The waiting is nearly over … which makes this last week before the first Beta Weekend Event starts that much harder to endure. We’ve got the broad outlines thanks to yesterday’s ArenaNet blog post: the event starts next Friday (see here for exactly when it starts in your time zone) and runs until the end of Sunday (60 hours after it starts). We’ll have the option of playing human, charr, and norn characters and all eight professions. In addition to the areas we saw in the last press beta event, we’ll also get to explore Lion’s Arch.

This and all following beta events are not under a non-disclosure agreement, so you can save screencaps, record video, and write about your experiences to your heart’s content. However, earlier beta event participants are still bound by the NDAs they signed for those events (and also note that there may be some non-BWE activities that would have their own NDAs). The GuildMag staff will be covering as much as we can during the event and afterwards, limited only by our absolute minimum food, water, and sleep requirements.

Don’t get too attached to your beta characters: they will be wiped at the end of the event (that is, you’ll be starting all over again at the beginning of each beta weekend event). This means, unless it’s critically important to you, you shouldn’t spend too much time on the aesthetics of your character: you’ll be taking away time from experiencing all the rest of the content. The same probably goes for crafting: try it out, but don’t spend a lot of extra time working there unless that’s something you absolutely love.

While WvW is definitely one of the things I’m most interested in trying, I probably won’t do much of it during this event — my top priority is learning the UI and getting familiar with how to make my character(s) effective. It’ll be fun to jump all the way to level 80, but I’d end up just being an easy kill target if I’m not able to use my character’s skills properly.

I’d been playing Guild Wars for about six weeks when ArenaNet announced plans for Guild Wars 2. I assumed that I’d completely missed all the fun, since GW2 was, metaphorically speaking, just around the corner. I thought it was a strong possibility that I might not finish any of the campaigns before GW2 arrived. My Hall of Monuments now sits at 49 points (thanks to lots of help from my guild and particularly from my guild leader), and I need another three titles to get that final point (and two more after that to get GWAMM). I think ArenaNet has kindly paced their development schedule to allow me to get the very most out of my initial Guild Wars investment…

• Official Guild Wars 2 news
• Recent GuildMag posts
• Fan articles and blog posts
• Videos and podcasts
• Fanfic
• Community events

Official Guild Wars 2 news

• On the official Guild Wars 2 Facebook page: “We’re closing in quickly on 500,000 Facebook followers for Guild Wars 2. That’s a half-million, and we want to thank you all with some special gifts along the home stretch. Beginning with 460,000 followers, we’re going to share some new GW2 art with you for every 10,000 new followers. When we hit the half-million mark, we’ll unveil a final epic piece of art that we guarantee you’ll love!”
• The Beta Weekend Event is Coming! “As you can see, there’s a ton of stuff to do in the upcoming Beta Weekend Event on April 27-29. It’s honestly way more content than one person can experience in 60 hours of playing—and we haven’t even included the asura and sylvari in this beta! Fortunately, this will not be the last Beta Weekend Event before launch—stay tuned for more news regarding the next event.”

Recent GuildMag posts

• Kind Hearts of the Sea – The Quaggan. “In our most recent article and over the past few months, we’ve explored the fiercer side of the aquatic civilizations, from krait to naga, and finally to the elusive Elder Dragon of the sea. However, there is a more benevolent and peaceful side to this otherwise harsh environment. A side which is to be found amongst the soft-spoken and mild-mannered quaggan.”
• GWEN Toga Party for Multiple Sclerosis. “The Toga party started in 2009 as just a regular party to get together, have fun, and win prizes. In 2010 it shifted its focus to helping raise money for Multiple Sclerosis. They moved the party to April to coincide with the Canadian MS walk which was two weeks after the party. This gave them plenty of time to promote and raise money for the cause. So you might be wondering why GWEN and Rhonda are so passionate about MS. The answer is that this is a disease that has affected Rhonda personally. I asked her to share her story and I don’t think I could do it justice just by paraphrasing it so here it is in its entirety”
• Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend Event 27-29 April. “Good news everyone! ArenaNet just officially announced that the first Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend Event (BWE) will start on April 27 and will last until April 29!”
• Beta Weekend Event (27-29 April) Detailed! “Are you as excited to play Guild Wars 2 in the upcoming Beta Weekend Event as we are? ArenaNet released the details of the first Beta Weekend Event, you can check out a list of available features in the upcoming Beta Weekend Event below! We here at GuildMag will bring you coverage during the event here and via our twitter, so be sure to check us out on both mediums! As a note, the Guild Wars 2 client download will be e-mailed to all participants somewhere early next week!”

