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An Inspirational Story of Guild Wars and Life

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Posted 16/05/12 by Lensor

In their latest blog post published earlier today, ArenaNet’s Regina Buenaobra shares the inspirational tale of long-time Guild Wars fan Kelly, who together with her dog Anna walked from Maine to California. Kelly goes online under the name Ameranth. Ameranth is now also a Sylvari Ranger NPC in Guild Wars 2 who goes on an epic walkabout of Tyria, experiencing the landscape first hand from end to end. Oh, and her dog is called Anna.

I found Kelly to be an incredibly down-to-earth, thoughtful young lady who has lived more in her life than many people twice her age. I’ve always wanted to drive across the country in an RV, but she made me realize it’d be far more profound—albeit a lot more time consuming—to walk it.
- Colin Johanson

Ameranth and her dog Anna ready for adventure!

I want an adventure, and I want others to realize that they can have an adventure—that all you have to do is go out there and try

- Kelly Wells

Read the full blog post over at the ArenaNet Blog.

Tagged As: | Categories: *Features, ArenaNet, Community, Developer Blogs, Guild Wars 2 | No Comments

Guild Wars Dance Party

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Posted 16/05/12 by Lensor

Now that Guild Wars 2 is drawing ever nearer, those of us who played the original Guild Wars might be getting a bit sentimental. An end of an era and all that. I know I am. This awesome fan made Guild Wars dance video by YouTuber eeglfethr therefore struck a cord with me. Here’s to all the awesome dance parties we had in Guild Wars (clothes optional), and to all the awesome dance parties we will have in Guild Wars 2!

Tagged As: | Categories: Community, Fan Made, Guild Wars, Videos & Trailers | No Comments

Guild Wars 2 Weekly

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Posted 13/05/12 by Lensor

After a couple of weeks of downtime we are back with a new and improved Guild Wars 2 Weekly! There is still work to be done, but I thought I would present this work-in-progress to you guys for a test drive. This is part of an ongoing effort to help the community to stay on top of interesting new Guild Wars 2 content without having to visit a hundred sites individually or setting up all those RSS feeds. We will also go through everything so that the list only contains original content, and try to list things as close to the horse’s mouth as possible (e.g. you will not find fifty entries reporting the latest ArenaNet blog post here). The list consists of various fansites, podcasts, YouTube channels and blogs as well as some more mainstream news outlets. As many reputable ones as we could find in fact. If I have missed any, just drop me a PM, and I will be more than happy to add them!

Tagged As: Weekly News Roundup | Categories: Guild Wars 2 | 2 Comments

Guild Wars 2 on Linux – It Works!

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Posted 02/05/12 by Lensor

I got the question in Guild Chat on Saturday when I said that I was playing Guild Wars 2 on a Linux computer, “Why?”. I explained that I would like to play my new favorite game on my favorite operating system and I anyway do not have a Window computer available. Not one with gaming hardware at least. I dont think they saw the point.

In any case, this article is for those of you, who like me, like their games on Linux. Or those of you who are curious about gaming on Linux, but never took the leap.

So does Guild Wars 2 work on Linux? Short version is YES! Long version is after the jump, where I go into the nitty gritty details.

Tagged As: Linux | Categories: *Features, Guild Wars 2, Guild Wars 2 Beta, Technical | 10 Comments

Choose Your Own Music in Guild Wars 2

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Posted 02/05/12 by Lensor

What seems like a very long time ago, Jim Boer wrote an ArenaNet blog post about the Guild Wars 2 audio design. That was the first time we heard of a very special system promised for Guild Wars 2 – a tool to make your own context-dependent in-game sound tracks. Since then it has been quiet.

The perceptive members of the community noticed that the client created a “Music” folder for the BWE this last weekend. And even though there had been no official word, many guessed that this would be for the personal music feature Boer talked about all those months ago. And it was, as confirmed by a post by Boer on the official beta forums.

If you put a playlist in the folder (supported formats are .wpl, .m3u, .pls, .asx, and .wax), and name the playlists correctly, the game will automatically play your selection at the appropriate in-game settings.

Each internal playlist can designate a primary and secondary playlist to look for. Most of the playlists will fall back to Ambient if they do not exist. This means that if you’d like to simply replace the majority of the music in the game, you can just create an Ambient playlist, or maybe just Ambient and Battle. However, if you really want to customize your playlist in detail, you can create the more specialized playlists such as NightTime or Crafting.

- Jim Boer

The playlist names that are currently recognized by the game are:

Ambient
Battle
Underwater
City
Crafting
BossBattle
NightTime
MainMenu

The actual music files has to be in a format that FMOD support by default, which luckily is pretty much everything – .mp3, .ogg, .flac, .wav .aiff, and a bunch of old-school music formats, like .mid or .it files.

Tagged As: | Categories: ArenaNet, Guild Wars 2, Technical | 4 Comments

Guild Wars 2 Weekly – Changes Coming

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Posted 01/05/12 by Lensor

The very first Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend Event has come and gone, and it was a blast. Also, seeing so many people coming together to play with us in the GWOnline Alliance Guild was heartwarming. You guys are the best!

