Arena Net (Anet) is working on a sequel to Guild Wars which if it lives up to all the hype may just be the best multiplayer online role playing game ever.

They haven't given a release date although they have said first public demo of the game will be August 19-22 2010 in Cologne Germany at gamescom, followed by public demos at PAX Prime in Seattle, Washington September 3-5.

You can see what they have said about the game at http://guildwars2.com and http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Main_Page

The original Guild Wars is limited to human only player characters, Guild Wars 2 however will have 5 playable races, with 8 professions.

Guybrush

Will there be a monthly fee?

No monthly fee. If its like GW1 they'll make money on extra character slots, extra storage space, stuff like that.

Lets see if I can stir up some interest in Guild Wars 2 here.

Guild Wars 2 is a sequel to Guild Wars. Guild Wars 2 is still in production. The developers have said that they are producing a game that can be enjoyed both by those who have played the original Guild Wars (like me) and those who have not. From what I've read it seems the mechanics of Guild Wars 2 will be very different from Guild Wars 1 so players of the first game will not have any advantage over people totally new to Guild Wars. Apparently Guild Wars players will be able to reserve their Guild Wars character names for use in Guild Wars 2 but the characters themselves will NOT be converted two Guild Wars 2 characters, the systems are too different (besides 250 years have passed, the original Guild Wars characters are long dead by the time of Guild Wars 2).

Guild Wars 1 has only one playable race, human and 10 professions.Guild Wars 2 will have 5 playable races and 8 professions. The five playable races are human, charr, asura, norn and sylvari. So far only three professions have been revealed: elementalist, warrior and ranger. Guild Wars 1 had secondary professions. After playing with your primary profession for awhile you chose a secondary profession, allowing you to use most of the skills of that new profession as well. Guild Wars 2 will not have secondary professions.


THE STORY:
250 years have passed since the events of Guild Wars: Eye of the North. Much has changed. The most drastic and devastating changes were caused by the Elder Dragons. Long forgotten, these ancient creatures, older even then the gods, have awoken from their long sleep. Once every 50 years a different Elder Dragon appeared. First was Primordus. Even while he slept his minions, the Destroyers, drove the asura from their underground world to the surface world. Once he awoke the asura had no hope of returning home. Most of the dwarves, having been turned into creatures of living stone, rushed underground to do battle with Primordus' minions, creatures of stone and earth. (Its for this reason that dwarf is not a playable race). Next was Jormag, breaking through the ice of Drakkar Lake, this Elder Dragon drove the norn from their homeland. Fifty years later Zhaitan (the main protagonist of Guild Wars 2) arose from the bottom of the sea, bringing the lost continent of Orr with it. The coastline of Tyria was flooded (destroying the Battle Iles home of the Zaishen Order, servents of Balthazar, god of war and of fire, and devestating Lion's Arch, former capital of Kryta). Those killed were raised as undead slaves to Zhaitan. Zhaitan and his horde of undead have isolated Tyria making it impossible to travel to Cantha (home of the ironically named Dragon Empire) as anyone attempting it adds to the dragon's undead forces. Fifty years after Zhaitan another deep sea dragon awoke. At this time its name is not known. It created monstrous tentacles which appeared in lakes and rivers. Between this Elder Dragon and the next one the sylvari appear on Tyria, believing it is their destiny to fight the dragons. Finally, the Elder Dragon Kralkatorrik awakes in the charr homelands flying south across Ascalon corrupting everything in its flightpath. The presence of Kralkatorrik in the Crystal Desert keeps all but the Order of Whispers from traveling between Tyria and Elona. So with Elder Dragons controlling the seas and the desert, Tyria is cut of from the continents of Cantha and Elona. As if the Elder Dragons were not enough, Cantha was last known to be ruled by a ruthless dictatorship which drove the other intelligent races out and Elona had fallen to the undead warlord Palawa Joko. How humans are doing in Cantha and Elona is mostly unknown.

The five major races of Tyria are realizing that not one of them alone can stand against the Elder Dragons, they must put aside old hatreds and work together for their survival.


THE RACES:
In combat race will mostly be cosmetic, no race will be better or worse at any of the professions. Arena Net wants to encourage trying all races in all professions not discourage experimentation. There will be some racial only skills but they will actually be less effective than profession skills and no racial skill will be more powerful than any other. Guild Wars 2 will feature a personal story line for each character in which race will play an important part. For example, race will determine where your character's home is. Your home is safe place where you cannot be attacked.

humans - self explanatory. The last 250 years has not been kind to mankind. Of the three great human nations only Kryta remains and even it has been reduced to one major city, Divinity's Reach. Most humans believe in the six "true gods" and human racial skills will apparently be named for their deities.

charr - a race of war loving felines, the charr have been the greatest enemy of humanity for centuries. In the original Guild Wars the charr attempted to conquer the three great human empires of Tyria: Ascalon, Orr and Kryta. The charr succeeded only in conquering Ascalon. They were stopped in their attempt to conquer Orr by powerful, ancient magic which caused the entire content of Orr to sink into the sea, killing both the citizens of Orr and the charr invaders. The invasion of Kryta was stopped by the Mursaat, powerful magic users worshiped by a group of humans known as the White Mantle. The Mursaat and the White Mantle were ultimately defeated by other humans but by then the charr had their own troubles. In the time of Guild Wars 1 the charr worship the Titans, creatures from another dimension. But when the humans defeated the titans the idea that "their are no gods for the charr" spread quickly and in the time of Guild Wars 2 most of the charr are essentially atheists. I admit to being prejudice against the charr, who where the enemies of my Guild Wars characters and I have no desire to play a charr. Their existence is the one thing I don't like about Guild Wars 2. Since I don't play other role playing type games I have no idea what to compare the charr to.

asura - small but highly intelligent the asura consider themselves superior to the other four races, which they look upon as servants or guinea pigs for their experiments, expendable in either case. The sylvari are particularly weary of the asura after the first sylvari had a bad experience with them. Asura could be compatible to gnomes I guess. The asura were introduced in Guild Wars: Eye of the North as a race whose help the dwarfs needed in battling the Destroyers.

norn - nine feet tall, shape shifters who are fiercely independent, because of this independence each tried to fight the Elder Dragon's minions alone instead of forming an army. Norn and charr respect each others strength and neither has tried to invade the others territory. the norn were introduced in Guild Wars: Eye of the North, assisting humans, dwarfs and asura in the battle against the Great Destroyer.

sylvari - the sylvari are new race only existing on Tyria for 25 years. there are no sylvari in the original Guild Wars. The sylvari all sprouted from the same tree, so they are basically intelligent mobile plants. The sylvari believe it is their destiny to fight the elder dragons. While some compare the sylvari to elves (which are actually Germanic) the sylvari are actually based on celtic myths so they are more like fairy folk.

When creating a character there will be a series of questions which set up your character's personal story. Some questions will be asked of all characters, some will specific to the races. For example for a human you will chose whether your character is a native of Kryta or a refugee from Ascalon, Cantha or Elona and what your character's social status is. For a sylvari you will choose what time of day your character was "born" and this will relate it to a season. Dawn=spring, day=summer, twilight=autumn and night=winter.

