We had a 1 hour stress test on Sunday so I didn’t mention it but since we have a 4 hour stress test this Wednesday I figured I should bring it to your attention.

We will be conducting a stress test tomorrow Wednesday, August 15 from 12:00 Noon PACIFIC Time to 4:00 PM PACIFIC Time.

Same rules apply as all the other stress tests this month, the game will kick you out and not apologize. The good news, you are helping prepare the game for launch, and that is a good thing.

I was quite surprised when I heard this as I just finished the last stress test earlier today. Something to note, these tests are rough as they had many disconnects during the Thursday test and I expect it to be the same with this one, but if you want to sate your Guild Wars 2 thirst before launch then join in.

We will be conducting a Stress Test on Friday, August 10 from 4:00 PM PACIFIC Time to 8:00 PM PACIFIC Time.

REMEMBER: We will be actively working on the game during the event, so you might experience connectivity problems or discover features that are not working as designed. Any issues you experience are a result of the rigorous conditions of the stress test, and are in no way representative of the state of the game at launch. By participating in this stress test, you’re helping us make Guild Wars 2 a better game. Thanks for your cooperation—we’ll see you in-game!

Additional notes:
* Stress Tests are open to those who have PRE-PURCHASED the game.
* Characters will not be wiped for tomorrow’s Stress Test.
~RB

ArenaNet has just announced yet another stress test for Guild Wars 2. This may be your last opportunity to test Guild Wars 2 before launch in under three weeks. If you haven’t pre-purchased yet remember that you can participate in this stress test and you will also get to play the game with a 3 day head-start.

We will be conducting a stress test on Thursday, August 9 from 12:00 Noon PACIFIC Time to 4:00 PM PACIFIC Time.

The stress test is open to anyone who has pre-purchased Guild Wars 2.

We will be actively working on the game during the event, so you might experience connectivity problems or discover features that are not working as designed. Any issues you experience are a result of the rigorous conditions of the stress test, and are in no way representative of the state of the game at launch. By participating in this stress test, you’re helping us make Guild Wars 2 a better game. Thanks for your cooperation—we’ll see you in-game! ~RB2

The Guild Wars 2 website got a complete redesign about a month before launch. The new site features a nice page design for all the professions by showing the useable weapons and special abilities. The site now matches in style to that of the forum we have been seeing for the beta events.

ArenaNet has just announced one more and possibly the final stress test for Guild Wars 2.

We will be conducting a stress test on Thursday, August 2 from 12:00 Noon PACIFIC Time to 4:00 PM PACIFIC Time.

Unlike previous stress tests, we will be actively working on the game during the event, so you might experience connectivity problems or discover features that are not working as designed. Any issues you experience are a result of the rigorous conditions of the stress test, and are in no way representative of the state of the game at launch. By participating in this stress test, you’re helping us make Guild Wars 2 a better game. Thanks for your cooperation—we’ll see you in-game! ~RB2

Here I am taking a look at the third and final beta event. I am discussing the new sylvari and asura races as well as if the game will be ready for launch.

I started the beta event with a sylvari character and during character creation I noticed a few things. First, the number of hair and face styles for the sylvari and asura are a bit lacking. The sylvari offer a number of different skin colors that you can choose from including a white/silver, bluish, purplish, as well as many shades of green which allows for pretty diverse character options. The asura skin tones on the other hand are almost stuck to some shade of gray which makes them one of the least varied since they also have so few face and hair options. To make your asuran character unique you can use different ear styles and other attributes to change your character up.

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Today they released a simple guide to get some points for those of you that have not played Guild Wars or did not add anything to the Hall of Monuments. For those of you that already have many points in the hall of monuments, they released footage of some of the items for the first time.

The deadline for Guild Wars character name reservation is July 31. Make sure you log into your Guild Wars account before then to make sure you can use the names in Guild Wars 2.

If you’re a Guild Wars player who wants to use your character names in Guild Wars 2, now is the time to stake your claim. It’s easy—all you have to do is log in to your Guild Wars account to reserve all your character names. But don’t delay—the deadline for name reservation is July 31.

We’re building our Guild Wars 2 name reservation list on July 31. We’re only reserving character names from active Guild Wars accounts, which is why you’ll need to log in at least once in 2012 before we build the list in order to be considered an active Guild Wars player.

However, as we mentioned in a previous blog post, your Guild Wars character names will not be reserved indefinitely. You must create a Guild Wars 2 character with the same name as your Guild Wars character during the Headstart Access period or on launch day. Shortly after launch, we’ll free up all the unclaimed names for new Guild Wars 2 players to use.

Don’t wait! Log in to your original Guild Wars account and reserve your character names today!

Guild Wars 2 will be running a third and final Beta Weekend Event planned for July 20-22. The have announced that both Asura and Sylvari will be playable races in the final beta.

For asura players, this means beginning your tale in Metrica Province, a vivid, exotic jungle area full of high-tech laboratories, quirky golems, and competing krewes of mad scientists. Nearby, the massive monoliths of the asuran capital Rata Sum hum with technomagical power. These diminutive geniuses may seem cute at first glance, but never underestimate an asura…

Sylvari players begin their story in the Grove, a luminous living city nestled in the shade of the Pale Tree, the “mother” of every member of this young race of plant humanoids. The sylvari are an enigmatic race of chivalrous explorers who are driven by an insatiable curiosity and guided by a collective Dream.

In addition they are adding a new map, Brisban Wildlands, which is a remote jungle adjacent to the lands of the asura, sylvari, and humans.
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Guild Wars 2 was first announced in early 2007 and after five years we have the release date. Guild Wars 2 will officially launch on Tuesday, August 28^th.

Guild Wars 2 will be running a third and final Beta Weekend Event planned for July 20-22. We will give you more details about the beta as it nears so check often to get the latest news.

They also have a launch video that is short but gets me so excited for the game.