I don’t normally go out of my way to call attention to particular blog posts or videos in the round-up, but I have to take my hat off to Scott Hawkes (@jarimor on Twitter) for his critique of the problems with GW2 guilds as we’ve seen in the BWEs and stress tests so far. For the last few weeks, my own guild/alliance has been discussing how we will manage the transition to GW2, and almost everything he mentions in this week’s GuildCast echoes what we’ve been talking about in-game and on our alliance website and Facebook page.
We’ve been told that the guild system is going to change, and it pretty much has to change. The following comments therefore discuss what we have now, not what ArenaNet will be rolling out (hopefully) for BWE3.
I’d considered writing an article on the topic, but I’d just end up repeating most of what Scott says starting around the 51:00 mark (and the real rant starts a couple of minutes after that). The guild management mechanisms we’ve seen so far are not going to work as ArenaNet and the GW2 community want them to work — rather than being pro-community, they actually work to fracture existing GW communities. Just the 100-member limit is a joke, since there is no analog to the GW alliance structure.
Senatus Populesque Tyria (SPQT) is not a big alliance: we’ve never been up near the maximum membership limit, and I believe that The Nightwing Coven (TNC) was the only guild in the alliance to hit the membership cap over the last year or so. Like many (most?) guilds, we’ve been suffering from steady attrition as people go inactive waiting for GW2 or even switch to other games. Even so, the obvious solution clearly won’t work for SPQT: even after we exclude inactives, we’ll still have more than 100 folks wanting to be members in GW2. The idea of one or more “waiting room” guilds to hold the excess members is just farcical: it’s insulting to the members who will feel they’ve been branded as second-class guild members and is guaranteed to create more bad feelings.
As one of the leaders of the new guild, I’m not looking forward to explaining — over and over and over again — that while we’re delighted that J. Random Gamer wants to join us, we’re full and JRG will have to stay in waiting room number two for a few weeks while we rack up enough credit to buy a higher guild cap. Even if JRG is willing to hang around for that length of time, we’re testing gamers’ patience for no fault of our own, and there’s nothing we can do to fix it. What’s more likely to happen is JRG will wait a bit, decide that our guild is not the place to spend quality gaming time and quietly go elsewhere, taking away a bad memory. That is a lose-lose result.
And, as Scott points out, the opportunity for guild drama balloons when you get that next incremental step in your guild cap: if you have 200 people in 2nd and 3rd class seating, how do you gracefully promote half of them to the “real” guild without lots and lots of wailing and moaning on the part of the twice-rejected?
An easy fix (I mean “easy” from the non-developer viewpoint) would be to increase the guild cap to 1,000: that way every current alliance can reform as a mega-guild on day one. I have no idea if that is feasible from a development standpoint, but it would solve almost all the issues I’ve heard discussed so far.
Back to our normally scheduled weekly round-up of happenings in the Guild Wars 2 community…
- Official Guild Wars 2 news
- Recent GuildMag posts
- Fan articles and blog posts
- Videos and podcasts
- Fanfic
- Community events
Official Guild Wars 2 news
- Guild Wars 2 Hub — Profession and Traits Interview with Jon Peters. “Today we’re pleased to bring you the first part of our exclusive Guild Wars 2 interview series on the state of the game as ArenaNet prepares for launch, and for the upcoming beta weekend later this month. This week we have a great two part interview with Jon Peters on the trait system and profession balancing.”
- Guild Wars 2 Hub — Profession & Traits Interview with Jon Peters Pt. 2. “In the first part of our interview with Jon Peters, we discussed the tiered trait system and some of the upcoming changes to professions players will be able to experience heading into BWE3 later this month. Today we’re pleased to bring you the second and final part of the interview in which we discuss the state of Corruptions necros, upcoming mesmer changes, and a whole lot more!”
- ArenaNet blog — The Golden Rules of Guild Wars 2. “Every company has its secrets: secret recipes, secret codes, secret programs, and secret ways of doing things. Some secrets are kept for important spy reasons, and some are kept simply because no one bothers sharing them. The secrets I’m sharing in this blog post are equal parts both. Some developers might wish there was a secret recipe book for designing an online world—some big ol’ Betty Crocker-style book with chapters like “Combat System” and “Interactive Story Telling,” containing recipes for “Melee Weapons” and “Compelling Main Characters.” And they’d wish all you had to do was add in the particulars specified and work on each bit for the required amount of time.”