PROFESSIONS:
As of this date only 3 of the 8 professions have been released. We do know that the professions will be divided into three groups: scholars (light armor), adventurers (medium armor) and soldiers (heavy armor). There are 3 scholar professions, 3 adventurer professions and 2 soldier professions.

scholars: elementalist, unknown, unknown
adventurers: ranger, unknown, unknown
soldiers: warrior, unknown

In the original Guild Wars armor was specific to profession, ie an elmentalist could only wear elementalist armor. In Guild Wars 2 armor will apparently be limited only by type. So any scholar can wear any light armor, any adventurer can wear any medium armor and any solider any heavy armor. No longer will you be able too look at a characters armor and say "oh that's a ranger".


elementalist - a spell caster which uses magic related to the elements of air, earth, fire and water. once in combat an elementalist cannot change weapons but can change "atunement". attuning to an element determines what skills the weapons will provide the elementalist as well as providing some kind of environmental effect. attuning to air causes the elementalist to give off sparks damaging nearby enemies, attuning to earth gives elementalist extra magical protection, attuning to fire causes damage to any enemy who touches the elementalist, attuning to water provides healing to allies
weapons:
two handed: staff
main handed: scepter, dagger
off hand: focus, dagger

warrior - a master of weaponry using adrenaline to increase the damage done. a warrior can switch between two different weapon sets while in combat.
weapons:
two handed: great sword, hammer, long bow, rifle
main hand: axe, sword, mace
off hand: shield, war horn, axe, sword, mace

ranger - atuned with nature the ranger commands pets, plants traps and summons nature spirits. like a warrior a ranger can switch between two weapon sets while in combat. a ranger can have up to 3 pets. pets in Guild Wars 2 are divided into terrestrial (land only), amphibian (land and water) and aquatic (water only). as much of Tyria is underwater in Guild Wars 2 a pet shark or jellyfish will come in handy. pets will share the rangers level but will have their own skill bar of four skills. a ranger can order his pet to "attack", "heel" or "stay". Normally a ranger has only one pet active at a time but the elite skill "Alpha Strike" will cause all 3 pets to appear and fight for a short time (that is if they are able, a shark won't appear on dry land or a wolf underwater). different pets will have different functions, for example a bear can absorb lots of damage while a snow leopard cannot take as much damage but it does more damage, and a moa bird is a lower damage dealing pet but it's squawks buff the ranger and allies. In Guild Wars 2 having a pet does not take up a skill slot, it did in the original Guild Wars. Pets are more important to Guild Wars 2 rangers than to Guild Wars 1 rangers, in fact Anet has gone so far as to say that if you want to use a bow but don't want a pet you should play a warrior instead of a ranger. They have also said other professions will have pets but they wont be pets that can be named or customized like ranger pets. In Guild Wars 1 a ranger did not start out with a pet but had to find a charmable animal and charm it. In Guild Wars 2 the ranger's first pet will be chosen at creation. Each race will have different set of first pets to chose from. Other pets will be found in the wild and charmed. In Guild Wars 2 the charming skill will not take up a skill slot but will just appear if the ranger has an open pet slot.
weapons:
two handed: long bow, short bow, great sword
main hand: sword, axe (thrown)
off hand: torch, war horn, dagger, axe


COMBAT:
In Guild Wars 2 a playable character has a skill bar of ten skills, however the first 5 skills are determined by profession and equipped weapon or weapon and offhand. One of the other 5 skills has to be a healing skill and one skill slot is reserved for an elite skill. If a character is equipped with a two-handed weapon than all 5 of the first skills will come from the weapon, if equipped with a one-handed weapon and an off-hand weapon then the first 3 skills come from the main hand weapon while the 4th and 5th come from the offhand. Some professions can dual wield, that is equip two of the same weapon.

Several professions in Guild Wars 2 may use the same weapons but they will use them in different ways so the warriors long bow skills are not the same as a ranger's and by the same token a ranger's sword or axe skills are not the same as a warrior's. For example: the long bow in a warriors hands does fire damage while in the hands of a ranger it does things like barrage: sending a shower of arrows hitting multiple targets. While a warrior uses an axe in melee, a ranger throws it. A warrior uses the war horn to buff his allies. The ranger uses it to summon animals (not his pets) to attack his enemies.

Some professions can change weapons during combat (warrior, ranger), some professions cannot (elementalist). All professions can change weapons and skills when not in combat without having to return to a town or outpost (this is different from Guild Wars 1 in which all professions could swap between four weapon sets but could only change skills in towns or outposts or guildhall).

Rifles and pistols are totally new to Guild Wars 2. So far we know that the warrior can use a rifle but not a pistol and ranger cannot use firearms at all. We don't know yet what profession(s) can use a pistol. The two-handed great sword is also new, all swords being single handed weapons in the original Guild Wars. There will not be ammunition, the developers did not want some professions to have to spend money just to make their skills work, so bows and guns will never run out of arrows or bullets and rangers will never run out of axes to throw.

DEATH:
Player characters cannot be killed in Guild Wars 2 (although monsters still die). Instead when all your health is gone your character goes into a "downed" state during which all skills are changed to a set of 4 weaker skills. One skill calls for help and makes your character temporarily invulnerable. The other 3 skills allow your character to attempt to kill an enemy. Should your characters succeed in killing an enemy your character will rally, returning to full health and regaining original skills, without penalty. The downed skills are determined by profession. Examples of downed skills: "Vengeance" allows a warrior to stand up and resume fighting for a short period after which the warrior is instantly defeated and unable to use any other downed skills; "Grasping Earth" allows elementalist to lock an enemy in place so it can't melee or "Vapor Form" which turns the elementalist into a slow moving mist in an attempt to flee the combat zone. The down state is timed. Further damage to your character will reduce the down time. Should your character fail to rally it will be "defeated". A defeated character can take no action (except to map out). You have to wait for an ally to come "revive" you or map out to a known point to be automatically revived. There will be a small fee for this mapping out. If you have no money on you or in storage the fee will be waived. Each time your character has to be revived the time needed to revive is increased. This is the only death penalty in Guild Wars 2. All characters have the ability to revive a fallen character by just interacting with it, this ability does not take up a skill slot. However there are other reviving skills available that do take up a skill slot. For example the warrior skill "I Will Avenge You" will instantly revive all fallen allies if the warrior succeeds in killing an enemy. Pets do not have a downed state they go right to defeated and have to be revived. In Guild Wars 1 the death of pet caused a ranger's skills to all be temporarily disabled, this does not happen in Guild Wars 2. Being temporarily without the pet is the only penalty. A ranger mapping out to revive himself will also revive a defeated pet at the ranger's new location. In PVP characters will gain a melee skill which takes a few seconds to activate but once it hits it instantly defeats a downed enemy. It's melee and takes time to activate so the downed character still has a chance to down the character trying to defeat them.



SPECULATION:
Most of us watching probably assume that necromancer or mesmer will be revealed next as those are two core professions from the original Guild Wars. Anet has already revealed that there will NOT be a dedicated healer class,every character will have its own healing ability so monk is not likely. Based solely on concept art some people think assassin will return but I think the new ability of rangers to use melee weapons (great sword and daggers) makes assassin redundant. I also don't expect the return of paragon (no spears in Guild Wars 2), dervish (no scythes in Guild Wars 2) or ritualist. With 8 professions instead of 10 and Anet stating that there would be new professions (meaning at least two) some old professions have to be dropped. They've also mentioned recently that some professions will be merged. Again I think assassin and ranger got merged. Possible that necromancer and ritualist will be merged into single class as well. Many people think monk and paragon will get merged into the second soldier profession. I think another profession that has pets will be necromancer with minions, although in Guild Wars 1 minions were not considered pets.

