This week in Guild Wars 2

Posted by on May 4, 2012 in | | 1 Response

There’s been so much material posted from the first Beta Weekend Event that I doubt anyone has a complete list and nobody will be able to read all the blog posts and watch all the video footage. I’ve done my best to keep a wide range of sources in this week’s round-up, but it’s statistically certain that I’ve missed lots of great stuff. Not quite everything here relates to BWE1, so I’ve used this notation to indicate beta content: BWE.

Official Guild Wars 2 news

All of the “official” communications from ArenaNet over this past week has been in the form of Twitter updates, Facebook entries, and Beta Forum posts. Rather than linking to these (because the Facebook and Forum posts require login credentials of one sort or another that not everyone can provide), I’ve linked to our own GuildMag articles and those at other fan sites which include some or all of the information from the original items.

Recent GuildMag posts

  • BWE Dynamically Spoken Ep.1 – Beta Impressions. “The debut of Dynamically Spoken is here! I’m Rohan (aka Valiant) and I’m joined by our first every two guest speakers; Jason from The Vigilant and Steven (aka GettCouped). In this episode, we discuss all things Beta Weekend Event.”
  • BWE GW2 Beta Coverage – Account Vault Systems. “We managed to get ingame and got some exploring done. Since our other videos are rather long we figured we’d start with something small and show you how the Account Vault system works in Guild Wars 2. As you can guess, the vault which you store your stuff in, is being shared by your whole account. From the video below we can gather that, at least for the beginning, you’ll have 30 slots in your vault. Materials can be saved in a separate material vault, as seen in Guild Wars and other games, and also features a separate tab for cooking materials.”
  • BWE A first-timer’s view of Guild Wars 2: the first day. “Like most of you, I hadn’t had the chance to play Guild Wars 2 until this weekend. It’s (already) been an enlightening experience. I started writing this on Friday evening, after about four hours of game play. Lots of things I’m encountering are probably more a reflection of my lack of knowledge about MMOs in general (I haven’t really played any other games than Guild Wars). I’d managed to get my human ranger to level 6, unlock most of the basic weapon skills for axe, dagger, and shortbow. It’s been lots of fun so far, but the server my guild/alliance was hoping to all be on maxed out early, so anyone who tried getting in more than half-an-hour after the BWE started has had to go to a different server instead.”
  • BWE A first-timer’s view of Guild Wars 2: the second day. “With my ranger pet being nerfed after level 7 (see yesterday’s post for details, including the comments), there didn’t seem to be much point carrying on any further with my ranger. I was dying regularly enough with an active pet … no point in spending the rest of the weekend practicing my “downed” skill set! (And many thanks to the noble souls who revived me a few times last night.)”
  • BWE Guild Wars 2 Dungeons – Rewards & Lore. “While exploring Lion’s Arch, we stumbled across eight merchants, these merchants will grant you a reward for completing a dungeon by exchanging the tokens associated to that certain dungeon. As well as giving you armors and weapons, they tell a little bit more about each of the eight dungeons included at the initial launch of Guild Wars 2, these titbits are included as images below the videos of the armor and weapon rewards. Check out the two videos as well as the lore images!”
  • BWE A first-timer’s view of Guild Wars 2: the final day. “After posting yesterday’s report, I read this tweet from Hunter (of Hunter’s Insight) “You can tell someone went into GW2 with a negative attitude to begin with when they start a post with complaints. Confirmation bias.” That’s very true, and I hope I’ve managed to keep my commentary balanced. I don’t want to come across as a total fanboy over Guild Wars 2, so I’m pointing out issues and concerns, but don’t misunderstand me: I really enjoyed my brief time in Tyria 250 years later. When Natural Sword and I teamed up again for the last few hours of the beta weekend event, it was amusing how often we’d use words like “epic” and “awesome” in discussing the most recent dynamic event chain. We’d both made it past level 20 but the content scaling seemed to be working quite well — it was challenging without being too deadly.”
  • BWE Jon Peters talks Melee vs Ranged combat. “On the official Guild Wars 2 Beta forums, Jon Peters replied to some concerns of people that with ranged combat it is much easier to stay alive than it is with melee combat. It is their intention to have both kinds of gameplay on the same level of viability, but rather to hear that from me, read what Jon Peters said below”
  • BWE Jonathan Sharp on PvP Feedback and Esports. “Today we found a nice reaction from Jonathan Sharp at the Guild Wars 2 (Beta) Forums. He replies to concerns about Conquest mode, over-all balance, Tournaments and their aspiration to have Guild Wars 2 become an Esport.”
  • BWE GW2 Forum: Bobby Stein answers PS questions. “Another post on the official Guild Wars 2 Beta forums concerns the Personal Storyline. In this somewhat older post, Bobby Stein answers some questions of players which were concerned about the, in their opinion, dullness of some of the personal storyline arcs. While there’s not that much time left, he does note that things can still change at some points but that they will need to see how much resources and time they got left to do this.”
  • BWE World vs. World Video Preview. “During the Beta Weekend Event, my guild and I decided to take part in World versus World. With tens of hours of gameplay behind me during the weekend, I created this video below, showing you what World vs. World is, and how it works via the viewpoint of a staff Elementalist. Enjoy!”
  • Guild Wars 2 Gem Store Page Online. “Our colleagues of Guild Wars Insider found that the Gem Store for Guild Wars 2 actually already has an online web counterpart that is being worked on. From the looks of it, this is all still under work, but for those of you wanting to have a better look at it, login and check it out!”

