I’ve been accumulating news snippets about the as-yet-to-be-formally-scheduled release of Guild Wars 2 for an email newsletter I send out to my friends and acquaintances in the Guild Wars community.

A day early this time due to the Easter weekend: I doubt that Arenanet will be publishing any new material from Friday to Sunday.

Part 1: Discussion of previous news

• Nothing in this category this week, it’s all Charr, all the time.

Part 2: Guild Wars news

• Reminder: If you’d like to keep track of the upcoming “Winds of Change” and other “Guild Wars Beyond” material, keep this page bookmarked.
• Rubi Bayer: Walk on the wild side. “I have a confession to make: I’m
  burned out on Guild Wars. That’s not the fault of Guild Wars at all — I’m finding a general feeling of burnout with all themepark MMOs in general. I discussed it at length with Shawn and Beau on last week’s Massively Speaking [podcast], but the short version is that I find myself logging into my core MMOs (Guild Wars, Dungeons and Dragons Online, and RIFT), saying some version of “Meh,” and logging out again. After a couple weeks of this, it finally occurred to me to take my own darn advice: Try something new and different. With my typical all-or-nothing approach, I’m jumping in with both feet. So what is my new venture? Most of you can probably guess, but follow along after the jump for the skinny on my latest project.”

Part 3: Guild Wars 2 news

• Kill Ten Rats: Shades of Zoo. “This doesn’t necessarily make one dynamic event system better than the other. Just like some people prefer the focused experience of Disney’s Animal Kingdom to the San Diego Zoo, so to will some people prefer Rift’s guided approach to Guild Wars 2′s events-are-everywhere approach. We are seeing different sides to Rift only because it is live and being experienced by so many. Obviously Trion Worlds hit their first stumble when trying to provide a singular whammy of an event last Saturday. It will be interesting to see what we and ArenaNet learns when the masses hit their servers. Trion Worlds is already learning from theirs.”
• Prepare yourself for Charr Week! “The charr first appeared in the original Guild Wars as the implacable foes of humanity, but a lot has happened in the 250 years between the first game and the time period of Guild Wars 2. The charr have rejected their false gods and embraced industry and technology with gusto, crafting devastating weaponry and incredible machinery. But empire and expansion comes with a heavy price, and the charr of Guild Wars 2 are beset by formidable enemies on all sides.”
• Introducing the Charr as a playable race. “There are eight professions we’ve announced, and Charr will be able to play all eight,” confirmed ArenaNet’s Jon Peters. “Race choices are a story and role-playing decision for us, but that being said, we do like to add some flavour to the races by giving them specific skills. So the Charr are technologically advanced compared to the other races, so some of their profession skills do things like a hidden pistol, shrapnel mines, and an elite skill where they can call in an artillery barrage,” added the developer.”
• Charr Week interview with Jeff Grubb and John Peters. “In the
  original Guild Wars we had one playable race, which was human, but now we’ve got the humans, the Charr, Asura, Sylvari and the Norn. This week we’re officially revealing the Charr, who were the bad guys in the original prophecies. They were the race that broke through the great wall, attacked Ascalon, and now, they are a playable race. We go a lot more into their culture, their world, their rationale, as well as why they’re here and what their goals are. The Charr themselves are these huge, feline, horned warriors. You know, they have come from a military culture, and in Guild Wars 2 they have conquered Ascalon. Although they would say they ‘re-conquered’ it, because that land was originally theirs before the humans arrived and drew them out.”
• Part 2 of the interview with Jeff Grubb and John Peters. “Looking at the MMO space specifically, it’s important to be very social. In most MMOs, you have all of these players playing together, but they’re not very social, and like, we took every aspect of it and said, ‘what can we do to make Guild Wars 2 more social?’ That’s why the combat is more about working together, and why the story in the persistent world is all about events, which is content that players do together. “
• Interview with Jeff Grubb. “The humans and charr have a truce, and part of that truce is that both species are welcome in each other’s cities. In practice, only adventurous souls would walk into the other race’s city. The charr don’t eat other sentient races, though they will gladly let you believe that if it makes it easier to deal with you.”
• Creating the Charr starting area. “Every map is important, but the importance of the starter maps is magnified because they are the first maps you see when you create a new character and set the tone for each race. I wanted to talk a bit about the first area of the map, the Village of Smokestead, and what the process was to get it to its final state. Along the way, I’ll discuss the iterative process that we employ at ArenaNet and just how important it is to us that we get things done right, even if it takes extra time to get there.”
