Lensor | Guild Wars 2 – GWOnline.Net

Author Archive - Lensor

Guild Wars 2 Weekly

Posted 17/06/12 by Lensor

The second Beta Weekend Event over and done with, this week has been packed with impressions and videos. Not as overwhelming as the first one when everything was brand new for several hundred thousand players at once, still an impressive parade! ArenaNet themselves has been mostly quiet this week, catching up on some well-deserved rest one can assume. Nevertheless they did find the time to post a challenge for character 3D artists – with a job at ArenaNet in the balance.

Other than that the week has mostly been dominated by the new system to unlock Dyes revealed during BWE2, which has sparked both discussions and worry in the community about how the Guild Wars 2 cash shop will end up.

A worry that was not lessened by the announcement that Nexon just aquired a large portion of Guild Wars 2 publisher NCSoft stock. Nexon is a major player in the free-to-play market and is behind titles such as Maplestory and Vindictus.

Here at GWOnline Gorani posted a voice actor challenge, boldly posting his own interpretation of the five Guild Wars 2 races. Our Social Media Manager Mawgleah then upped the ante by offering some Guild Wars 1 in-game goodies to takers of said challenge. Could get interesting!

Read more & comment >>

Guest Blog: Demajen – The Importance of Community

Posted 06/06/12 by Lensor

We are very happy to present our second guest blog here at GWOnline, this one by Jon Burrage, also known as Demajen. Demajen started blogging about Guild Wars 2 earlier this year, often analysing Guild Wars 2 features in the context of other MMO games, and always with a personal touch. We greatly enjoy his writing, and hope that you will too.

***

Gaming Communities Are a Strange Beast.

I started gaming before the internet had taken off. Back in the early 90s, before I’d even heard of a 56K modem, gaming was something I did with my friends, with one TV and multiple controllers. Many many hours were spent crowded round the TV in our house’s living room with three of my closest friends and a N64, playing splitscreen GoldenEye.

Before that, my best friend and I would often huddle in front of his A500 Amiga trying to best levels in 2D sidescrollers.

Sure, this shows my age, but it also reminds me of a simpler time in gaming, where a community of likeminded individuals came together face-to-face to indulge in a shared interest.

Read more & comment >>

Community Feature – Newbie Blogger Initiative

Posted 05/06/12 by Lensor

Justin and his favourite cut-out. Didn't say who's who though.

If you are a frequent patron of the MMO blogoshpere you might have noticed a peculiar abundance of tips for new bloggers lately. For the full month of May bloggers shared their experiences about starting a blog and how to find your own voice. This deluge of info was no accident.

In stead it was the result of the “Newbie Blogger Initiative” (NBI for short), and the man behind that initiative was Justin “Syp” Olivetti, Senior Contributing Editor at Massively and keeper of the blog Bio Break. It has been a while since we did a community feature here at GWOnline, so when the Newbie Blogger Initiative came along we knew it was just the right topic to get the series going again! Luckily Justin was happy to answer a few questions.

GWOnline: How did you first come up with the idea of NBI and how did you go about getting the ball rolling?

Justin: The NBI is a pseudo-sequel to a similar community event we did with Warhammer Online blogs back in 2009. Both times, it was born out of a desire to encourage new bloggers to enter the scene and make it as easy as possible for them to do so. Starting up a new blog can be a formidable experience: You have to get into the habit of writing constantly while finding your voice and an audience. The NBI’s goal was to make this less formidable by doing two things: providing sage advice from long-time bloggers and throwing lots of traffic to these new blogs so that they could find their footing.

I thought of doing the NBI in April, and began to contact many of the bloggers that I read. It took me a few days, but I sent out around 70 or so emails outlining the project, and most everyone agreed. From there, I set up a forum to use as the NBI headquarters and watering hole, tried to structure the duties of all the sponsor blogs as best I could, and then told everyone to go nuts on May 1st. And go nuts they did.