Fan articles and blog posts

  • BWE Of Course I’ll Play It — Guild Wars 2: This is the MMO you’re looking for. “As it stands right now, Guild Wars 2 is a really good game. If they fix the various the technical problems, and shore up just some of the designs, then this thing has the potential to be no less than great. I mean.. seriously great. So what makes the game feel fresh and new? Why was I, as my son put it, positively gushing over Ventrilo to the folks in my guild about how much I was enjoying the game? Here are the highlights.”
  • BWE Kill Ten Rats — Early Beta Impressions. “I have been playing the Beta since the servers opened yesterday, and I have formed some early impressions of the game in its current state, and thought I would share them with you.”
  • BWE Hunter’s Insight — Karma Heart. “Hearts in Guild Wars 2 are essentially quests, as I’m sure every blogger worth his salt is chomping at the bit to inform you. Don’t let me undersell just how different they are from quests, they are certainly an evolution, but you can tell dogs and wolves are related. They can be every bit as cliche as quests in other games, but they do have many things going for them. In fact I’d go so far as to say hearts are superior to quests.”
  • BWE Bio Break — 30 things about Guild Wars 2‘s beta weekend. “I will say this: While more time is needed to get a long-term feel for the game, I’m quite comfortable in stating without hyperbole that Guild Wars 2 is a game that I’ve fallen in love with. I’m not saying “best game ever!” or “makes all other MMOs suck!” or anything like that. I’m just saying that it brought flowers and a winning smile, and I’m its. It’s a quiet, knowing sort of love, the type where I’m not bouncing off the walls looking forward to release, but content and surefast in the knowledge that when it happens, it will be terrific.”
  • BWE Kill Ten Rats — Malaise in Melee. “I was helping a friend learn Guild Wars 2 last night when he hit level 11. That’s when players start getting trait points for leveling up. For leveling purposes I told him to go with the power trait line or the precision trait line because both would let him kill enemies faster. I explained that for the next 30 levels he would have to branch out to other trait lines though because until level 40 each trait line could only take 10 points. It appeared the obvious thing to do was fill the damage role first.”
  • BWE Inventory Full — And…Relax! : GW2. “The party’s over. The last guests leave. The door closes. Now the clearing up begins, along with the gossip, reminiscence and recrimination. It was a great party. I had a wonderful time. I have so many stories I could write a book, Well, a 10,000 word dissertation. I took three pages of notes and nearly one hundred and fifty screenshots.If I tried to get it all down I’d be blogging about nothing else for a month, so I’ll try to control my enthusiasm.”
  • BWE Nerdy bookahs and their travel guide — Bookahneer’s Geekwatch: First Beta Weekend Event Reports. “I’ve seen countless people write about their experiences and share screenshots (not always in public places, so I’m not going to be able to link to all of them). If I start linking to them now, how many will be disappointed that I forgot them? Oh well, I’ll risk this and add that if you have written about your experiences or just showed screenshots, please leave a comment with the link here, so I can add it (if you’ve written several ones, I’ll just link to your website instead).”
  • BWE Greibach’s Normal Form — First Contact, The Beta in Review. “What a weekend! For the first time, we as a community have gotten our hands on this game for more than one hour at conventions. 60 hours of play time, hundreds of thousands of players, and lots of feedback. I’ve written a huge amount of positive text about this game over the past year or so, and most of it has held up under the test of experience. I had a great time, but I certainly have several things I would like to discuss that seem to be on many people’s minds, and most of them include suggestions for improvement. This post will be long, as I will be discussing a huge range of topics befitting of this momentous occasion.”