• Arenanet hints at Guild Wars 2 expansions. “Dragons are ‘all over the place’ in the Guild Wars universe, according to Grubb, but as for appearing in future expansions the developer remained coy: ‘Going beyond Guild Wars 2 — yes, the other dragons are there, and they have potential — but what we’re doing with them? Well, we’re worrying about dealing with Zhaitan first,’ he added.”
• Scott McGough on Writing the Charr. “Our world designers and writers approach the charr with a certain amount of gusto. After all, it’s just plain fun to write for the bad guys, especially when you get to explore their point of view, in which they’re the good guys. We know some people will feel a lingering resentment of the charr — probably because of that whole Searing thing — in addition to the gleeful anticipation of getting inside their fur, so our guiding principle for writing them has been to delve into some of the unexplored charr virtues (industry, discipline, fearlessness) along with their well known vices (aggression, bloodthirst, and ruthlessness). Balancing the admirable traits with the fearsome ones allows us to present a more complete picture of charr society without negating or retconning their violent history.”
• It’s just plain fun to write for the bad guys. “This is an especially interesting read for longtime fans of Guild Wars because we’ve watched the Charr evolve over the years and learned more about their hierarchy, their values, their strengths, and their failings. The Charr began (in the eyes of the humans) as a formidable but lesser group of creatures to be removed from the human lands of Old Ascalon. Over time, we’ve learned much more about this fierce, intelligent, and strictly organized race — even becoming allies with some of its members.”
• Charr Fanfic, for those inclined (I haven’t read it).
• The artistic origin of the Charr. “In our world, if you are a human, large cats are terrifying. They’ve been eating people for thousands of years, and they come for us out of the trees and the brush and the darkness. So we took a risk and tried concepting cat people. However, the original concepts weren’t impressive, and even came troublingly close to being cute. We began incorporating fire and horns into their designs to push towards a more threatening, demonic feel. We ended up with a fire worshipping race of hell cats. As we fleshed out more of their story we followed through on less of the varied forms than we originally planned, but you can still see remnants of the original design in the stances of the magic-using and weapon-wielding charr in Guild Wars.”
• A fire-worshipping race of hell cats. “Oh, they were always around, of course. The introduction of female Charr in Guild Wars 2 caused a huge buzz among fans, though, because the females were never seen in Guild Wars 1. Artist Kristen Perry was responsible for translating the monstrous Charr into a feminine form — and proving that “fantasy genre” doesn’t have to equal “buxom, wasp-waisted catgirl.” As with the original Charr design, there was quite a bit of discussion and some uncertainty along the way.”
• Warfronts and technological advances. “Charr are a race to be reckoned with. We already knew that after the searing, but now that they’ve gone through a mechanical revolution, they’re even more powerful. Today we’re getting spoiled with yet another update on the charr, this time we’re getting the full back story to get up to speed to Tyria, 250 years forward.”
• Updated Charr page at the official site (including new video). “The feline charr of Tyria are a victorious race challenged by their own success. They have survived defeat, oppression, and civil war. They have returned, reconquered, and rebuilt their original homes. Their mighty fortress, the Black Citadel, dominates the surrounding ruins of the human city of Rin, and their non-magical technology is the mightiest in the land. Yet despite their success, they are challenged by divisions among their people, the power of the Elder Dragons, and the ghosts of their own victories. This, then, is their story.”
• Massively analyzes the new Charr video. “Sharp-eyed Guild Wars fans will catch more than one startling contrast in the first seconds of the video. There’s the obvious: the pastoral landscape combined with the aggressive, drum-heavy, militaristic score. But look a little closer. Things are green and growing, the river isn’t tar. It looks like Pre-Searing, or maybe the Charr homelands in the north. But a glance at the background landscape gives the location away — this is Ascalon, and those structures are the broken ruins of the human city.”

Update, 23 April: I was wrong . . . Arenanet did post a bit more Charr information on Friday:

The Legions of the Charr. “In the year 1090 of the Mouvelian calendar, King Adelbern, last human ruler of Ascalon, released the Foefire. The human residents of that land succumbed to the terrible magic, only to rise again as ghosts. By 1112, the High Legions of the charr reclaimed the entirety of Ascalon. Only four years later, Kalla Scorchrazor of the Blood Legion came before Forge Ironstrike, the imperator of the Iron Legion, and challenged him to help her free their people from the shamans’ control. Together, Kalla and Forge led a rebellion against the Flame Legion, overthrowing their tyrannical rule. The three legions, Blood, Ash, and Iron, then reassembled a nation from the ruins of the past.”