This week in Guild Wars 2

Written by  //  July 20, 2012  //  Community  //  1 Comment

We’re posting this a bit early, so you can while away those anxious hours until the servers open for this weekend’s BWE. And do check back right up to then: I’ll keep updating this week’s round-up until we can get in-game. If you’re a newcomer to Guild Wars 2, there are lots of useful posts in this round-up that will help you get up to speed quickly.

There were a lot of beta key giveaways over the past week, but almost all of them have concluded so they’re not listed here. Congratulations to everyone who won a beta key for this event: we’ll see you in game.

Official Guild Wars 2 news

  • Korea Times — NCsoft sets sights on US, China markets. “‘I expect Guild Wars 2 to sell 3.1 million copies after commercialization in August,’ Daewoo Securities analyst Kim Chang-kwean said by telephone. ‘Since April, the company has received 1 million pre-orders.’ He compared the numbers favorably with Aion, of which NCsoft had 900,000 pre-orders when it was launched four years ago. [...] The analyst expects the game to sell 1.5 million copies next year, and mark 140 billion won in revenue for two consecutive years following commercialization. The predicted numbers are much higher than Aion’s total revenue of 70 billion after four years. NCsoft has enjoyed increased brand value in the United States, according to Kim.”
  • Guild Wars 2 Hub — Dynamic Events Dev Journal by Colin Johanson. “Every once in a while you’ll be doing an interview only to discover that you’ve touched on a topic that transcends the scope of the standard Q&A format. Our recent interview with Colin Johanson was one such case, as we quickly discovered when we began discussing the dynamic events system in Guild Wars 2. In particular, we were interested in learning more about the fan reaction to dynamic events so far, and how Colin and his team have approached managing expectations for that particular system. What follows is a lengthy analysis of the system overall that may have originally been born of a much larger discussion about the game, but ultimately became more of a dev journal specifically about the dynamic event system.”
  • Wartower.de — TowerTalk – Interview mit Lead Writer Bobby Stein. [Raphia: As usual for TowerTalk, the introduction is in German, but the actual interview is in English.]
  • ArenaNet blog — What’s New in the Final Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend Event. “The final Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend Event is nearly here. From Friday, July 20 to Sunday, July 22, hundreds of thousands of players from Europe and North America will experience the beta version of Guild Wars 2 one last time before the game launches on August 28. As you can imagine, this is an exciting time for everyone here at the studio. Guild Wars 2 launches in a matter of weeks, and with playable asura and sylvari characters and a lot of other cool content, this last Beta Weekend Event will be our biggest yet. Let’s take a look at what we’re all so excited about.”
  • ArenaNet blog — The Worlds of the Final Beta Weekend Event. “Don’t worry, we’ll be closely monitoring our world populations this weekend and can quickly launch new worlds as needed should problems arise with our new population limits. Our server tech is now able to raise or lower population caps with some very simple changes that don’t require us to take the game down. This lets us adjust world populations based on how the servers react and you won’t even have to leave the game!”
  • ArenaNet blog — The Opening Cinematic Sequences, Your Introduction to Tyria. “Once a player has chosen a character, class, and name, the first experience you have with the story of Guild Wars 2 is the opening cinematic. Some of you may be thinking: “A cut scene? Skip, skip! Where’s the gameplay?” But hold on there! These gorgeous cinematics aren’t just a warmed-over reiteration of the box text; they tell the history of your chosen race and set the stage for the grand drama that’s about to unfold. Plus, the opening cinematic offers you a chance to see the concrete results of your character’s history and personality choices. We wrote them for you!”
  • Gaming Insight — Guild Wars 2: Exklusives Interview mit Lead Game Designer Eric Flannum. “We are pleased, that we got Eric Flannum, Lead Game Designer of Guild Wars 2, for an exclusive interview. We were able to ask him some questions about the development of the new MMORPG by ArenaNet and got some information about grafics, the unique WvWvW and the time to level in Guild Wars 2. Eric Flannum talks about how they prepare for the rush at the release of the game, to ensure a smoothy start of Guild Wars 2. The Beta Weekend Event, that will take place from 20 until 22 July 2012, will be the final rehearsal before the release on August 28 2012. Beside the two races Asura and Sylvari, you can explore a new area “Brisban Wildlands” and for the first time you can try the minigame “Keg Brawl”. In addition, you can select the brand-new PvP-map “Legacy of the Foefire”, where you can battle against NPC guards and team “guild lords”, powerful NPCs.” [Raphia: The title and introduction are in German, but the body of the interview is in English.]
  • ArenaNet blog — Ree Soesbee on the Asura Cinematic Intro. “Opening cinematics are designed to educate a player as to the world background, the racial background, and the impact of the choices they made for their character. But, packed in amid all that lore is the hope that the cinematic will be inspiring. In an ideal world, we want the player to be so busy yelling ‘AWESOME!’ at the end of the cinematic that it takes them a minute to find their keyboard and mouse again.”
  • On the official Guild Wars 2 Forum — Important BWE3 Information – Please Read. “Since our last Beta Weekend Event we’ve made quite a few changes and improvements to both the trading post and our world transfer system. We’ll also have special daily sales going on in the Gem Store throughout the Beta Weekend Event. Read on for more information!”
  • Guild Wars Insider — Interview with GW2 Game Designer Jonathan “Chap” Sharp. “We recently had the chance to ask Guild Wars 2 Game Designer Jonathan “Chap” Sharp a few questions around PvP and balancing, here’s what he had to say.”
  • Guild Wars Insider — Interview With GW2 Game Designer Jon Peters. “Earlier in the week, Jon Peters was able to answer a few of the GW2 trait and game design questions that have been haunting us for some time.”
  • On the official Guild Wars 2 forums — Known Issues: Beta Weekend Event 3. Mark Katzbach posted the current list of known issues for BWE3.
  • ArenaNet blog — Ree Soesbee on the Sylvari Cinematic Intro. “Even though I was directly involved in creating ideas for the race intro cinematics, it was always a rush to see them realized by our amazing art team. It felt like opening a birthday present every single time.”

