Lore Refresher - Wooden Potatoes

One of the best of "Wooden Potatoes" refresher series. The end of the video contains links to others in the series.

June Beta Details

ArenaNet Released Details of the upcoming BWE

Keep Your Characters!

Or create new human, norn, or charr characters and start a whole new story. Since players will be able to play with their existing characters from the first Beta Weekend Event, they can experience some of the new higher level content.

Enter the Catacombs (Explorable Mode)

Looking for a real challenge? Try out the explorable mode of the Ascalonian Catacombs dungeon for groups of ambitious level 35+ players. The tough explorable mode of the Catacombs presents a party with three different paths through the dungeon, each with its own dangers and rewards. Enter if you dare!

Visit Lovely Gendarran Fields

We’ve opened up a new map, Gendarran Fields, for players to explore. A level 25 to 35 map just outside Lion’s Arch, Gendarran Fields is a picturesque area of pine trees and rolling hills, teeming with wild beasts and bandit gangs.

Unlock the Mysteries of the Mystic Forge

On a less dangerous note, the Mystic Forge has arrived in Lion’s Arch. This strange forge actually holds the imprisoned djinn Zommoros, who hails from distant Elona. If you offer the Mystic Forge gifts (like unneeded items and weapons), you will receive a gift in return. Got a pair of pistols that you don’t need? Drop them in the Mystic Forge and see what Zommoros gives you in exchange!

Expanded World vs. World

Once again, the Mists will echo with the sound of combat as we open up World vs. World for the weekend. As usual, massive armies of players from different servers will battle for supremacy on four huge maps, but this time we’ve added a couple of interesting new twists. Players can now take their WvW battle underground in a new “mini dungeon” beneath the central map. This brand-new subterranean level is full of tricks and traps that can be used against enemy players, and is home to the aptly named Dark Room, which players will have to see (or not) to believe. We’ve also added skill challenges, dynamic events, and even jump puzzles to the WvW maps. Why are these PvE elements being integrated into WvW gameplay? “We want to make the transition from PvE to World vs. World easy and natural for players,” says developer Matt Witter. “We always wanted additional meaningful content on the WvW maps so that players will always have something to do, even if the frontline of battle is far away.”

New Automated Player vs. Player Tournaments and More

For this beta, we’re introducing Automated PvP Tournaments. Each tournament pits eight teams of five players against each other. Teams that excel during the three-round, single-elimination tournament are rewarded with tournament chests full of valuable loot. The PvP reward system has also been greatly improved with the creation of a two-tier reward structure that involves Glory and Rank. Put simply, Glory is a currency that players can spend to unlock reward chests stuffed with useful loot, while Rank is a measurement of your success in PvP. You’ll receive valuable reward chests as you climb in Rank.

Combat— “A Sense of Hitting”

Combat in Guild Wars 2 is more visceral than ever. We’re constantly making improvements to the entire combat experience—better timing, enhanced sound design, subtle camera shakes—to enhance what designer Jon Peters likes to call “the sense of hitting.”

Improved Overflow Servers

We listened to a lot of the input we received from players regarding their experience with overflow servers in the first Beta Weekend Event, and we’ve implemented a new party UI that tells you when party members are on a different overflow world. We’ve also given party members the ability to fast travel to overflow worlds where other members of their party are located, and we’ve made it easier to keep party members together when moving between maps. It’s all designed to give you as smooth an experience as possible.

Improved Chat

Communication in general has been greatly improved, as well. We’re adding the much-requested chat bubbles, as well as map chat and an updated local chat function, both of which make it easier to communicate with other players.

New Key-Binding Feature

This is one of our most requested features. For those who want to customize their gameplay experience, we’re introducing a new, easy-to-use key-binding interface, which now allows you to bind modifier keys.

