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!

Behind the Scenes

How do you judge quality of a creative effort without first hand experience? One clue is the pride shown by the creators. Check out the profiles of the ArenaNet offices by Eurogamer.

Daniel Dociu (Art Director who painted GW2 landscape at top of post)

"At my age, I don't feel like I have the luxury of wasting a development cycle, of putting five years of my life into something that's less than relevant or game changing," Daniel Dociu says. "Will it feel big enough, relevant enough, to where I can look back and say, 'Hell, this was definitely worth putting five of my last years into?' And I hope that's going to be the case, but you can't help but be nervous about it." "I feel I have accomplished a lot," he adds in reflection. "I can't help but feel good where my career went over the last eight years. I could have very well been buried and doing the same old thing at another place, or one of my previous places of employment, and plateaued, to be jaded by now, and treat every day as 'another day at the office'. But it's none of that.

Mike Zadorojny (QA lead)

"Working on a project like this," Mike Zadorojny tells me, "it doesn't come along very often. This is hands-down the biggest title that I've ever worked on, in terms of the potential of what it can actually do." When he thinks of all he's been able to do here he feels "special". "Blessed, I guess, is another word for it." "It's hard not to get caught up in the moment and get swept up in the emotions of the hype that's existing outside of this company. The fans are demanding. They're super excited, but they're demanding something that's fantastic, something that's great. And I just hope we can deliver up to their expectations. We think we've been able to make something great, and we just hope that the fans can agree that this is something that's truly super."

Colin Johanson (Lead Content Designer)

"I feel pretty spectacular," Colin Johanson beams. "This is my dream job. My parents, when I was a little kid, used to tell me all the time that you will never get a job in videogames. You need to stop doing this. You need to find a real job. And now they tell me, 'Well, we're glad you didn't listen to us.' "Yeah," he adds, "I couldn't be happier."

Jeff Grubb (Continuity and Lore director)

"I'm very excited about this project and I speak for others: we're ready to go, we want to be done," Jeff Grubb says. " We're not there yet, we've got a lot that still needs to be done, but every morning we come in just really gung-ho about it - and I see it in my co-workers, and I see it in my own work, that we're very proud of what we've done, and we're still very excited. And after six years, that's saying a great deal."

Mike O'Brien (Founder)

"Any of us, we want to look back at our lives and go 'wow, we really shook up the industry, we really made a game that changed the way people thought about gaming.' We've had an opportunity to do that. And so I wouldn't give it up for anything. And we continue to have that opportunity at ArenaNet. "You're going to be coming back here in five years and asking me that question [would you do it all again] again, and I'm going to still say I wouldn't give it up for the world. We have an amazing future ahead of us."

The obvious pride these people have is rather infectious.

Let the Games begin

Forbes (yes, that Forbes) article on Guild Wars 2

“We’re in it to win it this time,” said O’Brien. “We were number two to World of Warcraft with Guild Wars, now we want to beat them. We’ll be satisfied when the Guild Wars 2 is the most successful MMO. I think we have something unique here and players are going to see it and understand why dynamic events are a way better content model than people have experienced before in online worlds. Word-of-mouth will get people to understand that we really are doing something new and different. The sky’s the limit once this game is out. Online worlds have a networking effect. People will bring friends to Guild Wars 2. We hope all the people who play the beta weekend will tell their friends about it.”

Believe the Hype

GuildCast episode 19

at the 29 minute mark:

Gary(Host): James says, "What is your opinion on the hype of Guild Wars 2?  Will the game live up to it or has it been overhyped by the community and other factors?"

Scott:  No.  It's a disaster.  People are going to hate it. 
Elixabeth:  Total trainwreck. 
Gary:  We're totally just trolling you people.  That's all we're pretty much doing.
Scott:  We've spent so much time setting this up to be the biggest joke.  Like next weekend everybody's going to walk in and just go, "Wait a minute.  You mean it's all just stick figures?"
Gary:  The 27th's going to launch, and you know what, people are going to be like. . . .

 (Plays cat animation)

. . .

Richie:  A couple of months ago, I might have been a little more nervous.  Here I am following this game religiously, making videos, writing about it and basically realizing I've been doing all of this effort and I've never even played the game.  Then with the two recent beta events and you see all the press and so many critical eyes on it and most people have just amazing things to say about it.  I'm pretty convinced now it's not just merely hype.  There is something to back it up. 