Fan articles and blog posts

• Guild Wars 2 Journal — Guild Wars 2 EU Fan Day: Ascalonian Catacombs. “One of the most exciting features we got to play was no doubt the Ascalonian Catacombs dungeon. We started off with a run through the story mode, and our group consisted of a warrior (Tilion from Dragon Season) and 4 elementalists (Ligia from Mediavida, Tasha Darke, 4thVariety from Wartower, and myself). After we made our new Charr characters we could simply teleport to the waypoint next to the dungeon, which was unlocked for the demo. There we found two NPCs who would sell gear and weapons for tokens that you can earn in explorable mode, as well as another NPC who agreed to boost us up to level 30 after we told him that we are “members of the press, we can help you!”. This also included a whole set of items and enough skill points to play around with skills and traits while everybody gathered in front of the entrance.”
• Reddit — Looks like someone goofed – Pre-purchasers have access to test. “For the people willing to just try for themselves, it seems hit or miss if your account can access it (or manage to even get on, stress test is stressful), this is the client” [Raphia: Do I even need to say that this is a silly thing to do? Why permanently risk your beta access and possibly your access to the released game just for boasting rights on Reddit?]
• Reddit — Your Survey Results Are In! “Finally, the professions. Elementalist clearly won the round here, with 18% of the votes. It was followed by the Thief (14%), the Warrior (13%), the Guardian (12%), the Ranger (12%), the Necromancer (11%), the Engineer (10%), and finally, the Mesmer (10%). I’m actually very surprised that the Engineer is so far down on the list; I figured that a brand new, interesting class like that would appeal to a lot of people, but I suppose not. 27 (< 1%) people skipped this question.” [Raphia: That's surprising, as there seemed to be Mesmer fans all over the place.]
• Hunter’s Insight — Hard Target. “A lot of free to play games require you use the cash shop to fix purposefully broken mechanics. They need to make money so I don’t resent them for this, but I also don’t play their games. I think the most important quality of a cash shop in an MMO is that you need to make your customers feel like they’re not being forced into the cash shop. That should be Arenanet’s target in winning approval for their model. They’ll need to convince people that the gold for gems system means that you don’t have to spend real cash. That the items they sell aren’t required to play. That nothing in the shop is an unfair exploitation of the player base. That no one has a real advantage over others.”
• Flame Throwing — Season of the Beta. “There is no specific right time for Guild Wars 2 to launch because they aren’t competing with another game. They are competing with an idea that has no release date. It will stay around until someone challenges it.”
• Yoshi’s Guild Wars 2 Hub — A Unique Training Experience. “So, I hope by now that everyone’s gotten their pre-purchases done and registered, especially for the Collector’s Edition. Now, we’ve got at least a couple months until the game goes live and only a couple weekends that we can play GW2 before then. So, I thought I’d share with you another game that’s incredibly beautiful, beyond enjoyable, and a good way to prepare for GW2 to an extent — Mass Effect 3. If you’re confused, hold on and let me explain.”
• Elemental Attunement — Weapon Breakdown: Staff. “Greetings all! Today I am starting a 4 part series where I break down the weapons you will be using as an elementalist. Today I will be starting off with the Staff!”
• I Only Lied About Being A Thief — Thief Slot Skill Series: Healing. “Unlike the weapon skills, slot skills are on the standard cooldown system. Instead of being able to use the ability repeatedly while worrying about a resource pool, our resource becomes opportunity cost. In other words, we have to decide at any given moment in time if it is the best point in which to use a slot skill. Of course the other consideration is whether or not it is wise to use a slot skill sooner rather than later so that its cooldown “resource” is ticking away and thus available a second time during the same encounter or at least available for the next. The point I’m trying to make is that some of these slot skills will be so powerful that we’ll want to use them almost immediately when they are off cooldown. Others we may need to save for just the right moment to get the most benefit from them.”
• Guild Wars Insider — Something Stupid: Guild Doors! “What we’re talking about is things that take your favorite games and bring them into the real world, things like FigurePrints – where you take your favorite World of Warcraft clown suit-wearing character and turn it into an actual statue for the same price as a fresh set of lungs. But nobody wants to take his or her Guild Wars character and turn it into a statue. That’s stupid. So we’ve come up with an even dumber idea that’s bound to sell faster than Collector’s Edition preorders at GameStop: GUILD DOORS™.” [Raphia: This may actually be a market niche for someone.]
