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. This week was pretty quiet after last week’s release of the new Winds of Change content in Cantha.

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.

(more…)

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. The big news this week was the release of the first segment of the Winds of Change content in Cantha.

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.

(more…)

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. Lots of information this week as a result of last week’s Press Day and Fan Day events.

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.

(more…)

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. The early part of this week was very slow, but Thursday was ArenaNet’s Press Day and Friday was Fan Day, so lots of information started to come out on Friday morning.

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.
• Talk Tyria considers the debate about ArenaNet’s announced ‘no stand-alone expansions’ policy. “We’ve known ANet plans on adding expansions in one form or another for Guild Wars 2. Those sorts of things come naturally with most in this genre of gaming. But with their plans on bending MMO conventions, it’s fun to think about what exactly would an expansion entail. What sort of shiny, new gifts under the tree can we expect, or dare we desire, for future content? And how, exactly, should they be released? Ignoring the stand-alone component, traditionally new expansions come with new explorable areas and quests, a new class or two, a brand new story, a few tweaks and upgrades to the world, graphics and mechanics, and something novel to the game.”

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.
• Guild Wars now has an official support forum. Here is the FAQ for the forums.
• Official reminder about password security for your Guild Wars account.

• Flameseeker Chronicles: Of revolutionary design, babies, and bathwater. “The “revolutionary” aspects of Guild Wars 2 might be an old topic, but it’s one that’s been on my mind lately for two reasons. First, a couple of my colleagues and I got some hands-on time with Star Wars: The Old Republic at E3. One consistent feeling was that it’s a good, solid game but nothing revolutionary. (I was very impressed with it overall, even though I feel it’s not a game for me.) That sparked a lot of discussion regarding the fact that BioWare never claimed that the game would be revolutionary, so the argument is pointless. I can certainly get on board that train of thought, but it still set me thinking about this aspect of game design.”
• Kill Ten Rats Guild Wars 2 Fanday. “A couple weeks ago ArenaNet contacted me and 14 other lucky fans for a huge event. We were all invited out to Seattle to visit the new ArenaNet office on June 24! For this humble blogger, this was seriously a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. [. . .] Thursday will be travel days for most of us, with the fans from Europe possibly starting earlier. That night we will have a meet’n’greet dinner with the Community Team. Friday, we head to the brand new studio! ArenaNet has filled the day with tons of activities, most of which they won’t tell us so as not to spoil any surprises. We will get to play a Guild Wars 2 demo (with no NDA, but no video), and developers are taking time out of their busy schedule to join in on the fun.”
• MMOsite: More juicy details on profession selection. “In a recent long interview with Tap Repeatedly, Jon Peters and Jonathan Sharp, two game system designers from ArenaNet, disclosed some details about Guild Wars 2‘s profession settings. Here, let’s have a quick reading about the information they disclosed in the interview.”
• Arenanet and the Seattle Symphony at PLAY! “The Guild Wars 2 arrangement of PLAY was, unsurprisingly, gorgeous and breathtaking. ArenaNet told us in their blog announcing their inclusion in PLAY that they had prepared a new cinematic for it, which got people excited and curious. Here’s what stood out to me. It’s not comprehensive, as I don’t have cameras in my eyes (and I abide by the rules of the concert hall of course).”
• NCsoft announces San Diego Comic-Con events and schedule. “If you’re planning to attend the San Diego Comic-Con next month, and if you happen to be a fan of Guild Wars or City of Heroes, then NCsoft wants you to swing by its booth while you’re in the neighborhood. Attendees will be able “to meet artists and developers from City of Heroes Freedom and Guild Wars 2.” NCsoft will be giving the latest news on City of Heroes‘ recently announced free-to-play transition as well as giving fans the opportunity to take Guild Wars 2‘s Engineer class for a spin. In addition to all of that, City of Heroes‘ Desdemona will be making appearances at the booth while City of Heroes comic artist David “Noble Savage” Nakayama whips up free illustrations of selected CoH players’ characters. The artists of Guild Wars 2 will also be present to sign limited-edition postcard art books.”
• Jonathan Sharp talks underwater combat. “Here at ArenaNet we don’t think breathing is fun. We figure that you have to breathe every day IRL (in real life), so why should you have to work to breathe in a game — even underwater? There’s a huge amount of underwater content in Guild Wars 2, and we want you to be able to explore it all without stressing about drowning. When you dive underwater, a breathing apparatus is instantly put all up on your face. We provide you with a default breathing apparatus, but you can find all sorts of cool gear to help keep you exploring the depths of the ocean.”
• Guild Wars 2 has full-featured, distinct underwater combat (and we’ve played it!) “It’s time to ditch the snorkel–Guild Wars’ sequel lets us finally dive beneath the water’s surface, and there’s a deep and wonderful world beneath the waves. We went up to ArenaNet’s Seattle-based studio yesterday to swim around the ponds, oceans, rivers, and lakes of Tyria, meet it’s friendly and not-so-friendly aquatic inhabitants, and shoot them with our speargun.”
• Into the Dungeons! “Dungeons are multiplayer, instanced adventuring areas. Unlike most of the rest of Tyria, which can be explored by solo players, dungeons are designed to be played and enjoyed in pre-arranged groups, composed of either your regular guildies or a pick-up team. Whereas our event system creates a dynamic, ever-changing world and our personal story allows you to weave a tale unique to your character, dungeons represent an evolution of the original Guild Wars game experience: instanced areas with a single group of players running through them. [. . .] At the time of this writing, we have eight dungeons in Tyria. They are not beginner’s content; the earliest of them requires characters who’ve reached level 35.”
• Tweets from the Guild Wars 2 Fan Day:

“Day and night cycle is currently two hours. 1:20 of daylight and 40 of night. Possibly will change before release. -Colin”

Eric talking about what they will expect from dungeons and underwater combat.

Underwater combat is different. Underwater skills, weapons, breathing apparatus. Downed: u lose life, regained when you surface

Dungeons have 2 modes-story & explorable. Most PUGs can do story mode well. Explorable is harder & needs a more organized group

Mike Z showing the fans our how content designers use our custom tool, Duo, to spawn monsters and such.

If you have read the books, you will see some nods to the books in the game.

#gw2fanday like being in A gallery http://lockerz.com/s/113718818

Character art room. Not only are there pirates in the game, but you can wear pirate outfits, too. =D #GW2FanDay ~RB

Charr can customize their pelts, so you can look like a tiger or an ocelot if you want. #GW2FanDay ~RB

Animators can get really creative with asura more so than the other races. Room for a bit of humor in movement. #GW2FanDay ~RB

Customizable body shape, facial features, charr body patterns, norn tattoos, sylvari patterns, asura ears. #gw2fanday At the least.