Read more & comment >>

Winners in GWOnline’s BWE2 Key Giveaway

Posted 05/06/12 by Lensor

Yesterday at the stroke of midnight (PDT) we closed our very own Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend 2 key giveaway, and quickly drew the winners using a true random sequence generator. We wish to again thank ArenaNet for this opportunity to put a smile on the faces of 20 community members. Our only wish would be that we could have given one to all the entries!

We had three ways to enter, all giving equal chance for a win. Most people opted for the Twitter password (“Mirror Images”) whereas only one found the password hidden at the forum (“Primordus”) in a thread showing an amazingly detailed papercraft Mesmer model by community member Convex. And in between there were a bunch of people who showed us their way with words and posted limericks.

Here are some of the limericks posted. For some reason Asura and Norn seemed to be reccurring themes

There once was an kid from Rata Sum,
whose very first Golem made an odd hum.
He took it to a squabling Krewe
and before they all knew
a blast knocked’em all back on their bum.
- Sir Jack

There once was an Asura named Stort
Who was so unreasonably short
All the others called him names
and played cruel little games
So he sued them and took them to court
- poketama

There once was a happy Norn,
Who sat on a big *** thorn,
He let out a yell:
“This hurts like hell”
And he wasn’t happy no more
- GrungeLord

How much the small Norn has grown
He wanted to make sure it was shown
A big rock he could pick
He threw like a stick
An Asura was squished by what was thrown
- tcgrad

List of all the winners.

Read more & comment >>

Guild Wars 2 Weekly

Posted 03/06/12 by Lensor

Finally ArenaNet announced the dates for the second Beta Weekend Event, and it is next weekend! That is June 8th to 10th PDT. In conjunction with this ArenaNet gave a lot of BWE2 keys to general gaming sites as well as different Guild Wars 2 communities (including GWOnline.net) to give out. It spawned quite the frenzy to get a hold of a key, especially at some of the the larger gaming sites who posted the keys in big free-for-alls.

ArenaNet also launched brand new French and German official wikis as well as shared with us the permanently marked flesh of one of their employees.

MMO Reviews published an interview with Eric Flannum, and PCGamer had a sneak peek at some exciting level 30+ areas, not available in the Beta Weekend Events.

Read more & comment >>

GWOnline Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend 2 Key Giveaway

Posted 02/06/12 by Lensor

We here at GWOnline.net are very happy to announce that we have gotten 20 Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend 2 keys from ArenaNet to give away to our community. That means you!

The contest ends tomorrow Sunday June 3 at midnight PDT (Pacific Daylight Time).

How to Enter

Make a post in the contest thread over at our community forums.This is a must for everyone who wants to enter, since your post order will become your “ticket number” in the draw.
Do one of the following.

Keep an eye on our Twitter account and PM Lensor the “GWOnline Beta Key Password” which will be tweeted there sometime in the next 12 hours.
We have edited in a different “GWOnline Beta Key Password” in an original post somewhere on the GWOnline community forums. If you find it PM Lensor the password.
Post a limerick about Guild Wars 2 and/or GWOnline in the contest thread.

Read more & comment >>

Guild Wars 2 Weekly

Posted 27/05/12 by Lensor

A lot of people had speculated that this weekend would see the second BWE, but ArenaNet told us earlier in the week that this would not be the case, citing needing to set up more hardware as one of the reasons. ArenaNet also shared some background on what goes into naming the Tyrian places and inhabitants.

The German fansite Gaming Insight posted a video interview they did with Matthew Moore and Stéphane Lo Presti during the EU Fanday. Meanwhile Venturebeat had a chat with Mike O’Brien about monetisation of Guild Wars 2.

Here at GWOnline we have added several people to the team, some of which you have seen posting already. A presentation of all the new faces is upcoming, but we will let everyone get a little settled in first.

Read more & comment >>

ArenaNet Confirms: NO BWE This Coming Weekend

Posted 23/05/12 by Lensor

Feel free to make plans this weekend; ArenaNet confirmed today there will be no Beta Weekend Event (BWE) this coming weekend.

After yesterday’s update from Rubi Bayer, neither confirming nor denying that there would be no BWE May 25-28, most assumed there would be no BWE this coming weekend, but some confusion still remained within the community. Today, Martin Kerstein, German Community Manager for ArenaNet, took to Facebook to erase all doubt.