Recent GuildMag posts

  • Dynamically Spoken Episode 4: PvP Special. “Welcome to the episode four of Dynamically Spoken! This time around, Steven and I are joined by Cigs and Azshene from Team Paradigm. Our fourth episode is all about exploring PvP in Guild Wars 2 from a more structured perspective.”
  • Age of Deceit – Updated Content. “I know you were expecting a new chapter – believe me, so was I -, but alas, I really felt the need to correct some mistakes and edit the currently published content. Unfortunately, I wrote Chapter 11 with those changes in mind and in order to better understand it, this update is necessary. To be completely honest with you, this came in quite handy as it gave me the chance to go through all the previous chapters and do some patches here and there, as well as rewrite or add new scenes to make the story whole and – hopefully – better.”

Fan articles and blog posts

  • Killabyte Online — GW2 – Will three days be enough? “I’m intending to make the most of my time in the last BWE, but going through the different things to check out made me realize that getting a thorough look at these different features may be more difficult to do then I initially thought. To begin with there’s obviously the Asura and Sylvari to check out, as well as their capital city’s – this alone could take up a sizable chunk of time, especially if I try to explore their city’s and surrounding areas thoroughly.”
  • The Tyrian Order — The Asura. “Today we’re going to talk about the small-fries of Guild Wars 2, the Asura. We were first introduced to this race in Guild Wars: Eye of the North. Yet, for as long as we’ve known them, they are the race we really know the least about. The Asura are deep and complex personalities, but they hide much of what we would call their humanity, under a guise of bravado and arrogance.”
  • MMORPG.com — Guild Wars 2 Redefines Open World PVP. “Does Guild Wars 2 have Open World PVP or does it not? There still confusion on this subject and it feels like almost every day there is someone debating it. The answer to the question is not exactly YES and not exactly NO: I intend to argue that it’s something of both. This is because ArenaNet is not applying their game to the classic, chaotic ideals of Open World PVP as the genre has known it for so many years. Instead of adhering to the tried-and-true, they are rewriting the rules and redefining what it means for a game to have Open World PVP.”
  • Plyturon’s Forgotten Forge — New Krytan Translator. “Here’s what I’ve been working on, the past couple of days. http://tools.plyturon.net/translator/ This tool translates any text to New Krytan, the language used by the inhabitants of Kryta in Guild Wars 2. The language is based on a very simple substitution cipher. Additionally there is a decimal numeral system in place.”
  • Greibach’s Normal Form — 42 Days and Counting. Preparing for Release and BWE3. “In 42 days, we will have our hands on the game. It seems so close, and so far away! On top of that, we get to play in one last pre-launch hurrah with BWE3 next week. Personally, I’m having a hard time knowing what to do with myself. I have however found a few things that have kept me occupied and entertained in the mean time, and am making some plans for how to spend BWE3 to maximize my experience. This is going to be a shorter than most, but mostly I just wanted to give a shout-out to a few community members that are doing some neat things.”
  • Guild Wars 2 Riches — Guild Wars 2 professions builds application. Get your profession fine tuned for beta weekend. “Today’s post is not so much a gold tip, but it pertains to the upcoming beta weekend on July 20th-22nd. At this point anyone who is waiting to play/test Guild Wars 2 is going bonkers in anticipation. This application has been around for quite a while, but I have gotten a few email from people asking about the best builds for gold-making. The cool thing about Guild Wars 2 is that there really isn’t a premium build that is better for making gold. Any situation where you are going to be making gold you are just playing the game and killing monsters so rather than find an elite build you should just aim for a build that you enjoy and can handle doing for a long long time.”
  • Dragon Season — Introduction to Guilds in Guild Wars 2. “A major aspect aspect of player communities in Guild Wars 2 is that an account can be a member of more than one guild at any one time. However a character can only participate in the guild chat of and represent one guild at a time.