- On the official Guild Wars 2 Facebook page: T-Shirt Poll – Possible Designs “You asked for them, and we’re answering: Guild Wars 2 shirts are coming! We’ve got a lot of exciting designs to choose from and would love your input. Take a look at the possibilities and vote for your three favorites in the poll below. The poll will be open until July 6th at noon Pacific and will help as we decide which designs to use. Let your fellow GW2 fans know to give their input as well, and thank you for being a part of the decision! Vote for your three favorites here: https://www.facebook.com/GuildWars2/app_176752095711140“
Recent GuildMag posts
- Age of Deceit – Awakening. “Shame. It was the emotion he felt most of the time during his long imprisonment. Shame and guilt. For how long has he been imprisoned? He did not know, but it has been a long time since he last saw daylight. Or saw anything for that matter. He did not feel his body. He had no connection with the world. His consciousness was stuck where his hibernating body was. What little he could do was to lose himself in his memories; dwell on his failed mission, think about his god, and ponder on where it all went wrong. How did they fail their divine duty and why did he survive when all his brothers and sisters died? Why did he have to suffer the consequences and live in shame, all alone? This is how he spent the unperceivable time of his confinement… lost in thoughts, thinking about possibilities for the present that could never happen now and questioning his miserable state, but not being able to give answers.”
- Introducing the Guild Spotlight. “I see the long-term function of this column as matching up guilds with players who will fit in well in those guilds (and vice-versa, obviously). Other GW2 fan sites have nice guild profiles, but we’re trying to provide a useful service to the community: bringing together compatible players and the guilds in which they’ll thrive.”
Fan articles and blog posts
- Divinity’s Reach — Are Guilds Needed in Guild Wars 2? “With the release date rapidly approaching, guild recruitment has never been more emphasized. In fact, I have even begun searching for a guild I can call home over the last couple of days. Furthermore, many articles have been created over the last 24 hours, describing what you should be doing in the next two months before release. One of the most common features in these articles is that you should be in a guild. For many this has translated that to be effective, you need a guild. I largely disagree, the majority of players do not need to be in a guild. While socially effective and fun, do not think for a single moment that you need a guild to experience all the content in Guild Wars 2. Guilds have traditionally been “required” in MMOs, but may be considerably less critical for Guild Wars 2.”
- Yoshi’s Guild Wars 2 Hub — Profession Guide: Guardian. “The guardian, as the name suggests, is a highly defensive class. Even though they wear heavy armor, guardians have very little health compared to other professions. They make up for this with a myriad of powerful defensive abilities. A lot of their abilities simultaneously have both offensive and defensive uses, many of which involve burning opponents. They have a unique mechanic that takes the form of virtues: passive bonuses (occasional burning attacks, aegis every 40 seconds, healing) that can be sacrificed for a short time to give a similar bonus to nearby allies. The guardian also produces many symbols on the ground: AoE abilities that hurt enemies and help allies.”
- GW2 WvW — The Condition-Mancer. “Welcome back everyone, to installment 2 of our long-term exposition on how to properly kill warriors. Special feature today: new recipies for elementalist tears; I hear that they make a mean lemonade. So, returning to our warrior friend. He runs up, gets the look in his eye, and you realize that you need to either think quickly or die like an elementalist. After a moment of deep self-reflection, you realize that you’re too chique for minions. They’re fun and all, but they’re terrible listeners and they tend to die a lot faster than you’d like.”
- Divinity’s Reach — Stress Test. “This past week a little stress test occurred, you may have heard of it. Originally, I did not think I would get a chance to play. However as fate would have it, I got home fifteen minutes before the test was supposed to have ended, and began playing. Even luckier, ArenaNet decided to extend play-time by an extra 45 minutes past the scheduled end time. So what did I do for one hour? The ending beta event again, of course. Why would I write about an event that I already wrote once about? Well dear friends, I have a great story to tell you.”
- The Daily Bleach — Man Wreaks Nude Havoc in Scottsdale After Learning of Guild Wars 2 Release Date. “An Arizona man stripped naked and went on a wild carjacking spree Friday after receiving an email from AreanaNet announcing that they will be releasing their online game, Guild Wars 2 on August 28th, 2012. This man went into a violent gamer rage, causing two crashes, injuring seven, shutting down several roads and leaving mayhem in his wake.”
- Guild Wars Insider — Weapon Skill Tips For The Soloing Elementalist. “There’s one thing I’ve done every single Press and Beta Weekend Event, and that’s reroll an Elementalist to start from the ground up. The profession provides an excellent balance of gameplay for those unfamiliar to the workings of GW2, as well as a welcomed and varied skillset for even the most seasoned of MMO veterans.”
- Nerdy Bookahs — When did you first hear about Guild Wars 2? “The things Nerdy Bookahs do on a Sunday evening (while watching the European football finale… go Spain!): We are trying to remember when we first heard about Guild Wars 2 and, more importantly, when we thought: ‘Wooooah, that’s something we definitely want to play!’”