• Hunter’s Insight — The Case For Megaphones. “In MMOs the item known as a megaphone is a consumable item that allows you to broadcast your text to everyone on a server, no matter where they are. They are hated by many but after playing Runes of Magic I’ve come to consider them a mixed blessing. That being said, rumour has it (though what good this rumour is when the game is still in testing is hard to see) the megaphone has been taken out of Guild Wars 2.”
• Attached to Keyboard — EU Fan Day – Other Questions. “In addition to the Q and A we had with ArenaNet, those of us at the fanday had access to Aidan (UK Community Manager for NCSoft), Melanie (French Community Manager for NCSoft), Stephane (French Community Manager for ArenaNet) and Matthew Moore (QA Lead for ArenaNet). So while we each only got to answer one question at the Q and A, many of us got other questions answered, and had various conversations with, the representatives over the 2 days. I’d asked the community for questions and they didn’t disappoint. I had a few of my own of course, but here are the ones I’ve had answers to so far. Firstly a disclaimer – the responses here are paraphrased. I didn’t have my dictaphone out and while the jist is accurate, the exact wording is not.”
• Guild Wars 2 Hub — Ranger Animal Companions Overview and Video. “With the first public beta weekend looming ever closer, loads of gamers are eagerly anticipating the chance to take their first crack at playing Guild Wars 2. Between now and then, we’ll be continuing our detailed previews of GW2’s core gameplay systems, including a series focused on the various types of “pets” found in the game, beginning with the ranger’s animal companions.”
• Guild Wars 2 Journal — New General Guides Posted! “Over the last couple weeks, we’ve compiled notes of information gathered and released since the most recent closed beta test. General information about the game mechanics of Guild Wars 2 is now available in several new articles posted under the “Guides” tab.”
• Distilled Willpower — Finding a Game/Life Balance. “I’ve realised over the past few months that my gaming tastes have changed a lot since I left University. At Uni I had a lot of spare time (I did Social Research for pities sake!); I was a bit of an insomniac and never had a roommate or dorm-buddy to worry about keeping up with my late night gaming sessions, I also have a lovely long term girlfriend, so there was never the chance of stealing a likely young wench from the local tavern and bringing her back to my lair. The upshot is that once all of my buddies had retreated to bed, I would have all the time in the world to play games. Games usually meant Guild Wars and Guild Wars meant several hour sessions: vanquishing zones, completing Zaishen quests and going absolutely batshit bonkers in PvP (once the red-mist comes down, my blood-lust is difficult to satisfy).”
• Massively — Flameseeker Chronicles: Simplicity itself. “ArenaNet is designing Guild Wars 2 to appeal to bucketloads of people. The studio’s got the PvP and competition, the high-end dungeon challenge, the super-cooperative and dynamic PvE content, the compelling and branching storyline, the flashy (and occasionally sensibly flashy) armors — there’s a lot going on. Part of what makes that possible is the use of very approachable systems.”
• Boons & Conditions — The Mindset of Roles. “For many of us with an MMO background, a role is an all-important thing. It determines your entire focus in the game, whether you are there to tank, damage or heal. We took pride in knowing that we’ve perfected the play of our role and that we were good at one thing. That was what the first industrial revolution was about, or what the assembly line was about; people doing one thing well. Guild Wars 2 though, tells us something very different. You don’t need to be good at only one thing or specialize in one thing, in fact; you most likely should not specialize in one thing. What happens now is our own revolution. Roles have been changed and in ways so should our way of thinking about them.”
• Guild Wars Insider — PAX East Gaming Community Panel. “Just a few weekends ago, GWI had the opportunity to host a panel at PAX East, one graciously sponsored by GuildLaunch.com, around building and running gaming community websites. Joining us were some of our favorite people in the industry, Pete Trerice of DarthHater, Martin Kerstein of ArenaNet, Justin McElroy of Polygon, and Eliot Lefebvre of Massively.”
• Condottieri — Structured PvP ranking is based on Glory, here’s why that’s an issue… “A few days ago, ArenaNet posted a new video containing an interview with Jonathon “Chaplan” Sharp who is a game designer at ArenaNet. [...] In this video, it’s discussed that players will be matched against each other by their aggregate Glory; a point system which is awarded to participants, but more so to the winning team. When asked if Glory will essentially be the ranking system for Guild Wars 2, Jonathon Sharp replied “It’s basically the way we do ranks, yup. And that’s going to allow you to look at a player and allows us to say how much they have been playing, if they’ve been playing a lot and we can kind of just make some assumptions of how good they’re going to be and we can put them in the correct pool to get a good game.”
