Interesting: sylvari npc complains that gate travel cuts him off from The Dream for one second and for him it feels like being alone for a century.

Is that a lore reference Guybrush?

Yes. Sylvari are all united in a Dream.

My favorite thing to play so far is rifle warrior. Shot enemies from a distance and when they get too close hit them with rifle but to knock them back. Did it on human since asura not available yet.

ArenaNet is Hiring Character Artists

Wow, sounds like they need some very taleneted tecchies.

Is it Fun? Colin Johanson on How ArenaNet Measures Success

Though they're not erasing the database between beta weekends, they have said that they will purge it before launch. So everyone will start with new characters.

Between the first two beta weekends there were a number of changes including in available items. Several of my characters had items in their inventory described as "deleted item". When I sold junk to merchant the deleted items went away. My elementalist was missing his hat/mask which made him short on armor points. The NPC that sold it was gone too.

Whenever you kill a monster there is a chance that it drops something. Some drops are useful, such as money, weapons, armor, salvagable items. Most common drops, at least in the low level areas, are unusable junk. Junk items are all "soulbound" meaning you can't trade them to other players but can sell them to merchants. When you find a merchant and click on the sell tab two buttons become available "Sell Junk" and "Sell". Clicking on "Sell Junk" sells all the unusable items at once. You use the "Sell" button to sell individual items. Anything thats not junk won't be sold using "Sell Junk", ie armor, weapons, crafting material, salvageable items, consumables.

Salvageable items require a salvage kit. Once you double click on a salvage kit its active for all salvageable items you don't have to click on the kit for every item. If you point the cursor at a non-salvageable item the item will turn red, a salvageable item will be green, click on it salvage it. Salvaging an item will usually result in crafting material. To clear out your inventory right click on an item. Crafting material will show an option to place in in your bank. You can do this anywhere. For all other items, ie armor, weapons, mini pets, consumables, etc you actually have to go to the bank to store them. You also have to go to the bank to retrieve items. There is a storage bank in every racial city as well as Lion's Arch.

There are different levels of salvage kits. The crude kits won't salvage weapon or armor upgrades or rare crafting material. Basic kits have 10% chance to give rare crafting materials and 20% chance to salvage upgrades. Master's kit has 25% chance to salvage rare materials and 80% upgrades. A Perfect kit has only 1 use but has 100% chance to remove upgrades. Oddly on an item without an upgrade it drops down to 10% chance to extract rare crafting material. According to wiki it takes gems to buy a Perfect kit. Gems are bought from the Trading Post will real money or from other players with in game gold. Of course it could be that no one has found a merchant with Perfect kits yet, only seen them in the Trading Post.

In addition to merchants who take coins (bronze, silver, gold) for their items there are also Karma merchants. Karma is earned doing your own personal story, helping other players with their personal story (I haven't done that yet) and completing Dynamic Events. Karma vendors appear in explorable areas after successfully completing tasks which fill their heart markers. There are also karma vendors in the cities. Karma vendors sell things like consumable items that grant some temporary bonus and accessories. Accessories add additional armor points and can be upgraded to include additional benefits.

Help Us Stress Our Servers On June 27

After working for Arenanet for 8 years, lead concept artist Kekai Kotaki has decided to leave Arenanet.

Ahhh Guybrush, I hope that is not because of a disagreement with game direction. Will you be helping them stress the servers?

He's leaving on good terms. Apparently he thinks it time for something new. And they've said he's welcome back any time.

I plan to. I have to see if updating graphics driver fixed a problem I had with betas, Down State and necromancer's Death Shroud, turning screen black. If it didn't I'll need a new graphics card, which will require a new power supply. I'm just barely at minimum stats and those may change once game is optimized, so I may be better of with qholw new computer. I'm waiting to see what final system requirements will be though.

Fan made videos about GW/GW2 lore - Guild Wars 2 Guru topic, right now 2 videos, one on the world of Guild Wars and one on the Fall of Ascalon. The author plans on eight videos total covering Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 lore.

These two videos do NOT use in game footage. The artwork while based on the games does not reflect the actual appearances of the games.

One minor error, the titans are from another dimension not a distant land. They're demons from the Mists. The Mists is where the gods come from and where the spirits of the dead go.

Note: not talked about in the first video, but seen on the map, south of Kryta is the Dominion of Winds. This area will not by accessible on release but may be in an expansion. We have been told its home to the tengu, a race of birdmen which many Guild Wars 1 players are hoping will be a future playable race in Guild Wars 2. In Guild Wars: Prophecies the various tengu tribes of Tyria were entirely hostile to humans. In Guld Wars: Factions, Cantha was home to two tribes of tengu, one of which had made peace with the humans. Sometime between GW1 and GW2 the human empire of Cantha becomes xenophobic, the beginnings of this can be seen in Guild Wars Beyond: Winds of Change, ultimately driving the other sentient races off of Cantha. Presumably the Canthan tengu ended up in Domain of Winds. Ironically the humans of Cantha called their empire the Dragon Empire. It is currently unknown whether any elder dragons exist in Cantha (or Elona).



Edit: unfortunately updating graphics driver dd not fix my problem with Down state screen being black so I can't see foes.

TowerTalk LoreSpecial: Sylvari - like other lore interviews, introduction is in German but interview is in English. There is also an English transcript if you prefer to read it.

Thanks Guybrush, I'm sorry you are having driver problems.

Announcing the Guild Wars 2 Launch Date

ArenaNet Founder Mike O'Brien Discusses Guild Wars 2 MMO Launch On August 28

Whoop...there it is!

Gives me some time to decide what to do about computer, new graphics card and power supply or whole new computer.

With pre-purchase I get 3 day head start. But I have a coworker who's getting married on the 25th, so I'll have to remember to take a break in the evening to attend (assuming I can get the day off, work going to try for more than one).

Ahhh yes, the ole "Real life gets in the way of my gaming life" dilemma

The Golden Rules of Guild Wars 2

Excellent article!

Guild Wars 2 will not be available through Steam. Guild Wars 1 is but there's been some change of policy at Steam that's keeping Arenanet from releasing the new game on Steam.

The Guild Wars 2 blog is currently off line.

Thanks Guybrush

Blog back online.

I just learned that for the beta weekends if you played a ranger and went into PVP you could find all available pets unlocked to charm including pets that are Hall of Memorials rewards for playing Guild War 1. Presumably the launch version will only have those pets available to those who earned them. The HOM reward pets are just skins, they all have the same skills as some other pet in the game.

Black Moa which is unlocked at 15 HOM points has the same skills as a Flamingo.

Rainbow Jellyfish which is unlocked at 20 points has the same skills as a Blue Jellyfish.

White Raven, 25 points, is just an albino version of a Raven.

Black Widow Spider, 30 points (last item rewarded 35, 40, 45, 50 give titles only) is just a scarier looking version of a Jungle Spider. Unlike the GW1 version, the GW2 Black Widow does have a poison attack (same as the Jungle Spider), as I had hoped for.

Also another wish of mine has come true, in GW2 a ranger can charm a bald eagle pet. The GW1 eagle doesn't look much like an eagle to me. The GW2 eagle is just called "eagle" but it looks like the bald eagle.

Thanks Guybrush...pets are great!

Play Asura and Sylvari in the July 20-22 Beta Weekend Event! - I won't be, saving them for launch

Guild Wars 2: Original Game Soundtrack - purchase on four CDs