EVENTS
Unlike Guild Wars which is instanced, Guild Wars 2 will be mostly persistant. In the original game you could only meet people in a town or out post, form your team there then move out to an explorable area or enter a mission. Once in an explorable area or mission you team was in its own world. In Guild Wars 2 you can still form teams but you don't have to.

Missions are replaced by events each of which will have different triggers and have the ability to spawn other events. You're out exploring when suddenly you hear an explosion and see smoke. You rush forward to see what happened. A village is under attack. You can do nothing, in which case its conquered or you can fight the invaders. Other players see whats going on and can join in. The game will automatically scale up the event if many more people join in or scale it down if bunches leave. Also if high level characters enter a low level area they will be debuffed so they can't just finish the event quickly leaving the low level player characters nothing to do.

Every player who takes part in the event will be rewarded. The reward will be determined by success or failure. For example, you may fail to save a village and now have to take it back from the invaders, a new event.

PERSONAL STORY
Every player character will have its own personal story. The personal story is shaped by a series of questions asked at creation. Some questions every character will be asked, others will be race specific. For example: humans will be asked to select ancestry and social status, asura which of three colleges they are members of and what their first invention was, charr which of the 3 legions they belong to, norn their animal totem (bear, wolf, raven or snow leopard) and sylvari the time of day they were born. These and other questions will not affect character skills only the personal story.

The personal story will unfold as the player plays the game. There will be personal quests which will advance the story. Only the character who's personal story it is can make the decisions that effect the outcome of the quests but friends can be invited to join in and get some kind of reward for doing so.

HOME
Every character will have a home instance which will be shaped by the personal story. You help one of the lesser races, you may gain a merchant who sells items unique to their culture.

For the asura their home is in the city of Rata Sum. For the charr its in their capital city the Black Citadel. A human's home is in Divinity's Reach. Norn its in Hoelbrak. And sylvari makes its home where it was "born" in The Grove of the Pale Tree.

A group leader may take other player characters into his home instance. The home instance will take up about 10% of city, 90% being persistent and available to everyone on the same server.

ORDERS
Eventually player characters will be given the chance to join one of three multiracial orders, each of which has a different idea of how to defeat the Elder Dragons.

The Order of Whispers is an ancient organization originally tasked with protecting Elona against the undead lord Palawa Joko, the order is the only group (other than the now missing dwarves) to have known in advance that the Elder Dragons would awaken. The order believes the Elder Dragons cannot be defeated by weapons or ordinary magic. They believe the Elder Dragons can only be put back to sleep. Somehow the Order is still able to access Elona when no one else can.

The Durmand Priory an order of monks which safe guard documents rescued from the flooding of Lion's Arch, by the Order of Whispers. The Durmand Priory believes the secret to defeating the Elder Dragons can be found in ancient forgotten knowledge, they just have to find it.

The Vigil sees itself as a force for light in an ever darkening world. The Vigil believes in direct action against the Elder Dragons. They believe time is not on their side, the longer it takes to face the Elder Dragons the more powerful these creatures become.

To advance their personal story a player character MUST join one of these groups. Its possible, though apparently difficult, to leave the first group of your choice in order to switch to another, but trying out all three groups on one character is apparently not possible.

GUILDS
We have no details on guilds in Guild Wars 2 at this time. We do know that unlike the original game guilds will be character based not account based. So theoretically each of your characters could join a different guild. This has me wondering if players will form profession specific guilds, which would be more like historical guilds.

DESTINY'S EDGE
This famous group of adventures used to travel across Tyria together, but something lead to the group disbanding. It will be your characters duty to get the group back together. They'll be needed, along with the Orders, to defeat Zhaitan.

The story of Destiny's Edge will be told in the second Guild Wars 2 novel Edge of Destiny.

The group consisted of:

Caithe, one of the First Born of the sylvari, a very mysterious figure who pops up from time to time with useful information. Even the actress voicing Caithe is not certain whether she's good or evil.

Eir Stegalkin, a norn, apparently a ranger as she has a pet wolf.

Logan Thackeray, a Knight Errant and commander in the Seraph Guard of Divinity's Reach. He's a decedent of Ascalonian heroes (from Guild Wars: Eye of the North) Lt. Keiran Thackeray and Gwen, founders of the fortresses Ebonhawke. Since he resides in Divnity's Reach I'm guessing he's had a falling out with the branch of the family which still battles the charr.

Rytlock Brimstone, male charr, Tribune of the Blood Legion.

Zojja, female asura, memeber of the College of Synergetics, a golemancer.

Guybrush

I love this "so bows and guns will never run out of arrows or bullets and rangers will never run out of axes to throw."

The personal story sounds intriguing.

Not only will the personal story lead to some npcs having different attitudes toward different characters, ie if you saved a group of grawl then whenever you meet grawl they'll remember this and be friendly but its also possible for players to choose from different reactions to some npcs thus determining your reputation. For example its going to be possible to get angry and punch an npc in the nose thus gaining a reputation as a barbarian.


EVIL GROUPS
Where as the Elder Dragons threaten all live on Tyria each of the 5 major races has its only evil group to deal with.

The Asura believe in a higher purose they calll the Great Alchemy. The Inquest believe the Great Alchamey is a machine which they can control and carry out unethical experiments to gain control of the world.

The charr are divided into four legions, Ash, Iron, Blood and Fire (Gold). It was the fire legion shamans who led the charr into believing the titans where gods and used the power of the titans to conquer Ascalon 250 years ago. When the other three legions became atheistic and rebeled against the fire they renamed the fourth legion the Gold legion, as an insult, gold is a soft and weak metal. The fire legion still schemes to regain control of all charr.

For the humans the evil group is the White Mantle. Yes 250 years after the war in Kryta the decendants of the losers still plot against the winners.

The norn have no deities instead they revrence but dont worship nature spirits, the primary spirits being bear, raven, snow leopard and wolf. There are other lesser spirits. Some norn, known as the Sons of Svanir (named after a norn corrupted by the still sleeping Jormag in Guild Wars 1) serve the elder dragon Jormag instead of following the nature spirits.

All sylvari share their Dream of Dreams. Not all dreams are pleasant however and some sylvari have turned to the darker side of nightmares. The Nightmare Court seeks to corrupt the Pale Tree thus turning all sylvari to their point of view.

Some events or personal story line quests may place player characters in conflict with these evil groups.

ENVIRONMENTAL WEAPONS
In edition to the standard weapons available to the professions things found in the environment can be used as a weapon. For example: if a stone elemental throws a boulder at you and misses you can pick it up, gaining a new set of skills. The elementalist skill Conjure Flame creates a fireball which the elementalist can use as a weapon or let some other character pick it up. In barroom brawls you can pick up a mug of ale and get a set of skills which includes drinking the ale to gain a new ability or hitting someone over the head with the mug. If you hit someone with a bar stool and it breaks you'll get a chair leg to use as a club.

UNDERWATER COMBAT
We have no details yet but apparently going underwater will have an effect on your skills since for example, conjuring fire balls or shooting arrows shouldn't work well underwater.

More pets will be amphibious in Guild Wars 2 then would be in reality. For example bears and wildcats can apparently go underwater. A few pets will still be land only (spiders for example) and a few water only (shark or jellyfish for example) but most will be able to function onland and underwater. Anet wants to err on the side of fun.

SPECIAL MECHANIC
Each profession will have a special mechanic that makes it unique. For the elementalist its the attunements. For warrior its adreniline. For ranger its pets.