Cinematics take advantage of concept art for cinematics and story telling. Concept art layered w/ proprietary tool. #GW2FanDay ~RB

No pre rendered cinematics. Rendered in real time. Emotive story telling through our cinematics, using concept art. #GW2FanDay ~RB

[Neo] Incredible suit of armor looks incredible. http://yfrog.com/klnpthj

[Neo] Sylvari Camp. #GW2FanDay http://yfrog.com/kibsnuj

• GuildMag‘s first round-up of items from GW2 Press Day (including a few already listed above). “Like you might have heard on other fansites, or on twitter, ArenaNet is having 2 open house days at their newest office! The first open house was for the Press, sites like PCGamer and MMORPG.com were invited over to come and play the latest demo build in which underwater exploration and the Catacombs played a major role. Below you can find a list of current newsposts around the web, but we’ll be sure to have another one up tomorrow to include all the stuff that the Fans, whom are currently at the office having a Fan day, will share with us.”

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. Another quiet week in news.

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 upcoming Winds of Change and other Guild Wars Beyond material, keep this page bookmarked.
• Guild Wars now has an official support forum. Here is the FAQ for the forums.

Part 3: Guild Wars 2 news

• Guild Wars 2 Expansion Formula. “While in ANet’s first guild wars, we had 3 expansions: Factions, Nightfall and GWEN. While in order to be competitive within the game to its highest level, a player must own all the expansions in order to gain access to vital skills; if a player only owned any single one of these games, he would still be able to play this expansion as a standalone game. However for Guild Wars 2, Eric Flannum, a lead designer of GW2, stated ‘”At this time we don’t plan to continue with the standalone expansion model. We felt that this model split our player base unnecessarily and also caused us to focus development effort on things that were redundant with the original release of the game such as tutorial areas and duplicates of already existing skills.””
• Flameseeker Chronicles: Let’s talk business “Some of what I had to say prompted some heavy discussion in the comments, including my opinion that GW2 will have less competition thanks to the business model. Now, 95% of the time I laugh and move on when someone tells me that my opinions are wrong; after all, they are my opinions. It’s not really a question of right or wrong. The other five percent of the time, someone will make an eloquent, well-thought-out opposing case that makes me sit back and reconsider what I’ve been thinking. I usually won’t be completely swayed to an opposing opinion, but sometimes it can open my eyes to the merits of a different viewpoint and leave me feeling that there are some good things to be said for it.”
• Part 2 of Gamerzines‘ interview with Eric Flannum. “We have two very distinct types of PvP in Guild Wars 2. First we have what we call “competitive” PvP which features small teams matched against each other. In this type of PvP players are all on an even footing, having access to the same skills and abilities as every other player. The only progressions featured in this type of PvP are purely cosmetic upgrades. Then we have World vs. World PvP (WvW), which features full player progression and levelling. In this type of PvP, players are transported to a large area of the world where they take part in a multi-week persistent match against two other worlds (what you might call servers in another game). This match features castle sieges, supply lines, and lots of objectives of varying size. “
• An Arenanet writer talks about what it’s like to be a writer at a gaming company. Other than the gaming part of it, it sounds pretty much like being a technical writer at any other kind of software company (which I’ve done for many years). In short, even though you’re working on a game, you’re still working. “Well, that’s a big question. It’s a job, first and foremost, and you have to approach it professionally. From the outside, it may look like we have TONS of fun and goof off all the time, but that’s an illusion. It is tons of fun, but it’s also tons of work, long hours and strange hours sometimes. Working for a game company requires a lot of dedication. You have to be available to work long hours, especially during crunch time. Crunch time happens in the final stages before the game is supposed to ship. It can last as long as a year prior to shipping, as everyone hunkers down and works like mad to implement all the great ideas we came up with in the first stages of design. It can be very stressful, which is why it’s so important to remain professional even though the people you work with are friends too. “
• The mostly harmless Quaggan. “Their dual nature came from a concern that, being so cute and cuddly, they would never survive in a deadly outer world. That was when we hit on the idea of their hulking out — “Do not make quaggan angry. You would not like quaggan when quaggan is angry.” This brought about the wide-jawed, fang-faced version of the quaggans and, with it, a new question: why wouldn’t the quaggans just be quaggan hulks all the time? In a case of art informing lore, we determined that quaggans were embarrassed by this violent behavior. That self-consciousness led to further developments of quaggan attitudes about the individual and community, and the foundations of their society were born. In large part because of those unique societal norms, quaggans are one of the few races in the game that have a distinct speaking style, but that distinction can be difficult. Simply replacing every personal pronoun with “quaggan” is a challenge to clarity. Thankfully, teeth and all, quaggans remain our most cuddly race, so the hard work is easy to endure.”
• Kill Ten Rats: The need for Ewoks. “They are the mostly harmless species of lovable, cuddle-able, wuvabl… I mean, my charr warrior will occasionally do a drive-by fistpound on these beluga muffins.”
• Official Guild Wars 2 media asset kit. “ArenaNet is pleased to provide the Guild Wars 2 Asset Kit, a collection of visual assets related to the upcoming Guild Wars 2. This material is intended to help you communicate information about Guild Wars 2 and to create compelling content related to the game. If you’re looking for official GW2 visuals for your blog, fan site, website, magazine, publication, or project, these graphics are here for your use.”

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.
• Not really Guild Wars/Guild Wars 2-related, but interesting anyway: “The report, entitled 2011 Essential Facts About the Computer and Video Game Industry (and can be downloaded in pdf form here) has revealed some new numbers about female gamers, including their growing presence in the gaming audience. As of 2010, 42 percent of the gaming audience is female, up from 40 percent the previous year. And interestingly enough, turning the whole “video games are for teenage boys” stereotype on its head, women 18 and older make up more of the gaming audience than boys 17 and younger.”

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.
• Flameseeker Chronicles: A method to the madness. “The June 2nd update is the talk of the Guild Wars playerbase this week — especially on the PvP side of the community. It was certainly enough to pique my interest, even though my PvP project fell victim to a complete lack of free time this month. What really interested me about this update, however, is that it feels like such a response to feedback and the current vibe of the player community. Not that ArenaNet doesn’t pay attention as a rule, but so many of the huge updates are focused on the Hall of Monuments and Guild Wars: Beyond in preparation for Guild Wars 2 that it’s nice to see one that is all about Guild Wars 1 — not to mention one that is a pure response to the state of the current game.”