    With such mechanics, it could be easy to conclude that no-one could ever hope to make a successful guild because a player’s time will be split between all the guilds they are a part of, but this isn’t what happens in the physical world. People are members of more than one community in real life with few conflicts (like a sports club and a movie club), and in general individual communities do not suffer because a member has other things they want to do.”
  • Nerdy Bookahs — Looking Forward to the Sylvari and Asura. “Only a few more days until we can finally get our hands on the sylvari and the asura! Last year, they have been playable at gaming conventions like GamesCom. Have a look at our sPvP videos from GamesCom 2011 to see sylvari and asura in action. However, they were not playable in their respective starter areas and we haven’t been able to play them during any of the beta weekend events.”
  • Divinity’s Reach — Why WvW is Better than Open-World PvP. “As always critics have found their reasons to dislike the latest MMO. In this case, Guild Wars 2 is the aforementioned target of a lot of attention, and the community has leveled both just and unwarranted criticisms at the game. One of my favorite quotes from recent developer interviews is this quote by Colin Johanson: “Over the years we’ve learned to not be surprised by any of the feedback we get. I’ve learned one person will say a mountain is too tall, another will say it’s too short, and a third will say there should be no mountain at all” One of the largest criticism stems from a niche-focused group that have stated Guild Wars 2 has no open world PvP. Without this inclusion in the game, many supporters of that PvP “genre” have chosen to not even try Guild Wars 2. “
  • Under the Pale Tree — Beta giveaway has concluded! “Well! This has been a busy weekend, and I’m glad to say that all of the beta keys I was given have been sent to loving homes. I did a series of mini giveaways on twitter and facebook yesterday, and have just finished selecting the top 15 jokes of the entries I received for the joke contest! I wound up with a couple hundred entries, so judging wasn’t exactly easy. I managed to narrow it down to the 15 punchlines that made me laugh the most, though ;) So, here we go!”
  • GW2 WvW — Profession Guide – The Necromancer. “The necromancer is a bit harder to pin down with one theme than other classes. But, in the end, it all boils down to corruption. The necromancer can raise undead minions out of the ground, and it can steal life from its enemies. However, the necromancer specializes in converting boons and conditions on allies and enemies to be able to change the tide of the battle and maintain the upper hand. As part of their attacks, they generate Life Force, their unique resource. It’s used to activate and fuel Death Shroud, a powerful form with powerful skills. While in death shroud, necromancers take damage to their accumulated Life Force rather than their own health. Many of the necromancers abilities create marks, AoE’s that require a trigger for their affect much like extra-large traps.”
  • Guild Wars 2 Junkies — Bringing Home the Dynamic. “One of the aspects of leveling in Guild Wars 2 that players are most looking forward to is the game’s dynamic event system. Let’s face it, questing in a static world gets pretty boring, and the promise of dynamic content — content that actually shifts, changes, and presents danger to us– seems like a breath of fresh air to us after years of plugging away at killing boars and wolves. A game world that actually comes to life based on the acts of players in the area? The ability to make a difference in this world? Sign me up.”
  • GW2 Guru — Introduction on Structured PvP. “One of the exciting new features of Guild Wars 2 is the structured player versus player system. A system that allow players to battle out against each other and test their strengths on one of the two released battlefields. In a mode of Conquest players are split up into two teams and battle each other in a race for being the first to gain 500 points. A team is rewarded a point every two second for every objective currently captured and held by the team and every team is also rewarded 10 points for every enemy player kill. There is also a secondary mechanic that is unique to each map, I will be mentioning this later in this article.”