In Guild Wars 1 a warrior had to build up adrenaline by hitting and being hit, adrenaline only lasted for a limited amount of time. In Guild Wars 2 adrenaline will last until used. Some skills will use variable amounts of adrenaline, the more adrenaline you use the more damage the skill will do.

CONDITIONS
Deep wound, dazed and diseased will not be returning (but see below). Bleed, blind, burning, crippled, poison, weakness will return. New conditions are fear, frozen, immobilized, vulnerability. Bleed will now stack. Blind apparently now causes one attack to miss instead lasting for a time and causing multiple attacks to miss. Fear is apparently limited to a necromancer skill, target runs away from necromancer for a time (2-5 seconds in PVE, 2 seconds in PVP). No details on other conditions.

Upate: Daze is is now an effect of some skills. When dazed you cannot use skills for a time. Other known effects are Knock Down, Knockback, Launch and Stun.

Known Down - similar to GW1, character is unable to move or attack for short period.
Knockback - character is bushed back.
Launch - character tossed into the air.
Stun - character temporarily immobilized and incapacitated.

Unlike conditions, effects cannot be removed they simply have to wear off. There will however be some traits which can reduce or eliminate some effects.

Guybrush, is Guildwars all player vs environment?

Guild Wars has player vs environment (role paying) and player vs player. Anet hasn't said a lot about Guild Wars 2's PVP. In the original Guild Wars you chose at character creation whether you want a role playing character (PVE) which starts at level 1 or Player Verses Player character which is level 20 with max armor and max damage weapon. A RPG or PVE character can also do PVP but a PVP character cannot do PVE.

Apparently in Guild Wars 2 there will not be PVP only characters. There's going to be PVP that you play at your characters current level and PVP that sets you at max level temporarily.

PVP in both games is teams oriented.

Guild Wars 1 PVP:
Random Arenas -- two randomly-selected teams of four compete in a deathmatch
Fort Aspenwood/Jade Quarry -- two random teams compete in a mini-mission
Alliance Battles -- six organized teams of four, allied three-three against each other and randomly matched up compete for capture points
Codex Arena -- two organized teams of four compete using only a limited pool of skills; the Codex.
Heroes' Ascent -- two organized teams of eight compete in a variety of trials, ending in the Hall of Heroes
Guild Battles -- two organized teams of eight attempt to kill each other's Guild Lord

Low Level PVP accessible by PVE characters:
Ascalon Arena in Ascalon City - Level 1 to 10 only.
Shiverpeak Arena in Yak's Bend - Level 1 to 15 only.
Shing Jea Arena from Shing Jea Monastery - Level 1 to 10 only.
Sunspear Arena from Kamadan - Level 1 to 10 only.

Guild Wars 2 PVP:
Structured PvP - apparently the PVP for the more series PVPers

World PvP - a more casual form of PVP. Players can join in the middle. Will be server vs server.

Then there are activities which will place players vs player in different ways. Bar brawl will be a free for all, no teams. There's going to be some kind of shooting gallery. Norn "basketball" will use loaded kegs. Snowball fights which are only in available in original Guildwars during the Wintersday holiday (December-January) and Wintersday in July will be available all year round in Guild Wars 2.

Been brought to my intention that I should credit sources:

For Guild Wars:
wiki.guildwars.com

For Guild Wars 2:
guildwars2.com
wiki.guildwars2.com
guildwars2guru.com

Anet usually has something to announce weekly, big news like professions less frequently.

Thanks Guybrush.....I'll have to check with my neighbor and see if he is still playing Guildwars....

The first of three Guild Wars 2 novels is due out Tuesday (July 27), some stores may already have it. The title is "Ghosts of Ascalon". Its set 1 year before Guild Wars 2 and deals with the truce between humans and charr. My copy is in transit from Amazon. Second book, "Edge of Destiny" is due end of the year. Its about the group Destiny's Edge. Nothing has been revealed about the third book.

If you goto www.guildwars2.com you can find the first chapter of the first book there.

Arena Net will be at a con in Germany showing off a game demo. Designer Jeff Grubb has just let it be known that fourth profession will be reveled before then, that's early August. Most likely on a Wednesday, though they have revealed stuff on other days its mostly Wednesdays.

Hi,
This game sounds very similar to one I played a few years ago. It was either in beta or was FTP before it went under. I really enjoyed it but can't recall the name. So many of the new chars coming out and the skills and classes are the same I am wondering if the Guild War people were a part of this game or bought it out. There were rumors it was going retail after a major overhaul. Wish I could recall the name but I uninstalled it. I will have to do some better searches.
I think I would really like GW2 when is it coming out? You have written so much about the game here I have to go back and continue. Thank you for all your work ...sometimes the game sites overwhelm you with info that it becomes a chore to read or even worse cannot clearly define their own game for casual gamers.
Hopefully I will see you in GW2.
Patty

I just finished reading the first book, Ghosts of Ascalon, Anet has said that the main character will appear in the game. Seems they changed the book based on changes they made to the game and changed the game sometimes because of the book. They were just about to okay the final copy of the book when they changed something in the game and had to change the book again, didn't say what it was. And they recognize that if they change anything in the game from how it is in the book they'll have to have a good explanation for it.

Two former Destiny's Edge members make brief appearances in the book. The rest are mentioned by name. The group is refereed to as a guild.

The book features the first female charr we've ever met (two of them), are none in Guild Wars 1. The book explains why.

Turns out the Vigil was formed by a charr, one of the first to recognize that the charr are no match for the Elder Dragons and that charr need to make peace with humans.

One of the characters is a necromancer and the existence of mesmers is mentioned. Strangely none of the characters are elementalists, though those too are mentioned. The other characters are warrior types, armed with sword, axe or hammer. Besides carrying weapons charr have sharp claws they can to damage with, I don't see that happening in game though as Anet doesn't want to imbalance the races.

We learn that sylvari have golden pollen dropping off them and that if wounded their blood is also golden. We also learn they are carnivorous, some plants are. They tend to be painfully honest, sometimes unintentionally offending others. They consider that they have a family (all other sylvari) but no parents (since they come from a tree). They are not telepathic but what one sylvari has learned may find its way into the Dream and thus into the next generation of sylvari born from the Pale Tree. Few have experienced death.

Like NPCs in Guild Wars, some characters in the book die and stay dead.

That sounds really cool. I'll have to check the library.

I was going to say no news this week, then a new blog entry was made on the official GW2 site: http://www.arena.net/blog/progression-and-leveling-in-guild-wars-2

BTW a Guild Wars villain is named after this guy

Guybrush

I'm with him....I love to catch a level

Anet talks a little more about player character personality and its effect on the game: http://www.arena.net/blog/personality-in-guild-wars-2

Another interview: http://gw2.univers-virtuels.net/arti...-Virtuels.html

Blog entry on sound in Guild Wars 2, including a couple of samples: http://www.arena.net/blog/talking-heads-vo-and-dialogue-in-gw2

Anet's Guild Wars schedule at Gamescom: http://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/wall-to-wall-gamescom-coverage.html

New video http://www.guildwars2.com/en/media/videos/#gw2-video-manifesto

New blog entry http://www.arena.net/blog/walking-the-walk

Interview: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/guildwars2/news.html?sid=6273004&mode=previews

I'm still hoping for a profession release this week since they said they would announce one more before the convention in Germany next week.

