Meet Ameranth, a sylvari who shares the same sense of wonder and curiosity about her world as her kin—and yet who stands out because of how she has chosen to act upon it. You see, she decided to satisfy her curiosity by seeing Tyria firsthand, walking from one end of the land to the other.

In Guild Wars 2, you’ll find her as far away from the Grove as Black Citadel, eager to see all there is to see in Tyria. Ameranth is joined by her faithful sylvan hound, Anna, and if you happen to run into her, she’s more than happy to tell you about their journey. “Ever since emerging from the Pale Tree, I’ve had the itch to see what the world has to offer. And what better way than with my own two feet?” she’ll tell you.

While Ameranth and Anna are an interesting pair of NPCs in their own right, it’s the story of how Ameranth came into being that is truly fascinating. You see, Ameranth is a real person. She is Kelly Wells, the mind (and feet) behind Adventure Awaits: The Story of a Woman and Her Dog.

Kelly, who goes by Ameranth online, is a longtime Guild Wars player who was inspired by her character: “One day I was playing Guild Wars, running around in Ascalon, helping pig farmers round up their pigs and little girls find their flutes, and I thought, ‘Man, I wish I could live here. Just running around, seeing the land, helping people in need, and having adventures.’ Then came the epiphany: Why the heck not?”

Her decision was cemented by a video entitled Gaming Can Make a Better World. After watching Jane McGonigal talk about how great it would be if gamers approached real-life challenges with the same determination, passion, and excitement with which they undertake gaming challenges, Kelly decided to do just that and go on an adventure.

“There are awesome environments waiting to be seen, quests and stories waiting to be fulfilled, battles waiting to be won.” So, largely inspired by Guild Wars, Kelly set out to see those environments and win those battles. Was it risky, and maybe even a little scary? Sure, but doing it in spite of that was part of the adventure.

Kelly and her dog, Anna, walked from Maine to California. When she completed her journey in San Diego, she was met by her mother for the trip home.

Before heading home, however, there was one other thing to do: take a road trip up the coast to the ArenaNet studios to spend some time with the team that created Guild Wars.

While Kelly’s journey may have been inspired by Guild Wars, she in turn proved to be a source of substantial inspiration to the ArenaNet staff. “I think that what Kelly did is one of the coolest things I have ever heard of! Ever!” said Game Designer Linsey Murdock. “I’ve always been impressed by fans who get tattoos inspired by their favorite game, but to be motivated to take an epic journey across the country on foot with your trusty animal companion? That’s magical. It’s something that immediately shot up to the top of my list of reasons to be incredibly proud of being a game developer.”

Lead Content Designer Colin Johanson had similar feelings. “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.”

“I was also struck by how easy she made the decision sound by just deciding to up and do it,” Colin said. “From talking to her mom, it seems like there was a ton of preparation, planning, and thought behind the whole thing, but Kelly really made it sound like it was just something she needed to do, and she did it. If we all took that perspective on life, deciding to make positive changes and refusing to let anything get in our way, it’d be amazing to see how much we’d all be able to accomplish.”

After hearing about Kelly’s adventure, learning what prompted it, and meeting her in person, we knew that Ameranth had to be a part of Guild Wars 2. Look for her in your travels through Tyria—she’s got quite a story to tell.

“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. You don’t have to be super fit, or have the special equipment, or have a million dollars. You just have to walk out that door and throw yourself into the world.”

—Kelly Wells

The other week we hosted our first Beta Weekend Event, when hundreds of thousands of players who pre-purchased Guild Wars 2 got their first chance to play the game. This was a huge milestone for ArenaNet; with no NDAs and no press embargoes, the beta version of Guild Wars 2 would have to stand on its own before the full force of the Internet.

I think it’s safe to say that the response was overwhelming in more ways than one. Firstly, the number of people who pre-purchased the game far exceeded our expectations, and we had to temporarily disable pre-purchases. In the end that wasn’t enough, and even with 48 worlds we didn’t have enough server capacity to meet the huge demand.

Fortunately, the vast majority of players were able to get into the game and experience Guild Wars 2 in all its glory. Seeing Tyria come alive, with players interacting with dynamic events or engaging in epic World vs. World battles, was an amazing experience. We’ve highlighted some of the great coverage coming out of the Beta Weekend in another blog post, but suffice it say that we were blown away by the reaction from the community. The positive feedback just strengthens our resolve to deliver the best game possible.