- Reborn Reality — A Mesmer PvP Guide. “At first glance the Mesmer might appear to be nothing more than a super hero’s sidekick, sporting purple tights, a goofy looking mask, and a lopsided grin. You might even mistake one for a rogue Hogwarts’ student, as they are often found wielding what appears to be a magical wand that spouts out lovely purple sparks. But if you’ve so much as underestimated this worthy opponent, you’ve already been beaten; the combination of wit and guile make the Mesmer one of the deadliest professions in the game.”
- Guild Wars Insider — Art of War: Weapon Rack Part 3. “Welcome back my friends for another week of the Art of War. Since the weapons of the warrior play such a key role in the game, we’ve taken the last two weeks to give an overview of the weapons and see what they can do. The first part can be found here for ranged weapons, and here for the two-handed weapons. This week we’ll be covering the weapons that provide the most variety and potential for super crazy fun time: AXE, MACE, SWORD, WARHORN, and SHIELD.”
- Guild Wars 2 Junkies — Getting Started as a Jeweler. “Guild Wars 2 has eight crafting disciplines to choose between, and players can have two. They can also have all three of the gathering disciplines, which thankfully aren’t tied to any of the crafting trades. Players can choose to become a jeweler as one of their crafting disciplines, which allows the player to craft jewelry — amulets, rings, and earrings, as well as upgraded gemstones to use in equipment. Both will be undoubtedly useful in GW2, and hey — every profession benefits from shiny things, right?”
- Yoshi’s Guild Wars 2 Hub — My SPvP Builds: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly. “I thought I’d share with everyone a few of the builds I’ve been using in SPvP, so here are my top and bottom three builds. I’ll start with the top three, and then cover the bottom three and how I think I can improve them (if possible).”
- Flame Throwing — Engineer Exploration. “During the last stress test I did a little exploration into the depths of numbers and math. Let me hear you say “Yay”! With a release date in sight, it’s time to start making spreadsheets, right? Maybe we don’t need to go that far, but I did want to see how traits really affect our damage and see how effective different trees were. Arena.net claims we will be able to play our play style without feeling hampered, so let’s see how that claim stacks up.”
- GW2 WvW — Profession Guide: Warrior. “The warrior is the epitome of martial prowess. Forget those awkwardly over-sized magic staves and tiny, little daggers; bring out the hammers, swords, and all other properly-sized weapons. Warriors are the ultimate physical fighters. Their class mechanic is their burst skill: each weapon has a skill that can be utilized to varying degrees based on the adrenaline they’ve built up by fighting. Add to this their heavy armor and sizable health pool, and you have yourself one tough cookie.”
- Guild Wars Insider — The Battle of Kyhlo Guide. “This guide is intended as a thorough analysis of The Battle of Kyhlo map. It will cover the mechanics of the game as well as key elements with as much detail and accuracy as possible. It will also cover strategies and techniques to enhance your teams performance on this map. This guide is not the absolute authority on Kyhlo. After all GW2 is currently in beta and changes to all aspects of the game are made regularly. The guide is also written by a human and not an asura so it is inherently prone to errors. With that, read and enjoy.”
- Twitter — Lycis. “Have you played #GuildWars2 Monopoly yet? You really should. #GW2iscoming http://bit.ly/NYXHEB“
- Guild Wars 2 Hub — From the Editor’s Lab – Volume One. “Print media continues its regretfully long, slow progression towards dinosaur territory, with only a handful of worthy publications still alive and kicking. Before the art form of physical media is lost to us completely, I decided it’s high time I tip my hat to one of my favorite traditions; letters from the editor.”
- Yoshi’s Guild Wars 2 Hub — Profession Guide: Engineer. “If the eight professions are comic book superheroes, then the engineer is Batman. Engineers get all of the cool gadgets and useful tools to get the job done. From their turrets to their kits (skills that give you a new weapon with five new skills), engineers are all about looking cool while you stomp people. Their major class mechanic, the tool belt, gives them an extra skill based on each non-elite slot skill. Essentially, engineers have four pairs of slot skills plus their elite.”
- Yoshi’s Guild Wars 2 Hub — Profession Guide: Mesmer. “Chaos. That one word perfectly sums up the mesmer profession in GW2. Many skills involve random boons or random conditions. Confusion is also a highly-prevalent condition in other mesmer abilities. Then there are the clones, designed for causing confusion to enemies (the actual thing, not the condition). Their unique class mechanic lets them create up to three illusions and shatter them for varying effects. There are two types of illusions: Clones look almost identical to the caster and simply auto-attack their target (causing essentially no damage), while phantasms are easily identifiable and have a specific ability they use.”
- Distilled Willpower — Lvl50 Rock Lobster Baby. “One of the lesser discussed features of Guild Wars 2 is the ability to add your own music into the playlists to play at certain times – ie, you can add some death metal into the “battle music” playlist and then when you enter battle in-game this music will play (and presumably turn back to the original game music when the battle is over).”
