Roland Daemon

This week has been huge thus far. Let's recap, shall we?

Monday, on Guildwars2guru.com, I noticed a thread that caught my eye: 'Mesmer Reveal Trailer'. I said to myself that there was no way that this was legit (due to the fact I keep my twitter open for official announcements by Arenanet) but I clicked on it anyway. The next 4 minutes blew my mind. In case you haven't seen it yet, (If you've been paying ANY attention the last few days, you already have ) Here it is.



Soak it in if you haven't already. This video and the announcement confirming this via twitter that day had many more implications than alot of us would expect. We had some tweets come later that day saying that there would be a community Q&A on Reddit (which was highly successful, I might add) and an IRC Dev chat following that (I was happy about the dev chat, one of my questions was asked and answered... sort of ).

Obviously, the biggest thing the Q+A asked was about the mesmer and the skills. I'm not into covering specific's about mesmers, but if you're interested about mesmer information, check out these places.

Mesmer | Guild Wars 2 <- official mesmer page (Thanks, Anet!)
GWIIMesmer <- blog on mesmers (lucky guy got into CB!!)
Reddit AMA - All Questions + Answers. - Guild Wars 2 Guru Forums (Reddit Q+A. The questions are laced within there, I don't really want to pull out the specifics for the mesmer video, seeing as how this blog isn't really ment for mesmers anyway )
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...pli=1&sle=true A google document by BernardToo on twitter. Pretty much a more organized sheet of the Q+A on Reddit.

With Mesmers finally announced, we finally have all 8 professions.

Warrior, Elementalist, Necromancer, Guardian, Thief, Engineer, Ranger and Mesmer.

So what does this mean? Let me continue with another announcement that occurred during the Reddit Q+A.

Originally Posted by Arenanet

We will officially enter Closed Beta Testing this Friday. It will be marked with an increase in our pool of testers. To clarify, this phase of testing is still under NDA and is not open to the public.
Based on the feedback we get from our current Closed Beta Testing, we will determine the next phases of our beta program in which we will open beta access to more people.

Closed beta LITERALLY starts tomorrow. There are going to be a lot of people trying to find a way into this exclusive CLOSED BETA (go figure, a closed beta that's actually... I don't know.. closed?).

Public Announcement: Arenanet is -> NOT <- taking any applications for Closed/Open beta. Anybody that asks or says otherwise is LYING. Do not fall victim to scammers!

Sorry, I know most people know the above statement already, but I still hear stories of people falling for scams for things like this.

Closed beta marks the start of the next stage of iteration for Guild Wars 2. They have the base game 'nearly' completed and need to fine tune and keep working on the extra details that so many of us want for the game when it is complete. EVERYTHING needs to be tested on a bigger scale.

PvE, PvP, Guild Systems, Loot Systems, Social Systems, Dynamic Events, Skills, Traits, and everything else that's in there needs to be tested thoroughly (and systems that in place that i'm sure none of us know about yet). This is also why it's closed beta, a giant majority of players use a beta as benchmark for 'this is how the game is and won't get better'. These people also play the game just to play and not actually help fix what is wrong with the game (note: i'm not saying everyone does this, but a big majority of people don't report bugs that can actually be fixed).

The big question on everyone's mind right now is more than likely 'when will closed beta be finished?' and 'Any idea for release dates?'. Be patient and let Arenanet do their thing. I do sympathize with the questions however, as the 3-4 month blackout we've had since Pax/Gamescom has killed alot of the interest in many people I know and hope that the current information tube we have doesn't end, but I also know that Arenanet is trying hold their game to a higher standard than many developers want to.


There are still plenty of things that we don't know that i'd like to see some information on soon.

WvW still has alot to be discussed, though I did like hearing that a minimum (not max) of 500 people on one of the four WvW maps will be allowed (which will allow some seriously epic fights).

Guild systems haven't been fully explained, though there are going to be ways to earn rewards and other things through guilds (I can't wait to hear more on this).

Mods and addon's at this point WILL NOT BE ALLOWED. BUT! Arenanet understands there is a community out there that wants to do these things and are trying to find ways to help incorporate them into the game. My suggestion would be to do what Valve does with TF2. Let people create/submit item designs and sell them in the cash shop store if they are good enough for a percent cut of the sales.

Traits look like they're coming along as something more than just skill augmentation, but we still don't know the full story there and I'm curious to see the customization that these will provide as well.

I can hardly wait, Arenanet. This burst of information you guys have given us has been incredible and I'm anxiously awaiting for news about open beta (though, hearing something about getting into closed beta would be pretty sweet as well, but I won't hold my breath on that one.) Please continue to do the great work you do and if possible, get information out quicker.

This week has been absolutely amazing. I'm sure everyone out there in the community will agree with this atleast.


~Roland Daemon of the Free Frag Network
You can follow me on twitter here -> Twitter
You can email here as well -> Roland.ffn@gmail.com
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