. . .

Scott: That's where I come from (a MMO hoppper looking for a home), because I liked the first Guild Wars, but I'm not as invested in it coming up to Guild Wars 2 as Ritchie and Elixabeth were.  I've been playing virtually every MMO under the sun because, you know, I'm mental.  But also because, as the leadup to Guild Wars 2, I'm into design and I'm into the mechanics of the games and I just started seeing how it looked, which is like unbelievable.  But then you'd see all these different choices (that the designers made) and you're like, "God, that makes sense.  I've been wanting a game to do that for like ages"  Or "Why aren't other games doing this?" which is the phrase we use so many times it's ridiculous.  It's a cliche.  It should be (announcer voice) "Guild Wars 2 - Why isn't anyone else doing this?"

Gary:  "Why did this take so long?"

Scott:  Yeah?  Why haven't you got this over there you fools?  So, that's what really built it up for me.  Before I first got my hands on it, I'm like, "it promises to sound great," and then I got my hands on it, and it pays off.  And that's what it comes down to.  Yes, it's hyped to an extent, but seriously, think of all of the negative reviews that. . . How much press have tested this game?  How many of them have actually given it a negative review? 

Gary:  Yeah.  Not many.

Scott:  Can you think of a game before that's got such positive feedback from press?

Beta Weekend Details

Event Information

We’re counting the days until the first public Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend Event, which begins on Friday, April 27, at noon PDT (GMT-7) and ends on Sunday, April 29, at 11:59 p.m. PDT (GMT-7). Hundreds of thousands of players from around the world will get their first taste of Guild Wars 2—and rest assured, we’ll be playing alongside them!

You’ll create your own personalized charr, human, or norn character and pick from our eight powerful professions. Your choice of race is vital to your personal story, and it determines in which of the huge starting areas you begin as well. A noble human mesmer will have a radically different game experience than a charr engineer in the service of the Iron Legion. Fortunately, you can roll more than one character and sample each starting area for yourself! 

 

Beta Weekend Announced

Guild Wars 2 Facebook Entry

Good news!First Beta Weekend Event will be from April 27-29. We will let you know once the client is ready for download. We'll have a blog post with details about what and when you can play later today or tomorrow. If you haven't already: pre-purchase to participate! https://buy.guildwars2.com/ ~RB2

The Painterly Aesthetic

ArenaNet wants to recreate the feeling the of your twelve year old self when you found the Tolkien calendar in the back of the mall bookstore. You compared what your mind painted while reading to what the artist put on canvas, and a part of you wished to be in that painting.

The aesthetic of personally inhabiting a great fantasy painting is a clear goal of the Guild Wars 2 designers, and it's such a natural idea, it's somewhat strange so few fantasy role-playing games have explored it at all, much less to the extent ArenaNet is.

Epic Dragon Battle

Arenanet's Lore and Continuity Designer Ree Soesbee sets up the ingame footage taken from a recent demonstration. The action starts around the 1:20 mark if you want to skip ahead.

The video features a Dragon attack on Hylek (frog-people) territory. You'll see several participation methods. Attack the Dragon directly (not always recommended!), climb into one of the assorted Asura-designed siege weapons, defeat minions of the dragon attacking those weapons, or break down the Dragon's defensive measures.

The battle is a group effort and everyone on the server can pitch in and get rewarded if the battle is successful. You will see this mostly from the perspective of a Sylvari (plant person) engineer player carrying a rifle. The regular gunshots may get annoying, so turn the sound down a bit, but not too far as you'll want to hear the frog-people shouting advice to participants. Some minor footage has been spliced in from other players to give some different views on the dragon's rather impressive entrance.

Pre-Purchase Info

You can pre-purchase the game from several stores: GameStop, Best Buy and others. Pre-purchasing gives you access to upcoming beta events and a three day head start. Pre-ordering gives only a one day head start. Amazon only offers the pre-order, unfortunately. See below for additional detail.

Buy digital versions directly from NCSoft

Buy through Amazon (no pre-purchase!)

Detailed FAQ on pre-purchase program

Cool Guild Wars 2 videos

The Original Trailer - concept art comes to life


The Manifesto - designers express their vision


GamesCom Trailer - teaser for well known gaming convention


Human, Norn & Charr elite skills - by the hilarious Yogscast duo during the beta