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.

I got a few comments from non-gaming folks that these posts can get too long to scroll past, so it’s now in the extended post below.

Part 1: Discussion of previous news

• If you listen to podcasts, you might want to subscribe to the Guildcast weekly podcast
• Reminder: the official Guild Wars 2 wiki is still growing, so it’s worth checking it out now and again for new information.

Part 2: Guild Wars news

• Reminder: If you’d like to keep track of the Guild Wars Beyond material, keep this page bookmarked.
• Reminder: Guild Wars official support forum. Here is the FAQ page for the forums.

Part 3: Guild Wars 2 news

• Rumour squashing, in a Twitter post from the Guild Wars 2 account: “Just to avoid further confusion and/or frustration: We will NOT have beta registrations at gamescom or PAX Prime.~MK”
• Talk Tyria – The Engineer: Excess Baggage. “The engineer for most will seem like he does not fit into the genre, but if you look at the history of civilization and how war brings about innovations its not hard to see how the engineer would fit. I have seen many arguments stating that this class should not be apart of the game and that it must be some kind of cruel joke to leave it in as a part of Guild Wars 2. But I believe that implementing the engineer is probably the best direction that this game can go in. With the recent surge in popularity of games like Team Fortress 2 and the many others out there like it, this should be an automatic draw to a fan base of a genre not specific to the Guild Wars or MMORPGs.”
• Necrobator: Part 2 of the Colin Johanson interview. “That is an awesome question, and it’s really interesting that you asked that because we had exactly that problem when we first started usability testing the game about a year ago. We had no direction for the most part other than your personal story. We just put you in the game saying go have fun exploring. When you’d fill out your MMO stereotypes about what kind of player you are, the explorer types would say this is the greatest game I’ve ever played, I love it because I can go explore. Then the other 3 out of 5 people who are traditional MMO players hated it, because they had no direction at all, and they were really uncomfortable. They would see an event going on and say I can’t do that, I’m not being told to go do it, and they would just run past it and ignore it.”
• Guild Wars 2: Field Recording. “At ArenaNet, we’re serious about audio. This week we’re going to take a look behind the scenes at the Audio Team that has been working so hard to create a compelling soundscape for Guild Wars 2. “
• Talk Tyria: Legate Minister Caudecus: Can he be trusted? “Author’s note: As an author, I enjoy a bit of artistic license and have a great deal of fun writing articles and stories from the point of view of my characters/avatars. While this article is written by Belzan the Talk Tyria (TT) author, it is written in Belzan Furu, the GW character’s voice and from his perspective. I hope you enjoy the change of pace.”
• Guild Wars 2 Sound Design video.
• The Hidden Complexity of Sound Design. “I’m Drew Cady, Lead Sound Designer for Guild Wars 2. Together with my colleague Sound Engineer Robert Gay, we’ve put together a blog post that looks a little deeper into the voice pipeline for our game. A great deal of thought and work goes into the simplest audio asset in Guild Wars 2, whether it’s a footstep on snow, the day and night cycle of ambient sounds, or a snarling charr voice. Today we’re going to pull back the proverbial curtain and look at how we do our work.”
• James Boer Talks Guild Wars 2 Audio Design. “Hi everyone! This is Jim Boer again. In a previous blog post, I discussed the tools we use to create our in-game cinematics. This time, I’d like to talk about my other area of responsibility in the game: audio. My job is to design and create not only the runtime engine components, but also the tools required to support both cinematics and audio teams. I’m really excited about what we’ll be doing with sound and music in Guild Wars 2. Being an amateur musician and composer myself, game audio has always been a topic of interest to me.”
• Hunter’s Insight: Make your own Guild Wars 2 soundtrack. “The big news this week is that Guild Wars 2 will allow you to tie music of your choosing to specific types of events in game.”
• Next week is Sylvari Week. “Gamers in Europe will get a chance to play the sylvari for the first time at gamescom this year. To properly unveil the new look for Guild Wars 2‘s enigmatic, inquisitive plant race, we’re declaring next week Sylvari Week here on the ArenaNet Blog and on GuildWars2.com. We’ve got a lot to show you and so much we want to talk about, so we’re packing Sylvari Week full of plant-y goodness – read on for details!”
• Do Sylvari Dream of Dragons? “Earlier today I was thinking about what we know about Guild Wars 2‘s new race, the sylvari, compared to the existing ones. Each race so far has had its own strengths, but also its own inner turmoils. For the humans it is the tension between the Ministry Guard, the Shining Blade and the Seraph. For the norn it is their dealing with the Sons of Sanvir and for the charr it is the Flame Legion Shamans stirring up trouble. For the sylvari the tension is likely to come from their dealing with the Nightmare Court.”
• Prepare for Guild Wars 2 at PAX Prime. “Europe can’t have all the fun, so the week after gamescom we’re bringing the brand new Guild Wars 2 demo to the Penny Arcade Expo, North America’s premier video game fan convention! It’s all happening from August 26-28 in Seattle, WA. Since we’re on our home turf, we’ll have a veritable army of ArenaNet staffers on hand at our booth (#442) to show off the new demo and meet our fellow gamers.”