Many of you have been asking about when we will have our second Beta Weekend Event. As we are approaching a long weekend in many parts of the world, we understand that some of you want to make plans for that. To help you with that we can confirm that we will NOT be running BWE2 this coming weekend.

Our BWE1 was super successful, we exceeded our expectations. As some of you might have experienced first hand, this lead to some technical issues. To make sure we are not running into the same situation for BWE2, we recently had a stress test, and we are currently deploying a lot of additional hardware in our datacenters.

We will be able to tell you exactly when BWE2 will take place as soon as all the hardware has been deployed. We are not withholding a date intentionally, we want to make sure that BWE2 will be a really great experience for all of you.

I hope this helps a bit in understanding where we are standing – you all have a really relaxing long weekend!

- Martin Kerstein

This announcement does not give any hint as to when the next BWE will be, nor does it say exactly which technical issues ArenaNet is working hard to fix; but what seems apparent that when next we step into Tyria, it will be well worth the wait.

*by AJ Wolf*

Read more & comment >>

Guild Wars 2 Weekly

Posted 20/05/12 by Lensor

This week we got another taste of Guild Wars 2 game play with the short stress test on Monday. Personally I mostly ran around headless chicken mode, reported a few bugs, kamikazeed on some trolls in a cave and got my behind handed to me in the Ascalon Dungeon (entering all alone at level 15 – not my most brilliant idea).

In other news this week ArenaNet shared the inspiring story of Kelly Wells, and gave some more details on how name reserving will work in Guild Wars 2. They also reached 500,000 likes on Facebook and thus released a new concept art.

Meanwhile rumours of the Guild Wars 2 release date are running wild, sometimes even in opposite directions at the same time. This week some advertisement printed with the release date June 28 date surfaced, while a Gamestop earnings call slotted the release for after July. As always though, if you do not hear it directly from ArenaNet or NCSoft, it is just that – rumours.

Meanwhile we here at GWOnline are busy expanding our team, so should be an exciting few weeks ahead. Oh, and Relics of Orr is back

Read more & comment >>

ArenaNet Wants to Know About New GW2 Fansites

Posted 19/05/12 by Lensor

Do you run or know of a good small or new Guild Wars 2 fan blog/site/channel/project? Want to get some ArenaNet-generated traffic going? If so, head right over to the Guild Wars 2 official Facebook page and put that hat in the ring!

Earlier this week we told you about the RP fan blog and New Krytan translation project, www.ChroniclesOfTyria.com. We’re looking for more interesting fan pages and blogs along those lines. Periodically we’ll spotlight some of the best ones here on our Facebook page, so if you know of a new or little-known GW2 fan project that you think we should consider, this post is the place to tell us about it. Ready, set, go!

- Rubi Bayer

Read more & comment >>

GWOnline is Looking For More!

Posted 17/05/12 by Lensor

Now that it feels like Guild Wars 2 release is not only a theoretical goal far far away but something that is actually going to happen, we here at GWOnline are looking for people to round up our Content and Community teams.

We are currently looking for News Updaters, Columnists, Article Writers, Editors, Graphical Artists, a FANtastic Friends liaison, Video Trawlers and a Social Media Manager. We are also always on a look-out for Guest Talent. Please head over to our “Join The GWOnline Team” page for the full details of what the different positions entail and what we are looking for in our candidates.

If you are interested in any of these positions, please contact us by popping a PM to Lensor here at the site. You can also e-mail us at paul@incgamers. Please include an example of your work and a short blurb about what you would like to do at GWOnline. Since we are flexible about how the positions/roles are filled we will discuss with applicants how they may contribute on a case-by-case basis, and will add people to the team continuously until further notice.

If you are a talented person passionate about Guild Wars 2, we want you on board. And if you know someone else who fits the description, point them in our direction as well! The GWOnline team is a friendly bunch and we have loads of great ideas that are just waiting for someone to run with them.

So please do not hesitate, send in your application today. You could be a part of the team already tomorrow!

Read more & comment >>

An Inspirational Story of Guild Wars and Life

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