42.  No I’m kidding… it’s 80 as disclosed by Isaiah Cartwright in a recent article Progression and Leveling in Guild Wars 2.  That’s right, 80 is the official maximum level a Guild Wars 2 character will be able to attain.  The overall tone of the article is DON’T PANIC.  Although 80 is a big number, Izzy reassures us that that game will be rewarding for casual and hard-core players alike.

In this section, I introduce some general-purpose useful secondaries for hybrids. Enjoy!

Last week ArenaNet spent some time signing books and holding panels at Comic-Con 2010 in San Diego.  They handed out free copies of Ghosts of Ascalon, the first Guild Wars novel.  The book hit stores on July 27 so you can now pick up your own copy.  The novels will detail events that happen in the 250 year interval between the settings of Guild Wars 1 and Guild Wars 2.

There was also a QA panel made up of Global Brand Director Chris Lye, Game Designer (and coauthor of Ghosts of Ascalon) Jeff Grubb, Design Director James Phinney, and Character Artist Kristen Perry.  Many of the questions asked have familiar answers to fans who have been following the GW2 blogs but we did get a few new snippets.  Kristen Perry talked about improvements to the dye system from GW1, including that each garment may have up to 3 separate dyable areas.  James reassured us that the instance system has been redesigned for GW2 and the pains of disconnecting in GW1 will no longer be an issue.  Of course the number 1 question from the fans (concerning the release date for Guild Wars 2) still lacks a precise answer.

Check out ArenaNet’s blog roundup of the event and visit our forum to discuss the details with fans from our community who were able to attend this conference!

Also stay tuned for news from Gamescom, August 18-22, which will feature the first public playable demo of Guild Wars 2!

Today ArenaNet announced a shuffle on the Guild Wars Live Team.  The Live Team is responsible for all the updates to Guild Wars 1 - bug fixes, events, skill changes, and the Guild Wars: Beyond saga.  Long time team leader and designer Linsey Murdock will be leaving the team for another position at ArenaNet and designer John Stumme will be filling her shoes.

Linsey and John both spoke out so be sure to check out the article.

Linsey is quite secretive about her new position so let the speculation begin!  John opens up about himself and hints that the Guild Wars: Beyond content will extend to include Cantha and Elona.  Looks like exciting times ahead!

Lead Designer Eric Flannum answered some questions concerning the reveal of the GW2 Ranger class earlier this week.  Some of the topics include ranger weapons, spirits, preparations, traps, and of course pets.

Head over here to check out the article and sound off about the ranger in our forums!

So far we’ve heard of dynamic events that keep persistent areas fresh, rich storytelling based on your character bio, three classes each with a different gameplay element (elementalists use attunements to change function, warriors use varied combat mechanics, and rangers go from pet-users to melee rogues), bar fights, large underwater environments, “death” replaced by a different combat mode, and so much more.

Let’s assume they kept the best for closer to release… What will they come up with next? Here’s a few speculations.

Crafting system for improved customizability

In the “humans” race tab of the official wiki, we can already see an in-game screencap showing warriors wearing the same “skirt”, except that they differ in both color and material. This implies that crafting in GW2 will allow you to create items with greater options for customization. I expect that, true to ANet’s philosophy, those items will carry identical statistics… but I do think players will have much greater freedom of personal expression via their armors and weapons.

Its been about a month now I guess I should do a blog. Its been an eventful few weeks with Death and Healing mechanics being released, the end (?) of the War in Kryta and the Ranger profession being announced.

With a little help from a graphics program, you can spot certain interesting items on the map of Tyria that comes with the “Ghosts of Ascalon” novel.

To start with my little bit of nerd geography, I used a graphics program to create an overlay of the new map from “Ghosts of Ascalon” and the old in-game map of Tyria. I could not get a complete accurate overlay, as certain fixed spots (e.g. Rata Sum) could not be kept in line with others. I had to stretch the map a little from west to east. Here is what I could spot:

The IncGamers podcast for this week is now available for your listening pleasure. This week the team discuss the hot gaming stories including the Tim Schaefer/Bobby Kotick comments, Milo & Kate, Bioware vs the fans, the top MMO news, the Bullshit Story quiz, the games we’ve been playing and all the usual banter from the crew. Make sure you check it out now and subscribe on iTunes if you want to sling it on your latest iGadget of choice, or grab the MP3.

ArenaNet designer Jeff Grubb has been writing about his co-authorship of forthcoming Guild Wars novel “Ghosts of Ascalon.” Penned in tandem with Matt Forbeck, “Ghosts of Ascalon” will provide some background lore to the game universe as it stands one year before the time of Guild Wars 2, and detail a tentative truce between man and charr. The book “serves as an introduction to that world both for long-time fans of Guild Wars and newcomers who are interested in finding out what all the clamor is about.”

It will be followed by a second novel, “Edge of Destiny,” written by J. Robert King.