We’re encouraging fans to submit their articles about Guild Wars 2 character diversity for the next Blog Carnival at GuildMag. Now that we’ve had some opportunity to digest all the new information that came out after the press closed beta test weekend, it’s time to let the fans express themselves about what we’ve learned about the game.
March 14, 2012
Blog Carnival 3 at GuildMag
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March 13, 2012
Guild Wars 2 will be available for pre-order on April 10th
We still don’t know when the game will be launching, but at least we can finally stop throwing wads of cash at the monitor … Our summary of the details at GuildMag:
It seems as things are slowly coming together, today, ArenaNet has released an image detailing the contents of three of their launch versions of Guild Wars 2: the Collector’s Edition ($149.99), Digital Deluxe ($79.99) and the Digital Edition ($59.99). You can start purchasing these versions of the game starting April 10th on a special dedicated page on the Guild Wars 2 website
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March 9, 2012
This week in Guild Wars 2
My weekly column at GuildMag is up: This week in Guild Wars 2. There was no major news from ArenaNet — although sure as fate, something will be announced right after I post — but there’s lots of articles, videos, and podcasts from the fan community.
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March 3, 2012
Reasons to play Guild Wars while waiting for Guild Wars 2
I liked this video, and not just because the ranger in the game footage is a clone of my own ranger, Raphia Naon.
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March 2, 2012
This week in Guild Wars 2
My weekly column at GuildMag is now posted: http://www.guildmag.com/this-week-in-guild-wars-2-12. This week, there’s less raw gameplay footage from the press closed beta weekend and more analysis and further spectulation as we wait for the next Guild Wars 2 beta event later in March. More than a million eager players are watching their email inboxes for one of those treasured beta invitations (although a million applied, ArenaNet is inviting an unspecified number to take part in the next beta event).
After the leap of faith, I’d posted a recounting of my most recent vanquish in Guild Wars to Facebook and thought one or two of you might be interested…
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February 24, 2012
This week in Guild Wars 2
My weekly column on news, commentary, podcasts, and videos from the Guild Wars 2 world is now up at GuildMag.com. This week’s column is somewhat truncated, as much of the news was being tracked on an ongoing basis in an aggregation post that Dutch and I began on Monday and Dutch has been adding to over the last few days.
Beta requests were approaching one million (the counter was still spinning when I grabbed this screenshot) and the site had issues keeping up:
They extended the beta request period for just long enough to break the one million barrier.
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February 22, 2012
Press reaction to the Guild Wars 2 closed beta event
There’s been so much material posted after the ArenaNet closed beta test event last weekend that there’s no way to summarize it. Over at GuildMag, Dutch Sunshine has been aggregating everything into a very long post (probably the most comprehensive list out there, he said modestly). I helped out with gathering material on Monday, and Dutch has been busy since then, adding more and more to the list.
Top-posting Update: The beta program is being widened. You can apply to join the next phase of the Guild Wars 2 beta at beta.guildwars2.com. No guarantees that you’ll get in, however, as they will be looking for people with various hardware configurations and (probably) different gaming backgrounds. Also note that this is not an open beta: it’s a closed beta and you have to sign (and be governed by) a non-disclosure agreement — which means the first rule of Guild Wars 2 beta is that you don’t talk about it if you’re in. Beta FAQ page is here. <End of update>
Just to give a sense of the (overwhelmingly positive) press reaction to their weekend access, here’s Sardu at Ten Ton Hammer:
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February 20, 2012
Reports from the Guild Wars 2 press beta weekend
I’ll be busy for much of this morning, working on a big aggregation post over at GuildMag (Dutch Sunshine is the author, I’m just assisting in the background). Today is when the press embargo will lift for this past weekend’s press beta event. I’ll eventually update this post with information from there.
Update: Of course, we’ve been so busy with the aggregation that I didn’t even notice a typo in the headline for several hours…
Update, the second (21 February): I really had intended to come back and update this post with some of the highlights from the beta event, but there is literally too much material to go through. Dutch Sunshine and I worked all of yesterday, and we’re still finding more to add to the post today (actually, Dutch is doing that … today isn’t a holiday for me). All I can recommend is going to the updated post at GuildMag for what I believe to be the most comprehensive collection of links.
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February 17, 2012
This week in Guild Wars 2
My weekly column on news, commentary, podcasts, and videos from the Guild Wars 2 world is now up at GuildMag.com.
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February 16, 2012
ArenaNet gives (lots of) details about Guild Wars 2 World versus World combat
There’s a massively informative article up on the ArenaNet blog discussing the “World versus World” PvP format, including lots of details about how up to 300 players will be able to contribute to their side’s efforts regardless of each player’s current experience level:
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February 10, 2012
This week in Guild Wars 2
My weekly column on news, commentary, podcasts, and videos from the Guild Wars 2 world is now up at GuildMag.com.
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February 3, 2012
This week in Guild Wars 2
My weekly column on news, commentary, podcasts, and videos from the Guild Wars 2 world is now up at GuildMag.com.
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January 30, 2012
What’s happening at GuildMag?
There’s a new post at GuildMag, where Dutch Sunshine offers some news about what will be happening with the website and the magazine:
The time has come to unveil our plans for the future. Whether you’ve been with us from the beginning or just discovered us yesterday, we’ll have something coming for you that you’ll surely enjoy. We at GuildMag want to keep you up to date on the latest news, share the lore behind the game, let you see how creative the community is and also give a range of opinions on the latest news and hottest topics. But we also want to involve you in this; we’re not here to tell you what’s great about Guild Wars (2) — chances are you’ve already got your own opinions on it and we want to hear them! We’re changing the way we operate as a fansite for good, and we want you there every step of the way. So no matter when you discovered us, let’s go forward together and build upon what we’ve already achieved. This is our story.
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January 28, 2012
Photoshopping images is so passé: using game footage is the new trend
At the BBC website, Phil Coomes shows some side-by-side images of real events and modern FPS game images. The recent flap over clips from the game Arma 2 being cited as genuine film captured from the IRA is only the first of many incidents we should expect to encounter, as games get better (and advocates remain as dedicated to advancing their causes as ever):
Today we are used to seeing real time reports from across the globe, technology has advanced and anyone with an internet connection can travel to far-off places, even imaginary worlds, from their armchair.
The world of video games has progressed too. Some seem real, as highlighted by a recent Ofcom ruling that ITV misled viewers by airing footage claimed to have been shot by the IRA, which was actually material taken from a video game.
Labelled “IRA Film 1988”, it was described as film shot by the IRA of its members attempting to down a British Army helicopter in June 1988. However, the pictures were actually taken from a game called Arma 2.
[. . .]
So I went through my photos taken from various combat zones, and attempted to replicate them in a computer game.
The game Arma 2 was ideal — it’s more of a war simulation than an all-out blaster, with the correct uniforms, vehicles and weapons as well as varied terrains and bang-bang firefights.
Plenty of hours fiddling within the gaming environment, alongside Ivan who developed the game, produced some pretty remarkable results.
In some cases it is actually quite hard to tell the difference between my photographs and the computer version, which is deeply worrying. The level of detail is so precise that the virtual war zone is as convincing as the real thing.
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January 27, 2012
This week in Guild Wars 2
This week’s column on news, commentary, podcasts and videos from the Guild Wars 2 world is now up at GuildMag.com.
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