Guild Wars 2 players are pretty dang creative! Over the course of Wintersday, talented music lovers have taken the Bell Choir mini-game and the Unbreakable Bell item to a new level of awesome and figured out how to play quite an impressive selection of popular tunes. There’s even a thread on the official GW2 forums for players to share their creations. To play songs that other players have came up with, all one has to do is follow the 1-2-4 notation, or “tab” system that follows the keys of the various notes.

Talented players have also been showing off their mad skills on Youtube. Keep reading to see a selection of some of the best videos we could find! Some of the videos feature the actual Bell Choir mini-game, and others were made using the Unbreakable Bell. And since it’s Christmas today, as a bonus, there’s even a popular Christmas carol included, along with popular video game tunes, and more.

This week we have two special guests from ArenaNet that join us for our World vs. World segment; game developers Habib Loew – WvW Team Coordinator and Matt Witter – Systems Designer. We discuss all the issues of the day as well as the potential of future content. Stay tuned for scary boxes, evil dolls and a few hints, if you listen carefully enough, of what might lay ahead for the February Update.

Check out a video guide by TheTrevLife as he gives you the inside strategies on completing this new jumping puzzle.

Hello everybody! Welcome to the guide for Winter Wonderland, the Guild Wars 2 Wintersday jumping puzzle! Hope it helps some people.

If you haven’t seen it already, this video gives you a great preview of what is waiting for you. Continue reading for the video.

We all have things we love about Guild Wars 2, places that make us cheer out and say “yes, this is my ultra-mega place!” We all have classes, abilities, and features we’re passionate about, either negatively or positively. This is a place to share all that. Once a week I’ll be raising a Guild Wars 2 question to the community– hopefully an interesting one– and we’ll share our opinions. I’ll start off with my opinion just to get the ball rolling, but these questions will not have any right or wrong answers, so feel free to argue with me to your heart’s content!

With the addition of ascended gear, Guild Wars 2 definitely has more options when it comes to grabbing gear at max level. This fact can be good, since options are generally welcome among the MMO community, but ascended gear has seen quite a bit of negative feedback as well. So negative, in fact, that Chris Whiteside addressed the issue more than once during a recent GW2 Reddit AMA chat. ArenaNet admitted that the introduction of the new tier-set-of-sorts wasn’t communicated well, but the team was confident that the gear was a step in the right direction.

This week we discuss exploits, news, notes and the reasons for taking a European Vacation. Keep reading to watch this week’s episode.

In this week’s episode we go over the scores and fights ending on 11/30/12. We discuss the latest patch notes (12/3/12) and other news from the week. Our guests this week are Dony of PRX and Kurthos of The Industry that have come on to discuss how to be a Commander, what makes a good Commander, and how to win in WvW. Other tactics involving Mesmer Portals and how to use them or beat them are include at no additional charge!

Also, there are dogs.

We’re back in action after a long hiatus due to Hurricane Sandy! This week we catch up a bit and get the perspective of Katiechops of Booncontrol of the EU and NA servers. We also get an update on the state of WvW with Clemmie!

We all have things we love about Guild Wars 2, places that make us cheer out and say “yes, this is my ultra-mega place!” We all have classes, abilities, and features we’re passionate about, either negatively or positively. This is a place to share all that. Once a week I’ll be raising a Guild Wars 2 question to the community– hopefully an interesting one– and we’ll share our opinions. I’ll start off with my opinion just to get the ball rolling, but these questions will not have any right or wrong answers, so feel free to argue with me to your heart’s content!

Ouch. So, despite ArenaNet’s best intentions, The Lost Shores didn’t go exactly as planned for most folks as far as the one-time world event was concerned. It’s a shame what happened, but it’s also reassuring to know that the development team plans on making some much-needed improvements to the way the game handles events like these. I also found it reassuring to know that ArenaNet really wanted our feedback on one-time events in general. Why? Personally, I tend to think that in today’s MMO world, there are simply better options.

We all have things we love about Guild Wars 2, places that make us cheer out and say “yes, this is my ultra-mega place!” We all have classes, abilities, and features we’re passionate about, either negatively or positively. This is a place to share all that. Once a week I’ll be raising a Guild Wars 2 question to the community– hopefully an interesting one– and we’ll share our opinions. I’ll start off with my opinion just to get the ball rolling, but these questions will not have any right or wrong answers, so feel free to argue with me to your heart’s content!