- Guild Wars 2 Hub — Combo Fields and Finishers. “I never once noticed a combo field before the addition of the indicator, when field meets finisher. In the midst of all the particle effects on offer in Guild Wars 2, to pick out a pair of skills working in unison was often near impossible. After the symbol, I’m constantly aware of their utility and power.”
- Massively — Flameseeker Chronicles: Slow news week for Guild Wars 2. “It’s been a pretty exciting week for those of us anticipating Guild Wars 2. Last Wednesday we got some bonus time in the word of present-day Tyria (is it bad that I’ve already begun to think of Guild Wars as the past?), and then Thursday a cool video (yeah, that one up there) came out on ArenaNet’s official YouTube channel. Shortly after the video, a blog post went up spelling out what the video implied: Guild Wars 2 has an official launch date of August 28th, 2012. The blog also confirmed that there is one (1) beta weekend event remaining, and it’ll come in the second-to-last weekend of July. It was a double scoop of delicious information, with the cherries of beautiful graphics on top, drizzled with tasty Zhaitan sludge. Yum.”
- Guild Wars 2 Hub — Thieves Can’t Count, But We Can Read. “Several changes have already been made to some game mechanics or their visual representation (the previous endurance bar made it hard to tell when a dodge was available) and apparently this third BWE will focus on PVP balance. If ArenaNet are trying to push Guild Wars 2 as an e-sport it is something they need to get right and if there is something fundamental about any e-sports game, it must be full control over what you are playing. And for the Thief…well, there is something extremely important missing.”
- Divinity’s Reach — How to Succeed in a Small Group Without Really Trying. “Preceding our playtime in Tyria, the community was highly concerned about the effectiveness of small groups in WvW. Previous iterations of large scale PvP, particularly in Warhammer and WoW, often amounted into zerg fests. Instead of a dynamically robust system that depended on skill, the battles became nothing more than pre-calculated events. Size was the only thing that mattered. In comes Guild Wars 2. ArenaNet has specifically designed WvW with small groups in mind. Next time you play in WvW, I ask you to stay away from the zerg force. Think for yourself and try working with 2-5 of your friends. Some of you may ask, but then what can we do? The answer, a hell of a lot.”
- GW2 WvW — Guide to PvP: Winning and Losing. “Everyone says they want to win, but how do you really do that? Winning and losing is all about mindset and executing in the moment. You have to learn all the right things, and know how to compete. Once you have all of that down, winning is a matter of your skills (and luck) being better than the opponent(s).”
- Divinity’s Reach — Illusionary Magic: The Passive Aggressive Mesmer. “Previously I mentioned the value of signets with their passive buffs. Obviously the most successful mesmers will be those who utilize them effectively. I decided to devise a PvP build around the use of signets. Originally I did it for amusement, but ultimately found it to be quite potent from my experience trying it out in the recent open beta stress test.”
- Project Tyria — Latest BWE Pictures Part I. “As promised, though late, I have pictures from the last BWE. There will be one more Beta Weekend Event (BWE) before the game comes out. I’ll try to get more pictures then, I have a few places in mind, but unless they release a new location, there will not be much. Of course, when the game comes out in August, I will be able to take more screen shots than ever! As usual, I’m breaking my posts up into about two sets of screenshots. For now, here is the first set!”
- GW2Fans — Guild Wars 2 – Does the community always work? “One of the main aspect that you will find in Guild Wars 2 is that it is heavily reliant on community, at some points; WvW and dynamic events mainly. This brings the question of; is this always going to work? On the June stress test players were given the opportunity to take part in an event. This event would include running around and attacking the defending player to turn them onto the corrupt side. As a lover of dark and evil things how could that person refuse a once in a life time chance to be evil?”
- Boons & Conditions — The Guardian’s Gambit: Top 3 Things a Guardian Needs to Remember. “Hey everyone, Rush here. This is my first article so I want to set the mood for everyone. This article will focus on viable guardian builds to be used in PvE and sPvP. I will be discussing either one PvE build or one sPvP build. This week though, I will be discussing 3 tips that every guardian needs to memorize”
- AltTabMe — Guild Wars 2: The Ultima Online of 2012. “What I didn’t think about until Guild Wars 2 was the first memorable moment in Ultima Online the MINUTE I logged into this new idea of an MMO. Thinking of all the ways I wanted to run my own tavern or build my own life in this world, it all came down to the simplest moment; I logged into the game saw the first humanoid character I could find and I typed, “Hi! Are you real?” and I will never forget the smile on my face as it replied back, “YES!!! HI!!”.. turning to my Dad who was just as interested in this new fangled “online world”, I said, “holy crap look, this guy is actually playing too!” I felt like he was my friend already and all we had exchanged was a friendly hello.” [Raphia: That's much better than my first "meet a real person in a game" moment: we said "hi", then he killed me and looted my body. Oh, Diablo...]