Part 3: Guild Wars 2 news

• Check out a neat fan-made “New Krytan Translator” website.
• Arenanet is sponsoring a symphony performance of music from Guild Wars. “The Seattle Symphony and Chorus will perform music from a wide range of video game titles old and new, accompanied by hi-def graphics from the games on large screens above the orchestra. We’ve cut together a new video of cinematic footage from Guild Wars 2 specifically for the event. We’re sure that the incredible visuals paired with Jeremy Soule’s stirring Guild Wars music will be the highlight of the performance.”
• Gamer Zines interview with Eric Flannum, part 1. “We do guide our players through their story with markers (which resemble a green star burst) and these markers will sometimes appear over an NPC’s head. The important difference in this case is that a player will only ever have one step in their story, one thing that they are trying to accomplish, not a journal full of 20 tasks that by their very nature and quantity start to seem unimportant. The things that the player is asked to do while on their personal story are often long and involved and they should always feel like they flow organically from the narrative that the player is experiencing. In short, the player should never be asked to kill X monsters by someone who they’ve never met before. Think of the personal story in Guild Wars 2 as you would the “main” storyline of a great single player RPG.”
• Tap Repeatedly‘s interview with Jonathan Sharp and Jon Peters. “The warriors strength is mainly focused on its melee attacks but knowing where to be on the battlefield, at a high level, is probably the most difficult thing. To get to a very acceptable, competent level with the warrior, yes, it’s probably the easiest one to get there. But only 1 in a million people have reached the level of a warrior that really sets them apart. If you’ve seen any Guild Wars 1 we had The Last Pride, a Korean guild, and they had a warrior called Last of Master and there is no one I have seen who is even close to him. He takes positioning — things that makes a warrior — to a level no one else does. There is more room to improve on the warrior than any other profession, though a lot of people would argue that with me, but to me that subtlety of positioning is something almost no one ever understands.”

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. After all the excitement around the Engineer profession reveal last week, this week has been very quiet indeed.

Part 1: Discussion of previous news

• This week’s anniversary sale item at the Guild Wars in-game store is extra character slots.
• 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 upcoming Winds of Change and other Guild Wars Beyond material, keep this page bookmarked.
• Game Update. Developer Update Notes. “Are you tempted by the thought of forcefully subjecting other people to your combat superiority, but you’re also left wondering, “What’s in it for me?” We understand. That time that you nailed a ridiculous spike on the Frenzy/Heal Signet Warrior makes a great story, but at the end of the day, what do you have to show for it? This has been a longstanding problem with our competitive formats: there are a great variety to try, but many people haven’t found enough reasons to jump in. This latest update introduces numerous enhancements and additions to make your competitive experience significantly more rewarding. Among them, you’ll find new items, never-before-seen weapons, and new prestige emotes. Additionally, we’ve made changes to some titles, making the process of obtaining them a better match for the venue of combat. There might even be some other unexpected surprises.”
• Under the Pale Tree: Welcome to PvP, enjoy your stay! “I’m generally part of the “nah, no thanks” camp when it comes to PvP. My guild is small and we’re all primarily PvE players, so GvG is right out. HA doesn’t really interest me much, and even if I wanted to try, I have no experience so no group would take me. Codex is interesting in theory but not really my thing. RA can be fun, but sometimes it can be utterly frustrating, and tends to be full of people trying to sync matches. AB isn’t really something that interests me. FA and JQ I do rather enjoy, but as mentioned above, it can take absolutely forever to get into a match sometimes. There’ve been days where I’ve waited ten minutes for it to find enough people on the Luxon side to start a match (yes, I am Kurzick). Well, today, ArenaNet released a PvP-oriented update. And while it doesn’t fix all of the problems inherent in GW’s PvP (mostly because a lot of them are because of the community and not the game itself), it does do a lot to make it more interesting for people who may not have tried it before.”

Part 3: Guild Wars 2 news

• Engineer Q&A with Eric Flannum. “It should be noted that almost none of the engineer’s kits and weapons have a minimum range associated with them. That being said, the engineer does have fewer up close and personal options. Flamethrowers are best at close or short range, whereas things like the bomb and mine kit are definitely good for dealing with enemies who get too close. In an emergency, the engineer can even smack someone with their wrench!”

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

• This week’s anniversary sale item at the Guild Wars in-game store is Guild Wars: Eye of the North.
• 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 upcoming Winds of Change and other Guild Wars Beyond material, keep this page bookmarked.
• Game update for 23 May. The Developer Notes indicate that this is a small update to nerf a few Dervish skills which “allow players to output more pressure than is reasonable for the skill required”.

Part 3: Guild Wars 2 news

• Flameseeker Chronicles: Analyzing the Engineer. “After watching the skill videos… well, an embarrassing number of times, I’ve come up with three or four distinct styles of weaponry. First there are the steampunk-style items: the Glue Shot pistols, the rifle carried by the human female Engineer, the turrets, and the flamethrower. Second, one item has a real-world modern feel — the now-infamous landmine. Third, there are very primitive items that I honestly wouldn’t be surprised to see in Guild Wars 1, like the bomb pack, the health pack, and the exploding barrel. In fact, we do have exploding barrels in Eye of the North. Finally, there are brief glimpses here and there of rifles with a colonial feel to them, which seems to fit some of the early concept art. It all has a very inconsistent and slightly confusing feeling, and it leaves me both wondering what exactly this class is supposed to be and dying to know more. I need lore and history and design background — I need context, because I feel like there’s a method to the madness.”
• Exclusive Massively interview with Eric Flannum. “Unless you’ve been spelunking near the center of the earth for the past few days, you’re likely aware that ArenaNet recently unveiled Guild Wars 2‘s seventh class. Chances are high that you’re also aware of said class’s affinity for turrets, guns, and various contraptions meant to rain death down upon any unfortunate enemies that cross its path. Today, Massively presents a new interview with Guild Wars 2 lead designer Eric Flannum. Naturally, the guest of honor at this Tyrian banquet of exclusivity is the Engineer, and Flannum (along with several other ANet dignitaries) provides us with a few tasty mechanical appetizers before getting down to the lore-centric main course.”
• GuildMag Issue 7 is now available in HTML so you don’t need to download the PDF file. Interview with Eric Flannum is here.
• Winners of the Guild Wars 2 Ambassador contest.
• PC Gamer reviews the Engineer profession. “Like the Elementalist, the Engineer can completely swap out the set of weapon skills on their bar on the fly by activiting different kits, instead of by switching weapon sets mid-combat. It’s unconfirmed, but it certainly sounds like the Engineer’s Backpacks will function similarly to the Elementalists’ different “attunements” — which allow Elementalists to swap out their entire weapon skill set mid-combat — since the blog describes Backpacks as completely replacing the Engineer’s current weapon skills with skills from the Backpack kit.”
• Frequently Asked Questions about the Engineer. “Last week we rolled out the engineer, the multi-purpose, mechanically minded Guild Wars 2 profession. The engineer’s use of hardware like mines and turrets represents a departure from classic fantasy tropes and a whole new style of gameplay, so many of you had questions. Fortunately, we have answers! Read on for answers to common engineer questions!”
• Arenanet’s Tradeshow Summer. “What are you doing this summer? ArenaNet is making big plans for this year’s tradeshow season and we want you to join us. Read on for a breakdown of what we’re up to this year! Just like last year, we won’t be attending E3 this year. Instead, we’ll continue to focus on shows that allow us to share Guild Wars 2 directly with gamers.”