Guybrush, that video is amazing and the description of the play sounds intriguing. It will be good to see it all in action.

Couple more blog entries:
http://www.arena.net/blog/the-road-to-gamescom-assuring-quality

http://www.arena.net/blog/mmo-manifesto-reactions

Somebody leaked a video that shows game developers controlling characters. I'm not going to provide a link. Its not an official release, it was filmed by somebody's hand held camera and it just an equipment test. The developers had used a cheat code to make their characters invisible to the monsters so they could beat up on monsters that couldn't fight back. This video confused a lot of people. So if you stumble across a video reported to be from gamescom, don't make the mistake of thinking the game will actually be like the video, is just a developers demo in test mode, the game won't be like that. When they actually run the video at the con there will be dialogue explaining whats going on.


Edit: another leaked video shows character creation screen which has 4 of the 8 professions available: elementalist, warrior, ranger and necromancer. Anet has not as this hour officially announced necromancer yet though.

Thanks Guybrush...it's too bad folks can't play by the rules.

The character creation video shows person using a single word name. Glad to see that.

I'm mad at Anet. They said in one the interviews that they would reveal the 4th profession BEFORE Gamescom and now they've revealed it AT Gamescom. Also they told us not to watch any videos attendees make because they'd be of poor quality but have not released any official high quality videos but instead are letting those poor quality videos be used to give out information.

Guild Wars 2 wins Best Online Game award: http://www.arena.net/blog/guild-wars-2-wins-gamescom-best-online-game-award

Not sure what that says for the industry if a game that doesn't even exist (except as a demo that is NOT playable online) yet wins such an award

Oh brother. Now Anet is winning about leaked videos spoiling necromancer skills reveal planned for later this week. Wouldn't have been any leak if they had kept their word and revealed Necromancer BEFORE Gamescom. I hope they learned their lesson.

Finally necromancer on Guild Wars 2 page, with official vidoes: http://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/professions/necromancer/

Can it be played with just the mouse?

Probably not because now there is more movement, including jumping and swimming. I'm a little worried about that myself.

HD videos of live demo from Gamescom are available at PlayMassive.de this is a German web site so the text is in German but the video is from Anet and is in English. The demo session is divided into three parts. They mostly follow a level 1 human but there is a short section on a level 40 charr.

Thanks Guybrush!

How long have you been a Guild Wars guy?

Playing for not quite two years.

Do you have multiple toons or have you stuck with one?

In the original Guild Wars I have 20 characters (two are just there to hold extra stuff). Whenever I felt like trying something different I made a new character. You get 4 character slots to start with plus 2 more if you add a second campaign. They don't add any for third campaign. After those 6 you have to buy character slots. How Arenanet makes money since they don't charge a monthly subscription fee.

I've already got 3 characters in mind for Guild Wars 2: sylvari elementalist, asura warrior, norn ranger. Haven't decided which race will be necromancer and of course I don't know what the other 4 professions are yet. They haven't said how many character slots will come with the game yet, the probably haven't decided.

Guybrush, that is a lot of characters....Do you have a favorite?

I just logged into my first character, Ramei Arashi and found he had received his 2nd year birthday present (each character gets one every year). When I double click on it it will turn into a miniature version of a randomly chosen character or monster. I got a fire imp.

Wow, that is really nice....I love pets

Maybe now that cons over they'll be posting more news, but none yet today.

Guybrush for keeping us in the know

Oh no. Now they're going to be going to France. I should have figured since they give interviews in English, German and French. Wish they'd stay away from cons. When they're at cons they're not working on the game and the official web site doesn't get updated.

Here's a transcript of part of an interview they gave to game site Ten Ton Hammer: http://www.tentonhammer.com/gw2/features/interviews/pax-combat

More of the Ten Ten Hammer interview with one of the game designers: http://www.tentonhammer.com/gw2/features/interviews/story-and-progression

Part 3 next week.

Thanks Guybrush!

Sunday, September 19th is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. In celebration the original Guild Wars will have random drops of grog 12:00 noon PDT on Friday, September 17th to 11:59 PM PDT on Tuesday, September 21st. You have to kill monsters in PVE to get the grog. Drinking grog adds points to Drunkard title, makes the screen go red and shaky (unless you turned off the video effects) and has your character talk like a pirate (in text only).

Grog is a level 5 drunk. The most effective way to add to drunkard title is: drink a 5 wait one minute and drink a 1 drink like hunter's ale or dwarven ale. Then wait 1 minute and drink another. Keep doing this until you run out of 1s. Then you let your character slowly sober up. Its a bit confusing a level 5 drink actually only gives you 3 minutes of drunk, first and last don't count. Drinking two 5s is a waste so don't do it unless you just like talking like a pirate. The hard part about getting drunkard title is you can't map out or you sober up instantly. So you either get drunk in a town, outpost or guild hall and do nothing else but drink or you get drunk in an explorable area, mission or dungeon and try to fight drunk. That can be fun but frustrating since you can't see what you are doing. There are actually skills that give you some benefit while drunk.

I takes 1000 minutes of being drunk to get level 1 title, then 10,000 to get level 2 which is maximum for this title. I still don't have level 1.

Note: only grog makes you talk like a pirate and it only drops during the holiday. Other drinks give you different dialogues. Some have other visual effects. Absinthe for example causes a flash of green fire around you and then turns your screen green. Witch's Brew turns your screen orange.

Fans Design GW2 Events at Our PAX Panel

Guild Wars 2 Wins Machinima’s Best in Show Award for PAX

Now they're going to NYC: http://www.arena.net/blog/party-with-arenanet-at-new-york-city-comic-con

More of Ten Ton Hammer interview, not many answers, the questions seem to be about things they haven't developed yet: http://www.tentonhammer.com/gw2/features/interviews/core-gameplay

According to this interview http://www.killtenrats.com/2010/09/20/guild-wars-live-team-interview/ there will be more content added to the original Guild Wars, including a new hero.

Thanks Guybrush, it seems to be getting better and better

Guild Wars 2 to have applications for iPhone, iPad, iPod, and Android smart phones as well as the web: http://www.arena.net/blog/gaming-outside...ience#more-3190

Wow, those phone apps are spreading

Live and Let Dye – Kristen Perry on the GW2 Dye System

A Rewarding Experience – John Hargrove Talks About Loot

Some people upset that Transmutation Stones will be something you have to buy with real money. I'm not. These micro-transactions take the place of subscription fees. And the Transmutation Stones are similar to Guild Wars 1 costumes which change your appearance but not your armor stats and have to purchased if you want them.

About level 30 characters will be able to enter the catacombs of Ascalon (a dungeon) where they will encounter the ghosts of GW1 skill trainers, now hostile and dangerous bosses.

For players of the original Guild Wars games adding achievements to the Hall of Monuments in Guild Wars: Eye of the North will unlock rewards in Guild Wars 2. The rewards are mostly cosmetic, Arennet doesn't want to give GW players an unfair advantage over totally new players. Rewards include mini pets, weapon skins, armor skins, additional pets for rangers and titles. The article includes a rewards calculator. You enter a Guild Wars character name and it tells you what rewards that account (not just the character) has coming.

Note: after adding to the Hall you have to exit out of Guild Wars in order for the database to update before you can recalculate your points.

It's Halloween in Guild Wars, from Thursday, October 21st through Tuesday, November 2, 2010.