This was definitely a real beta, designed to find problems, gather player input, and learn what work still needs to be done before we ship the game. We’ve listened to your feedback and we’re making some important improvements to the game for the next Beta Weekend Event.

At the same time, we’re also working on server capacity to make sure that we’re prepared for the even greater flood of players who will participate in the next Beta. To that end, we’ve announced a Stress Test on Monday May 14th to test some changes we’ve implemented. This 7-hour test event, which runs from 11 AM to 6 PM PDT (-7 GMT) is open to all players who have pre-purchased Guild Wars 2. The good news is that we’re not wiping characters for this test; we’re using the same build that we used in the first Beta Weekend Event, so you’ll be able to pick up right where you left off. For more information about the Stress Test, log in to the Beta Forums. Please join us on May 14 if you can.

I want to thank each and every one of you for your support—every time you participate in our test events you help make the game better. We’ll see you in-game!

-Mike O’Brien

Last week we held our first-ever Beta Weekend Event, a humble in-game get together attended by hundreds of thousands of our closest friends. This was an old-school beta; a lot of the lessons learned and data collected from the event are being applied toward improving the game as I write this. We want to extend a huge thanks to everyone who played. Your feedback, bugs, and participation are absolutely crucial to our goal of making Guild Wars 2 the best game possible at launch.

Let’s take a look at what they’re saying out in Internet land about the Guild Wars 2 Beta, shall we?

The Escapist’s Justin Clouse presents a general overview of Guild Wars 2 based on his experience during the event. “The part I enjoyed most during my time with Guild Wars 2 was how it encourages players to actually work together,” Clouse writes.

Over at Forbes, Carol Pinchefsky admits that while she’s not an MMO player, she was won over during the Beta Weekend Event. “If GW2 is an example of how MMOs roll, then I might be rolling with GW2,” she says.

Kotaku’s Kate Cox was swept up by her character’s narrative journey, manned a trebuchet during PvP, and just enjoyed wandering around the living landscape of Tyria. She writes, “Ultimately, though, my main impression of the weekend is a buoyant sense of having been carried away with the joy of exploration.”

The staff at MMORPG.com was busy during the Beta Weekend Event, and they have the coverage to prove it! They created a video preview of the Gem Store and Trading Post, offer an analysis of our crafting system, and take a hard look at whether Guild Wars 2 delivered on its promise of dynamic events and cooperative, social adventuring.  “Everything was collaborative, not competitive,” MMORPG’s Michael Bitton says. “Don’t get me wrong, I love competition, but I’d rather leave that to PvP than adventuring.”

Massively was equally busy last weekend. They’re offering a video tour of the classic Guild Wars city of Lion’s Arch, which has had a serious makeover for Guild Wars 2. Elisabeth Cardy shares her impressions of Guild Wars 2 in this Flameseeker Chronicles post, while Justin Olivetti offers his ten favorite tombstone epitaphs from the graveyard outside Divinity’s Reach (one of my personal favorite corners of Tyria).

Over at Gamebreaker.tv, Scott Hawkes lists seven key takeaways from his Beta experience. You should read the whole article, but this quote best summarizes Scott’s impressions: “I bloody loved it.”

Not to be outdone, Bio Break offers 30 things they gleaned from the Beta Weekend Event. Syp writes, “Guild Wars 2 feels quite familiar to anyone who played Guild Wars 1 , even though it’s a new game. There’s just enough of the old, particularly in style, to carry on the tradition and keep the connection between the two games alive.”

It looks like Distilled from Talk Tyria spent much of his weekend in world vs. world, and he “loved every single second of the terribly bloody affair.”

On a similar note, Ravious at Kill Ten Rats takes a look at the Bank and the Trading Post. He concludes, “ArenaNet has put serious thought and love in to these two simple features.”

PCWorld offers a lengthy look at their experience during the Beta Weekend Event,  complete with loads of screenshots. And from the other side of the Atlantic, French site Gamekult provides a thorough overview of their Beta experience, with plenty of gameplay videos.

And to round things out, how about a preview of the special reward armor players receive upon completing a dungeon in Guild Wars 2? Well, GuildMag has it!

For our first Beta Weekend Event (April 27-29), home-world selection and world transfers will work just as they will when Guild Wars 2 launches.

When you log in to the game for the first time, you will have the opportunity to pick any available server, or home world. If you choose to select a home world that is in a different region from where you purchased your game, you will be logged out for a short period of time while your account is moved to your new region. Once you have selected a home world, all the characters you create will play on this world and will represent it in our world-versus-world (WvW) format.