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

• This week’s anniversary sale item at the Guild Wars in-game store is the Extreme Makeover Pack.
• If you listen to podcasts, you might want to subscribe to the Guildcast weekly podcast — https://guildcast.wordpress.com/

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.
• Ascalon Royal Family Masquerade Ball 2011 on May 21st. “The Ascalon Royal Family Masquerade Ball is a long forgotten formal event, engraved into history years before the searing. The Kingdom of Ascalon was once prosperous, led by King Adelbern and the Royal Family. During such times the ball was the yearly celebration to celebrate the wealth and beauty that was Ascalon.”

Part 3: Guild Wars 2 news

• Inc. Gamers Guild Wars 2 Interview, Part 1. “One big difference is crafting in the original Guild Wars was you salvage stuff and you brought it to an NPC and he crafted it for you. In Guild Wars 2 we have a number of different ways to get materials. One is from drops, another from salvaging and also from gather nodes in the world. For crafting your character chooses crafting professions and you are going to be doing the crafting and you find a crafting table where you take your raw material. You then craft the items. What this does for us, it creates a more social experience, it’s a little more traditional but it gives the chance for players to interact a lot more with each other.”
• Inc. Gamers Guild Wars 2 Interview, Part 2. [On PvP dynamics:] “Absolutely, a small group can defeat a larger group when fighting each other. We have a few players that are quite good at the game right now, generally now my reaction when I see them is to turn and run, even with an ally or two with me. There’s definitely a lot of is skill involved in the game. We introduced some new players to our PvP environment recently and when they first started playing, not their very first game, a couple of games in when they had a grasp of the basics, we had a player who was beating people, he would kill like nine players in a row. Eventually as time progressed a lot of the players who were getting beaten by him are now as good as him, maybe even better. There’s definitely that sort of skill and learning how to play the game. Everyone thought the profession he was playing was completely broken and then he switched to another one and they were saying that one was now broken.”
• PC Gamer’s Guild Wars 2 Preview. “If nothing else, Guild Wars 2 will be a beautiful fantasy MMORPG. Better than that, having played it, I can say that I think it’s a step forward for MMO games. Guild Wars 2 is advancing the very fundamentals of the genre. It is bravely ditching the fetch, carry, kill and collect style of questing that has kept us entertained/sedated for years. It is pinning its second-by-second interactions on a combat style that is fast, frantic and unpredictable. Oh: and there’s no subscription fee to pay. Once you’ve bought Guild Wars 2, you’ll be able to play it forever. Ruh roh. Guild Wars 2 is taking huge risks. With those risks come potentially huge pratfalls.”
• Guild Wars 2 developers on alert of security breaches. “The pair stated it’s still too early to talk about its specific security measures, however they “understand having operated GW and seeing all the account theft that has happened. Obviously we’re hoping to shoot for accounts never being stolen, but there’s only so much you can do. At the moment though we’re not quite ready to talk about exactly what we’re doing.””
• Flameseeker Chronicles: Lion’s Arch unveiled. “Every square inch of Lion’s Arch speaks to that, and I love it. Look at the buildings created from broken ships, the bridges and walkways constructed out of salvaged wood (wood planks, I assume), and even the windows framed with parts of much smaller vessels. The stone towers appear to be built from the same stone you can see in the structures in present-day Lion’s Arch, and the idea that those responsible for the rebuilding effort salvaged them from the ruins of the old buildings fits with the feel of the city overall. The Lion’s Arch we see in the video might be relatively new, but it’s got a strong sense of history and familiarity.”
• Gamebreaker.tv Episode 47. Discussion of Guild Wars 2 (including the Lion’s Arch video) begins at the 37:40 mark.
• Interview with Martin Kerstein at Hunter’s Insight. “Okay lets start off with the obvious. Martin said at a meet and greet in Germany that a new profession will be revealed this month. It was reported in this thread at Guild Wars 2 Guru, commencing about 14 pages of a thread I wish I had never read. In any case it has been confirmed in an interview and on those forums. Will it be the mesmer, or the 8th unknown profession? Who can say. I suspect it will be whichever is done, though from a marketing perspective I’m sure the 8th unknown profession would have to be the last.”
• A not very serious entry in the Guild Wars 2 Ambassador video contest.
• GameReactor.tv Guild Wars 2 preview video. “Petter Mårtensson, our resident MMO expert, has not tried Guild Wars 2. Instead it was the complete MMO n00b Bengt Lemne who took a plane to Seattle to try a bit of Arenanet’s new game and meet the developers.”
• Further confirmation that there will be a Guild Wars 2 beta in 2011. “The Guild Wars 2 beta will begin in the second half of 2011, NCsoft has announced. During a conference call, chief financial officer Jaeho Lee also heavily hinted at a 2012 release for the game. “Starting from year 2012, we believe substantial growth will be driven by new blockbuster titles like [Blade & Soul] and Guild Wars 2,” announced Lee to investors.”
• An interview with Martin Kerstein at Rock, Paper, Shotgun. “Well, what we try to do with Guild Wars 2 anyway is to break a lot of the existing conventions, like by getting rid of quests and basically totally focusing on dynamic events. So you just run through the world and happen on stuff, and that stuff has an impact on the world. It’s not just there’s this one guy standing with an exclamation mark and you go there, he says ‘hey, those evil bandits over there have been threatening me for the last 15 years, like I told the other thousand people before you…’ Then you go there and they’re not actually doing anything. So you kill them then come back, so the guy says ‘thanks, everything is fine now’ but you turn around and the bandits are back… Our dynamic events will actually have an impact on the world, so if you defend a village it’s safe. It’s more like a living, breathing world.”
• Introducing the 7th profession: The Engineer. “Masters of mechanical mayhem, engineers tinker with explosives, gadgets, elixirs, and all manner of deployable devices. They can take control of an area by placing turrets, support their allies with alchemic weaponry, or lay waste to foes with a wide array of mines, bombs, and grenades. Like elementalists, engineers use a single weapon set at a time, but they complement this weapon set by equipping special utility and healing kits. These kits provide the engineer with special weapons and backpacks loaded with a full set of skills to replace their current weapon skills.”
• Rubi Bayer reviews the new information on the Engineer class. “Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 fans, did you love the Commando class? Were you disappointed that it was all an elaborate joke? Did you love the idea of detonating bombs, flinging grenades, and setting mines in Guild Wars 2? Well, this is going to be a good day for you, because ArenaNet has announced the seventh profession: the Engineer. While it’s not the Commando class per se, the Engineer is described as “a master of mechanical mayhem” and looks to be the class that will fulfill all of your most explosive gameplay wishes.”
• Wartower.de interview with Eric Flannum and Jon Peters. “Engineer technology really developed with the Charr first and foremost. And its one of the specialties developed by the Charr Iron Legion. When we talk about the Engineer he is very much a Combat-Engineer and good in inventing things that are useful in a combat situation. The Iron Legion is the start of all of this, and the Engineer profession has spread to the other races from there. The People of Tyria have seen it in combat over the past few years and have seen the effectiveness of an engineer. And so you are going to see Engineers of all races although it is a little bit more common to see a Charr Engineer than anybody else. So it all started with the Charr and their technological development.”
• Kotaku.com looks at the new Engineer. “In some fantasy role-playing games, engineering bombs, guns, and useful gadgets is nothing more than a novel crafting skill. In Guild Wars 2, it’s a way of life. Let’s meet the game’s newly-revealed Engineer. While other classes rely on their magic or physical prowess to survive the harsh environs of Tyria some 250 years after the events of the original Guild Wars, the Engineer relies on his or her mechanical know-how to fill the many roles asked of a character in Guild Wars 2. How does a mechanical genius survive on the battlefield? I suppose the bombs help.”
• Strategy Informer’s interview with Eric Flannum & Jon Peters. “Our engineers are very much combat engineers so they have a lot of ways to do damage. Like all of our professions, and I think this is especially true of the engineer, we try to make different play styles available to them and allow players to switch between each of them rather quickly. In one moment an engineer might be utilising the health kit, dispensing med-packs and healing team mates and then the next switching to the mine kit where you can throw out mines to secure and area before detonating them. In another minute you could switch to your rifle and dual pistols and be able to do more damage dealing. If monsters are right up in your face you can switch to the bomb kits which, unlike grenades which have to been throw out, can place a variety bombs at your feet. This can turn the engineer, if you want to think of it in a traditional MMO sense, into a point blank area of effect character. “
• Rock, Paper, Shotgun’s fans’ Q&A with Martin Kerstein. “Q: What’s the endgame looking like, what kind of raids and dungeons are we looking at? Martin Kerstein: Eric said it and I reiterated it over the weekend, but our end game begins at level 1. What other MMOs do is basically get you to level 80 or 90 or whatever the max is, and then you have to abandon the game that you have played, because what’s the traditional endgame is a completely separate game. So you play the whole time, level your character up to a certain point, and then a new game begins. So we don’t want to force people to play something that they might not even enjoy because it’s not what they were doing before. So if you like our dynamic events, they will be there all the time, and they will still be there when you reach max level, with really challenging stuff. If you like the dungeons, great! We have challenging dungeons at the end. If you like PvP, we have world vs world PvP where you can even level the whole way up to 80 without even touching PvE. So we want to provide people endgame content that is actually catering to the style they like to play, and that’s why we say our endgame begins at level 1.”
• GuildMag: Technological Advancement in the Engineer. “The Engineer was both the best- and worst-kept secret of the Guild Wars 2 profession lineup. It was the best because, unlike the other professions, we didn’t know what it was going to be until a leak a few hours before the official release, as ArenaNet had been canny about giving practically no hints that could confirm it — even if some are of the ‘obvious in hindsight’ nature (for instance, I think we can say we now know Kranxx’s profession in Ghosts of Ascalon). However, it was also the worst because despite this, pretty much all of the engineer’s features had been predicted before release. While there was still some reasonable doubt (and, it has to be said, a lot of unreasonable doubt) that it was actually in, wading through the profession speculation threads will reveal turrets, a variety of explosives, advanced weapon kits (although apparently we’ve missed out on the charrzooka), medical concoctions and exotic ammunition loads for firearms. All in all, it seems a success for the community’s speculation engine.”