Some towns have been decorated and special collectors have arrived. More collectors will be arriving during the next few days. Supposed to be a series of new quests this year, they're not available just yet though. Also the costume maker NPCs are offering two new costumes, Raiment of the Lich and Lunatic Court Finery. However the costumes are not yet in the online store for purchase so the costume makers can't actually provide them for your characters today.

The big party will be October 31st when the Mad King Thorn returns to tell bad jokes and play "Mad King Thorn Says". Presumably he'll give away two different free masks, one in Lion's Arch and one in Kamadan, as usual.

Almost forgot, Pink Day in La was a big success. Guild Wars players donated over $10,000 to breast cancer research. My dervish is wearing pink armor.

Guybrush, that party sounds like lots of fun. "Mad King Thorn Says." Are you keeping track of the bad jokes?

Woohoo for the fund raising....Pink armor....I love it!

I don't know if they will be the same jokes this year or not. He doesn't come until October 31st.

The costumes are now available for purchase. One costume set is $6.99 or through November 21st your can buy both sets for $9.99.

This year the costumes each have two different possible masks. You can wear the Lich Cowl and not show a face or you can wear Aspect of the Lich and show a spooky face. Or of course you can show your own face. The Luncatic Court costume you can wear a burning the Helm which is actually a burning jack o lantern head or you can put on Headless Fineray for the body and your head is automatic blanked out. If you have both the Helm and Headless Finery on their will still be flames but no head.

"Flames but no head" sounds really funny!

If you do that you need to link us a picture.

scroll down to see costume screen shots

Not going to keep those pictures there long.

I love the pumpkin head one. The ones with no head and the fire one are freaky!

I love the name Eagle Feathers!

Thanks for posting!

New Halloween quests have started. So new only one has walkthrough on Guild Wars Wiki.

There quest in Lions Arch in Guild Wars: Prophecies and quests in Kamadan in Guild Wars: Nightfall. Factions and Eye of the North dont take part in Halloween. Factions has own holidays. I've done the first two LA quests. First easy, second difficult as requires slaying Rotscale the dragon.

Mad King Thorn appears in Lions Arch and Kamadan every three hours today. His jokes are mostly based on the game and wouldn't make sense if you haven't played it.

From the new quests we learn that he was once a mortal king. There was a revolution and he was killed, becoming the spirit king and returning every Halloween. When, how, why he got a pumpkin for a head I don't know.

"When, how, why he got a pumpkin for a head I don't know."

Here's a couple old jokes, I didn't see him use this year:

"Why can't you borrow money from a Dwarf?"
"Because they're always a little short. HA HA HA HA HA! Get it? DWARVES are SHORT!"

"Knock, Knock"
(Now you say: "Who's There?")
"It's Mad King Thorn, and I command you to laugh! LAUGH NOW OR DIE!"

He always tells this one:

"When I first returned from the Land of the Dead, one of the fine citizens of Lion's Arch let out a cry: "Why King Thorn, you have a pumpkin on your head!"
"And I said, "Eh? So he repeated, "Milord, you have a pumpkin on your head!""
"And I said, "What? So he yelled, "Milord, you have a pumpkin on your head!""
"To which, I replied, "A thousand pardons, fine citizen, I cannot hear you. I HAVE A PUMPKIN ON MY HEAD!" HA HA HA HA HA!"

And this one:

"I know you mortals are always interested in the future so I will give you a little preview."
"Two hundred years from now.."
"YOU ARE ALL DEAD! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA"

I think this one was new:

"What's the difference between someone who doesn't laugh at my jokes and a corpse?"
"I don't know either!"

Those are funny.....thanks for sharing.

Anet announced in a post at Guild Wars Guru 2 that the fifth profession will be revealed in January (they did not say when in January so January 31st is always possible).

Although not technically supposed to be released until Tuesday (Dec 28) advanced copies of "Edge of Destiny" are out. The book apparently mentions the mesmer profession by name. The first chapter has been posted at guildwars2.com, it does not mention mesmers however, only norn who seem to be warriors, a wolf and some undead. Because the book mentions mesmers speculation is that the profession to be revealed will be mesmer. Makes sense to me, I always figured mesmer would be returning in some form, although it breaks the pattern of revealing scholar, then soldier then adventurer, since last revealed profession was a scholar, but since only two soldier professions that pattern couldn't last anyway . The book is set about 4 years before "Ghosts of Ascalon", so 5 years before the start of the events of Guild Wars 2.

My guess is we will get the last 3 professions revealed when convention season come around again.

Thanks Guybrush, and a mesmer is ????

A spell caster designed to shut down other professions. Mesmers are hard to play in GW1. You have to know in advance what enemies you are going up against. Spells good at shutting down other spell casters are not as effective against melee or ranger weapon users and vice versa. Mesmers are good at interrupting other characters skills or punishing them for using them.

For example: "Empathy" causes warriors to hurt themselves every time they attack. Its also very effective against rangers who under it can't fire their bow without wounding themselves. "Backfire" does the same thing to other spell casters when ever they cast a spell. A monk hexed with Backfire can heal himself to death.

Mesmers probably better in Player versus Player mode then in role playing mode. Although they're becoming more popular in role playing mode since Anet gave more of their spells the ability to effect multiple targets at once.

That sounds like a neat class. I'd love to be able to make a melee hurt himself every time he tries to hurt me.

Hi Guy:

I haven't read through the whole thread, just the first and last page. I'll do some reading later. Just want to know if Guild Wars 2 is out yet? Do they have a 10-day trial period like other MMO's? And lastly, which game would I buy? I noticed on their website they have a trilogy.

Just looking ahead. World of Warcraft, which I've been playing for 5 years, had an expansion recently that kind of ruined the game for me, if they don't fix some things. I may be looking for something else.

Thanks!

No Guild Wars 2 is not out yet. I hope they'll be a free trial. The trilogy is the original Guild Wars' 3 campaigns. Guild Wars: Prophecy is probably the easiest one to start with, its also the longest. I think Factions is the hardest, some would say Nightfall is. Both go from low lever monsters to higher level mobs pretty fast.

Thanks Guy. I think I'll wait for 2 then since I don't want to learn something and have to relearn again with the new one. From what I read early in your thread things are going to be pretty much revamped. Right now my poor head can't take many more changes.

I'll keep an eye on your thread and meantime make my way through it!

No profession reveal yet but there is some lore behind a new non-player race: The Wisdom and Power of the Kodan I seem to be in a small minority who sees the kodan as a threat, based on the religious belief that they have the right to judge the other races.

Don't know why but they allowed PCGamer to post a new picture and the news that the next profession is Guardian and that it will appear on the official Guild Wars 2 web site Thursday, January 27th. No details about the profession were given. I don't like the name but won't decide whether to play one or not until I know more about it. All we know is that Logan Thackeray (descendant of Keiran Thackeray and Gwen Thackeray) is a Guardian. In the book Edge of Destiny, he used a war hammer and produce a blue aura that blocked arrows. He could also do some minor healing which has lead to speculation that Guardian is the Guild Wars 2 version of a Paladin. And the end of the book he switches from hammer to sword, the reason for which would be a spoiler.

Unclear at this point whether Guardian is a new profession or a mixture of old ones. Could be warrior/monk mix or warrior/paladin or even warrior/dervish since dervish did have some healing. Depends on whether its casting spells or shouting, books don't give away game mechanics.

Guardian would be the second and final soldier profession. One scholar (probably mesmer) and two adventurers left to reveal.

It sounds like they are keeping the community engaged. Thanks for the info.