While you can change your home world, there is a limit of one world transfer every seven days per account and a charge of 1,800 gems for each transfer. A world transfer moves all of your existing characters to your new home world. Any subsequent characters you create will also play in this new home world.

When Guild Wars 2 launches, you will also have the option to play with your friends on another world with our free “guesting” feature. With guesting, your characters can play on any world where you have friends—with certain restrictions. For instance, you will not be able to participate in WvW while guesting.

While home-world selection and world transfers will be available during our Beta Weekend Event, guesting is not currently available. All players will be able to receive 2,000 gems free for the Beta Weekend Event, so you will be able to purchase a world transfer if you find yourself in need of one. Since the limit is one transfer every seven days, you’ll only be able to change worlds once during the Beta Weekend Event.

We strongly recommend that you plan ahead and choose your server before the event begins on April 27.

Here is a list of worlds that will be available during the Beta Weekend Event:

US Worlds

• Anvil Rock
• Borlis Pass
• Yak’s Bend
• Henge of Denravi
• Maguuma
• Sorrow’s Furnace
• Kaineng
• Jade Quarry
• Fort Aspenwood
• Ehmry Bay
• Ferguson’s Crossing
• Darkhaven
• Vasburg
• Eredon Terrace
• Crystal Desert
• Tarnished Coast
• Steamspur Mountains
• Blazeridge Mountains
• Isle of Janthir
• Sea of Sorrows
• Deldrimor
• Scavenger’s Causeway
• Moladune
• Eternal Grove

EU Worlds

• Kodonur
• Gandara
• Kodash
• Blacktide
• Istan
• Vabbi
• Kourna
• Fissure of Woe
• Underworld
• Ring of Fire
• Far Shiverpeaks
• Petrified Forest
• Jade Sea
• Desolation
• Magus Falls
• Whiteside Ridge
• Fort Ranik
• Ruins of Surmia
• Sharp’s Corner
• Aurora Glade
• Riverside
• Elona Reach
• Augury Rock
• Abaddon’s Mouth

We’re days away from the first Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend Event, and it’s no exaggeration to say that we’re as eager as all of you for the event to begin. While the developers are busy preparing the game, we here on the community team are keeping busy by keeping all of you, our Guild Wars family, informed, with help from a few popular social media outlets.

Hundreds of thousands of Guild Wars 2 fans have become followers on Facebook, and we’ve worked hard to make our fan page a reflection of the community we want in Guild Wars 2: a place where newcomers can learn the basics from longtime fans, where everyone can share their excitement over Guild Wars 2, and where we can share news, fansite projects, art, and more.

With that in mind, we introduced our milestone goals for our Facebook page last week and have decided to share a little something extra as we approach the half-million mark. With each 10,000 new followers on the way to 500,000, we’ll release a never-before-seen piece of Guild Wars 2 art by some of our most-talented artists. These will be high-resolution images, suitable for use as desktop wallpapers!

Upon reaching 460,000 fans, we released concept art of Eir Stegalkin making an intimidating underwater discovery. We’re now well on our way to 470,000, and something a little more high-tech will be unveiled next.

Facebook isn’t the only thing keeping us busy. Guild Wars 2 has some of the most talented and creative fans out there, and we wanted a way to show off some of our favorite fan projects. We’ve joined Pinterest, and you’ll find boards showing off the best of the best in fan cosplay and fan art and projects, along with concept art from our own artists.

In preparation for the Beta Weekend Event, you’ll also find screenshot boards for the norn, human, and charr areas. As you’re adventuring in Tyria this weekend, take time to snap a few screenshots. If you upload them, be sure to give us the link on Facebook or Twitter, and we’ll pin some of our favorites to share with everyone.

We’re excited to have Pinterest as a way to share the creativity of our fans and artists with our entire community, and we hope you’ll enjoy it as well.

Finally, our Guild Wars 2 Twitter feed has been invaluable for providing rapid-fire answers, information, and news links to our fans. We answer as many questions as we’re able to, and we truly enjoy the quick one-on-one communication with our community members.

We’ll see you in-game during the Beta Weekend Event! But until then, there’s plenty of Guild Wars 2 talk to be had outside the game—so come on and join the discussion!

We’re counting the days until the first public Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend Event, which begins on Friday, April 27, at noon PDT (GMT-7) and ends on Sunday, April 29, at 11:59 p.m. PDT (GMT-7). Hundreds of thousands of players from around the world will get their first taste of Guild Wars 2—and rest assured, we’ll be playing alongside them!