  • MMORPG.com — Guild Wars 2 Previews: The Sylvari Experience. “These aren’t your everyday elves, that’s for sure. Like Garrett, I had the special chance to play as the Sylvari during this past week in Guild Wars 2. I didn’t really expect to have but a passing interest in the plant-like creatures of Tyria, but now having had the chance to dabble around Caledor Forest and Grove (their home city) I can’t help but think I’ll be rolling an Elementalist or Ranger as a Sylvari at the end of August. Make no mistake, the Sylvari are ArenaNet’s answer to the elven race in its fantasy setting. But as a player who’s long grown tired of the Legolas mystique nerd culture seems to be caught up in, I’m happy to report that these beings who are quite literally one with nature are gorgeous, haunting, and downright fun when you get down to brass tacks. “
  • Hunter’s Insight — New Additions to the Beta Weekend Event. “Arenanet just posted a blog on what will be new to players in the July 20th beta weekend. Some little things, some big, lots to think about. Skipping the obvious, starting up new asura and sylvari characters and visiting 3 new zones, the first thing that grabs my eye is that we’re finally getting to see some activities.”
  • Guild Wars 2 Live — July BWE3 Sweepstakes. “Watch GuildWars2Live.com‘s Twitch channel between July 20 and 22, for a chance to win one of 3 copies of Ghosts Of Ascalon. Each copy is valued at $8.99 USD. Streamers will be announcing sweepstake codes on their show, once every hour during the Beta Weekend Event, for registered users to enter on this page. Sweepstake codes do expire, so enter them immediately when they are announced. Each unique code you enter will increase your chances of winning a copy of the book! The winners will be announced on Monday July 23, 2012. Tune in at 11 AM EDT for the live drawing.”
  • Flame Throwing — Theorycrafting: Guild Wars Style. “I realize most people reading blogs about an MMO that hasn’t released already know about theorycrafting. However, I wanted to take some time to set up theorycrafting and its usefulness in Guild Wars 2, as numbers will be a large part of this blog post launch. So… theorycrafting. What is it? Is it one word or two? A hyphen? Some people love it and some people think games would be better off without it.”
  • Demajen — Repeatability in “The Secret World” and “Guild Wars 2″. “I’m going to start this post with a simple statement: “The Secret World” is the most addictive MMORPG I’ve played so far. I’ve played a lot of The Secret World. An unhealthy amount, in fact. Between a week of no work following the game’s Early Access launch, and a couple of days of illness last week, I’ve put over 100 hours into the game. This isn’t just be scrabbling to get my money’s worth from the box sale either. I only needed forty hours to make that worthwhile on my V4M scale. No, there’s something addictive about TSW’s gameplay, and it boils down to two things.”
  • Massively — Flameseeker Chronicles: The game at the end of Guild Wars 2. “Let’s hear it for information! Last week ArenaNet developers Eric Flannum and Colin Johanson streamed a “TAD talk” (that apparently stands for The ArenaNet Developers, but I prefer to think it’s something along the lines of Truthy And Designerrific or The Answer Dump) about endgame in Guild Wars 2. There was some pretty neat stuff.”
  • Guild Wars 2 Hub — Curses, Foiled Again! “For today’s walk down necromancer lane, we raise a mighty eyebrow at the Corruptions skill line. While this particular utility skill line has a lot of interesting potential for condition manipulation, it still seems to be missing some magical ingredients to make it truly work. The risk vs. reward ratio is also skewed a bit too far in favor of risk, but how could the playstyle it offers be made more rewarding?”
  • Killabyte Online — GW2 – Kill vs Capture : a look at SPvP strategy. “My experience over the previous two beta weekends with SPvP was rather interesting when it came to determining SPvP strategy. The most glaring obvious point was that it may be too soon for me to determine a specific strategy for SPvP. This is not to say that there aren’t more effective strategies and builds, but without a ranking system active its more difficult to be certain of how strategies and builds compare as we I would be only able to base it off my own experiences that may be affected by factors unknown to me such as being mismatched with players of greater or lesser skill, opponents hindered by lag etc.”
  • Guild Wars 2 Riches — Do your research during the beta. This also includes buying gems. “As we are here gearing up for the beta ArenaNet released a bit more information on what we can expect this weekend. The biggest thing they mentioned was actually old news for most people. It was announcing that we will be able to test out the Asura and Sylvari characters. If you are unfamiliar with these classes all you need to know is that the Asura have a character named Zojja and she is voiced by Felicia Day. If you don’t know who she is I can’t help you sorry.”
