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.