There are a couple important things you need to know about this Beta Weekend Event:

• The only way to absolutely guarantee your access to this or any future Beta Weekend Events is to pre-purchase any edition of Guild Wars 2.
• Customers who have pre-purchased the game will receive an e-mail next week with instructions on how to download the client and participate in the Beta.
• This is a public event, which means that you’re not bound by a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). So go ahead, feel free to take screenshots, shoot video, blog, tweet, write, or compose a rock opera to share your Guild Wars 2 experience with the world.

Let’s take a look at all the cool stuff you’ll be doing during the Beta Weekend Event.

Choices, Choices – You’ll create your own personalized charr, human, or norn character and pick from our eight powerful professions. Your choice of race is vital to your personal story, and it determines in which of the huge starting areas you begin as well. A noble human mesmer will have a radically different game experience than a charr engineer in the service of the Iron Legion. Fortunately, you can roll more than one character and sample each starting area for yourself!

Worlds Collide – If you want your PvP on an epic scale, look no further than World vs. World, where three teams comprising hundreds of players wage open war across four vast maps. You’ll lay siege to castles, raid supply camps, build devastating weaponry, ambush your foes, and leap into truly massive PvP battles—all for the glory of the server. We’re warning you: WvW is so addictive that you may spend the entire Beta Weekend Event there!

PvP For You and Me – After you’ve gotten your feet wet, put your newfound skills to the test in Guild Wars 2 PvP, where small teams battle for points on a variety of challenging, compact maps. We adjust the level of PvP combatants so that all players are on equal footing. If you’ve got a competitive streak or you like playing first-person shooters online, you owe it to yourself to try out Guild Wars 2 PvP!

I Love L.A. – For the first time ever, we’re opening the metropolis of Lion’s Arch to beta players. Wander the streets of this cosmopolitan trade hub, chat with traders and travelers from every corner of Tyria, hop through one of the many asura gates to points beyond, or discover the famed diving platform at Diverse Ledges. Lion’s Arch is a city like no other!

As you can see, there’s a ton of stuff to do in the upcoming Beta Weekend Event on April 27-29. It’s honestly way more content than one person can experience in 60 hours of playing—and we haven’t even included the asura and sylvari in this beta! Fortunately, this will not be the last Beta Weekend Event before launch—stay tuned for more news regarding the next event.

We’ll see you in-game!

Today we’re going to take a look at another key component of the Collector’s Edition – the 112- page Making of Guild Wars 2 book. This deluxe hardback book goes behind the scenes during the five year production of Guild Wars 2.

Loaded with gorgeous concept art, designs, and screenshots, the Making of Guild Wars 2 is a beautiful book on its own, but we’ve also packed each page with fascinating details about the evolution of the game from an ambitious dream to the final product. Brady Games author Doug Walsh interviewed ArenaNet staffers from every discipline to create the story of the creative journey we’ve taken as a company.  Whether you’re a hardcore Guild Wars fan, you’re interested in game development, or you just like to look at spectacular art, there’s something between these covers for you – and you can only get it by ordering the Guild Wars 2 Collector’s Edition.

Let’s take a look inside:

As you’ve undoubtedly heard by now, Guild Wars 2 Pre-Purchase has begun! Thousands of players from all over the world have begun pre-purchasing their copies of the Digital Edition, the Digital Deluxe Edition, and the limited Collector’s Edition. Everyone who pre-purchases the game receives the very handy Hero’s Band in-game item, three day Headstart Access before launch, and access to Beta Weekend Events (like the one coming up soon!). This week we’re going to take a look at the cool stuff you’ll discover when you first open the custom-made box.

The focal point of the Collector’s Edition box (aside from the game itself) is the massive, impressive figurine of the iconic charr warrior Rytlock Brimstone. He’s hard to miss.

We really felt that the Collector’s Edition deserved an impressive centerpiece that captured the painstaking handcrafted design of the game and was evocative of the dangerous, beautiful world of Tyria. We considered sylvari figurines, norn warriors, and asura golems, but we kept returning to one concept for the figurine—the charr. And what better charr than the baddest tribune in the Blood Legion, the legendary Rytlock Brimstone?

We contacted Happy Worker, specialty toymakers from Canada who have an excellent reputation for working with clients until the end product is perfect, and asked them to produce a Rytlock figurine worthy of Guild Wars 2.

Working from detailed reference art, the craftsman at Happy Worker created a true piece of art that captures the unfettered bad-assness of Rytlock. Through the months- long creative process, ArenaNet artists worked with Happy Worker on numerous iterations of the figurine until it was finally perfect and worthy of you, the player. In the end, we were very happy with the final, hand-painted statue, and we think you will be, too!