  • BWE Under the Pale Tree — Beta – First Impressions. “The beta weekend has come and gone (sadly!), and my thoughts on Guild Wars 2? Well, I loved it. Most of my doubts about it have been wiped away (the thing that drew me to Guild Wars 1 in the first place was the instanced gameplay, so that lack of that worried me here at first. No longer!), and while there’s some stuff that still need to be worked out…well, it is still in beta. And yes, I did file my share of bug reports over the weekend.”
  • BWE Demajen — Beta Weekend One: Impressions & Feedback. “My first impression of GW2 was awful and entirely my own fault. I got a new case for my PC on the Friday, and figured I had enough time to strip everything out of my old tower and install in the new one. I was entirely correct with this assumption, despite stripping half the flesh off a couple of fingers trying to get my gfx card out of my tiny tower. However, in my haste to put everything back together to test it all out, I’d somehow managed to connect my primary monitor to my secondary gfx card — the one I normally use for running my second monitor and physX stuff. I was thus rather shocked when GW2 ran like complete ass even in character creation, and it wasn’t until I’d fought through the human starter area as a necro and the framerate hadn’t gone above 10 that I realised it might be a PEBCAK issue.”
  • BWE Hunter’s Insight — Things I Learned. “I’ve got so much to say about Guild Wars 2 but a first impressions post is hard to write. So maybe I’ll just stick to the new things learned from the beta weekend for now.”
  • BWE Flamethrowing — First Beta Weekend Thoughts. “So I may be a little biased. I do write a blog about a game that hasn’t released yet. But this weekend’s Guild Wars 2 event was the most fun beta weekend of the three I’ve had recently, Tera, Diablo 3, and Guild Wars 2. I’m going to break it down like I did for Tera so it’s easy to digest. Keep in mind (also with my Tera list) that these lists are not comprehensive, just things that pop out while I’m playing.”
  • BWE GWOnline.net — For Future Refugees of Azeroth and The Republic. “You know how some games are announced, hailed as the savior of the genre, hyped to absolutely absurd levels, and praised at every turn? Then the time comes and you’re finally able to play it, only to find that it completely sucks, is an entirely different game from what the previews promised, and has crushed all the excitement you had for it? Well relax, Guild Wars 2 is absolutely nothing like that.”
  • GW2Guru — Guild Wars 2 Database is LIVE! “It sure has been a crazy few days here over at Guild Wars 2 Guru! And if you thought we were done, you’d be wrong! Right on the heels of our forum conversion we have GW2DB going live, created to cater to all your item/recipe/achievement/trait look-up needs. Give it a browse-through.”
  • BWE Guild Wars Insider — Forest of Niflhel Breakdown. “Forest of Niflhel is an interesting Structured PvP map with the addition of the 2 bosses on it, Chieftain Utahein and Svanir. By killing these bosses you gain 50 points to your team score and get a powerful buff, the boon being a team-wide bonus to all stats for about 30 seconds. Players with the boon are accompanied by a tiny green orb around them for its duration. The Chieftan and Svanir spawn at the same time that the Keep (middle point) is generally being taken/fought over i.e. about 1 minute in. They will respawn exactly 3 minutes after being killed.”
  • Distilled Willpower — A little SoS Speculation. “I always really enjoyed the posts which came on the last evening of the race weeks. Although I’ve never really read any of Ms Soesby’s work before, I understand her to be a very accomplished fantasy writer – and this is particularly apparent when she has such a small space to portray a compelling story, and still manages to write something interesting, funny and engaging.”
  • Guild Wars Insider — The Future of PvE Difficulty. “ArenaNet’s Andrew McLeod stopped by the official forums to give players a sneak peak of some of the adjustments they are working on regarding PvE difficulty.”
  • GWOnline.net — Guild Wars 2 Weekly – Changes Coming. “The very first Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend Event has come and gone, and it was a blast. Also, seeing so many people coming together to play with us in the GWOnline Alliance Guild was heartwarming. You guys are the best! This marks a milestone not only for ArenaNet, but also for us as a community. Many thousands of fans have finally had an opportunity to play the game first hand for an extended period of time, and can actually share those experiences freely. And it shows in our community forums. Now people finally have something tangible to discuss!”
