We’re coming up on the two-week mark since Guild Wars 2 was released, and many folks are writing about the contrasts between their expectations and their actual experiences in game (only a few feel the game has fallen short of their expectations, and some of those are due to bugs that ArenaNet is addressing). After I finished writing my series of daily journals (full list of entries at the bottom of the final post), I carried on in-game pretty much the same way I’d been doing during the headstart. I’m still utterly delighted to log in to Guild Wars 2 every evening and I don’t expect that feeling to be going away soon.

I’m playing the game in the evening and on weekends (real life does get in the way of non-stop gaming), so I’m only at level 40 on my main character, but a few of my alts are in the mid-teens. I still haven’t gone into sPvP or WvW, but the queues should be getting down to a more reasonable size soon; that might be something I’ll try in the next week or so. I do need to get back to my personal story: during the beta weekends, I had a tendency to try doing the personal story too soon, which got very frustrating very quickly. Now, I guess I’m over-compensating and doing the personal story much slower than ArenaNet intended. I’m sure I’ll find a balance point eventually.

My guild, the Royal Tyrian Highlanders (RTH) is almost exactly the size I expected it to be at this point (30 active members), and we had our first bit of guild drama pretty much on schedule earlier this week (a member who got out-of-hand in guild chat repeatedly and couldn’t seem to stop). Not the first person to leave the guild, but the first person to leave involuntarily…

• 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 wiki — Game status updates. “This is the current status of the most important issues we’re tracking with Guild Wars 2 live service. (This page is updated by ArenaNet staff and protected against non-admin editing.)” [Raphia: This page on the wiki is being updated regularly with the things ArenaNet has been working on or will be addressing. Probably a good thing to bookmark.]
• Massively — ArenaNet’s Regina Buenaobra on Guild Wars 2, Reddit, and community. “If you’re someone who has been wondering exactly why ArenaNet focuses so much effort on Reddit and social media, then we’re here to shed some light on the issue. We reached out to Guild Wars 2‘s North American Community Team Lead, Regina Buenaobra, to get the official point-of-view. If you’d like to know about ArenaNet’s community and customer support teams (and the differences between the two), click on past the cut for the Q&A.”
• From the daily status updates on the official wiki: “The official support forums are now online, and we have a new forum for players helping other players.”

Recent GuildMag posts

• Saying goodbye to an old friend. “The end of Guild Wars as we know it is upon us. On launch day and the weekend before, many of us left our beloved game behind and started a brand new journey. But for one last day, the Gaming World Entertainment Network brought us all together to laugh, dance in our underwear, and think back on the past seven years spent with this game.”

Fan articles and blog posts

• Rock, Paper, Shotgun — Wot I Think: Guild Wars 2. “You’ve probably never heard of Guild Wars 2 – a plucky little MMO that’s so far failed to draw much attention around the net. You might want to give it a look though. Maybe. They say it does a couple of moderately cool things. And it looks quite nice, if you’re into that. Ahem. How do I even start summing up a game this big, this complex, and with so much on offer? There’s little point simply running through a shopping list of features – events, dungeons, PvP and so on – so let’s kick off not with what Guild Wars 2 offers, but what it is.” [Raphia: Includes a cameo appearance by "Celebrity Guest Reviewer Meg Ryan."]
• Guild Wars 2 Riches — Five reasons why gems will always sell well.. “Even now there’s a lot of speculation about people being able to sell gems in Guild Wars 2. I’ve been one of the people since the beginning that said it’s going to be possible. Not only is it be possible it’s going to be quite easy as well. There are a number of things in the game that people need which are only able to be purchased using gems.”
• Massively — Some Assembly Required: Guild Wars 2 goes back to the future. “Like a lot of you, I’ve been goofing around in Guild Wars 2 this past week. What does that have to do with Massively‘s sandbox column? Not much other than that I feel like ArenaNet’s game has arrived at an interesting crossroads in the history of MMO development.”
• Guild Wars 2 Junkies — Guide: Fast Leveling in Kessex Hills. “There are a lot of places in the game where you can follow an event train from beginning to end for multiple rewards and it then cycles back to the beginning. The biggest one we’ve found is in Kessex Hills on the western side of the map. This is an efficient way to level (if efficient leveling is your goal) up through the 40s.”
• Kill Ten Rats — Crowd Control. “You are the crowd in this context, and Guild Wars 2 uses events to collect groups of players and channel them between theme park rides. In the early days, when everyone is the same level, this creates massive zergs that are fun although not necessarily optimal. This will really pay off in the coming years as a solution to the common problem of finding groups after the population center is at the level cap.”
• Hunter’s Insight — Where To Find Jumping Puzzles. “I really like jumping puzzles but one thing that sometimes bugs me (and sometimes I find pretty fun) is finding them. There is a time for exploration and then there is a time for just doing the puzzle, so I thought people might like a hand in being pointed in the right direction.” [Raphia: Hunter has been updating these puzzle entries regularly.]
• Guild Wars 2 Hub — Dungeon Survival Guide. “Dungeons represent some of the most challenging content available in Guild Wars 2. And while story mode tends to be much easier than the various explorable modes, you still won’t want to enter the dungeons unprepared. To help make your first runs go smoothly, we’ve compiled a collection of tips and important things to be aware of.”