• Just One MMOre — A problem with Guild Wars 2 might be the fact players want grind. “I understand and relate to players boasting that they are looking forward to playing Guild Wars 2, because there’s no grind, but I think that’s too broad of a statement to act as a description. I think there’s more to GW2 that makes players want to play than a flat removal of grind. After all, there are other MMOs out there, and there are plenty of MMOs with other features that aren’t a grind. Yet there are MMOs still being produced in the same vein as World of Warcraft‘s forumla. Why? Because on one level, players want that grind.”
• ZAM.com — The Top 5 Arguments Against Guild Wars 2. “We’ve heard a lot of naysayers making outlandish claims about ArenaNet’s upcoming MMO, but do they actually make sense? Find out, as Gazimoff takes a closer look at the most common doubts.”
• Hunter’s Insight — Beta Weekend Event. “Guild Wars 2 has announced the first beta open to everyone who pre-purchased a copy of the game. It will take place April 27-29th. There is an upcoming blog post from Arenanet that should give more details but I wanted to review some of the things people should expect. As seen in the press beta events, we’ll likely be limited to low level areas, and only 3 races. The press seem to have been limited to Queensdale and Kessex Hills for the humans, Wayfarer Hills and Snowden Drifts for the norn, and Plains of Ashford and Diessa Plateau for the charr. I don’t expect this to change much.” [Raphia: Good prognostication in advance of the details.]
• Guild Wars 2 Junkies — Counting Skills: Weapon Swapping and Hotbars. “One of the more unique design elements of Guild Wars 2 is the way skills are set up in the game. There have been countless blogs and articles describing the skill system and how it relates your Hotbar layout, but it also one of the biggest misconceptions about the game. So let’s clear it up now. People who’ve played games like Everquest 2, World of Warcraft, RIFT and Star Wars: The Old Republic are used to looking at multiple hotbars full of skills and abilities that do a large variety of things. In Guild Wars 2 this is greatly reduced and you don’t have to be a master pianist to manipulate your character.”
• Kill Ten Rats — 10 Helpful Hints for the Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend Event. “Now that the Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend Event (BWE) has been announced for April 27-29, I decided to make a small guide for those coming in to a fresh Tyrian world.” [Raphia: Some good advice here.]
• Maloki — Survival Checklist for the Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend Event. “The Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend Event 1 is upcoming next weekend, 27-29th of April. The community is excited! It’s available for all who’ve pre-purchased the game. It will be a fabulous and exciting weekend. Personally I got my copy earlier today, before the Beta weekend was announced, great timing. Now for the good stuff. I thought I’d provide you with a checklist to survive the weekend.”
• Guild Wars 2 Guru — April GW2 article | GameInformer. “Hello I was just letting you all know about a new article in GameInformer that delves into the sylvari starting area and story. Article also mentions pvp and de but nothing we haven’t heard b4 good read but contains spoilers.”
• Hunter’s Insight — That Rare Art Post. “I haven’t posted any art in a long time. Truthfully Arenanet is pretty good about dumping their art into the public square so new art has been few and far between. Recently they added to facebook a very nice looking pice of Eir art. They’re trying to get to 500k likes and doing it with an amazing piece of art.”
• Greibach’s Normal Form — Priming Your Mind for Beta. “A lot has happened in the past month since my previous post. We’ve had another closed beta, this time including a much larger sample size, we’ve had pre-purchase sign-ups, and now we’re coming up on a real, honest to god, “open beta”. Yes, I know, it’s not technically “open”, but it is open to everyone that has purchased it now. For many members of our community, this is going to be the very first foray into the new world of Tyria. Between the press beta coverage outlets, there has been a ton of really great information about the game. Ravious over at KTR detailed a great list of 10 things to remember when you first step foot into GW2, so instead of talking directly about the game, I’m going to take a few minutes to talk about us, the prospective players.” [Raphia: Some excellent points in this post.]
• Capacitor Flux — The Guild Wars 2 Effect – ‘It’s Elementalist my dear Watson’ “The question is, how will the majority of the player base react to this design choice? Bearing in mind, those of us who frequently read forums, watch YouTube videos and generally suck in every bit of info that we can find, are generally a minority, your average joe gamer is not likely to have poured the amount of attention into this game that we have. I predict a fair few people will feel very confused once their toon spawns in their race’s designated starting area, I recall watching a video from the very first Press Beta Event, and someone asked in general chat where the quest givers were.”