  • BWE Massively — Flameseeker Chronicles: After beta action report. “It was great to be back in the game, it was great to get to talk about stuff with people and stream and share pictures, but mostly it was great to see the world populated the way it really needs to be to feel alive and whole. Beta being beta, that brought its own set of challenges and learning experiences — mostly for ArenaNet — but on the whole I hope that most people agree that this was, if not a truly delightful weekend (I can’t expect everyone to share my taste in games), then at least a solid and informative one.”
  • BWE Demajen — BWE1: Necromancer, Guardian, Elementalist & Engineer. “I’ve mentioned several times before about how I’ve been finding it difficult to pick a Profession to play in Guild Wars 2. This was affirmed over the weekend when I tried out the Necromancer, Guardian, Elementalist, and Engineer. Here are my first impressions based on the level 1-10(ish) experience on Necro, Guardian, and Elementalist, and the 1-5 experience on the Engineer.”
  • BWE Guild Wars 2 Hub — GW2 BWE1: Social Gaming Strikes Back. “In this two part article, we’ll take a look at where the social aspects of GW2 are most successful, and where they could be improved following the first BWE. In today’s thrilling episode, we’ll be focusing on those areas where that statement – Guild Wars 2 is the world’s first truly social MMO – holds true. Since things this weekend weren’t all sunshine and roses in the social department, tomorrow we’ll go over some areas where social connectivity is in most need of improvement.”
  • BWE Guild Wars 2 Hub — Social Diamonds in the Rough. “In the first half of my article focused on the social aspects of Guild Wars 2, I discussed some of ArenaNet’s biggest successes in the social gameplay department. However, there were plenty of bumps along the road to greatness that I encountered throughout the weekend as well.”
  • BWE Kill Ten Rats — What We Have Here Is… Communication. “One thing that absolutely amazes me is how much the ArenaNet devs are communicating on the quagmire that is the Guild Wars 2 beta forums. For those with beta access here are the forums as account credentials are required to view the forums. Much of it was just reinforcing constructive feedback, but many times a developer went out of their way to discuss the issues.”
  • BWE TalkTyria.net — The GW2 Beta: A WvW Weekend with a Wild-Eyed Dolyak. “I spent the entire weekend gallivanting around the Eternal Battlegrounds. A whole weekend laying siege to keeps, escorting lonely pack animals, defending ogre tribes and mercilessly hunting down the opposing team – all in the name of journalism, of course. It’s a lot to cram into one blog-post, so, without further ado:
    Step one to getting to WvW was creating my character (well, step 0.1 was getting into the game – something I didn’t achieve until the early hours of Saturday morning).”
  • BWE Nerdy bookahs and their travel guide — My Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend Event Impressions (with video and screenshots!) “I’ve shown you screenshots of Lion’s Arch, I have linked to other people’s reactions to the first Beta Weekend Event, what’s now missing is my own thoughts and comments on the beta.”
  • Massively — Hyperspace Beacon: Six things SWTOR and GW2 can learn from each other. “Before I begin this breakdown, I should state that this is not a comprehensive list of everything that I liked and disliked from either game. At the same time, I want to also state that, besides the 20 or so minutes at trade shows I had with the game, this weekend marked the first time I’ve spent any serious time in Guild Wars 2. My opinion here is far from complete, and my experience is really based on the first 10 levels of GW2.”
  • BWE GWOnline.net — GW 2 BWE 1 Cons. “Let me start out by saying that I loved the time I got to spend in Guild Wars 2 this weekend. If I had not already pre-purchased it, I would buy it without hesitation. I actually sort of feel like I cannot go back to other, lesser games after playing Guild Wars 2. But instead of going on and on about all the stuff I loved, I figure I should write a column about what I didn’t love for some reason: They were not to my personal tastes, I feel like they could be improved, or anything that seemed like a lot of the community is taking issue with.”