So, The Lost Shores starts today! Some exciting stuff heading our way. I must say– I’m pleasantly impressed with ArenaNet’s content release schedule thus far. At any rate, The Lost Shores has some nifty stuff in store for us, including a one-time world event, which can sometimes be the most enjoyable events in an MMO and a new dungeon made out of mini-dungeons that seems like an awesome way to spend an evening with friends. The video for Fractals of the Mists is simple and quite interesting because it displays the fact that each fractal will be entirely different as far as theme and environment go.

Some of the things I most look forward to in MMOs are holiday and world events. I love how dynamic they often are and how they truly change the immersion factor of a game temporarily. When done right, relaxing holiday events can bring a bit of fun to a world that’s usually dangerous and give players a reason to celebrate while collecting cool vanity items. The best world and holiday events also build upon the lore already present in the game, adding new, unique twists and adventures that players eagerly look forward to.

Following my love of world events, I’ve taken part in many during my years as an MMO gamer and journalist, and reviewed/covered both RIFT‘s and SWTOR‘s extensively. After experiencing Guild Wars 2′s Shadow of the Mad King, I couldn’t quite help sharing my thoughts on the event. Overall, it was quite impressive, and gives me hope for GW2′s future events.

Hello, guys. What I wanted to do for the community today is to give you a realistic view of chasing a legendary. This is the view from a person actually chasing it himself. As usual, I’ll get to the point and give you the facts. This is the fastest way to achieve your goals. Let’s go right into it. Feel free to discuss everything listed, and add suggestions if you happen to have any.

Hello, all. Around two weeks ago, I came up with a Guardian Paladin WoW-style build. Some viewed it as a glass cannon. “Can’t possibly live,” some said. Well, they were proven wrong. But I was not satisfied with that build at all. It didn’t have enough sustained healing for my liking, and not quite enough defenses.

So, enter Guardian Paladin 2.0 version. In this version you have more defenses, sustained healing, higher burst crits, and the ability to cancel 8 attacks in a row with skills. Does that sound fun and extremely good to you? Well, let me start with the build. Keep reading to see the stat breakdowns, explanations, examples of it in action, and more!

Act 4: Mad King’s Simon Says

Our final act of Shadow of the Mad King is, well, less mad, and more of a reason to celebrate. The Mad King is now cool with everyone and wants to play a little game. He does a Simon Says-type game he calls “Mad King says” in Lion’s Arch. It’s pretty straight forward to figure out, and one of the rewards for completing the mini-game is a witch’s hat that seems to be offered at silver level participation or above.

For those who are not familiar with Simon Says the game– it’s quite simple. The Mad King will say a random emote, and the player must repeat that emote directly after. If he does not say an emote, then do nothing. Failure to correctly repeat the emotes gets you a flat lining debuff that floors you. That’s about it!

We all have things we love about Guild Wars 2, places that make us cheer out and say “yes, this is my ultra-mega place!” We all have classes, abilities, and features we’re passionate about, either negatively or positively. This is a place to share all that. Once a week I’ll be raising a Guild Wars 2 question to the community– hopefully an interesting one– and we’ll share our opinions. I’ll start off with my opinion just to get the ball rolling, but these questions will not have any right or wrong answers, so feel free to argue with me to your heart’s content!

We’re currently knee deep in the middle of our Halloween event, Shadow of the Mad King. The Mad King himself has well, a few things to say to us now in his little dungeon, and the rewards for the overall event are starting to show themselves in the green-tinted eerie light of day. There’s still one more act to go, and let’s hope it’s worth the wait, but for the moment– what’s your favorite part about the event? How does it stack up to other Halloween events you’ve experienced in other MMORPGS?

Ok so here we are act 2 of the Mad King’s Event. It was fun once again to track down the king’s pages. This time they had a few surprises for me nothing too hard. New to the even this time around is door to other dimensions popping up all over the land.

These Dimensions lead you to the Mad Kings Labyrinth. You can farm and kill monsters there for Halloween goodies. You can also join 3 different mini games:

• Lunatic Inquisition= Think manhunt with a touch of zombies ate my team thrown in. It’s definitely good old pvp fun for all.
• Reapers Rumble= Is a team death match of sorts. You need to beat the other team and collect pumpkins on the map. You also have an npc’s factor to deal with which makes it total chaos.
• Mad King’s Clock Tower= this is a jumping puzzle from hell. Very well done it will frustrate you and make you laugh at your failure.

This was a great addition to the first act I look forward to act 3. In the meantime see you in Halloween pvp!

Continue reading to watch the video review.