• GW2Fans — AC Twins “Ez Mode” Guide. “Not sure if anyone’s posted this before but I’m just going to post a short guide on how to kill these guys with ease. Just did it with a PUG group so it’s definitely possible and cuts out any frustration in 3 easy steps.”
• GW2Guru — PvMesmer: The mesmer soul. “Welcome to PvMesmer, a new column focusing on the mesmer profession with an eye towards PvP. This first edition will cover the history of mesmers, their evolution from Guild Wars 1 to Guild Wars 2 and the role they play in PvP.”
• Guild Wars 2 Riches — Guild Wars 2 trading post is down, but here are 5 ways you can still make gold. “We are coming up on a week now since Guild Wars 2 has launched and we’re still without a trading post. (At least at the time I am writing this we are.) Without a trading post the economy of the game has been pretty stale in comparison to what it could be. When you really look at it the trading post is essentially the heartbeat of the games entire economy.”
• GW2Guru — Neato’s Tips & Tricks Part 2. “I have another set of tips & tricks for you guys, based on the popularity of my first round of tips & tricks – be sure to check that out if you haven’t read it yet!” [Raphia: My thanks to Neato for the clue about bank storage panes: I was in desperate straits with all my crafting output and "cool stuff I'll need later" overflowing my storage.]
• Guild Wars 2 Hub — Caledon Forest Skill Challenge Guide. “Skill points in Guild Wars 2​ are valuable and the rewards from completing skill challenges add up tremendously. That’s why we’ve traveled to Caledon Forest, the sylvari starting zone, to map out all seven skill challenges. Our skill challenge guide gives you the location of each challenge and tips on tackling it. We even have a full map of the zone, pinpointing all seven for those explorers out there who’d like to discover them themselves.”
• The Guild Wars Gazette — Talking Tyria: No more Guild Wars 2 Digital Sales (for now). “Arena Net has recently released a statement via their Facebook page, as well as other social channels, that it is discontinuing digital sales until further notice. Check out the original quote as well as our editorial after the break.”
• GW2 WvW — A sPvP FAQ for Newbies. “Another week has gone by, and what a week! We launched EARLY, without the servers ever crashing. Sure, there are some issues here and there, but what MMORPG has ever had a launch this smooth? I’ll tell you: none. ANet has successfully pulled off the smoothest launch of any MMORPG in the history of MMORPGs. Things are getting into full swing, and a lot of people are coming in that didn’t play in the beta tests. There are a lot of people that were in the beta tests but simply didn’t do SPvP. These people have a lot of questions, so I’ve compiled a short list of ten frequently asked questions to help everyone out!”
• GW2Guru — Crafting Boxes and Satchels of Armor & Trays and Feasts. “Jerich has figured out how to create the bulk recipes such as boxes and satchels of armor, trays and feasts of food and has shared it with the crafting community. [...] It’s fair to say that higher crafting skill items will cost a lot more than lower skill ones as witnessed above so make sure that you’re saving up your Mystic Coins for the recipes that you want first and foremost.”
• Guild Wars 2 Hub — The GW2 Effect at PAX Prime 2012. “Sometimes a game doesn’t even have to be in the expo hall to have just as big of an impact at industry events. That was absolutely the case with Guild Wars 2 this weekend during PAX Prime; a game that wasn’t even on display but had everyone talking regardless.”
• GWOnline.net — BOOM! (or How I Came to Love the Engineer). “It’s been over a week since the head start and I can safely say that my favourite profession, thus far, is the Engineer. The liberal use of high explosives this profession has aside, the main reason I’ve been enjoying the Engineer is the sheer amount of versatility that it has at its disposal.”
• Guild Wars 2 Riches — You may not want to use exploits if you find them. “Since Guild Wars 2 is a brand-new MMO which is just released there are bound to be numerous bugs in the game. It’s not like this game is unique to having glitches either. It happens in literally every single game that is released now days. When people find bugs they often times like to utilize them for their gain. There may be a certain NPC that’ll give you much more copper for a vendor item or maybe a materials node that is infinite or something to that extent. While it is tempting to want to use those I would be incredibly cautious to abuse them too much.”
• GWOnline.net — Guild Ranks – What a concept! “While I am still under-impressed with the lack of alliances in Guild Wars 2, I am thrilled with all the new bells and whistles that have been given to the guilds. First and foremost is the ability to have more than one guild leader. Let’s face it, life has a way of biting us in the derriere and having more than one person at the helm is a big plus in my book.”
• G4TV — Guild Wars 2 Elementalist Profession Guide — Tyria’s Splendid Spellcasters. “We’ve put together this Guild Wars 2 Elementalist guide to get you up to speed on the most magical Profession in ArenaNet’s massively multiplayer role playing game. This handy guide gives you all the most important info about the Elementalist from Guild Wars 2 at a glance.”
• Slippy Dogs — Level 40 Update – Leveling Progress. “It’s Monday, and according to my /age from last night, my Thief is now 10 days old. I’ve squeezed 45 hours of gameplay in, which is pretty significant, considering I’m on my first character, only halfway to max level, less than 30% of the map completed… you get the idea. I have no reason to believe that Guild Wars 2 won’t provide hundreds — even thousands — of hours of quality gameplay.”
