Powered by the GW2 Blog Krewe, a bunch of diehard MMO fans (mostly human) who are super excited about the game!
The Krewe discuss breaking news about professions, races, skills, videos, maps, game tips, books and character builds.
Custom PvP Arenas
One of the most anticipated features of Guild Wars 2, custom PvP arenas (complete with spectator mode) is about to launch. While it's taken a little longer to launch than many would have liked, the new PvP format kicks off on April 30.
Jonathan Sharp explains what this new PvP format has to offer...
"Let’s say you’re an sPvP guild who wants to scrimmage a friendly guild so you can both work on your strategies. Or maybe you want to be able to watch one of your friends play so that you can see what they’re doing and how they’re using their skills. Perhaps you’re playing in a hot-join game and you just got destroyed by someone, and you want to look at how they’re playing and what skills their using. Or, better yet, let’s say I just want to set up one-on-one duels inside my guild, pitting two players against each other, while the rest of the guild watches. Or maybe all I want to do is find a place where only my friends and I can play where we can’t be interrupted by other players."
All players will be able to purchase custom arena kits from the gem store and you’ll also be able to get custom arena time tokens, which can be used to add rental time to your own custom arena, or you can go to someone else’s custom arena, and add time there.
Custom Arena Options
There's a lot of customisation options availabe to allow you to tailor your arena to your specific specifications.
Spectator Mode
With spectator mode, you'll be able to watch and learn from the players in the arena.
Read more of the details here... Custom PvP Arenas.
Guild Missions
There are five Guild Missions types, each distinctly different, scattered around Tyria. None of these are in any of the Orr zones as ArenaNet are trying to get players into some of the quieter zones of Tyria. These new PvE Guild Missions are designed to provide challenging content for your guild to overcome, with worthwhile rewards for doing so.
How To Unlock Guild Missions
Guild Missions can be unlocked by spending influence within your guild panel. To gain the ability to spend your influence on Guild Missions, you'll have to apply several upgrades within your guild panel to the four categories: Architecture, The Art of War, Economy, and Politics. The first tier of Bounty costs 30,000 influence to unlock (a steep price but certainly one to work towards) with other tiers costing 50,000. Once unlocked, each Guild Mission can be activated for a cost of 200 influence per attempt. If you're successful in completing a Guild mission you'll be rewarded with a new guild currency known as Merits. These Merits are then used, along with additional influence, to unlock further tiers of Guild Missions or for additional Guild benefits.
Types of Guild Missions :
Guild Bounty : Hunt down and capture targets.
Guild Trek : Find locations in Tyria.
Guild Challenge : Various challenging scenarios.
Guild Rush : Skills test over terrain, traps, and other hidden dangers.
Guild Puzzle : Timed puzzle and jumping challenge.
Rewards
There are some excellent rewards for completing Guild Missions! There's a chance of dropping a precursor for everyone in the guild who completes them along with 50 silver, two rare / exotic weapons or armour and 2 Commendations (another new currency). Commendations can be exchanged at the vendor in Lions Arch for various items including exotic backpacks, guild banners and ascended items.
Read more here... Guild Missions.
Wintersday 2012
One of the events the GW2 Blog Krewe looked forward to in GW1 every year was Wintersday. This tradition continues in Guild Wars 2, with the Wondrous Workshop of Toymaker Tixx, starting December 14 and running through to January 3.Asuran Toymaker Tixx will arrive in a massive toy workshop airship in which he'll visit every major city in Tyria to deliver Wintersday toys and holiday cheer to their inhabitants. There'll also be new activities and events, a new Wintersday’s jumping puzzle, a snowball fight PvP activity, a bell choir musical activitiy plus Tixx's airship toy workshop is an instanced map designed for groups of 5 players.Adding to the festive occasion, there'll be new Wintersday items in the gem store such as festive town clothes, wintery weapon skins, and chests full of holiday treasures to help you celebrate Wintersday!
Tixx's Schedule :
On December 15 the Toymaker visits the sylvari to unveil a series of unique new events that feature a brand-new toy for the sylvari?
December 16 sees Tixx touching down in Divinity’s Reach with brand-new events based on the fancy new toy he's made just for the noble humans.
The charr capital is next on the list, as on December 17 Black Citadel citizens will see Toymaker Tixx hovering in the smoky skies above their city.
December 18 in Hoelbrak will be a day the norn will long remember as Tixx visits the great lodge to reveal a toy that's cute and tough enough to endure the hugs of a norn!
Rata Sum, Tixx's homeland, welcomes him back on December 19 and this year he's created a truly unique toy that only an asura could love.
From December 20 until January 3 Toymaker Tixx will be at Lion’s Arch where he'll have a special Wintersday gift for everyone who visits him. You'll be able to play through all the previous toy events inside the workshop, or try out the new Toypocalypse event!
We're really looking forward to Toypocalypse. Apparantly the toys in Tixx’s workshop have gone haywire and they're trying to take over the gigantic toymaking machine in the center of the workshop. If they succeed, Wintersday will be ruined so it's up to YOU to defend Tixx’s present-delivering dolyaks and the gigantic toy-making machine from waves of maniacal toys. Happy Wintersday everyone!