- GW2 WvW — SPvP Builds: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly. “I thought I’d share with everyone a few of the builds I’ve been using in SPvP, so here are my top and bottom three builds. I’ll start with the top three, and then cover the bottom three and how I think I can improve them (if possible).”
- Flame Throwing — Spirit of the Ritualist. “This post was originally going to be about the build I made and spent my last BWE time on. But with all the trait changes coming in the next 15 days I think I’m moving directions. By the end of my Guild Wars career, I spent all of my PvE time spamming spirits (although that’s not my exact build, it’s the basic idea). I could drop all of my creepy glowy friends and go to the kitchen to make a sandwich. When I returned, everything had died and left little piles of shinies.”
- Nerdy Bookahs — GW2: More screenshots. “We had planned to write an in-depth posting about our Beta Weekend Event and Stress Test experience but eh, sometimes, there just isn’t enough time. So, to keep it short (as I need to get up in a few hours and go to a conference from which I’ll thankfully return Saturday evening), our stress test experience in a nutshell: My client crashed twice which is twice as much as I had last BWE. I had created an elementalist to maybe finally try out that class but figured I actually rather wanted to spend those four hours playing my warrior and not having to learn a zillion new skills. I did end up unlocking skills for her off-hand weapon which meant learning new skills, but at least, I was familiar with the gun and the sword in her main hand.”
- Chronicles of Tyria — I Just Want to Look Like Jensen Ackles. “Aaaah, character creation; one of the best inventions when it comes to video games. And like many other aspects of gaming, Guild Wars 2′s does not fall short of amazing. Given the most recent beta weekend event and my rushing to log in and make the main character I will be writing and RolePlaying with, I consider myself lucky I was able to play during the previous stress test to have my initial character creation experience. Unlike the first Guild Wars and many many many other MMOs (World of Warcraft being the first game that comes to mind), I found myself spending quite literally 2 hours just making my character and customizing his appearance. If I had been given the opportunity in WoW or Guild Wars 1 to spend as long amount of time making my character I would have happily done so.”
- The Feral Engineer — Gun Wars! “Well, with big news from ArenaNet talking about some of the new changes to Engineers in the next beta event, it got me thinking about Rifles versus Pistols. Both are the only two weapons (outside of kits) that Engineers can equip. The Rifle is a 2 handed weapon and the Pistol is a one handed with the option to dual wield or use a shield. As it currently stands, only the pistol/shield combo lets you go all Captain America on people, so it might be worth it for that fact alone. But onto the real debate as to which is better and why. Essentially, I will be covering the strengths and weaknesses of both.”
- GW2 Guru — What’s your story? Role Play In Guild Wars 2. “One of the tag lines in Guild Wars 2 is ‘What’s your story?’ and normally this refers to the personal storyline so lovingly crafted by ArenaNet into the Game. However, there is an even more personal story available for those with the imagination, patience and sense of community to develop it. What am I talking about? Is it some new dynamic event system? Is it a new form of player made content like Skyrim, Portal 2 or Gary’s mod? No. It’s something called Role Play and it’s a third of GW2’s genre , MMORPG. So it has to be important right?”
- Reddit — Favorite moment of “not being upset to see fellow players” nearby? “I always thought I understood what ANet said when they talked about not dreading see other players nearby. However, during this past Stress Test I had my first true experience of being excited to see other player(s) passing by.”
Videos and podcasts
- YouTube — Scyfo100: Guild Wars 2 Trixy Girl (Human Thief) Episode 3, Too Much Drama in My Hair! “Part 3 in my Trixy Girl the Thief series. I continue in the Human starting area, showing off some new and existing dynamic events and love heart filling-upper quest..things :) Lot’s of fun to be had…but this episode is full of dramatic things!”
- YouTube — traxdagamer: Guild Wars 2 BWE2 Part 6 – Floating Grizwhirl. “We cover a strangly named my story event and a renown heart. Recorded 6/8/2012″
- YouTube — Enigmius1: Top 10 Post Launch Thread Topics – Enigmius Talks Guild Wars 2. “A light hearted break from editorials to celebrate the announcement of the official GW2 launch date. My predictions for 10 thread topics that will show up very shortly after launch. Back to the serious stuff next video! ;D”
- YouTube — TheSparrowsJourney: Guild Wars 2 – The Ranger Pets and their Skills #2 Underwater. “PLEASE TURN ON ANNOTATIONS ;) While it’s true that one of the most exciting things to do with a ranger in Guild Wars 2 is to adventure and tame the most pets we can, it’s very tough to do it in 3 days =P I’ve found that If you go to the mists you can access all pets available for a ranger. That way I made it possible to record and show you all the pets in the game as of yet along with their skills. This is actually the second part and it consists of all the underwater pets available to this date.”
