This week may have felt like a lull after the monster that was last week but that feeling is deceptive. First of all we have seen even more coverage from last week’s beta weekend surface – everything from preview articles to commentated videos and raw gameplay recordings. Also, Jon Peters published a huge blog post about the Attributes and Traits, which predictably spawned a community backlash about the announced fee for re-building your character’s traits, and then backlash to the backlash. There were also three official interviews (one with Rubi Bayer, one with Angel Leigh McCoy and one with Jeff Grubb) as well as a slew of blog posts, articles and videos. And we at GWOnline made some new friends – Demajen, Under the Pale Tree and Angelina Warpride!

Official

• Play Your Way: Jon Peters on Traits and Attributes. Jon Peters gave this in-depth rundown on how attributes and traits are currently working in GW2, sparking some controversy with the reveal of a re-spec fee. (Forum discussion)
• Guild emblem poll. Stéphane Lo Presti asked the Guild Wars 1 community to help ArenaNet gather statistics on guild emblem usage. Poll is open until Monday. (Forum discussion)
• It Is On Like Pong – ArenaNet Hosts Penny Arcade. ArenaNet showed off their ping pong team before taking on Penny Arcade. And it must have been a good one, because ArenaNet  won 5-4. (Forum discussion)

Interviews

• Kill Ten Rats: Interview with ArenaNet’s Rubi Bayer. Ravious has a chat with Rubi about her first weeks at the job. (Forum discussion)
• Wartower: Interview with Jeff Grubb about the Asura. Audio interview with loremaster Jeff Grubb, this one focused on the Asura.
• The Borderhouse: Imagine all the people. Interview with ArenaNet writer Angel Leigh McCoy.
• GWOnline: Guild Spotlight – Forever and Ever [LaG]. CMEPTb had a chat with competitive PvP guild [LaG], winners of the February 2011 and January 2012 MAT.
• GWOnline: Guild Spotlight – Husaria Pol [HSR]. CMEPTb also talked to another competitive PvP guild [HSR], winners of the November 2011 GvG championship.

Videos and Podcasts

• Guildcast: Episode 12 – Peer Pressure. Mike, Elizabeth and Shawn talks some more about their beta experiences.
• Tales of Tyria: Episode 20 – Aftershock. The team talks even more about beta, WvW and the Reddit WvW AMA.
• SagelikeOne had another busy week, posting a commentary of Engineer skills based on footage we were able to capture during the beta weekend, a video about the traits rework, a summary about why one should be interested in Guild Wars 2 and finally a Q&A videos (#10) focused on technology.
• WoodenTomatoes: Traits Rant. WoodenTomatoes posted a quite excellent rant about people ranting about the Traits blog.
• GetBONKD: Episode 22 – Traits and Attributes. The GetBONKD team takes a closer looks at, well, the traits and the attributes.
• Arawulf: The five D’s of Guild Wars 2. A little bit of a baiting title, but clever and well worth a watch.
• Yogscast: Thief Spotlight, Guardian Spotlight, Ranger Spotlight, Elementalist Spotlight,  Warrior Spotlight, Dungeon Part 1, Part 2, Norn leveling Part 1 phew! (Forum discussion)
• TotalBiscuit: Warrior Slaughterthon 3000, Jumping Puzzle (looks great!), Mailbox March 2nd (WvW footage used as background). (Forum discussion)
• PCGamer: Guild Wars 2 graphic settings walkthrough. The team takes a closer look at graphichs settings during the beta, including on-the-fly changes. (Forum discussion)
• PCGamer: 20 things you didn’t know about Guild Wars 2. Ok, us hardcore fans might already know quite a few of these, but great watch nontheless. (Forum discussion)
• Gamebreaker: First Impressions: Gary Steps Into Guild Wars 2 Norn Country. Gary from Guildcast takes his first tentative steps into Guild Wars 2, and likes what he sees.
• MMOSite: Fan-made video collage synced to dubstep music. Six plus minutes of GW2 footage put together? What’s not to like?

