traits Response Is Back And Forth. “Since Jon Peters first divulged the details behind traits in Guild Wars 2 a few weeks ago, the community’s response has been mixed. Some feel that traits enforce trinity roles and — since you have to return to an NPC and pay a cost to respec — limit flexibility in battle. Others — primarily ArenaNet personnel — think that the system lends a sense of permanence to builds, requiring players to plan ahead.”
  • Gamebreaker.tv — ArenaNet’s Guild Wars 2 Writer Talks Sylvari Creation. “Guild Wars 2‘s Sylvari represent one of the more unusual races seen recently in gaming, and ArenaNet writer Angel Leigh McCoy recently discussed their origins on The Border House blog. Though fully grown when “born,” new Sylvari only have fleeting glimpses of other races. McCoy emphasizes that the race would not have the same taboos as humans when it comes to sexuality and other morals. Like any well-realized non-human fantasy race, they were developed from the ground up, and McCoy uses a “house” analogy — starting with land, then a foundation, then walls, a roof, and finally individual rooms — to create a new race from a broad start and fill in the details, one by one. Imposing human-like views, she says, is “the sinkhole that will bring your whole house down around your ears if you’re not vigilant.””
  • Boons & Conditions — Podcast #1: Mono Intro. “Welcome to the premiere episode of the Boons & Conditions podcast! The only Guild Wars 2 podcast that goes All Norn Long! First of all, who are we? Boons & Conditions is a Guild Wars 2 fansite dedicated to bringing you the latest and greatest news about the game. The B&C podcast is hosted by Faelor along with co-hosts Arithion, Luperza, and shyntyrr. You can find out more about us by listening to the podcast or checking out our About page! In response to a dare from ArenaNet, the first ever B&C podcast is recorded in the mono format instead of stereo. At least that’s the story Faelor told the rest of the B&C crew after he discovered the error.”
  • YouTube — SageLikeOne: Guild Wars 2 Q&A (#11) (expansions, cosmetic hats, deserted areas). “I started this little series, and if you have any more questions, just send them my way. Details are in the video. Today: expansions, cosmetic items (hats in this case) and deserted areas”
  • MMORPG.com — Exploring the Ascalon Catacombs Dungeon. “After yet another week I’m still thinking about the Guild Wars 2 Beta. I experienced a lot on that weekend, but one thing tested my skills in a way no MMO has ever done before. I’m talking about how I got to run through the explorable (that’s not a word, but we’ll make it so) Ascalon Catacombs. I went through the explorable mode of the dungeon with a member of the ArenaNet Development team, and we were still given a grim outlook.”
  • YouTube — Guild Wars 2: Necromancer PvP (720p). “Lewis B shows off his Necromancer skills during the 3 day press event.”
  • YouTube — SageLikeOne channel hits 1000 subscribers! Contest! Prizes! “Due to the unrelenting torrent of information regarding the upcoming game Guild Wars 2 we have hit 1000 subscribers! This has to be celebrated, and what better way than to give away a book or something?”
  • Gamebreaker.tv — ArenaNet Stumps For Non-Trinity Guild Wars 2 Play. “The trinity is still dead. At least that’s what Guild Wars 2 Developer Eric Flannum seemed to say on a forum post on GuildWars2Guru.com, summarized on GuildWarsInsider.com. Flannum claims that a “trinity-focused” group with, say, a tank, a support/healer, and three DPS “probably couldn’t finish a story mode dungeon let alone an explorable dungeon or some of the tougher events in the game.” He then cites an example from the press beta weekend, where his five-man group switched roles on the fly during encounters, and the fight was more about versatility, adaptation, and quick thinking than about set roles or even respec-ing.”
  • YouTube — Guild Wars 2 – Fan Trailer – “On the Edge”. “Song: “On the Edge” by Killer Tracks. Clips are a variety of officially-released Guild Wars 2 videos, including the original 2009 game trailer, Gamescom 2011 trailer, Mesmer, Ranger, and Thief skill videos, Catacombs cinematic, MMO Manifesto video, and probably a few more I can’t recall off the top of my head. Video was assembled in Windows Movie Maker (why? Because After Effects decided it wasn’t going to cooperate with me tonight). I haven’t done any real videos like this in nearly a decade so I’m rather happy. Guild Wars 2 is copyright to ArenaNet, and will be awesome.”
  • YouTube — Totalbiscuit: GW2 Beta – Underwater Overview. “Totalbiscuit talks about the underwater aspect of GW2, including movement, combat and boss fights.”

Fanfic

Community Events

Another week with no new community events.

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).