• Divinity’s Reach — Guild Wars 2 Overload. “So what have I been up to? Saving Lion’s Arch in my personal story, getting to level 60 and finally accessing tier 3 traits, completing Ascalonian Catacombs, Caudecus Manor, and Twilight Arbor on story mode, switching servers, jumping into structured PvP, and playing with friends.”
• Guild Wars Insider — Death Becomes You: Leveling a Necromancer from 1 to 40. “With this 1-40 leveling guide, I’ll point out some tips and checkpoints that you might have missed along the way, while you’re having a blast exploring the wonderfully detailed world of Tyria (aren’t you?). What I’m not going to do is to tell you to “do this quest” or “repeat this x times” because this is not a power-leveling guide.”
• Guild Wars 2 Hub — Five Tips for Quick and Efficient Leveling in GW2. “Leveling is truly a revolutionary experience in Guild Wars 2​. Power leveling isn’t exactly the same as it is in other games, thanks to the way experience is rewarded. We’ve put together five awesome tips to help players acclimate to the new way of leveling. We also take a long look at event looping and how it may not be the quickest and easiest way to level.”
• Guild Wars Insider — Big Swords & Butterflies: Levels 1 to 40. “Welcome to our first post-launch edition of Big Swords and Butterflies! It’s okay, take a moment and let that sink in. Back? Excellent! Now that we are able to login and play to our hearts content you might be considering creating a Mesmer. After all the class has a lot of depth and is a blast to play, but what do you do while leveling?”
• Tom’s Hardware — Guild Wars 2: Your Graphics Card And CPU Performance Guide. “The anticipated sequel to Guild Wars is here, and we’re putting this MMO through its paces to let you know what hardware you’ll need in order to play it at its highest details. We also explore which processor architectures work best with Guild Wars 2.”
• MMOQuests.com — It’s a WvWvW Sort of Life (Or Not). “I’ve spent a fair amount of time participating in World vs. World vs. World since Guild Wars 2 released, and while I’ve had a LOT of fun in it, and it’s incredibly intense, there are also a few factors that bug me.”
• gamrReview — Guild Wars 2 – Review. “Guild Wars 2 is the much anticipated sequel to the games that made up the original Guild Wars experience, taking place in Tyria, the same continent we visited in the Guild Wars Prophecies campaign. The first Guild Wars game made a name for itself by not having monthly fees, and focusing on player skill, rather than time spent leveling and collecting loot, but it wasn’t without shortcomings. For example, you could only meet other players in the various cities and outposts, and most notoriously, you couldn’t jump!”
• GWOnline.net — Combat Training 101. “Welcome to Combat Training 101. My name is Zervish Alaris. I am a Guardian. I will be drawing specific examples from my own experience, however, I mean for this class to be useful to most professions.”
• Guild Wars 2 Riches — Guild Wars 2 bulk items which can be purchased using Karma. “If you were to go back and read all the posts which I put on the site I would bet there are almost a dozen times where I stressed the importance of buying in bulk.”
• Guild Wars Insider — The Vanguard: Guardian Leveling 1-40. “Welcome once again, my shield brothers and sisters! This week I’m going to provide you with some advice on leveling your Guardian from level 1 to level 40.”
• Innate Wanderings — Guild Wars 2: So far. “Well, it’s been over a week since those who pre-purchased the game have been able to log on and play properly. While the Beta Weekend Events and Stress Tests have been enjoyable and enlightening, they are nothing compared to the launch of the game. Knowing that your characters and progress will not be erased after a few hours or days is a much better feeling, no matter how early you got to play. So I decided to go through some aspects of the game.”
• Kill Ten Rats — Questless Side-Effects. “Going through the PvE zones at a calmer, realer pace is an eye opener compared to the brief periods of play I had before launch. The questless design is simply a different animal than a quest-based MMO. I wouldn’t say that one has victory of the other, but I do know that I am having more fun in Guild Wars 2 than I’ve had knocking out all the quests in a hub and then moving on.”
• The Guild Wars Gazette — The Guild Wars 2 Review: Putting It All Together. “I have been following the development of Guild Wars 2 since the time it was first announced. And ever since then, I kept scavenging for every little piece of information I can get my hands on. I have found that every time I learn something new or if a new preview is up, I always say to myself (and to others of course), if the team can pull off what they say, this will be a really great game. Five years later, the game has finally launched and it is now time to see if the dev team did indeed deliver.”
• Guild Wars 2 Hub — Ascalonian Catacombs Story Mode Guide. “Ascalonian Catacombs is the first dungeon young explorers come across in ​Guild Wars 2​. Story mode becomes available at level 30 which is the easier, more relaxed version of the dungeon. Our dungeon guide contains a step by step walkthrough, from start to finish, on how to complete the dungeon’s puzzles along with its bosses, and tons of information on how the dungeon system works as well.”
• Mistress of Illusions — One Full Week into Guild Wars 2. “I’ve managed to pull myself away from the game long enough to blog about it again. I’m torn between my desire to share screen shots and stories of all the cool things I’ve seen and done, and to let you discover those cool things yourselves.”
• The Guild Wars Gazette — So you want to look pretty: A Transmutation Guide. “The Guild Wars franchise always had placed an importance in aesthetics. In normal words, the game gives importance to looking good, cool or even rad (a term from a different era, I’m not old don’t judge me). The sequel is no exception and the game has integrated a system that further expands the player choice in terms of customizing how they look. This is called the transmutation system. I have recently tried this system and I’m putting up this small guide/journal of my experience with it.”