  • Reddit — A bit more confirmation that Polymock is indeed in. “Even though datamining has already confirmed Polymock would be in, it’s nice to get confirmation from an in-game source. For those who don’t know what Polymock is, it’s like Pokemon that will use your actual Minipets for battle. You’ll throw down these battle arenas (pokeballs) and fight it out. Now before anyone starts yelling that ANet stole this idea from Blizzard, do know that GW1 has had Polymock since 2007. It was actually Colin Johanson’s pet project for EOTN.”
  • Malefic Incantations — Quick BWE3 news and beta code giveaway! “Hey all–sorry that I’ve been quiet the last couple of weeks. I’ve been really busy, and I expect that this will continue to be the case. I know I won’t be able to play in the upcoming BWE (aside from a few minutes to play with the Asura and Sylvari character creators) and won’t be able to start regular updates again until August. However, since I have a free moment I thought I’d poke my head in and talk about the details of BWE3.”
  • Dragon Season — The Future of ArenaNet and Guild Wars 2. “Within the last year or so, you’ve probably noticed a few changes in several MMO’s. And like it or not, most of the changes were not good. While this article mainly focus’s on ArenaNet and Guild Wars 2, I’ll also try to discuss events and changes taken place in several MMO’s. Now as a fair warning: I have not played some of these MMO’s so if I manage to get something wrong, please inform me.”
  • GW2 Fans — Gem Store is Live – Prices, Details & Should You Sell Your Grandma. “Logging in with your GW2 account at the NCPPlatform-hosted Gemstore will allow you to plan your finances for the upcoming BWE#3 weekend and Guild Wars 2 Launch. As we previously informed, purchasing any gems with your account during the last Beta will have you receive the same number at Launch.”
  • Elemental Attunement — Top 10 Fire Skills. “Here comes the flames! I give you the top 10 fire skills for the elementalist!”
  • GW2 WvW — The Expectations Game. “I’m starting to get a little bit concerned about Guild Wars 2. I’ve played in the BWEs. It was awesome – the PvE, the PvP, the crafting, everything. I loved it. I’ve already marked the launch date on my calendar. I told the wife that I will be AFK from our family for a day or two. I can’t wait to play. And that, my friends, is what has me worried.”
  • GW2 Diaries. [Raphia: A brand-new Guild Wars 2 blog. Levan talks about his GW experiences here, here, and here.]
  • GWOnline.net — The Beginner’s Guide to World vs World Tactics #1. “To the new players, World vs World (WvW) can be daunting. It has that effect on me, but that’s usually when I’m solo defending a failing tower. I don’t want new players running around like chickens with their heads cut off. I have two reasons for this, 1 Unorganized players risk helping the enemy and I don’t want to lose 2 I want you to be able to kick ass and feel great doing it”
  • GWOnline.net — The Beginner’s Guide to World vs World Tactics #2. “Rush here with issue #2 of The Beginner’s Guide to World vs World Tactics! This part of the guide will focus on some of the intricate parts of World vs World (WvW). We will take a look at offensive siege weapons, and learn how to run a successful surgical strike!”
  • GW2 GM — Get Ready for Guild Lords, Sentries and Keg Brawls! “The final Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend Event is starting in just 3 days and ArenaNet has added some new content for the grand finale. Not only is this an exciting time for the community but everyone at the studio is filled with excitement as well. Guild Wars 2 launches in a matter of weeks, and with playable asura and sylvari characters and a lot of other cool content, this last Beta Weekend Event will be the biggest yet. Check out what all the hype is about.”
  • Guild Wars 2 Junkies — BWE3 Incoming: Character Wipes – What is your strategy? “With BWE3 coming this weekend, Arenanet will be wiping all characters and will also be adding both the Sylvari and Asura race. Since launch is only a month and a half away, what will you being doing this weekend? Will you be checking out the new races or will you be trying out multiple classes to figure out what you’ll be playing at launch?”
  • People’s Front — Ten top tips for leveling in Guild Wars 2. “A complaint I see fairly often about Guild Wars 2 is that it is too hard to level and you find yourself constantly under-leveled for any content unless you went to other starter areas, this was a dilemma I too faced in Beta weekend 1 as I was still stuck in my old MMO mindset. However in Beta weekend 2 I actually found myself over-leveled for quite a lot of content having not left the starter area or city. So I’m not telling you how you should play or anything, I just want to give a few tips for speedy leveling.”