UI Improvements

MMO players are often very particular about their user interface, and we’re no exception. We’ve listened to your feedback and have refined our UI to make it even easier to use. We’ve revamped the mini-map in the bottom-right corner of the screen. The formerly round mini-map is now square and can easily be resized for better navigation. UI Art Lead Vicki Ebberts says, “Little adjustments, like making the map resizable or wrapping the dodge meter around the top of the health bubble, may not seem like a big deal at first, but over the course of many hours spent playing a game, you start to appreciate a well-designed interface.”

Tiers for Skills

We’ve organized each profession’s elite and utility skills into three different tiers, or levels. When you get enough skills in one tier, you unlock the next level of skills. Why the change from the previous model, which let players choose from all the available skills at once? “The tier system gives players both a sense of progression and accomplishment,” says Lead Designer Eric Flannum. “It encourages them to experiment with different skills as they increase in power, and it avoids overwhelming new players with a huge list of skills to choose from.” “Plus,” Flannum adds, “the tier system is more scalable and expandable. We can more easily add new skills in the future with this system.”

In Closing… There’s no shortage of things to see and do during our second Beta Weekend Event, and this is just a small sample of what awaits you when you log in. We’ll see you in-game from Friday, June 8th, at noon PDT (GMT-7) until Sunday, June 10th, at 11:59 p.m. PDT (GMT-7).

June Beta Weekend confirmed

Beta Weekend Event 2 will begin on Friday, June 8th, at noon PDT (GMT-7) and will run until Sunday, June 10th, at 11:59 p.m. PDT (GMT-7).

. . . we’ve made great strides toward resolving many of the issues you’ve helped us identify. These include party movement into overflow servers, chat functionality, key bindings, server stability, performance, and many more that we will detail in the near future.

Play Guild Wars 2 again

From ArenaNet's Facebook site:

We’ll be conducting a stress test on Monday May 14 from 11 AM to 6:00 PM PDT (-7 GMT). 

That's 2:00 PM to 9:00 PM eastern on Monday, May 14th.

With your help, we can conduct important tests and address some of the issues we identified during our first Beta Weekend Event. During this event, all you need to do is play normally with a new or existing character on your Beta account using the same game client. Please note that since this is a stress test of our servers, you may experience some in-game performance issues. If you’ve pre-purchased Guild Wars 2 and wish to participate in the stress test, we recommend that you register the account and download the game client.

Pre-Purchase customers, log in to the Beta Forums for more information and/or to download the Beta client if needed.

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/stress/news/Getting-Started/169235

Having issues logging in? Contact Support: https://support.guildwars2.com/
~RB2

Econ 101 for GW2

First up we have a video that explains the basics of MMO economics (gold sinks, inflation, soul binding, etc.) and ArenaNet's approach.



Next, we have a story by Ravious over at Kill Ten Rats, who explains why GW2's economic system will likely become the new standard in MMO's. Read it Here. Says Ravious:

I expect a much tighter profit margin during live when there will be greater market efficiency, but it is apparent that the trading post will easily create a game unto itself. I honestly could have spent the rest of beta just standing around finding inefficiencies and flipping items for people that devalued their time.

Dynamic Event through eyes of NPC

This video is a nice introduction to the dynamic event system as played out in the Norn territory.   This particular chain culminates in a bear attack, which I participated in during the beta weekend event.   My experience was wandering into the event mid-bear attack and having no idea what caused it.  I joined the battle, beat back bears and started reviving fallen players.  Watch the video to see the level of story detail ArenaNet has fashioned. 

Beta Weekend Survival Guide

This is not about putting a small refrigerator next to your computer with a cases of Mountain Dew and Cool Ranch Doritos - although who could argue with that advice? A former beta tester over at GuildWarsInsider.com has some great tips here:

GENERAL INFORMATION

• Don’t just skip through the questions after you design your character. Your answers impact your story and will also impact some NPC interactions in different areas.

• Guilds can be created the second you are out of the opening cinematic. Hit “G” to create a guild or to represent/stand down from a guild.

• The intro instance boss encounter WILL down you. This is so you can see how downed works. Even if you stay downed, the NPCs will win the encounter for you. For most classes, the 3 button will get you back up.