- Guild Wars 2 Live — HDGW2: Necromancer sPvP with Commentary! “Intro music: “Up in the Clouds” by Artism (Myself) Outro music: “Lavender Town Reversed (Remix)” by Artism”
- Chronicles of Tyria — Chronicles of Tyria has a Podcast! “Follow your hosts Flare, Diint and Naveen on a weekly Podcast that talks about Guild Wars 2′s lore, Chronicles of Tyria’s Community, The Guild Wars 2 community, Fan projects, and more!”
- The Geekasaurus — Guild Wars 2 ★ Learning all you can!.
- Wartower.de — TowerTalk LoreSpecial: Sylvari. [Raphia: As usual with Wartower's TowerTalk specials, the introduction is in German but the body of the interview (this time with Ree Soesbee) is in English.]
- YouTube — Yoshi GWTwo: Guild Wars 2 Structured PvP – Minion Master (Battle of Kyhlo Map). “During the stress test following BWE2, I created a minion master build for a necromancer and had relatively decent success with it. The entire build bases around letting the minions fight for you, causing extra damage if they’re attacked, while you outlast opponents and essentially tank other enemies.”
- YouTube — Dontain: Guild Wars 2 – Gold Exploit (Making Double Profit on the Trading Post) [From the Live Stream]. “Lemme explain the bug. I bought 1k copper ore for 20 silver @ 0:23 in the video. When I sell the 1k copper ore, the Trading post will say I’ll make 10 Silver in Profit. When I press “sell” it sells 2k copper ore and gives me 20 silver in profit. (doubling my money and basically creating 10 silver, and another 1k copper ore, out of nowhere) I spent 20 silver, and made 20 silver. No profit gained, yet (keep watching) I’m not “playing the auction house”, this is a bug in beta.”
- YouTube — TheSparrowsJourney: Guild Wars 2 BW2 #11 Human Ranger – Ringmaster’s fight! “This is all we have been waiting for, at least the ones without access to the press beta :D This is Guild Wars 2 and I’m about to start a fantastic journey throughout the places of Tyria. Stick around and join me once again!”
- YouTube — SageLikeOne: Guild Wars 2 Beta 2 – Episode 11 – Skritt! Skritt! Everywhere Skritt! “More PvE action fighting the Skritt of the valley. The little thieving creatures need to learn some respect. Notice the near-appearance of an effigy, which of course is important if you saw the earlier beta footage”
- YouTube — Relics of Orr Episode 46, Release the Kraken. “We come to you in video form to discuss the beta weekend event no. 2, the announced release date, and our general feel of things at this point. In terms of technical talk, we had a show all ready to go and we had our video equipment set up only to realize that our usual recording software had a very second rate recording capacity when it came to video. At which time, we did a shotgun experiment with Google+ hangouts. We have some other recording software that will be tried out next time and we intend to burn a specific chair. The chair will die.”
- YouTube — MattVisual: Guild Wars 2 With The Wife // The camera will make your brain explode – Ep 1. “Join me and my wife on an adventure of DIZZY proportions! Just us having fun teaching my her how to play Guild Wars 2. There might be part that might get certain people annoyed so if you want elite gameplay this is not the video to watch.”
- YouTube — MattVisual: Guild Wars 2 With The Wife // Wife takes out anger on Moa, Poor Moa – Ep 2. “Join me and my wife on an adventure of DIZZY proportions! Just us having fun teaching my her how to play Guild Wars 2. There might be parts that might get certain people annoyed so if you want elite gameplay this is not the video to watch.”
- YouTube — TheSparrowsJourney: Guild Wars 2 – Flame Temple Tombs #1. “On this stress beta I planned to do a couple of things, one of them, exploring the Flame Temple Tombs. But to do that, you have to go through a series of events to open the portal and be able to travel inside the crypts! When actually inside, the goal is to figure out a few puzzles and make way to the final boss or dungeon master! I’ve been helped by the Lumin guild and therefore they are my allies on this video ;D”
- YouTube — RobotGlitch: Guild Wars 2 Stress Test Final Event. “The final event from the short Beta Stress Test on June 27, 2012. This event was the same corruption event from the previous beta and took place throughout the Plains of Ashford. I found myself corrupted after teleporting to a waypoint and having to wait through a loading screen. Sea of Sorrows server”
- Guild Wars 2 Live — Azy’s Guide – Skills Challenge – The Breached Wall. “This is a walk-through guide demonstrating how to get to the Skill Challenge on The Breached Wall in the Diessa Plateau in the Charr 15-25 zone. Unfortunately I had a LOT of video corruption so there will be some missing clips and this video is piece-mealed from various clips. Apologies ahead of time.”
