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.

There’s been so much information this week, thanks to the early leak of information that ArenaNet intended to release next week at PAX East, that I’m dividing the newsletter into sections:

Part 1: Commentary on earlier information

• Economy and Consuming Goods — An interesting discussion thread about the Guild Wars economy (pro and con).
• Flameseeker Chronicles: Norn Week — Rubi Bayer rounds up her impressions of the “Norn Week” revelations.
• GuildMag‘s “Thalador Doomspeaker” talks about the Norn information we got during “Norn Week”.

Part 2: New information on Guild Wars

• The latest issue of GuildMag is now available for download.
• NCSoft is introducing new password security features for your Master Account. Check the page for details.
• Wartower.de video interview with John Stumme on the new (March 3rd) Guild Wars update. Includes information on “the Embark Beach Content Update, featuring the seven hero group, a new mission-hub, enhancements to the user interface, changes to pre-searing Ascalon, Titles and a new hero mechanic.”
• Summary of the GW2 Thief introduction and the March 3rd GW game update.
• Kill Ten Rats looks at the GW March 3rd update: “This update will change the game to such a degree that it might as well be Guild Wars 1.5 now.”
• FAQ on the new Mercenary Hero feature (where you can “hire out” your other characters as heroes — a nice, but potentially expensive, way to fill out your new seven-hero parties).

Part 3: New information on Guild Wars 2

• Localization for Guild Wars — Localizing is a big issue for software, especially one with as rich a selection of user interface options, text prompts, storylines, and all the rest of the things that set Guild Wars apart from other MMORPGs. I work in the software industry, and localization is one of the big ticket items for smaller companies (in this context ArenaNet counts as a small company).
• J. Robert King talks about the process of developing and writing Edge of Destiny, the second Guild Wars 2 tie-in novel.
• The next new GW2 class is officially theThief.
• Walkthrough of a new Norn Guardian’s first quest and dynamic event.
• A Thief packing twin pistols beats up the wildlife in a high-level area.
• A Thief demonstrates interesting attack skills, the downed skill, and being defeated during a high-level dynamic event.
• Massively reviews the new Thief profession.
• Even more on the Thief, including the importance of an attribute called Initiative: “Initiative regenerates at one point a second, which allows you to fight at a fairly consistent pace without letting you spam your strongest skills. There’s a profession ability (not tied to which weapon you’re using) called Roll For Initiative (ha!) that moves the Thief well away from his current position, while giving him an Initiative boost.”

Update: Guild Wars 2 Guru rounds up the links for the new profession.

Wartower.de had the opportunity to talk with John Stumme (Lead Game Designer for the Guild Wars Live-Team) about the Embark Beach Content Update, featuring the seven hero group, a new mission-hub, enhancements to the user interface, changes to pre-searing Ascalon, Titles and a new hero mechanic.

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.

• Norn Week Begins — The first post to kick off “Norn Week” on the ArenaNet blog.
• Player reactions to the Dervish update in Guild Wars. I’ve certainly noticed a lot more Dervishes around in-game this week, especially in PvP areas.
• Next post on the Norn: Legend and Legacy. The voices of the Norn, with some insight into why they act the way they do. (I find the samples to be a bit too modern, but perhaps that’s just my personal preference.)
• Norn Week post 3: Go Big or Go Home. The sheer scale of the Norn and their works.
• Eurogamer speculates on Mesmers and Assassins in Guild Wars 2. My own take: Mesmers are explicitly mentioned in the 2nd Guild Wars 2 novel, so they’re in. Assassins are not mentioned, but one of the key characters in the novel has a set of skills that seem remarkably similar to GW assassins.
• A player’s response to the GW Dervish updates and how they’ve changed the playing experience.
• Norn Week: Designing and Redesigning Events.
• ArenaNet’s plans for PAX East, including a new demo featuring the Norn starting area.
• Updates and additions to the official web site’s Norn page.
• Views to admire: Relics of Orr posts the list of must-see places in Guild Wars.
• Norn Week: A Spirit of Legend

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.

• GuildMag has an article on the revelations from the military forces of Kryta post last week.
• Closed Alpha and Beta for 2011: More information/speculation about the recently announced closed alpha and closed beta programs for later this year.
• Rounding up “Humanity Week”: Rubi rounds up last week’s information from ArenaNet on humans.
• An ode to love in Tyria.
• Inside the Quality Assurance group at ArenaNet.
• Rumour of a GW2 team working on “console” development. Expect this to be quashed by ArenaNet soon: UI changes between PC and various consoles alone would make this a very difficult addition to their existing plans. (Later: Regina Buenaobra had apparently already posted this message to dispel these rumours: “I just want to reiterate that the development team is fully focused on making GW2 the best PC MMO ever released. We have a very small team exploring the possibility of console, but there are no definite plans for a console version at this time. The core of Guild Wars 2 development is fully focused on delivering a fantastic PC MMORPG experience.”)
• The promised Guild Wars Dervish update has been released. This is, as promised, a major revision to many Dervish skills. I expect to have to rebuild all my Derv’s builds, eventually. It’ll take a while to absorb the scale of all the changes.
• Developer notes on the Dervish update.
• If you liked “Humanity Week”, you’ll probably be very happy to hear that next week is going to be “Norn Week“

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. It just occurred to me that some of my blog audience might also be interested:

• Last Saturday, the official Guild Wars 2 Twitter account posted this teaser:
  “Next week, we’re taking a closer look at the human race in #GuildWars2 ! Keep an eye on the blog and GuildWars2.com! Happy weekend everyone!”
• http://bloogum.net/guildwars/ If you like looking at the great scenery in Guild Wars, this site is for you. It’s a huge gallery of screen shots of places in GW . . . over 6000 of them.
• Kill Ten Rats speculates that the new GW2 demo for PAX East may herald a wider (dare we say “open”?) availability.
• http://www.guildmag.com/plotting-more-than-depth Speculation on the upcoming Winds of Change content in Cantha: “if we go back to the same thing too many times, we’re going to end up with Mursaat being the equivalent of Daleks, only without the goofy and endearing qualities.”
• http://www.arena.net/blog/oh-the-humanity-human-week-begins Start of a week of posts on the Arenanet blog about humans in GW2.
• Are long-running events a good thing or a bad thing?
• Against the Wall: Humanity in Guild Wars 2
• Designing Humans The next post in Humanity Week is about the graphics (comparing humans in GW with their descendants in GW2).
• Responses to some of the questions generated by the voices of GW2 clips.
• Canthan New Year – the best bits Looking back on Canthan New Year.
• Updated info on Humans at the GW2 official site. My dogs “sang along” with the music on the Kryta video clip. (HD version of the clip here)
• Details of the GW update for the Dervish. It’s pretty significant: 90% of Dervish skills have been updated or changed.
• The Line of Duty What should be the final “Humanity Week” posting: the Three Military Orders of Kryta.
• I’ve also seen multiple references to a November 2011 release date. No confirmation of that from Arenanet, of course. (Also, the Guild Wars 2 FAQ has been updated with this little snippet: ‘We will be conducting small closed alpha and beta tests in 2011.’ )