• Right away, hit H then select the PVP tab. Hit “Be in the Mists”. After you port, there will be an Asura Gate in front of you. Take it to Lion’s Arch. After this port, cross the bridge to Lion’s Arch. At the fountain make a left. Here there are Asura Gates to every major city. The gates to Asura and Sylvari land will be blocked. Port to each major city and get the waypoint for zippy travel around the world. (This of course will also let you choose your newbie leveling zone) • There are no breadcrumbs and no quest hubs. You progress in this game by EXPLORING. Pick a direction that looks good and you will stumble upon adventure. Getting sidetracked is how you will spend most of your time.

• If you have no idea where to go, look for a scout. They are marked with binoculars. They will reveal hearts for you. Also sometimes NPCs will beckon to you or run up to you and say “hey jerky, help a bro”. Talk to these NPCs. They will reveal previously hidden dynamic events.

• Waypoints are graveyards. As you begin exploring and leveling, you want to collect waypoints as fast as possible. Before you start working on a heart or dynamic event, get the closest waypoint or you will be very sad when you die and have to schlep all the way back.

COMBAT

• Your weapon skill unlock makes progress by killing a mob. When you get a new weapon, grinding out the unlocks real quick will make for a more varied and strategic game experience early on.

• Your first skill is auto-attack. Everything else has a cooldown. Since you have a small number of skills, this means you can do something you’ve probably never done in an MMO: look up. The primary thing holding your attention should be where and how you are moving and tells from the mob. To take care of that, you’ve got to watch carefully.

• Circle-strafe is your friend.

• If you run up to a mob, usually they will pause for a split second to punch you or to wind up a big attack. Use this to your advantage.

• Look at your skill tool tips and check for conditions. Conditions are fight changers. Sure you can just spam 1 and win, but proper use of conditions will greatly increase your survival and speed of killing.

• If you pull off a combo (a special attack combining your skills with another players skills) you will see “combo” in the heads-up combat spam. Experiment with this for hilarity and hi-jinks. The easy combos involve a field + a projectile or a field + a jumping/leaping attack.

• Move, move, move!

• In-combat weapon switching unlocks at 7.

EXPLORING, EVENTS AND KARMA

• DO NOT RUN AWAY AFTER COMPLETING ANY DYNAMIC EVENT. This is the best advice I can give. Most of the time, after a dynamic event completes, the NPCs will chat for a minute and then another dynamic event will start. You owe it to yourself to hang out and see what the next bit is. If you stay in a place for 3 minutes or so and nothing happens, it is safe to move on. The world around will change A LOT. Whether you are there to see it, is entirely up to you.

• If you see a different looking dynamic event box that has a background and stays active in a wide area, this is the zones meta dynamic event and requires coordination over a wide area to progress. The end of these events are usually really really satisfying. For instance in the human zone, there is a gigantic scary netherworld monster.

• You will start getting karma quickly. When you fill up a heart, the NPC will sell you gear or other goodies for karma. DO NOT BANK KARMA. Keep in mind you aren’t getting gear quest rewards… because there are no quests. If a karma vendor has an upgrade for you, buy it then and there. This will insure that your relative power stays above the mobs you are fighting.

• There is no reason why you have to go to a higher level zone. You will automatically downlevel for an area and get appropriate rewards. If you finish a 1-15 zone, consider going to another 1-15 zone.

• Your 7, 8, 9 skills unlock at 5, 10, and 20 respectively. To get skills you need skill points. Do skill challenges for skill points. Every major city has a few skill points that you can just buy.

• Traits unlock at 11.

• You want to gather. There is no gathering skill. If two people hit a node, both get full reward. You can get upgrades for your equipment in the form of crystals from gathering. Even if you don’t intend to craft you should gather for the crystals. You will need a consumable to gather. Axes are for logging, picks are for mining, sickles are for herbs and veggies. Most merchants sell these.

This weekend, make some new allies! Visit our Guild Recruitment Center for a list of guilds looking for new members!