• Looking For Games — Guild Wars 2 PvE. “It seemed fitting to review my headstart access experience. As a poor college student, I will not always have the recently launched to check out so some of them may be old. How old the games are depends on what I feel like blogging about. I will only be reviewing the player versus environment aspect of this game for now as I’ve been having too much fun doing this to delve into player versus player aspects. I will preface this with some of my bias. I loved the first Guild Wars and lost many years of my life to it. I also met many people I still consider friends through that game, including my guild-leader turned boyfriend and now fiancee.”
• GW2 Cartographers “BETA TESTING: The map edition tool is working. Every data is saved locally to your browser. When you’re ready, simply click the «send for approval» button (top right of your browser), we will then decide what to put online.” [Raphia: I've already found this site quite useful, as I was hung up on a "missing" renown heart in the Plains of Ashford. A quick view of the map and I found it in a corner of the map I'd somehow missed.]
• Massively — Flameseeker Chronicles: Guild Wars 2‘s launch week in review. “It’s been quite the week in the world of Guild Wars 2. Launch, issues, near-daily server updates, fixes, and launch parties have likely kept the entire team high on adrenaline and low on sleep. If you’re one of the folks in attendance at one of ArenaNet’s launch parties, you likely saw a lot of very tired but very happy people. If you’re not hounding the Guild Wars 2 Twitter account or subreddit, it’s easy to miss a lot of communication, and even if you do, it’s a lot to sort through. So what’s been going on? A great deal.”
• Top Tier Tactics — Good riddance: An open letter to ArenaNet regarding my Guild Wars 2 ban. “Background information: On Thursday, August 30th, I received notification from the Guild Wars 2 client that my account was temporarily banned for a period of 72 hours. At no point before this ban was I given any warning by ArenaNet, Valve, or anyone else regarding the reasoning behind this ban, nor was I given recourse to dispute it. My only option was to rename my character and wait out the ban sentence. This is my formal response.” [Raphia: Just to avoid too much angst...it's a satire. Stay calm.]
• MMOQuests.com — A Problem With Armour. “The topic of armour (graphics) in any given MMO, especially armour for females, is a long and hard argument that comes up every few months. How on earth do women fight in that, look at how much skin is showing, etc. For the most part I’ve ignored both sides of the arguments because it’s a matter of personal taste and it’s so subjective that you’re never going to be able to ‘win’.”
• Guild Wars 2 Riches — Decent Weak Blood Vial and Tiny Venom Sac farming spot. “We’ve only been playing for a few weeks now and already there are a number of spots that are proving valuable for farming certain items in the game. The one I am going to show you today is right in the humans starting zone just to the south-west of the Western Divinity Dam. Getting the blood vials and venom sacks from this area are actually part of an event so you can’t just go there and repeat the quest over and over again.”
• Mile High Hockey — Guild Wars 2: The Game Gamers Have Been Waiting For. “The release of Guild Wars 2 should forever change how MMOs are made. Because I doubt more than 15 people are still reading this far, I’ll just skip into telling you the big reasons why the game has rocketed up my list of favorite games.”
• GW2Guru — Call of the Wild – An Introduction to Rangers. “As one of the most beloved professions in Guild Wars history, the Ranger stands out in many regards, mostly for its versatility and adaptability. Never seen without and animal companion, most Rangers can be found stalking the wilds, looking for their next quarry and ever on the move. If you’re like me, you picked the Ranger because of their ability to deal considerable damage both at range and in melee, and you stayed because of your stalwart animal companion.”
• Time — The 11 Things I Like Least About Guild Wars 2. “Guild Wars 2 forces you to hunt for bad things to say about it. I mean it — you really have to try. And since I’d rather work a little than glide down another compliment slide, it’s probably time for a gripe post. They’re minor gripes, and probably a few you’d even characterize as unfair, but games as fine as Guild Wars 2 invite niggling criticism, if only because they remind us how much we’ve outgrown conventional MMOs.” [Raphia: I thought this comment was quite fair: "In Guild Wars 2, you’re essentially a vagrant, dropping by farms to shovel up weeds, drop grub repellant on goo-spitting bugs, set traps, remove traps, smash supplies, herd cattle, haul kegs and so forth. You’re also dependably ineffective, momentarily rectifying a problem, only for it to reappear, moments if not seconds later."]
• Flame Throwing — First Week Builds. “I’m pretty busy being an Asuran Engineer right now, but I thought I’d share a few builds I’ve been running these first nine days of Guild Wars 2.”
• Kill Ten Rats — Look Behind You. “Pro-tip to people at events: while you are fighting the boss, normal enemies continue to spawn, and sometimes the event even spawns more. You should kill those, too.”
• Elemental Attunement — Vista Album – Part 1. “So I’ve started getting into the habit of screenshoting Vistas on all my characters. The results are some very nice pictures of the glorious Tyrian landscapes. These are all in 1920×1080 and using High settings; making them perfect wallpaper material! So enjoy 33 Vistas of Guild Wars 2“
• Divinity’s Reach — Personal Story Woes. “As I was progressing through my personal story around level 70, something terribly frustrating occurred.”