Christmas Gem Cards
Just in time for Christmas, Guild Wars 2 gem cards make the perfect gift for gamers!They're sure to be popular (they're sure popular among the GW2 Blog Krewe!), they're easy to get, easy to use and are a cheap present! (You get 2,000 gems for $25.) Treat your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife and/or your favorite guildies to a present they'll really LOVE!
Lost Shores Weekend Event
Coming up this weekend, November 16 to 18, new content for Guild Wars 2! Starting on Friday November 16th at noon PST (20:00 GMT), a one-time world event begins with a sea invasion of Lion's Arch by a monstrous new species of foe... "The Karka". Face this brand-new species, earn unique rewards, gather new crafting resources, learn new recipes, and much more!The weekend event culminates in a big finale that begins at noon PST (20:00 GMT) on Sunday November 18. This finale will be a one-time only event chain that will run for several hours. The karka content will remain permanently in the world as a result of the outcome of this event.Every foe has a homeland and the karka inhabit Southsun Cove, a new island at the edge of the Sea of Sorrows. It is the duty of every hero of Tyria to fight their way to this place to do battle against the fierce Ancient Karka.
Prepare to do battle with the karka!
The appearance of the karka will trigger other events in various parts of Tyria :
A new map to explore, accessible to all players regardless of level.
A challenging new dungeon to conquer "Fractals of the Mists".
A new PvP map set on a kodan iceberg "Temple of the Silent Storm".
Crafting updates including a new resource to harvest and 200 new recipes.
New items including unique minis and brand-new weapon skins.
Ascended items... artifacts of great power that can be improved by a special new type of upgrade called Infusions, which can be found in dungeons.
The new dungeon "Fractals in the Mist"
Leah Rivera describes the dungeon this way...
"This dungeon is unlike anything you’ve played in Guild Wars 2. It’s built of an array of mini-dungeons, which we call fractals. These fractals are slices of the Mists, fragments of time that have been stabilized by the intrepid asura researcher Dessa. Some of these vignettes from history may be familiar to original Guild Wars players, while others will represent previously unseen events. Because of their eclectic origin, each fractal is built as a distinct, separate experience with themes, mechanics, and art specific to that fractal."
Lots of interesting new stuff to enjoy in this weekend event and players will receive a special reward at the event completion so be sure not to miss it!
The Mad King Returns!
One of our favorite people in the original Guild Wars was Mad King Thorn. 250 years later he's making his return to Tyria!
Clear your calendar from October 22 to 31 as there's a bunch of Halloween events and challenges you wont want to miss.
Some of the Halloween fun includes :
New mini-games.
New dynamic events.
New jumping puzzles.
New bosses.
New mini-dungeons.
New achievements.
A four-act epic adventure starting October 22 and running until October 31.
Halloween costumes.
New transforms that will allow you to play Costume Brawl.
Paid tournaments will be available for competitive, five-person teams
Guild Wars 2 for Apple Mac
Sure to make Mac fans happy, the GW2 beta client is now available for Apple’s Mac OS X. It shares the same features and connects to the same live game servers as the PC client.
GW2 is ALIVE and Kicking
It's been a busy week for the Guild Wars 2 Blog Krewe as we all dove head-first into launch day. The 3-day headstart gave me the feeling of a kid being let into the candy shop after hours. After buying some gems in the last stress test, my first course of action was to grab three more character slots so I'd be able to start eight characters, one of each profession, on day one. I'm already looking forward to a year from now for those birthday presents :)Spreading my characters around the lands of Tyria, I created two sylvaris (a male ranger and a female mesmer), a male charr warrior, a male asura thief, two norn (a male engineer and a female necromancer) and two human characters (a female elementalist and a female guardian). Since launch I've played mainly with the Necromancer, Guardian and Warrior. The others will get their turn but these three professions were my favorites during beta and up to game launch. Other GW2 blog krewe members have chosen different combinations of characters to play, while Jackal is concentrating his efforts on playing the ranger and Poit is pure elementalist. Between us we have every profession and race covered and are really enjoying the experience so far.
Read our likes and dislikes here... Guild Wars 2 is LIVE.
Previous Guild Wars 2 Blog entries are linked in the right hand column. Links include videos, maps, pictures, movies, books and talk about GW2 character builds.
"We'd like to think that if Prince Rurik was alive, (the Ascalonian warrior prince from the Prophecies campaign), that he'd enjoy reading this blog as much as the GW2 Blog Krewe enjoy writing it."
Read more of the details here... Custom PvP Arenas.
There'll also be new activities and events, a new Wintersday’s jumping puzzle, a snowball fight PvP activity, a bell choir musical activitiy plus Tixx's airship toy workshop is an instanced map designed for groups of 5 players.Adding to the festive occasion, there'll be new Wintersday items in the gem store such as festive town clothes, wintery weapon skins, and chests full of holiday treasures to help you celebrate Wintersday!