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

• This week’s anniversary sale item at the Guild Wars in-game store is the Bonus Mission Pack.

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.
• Ascalon Royal Family Masquerade Ball 2011 on May 21st. “The Ascalon Royal Family Masquerade Ball is a long forgotten formal event, engraved into history years before the searing. The Kingdom of Ascalon was once prosperous, led by King Adelbern and the Royal Family. During such times the ball was the yearly celebration to celebrate the wealth and beauty that was Ascalon.”

Part 3: Guild Wars 2 news

• Interview at guild-hall.cz with Eric Flannum (Lead Designer), Jon Peters (Game Designer), Jeff Grubb (Game Designer), Colin Johanson (Lead Content Designer), Ree Soesbee (Game Designer). “Eric: My current favorite [dynamic event] starts with a norn named Gareth. He is looking after his son and his two daughters. These children are a bit of a handful (as most norn children are) and occupying all of his time so he’s asking generous adventurers who pass by to bring him dolyak meat so he can get his smoker going and make some much needed money. It’s a chain that involves his children wreaking havoc at the homestead and culminates in their attempt to use a “ritual” (which involves spreading honey all over the floor) to get the spirit of bear to send a bear play mate for them to wrestle. It turns out that their ritual is perhaps too good and much to their surprise an entire horde of bears descends upon the homestead. “
• Exclusive interview with ArenaNet’s Bobby Stein. “By rough estimates, Guild Wars 2 will have as much text as the entirety of the original Guild Wars series, including all three standalone campaigns and the Eye of the North expansion. It’s absolutely enormous in terms of written content. Because this is such a massive undertaking, we’ve segmented duties for the various content areas. Jeff Grubb heads up the dungeon story. Ree Soesbee is the primary writer for the personal story chapters, along with Scott McGough from my team. Lastly, the writing team is the driving force for event writing and VO, as well as ambient scenes. I give all the major dialogue a “script doctoring” edit pass, and try to make adjustments so that it sounds more natural.”
• Flameseeker Chronicles: Sharing the love. “It’s been a busy week in Guild Wars 2 news! Some might argue that point because of the lack of big reveals, but a large number of little details can be just as good as one or two huge unveilings. I think the real problem is that we’re at a point in the cycle right now when everyone’s feeling weary of the endless road toward launch. There’s no definitive end in sight; maybe this year, maybe next year, who knows. That feeling comes and goes — it’s been a regular part of the hype for a very long time now. Sometimes the fans just go into a lull because they’re tired of the whole mess and all they really want is a closed beta window.”
• Video of Lion’s Arch. “The most diverse and cosmopolitan city in Tyria, Lion’s Arch is a melting pot where all the races gather and trade. Lion’s Arch owes no allegiance to any race or nation, but stands on its own — and it does so by virtue of its active navy, its financial strength, and the intelligence and cunning of its leaders.”
• Walking (as opposed to running) will be included in Guild Wars 2.
• ArenaNet’s approach to Real World experience. “Some college internships are more about filing paperwork, fetching coffee and performing work that is only marginally related to the host company’s core service or product, all in the name of earning a few college credits and the ability to claim “I have experience.” But Guild Wars house ArenaNet says its new internship program, dubbed “Arena University,” aims to give participants real-world game development experience, as well as something to show for it in a commercial product. “
• Lion’s Arch: Building the heart of the city. “Attention-to-detail in games is important to me, not just as a designer, but also as a player. I’m the type who will explore every nook and cranny when I get to a new area, or I’ll run around talking to everyone to make sure I’m not missing even the smallest kernel of information. I will even put my quest or mission on the shelf briefly and just stand around watching characters go about their business. So that’s why, when Colin Johanson approached me about taking on the hefty job of designing the cities of Guild Wars 2, I jumped at the chance: it provides me the opportunity to fill our world’s cities with the details I crave.”

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).

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

• No significant news in this category for this week.

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.
• Game update, April 21, including some additional tweaks to several Dervish skills.
• Official Sixth Anniversary page. “This year marks the sixth anniversary of Guild Wars! We couldn’t have made it this far without you, so we’re hosting a big party — and you’re the guests of honor! Come celebrate with us from April 28th to May 6. It’s going to be a weekend of games, sugary treats, and anniversary surprises!”
• Guild Wars Sixth Anniversary. “The sixth anniversary of Guild Wars is here, and ArenaNet is celebrating in a big way with an update today [Thursday]. This sixth anniversary brings new content, some surprising new birthday tonics, and some big changes to PvP. That last item on the list comes courtesy of the Lunatic Court members and their efforts to free Mad King Thorn last Halloween. “While these events have long passed, the aftereffect of this plot has caused instability to seep into the land causing fluctuations. This Flux will come and go monthly and cause alterations to PvP that will encourage players to alter their playing style in order to take advantage of the current Flux.””
• Celebrate six years of Guild Wars with prizes and an exclusive update interview “Characters celebrating their sixth birthday this year will find a surprise in their inventory, with the biggest surprise being what the gift is not: a minipet. That’s right — instead of sixth year miniatures, ArenaNet has introduced a series of over 30 different everlasting tonics. Tear off the wrapping on your birthday present to find a tonic to turn you into a familiar friend, an intimidating foe, or . . . well, it wouldn’t be any fun if we gave everything away, would it?”