  • BWE Forbes — Guild Wars 2: First Impressions of the Beta. “I’ll be honest up front: I’m not an MMO player. Yeah, I dabbled in Champions Online, and I spent more than a few sessions puzzle-solving in Uru Live (a.k.a. Myst Online). But when an MMO-obsessed friend sent me a Guild Wars 2 (GW2) beta key, I gave in to curiosity and fired up the game. The first thing that went through my mind was, ‘These graphics are pretty decent.’ The second was, ‘Ah-hah, I’m playing Dragon Age: The MMO.’ The third was, ‘I wish I had more than an afternoon to power through this.’”
  • BWE A Tyrian Odyssey — April Beta Weekend. “During the GW2 Beta I spent much of my time exploring and doing “hearts” to level up. There is still much that could change in the game, so I didn’t focus on the storyline or grabbing screenshots for any real (in character) blog entries. However I still took a lot of pictures anyway and thought I’d share some of them here. Enjoy!”
  • Under the Pale Tree — Let me craft that for you! “Whenever I play a game, I get addicted to crafting. When I played Rift, I made a lot of money by crafting armor and selling it on the auction house. In Skyrim, my alchemy was level 50 by the time my character was level 10. In Aion, I’ve been playing around with crafting stuff. Basically, I like to pick up everything and see what I can make out of it (I blame this on me being a crafty sort of person in real life). So of course in Guild Wars 2, I wanted to try out their crafting system.”
  • BWE Kotaku — A Gorgeous, Living World Sets Guild Wars 2 Apart. “We all have our personal gaming quirks. I, for example, have a habit of leaping into any new game as a thief, rogue, or assassin type whenever possible. I prefer to move slowly and cautiously, in stealth and shadows, choosing my targets with utmost care. I operate alone or, when in teams, as a scout and sniper who can be relied upon not to be seen.”
  • GWOnline.net — Choose Your Own Music in Guild Wars 2. “What seems like a very long time ago, Jim Boer wrote an ArenaNet blog post about the Guild Wars 2 audio design. That was the first time we heard of a very special system promised for Guild Wars 2 — a tool to make your own context-dependent in-game sound tracks. Since then it has been quiet.”
  • BWE Hunter’s Insight — A Long Expected Party. “I’ve got more at stake than most bloggers when it comes to Guild Wars 2. For one, I don’t blog about other games much, this is a Guild Wars 2 focused blog and has been since the beginning. I’ve been writing about the game since October 2009. 2 years, 7 months. I’m a big Arenanet fan and ardent supporter of everything they claim to be doing, claim to be, as a game studio. My anticipation matched my anxiety as I downloaded the game and waited to play Guild Wars 2.”
  • BWE Hunter’s Insight — The Tengu Expansion. “I was walking through Divinity’s Reach, I think, and came across a conversation. Two humans talking about Orr, Elona, and Cantha. It’s difficult to remember the specifics of the conversation, but they talked about how Orr had cut off contact with the other continents of Tyria. Specifically they mentioned that the tengu had been the last to come from Cantha, and that had been a hundred years ago.”
  • BWE Elemental Attunement — BWE #1 – Screenshot Dump. “They say a picture speaks a thousand words, so to make my work easier i’ll just plop all my screenshots and it’ll be like I wrote an interesting and beguiling post!”
  • GWOnline.net — GWOnline.net Mock Magazine Cover – Issue 1.
  • BWE Drewciferianisms — We Interrupt This Program To Bring You… GW2! “Friday April 27, through Sunday April 29… Days that will go down in history as the first time I stepped foot in Tyria, 250 years later! Howdy all, this has been a long time coming. The first official public beta weekend event just concluded, and those of us who pre-purchased the game (go here), as well as those lucky to be selected by random draw, were invited to invade Tyria for the first time since the game was announced so many years ago! To say it has been exciting is a mere understatement, and a quick google search of the terms “guild wars 2 beta” will pull up a plethora of experiences; whether textual, visual, or otherwise. It is my intent to give my first impressions here, and later on Talktyria.net I will get into some of the nuts and bolts of what I experienced, if anyone is interested.”