  • Attached to Keyboard — Pick and Mix. “The most notable thing for me out of this wasn’t the double health bar for Necromancers, but that ArenaNet have hired an economist, John (Jon?) Smith, to look after what goes on in game and in the gem store. It’s a growing trend in gaming, and recently Valve hired an economist who is analysing the market in TF2 and looking at joining game economies together. It’s a reassuring trend for those of us who enjoy the trading thing, knowing that someone is looking out for inflation and either taking direct steps to combat it or working with developers to do so. And with the gem model ArenaNet have carved out for themselves (as demonstrated over at Distilled Willpower), I’m glad they’ve got someone trained in economics to look after it.”
  • GW2 WvW — Guild Wars 2 WvW and The Psychology of Losing. “Over the last few weeks, I’ve been having some disucssions with players on Twitter about WvW and ‘Losing.’ My understanding of how gamers react to situations of adversity comes from over a decade (yikes) of running organizations in MMORPGs and specifically mass PvP. More often than not, players will fold. Losing is contagious. It’s a disease that once root is taken, is very difficult to get rid of.”
  • TalkTyria.net — What’s in a Name? “For me, naming my characters can be one of the most tricky aspects of character creation. I know that I’ll be spending many, many hours with my characters in game, so I want them to have a unique name that I can be proud of. With the launch of Guild Wars 2 rapidly approaching, I’ve already started to plan out my characters, deciding which race, profession, and name each of them will have. Choosing races and professions is easy. Choosing names is tough. So, dear readers, what’s in a name?”
  • The Tyrian Order — TTO Interviews – MikeB. “This week we sat down with the legend, that is – MikeB. When Mike isn’t appearing on various shows on Gamebreaker.tv, he is taking snaps as a model photographer. We found out what he really thinks about Guild Wars 2 and what he expects of the game in the coming years.”
  • GW2 Fans — [Guide] Leveling in GW2 – In Depth Guide On How to Experience Things & Stuff. “The following Guide will once or twice advice you that it is ok to skip corners (or events) in your hurry to level up and if you follow it as if a Holy Commandment, it will break your immersion and cause you to miss out on a small portion of Tyria. It is not a commandment, however, and you are expected to be a fully self-reasoning being that can choose how to best enjoy the Game and pick only what best fits your playstyle. The Guide wishes you to make the informed decision by providing alternatives. Also, the guide does not seek to invite comments like “you suck, I don’t want to do that, I want to experience everything fully because this whole world is Art and you’re an oaf trying to run through the Museum”. The high-horse of your commendable Devotion is running in a completely different race, dear reader. The Guide supports you experiencing everything fully. The Guide itself plans to experience everything fully and you have its blessing in doing so.”
  • Flame Throwing — BWE3 Investigation. “The final Beta Event is coming and I have some questions about how things work. Some with the Engineer and some with the game in general. But we have a whole weekend to answer them so we need to get more! Here’s a public spreadsheet that you can add questions to. I’ll do my best to answer all of them in game this weekend.”
  • Divinity’s Reach — The Great Debate Over RNG. “For those of you who can’t keep up with a thousand acronyms, RNG stands for “Random Number Generator” and essentially applies to any move that does not have a definite outcome. A good example is any one of the elixir skills for an engineer or the steal mechanic for a thief. When you use either an elixir or steal, you basically have a chance for several outcomes. Essentially, you don’t know what will happen when you use the skill. So, now that you know what RNG is, what and why is there a debate?”