• Mistress of Illusions — Creature Aggro in Guild Wars 2. “Just a quickie post to share a fun little anecdote.”
• Guild Wars 2 Hub — Dungeon Defending. “I’ve read of two common criticisms levelled at Guild Wars 2’s dungeons. The first: It’s too difficult. The second: It’s too unstructured. Both of these criticisms I couldn’t find further from the truth after completing Ascalon Catacombs (Explorable) on my first try.”
• Kill Ten Rats — In the Long Run. “The game’s problems will shift over the next few months. Some things will be fixed with further development, like the trading post. The grouping issues that so annoyed me seem better, at least as I type this. What more interests me are the problems caused simply by the size of the Day One population lump: some will go away and some will transition into related endgame problems.”
• The Guild Wars Gazette — Farmer’s Handbook: Queensdale – Basic Crafting Materials. “Welcome to the first post of the Farmer’s Handbook. As mentioned in the introduction post, we’ll be splitting the guide into two main sections for each map. This section will be covering the basic crafting materials namely ores, wood, cloth, leather and crops.”
• GWOnline.net — PvE levels 1-50, what changes? “I have often played games, only to find out that the more I played it, the more things changed. In MMORPGs, I find that generally, as you level up, you start having to manage your energy more and more, and you are also pushed into specializing into a role. I also find that leveling slows to a crawl. Meanwhile, I find that the increase in power due to experience and gear is mostly negated by increased monster level, thus making the whole leveling experience moot.”
• Guild Wars Insider — Ready To Use Builds. “This week I chose to give you four ready-to-use, viable builds: three of them are best suited for Structured PvP, while the last one is ideal for PvE.”
• Game Informer — Guild Wars 2 Dungeon Tips. “ArenaNet’s brand-new MMO sends the traditional tank/heal/damage MMORPG trinity packing in favor of a positioning-based system that puts each player in charge of their own health. Here are a few pointers to help you get through Guild Wars 2’s five-person dungeons without the comfort of a familiar role to play.”
• Hunter’s Insight — Why Guesting is Important. “I was pretty disappointed that guesting wasn’t going to be in at launch. It’s a big feature to me, but having free transfers has certainly been an acceptable compromise. Also I’ve actually managed to play with others on overflow servers and do a dungeon run with people on other servers since it doesn’t seem to matter what server you’re on in a dungeon.”
• MMOQuests.com — Ding 80, and 400 in Cooking / Jeweler. “The road to 80 really is just the beginning of GW2, just like it is in GW1 (except their road is a lot shorter, it’s level 20). People can talk about how there’s no “end game” content all they want, but the whole game is end game content, especially since you level down to the appropriate level for all of it. I’m glad that I’m 80 now, and I’ve never been one to complain about lack of things to do. In fact now that I’m 80 the list of things I want to do has grown significantly. People who are used to the ‘push forward and gain levels’ mentality may not be keen on this aspect of GW2, but I’m going to enjoy it.”
• Guild Wars 2 Trading Post — Make Gold Selling Weapons in Guild Wars 2. “Selling weapons in Guild Wars 2 is a little more complicated than the commodity side of things. You can view comparable items and base your price on those as well as the identical weapons to what you want to sell. There’s also item quality to consider, something which cloth, ore, and leather doesn’t need to be factored in when you’re selling them. The following 8 step guide is based on what I was able to deduct from the limited amount of time we’ve had in game.”
• Killabytes Online — Harathi Hinterlands. “I’m not too clued up on the lore behind this area I was in a few days ago but I understand this to be the Centaur Stronghold and not one settled by an of the five races.”
• Greibach’s Normal Form — Two Weeks in Tyria. “Wow. It’s been almost two whole weeks since the pre-release of Guild Wars 2, and so much has happened. Any of you who normally see me around have possibly noticed almost a complete absence over the past two weeks, and I think we all know the reason. It seems an appropriate amount of time to wait before giving my thoughts on everything that has happened. It’s been a pretty amazing ride so far, with a few ups and downs, and it amazes me still how much there is to this game.”
• Guild Wars 2 Hub — Mobility Tips for Necromancers. “While the necromancer profession may be masters of condition manipulation and survivability, an often overlooked aspect of the necro is its massive potential for retaining high mobility. There are a lot of reasons why you might want to consider building for mobility vs. raw DPS or even putting too much emphasis on using Death Shroud like a killer Energizer bunny.”
• Kill Ten Rats — Over-compensation. “In The Essential 55, Ron Clark says to err on the side of over-celebration. Cheering something only marginally worthy is less bad than not cheering something that deserves it. Guild Wars 2 rewards everything and goes on to reward everyone for everything. Guild Wars 2 does not care if you level too quickly. It believes that it is better to reward your minimal participation. Arriving at the tail end of an event? Pitch in anyway, get some karma. You contribute one attack to someone’s fight? Full rewards!”
• Guild Wars 2 Riches — Highest buyer or lowest seller? Which sales option should you use? “Now that the trading post is live and working as intended I have begun selling quite a bit of stuff on it. Since it has been up for me I have made, on average, about 1g/day. It could be more, but I have been quite busy with real life as well. (Working, wedding planning, vacations — the usual summer stuff.) I have mainly been selling gear which I’ve acquired through just playing the game, but there are a few others which have sold quite well for me.”