  • Guild Wars 2 Hub — Profession Pondering. “I’m confident I could name every profession I have ever played in an MMOG. Unlike many players I know, I’m not an alt-a-holic. I tend to stick to only one profession or class that I love and learn every nuance and tactic it has to offer. There’s a satisfaction in understanding all that a profession can achieve, rather than spreading yourself too thinly and never truly mastering one.”
  • BWE Twitlonger — Jeff Russell: 50 Newbie Tips for Guild Wars 2. “If you played this last weekend’s beta you may know a lot of these but maybe you don’t know all of these. And if you weren’t in the beta I can guarantee that these are all things you’ll be glad to know before having your first Guild Wars 2 experience. Note that, as this is beta, some of these tips may change for future Beta Weekends.”
  • BWE Flamethrowing — The Elixir Gun and Healing Turret Combo. “Having both the turret and the elixir gun gives you the ability to keep regeneration up on all of your friends. Three of your skills apply regeneration to your allies. Keep in mind that in GW2 regeneration stacks increase duration, not intensity, so stacking doesn’t help us much as far as cooldown management goes.”
  • BWE GW2GM — 7 Useful Tips for Questing in Guild Wars 2. “While playing in the first Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend I heard a lot of people saying they didn’t know how to ‘quest’. The reason they were having trouble is because the whole idea of questing is different in Guild Wars 2. When you are leveling in the game you cannot treat it like other MMORPG’s you might have played in the past. If you do then you will end up wasting a lot of time standing around. Typically when questing you find an NPC, pick up a quest, kill or gather x amount of y, return to npc… you know the deal. There’s only one problem with that mind state, that is not how Guild Wars 2 works. “
  • BWE MMORPG.com — Guild Wars 2 Previews: Great Expectations…Met. “Last week we put together a short piece written by myself and Christina Gonzalez about our expectations for the Guild Wars 2 beta event. ArenaNet’s made some lofty claims and endeavored to correct much of the archaic trappings still present in most of today’s MMO games, and I was hoping to spend my time putting their game-changing goals to the test. So, did ArenaNet pull it off? Heck yes!“
  • BWE MMORPG.com — Guild Wars 2 General Article: Freedom of Choice in Tyria. “What can I say about Guild Wars 2? I followed the news about features and read some press info, watched some video beforehand, but otherwise didn’t oversaturate myself with information. I wasn’t afraid of giving into the hype; it was more a sense of wanting to experience this return to Tyria in a fresh light.”
  • BWE Demajen — 5 Cool Things In GW2 That I Didn’t Find Out About Until After BWE1. “After a five year development time, it is unsurprising that Guild Wars 2 is a hugely ambitious, massive game. Therefore it should shock no one that the game it isn’t very well documented yet. Here are X things I only found about after the first beta weekend had finished.”
  • BWE Reddit — How GW2 tears down obstacles and replaces it with fun. “So, I have never played a day of GW1 in my life. I decided to prepurchase this game for a couple reasons, the two biggest being no subscription and a world I was interested in playing in. during my time in the beta, I noticed that a lot of the walls you find in MMOs are just not there. You don’t have to “go” to the mailbox. You don’t have to “go” to the trading post, except to pick up an item. I was AMAZED that I could just sell anything from anywhere. Additionally, i like the “buy” order option. You can dye armor anywhere you want, and you don’t need to buy a bunch of dyes to do it.”
  • Guild Wars 2 Guru — Neato’s Tips & Tricks. “I’m sure you’ve heard the complaint… “We can use skills even if we aren’t in range and there’s no way of knowing if we’re out of range!” But I learned that’s wrong. I actually thought this too, and thought they should make the skills turn red or have a red bar over them when out of range, that is… until I discovered that they already do. It’s the number. If you’re in range, the skill number is white, if you’re out of range it’s red.”