- YouTube — GuildWars2Live: Guild Wars 2 Stress Test With Peter (Part 1). “Hanging out with Peter while he does whatever in Guild Wars 2, or more specifically at the Gendarran Fields. It’s a lot of random talks and exploring around – just a regular day in Guild Wars 2. This was recorded with Bandicam during the stress test on the June 27th.”
- YouTube — TheKaboobie: Guild Wars 2 Beta Gems – Gwen Jora and Melonni. “While traipsing about Divinity’s Reach in the Guild Wars 2 Beta I stumbled across none other than 3 cute kids pretending to be Gwen Jora and Melonni from the original Guild Wars. They have a little scene or two that takes place involving some other children and basically its just a fun little gem within Guild Wars 2“
- YouTube — traxdagamer: Guild Wars 2 BWE2 Part 7 – Clown College. “We find out exactly what this mystery toy is, and the plots behind it! Recorded 6/9/2012″
- YouTube — SageLikeOne: Guild Wars 2 Beta 2 – Episode 12 – Searching the mansion. “SPOILER! Pursuing the human noble personal story the thief Escataros join Captain Thackery in investigating high treason at the heart of Divinity’s Reach!”
- YouTube — traxdagamer: Guild Wars 2 BWE2 Part 8 – The Ringmaster. “This is a short video to finish out the storyline of my mesmer, as was available in the beta. Recorded 6/10/12″
- YouTube — TriggerSad: Guild Wars 2 BWE2. [Raphia: A playlist containing all of TriggerSad's GW2 BWE2 LP series.]
- Gamebreaker.tv — GuildCast 30: ArenaNet’s Gives Guild Wars 2 Official Launch Date. “Call your doctor, book the babysitter and stock up on snacks. The official launch date for Guild Wars 2 was announced! When the initial jump up and down joy of the date subsided, there’s some rather tremendous stuff to see in that teaser trailer, what grabbed your attention? With only one BWE to go, could we see the Asura and Sylvari? Could ArenaNet be crazy/gutsy enough to keep something back for launch, or would it just cause a massive headache? We discuss the possibilities.”
- Guild Wars Insider — Death Becomes You: Focusing on Life Blast. “Every class gets a special mechanic associated with its profession. Warriors purposefully abuse their endocrine system, Elementalists gain a crippling inability to decide which Planeteer they like the best, and Mesmer abilities sound like a warning against sniffing glue. Necromancers gain the mighty veil of darkness, a fear inducing specter of death, otherwise known as Death Shroud. However, this moment of awesomeness is brief and your access to these skills is limited, which means new Necromancers tend forget it’s there – especially its most lethal ability Life Blast.”
- YouTube — TubeElephant: ► Guild Wars 2 : Let’s talk Expansions ft. MattVisual. “Let’s talk about Expansions with Matt Visual!”
- YouTube — Philetic: Tea and Tyria #6, State of the Game. “Now we know the release date (28th August) I talk through some of the main aspects of Guild Wars 2.”
- Tales of Tyria — Tales of Tyria #38: Dungeons and Dragons. “WE FINALLY HAVE IT! A release date! Only 7 more shows after this. How can anyone stand it? This week we talk a little news and then jump into a dicussion of Dungeons, including the Ascalonian Catacombs. We rounded up a few people who have played the Story mode as well as the Explorable mode, and even convinced Freelancer to admit he’d begrudgingly played through it once.”
- YouTube — TheSparrowsJourney: Guild Wars 2 Jumping Puzzles #06 – The Shamans Rookery. “Get along with me on this challenge as I come across the most puzzling situations! This is all we have been waiting for, at least the ones without access to the press beta :D This is Guild Wars 2 and I’m about to start a fantastic journey throughout the places of Tyria. Stick around and join me once again!”
- YouTube — MattVisual: Guild Wars 2 – Mistwrought Vault // WvW Jumping Puzzle. “Tired Matt Is still going after being awake all weekend! Join me and some friends as we tackle this WvW jumping puzzle!”
- Boons & Conditions — Podcast #7: Release Date Concerns. “With Guild Wars 2′s release date finally announced (August 28th, 2012 for those living under a rock), you knew a podcast would be right around the corner! This round consists of Faelor, Arithion, Quark, and a new voice for some; Qstrike (B&C video producer). With the language filter set to low, the team goes over why they are concerned about a release date of less than two months. We suggest adding a bit of salt when listening to this episode as experienced MMO players such as the podcast team generally have a few scars that bring up sour memories. Will Guild Wars 2 be different?”