On Guard! Introducing the Guardian Profession - official reveal of the Guardian

Exclusive Interview with Lead Designer The web site is German but this link leads to the original English interview. This interview was actually posted before the Guild Wars 2 website was updated with Guardian.

Guild Wars 2 Guardian replaces Monk - interview with Eurogamer. Short a longer interview is coming. This artical was actually posted before the Guild Wars 2 website was updated with Guardian.

I'd say the Guardian combines elements of warrior, ritualist (weapon spells) and paragon (shouts) rather than monk.

I'm disappointed the skill videos feature humans again. Still no sylvari or norn.


Edit:
Turns out that although Steven Savile was originally going to write the third book, Anet decided to change the plot and he's not writing it now.

Guybrush, I need to get the first book and see what I think.

The first two books are out of order. Ghosts of Ascalon is actually set 4 years after Edge of Destiny. Most GW fans seem to think EoD is the better book.

The Guardian is a solider profession, heavy armor. So far they stuck with the pattern of revealing scholar, than soldier, than adventurer. So mesmer is not likely to be next reveal unless they break the pattern. There are no more soldier professions. One scholar and two adventurers left to reveal.

All professions are currently in the game but not all professions are equally polished and they won't reveal them until they area.

Anet is calling Guardian a new profession (even though its actually several GW1 professions combined) and they say of the remaining three professions, one more will be new.

Also according to one of the lore writers, the Pale Tree, from which the sylvari come, is an intelligent life form and it watched the human and the centaur who longed for peace grow old and die not seeing peace in Tyria. She could not communicate with them but she took Ventari's tablet and held in in her roots. As the sylvari are growing she teaches them some basics about the world, including how to read the tablet.

The First Born of the sylvari are considered the most wise of the sylvari and are respected as leaders and teachers. At least one of the First Born has turned bad however, Faolain is a leader of the twisted Nightmare Court.

What’s Your Style? Jon Peters Talks About Combat

I like his focus on playing With the people.

Hmmm. I was going to edit my old posts in this thread to reflect changes in the game but the edit option seems have vanished. Does the ability to edit a message expire?

Anyhow. The old list of conditions is outdated. New conditions (negative effect caused by various attacks and spells are:
Blackout, Blind, Burning, Chilled (formerly Frozen), Crippled, Fear (unique to Necro spell), Immobilize, Poison, Vulnerability and Weakness.

There are skills which can remove conditions before they would normally expire.

Some skills have effects that seem like a condition except they are not removable have to just wear off. Such effects are: Daze (a condition in GW1), Knockback, Knock Down, Launch and Stun.

Instead of enchantments Guild Wars 2 has boons, which are positive effects caused by some skills. The boons are: Aegis (unique to Guardian), Fury, Might, Protection, Regeneration, Swiftness, Vigor.

In the original Guild Wars, Aegis is a monk skill.

Boon durations stack. So if you already have 5 seconds of regeneration and you receive a second boon of regeneration lasting 10 seconds you have total of 15 seconds. The effect of boons does not stack however. So if you had +1 to healing from first boon and second boon was +2 you would not get +3.

Guybrush, as far as I know you can edit any thread that is not locked or archived, but I could be wrong.

Thanks for the new info.

Is there a release date?

"When it's finished" is all Arenanet will say.
They're going to be at PAX East in Boston in March with a new demo. They probably added Guardian.

Guybrush, members have 90 days to edit their posts. We can still edit them as moderators and see the edit symbol.

Ana

Its human week over at guildwars2.com. Every week day this week (Mon-Fri) they will be giving more information about some aspect of humans in Guild Wars 2.

Today was just a basic intro with schedule for the rest of the week.

http://www.arena.net/blog/oh-the-humanity-human-week-begins

Most of us fans of course hope this means each of the five races will be getting a week for the rest of the month but Arenanet hasn't to my knowledge actually said that would happen.

Day 2: http://www.arena.net/blog/against-the-wall-humanity-in-guild-wars-2

Day 3: http://www.arena.net/blog/designing-humans

Day 4: http://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/human-week-continues-with-new-video-and-lore.html

Day 5: Line of Duty

And that's it I guess for human week.

Guild Wars 2 FAQ updated to include this important piece of news:

When will there be a beta?

We will be conducting small closed alpha and beta tests in 2011. The feedback from these tests will determine when we will do public beta tests and ship the game. Guild Wars 2 is a very large and ambitious game, and Guild Wars players rightfully have very high expectations. We want players to be absolutely blown away by the game the first time they experience it.

See my edited previous post for the blog and news entries for human week.

Ohhhhh I want a Rainbow Jellyfish

Last week was human week. Next week, as hinted at in article on human clothing/armor, will be norn week.

I hope they shop snow leopard form.


Oh for that rainbow jellyfish you need 20 points in Guild Wars: Eye of the North's Hall of Monuments. I just made 37, but all you get after 30 is a title at every 5 points (35, 40, 45, 50).

It's norn week. I'll be editing this message daily to add the daily news.

Day 1: Norn Week Begins!

Day 2: Legend and Legacy – The Norn in Guild Wars 2

Day 2: Norn Week – Go Big or Go Home
A short article explaining one of the pictures in the original day 2 article, apparently it confused a lot of people.

Day 3: Norn Week – Designing and Redesigning Events

Day 4: Brand New Norn Video, Wallpapers, and Lore

Day 5: A Spirit of Legend

Wednesday they were later than usual so I guess to make up for it they did Thursday's entry early. I refreshed the main page even though I did not expect to see anything new yet.

I'm very disappointed that they still have not shown a picture of snow leopard. All that build up in the story about a snow leopard spirit follower and no picture of the animal or its shaman?


Additional news: the new game demo being premiered at PAX East will feature the norn starting area and include the guardian profession.

Wish I could delete messages. Video revealing 6th profession was leaked then pulled when Anet found out. So I removed the links from this message.

Thanks Guybrush for taking out the link.

Since the cat is out of the bag, Anet has gone ahead and allowed game sites to talk about the new profession after all even though they have not yet added it to guildwars2.com. More information will be coming from Anet next week.

The 6th profession, third adventurer presumably, is the Thief. See http://ie.pc.ign.com/articles/115/1153403p1.html

Since Arenanet will be attending PAX East this weekend instead of doing a race week they're doing PAX East Week. Because they expect to be busy preparing on Thursday there won't be anything for Thursday, instead there will be two Friday entries.

Day 1: PAX East Week Begins!

Day 2: PAX East Preview: Izzy on Attributes and Iteration

Day 3: Andrew McLeod Talks Crafting in GW2

In response to fan questions and speculation about crafting Anet has posted two comments at Guildwars2guro.com: additional info 1 and additional info 2

Day 4: PAX East Countdown: A Glimpse of the Thief (they found some time for this unscheduled short blog, the first image is an asura thief, 2nd is charr, third is human)

Day 5: Catch the Thief!

Day 5: PAX East Guild Wars 2 Broadcast - recording of the live broadcast from Pax East, game demo begins at 15 minutes.

Day 5: It’s ON! PAX East has begun

The Thief sounds like a lot of fun to play! Thanks Guybrush

Hard part is deciding which race should be the thief. Still haven't decided which race is going to be necromancer. I plan to play them all except charr.

Its been popular opinion that the beastie under Drakkar Lake in GW: EOTN was the sleeping elder dragon Jormag. Popular opinion is wrong: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/forum/showpost.php?p=618333&postcount=443

I'm hoping next week will be asura or sylvari week but no word from Anet about that yet.