This marks a milestone not only for ArenaNet, but also for us as a community. Many thousands of fans have finally had an opportunity to play the game first hand for an extended period of time, and can actually share those experiences freely. And it shows in our community forums. Now people finally have something tangible to discuss!

It is also a milestone because the information of the game multiplied exponentially over the weekend. We at GWOnline have so far not chosen to have a separate Guild Wars 2 knowledge database here on the site, but rather to focus our efforts supporting the official Guild Wars 2 Wiki, figuring that we as a community should focus our efforts on the one knowledge base that will be available to everyone from within the game. That said, we will of course still offer more specialized information and analysis, guides and aggregations, and we are always open to suggestions from our community.

Regarding the BWE, most of us naturally spent as much time as we humanly could in game, so GWOnline’s coverage will be a bit slower out the door compared to the Press Beta Events. But we do got some great coverage coming up, so stay tuned! Personally I will be covering playing Guild Wars 2 on Linux in great detail (both literally and figuratively).

Oh, and we finally made our friendship with Necrobator and GuildWars2Hub official, with front page logos and all.

Finally, with the amount of bloggers, YouTubers, gaming media and podcasts covering Guild Wars 2 (yay!) it has now become too much to make a full list every week, especially the kind of list that I want to provide. I want the list to be ordered for maximum usefulness, screened for non-original content (try not to list pure reports) and with a clear layout, and this takes a lot of time.

I started out this week’s list and had to admit defeat. It was just way too much! So apologies to everyone waiting, there wont be one this week. I have been wanting to re-envision Guild Wars 2 Weekly for a while anyway (the time needed to make the list has grown every single week), and after this first BWE seems like the time to do it. So come back on Sunday for the new and improved Guild Wars 2 Weekly!

Tagged As: Weekly News Roundup | Categories: ArenaNet, Guild Wars 2 | Comments Off

Free and Unlimited World Transfers During BWE

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Posted 27/04/12 by Lensor

The very first Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend is now well(-ish) underway. Legions of fans are battling it out in game as we speak, and legions more are banging their fists at the door, hoping to get in. ArenaNet is aware of the problems many have with gaining access and are hard at work getting everyone in game as soon as possible. One piece of good news though is that ArenaNet just announced on their Beta Forums that, for a limited time, world transfers will be free and unlimited. Great news for people wanting to play with friends or just test out different World’s atmosphere and latency!

And also a great chance for the community to show that we really are the best equipped to distribute ourselves between the servers.

In order to test transfers and world balance, from Friday, April 27 at 15:00 PDT to Saturday, April 28 at 18:00 PDT, players will have free and unrestricted World transfers.

Tagged As: | Categories: ArenaNet, Guild Wars 2 Beta | Comments Off

Press Beta Weekend Q&A Roundup

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Posted 27/04/12 by Lensor

After the last Press Beta Weekend back in March we here at GWOnline let all of our members ask questions about the game. And they asked!

We have collected the questions and answers here in this post, so you have something to read while waiting those last few hours before the Beta Weekend Event starts. We find out that Lady Rhonwyn got turned into a table, that Alaris could not use jump shot to climb and that CMEPTb found dynamic events surprisingly addicting. And that is just a tiny little bit, so make sure to follow after the jump for the whole run-down! Also, remember that you can share all of your Beta Weekend Event experiences on our community forums (don’t forget the Fanart subforum!), in your personal GWOnline Blog and on GWOnline TV, where you can also find all the GWOnline videos referenced below.

Qanar: How does the underwater movement work? Is there plenty of water to swim around or does it feel really defined?

Lady Rhonwyn: One word: awesome! And think 3D! You look in front of you and to the sides, but then: boom, a fish coming up from below! (and I presume you mean confined, rather than defined). There are huge, deep lakes and there are small, shallow lakes. And there are grottoes that only have an underwater access. But overall, the underwater areas feel very natural, and not something like: oh we want to add swimming to the game, let’s put some lakes down. And the breathing mask you have by default, is a stroke of brilliance. This means you can actually do complete events under water (yes, I’ve seen at least one event that took place purely under water!)

Alaris: There is not a lot of water in the starting area, probably they want people to learn to play a bit before throwing them with the sharks. Movement is easy and intuitive. If you swam in games before, this will be easy for you.

Gorani: Seconded: awesome! Watch my Elementalist underwater video.

CMEPTb: This is something that actually bugged me at PAX West 2011. I feel they have really smoothed it out since and while it takes a little getting use to at first, it is quickly sorted out especially when one starts using their skills. I am looking forward to some PvP underwater combat.

Teina: Water movement works pretty much like other 3D movements in other games with flights and swimming. It was very intuitive if you’ve played any other games with flights and swimming. The bodies of water I’ve came across have been small (swamps, small lakes).