• Game updates for 28 April and 29 April.
• Developers’ notes on the 6th anniversary game update. “Have you ever wondered where your friends were in the wide world of Guild Wars? With the new-and-improved Friends List, wonder no longer! If you and your friend are mutual friends — each of you has the other on their Friends List — then the game will now display your current locations on each other’s Friends List.”

Part 3: Guild Wars 2 news

• I was wrong in assuming that there were no further updates when I assembled last week’s update. Arenanet did post a bit more Charr information on Friday: The Legions of the Charr. “In the year 1090 of the Mouvelian calendar, King Adelbern, last human ruler of Ascalon, released the Foefire. The human residents of that land succumbed to the terrible magic, only to rise again as ghosts. By 1112, the High Legions of the charr reclaimed the entirety of Ascalon. Only four years later, Kalla Scorchrazor of the Blood Legion came before Forge Ironstrike, the imperator of the Iron Legion, and challenged him to help her free their people from the shamans’ control. Together, Kalla and Forge led a rebellion against the Flame Legion, overthrowing their tyrannical rule. The three legions, Blood, Ash, and Iron, then reassembled a nation from the ruins of the past.”
• More on the Charr reveal from last week. “The charr paid for their success dearly, for the old High Legions (Ash, Blood, Iron) were put under the yoke of the Flame Legion, who researched forbidden magics and worshipped dark, false gods. The Flame Legion also subordinated the charr females, who had previously been equals to their males. As the war lengthened, each success was attributed to the inherent rightness of the Flame Legion’s crusade and each failure was used as an excuse for others to sacrifice for the good of the Flame Legion Shamans.”
• GuildMag summarizes the rank and title structure of the Charr Legions. “Today marks the last day in a week full of charr and as with every race week so far, that means an awesome new blog entry by Ree Soesbee. In this post we learn a bit more about the hierarchical structure within the charr race, a look at the Imperators of the three charr legions: Smodur the Unflinching of the Iron, Bangar Ruinbringer of the Blood and Malice Swordshadow of the Ash; and last but certainly not least, we’re treated to a nice story of an Ash Legion scout and a Blood Legion warrior.”
• Talk Tyria reviews what we got to learn about the Charr last week. “One of the greatest things about the lore updates is the balanced view that it gives to the charr nation as a whole. Yes, they are indisputably warriors. They are fierce and vicious and seem to pursue victory with a whole-heartedness that is almost terrifying. But they are also strictly disciplined and hold honor in high regard. They will give up anything to protect those they love and serve with. Ree’s story, interwoven with the post about the ranks and orders of the charr infrastructure, was quite touching and revealed a wholly necessary softer side to the hell-cats we met in the world of Guild Wars 1.”
• A fan-made video for Guild Wars 2.
• Role Playing in Guild Wars 2? “This is kind of been a hot topic all around since the dawn of gaming. In general, there’s always been a sort of unspoken rivalry between people who play MMOs for the game and those who play for the RP (and then of course those who do both) which has led to some pretty interesting / entertaining conflicts. At the very least, the idea is that in any RPG video game, you are a playing as someone else (or an incarnation of yourself), and in some sort of role. So in essence, everybody is already technically doing it. Many like to take this to the next level, though, and actually act out as their character. Some do it jokingly, some seriously, and many somewhere in-between. And lets be honest, most of us, dedicated RPers or not, have dabbled in it at least once (don’t lie).”
• An introduction to the environment art of Guild Wars 2. “Environment artists grow up wishing they could wander through and explore the elaborate sets of their favorite movies: the steaming, miserable swamps of Dagobah from The Empire Strikes Back; the neon-lit, rainy streets of future Los Angeles from Blade Runner; that immense, biomechanical derelict from Alien. These settings existed ephemerally on studio back lots or soundstages before being torn down or redressed for another project. You only ever see them from certain angles, for mere minutes of screen time. Game worlds aren’t movie sets. Though the sprawling world of Guild Wars 2 has no physicality, it’s a persistent place that will be experienced again and again, from multiple vantage points. In the original Guild Wars, a map artist could “cheat” in places they knew a player could never reach, using unbacked facades or hollow props, but there are few parts of this new game world that are inaccessible. Players are going to swim to the bottom of that flooded cavern or jump the counter of that pub to sneak into the back room. So, no cheating this time.”
• Peering closely at random screen shots can provide unexpected insights.
• 90 facts about Guild Wars 2. “As we looked at all the articles the bunch of us have posted over the year or so about Guild Wars 2, we realized we put a lot of stuff out there. Covering topics as important as death/leveling to as miniscule as the dye system. All of this we have covered and found out great information about the game. Most of this stuff still gets viewed on a daily basis, but we feel that the time has come that we organize it all in a nice article and allow you to refer back to it at any point. So if you get into a nerd debate, you can pull up the facts and tell them to stfu.”
• Guild Wars 2 fan video contest. “Are you a Guild Wars 2 fan? Do you think all your friends should play Guild Wars 2? Summon all your creative and persuasive powers and make your own one-minute Guild Wars 2 promotional video that explains why you think people should play the game at launch. Keep in mind that all entries must be in English. Two lucky fans will win a Grand Prize trip to ArenaNet’s brand new studio near Seattle, Washington, and spend the day playing Guild Wars 2 with the ArenaNet dev team!”

