I may actually use this.

This is really similar to a dev post from BWE2, but here’s Jeff Grub talking about the different stories going on in Guild Wars 2. Countdown to headstart: 32 days.

I can’t embed this unfortunately, but roughly an hour ago, ArenaNet developers Eric Flannum and Colin Johanson sat down on Twitch and talked about the endgame in Guild Wars 2 and what makes it so special. They talk about Orr, legendary weapons, dungeons, and more!

Hey guys! So, I decided to do you all a big favor tonight and prowl through the post history of all the devs on the forums so that you don’t have to. I have come out of the forums unscathed, carrying bags of treasure: three posts that I thought were the most interesting. So, let’s jump into them (click the posts to make them bigger).

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Let me sum this one up for you: in each map out in the world, there’s a little area of crafting material supernodes that provide a rare material. Each area has 8, and they’re the only place (or one of the only two places) where you can get these materials. You can only get them once a day, but they’re extra special. It’s a nice way to have rare materials other than hoping to maybe find a randomly generated rare node.

‘This one’s really awesome. If you aren’t familiar with the Mystic Forge, it’s a way to recycle items. In the center of Lion’s Arch is this big blue shiny thing. You use it, give it four items, and it spits out a new item based on what you gave it. If you give it a bunch of weapons, it’ll give you a weapon. If you give it a sword, it’ll give you a sword. If you give it specific lists of stuff, it will soon start giving you specific dyes. We’ll have to work out what ingredients make what colors, but this will be a nice way to get those  couple dyes out of the list of 400 that you really want.

More aesthetics, this is huge. They’re putting in a dressing room. If you haven’t played an MMORPG with this feature before, let me explain it: essentially, when you have an item linked in chat, or on the Trading Post, or in your inventory, and you don’t want to buy it/soulbind it yet, you can open a new window that shows your character wearing that item. To say that it’s a mandatory requirement in a game in which gear progression is driven by degrees of awesome looks is an understatement. Not particularly huge news, but significant just the same.

At some point I’ll try to look at the Reddit AMA from last week, but that will be a while. Videos should start coming out tomorrow, including more videos featuring me on camera.

I’m incredibly sorry for being a day late on this. I was out of town for a concert all of yesterday and last night, so I didn’t get to post this yet. Mike O’Brien posted some general stuff about the beta. This biggest news this week is a STRESS TEST MONDAY FROM 11AM TO 6PM PDT!!! We can get our fix again! :D Same characters as we had during the last beta. 7 hours to do stuff you didn’t do before. If you’re thinking that 17 hours isn’t that much, it’s roughly 15% of the total time I spent in the BWE. It’s enough time to run Ascalon Catacombs roughly 5 times in a row. :D Not that I’m doing that. If I can get another run in, believe me I will. But, I’m also going to get into some more SPvP with other classes and maybe try to get some Dub v Dub in there if I can.

The following is a word-for-word copy post of the ANet blog to help everyone see it since ANet just overloaded their own servers with traffic.

We’re counting the days until the first public Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend Event, which begins on Friday, April 27, at noon PDT (GMT-8) and ends on Sunday, April 29, at 11:59 p.m. PDT (GMT-8). Hundreds of thousands of players from around the world will get their first taste of Guild Wars 2—and rest assured, we’ll be playing alongside them! [Yoshi’s Note: these times are actually GMT-7, not 8]

There are a couple important things you need to know about this Beta Weekend Event:

• The only way to absolutely guarantee your access to this or any future Beta Weekend Events is to pre-purchase any edition of Guild Wars 2.
• Customers who have pre-purchased the game will receive an e-mail next week with instructions on how to download the client and participate in the Beta.
• This is a public event, which means that you’re not bound by a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). So go ahead, feel free to take screenshots, shoot video, blog, tweet, write, or compose a rock opera to share your Guild Wars 2experience with the world.

Let’s take a look at all the cool stuff you’ll be doing during the Beta Weekend Event.

Choices, Choices – You’ll create your own personalized charr, human, or norn character and pick from our eight powerful professions. Your choice of race is vital to your personal story, and it determines in which of the huge starting areas you begin as well. A noble human mesmer will have a radically different game experience than a charr engineer in the service of the Iron Legion. Fortunately, you can roll more than one character and sample each starting area for yourself!

Worlds Collide – If you want your PvP on an epic scale, look no further than World vs. World, where three teams comprising hundreds of players wage open war across four vast maps. You’ll lay siege to castles, raid supply camps, build devastating weaponry, ambush your foes, and leap into truly massive PvP battles—all for the glory of the server. We’re warning you: WvW is so addictive that you may spend the entire Beta Weekend Event there!

PvP For You and Me – After you’ve gotten your feet wet, put your newfound skills to the test in Guild Wars 2 PvP, where small teams battle for points on a variety of challenging, compact maps. We adjust the level of PvP combatants so that all players are on equal footing. If you’ve got a competitive streak or you like playing first-person shooters online, you owe it to yourself to try out Guild Wars 2 PvP!

I Love L.A. – For the first time ever, we’re opening the metropolis of Lion’s Arch to beta players. Wander the streets of this cosmopolitan trade hub, chat with traders and travelers from every corner of Tyria, hop through one of the many asura gates to points beyond, or discover the famed diving platform at Diverse Ledges. Lion’s Arch is a city like no other!

As you can see, there’s a ton of stuff to do in the upcoming Beta Weekend Event on April 27-29. It’s honestly way more content than one person can experience in 60 hours of playing—and we haven’t even included the asura and sylvari in this beta! Fortunately, this will not be the last Beta Weekend Event before launch—stay tuned for more news regarding the next event.

We’ll see you in-game!

This is from the official blog. It’s written by Jordan Massey, one of the programmers. In it, Jordan talks about squads and the role they play in WvW.

Just a little bit from GBTV talking about Kerstein’s statements about official forums.

Sorry I didn’t get this earlier, I didn’t have enough time to actually get around to everything today, but here it is.  Post from ANet’s Leif Chapelle talking about how your personal story is developed. Pretty good read!