• Guild Wars 2 Trading Post — Economy Report September 6th 2012. “I’ve been showcasing Guild Wars 2 Farming Spots for a week now, and I think it’s time to reveal why to you in the form of an Economy Report!”
• Massively — Guild Wars 2 dominates European sales. “NCsoft reports that Guild Wars 2 is at the number one sales spot for UK, Germany, France, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Netherlands, and Belgium. And as the saying goes, when you win over Finland, you’ve won over the world.”
• PC Gamer — Guild Wars 2 review. “Guild Wars 2 is not a revolution, but it is a call to arms. Tomorrow’s MMORPGs will be held to account against its standards: generosity, variety, and respect for the player’s ability and time. Of course, by that point, it won’t be Guild Wars 2 waving the banner. It’s not a revolution. It just quietly suggests that we start one. 94/100″
• Gaming Couples — Guild Wars 2: Biggest Disappointment of the Year? “Guild Wars 2 is the most hyped game release of 2012 and rivals, if not surpasses, the hype over the release of Star Wars: The Old Republic last year at Christmas. There is a huge difference though, the fan base for Guild Wars 2 is far, far more forgiving of ArenaNet than players and non-players were (and are) to Bioware. Is that justified? In my opinion, it is not and for two very simple, basic reasons: the auction house system and game forums.”
• Digital Spy — ‘Guild Wars 2‘ review (PC): The World of Warcraft killer? “The original Guild Wars was a breath of fresh air when it went live in 2005. The levelling up grind and costly subscription fees of a traditional massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) were absent, paving the way for grand-scale team battles backed by jaw-dropping visuals. Despite the high production values and dedicated following it amassed, the ArenaNet title posed little threat to market leader World of Warcraft, but the launch of its sequel could change that.”
• The Gaming Monkey — Banana/Split: Guild Wars 2. “Hey readers! Guild Wars 2 (GW2) is out and gracing PCs across the world. I am more than thrilled to finally play it. What’s more exciting is that, though I’ve had a limited time playing it, Guild Wars 2 lives up to most of the expectations I had for it. If you own a PC, you should buy Guild Wars 2.”
• Kill Ten Rats — Black Lion Boiler Room. “The Guild Wars 2 Black Lion Trading Company is an amazing feat in MMOs. Every time I play I am amazed at how intuitive and powerful it is. There is room for improvement for sure, with the biggest improvement simply being the ability not to get crushed by hundreds of thousands of players. Yet, this is possibly my favorite trading place in an MMO yet.”
• In An Age — Systemic Concerns About the GW2 Economy. “It may seem a bit premature to wonder about the Guild Wars 2 economy, considering the game has only be out for a week or so. But a comment by Chris K over on Syncaine’s GW2 Review post got me thinking about whether the game’s structure makes the economy unlikely to ever “recover” from its current bizzaro state”
• Hunter’s Insight — Crafting Junk. “I’ve been noticing something about crafted goods in Guild Wars 2. They’re worthless to other people. They don’t sell on the auction house, there is a big supply/low demand, you can play and do well with gear well below your level and people level past items really quickly. There is no profit to be made.”

Videos and podcasts

• YouTube — WoodenPotatoes: Guild Wars 2 Daily – 3/9/12.
• YouTube — HappyJacksChannel: Caudecus’s Manor Dungeon Run Guild Wars 2. “Caudecus’s Manor is a level 40 dungeon, and if this is an indication of things to come then PvE content will be extremely exciting and challenging in Guild Wars 2. The rewards are amazing too, great loot and 20k xp for completion!”
• YouTube — SageLikeOne: GW2 - Community Interactions – ep 2 – Arenanet Reddit August 31st. “The state of the game now a week after launch. To quote Jeff Grubb ‘All heck break loose tomorrow’.”
• GW2Tube — Frostgorge Sound – Kodan City.
• YouTube — Mountainous Molehills – Enigmius Talks Guild Wars 2. “When good games attack! Warning: It is strongly recommended that you refrain from commenting on the content of this video until you’ve watched the whole thing.” [Raphia: Enigmius fires up the crank-o-meter for a bit. I gave myself a neck ache from nodding too much during parts of this video.]
• YouTube — HappyJacksChannel: Organized WvW on an Elementalist in Guild Wars 2. “The Alchemists (Healthy gamer guild) and Visual Gamers got together to do some organized WvW on Borlis Pass. I’ve never had so much fun in a game, Guild Wars 2 certainly is everything it’s been hyped up to be, and more :)”
• Taugrim’s MMO Blog — Guild Wars 2 PVP Video: “Captain Hammer” Warrior [Tournament Ep. 3]. “Here’s my 1st post-launch tournament PVP video, featuring my ‘Captain Hammer’ Warrior build. The competing teams are Maven and Pure Glory.”
• YouTube — SketchyTas: Guild Wars 2 – My characters – Human thief. “I do a bit of GW2 rambling and introduce you to my characters. =)”
• YouTube — SketchyTas: Guild Wars 2 – My characters – Asura elementalist. “I do a bit of GW2 rambling and introduce you to my characters. =)”
• MSNBC.com — ‘Guild Wars 2‘ is organically awesome. “Guild Wars 2 manage to shed the unwanted mechanics of many massively multiplayer online games and shines because of it. NBCNews.com Todd Kenreck gives his impressions of the game.”