Videos and podcasts

• Game Informer — Guild Wars 2 30-Minute Video Preview. “ArenaNet designer Jonathan Sharp walks us through Guild Wars 2‘s innovative dynamic questing system and shows off a never-before-seen PvP map. The video below touches on a few of Guild Wars 2‘s most important elements. Curious about how the game eschews traditional MMO leveling content, or how the combat system works, or what the scoop on the massive “world vs. world” open-world PvP battles is? Sharp narrates all those answers and more over raw gameplay footage recorded at the Game Informer offices. More Guild Wars 2 content awaits you in the six-page feature in the May issue of Game Informer“
• Guild Wars Insider — Guild Wars 2: Thief PvP Part Deux. “While the whole world anxiously awaits the next beta to get their GW2 fix, we thought we would return to our video archives to see what we may have overloooked (and to reminisce… sigh). Here is a short video and commentary on some of the clips of our Thief coverage from CBT3 that didn’t originally make it past the cutting room floor. Enjoy!”
• YouTube — GWOnline.net: Guild Wars 2 Beta, Mesmer Structured PvP (Match 1 of 2). “A structured PvP match playing the mesmer. Footage from the March 23-25 press beta weekend.”
• YouTube — GWOnline.net: Guild Wars 2 Beta, Mesmer Structured PvP (Match 2 of 2). “A structured PvP match playing the mesmer. Footage from the March 23-25 press beta weekend.”
• YouTube — Guild Wars 2 Beta, Short Assorted Clips. “A handful of assorted short clips that were too fun or nice not to share, but didn’t really fit anywhere else :) 1. An unusual NPC encounter 2. NPC banter, sorry about bad video, but the sound is what is important ;) 3. World vs World music clip 4. Divinity’s Reach aquarium 5. End of Beta gathering. Footage from the March 23-25 press beta weekend.”
• Tales of Tyria — #27: I’m So Stressed! “A slow news week, we spend a bit of time responding to some feedback regarding last week’s discussion on Entitlement in the gaming community. Then, after a short news discussion, we dive into the mailbag for some viewer questions. From RP to baddies, and everything in between.”
• Guild Wars Insider — CBT 3 Video Odds and Ends. “As the beta week approaches, we here at GWI have started to go through withdrawls. Some have checked themselves into clinics while others have taken on other addictions to pass the time. After we lost Nord to a macrame cult and Arawulf to professional Bossaball, we decided to break out the CBT3 footage and play it nonstop in hopes that it would help with their jonesing. We cobbled together 4 videos of B-Roll (thanks Arawulf!) and the symptoms have all but gone away. This is why we are now sharing the footage (possibly more in coming days) with you as well.”
• YouTube — SageLikeOne: Guild Wars 2 Q&A (#19) (new vs old players, arenas, weapons between professions). “Today: GW1 vs new players, arena system, bows for different professions. Footage is from the press beta.”
• Gamebreaker.tv — GuildCast 18: Guild Rush. “Which one did you get? From the way twitter was set ablaze — and how the Collector’s Edition sold out in many areas — the Guild Wars 2 pre-purchase was rather popular. Did you think the hulking Rytlock Statue made the CE worthwhile? Racial skills are not going to be in PvP. So, goodbye to a sea of rampaging norn then. Smart move or a loss of flavor in the PvP side of the game? We look at weapon switching and just how fundamental it is. A system that givers depth, or is it just so complex it’s hard for the average player to grasp? Add a touch of spec building, a dash of viewer questions and you’re ready to dig in to a tasty episode.”