  • BWE Guild Wars 2 Live — Zekas’ Guild Wars 2 BWE Experience. “Hey everyone! My name is Zekas and I’m a streamer and staff member of GuildWars2Live.com. I’d like to share with you my experiences of the Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend Event. I will also try and detail certain aspects of the game, like crafting, exploration, renown hearts and events. Links in this article will point to the official Guild Wars 2 Wiki for those interested in extra reading! Some of the Wiki pages also contain images on the subjects discussed.”
  • Hunter’s Insight — Coo! Pretty. “I found that often while playing through Guild Wars 2 I would talk to myself. Very rarely do you get to play a game where you are surprised or impressed as often as I was. It was the scale of World Versus World, it was poison slipping over the edge of a reservoir, it was the compensated threat mitigation associate, or the design of skills like Rocket Turret. There were just so many moments where I paused for half a second and said, ‘Oh, cool.’”
  • Maloki.se — How Guild Wars 2 Compares to World of Warcraft. “During this weekends play of the Guild Wars 2 Beta, and in the coming days after it ended, I’ve come to feel quite strongly about some similarities to World of Warcraft, as well as differences. I felt I wanted to share these thoughts with you guys. If you’re a raging fanboi/girl of any of these games, please take into account that I’m doing the comparison between them because they are the two MMORPG’s I’ve spent some time on, further explanation will follow with each point as well.”
  • BWE Kill Ten Rats — When Beta Isn’t Beta But Really Is. “I have been mulling over this question since the Guild Wars 2 first Beta Weekend Event wrapped up… Was ‘selling’ beta access a wise choice on the part of Arenanet?”
  • BWE Kill Ten Rats — Fast Banking and Faster Markets. “Two of the best features of Guild Wars 2 seems to be also one of the least discussed following the beta weekend event. They are the bank and the trading post. MMO veterans will be right at home, but there are small little ArenaNet-style twists added to each. I had a blast fiddling around with both of them, and when the game launches players are going to be much appreciative of the small things that add up really quickly for the two features.”
  • BWE Kill Ten Rats — On the Same Team. “There were two feelings I really liked when trying the GW2 beta. The first is the playground between the sandbox and the theme park. The second, and I have not felt this for a long time in an MMO or even most team-based games, is that the players were all on the same team.”
  • BWE ZAM.com — Guild Wars 2: Observing the Beta. “Last weekend, ArenaNet threw the doors to Guild Wars 2 wide open, inviting everyone who had pre-purchased the upcoming MMO to join in a Beta Weekend Event. With over a hundred thousand players ready to explore Tyria for themselves, the event would be GW2‘s first test by the gaming public at large.”

Videos and podcasts

Fanfic

  • Adventures With Morganna — A Song to Sing. “I’ve never liked the idea of writing. Writing takes far too long and requires too much time spent nearly still. Really though, I could be watching for prey, lining up a shot, communing with the Great Spirits, or throwing back some ale, but here I am scrawling on a little piece of parchment. This quill moves awkwardly in my hands and my back already aches from hunching over in such an odd fashion. I’m also, uncomfortably, hidden up in a tree where none can see me. I can’t even imagine the laughingstock I’d be if one of my norn brothers or sisters were to spot me. Actually I can imagine, and the names “Morganna the Scribe” or “Morganna of the Fragile Wrist” are nigh jumping off of this page as I scowl at it.”

Community Events

No new community events submitted this week (again, probably not surprising with everyone still recovering from BWE1).

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).

One Response

  1. This week in Guild Wars 2 « Quotulatiousness
    This week in Guild Wars 2 « Quotulatiousness May 4, 2012 at 21:04 |

    [...] most recent weekly column at GuildMag is now online. The vast majority of links are to Beta Weekend Event articles of praise, complaint, [...]

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