• YouTube — SageLikeOne: GW2 - SPOILER ALERT – ep 2 – Into the trollcave. “Now that we are here – where do we go? Well, we follow the stench of trolls of course, to find some salve.”
• YouTube — HappyJacksChannel: Guild Wars 2 Cooking Guide 1-400 | POWERLEVEL your character | Extremely fast leveling Guide! “This Guild Wars 2 cooking guide shows you how to powerlevel your cooking from 1-400 in no time at all using ingredients purchased from vendors. This is hands down the fastest and easiest guide to help your character level up. Full writeup: http://www.thehealthygamer.com/2012/09/02/guild-wars-2-cooking-guide-1-400/” [Raphia: The video and the supporting web page will help you figure out cooking, especially if you don't know anything about cooking in real life. I used the first few steps to boost one of my alts from level 20 to level 240 in almost no time.]
• YouTube — theGijesus: Current State Of SPVP In Guild Wars 2. “I enjoy discussion, MAKE IT HAPPEN.”
• Chronicles of Tyria — CotPodcast #16 – Guild Wars 2 Headstart and Launch recap. “On this episode of CoTPodcast, your hosts Lagwyn, Diint and Naveen talk about Guild Wars 2 headstart and recap.”
• Taugrim’s MMO Blog — Guild Wars 2 PVP Video: “Run and Gun” Warrior [Tournament Ep. 4]. “GW2 tournament finals video #4, featuring my ‘Run and Gun’ Warrior build. The competing teams are Maven and Lamentation.”
• Tales of Tyria — #47: Hacks, Exploits, and Bans, Oh My! “The first week is over and what a week it was! Arenanet bans thousands of accounts for exploiting, thousands for botting, and security issues crop up. Tune in to hear our thoughts on these issues as well as other feelings from the first week of playing Guild Wars 2.”
• GW2Tube — Straits of Devastation – Lightfoot Passage Vista. “Noticed a lot people having a problems with reaching Lightfoot Passage Vista. This one is bit tricky since you can easily drop down to your death. Hope this helps!”
• GW2Tube — Obsidian Sanctum WvWvW puzzle. “Guild Wars 2 Obsidian Sanctum Puzzle “Zraith’s Beacon” you get in there from eternal battleground Gandara Overlook big tower with beam on it.”
• GW2Tube — How to do damage as mesmer. “How to set up damage with the mesmer.”
• GW2Tube — Morgan’s Spiral Jump Puzzle. “There’s a Jump Puzzle that starts in Morgan’s Spiral in the Sylvari starting area Caledon Forest. Especially the last bit (where you’ll hear some of my guild mates talking) is especially hard. But with this video you hopefully should be able to do all the jumps and even fight your way through the Nightmare Sylvari on your own.”
• YouTube — Futurised: Guild Wars 2: Ebonhawke. “Graveyard with Gwen, Yakkington and Nicholas. Playable organ. Vista, raging chickens, and the order of whispers! This video is action packed!”
• YouTube — SageLikeOne: GW2 - sPvP – ep 2 – Necromancer (vampire). “I got this sent to me so I am reviewing it as best I can.”
• YouTube — WoodenPotatoes: Guild Wars 2 Jumping Puzzles: The Branded Mine. “Filmed this a couple of days ago. It won’t be a big problem to those of you familiar with jumping puzzles already. Enjoy!” [Raphia: Of course, for those of us who find even the minor jumping challenges of getting to certain Vistas to be swear-at-the-screen frustrating, it's probably still going to be a big problem.]
• YouTube — WoodenPotatoes: Guild Wars 2 Daily: 4/9/12. “This was a nightmare to release! Realised there was a pretty bad spoiler in there halfway so pulled it. Hope this is alright guys!”
• YouTube — DigitalPulseGTR: Guild Wars 2: “More Dots!” Engineer – Profession Build Spotlight. “This build, while originally found around the web, has been customized by me because of some nerfs since it’s original conception. The changes replace the swiftness gains with more power and suvivability. I had a lot of fun with this build and so far, nothing I’ve tested before this has given me such confidence in PVP. I was fearless. With this build, I’ve 1v1 just about every profession without too much difficulty including Necromancers, Guardians and Mesmers. It takes some strategy and quick reflexes, knowledge of what you have and when to use it that will make this work. Once you master it, you will be a serious contender in fights.”
• Guild Wars 2 Live — Yogscast – Release & Some Thoughts. “The guys jump back into Guild Wars 2 after trying out the beta and chat about their experiences so far with the game’s official release.”
• YouTube — WoodenPotatoes: Elementalist D/D Build, My progress, Achievements. “Jump to 11:33 for the elementalist build discussion and guide. I thought I’d hop in game and keep you all up to date with the stuff i’ve been doing and my progress so far. Still a lot to do!”
• YouTube — WoodenPotatoes: Breaking out of the map + Gold Ore. “This isn’t actually an achievement, but it was something interesting I found near the branded mine that I wanted to show Mike. Ended up being a little bit crazy.”
• Guild Wars 2 Journal — The Collapsed Observatory Jumping Puzzle. “If you’ve been having trouble with some of Guild Wars 2 jumping puzzles, Nommeh is here to help you out with a video guide of the Collapsed Observatory jumping puzzle located in Kessex Hills.”