• Guild Wars Insider — The Book Carts of Lore. “During our interview with Ree Soesbee, it was mentioned that players would have the ability to read collected short stories of lore that could be found throughout Tyria. Although the complete works were not available in the beta, in this video we are able to show you the titles of several books sitting upon the scattered carts in Divinity’s Reach.”
• Eternal Alchemy — This Week in Tyria Episode 1. “Check out this week’s episode of This Week in Tyria Featuring a PC vs Mac Parody, Pre-Purchase news, and some exceptional Fan Art.”
• Gamebreaker.tv — A Guardian’s Tale Part Four: A Personal Story Begins. “My kingdom for a fire extinguisher. Last time on A Guardian’s Tale I took you on a stroll through one of the many events in Guild Wars 2. In this episode, we begin the personal story of the human character which is influenced by the choices made back in Part One — character creation. Please be aware that there are spoilers in this video if you want to be completely fresh to the human experience. There are no key branching choices made in this section but you will get to see how the selection of background directly informs your personal story experience in the game.”
• YouTube — ThePrimeCronus: Cinematic | PostHaste Music – Covenant. “I’m not the creator of this Music or Video Clips, All rights belongs to respective owners. Video Clips taken from various Guild Wars 2 Trailers. This video is purely fan-made, it’s done for entertainment purposes only. Have Fun!”
• YouTube — Guild Wars 2 – Tyria Talk – Incentive. “Tyria Talk is a show dedicated to chatting about the upcoming MMO, Guild Wars 2. In episode 22, I discuss incentive in MMOs. What keeps players interested in a game when they hit max level? Do you need to be able to get increasingly more powerful gear to keep you playing or is that just how we’ve been trained to think from other games?”
• YouTube — KirbyzaGamer: Guild Wars 2 – Ranger Skill Breakdown. “Breaking down the weapon skills for the Ranger. Warrior is next! Let me know in the comments which profession you want after that. Most voted one wins!”
• Guild Wars Insider — Tyria Monster Hunter: Ice Drake Broodmother. “We stumbled upon a Guardian trying to handle the Ice Drake Broodmother event all by himself… we figured he needed a little help from our Mesmer and friends. For those already crunching numbers out there, at the end of this video you’ll notice when the illusions shatter, it seems as if the damage occurs when the button is pressed and not when they charge the drake. As an added bonus, there’s also a few weapon achievements thrown in after the fight.”
• YouTube — SageLikeOne: Guild Wars 2 Q&A (#20) (US/EU crossovers, overflow progress, dungeons with split parties). “Today: US/EU crossovers, overflow progress, dungeons with split parties. Footage is from the press beta.”
• YouTube — MattVisual: Guild Wars 2 Vs Other MMOs – Subscription Fee (Get A Mac Parody) “Parody short about Subscription fee’s and how Guild wars 2 is different. “
• Gamebreaker.tv — GuildCast 19: Believe The Hype. “Excited much? We all know now that from April 27th to the 29th many of you will be living on energy drinks, paying for your loved ones to go on weekend breaks or just pulling the battery out of your phone and nailing the door shut. Guild Wars 2‘s first pre-purchase beta weekend is going to be fascinating. Will the game live up to the billing that many people — including myself — have contributed to? Or is it just inevitable that some will be throwing around the rage?”

Fanfic

I can only assume that all the creative juices that go into writing fanfic are being diverted into anticipation for the beta weekend event, as I didn’t see any new items this week.

Community Events

• Gamers Giving Back (GW-EN.com) will be hosting a Toga Party in Guild Wars to support suffers of Multiple Sclerosis on April 21st. More details here.

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/Guild Wars 2 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).