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.

Part 1: Discussion of previous news

• Kill Ten Rats has a recap of all the sixth anniversary changes introduced last week. “Six years of Guild Wars, and it is still going strong even with the last box release being over three years. Most of its perseverance is owed to the Guild Wars Live Team. The Live Team has put out another great update, which follows on the heels of the Embark Beach update last month. There’s a smattering of prodigious items like high-resolution textures in town, hard mode versions of favorite quests, and the much requested Friends location feature. Plus the weight of the birthday presents feels a little different this year, and madness has bled into PvP.”
• This week’s anniversary sale item at the Guild Wars ingame store is storage panes for your Xunlai Chest. Half price at $4.99 (US). Just what all us packrats need.

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 — http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_Beyond.
• Flameseeker Chronicles: Afterparty. “It was embarrassing how completely we failed at this quest, but for that very reason I am incredibly impressed with it. The ArenaNet team set out to create a real challenge for veteran players, and I know a lot of people thought it would be the same old “crank up the mob levels and HP and call it a day.” No such thing. Granted, the levels are cranked up — Galrath himself is level 40, higher than anything we’ve seen in Guild Wars before — but the mobs themselves are the bigger challenge. They’re balanced beautifully, including the healers. I was feeling good at one point when I had an Assassin bandit nearly dead, until out of nowhere he popped up to almost full health. The mobs include Mesmers, Assassins, Monks, and Necros, and going in blind won’t do much besides eat through your stock of candy canes.”
• The Mesmer. “Mesmers. Few hold ambivalent opinions regarding this profession — most players either love or hate these masters (or, it has to be said, more commonly mistresses) of manipulation. For those that like them, they represent a unique experience and one of the iconic features that distinguishes the franchise from the competition. For others, Mesmers are frustrating to play against, offer nothing useful as a party member, and generally add nothing worthwhile to the game.”
• Game update, 5 May. Changes include “Reduced the duration of Summoning Sickness to 10 minutes. Added Razah to the Isle of the Nameless and the Command Post.”

Part 3: Guild Wars 2 news

• Developer Q&A with Eric Flannum. “I’ve worked on a lot of different types of games, and while all of them present challenges, none of them compare to the difficulty of developing an MMO. You have complex network models to deal with. You have to create enough content and systems to support players getting not just 20 or 40 hours (which is a long time for most games), but hundreds or thousands of hours of play out the game. You have to deal with the community aspect of the game. The economics and balance of the game become much more involved in an environment where you have thousands of players interacting. The list goes on and on. You don’t see a lot of companies taking many chances, because developing such a complex game is not only hard, but also very expensive. Add to this the fact that you have a clear “number one” game that’s making a ton of money. From that viewpoint, it becomes very easy for a company to become conservative and not take any chances that could cause the game to take longer to develop — or even risk it becoming a failure when it does launch. At ArenaNet, we see things quite differently; we think that the only way to compete in the MMO market is by taking risks. If we can deliver a fun and unique gameplay experience, then we believe we can attract many more players than we would by playing it safe.”
• Fan video – Top 10 reasons to be interested in Guild Wars 2.
• Hunters Insight has six reasons to play Guild Wars 2. “How could I not be interested in this Guild Wars 2? How could anyone ignore the promise it shows? Surely not all will come to pass, and perhaps Guild Wars 2 won’t be as stunningly magnificent as I’m sure NCSoft would love us to think, but how could this many innovations turn Guild Wars 2 into anything less than a good and solid game.”
• Guild Wars 2 profession downloadable wallpaper images.
• Exclusive fan site interview at Hungary’s Variance. “Couple of weeks ago, our small blog gently enquired if it was possible to have a short interview with Arenanet devs about Guild Wars 2. The excellent folks at Arenanet not just proved, that they really care about fans and fansites (also about the small ones), but they also were kind enough to give us exclusive, never-seen-before answers to some of the questions. So here we go, below you can read questions collected by our superb community, answered by Eric Flannum (Lead Designer), John Corpening (Programmer), Egan Hirvela (Game Designer), Matt Witter (Game Designer). Special thanks to Regina Buenaobra, without her, we couldn’t make this interview!”
• Shadows in the Water: the Krait. “Even the amphibious hylek are at a disadvantage when fighting underwater. No hylek tribe has been able to mount an effective force against the krait. The quaggan are terrified of them and tell tales of their monstrous chantries beneath the sea. The krait have never been beaten, and do not believe themselves to be defeatable. They are convinced that they are blessed and elevated: the superior species in the world.”
• More about the Krait. “One thing, however, is certain. According to krait history (which, to tell the truth, may well have been “selectively edited” by the priests over the years) the krait have never known defeat. One wonders how they reconcile this with having apparently been driven from the wider oceans by the Elder Dragon of the Depths, but either way, they’re going to learn. Even (and perhaps especially) if the lesson will turn out to require repeated beatings with blunt instruments in order to hammer it home.”
• More Guild Wars 2 art updates (scroll down past the tractor).