Articles and blog posts

First-hand beta experience write-ups:

• IGN: Playing the Guardian. IGN has a go at this support-esque class. Including a commented video with beta gameplay.
• Kill Ten Rats: The richest PvE experience, Part 2. Ravious finishes up his press beta writeup. (part 1)
• MMORPG: Beta reflections. David North reflects on the GW2 beta in his weekly column.
• MMORPG: The Engineer Preview. The Ranger Preview. The Mesmer Preview. The Elementalist Preview. William Murphy and Garret Fuller shares their experience about some of the GW2 professions from the beta weekend.
• Gamebreaker: Nine reasons Guild Wars 2 will rule.
• NZGamer: Guild Wars 2 preview. By Mike Gunn.

Other:

• Flameseeker Chronicles: I hope you like PvE stuff. Elisabeth talks PvE in Guild Wars 2.
• Guild Wars Insider: Colin Johanson Talks About Meta Events Details & Scope. Kefkah reported on some dynamic event clarification Colin did.
• The Vigilant: Tales of Tyria – chapter 11 – Shaman. Rhysanne continues her fan fiction series.
• The Feral Engineer: My first day in Tyria. Achilles did a guest blog post for Feralengineer about his first steps in GW2.
• Hunter’s Insight: Auction House, Trait Theory and Much ado about traits.
• GuildMag: Short in stature, broad in perception. Gmr Leon talks about the Asura.
• Demajen was busy as usual:  An unlikely Krewe, forming guilds in GW2,  Entitlement culture and supporting the developers, Closer to the grave – Minion mayhem redux,  The GW2 traitstorm – community reactions at its worst and Traits – Putting the “Role” back in “Roleplaying Games”.
• Distilled Willpower: Yogscast vs the reply girls. DW had some great advice about the so-called “reply girls”. And that is, ignore them - don’t give then a view count +1 by clicking it to downvote.
• Shewstr: Guild Wars 2 theme – piano and Aura theme – piano. Some great sheet music.
• Nerdy bookahs and their travel guide: GW2 – waiting for beta. The nerdy bookas are lamenting the wait.. know the feeling.
• Guild Wars 2 Junkies: GW2 world map and zone labels. A closer look at the current GW2 map, with zones and tentative level ranges.
• Under the Pale Tree: The great armor debate! Verene has something to say about the armor repair mechanic. And Dak about the trait blog outcry in Trait-ourous fandom scandal?
• Flamethrowing: Why the squad comments caught my attention. Our good friend Flamethrower is excited about squads, seeing a potential for some RTS-ing in the WvW.
• Guild Wars 2 Journal: Guild Spotlight – Genesis Gaming.
• Guild Wars 2 Guru: When do things become Pay-to-Win? Archaes takes a close look at microtransactions.
• GWOnline: Musings of an Arm-Chair Mesmer, Part 1. Thalanor talks mesmer weapon themes.
• Yoshi’s Guild Wars 2 hub. Yoshi started a brand new GW2 blog, and it has been busy busy busy! So rather than linking everything, just go there and check it out, mkay?  A few highlights though: The beginnings, Ascalon Catacombs or Pre-Searing: Where They Are Now, Durability and Repair, No Holy Trinity – Can It Work?, R.E.S.P.E.C…. T? (about the traits debacle).
• Mordakai: Common fallacies about traits. Mordakai has his say about the GW2 trait system. Also Microtransactions in GW2, A Hard Lesson to Learn (about posting in anger) and So do we share any traits?
• The Lore Hound: It is time for PvP and PvE to separate. Mike takes a closer look at if and how PvP and PvE can co-exist in one game, and comes to the conclusion that ArenaNet is on to something with their strict separation of the two.
• The Backline did a one-post-a-day thing this week to catch people up on GW2: GW2 is coming – will you be ready?, Warm up on lore, Professions, Battlefield, Surviving without doctors (Forum discussion)
• Deccan Chronicle: Fight for your Guild. A nice little piece from Wykrhm Reddy who posts for a regular newspaper, under the heading “Sci-Tech”. Nice to see GW2 also making a splash in non-gaming media.

• GW2Tools: Traits calculator An excellent tool to theorycraft your character’s traits and attributes. (Forum discussion)
• Luna-atra: Guild Wars 2 skills tool. Luna also updated their well-known skill tool with the updated data from the beta weekend. (Forum discussion)
• Guild Wars 2 Junkies: Weapon set themes by class infographic. In this handy graphic one gets an overview on how the different weapon types lend themselves to different play styles.

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