- YouTube — traxdagamer: Guild Wars 2 BWE2 Part 9 – Mesmerizing WvW. “Taking a longer look at some WvW, I talk about some of the changes I found since the last beta.”
- YouTube — TalesOfLumin: Newsmin: Guild Wars 2 News – 03/07/12 – The Golden Rules of Guild Wars 2 & More! “A wild Newsmin appears; watch it to see what it’s about! Expand here for links! :D In this week’s episode we take a look at the recent blog post from ArenaNet covering The Golden Rules of Guild Wars 2 and more.”
- YouTube — GuildWars2Live: Guild Wars 2 Stress Test With Peter (Part 2) “It’s just another day out at the Gendarran Fields with Peter. There’s some close calls, scary big monsters and I meet a mad Quaggan along the way. This was recorded with Bandicam during the stress test on the June 27th.”
- Guild Wars 2 Live — StayFrostyCinema- Thief Playtime Part 2. “Alex and Will commentate about the thief among other stuff in part 2 of professor Luth’s journeys in beta Tyria.”
- Boons & Conditions — Mesmerized – Mesmer Commentary Ep. 5. “Another Episode of SPVP Mesmer Commentary from our local Mesmer expert, Telf. This week, Telf show you guys Khyrpa’s sword pistol build. It is mainly focused upon Mantra stacking and skilled sword play!”
- YouTube — SageLikeOne: Guild Wars 2 Beta 2 – Episode 13 – Miscellanous things from the beta. “Kill ten rats!, An escort, na-na-na-na-na-batcave!, Spiders in the orchard, Walking cabbage!”
- YouTube — RobotGlitch: Guild Wars 2: WvW PvP 29 – Our Last Tower. “A World vs World PvP battle on my Charr Warrior from the Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend Event #2. June 10, 2012″
- YouTube — TheSparrowsJourney: Guild Wars 2 BW2 #13 Human Ranger – Centaurs attack feat. Athena!
- YouTube — TubeElephant: ► Guild Wars 2: Subscription Fee vs. Cash Shop. “My thoughts on 2 different business models. Keep in mind that this is my opinion!”
Fanfic
- Tyrian Stories — Travel. “Merados Goldwind eyed the small pale skinned Asura with a calculating gaze. The Asura for his part ignored the large human and focused on shuffling a deck of cards in his surprisingly dexterous child sized hands. As he shuffled the deck he drew no small amount of attention from the other parishioners of the pub. Asura were not unheard of in Ascalon, but few if any Ascaloneans had actually seen one. Most news of the arrogant race came from stories told by Dwarven traders.”
- Chronicles of Tyria — Chapter 2: The welcoming. “The Mother Tree’s calming words did nothing to protect me from the splintering pain that ripped through my body. With every flail, the intensity hacked my body and consciousness further apart. I was in danger of losing myself. My spine arched and fingers contorted, as spasms seized every muscle in my body. I thrashed wildly in the chains that held me against the wall.”
- Chronicles of Tyria — The Dreamless one, by Siriano L. “They tell you that this world is true, this life exists, and what happens when we sleep are dreams. They tell you that night will bring fantasies, conjured by your mind’s pacing and your heart’s desire. They lie.”
- Chronicles of Tyria — Chapter One – A Diary in the Dust, Part 1. “I picked my way through the rubble. Blackened crossbeams lay across my path, and tiles from the roof crunched underfoot. A scarf covered my mouth and nose but still I could smell the smoke, taste the ash that hung in the air. A fat and bloated moon cast everything grey. I was a ghost stalking this ruined hall. The stairs had collapsed, along with much of the second floor, and one doorway had been filled in with rubble. I took the path of least resistance. My boots left large prints in the dust. More doors were blocked than not and I twisted through a single passage. The floor above remained for part and I plunged into the darkness, aiming for the square of silver at the other side. It was a pantry. I trod a blackened bone to nothing, eyed the ancient meat hooks. The far wall had crumbled completely and I could see the wasteland beyond. That and the entrance to a cellar. It might have been a wine cellar, but for the incredibly thick wooden door, broken and blackened from the fire but still clinging to its hinges as I pushed through. The stairs below were shrouded in complete darkness, and I finally relented and lit a candle from my pack.”
- Chronicles of Tyria — A Diary in the Dust, Part 2. “I turned the book over to the back, wanting to see the most recent entry. A handful of pages had been torn out, making it easy to find. The rustling of paper was alarmingly loud in the gloom. I read quickly.”
- Guild Wars 2 Hub — Diary Of – Entry 10: Out Of The Gloom. “Edging around the giant Drake statue I jump cautiously across two more platforms and onto a raised area, looking down into the darkness below. My friend has just stepped into view and after throwing one of our torches we quickly decide to cut right, across some stone beams we can see in the distance.”
Community Events
There were no community events submitted this week.
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).


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