Tagged As: GWO Beta coverage | Categories: Guild Wars 2, Guild Wars 2 Beta | Comments Off

Join the GWOnline Alliance in the Beta Wekend Event!

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Posted 26/04/12 by Lensor

Join GWO Alliance for some Guild Wars 2 Beta action!

GWOnline’s resident Guild Wars 1 alliance* has decided on making one huge alliance guild for the very first Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend Event, and all of you are invited to join the fun! PvE, WvW or structured PvP, we will do it all! On the European servers you will find us in Vabbi, and on the North American ones we will grace the Steamspur Mountains. If you want to join up you can either ask anyone you see in game wearing the [GWO] tag for an invite, or you can leave your in-game contact details in this thread. We will also update the thread with some GWOnline alliance contact people.

See you in game!

*The GWOnline Alliance of Friends consist of the GWOnline Community Guild [GWO], The Order of Dii [Dii], Veritas Invictus [TRUE], Embers of the Flame [PHX], The Guild of the Blade and Rose [BaR], Massively Overpowered [MVOP], Blood of the Martyr [HOPE], In Pace Requiescat [RIP] and U L G G [ULGG].

Tagged As: GWO Alliance | Categories: *Features, Community, Community Events, Guild Wars 2 Beta, Site News | Comments Off

Guild Wars 2 Weekly

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Posted 22/04/12 by Lensor

ArenaNet finally announced the date of the first Beta Test Weekend – April 27-29! It had been known for some time that it would be some time during “end of April”, but many had speculated this weekend since the next one is also Guild Wars 1′s 7th birthday celebrations. Looks like next weekend will be a busy one! The Sylvari or Asura races will still not be available for play, but will get to visit Lion’s Arch for the very first time, which should be a real treat. For those eager to know more of the Sylvari, it might be interesting to know that the latest issue of Gameinformer does have an article about the Sylvari starting area and story (no online version atm, sorry). Meanwhile, ArenaNet is preparing the beta forums, and while they are very much a work-in-progress they are coming along.

In Guild Wars 1 there was the MS Toga party on Saturday April 21. A great initiative by GW-EN and Gamers Giving Back, among others, raising over $3,000! The event was also a blast to attend, and really shows what a great community we have.

In other news, we at GWOnline are busy preparing for the beta. We are also looking for more people to join the team! By the way, did you know that you can share all your favourite Guild Wars 2 videos at GWOnline TV? We got categories for pretty much everything, including Machinima, Professions, Press coverage and PvP. And you can make your own Guild Wars 2 blog right here at the site. Something to think about after next weekend

Oh, and we made friends with Black Star Radio and Italian fan site Ebohawke!

Tagged As: Weekly News Roundup | Categories: ArenaNet, Guild Wars 2 | Comments Off

The MS Toga Party is Tomorrow, April 21st!

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Posted 20/04/12 by Lensor

As most of our visitors have probably noticed, this last month or so there has been a banner promoting the MS Toga Party in our Friends widget. MS Toga Party is a charity fundraising event with the aim to raise support and awareness on Multiple Sclerosis. And tomorrow, April 21, the day has finally come! You can participate in the event live by joining one of the hosted districts, tuning in to GW-EN radio or listening to the GuildWars2Live stream. There are also Twitter and Facebook pages you can follow, MS Walks out in the afk world, and of course all donations to the MS Society are much appreciated.

Once again, Gamers Giving Back and the Gaming World Entertainment Network will be hosting the MS Toga Party! The event is a charity fundraising event, hosted within the game Guild Wars. Its aim is to raise awareness and support for those who are effected by Multiple Sclerosis. The event takes place in April to coincide with the North American Wide Supercities MS Walks. The ‘Toga Party’ can be found in international districts of Chahbek Village inside of the game’s world.

So head right over to the MS Toga Party web page for all the details! (also posted in our community advertising forum)

Tagged As: | Categories: Community, Community Events, Guild Wars | Comments Off

First Beta Weekend Event April 27-29!

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Posted 18/04/12 by Lensor

It’s official, the first Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend Event will be held at April 27-29. This was announced about an hour ago by Martin Kerstein on ArenaNet’s @GuildWars2 twitter account.

Good news! First Beta Weekend Event will be from April 27-29. We will let you know once the client is ready for download.

- Martin Kerstein

This event will be open to all pre-purchasers, as well as people issued beta keys by other promotions (like giveaways at the recent PAX East). There will be a beta forum open for the event where everyone can give their input directly to ArenaNet, but the event will not be covered by any non-disclosure agreements so everyone will be free to discuss what they experience during the event everywhere and to anyone.

More details are upcoming in an ArenaNet blog post, to be published shortly.

It was a little surprising that the first Beta Weekend Event will co-incide with Guild Wars 1′s seventh birthday celebrations, but hopefully ArenaNet, and the players, will be able to juggle the two events at once.

Tagged As: | Categories: ArenaNet, Guild Wars 2, Guild Wars 2 Beta | 1 Comment