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.

A day early this time due to the Easter weekend: I doubt that Arenanet will be publishing any new material from Friday to Sunday.

Part 1: Discussion of previous news

• Nothing in this category this week, it’s all Charr, all the time.

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.
• Rubi Bayer: Walk on the wild side. “I have a confession to make: I’m
  burned out on Guild Wars. That’s not the fault of Guild Wars at all — I’m finding a general feeling of burnout with all themepark MMOs in general. I discussed it at length with Shawn and Beau on last week’s Massively Speaking [podcast], but the short version is that I find myself logging into my core MMOs (Guild Wars, Dungeons and Dragons Online, and RIFT), saying some version of “Meh,” and logging out again. After a couple weeks of this, it finally occurred to me to take my own darn advice: Try something new and different. With my typical all-or-nothing approach, I’m jumping in with both feet. So what is my new venture? Most of you can probably guess, but follow along after the jump for the skinny on my latest project.”

Part 3: Guild Wars 2 news

• Kill Ten Rats: Shades of Zoo. “This doesn’t necessarily make one dynamic event system better than the other. Just like some people prefer the focused experience of Disney’s Animal Kingdom to the San Diego Zoo, so to will some people prefer Rift’s guided approach to Guild Wars 2′s events-are-everywhere approach. We are seeing different sides to Rift only because it is live and being experienced by so many. Obviously Trion Worlds hit their first stumble when trying to provide a singular whammy of an event last Saturday. It will be interesting to see what we and ArenaNet learns when the masses hit their servers. Trion Worlds is already learning from theirs.”
• Prepare yourself for Charr Week! “The charr first appeared in the original Guild Wars as the implacable foes of humanity, but a lot has happened in the 250 years between the first game and the time period of Guild Wars 2. The charr have rejected their false gods and embraced industry and technology with gusto, crafting devastating weaponry and incredible machinery. But empire and expansion comes with a heavy price, and the charr of Guild Wars 2 are beset by formidable enemies on all sides.”
• Introducing the Charr as a playable race. “There are eight professions we’ve announced, and Charr will be able to play all eight,” confirmed ArenaNet’s Jon Peters. “Race choices are a story and role-playing decision for us, but that being said, we do like to add some flavour to the races by giving them specific skills. So the Charr are technologically advanced compared to the other races, so some of their profession skills do things like a hidden pistol, shrapnel mines, and an elite skill where they can call in an artillery barrage,” added the developer.”
• Charr Week interview with Jeff Grubb and John Peters. “In the
  original Guild Wars we had one playable race, which was human, but now we’ve got the humans, the Charr, Asura, Sylvari and the Norn. This week we’re officially revealing the Charr, who were the bad guys in the original prophecies. They were the race that broke through the great wall, attacked Ascalon, and now, they are a playable race. We go a lot more into their culture, their world, their rationale, as well as why they’re here and what their goals are. The Charr themselves are these huge, feline, horned warriors. You know, they have come from a military culture, and in Guild Wars 2 they have conquered Ascalon. Although they would say they ‘re-conquered’ it, because that land was originally theirs before the humans arrived and drew them out.”
• Part 2 of the interview with Jeff Grubb and John Peters. “Looking at the MMO space specifically, it’s important to be very social. In most MMOs, you have all of these players playing together, but they’re not very social, and like, we took every aspect of it and said, ‘what can we do to make Guild Wars 2 more social?’ That’s why the combat is more about working together, and why the story in the persistent world is all about events, which is content that players do together. “
• Interview with Jeff Grubb. “The humans and charr have a truce, and part of that truce is that both species are welcome in each other’s cities. In practice, only adventurous souls would walk into the other race’s city. The charr don’t eat other sentient races, though they will gladly let you believe that if it makes it easier to deal with you.”
• Creating the Charr starting area. “Every map is important, but the importance of the starter maps is magnified because they are the first maps you see when you create a new character and set the tone for each race. I wanted to talk a bit about the first area of the map, the Village of Smokestead, and what the process was to get it to its final state. Along the way, I’ll discuss the iterative process that we employ at ArenaNet and just how important it is to us that we get things done right, even if it takes extra time to get there.”
• Arenanet hints at Guild Wars 2 expansions. “Dragons are ‘all over the place’ in the Guild Wars universe, according to Grubb, but as for appearing in future expansions the developer remained coy: ‘Going beyond Guild Wars 2 — yes, the other dragons are there, and they have potential — but what we’re doing with them? Well, we’re worrying about dealing with Zhaitan first,’ he added.”
• Scott McGough on Writing the Charr. “Our world designers and writers approach the charr with a certain amount of gusto. After all, it’s just plain fun to write for the bad guys, especially when you get to explore their point of view, in which they’re the good guys. We know some people will feel a lingering resentment of the charr — probably because of that whole Searing thing — in addition to the gleeful anticipation of getting inside their fur, so our guiding principle for writing them has been to delve into some of the unexplored charr virtues (industry, discipline, fearlessness) along with their well known vices (aggression, bloodthirst, and ruthlessness). Balancing the admirable traits with the fearsome ones allows us to present a more complete picture of charr society without negating or retconning their violent history.”
• It’s just plain fun to write for the bad guys. “This is an especially interesting read for longtime fans of Guild Wars because we’ve watched the Charr evolve over the years and learned more about their hierarchy, their values, their strengths, and their failings. The Charr began (in the eyes of the humans) as a formidable but lesser group of creatures to be removed from the human lands of Old Ascalon. Over time, we’ve learned much more about this fierce, intelligent, and strictly organized race — even becoming allies with some of its members.”
• Charr Fanfic, for those inclined (I haven’t read it).
• The artistic origin of the Charr. “In our world, if you are a human, large cats are terrifying. They’ve been eating people for thousands of years, and they come for us out of the trees and the brush and the darkness. So we took a risk and tried concepting cat people. However, the original concepts weren’t impressive, and even came troublingly close to being cute. We began incorporating fire and horns into their designs to push towards a more threatening, demonic feel. We ended up with a fire worshipping race of hell cats. As we fleshed out more of their story we followed through on less of the varied forms than we originally planned, but you can still see remnants of the original design in the stances of the magic-using and weapon-wielding charr in Guild Wars.”
• A fire-worshipping race of hell cats. “Oh, they were always around, of course. The introduction of female Charr in Guild Wars 2 caused a huge buzz among fans, though, because the females were never seen in Guild Wars 1. Artist Kristen Perry was responsible for translating the monstrous Charr into a feminine form — and proving that “fantasy genre” doesn’t have to equal “buxom, wasp-waisted catgirl.” As with the original Charr design, there was quite a bit of discussion and some uncertainty along the way.”
• Warfronts and technological advances. “Charr are a race to be reckoned with. We already knew that after the searing, but now that they’ve gone through a mechanical revolution, they’re even more powerful. Today we’re getting spoiled with yet another update on the charr, this time we’re getting the full back story to get up to speed to Tyria, 250 years forward.”
• Updated Charr page at the official site (including new video). “The feline charr of Tyria are a victorious race challenged by their own success. They have survived defeat, oppression, and civil war. They have returned, reconquered, and rebuilt their original homes. Their mighty fortress, the Black Citadel, dominates the surrounding ruins of the human city of Rin, and their non-magical technology is the mightiest in the land. Yet despite their success, they are challenged by divisions among their people, the power of the Elder Dragons, and the ghosts of their own victories. This, then, is their story.”
• Massively analyzes the new Charr video. “Sharp-eyed Guild Wars fans will catch more than one startling contrast in the first seconds of the video. There’s the obvious: the pastoral landscape combined with the aggressive, drum-heavy, militaristic score. But look a little closer. Things are green and growing, the river isn’t tar. It looks like Pre-Searing, or maybe the Charr homelands in the north. But a glance at the background landscape gives the location away — this is Ascalon, and those structures are the broken ruins of the human city.”

