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

• 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

• Hunter’s Insight: Love And Hate In Guild Wars 2. “What if you don’t really want to join a billion guilds? How do you say no to an old friend who is inviting you to join their really annoying guild? How do you explain that you’re leaving a guild when you can belong to so many? How do you not get offended when someone leaves even though there is no reason to leave? What if the same irritating guy is in all your guilds? What if you get kicked out of one guild because of what you said in another? What about loyalty? What about a sense of belonging?”
• Talk Tyria: The Asura Aesthetic: Playful Functionality. “One of the really nice things about the asuran race is the way that they have not fallen back on “intelligence” meaning “modernist”. Being so blessed with intellect, the asura could have easily fallen prey to the overtly functional style of design and only been concerned with creating structures which served a purpose and nothing more. Rata Sum could so easily have been a city of blank grey cubes; flat and faceless entities which, whilst perfectly serving their purpose, offered up no example of imagination or life.”
• Flameseeker Chronicles: Asura week wrapup. “Guild Wars 2‘s Asura Week is over, bringing with it the end of Guild Wars 2 race reveals. We’ve now had an in-depth look at all five races of Tyria, and I have to say that these little guys might be my favorite. I was pretty enamored of them after logging some Asura playtime at PAX, and I loved getting to know their cocky little selves even better this week.”
• Guild Wars 2 – Exploring Divinity’s Reach (Gamescom 2011 Demo) 1/2
• Guild Wars 2 – Exploring Divinity’s Reach (Gamescom 2011 Demo) 2/2
• Massively: Guild Wars 2 designers deliver more Asura goodies: Inquest and Golems. “Other games have Dwarves or Gnomes for their token cutesy miniature race, but filling this role for Guild Wars 2 are the Asura. Last week, ArenaNet devoted a whole week to these spunky munchkins, expounding on everything from their history to architectural influences. Today, Designers Jon Peters, Jeff Grubb, and Ree Soesbee delivered an extra dose of Asura by giving us the lowdown on the Inquest and battle suit Golems.”
• Kill Ten Rats: [GW2] Stereotypical Guilds in Five Acts. “I, Norman the Wary, have cataloged some of the many guilds of Tyria in interviewing so many of the races. I have done my best to transcribe the, shall we say, intricacies of each race as I learned and sought to find a guild of my own.”
• PC Gamer: Guild Wars 2 meets Mech Warrior in the Asura battle suit. “As the small guy on the block, you occassionally need to hire some muscle to get things done on time. The Asura of Guild Wars 2 are doing just that–except they’re building their muscle. The newly announced Asura Battle Suit racial skill will put the players in the husk of a golem, allowing you to feel as mighty as the Norn without losing that cute physique we’ve come to love. It’s only a matter of time until one of the tinkering Asura figure out how to mount some rockets launchers on those shoulders. We squeezed Guild Wars 2 game designer Jon Peters for all the extra info he’d give on these magical mech warriors.”
• ArenaNet Chris Lye Interview. “Gamescom seems like a distant memory but another video interview has popped up today with ArenaNet’s Chris Lye on Gamereactor discussing the game’s development.”
• Rock, Paper, Shotgun: Asura Thing? A Guild Wars 2 Preview. “I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve walked into a room with a monitor and a nervously-smiling man at one end and been told I’m about to see the future of MMOs. I smile back politely, and the same old dance begins. Too often, I feel a numbness, a struggle to reconcile professionally wanting to know what’s going on with personally despairing of the idea of giving over dozens of hours of my life to what’s so often a mess of cloned features and over-sold, under-realised promises. My most recent sighting of Guild Wars 2 really did break through that numbness, made me sit up straight and pay full attention. I still don’t know how much of what it’s trying to do will be practicable and effective over long-term play, but seeing it took me back to a time before my awful genre ennui, back to when every time I sat down to see a new MMO my mood was excitement, not cynicism. Here’s why.”
• Hunter’s Insight: Asura battlesuit. “We’ve known about the asura battlesuit in some form for quite a while, it has been mentioned in various interviews for something like a year.”
• Talk Tyria: On the subject of guild loyalty. “My initial reaction to the multi-guild news from PAX-Prime was pretty harsh, I admit. Anybody who’s run a guild knows how stressful and consuming it is, and we know how players can be. So for many past and hopeful future leaders, they’ve met this news with mixed emotions, and most of us initially against it are in the vast minority. I feel a lot of it has to do with statistics; a very small number of gamers have been guild leaders in comparison to those who are simply guild members or guild-less to boot. A smaller number still have lead competitive / progressive functioning guilds, so it might be hard to understand why we feel the way we do.”
• ImaginefX issue 75: “With its epic environments and warrior creature designs, we thought we’d kick off our new games issue of ImagineFX by looking at the art of Guild Wars, ArenaNet’s formidable fantasy computer game. Daniel Dociu, Kekai Kotaki, Kristen Perry and many more key artists tell us how they’ve helped shape the Tyrian world and all its inhabitants.”
• Inc Gamers: Guild Wars 2 Live | PvP interview with Izzy. “Our friends over at Guild Wars 2 live have gotten a new interview with Isaiah Cartwright about PvP in Guild Wars 2“
• Inc Gamers: CynicalBrit | High Level Sylvari Necromancer Gameplay. “TotalBisquit is at the Eurogamer Expo and got the chance to play some high level content with a sylvari necromancer. “