Take a look at it! 10 inches (25 cm) of armored savagery, painted with painstaking detail. This heavy rock-solid sculpture deserves a place of honor on your desk or bookcase—just don’t drop it on your cat!

The countdown has begun! We’re less than a day away from Pre-Purchase, and since we’re as excited as you all are, we’ve decided to post a video to help us all pass the time and stoke our enthusiasm.

Check out the new Guild Wars 2 Collector’s Edition video, which showcases all of the cool stuff you’ll find in the Collector’s Edition!

For our international friends, we’ve got versions of the video just for you:

UK

French

Spanish

German (USK)

German (PEGI 12)

Hi, everyone. I’m Jordan Massey, a gameplay programmer on the WvW strike team. My job for the last few months has been to implement our WvW designers’ ideas. Today, I’d like to tell you a bit about the squad system. By its nature, it’s something that we’ve had to sneak in since we can only evaluate it in a live game environment, but the time has come to get the word out!

What Are Squads?

Squads are our solution to some of the communication difficulty we experienced early on in WvW. Good communication is an inextricable part of excelling on the battlefield, and our existing channels weren’t quite meeting our needs. Team chat was too large because everyone in the entire map could talk in it, resulting in too much noise. On the other hand, parties—which are capped at five members—were too small. In order to bridge that gap, we designed the squad system, which allows communication on a larger scale than parties, but in a much more focused manner than team chat.

A squad is a one-to-many command structure, with one commander at the top, and his followers underneath him. Each squad receives its own chat channel, which all members can see, but which only accepts chat from the commander. Normal members can only see what the commander says and cannot speak back.

Additionally, commanders gain access to a small set of squad map markers, which they may place on the map just like their normal party waypoint. All squad members will see these markers on their maps and compass. They represent orders such as “attack,” “defend,” “rally,” and “bring supply.”

We made squad communication flow in one direction because we wanted to keep it as simple as possible. We discussed complex hierarchical command structures, but decided they would be too difficult to learn and use. Joining a squad is simple and fast, and allows players to jump into the action right away with clear goals. Players in a squad shouldn’t feel alone or lost in the massive and hostile WvW landscape.

Squad Management

Joining a squad is just as easy as sending a whisper or a party invite. Simply select a teammate and right-click their portrait. If they’re in a squad, you’ll see an option to join their squad. Click that and you’re in! The commander doesn’t have to approve your request—you can join and leave freely. It doesn’t matter whether you click on a commander or a squad member. You’ll join the same squad as the person you clicked on, so you don’t have to worry about chasing down a commander in order to join a squad. In the party menu on the quick-launch bar, there’s a small squad panel. From there, you can leave the squad you’re in if you want to join a different one, or if you’re just done for the day.

This same panel can be used if you desire to become a commander yourself. When not in a squad, you’ll have the option to create one. Creating a squad will make you a commander. You’ll receive a special map marker that other players can see, and you’ll have an icon over your head that lets teammates around you know that you’re a commander. The icon is not visible to members of other squads, but it is visible to your squad’s members, other commanders on your team, and players not in a squad so that they can easily identify you. Once you’re a commander, you’ll have the ability to speak into your squad channel and place order markers on the map for your members. It’s definitely nice to strut around with your special commander icon, but being in charge is also a big responsibility. The right to become a commander must be earned.

In each team’s portal keep in their home map, and in the major cities, there is a Master Strategist merchant. For a substantial sum of gold, you can buy a manual that grants you the right to become a commander when used. This is a permanent right, so the manual only needs to be bought once for each character. The hefty gold cost is in place because we want to discourage people who aren’t really interested in being leaders on the battlefield from becoming commanders. The high cost also makes it likely that any commander you see knows the game well. We decided that gold would be a more fitting restriction for this than character level, because experienced players who start new characters will still have the gold required to buy the manual.

Not Just for WvW

All of these communication features make WvW operations easier, but they will also be helpful for big PvE events as well. That’s exactly why the squad system is currently usable in both WvW and PvE maps. It works the same way no matter where you are, so whether you’re attacking a keep or teaching a big dragon bully a lesson, you can squad up to help get the job done. As with all our features, we’ll continue to polish and adjust squads as necessary to make sure they provide what is needed and fulfill their purpose well. In the meantime, I’ll be looking forward to seeing all of you commanders out there bravely lead your squads into battle.