Update, 23 April: I was wrong . . . Arenanet did post a bit more Charr information on Friday:

The Legions of the Charr. “In the year 1090 of the Mouvelian calendar, King Adelbern, last human ruler of Ascalon, released the Foefire. The human residents of that land succumbed to the terrible magic, only to rise again as ghosts. By 1112, the High Legions of the charr reclaimed the entirety of Ascalon. Only four years later, Kalla Scorchrazor of the Blood Legion came before Forge Ironstrike, the imperator of the Iron Legion, and challenged him to help her free their people from the shamans’ control. Together, Kalla and Forge led a rebellion against the Flame Legion, overthrowing their tyrannical rule. The three legions, Blood, Ash, and Iron, then reassembled a nation from the ruins of the past.”

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.

Another slow week, although we’ve been promised some big news starting on Monday, during Charr Week.

Part 1: Discussion of previous news

• The Guild Wars community, by Rubi Bayer. “I hope ArenaNet appreciates what a fantastic community it has. I don’t mean to suggest that the developers and community team are not appreciative, but this time of year it always strikes me anew what an incredibly dedicated fanbase this company enjoys. The community talks freely with (and often at) the Guild Wars development and community teams, usually in a very casual and comfortable fashion — inside jokes and off-topic chats are as common as serious game discussion and feedback. I’m sure it can get overwhelming for the ANet team sometimes, but it speaks volumes about the community that it’s so entrenched, consistent, and knowledgeable about ArenaNet and the people behind it.”
• NCsoft posted a retrospective video and photo gallery from this year’s PAX East show.

Part 2: Guild Wars news

• No new Guild Wars information this week (not even a game update worth mentioning). If you’d like to keep track of the upcoming “Winds of Change” and other Guild Wars Beyond material, keep this page bookmarked.

Part 3: Guild Wars 2 news

• “One of the major concerns of Guild Wars 2 fans is, for lack of a better word, depth. As I was listening to GuildCast the other day, one of their guests went into a long rant about how he thinks Guild Wars 2 doesn’t present any depth.”
• More on the nomination of Ghosts of Ascalon for a Scribe award. “The IAMTW is an organization of writers who create works of fiction where the intellectual property rights are held by others — stuff like movie and game tie-ins, novelizations, and other shared world projects. This year Ghosts of Ascalon — a gripping tale that sets the stage for Guild Wars 2 — was nominated in the Speculative Original category.”
• How to make MMOs better. “From both a business and a development standpoint, making and launching a new MMO is the most intimidating task in video games. Where does ArenaNet find such confidence and daring? What makes this unassuming studio, founded by a trio of ex-Blizzard staff in 2000 and with one game to its name, think it can take on the might of their former employer?”
• Ten Ton Hammer: Why care? “If you haven’t been watching Guild Wars 2, then you’re missing history in the making. Let me tell you why!”
• You might want to bookmark NowGamer’s website for next week (aka “Charr Week”):
  “Monday — From 10am we have the first part of our exclusive interview with ArenaNet’s Jeff Grubb, Continuity and Lore Designer and John Peters, Game Designer. They talk about the story of Guild Wars 2, quests, skills and more — as well as an exclusive reveal.
  Tuesday — Day two features the broader half of our Guild Wars 2 interview, which takes in the plot, how the world has changed, the new microtransaction model, hints at where expansions could go and the future of Free2Play.
  Wednesday — Look out for exclusive images related to the Monday reveal.
  Thursday — Hit NowGamer at 5pm GMT for the world premiere of the official Guild Wars 2 reveal trailer.”