  • GW2 WvW — Guild Wars 2 Beta Builds and Theorycrafting. “In case you live under a rock, we get to play the asura and sylvari for the first time this beta! We’re also starting completely fresh this time. Everything except your contacts will have been erased. This means none of your previous characters will be there. Combined with the small number of servers, we’re essentially simulating launch day for them on Friday. The match-up algorithm for WvW has been expanded, so there should be better WvW going on over the weekend. But, most importantly for us SPvP folks: we get a new map. This one will be a throw-back to GvG maps from the original Guild Wars. From the mini-map we saw on Reddit a while back, it appears to be similar to the Warrior Isle map from GW if you ever did GvG in that game.”
  • Infamy Gaming — Ascalonian Press. [Raphia: A new GW2 fan publication. Note: requires Adobe Flash to display in your web browser.]
  • The Wild Boar Inn — My GW2 Home: Sanctum of Rall. “I’ve spoken on Twitter about how, on my return to Rift, I rejoined my old Rift guild, Gaiscioch. It’s been a blast being back with them, and even though they are a freakishly huge guild, they feel more like a “family” guild than many of the other smaller guilds I’ve been a part of. We’ve been running lowbie Instant Adventures for the lower-level folks, raid rifts and expert rifts and crafting rifts for the 50s, and they have a ton of dungeon and raid runs going on every night. It really and truly is an amazing group of people and a great guild to call home.”
  • Dragon Season — 24 hours in Tyria. “The word “end” always causes negative and intense emotions to us humans. The moment we relate it however with the “beginning” of the next phase, these emotions are reversed instantly! So I let my sorrow about the end of the BWEs fly away with them (it is highly unlikely that I will participate in the last BWE, in 20/7, as the knowledge that my visit in Tyria will once again come with an expiration date is killing me…) and so I too bid this game’s life cycle goodbye with a small travelogue: 24 hours (game-time) in Tyria, out of the sum of all three BWEs I took part in.”
  • Guild Wars 2 Hub — For the Love of the (end) Game. “Thanks to a recent twitch appearance by two of my favorite ArenaNet developers, the end game (or in some people’s opinion lack of end game) of Guild Wars 2 has been put on the forefront of many people’s mind. In an effort not to be just one more voice of the many listing all the fun things the game does offer to level capped players, and more importantly not belabor the points everyone’s made about gear and progression, I want to come at the question of “what’s at the end” a different way.”
  • Guild Wars 2 Hub — 5 Things To Do During Beta Weekend 3. “With less than 24 hours remaining to go before the final Guild Wars 2 Beta weekend begins, I’ve put together a list of five things I’d recommend all players to undertake at least once before the servers close. There really is so much to see and do in Guild Wars 2 that a weekend alone just isn’t enough. Even so, I feel that the five below activities really will demonstrate a great deal of what the game has to offer. If you do know friends who are playing for the first time this weekend, I’m not sure there would be a better induction.”
  • Massively — Amazon offers Guild Wars 2 with $5 Amazon games credit. “Amazon has been reaching its fingers into a bunch of MMO pots lately. First there was that one time when a bunch of games including RIFT and TERA were put on mad sale, then there were the chronoscrolls and olive masks for TERA, and now it’s Guild Wars 2‘s turn.”
  • Hunter’s Insight — Server Side Economics. “Arenanet put up the list of servers for this weekends beta yesterday and it was actually kind of surprising. The first beta weekend event had 24 servers each for North America and Europe. That doubled for the second beta weekend at 48 each, on account of the massive lag during the first BWE. This weekend we’ll have 18 for North America, and 24 for Europe. Less overall servers.”
  • Tales from Tyria — Gems in BWE3? No thanks! “I guess the point of this is for the game devs to test the gem system before launch, and to give us players the chance to ‘buy and try’ a variety of items that we may or may not want to buy once the game launches. Personally, I’m gonna wait. I don’t think I will be spending much real money on the game anyway. I like free stuff and GW2 is set up so that Gem Store items are cosmetic only. You can’t be better at the game using cash, just prettier. “
  • Killabyte Online — GW2 BWE Journal #19 – Taking it easy. “My plans for how I spend this final BWE as well as content from the blog in the following month and the future have changed quite drastically over the last week or so.”
  • GWOnline.net — FANtastic Friday – SageLikeOne Interview. “For this weeks FANtastic Friday we have the very special guest SageLikeOne on for an interview about himself and his youtube channel”