• Guild Wars 2 Live — GW2 News: 9/5/2012. “Guild Wars 2 News in 60 seconds”
• Guild Wars 2 Live — Tyria Talk – A Rocky Start. ” In episode 39, I share some of my experiences in the first week since launch. There have been a few issues that have hindered my enjoyment of the game and while I’m confident they will eventually get worked through, things are a bit rough at the moment. UPDATE: At the time of the recording of this video, my dad’s account was still permabanned. It took almost a week, but as of Saturday 9/1, he got his account back. Still no word on my ticket yet.”
• Taugrim’s MMO Blog — Guild Wars 2 PVP Video: “Legion” Mesmer Build. “I introduce my GW2 “Legion” build for the Mesmer class, based on testing in sPvP and tournaments post-launch.”
• GW2Tube — Yoda Character Creation. “Just thought I’d start something new, I may be starting a series revolved around this”
• Guild Wars 2 Riches — Guild Wars 2 Overflow servers allow you to harvest farms twice in 23 hours. “Overflow servers are an incredible incorporation into Guild Wars 2. They essentially cut out that horrible scenario where you sit staring at a queue number while waiting to play the game. Instead – you are allowed to play on a separate server and get a notification when you are able to hop on to your home server. It’s pretty sweet deal in today I can tell you that it is even sweeter. Did you know that you can essentially double down on every node that you farm due to these overflow servers?”
• Gamebreaker.tv — GuildCast 39: ArenaNet Gets Tough With Exploiters. “The first full week is done, where does the game stand? Orr is apparently untroubled by our crew of misfits, with PAX — and its many odors — getting in the way for half of the team, just what levels have they reached? The Trading Post exists — see, told you it did — and is finally up and running for everyone to use. Just how good is it? Was it worth the wait? We talk about some of the fun things you can do with the Trading Post in Guild Wars 2 and how we think it stacks up.”
• Guild Wars 2 Trading Post — Rich Mineral Veins Always Spawn Here. “All rich mineral veins spawn in the same place… all the time. Watch this video to see where rich copper veins can spawn. They will only appear in the same places over and over again with no variation whatsoever.”
• YouTube — WoodenPotatoes: Guild Wars 2 Daily – 6/9/12. “I may move away from community footage, tell you the truth. Let me know what you all rather want to see, because I get the feeling its my own.”
• Gamebreaker.tv — Buildcast 7: Guild Wars 2 World Vs World PvP. “This week on Buildcast the boys mix it up a bit and cover World vs World PvP. Newbies and veterans can both learn a thing or two from our resident experts Ed Park and Matt Sorg.”
• Guild Wars 2 Junkies — Legendary Weapons: Check out Twilight. “I have no idea how it’s crafted/forged, but I think everyone needs to check out how badass this things looks. If you’ve got other legendaries you think are awesome, share them in the commends.”
• Killabytes Online — Guild Wars 2 Angry Joe Review.
• YouTube — thesparrowsjourney: Guild Wars 2 – The Bad and Ugliest #15. “It’s actually not that easy to make an ugly/bad female human character :O”
• YouTube — TriggerSadGamer: Let’s Play Guild Wars 2 Pt 7: Soundless And Then Gavin Gets Owned! “And so, on this day Gavin got his ass handed to him. That is all.”
• YouTube — lagservnet: Guild Wars 2 – Hrothgar’s Pass POI (Jorand’s Sluice). “How to find the Hrothgar’s Pass POI (Jorand’s Sluice) located in Snowden Drifts.”

Fanfic

• Kill Ten Rats — Dear Bookah. “Dear Bookah. I have lost track of how long I have been here, and how many visits I have made overall. Certainly, the labs are now so familiar to me that I have to remind myself to actually see some useful structure instead of a few slabs of rock housing a few more idiots.”
• Chronicles of Tyria — Chapter 5: Part 5 Back-tracking in Ascalon. “Our journey to help was only a short distance away; we followed the Charr to an almost enclosed area. Several small explosions pounded the ground in front of the rather small location. It was filled with machinery that buzzed and clanked, barely audible thanks to the explosions caused by the warring felines in the area.”
• Kill Ten Rats — Dear Bookah. “I would leave you theories, outside your retreat, in this interim space between order and chaos. I would leave you gems and data vessels, but the data vessels have become corrupted and I have run out of gems. I would warp you back to the Mists in a transparent energy shell but I fear we would both be driven mad by the etchings of boundless energies.”
• Kill Ten Rats — Dear Bookah. “The morning after I exited from Rata Sum, golem games and combat in my ears, plasma-tinged air in my mouth and the pleading of some deflated asura always at my ankles, I felt as though everything had conspired to this one story.”

Community Events

• Gaming World Entertainment Network (GWEN) — Pink Day in LA. “It’s time to save the date! Make a note on your calender, in your diary, set your phone reminders, put a note of the fridge, pin a note to your cat…actually don’t do that last one that would be bad! The point is Pink Day in LA is returning once again and this year it will be on October 20th 2012 along side the Extra Life charity event.”
• Gaming World Entertainment Network — Extra Life. “On October 20th 2012 gamers all over the globe will be playing their favourite games non stop for 24 hours! This might just sound like a hardcore gaming weekend for some of you but there is a bigger purpose to it this time!”

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).