New ArenaNet blog post:
Martin’s PAX East Round Up

Popular opinion is often wrong.

ArenaNet Artists Bring Home the Gold in Spectrum 18 Awards

Wow, Knight March is amazing Thanks Guybrush

FUTUREPOLY Offers Digital Painting Online Masterclass if you're an artist and want to learn digital art, Guild Wars 2 artists are teaching classes

Go Forth and Multiply: The Hylek a surprise blog on one of the non-player races in Guild Wars 2

That sounds like lots of fun.

Video: The Guild Wars 2 PAX East Panel these are the official videos, better quality than the fan made versions that have been around before

Thanks Guybrush, it's always nice to hear straight from those in charge.

Commando - new Guild Wars 2 profession reveal (but note the date)

Commando Interview

The German version of new profession: Alchemist

Shadowmancer, the third scholar according to wiki (from April 1st)

ArenaNet sure gone all out this year.

"If it bleeds, I can kill it." Love it!

Hmmmmm......wonder if they are joking?

While Commando as GW2 profession is an April Fools joke there is a new solo mission (no other players, no heroes, no henchmen) in GW1 for which you temporarily become a commando type. No one shot kills though. And it took me like 7 times to finish it. I hate solo missions.

Darn, I was going to take that as my motto....

Excluisive Reveal of Commando

Seventh Profession Revealed

This gag keeps going.

'aircraft carrier'

My favorite was "sylvari dandelion paratroopers".

Apparently before the commando joke was up one game web site had an "interview" announcing that Guild Wars 2 for PC was canceled in favor of having the game on the Ipod.

Goin’ Commando with Horia Dociu - the man responsible for the Commando gag talks about how he came up with the idea and how other Arenanet staff donated their free time to make it work

Guybrush, that is some real dedication displayed there.

Those Sneaky, Sneaky Skritt - another article on one of the non-player races in the game. I'm not a fan of rodents.

Hmmmm, I like the idea of the hive mind. Thanks

Ghosts of Ascalon Nominated for Scribe Award - Arenanet blog entry

Guild Wars 2: Why You Should Care - article from another gamer site

That is a great read! Thanks Guybrush!

April 28th will be the 6th anniversary of Guild Wars: Prophecy. Last year Arenanet revealed the elementalist so maybe they'll release another profession this year.

Next week is charr week. I hate the charr. Only good thing about charr week is that it brings us closer to sylvari and asura weeks.

Also Nowgamer.com claims they will have an exclusive Guild Wars 2 reveal on Monday with related images on Wednesday and video on Thursday.

Guybrush, why do you hate the charr?

Because they're the enemies of Guild Wars: Prophecies characters and I see no reason why they should suddenly be considered among the heroes as player characters in Guild Wars 2. They had to rewrite Tyrian history to make it out that the humans actually stole the land from the charr so the charr were just taking it back. In other words they turned Prophecies player characters into the bad guys. Besides I personally slaughtered so many charr they should be extinct by the time of Guild Wars 2.

Oh and as I keep having to remind the charr fans, charrs in Guild Wars 1 ate humans.

Well I can see the problem then.

Day 1: Prepare Yourself for Charr Week - schedule for the week

Day 1: Creating the Charr Starter Area - Monday's second entry

Day 2: Scott McGough on Writing the Charr - a couple of the dialogues actually made me laugh

Day 3: The Artistic Origin of the Charr - the first one in the third image is female, as the blog mentioned there are no female charr in GW1 (charr males made the females stay home while the males waged war on humanity, that's changed by GW2 time, females no longer required to stay in the hearth bareclawed and pregnant)

Day 4: New Video and Lore on Charr Web Page - I'm stunned that they had this up so early

Day 5: The Legions of the Charr - now I have to be angry at my Prophecies character's king, his curse actually brought the charr together when they would otherwise have destroyed each other

End of charr week.

Other sites on the charr:
Jeff Grubb im Interview zu den Charr - in this interview on a German site (English translation) Arenanet makes another change, suddenly charr didn't actually eat humans, they just pretended to, to scare people

Guild Wars 2 Charr Week: ArenaNet Interview - Nowgamer did get their interview, but I wouldn't call it exclusive since obviously other sites got interviews too

The roar of engines and the thunder of guns: Massively's analysis of the new Guild Wars 2 video

Thanks Guybrush

For some races some professions are against type so although player characters are not limited in what professions they can be its possible that NPCs for a given race may not have certain professions.

For example, Anet has said there are no NPC charr guardians, as charr are not big on defense and they distrust magic. In a later interview they said if a need for a charr guardian NPC arises they could create one but as it stands now there are none.

This brings up the question, what professions are against type for the other races. Some fans thought necromancer for sylvari but we already know that there at least two sylvari NPC necromancers because the sylvari see death as a natural part of life, even if no sylvari has yet died of old age (because the race is only 25 years old), only from accidents or combat.

Would the highly individualistic norn see any use for a guardian?

I'd have thought they highly magical asura would see a warrior as against type but actually most asura NPCs in Guild Wars: Eye of the North were in fact warriors.

Guybrush, what race/profession combinations would you like to see?

An Introduction to the Environment Art of Guild Wars 2

Haven't seen much of the asura or the sylvari. The sylvari have supposedly been resigned but the new art hasn't been revealed yet. So I'd like to see asura and sylvari of various professions in action. Not sure which ones should be out of character and therefore not used by NPC asura or sylvari.

That is a neat article. Who knew? Thanks Guybrush

Which Guild Wars 2 Race Are You - one of those silly what are you quizes

Fun Link...I'm a Sylvari. Which one are you?

Sylvari as well.

90 Facts about Guild Wars 2 - not an official article and some of the facts are a bit off. For example the point about warriors using rifles and bows is a bit misleading, warriors can use longbows but not shortbows. And while rangers of different races do have three different pets to chose from at start arenanet hasn't said a human can't eventually charm a devourer (one of the charr options for first pet) or a charr a dog (one of the human options for first pet).

We know what the possible first pet for charr ranger and human ranger but not norn, asura or sylvari.

Charr ranger my chose one pet from Devourer (a scorpion like monster with 2 tails), Stalker (a large wild cat), Drake (large reptile)

Human ranger my choose one pet from Dog (only one seen so far is a Krytan Drakehound which looks like Marmaduke), Moa (an ostrich like bird), or Bear (I think it was black bear in the demo)

Norn have 4 primary totem animals and most people assume norn rangers will be able to choose from them bear, raven, snow leopard and wolf but that would be 1 more option than other races get

http://www.guildwars2.com/en/contests/video-contest/ - Arenanet is having a contest, submit your video on why people should play Guild Wars 2 for a chance to win a trip to Arenanet where you can play the demo

Search youtube for "Become a Guild Wars 2 Ambassador" or "Guild Wars 2 contest" to see some of the entries. I don't have one there, yet.

Let us know if you put one up there Guybrush.

I have some ideas. I have to figure out how to use my headphone microphone to record audio, cause I don't have a video camera with sound. My favorite entry so far just uses clips from GW2 videos and has the woman doing a voice over. She's from Germany so she has a thick accent but she's understandable. I think one of the rules is dialogue has to be in English. I've seen one video that has no voices at all, just text. I saw one video that's going to get disqualified because it used somebody's music, you can't use copyrighted materials. Arenanet does allow using their video and audio, including music but no other copyrighted works.