Videos and podcasts

Fanfic

  • Chronicles of Tyria — Chapter 2: Flight. “Consciousness flooded back to me like a breaking tidal wave. I jumped awake, my head knocking against a twisted root. I grit my teeth in pain, as my vision swum. I saw Ralith’s blurry form, peering at me. When my eyes finally focused on him, he breathed a sigh of relief. I tried to speak, but it felt like I had swallowed a desert. Ralith passed me a wooden cup full of clear sloshing liquid, and I guzzled it hungrily.”
  • Chronicles of Tyria — Chapter 3: Fight. “Arrows whirled past my ears, as I flung myself into the lush jungle brush, a cacophony of noise following me. I darted through the trees, easily blending into the green foliage. I quickly lost sight of them. I could hear the Nightmare Court horde splintered as they began their hunt for me.”
  • Chronicles of Tyria — Chapter 5: Part 1 On the Road to Ascalon. “‘She’s not breathing!’ ‘What happened?!’ I am breathing! The air is moving through my lungs! The muffled voices around me had started to panic. The cool air of the Shiverpeaks had returned to my hands and face, sending chills up my spine. How could they not tell I was breathing?”
  • Guild Wars 2 Hub — Diary Of – Entry 12: The Finish Line. “Making my way towards the stairs, I press against the wall on my right hand side and climb upwards to the platform overhead. My friend has finally managed to catch up and is only a few steps behind me. Straight ahead is what appears to be a broken globe of collapsed stone and plinths. Working our way to it, we jump onto the first clear path across the ruined object, mindful of our step for fear of falling down to our deaths.”

Community Events

No community events submitted this week (not that this should be a big surprise with BWE3 looming in the immediate future).

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).

  • BurstZX

    Someones gotta have a beta key. :(