Guild Wars 2 Weekly

Posted 15 April 2012 by Lensor

Guild Wars 2 pre-purchase has started! (some media reports: Gaming Target, Examiner, Digital Entertainment News, Destructoid, MarketWatch), and it will run until shortly before launch as permitted by server loads (Forum Discussion). And with it a predictable amount of chaos – Retailers sold out from day one, confusions about which retailers have which editions, payment issues, people being issued used codes and so on and so forth. Luckily it seems like most problems are being solved, even though there are still some clouds to scatter. Also on Friday there was a final server stress test (still under NDA, so if you participated, don’t tell anyone!) that of course was leaked and spawned some indignation among pre-purchasers that they were not invited. However, this was not a Beta Event, the first one of those will be in the end of April (no set date yet) according to ArenaNet.

The week also had two official blog posts detailing the making of of the Collector Edition (Rytlock figurine, Art book) and of course loads and loads of videos, podcasts and articles. And we made friends with Talk Tyria!

Finally, since the amount of Guild Wars 2-related content is now reaching critical amounts, I will from now on make a sorted list like before, but only comment on some of the highlights from the week. Follow after the jump and see how it works out!

Official

Inside the Collector’s Edition – Rytlock Figurine. David Campbell gives us the background story of the Collector’s Edition Rytlock Brimstone figurine.
Inside the Collector’s Edition – Making of GW2 book. Likewise he also presented the CE book on the ArenaNet blog. And don’t worry, the typos in the example pages will not make it into the shipped version.
Kekai Kotaki Tumblr update. ArenaNet concept art lead Kekai Kotaki did a massive update on his Tumblr. Lots of very nice Guild Wars 2 concept art, along with work he did for other projects
Peter Fries Tweeted a short clip of Skritt voice recording by Cindy Robinson. Hilarious!

Interviews – ArenaNet

Gameinformer: Respec Radio Episode 29 – with Jonathan Sharp (audio). Jonathan Sharp visits the podcast crew and talks character creation, Dynamic Events and World vs. World. Gameinformer also posted a 30-minutes gameplay video narrated by Jonathan Sharp.
Guild Wars 2 Hub: Traits and Builds Interview with Jon Peters, Part 1. Part 2. Sardu published this two-part interview. The first part focuses on the trait system, skill split between PvE and PvP and changes to the necromancer’s weapons and utility skills. The second part is all about builds.
Guild Wars 2 Romania: ArenaNet Community Managers interview. Interview with Regina Buenaobra, Martin Kerstein and Stéphane Lo Presti about their day-to-day jobs. A very in-depth and interesting interview!

Community Interviews

GWOnline: GWO Community Spotlight: EU Fan Day – Aftermath. We asked a whole bunch of the participants of last week’s EU Fan Day about their most awesome moment of the event. Lots of nice answers!

Videos and Podcasts