My weekly column on news, commentary, podcasts, and videos from the Guild Wars 2 world is now up at GuildMag.com.

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 on news, commentary, podcasts and videos from the Guild Wars 2 world is now up at GuildMag.com.

I’m very excited that the folks at ArenaNet have finally announced when their Guild Wars 2 open beta program will start (and confirmed that the game will be released later in 2012):

Guild Wars 2 has captured the imagination of gamers and media all over the world with its action-oriented combat, its living world full of dynamic events, its highly personalized role-playing experience, and the handcrafted artistry that suffuses every element of the game. Last year, thousands of you joined us at shows and events all over the world to try Guild Wars 2 for yourself. This year, you’ll finally be able to immerse yourself in the vast, diverse world of Tyria.

We recently finished our first closed beta test, and we’re now ready to hold progressively larger events. In February we’ll invite select press to participate in beta testing, and in March and April we’ll aggressively ramp up the size of our beta test events so that many of you will have a chance to participate. And of course, this all leads to the release of Guild Wars 2 later this year.

I’m very eager to finally get my hands, so to speak, on the game I’ve been reporting on for over a year both here and more recently on GuildMag (I haven’t been able to get to any of the shows where ArenaNet has had demo sessions running, so video clips on YouTube have been all I’ve seen).

Update, 24 January: A comment from ArenaNet Community Manager Martin Kerstein to clarify that it’s not an “open” beta as many of us were assuming:

We purposely didn’t use the term “Open Beta”, we mentioned Beta Events. To some people Open Beta means unlimited access to the game and everybody on the interwebs can play it. This is not what we will do.

We will do Beta Weekend Events. Those of you who played Guild Wars might already be familiar with the concept. It means that many of you (like the blogpost says) will get a chance to participate in specific Events, but access won’t be unlimited – there will be some kind of selection criteria and the beta period will usually start on a Friday and end on the following Sunday.

This week’s column on news, commentary, podcasts and videos from the Guild Wars 2 world is now up at GuildMag.com.

My latest column (not “lastest” as I foolishly typo-ed last week) on news from the Guild Wars 2 world is now up at GuildMag.com.

My lastest column (in my nom-de-gaming guise as Raphia Naon) on news from the Guild Wars 2 world is now up at GuildMag.com.

My latest round-up of Guild Wars 2 articles, blog posts, and community activities is now up at GuildMag.

This week’s column is now online at GuildMag.

I’m pleased to say that this item is now live at GuildMag. This is good news for non-gamers, who won’t have to scroll past all the Guild Wars 2 stuff here once a week. I also hope it’s good news for Guild Wars 2 fans. We’ll see how well the community likes the new column.

The other seven professions have been rolled out over the last year-and-more, but a design change seems to have delayed the release of mesmer information until now. Here’s the official page description:

Mesmers are magical duelists who rely on deception and confusion to keep their opponents in check. Indecision is their greatest ally. Using powerful illusions to distract, they make sure they never go toe to toe with an enemy; they use their powers and tactics to set up an unfair fight. Just when you think you’ve figured out what the mesmer is doing, illusions begin to shatter, clones start to fade away, and you realize you’ve been swinging at empty air all along. It’s hard to keep your eye on the real mesmer.

The mesmer doesn’t have the brute power of the warrior, or the ranged devastation of the ranger. Instead, the mesmer weaves a web of interlaced illusions, conditions, and phantasmal sources of damage. Through skillful play, mesmers combine these pieces into a deadly puzzle to be solved by their foes, while also helping their allies.

Update: The closed alpha is complete and the closed beta program will begin on Friday the 16th of December. ArenaNet has their own internal policies for selecting closed beta participants, so there will not be a public application form.

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 game should be approaching the end of closed alpha testing, and the closed beta is scheduled to begin by the end of the year. We are expecting to get the final profession reveal sometime in the next week or two, so that should be a big outpouring of new information for us to absorb.

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