GamebreakerTV gives us their own weekend impression of Guild Wars 2 going over a bit of everything. Check out the video as Scott tells us if GW2 will live up to the hype.

My name is Scott, and I’m a tradeskill nerd.

It’s an admission that puts me in a very peculiar subset of crazy people; those who have risked carpal tunnel for the sake of making gear that is obsolete within an hour. From what I experienced this weekend, ArenaNet have struck a very clever balance between ease of access and complexity.

I focused on Armorsmithing and Weaponsmithing — I like to see people walking around in what I make — and found the basic premises of MMO tradeskills to be evident. You have your work stations to do your tradeskills, you have recipes that you need to farm for.

It is in the nuances that GW2 gets things right.

Hands On: Six Reasons Why Guild Wars 2 Will Live Up To The Hype

PlayerAttack.com gives us a great preview of their weekend of beta fun going over their favorite topic: PVP.

Much of the gameplay revolves around capturing and defending the various Supply Camps, Towers and Keeps spread across the map, with players battling to advance towards the Cradle of Power for the opposing Worlds. Each Cradle of Power holds an Orb of Power at the start of each two-week long bout. Capturing the Orb and successfully bringing it back to one of the Keeps controlled by your World grants bonuses to everyone on your side of the conflict. Having your own Orb spirited away naturally makes it that much harder to fight back against the side who took it from you.

PREVIEW: Guild Wars 2 – World vs World [PC]

Totalbiscuit is back again and this time he’s showing us Thief gameplay with a focus on the world’s dynamic events.

More beta videos from the internets, and this time GohaMedia brings us some beta action inside the world vs. world with castle sieges. Catch some of the intense action as the player brings his Charr Mesmer into battle. If you haven’t seen what GW2′s castle fights look like, this is a great video to watch. Also, check out their preview of the character builder and dye system.

Check out more beta coverage from Rock Paper Shotgun as they give you their general over view of the game itself.

Being awesome from the start, give or take a quick tutorial, was just the beginning. As a Guild Wars 2 Elementalist, you’re constantly firing off huge spells from whichever element you want. There’s no mana bar to slow you down, only each individual spell’s cooldowns – and they’re incredibly short. Lightning surge from your fingertips? 10 seconds. Drop huge flaming meteors from the sky? 40 seconds. Your basic elemental attacks would be a ‘proper’ skill in most other MMOs, and you have four of them depending on what you’re attuned to. Many skills alter as a result of this attunement, which you can change whenever you want, including in battle. Just for fun, even the very act of swapping this does something, like a flame blast, seismic wave, or healing splash of water. I don’t know if everyone gets it so good, but I can say this: I have never played a more badass mage in an MMO. And I have played many, many mages.

Hands On: A Long Weekend With Guild Wars 2

Check out the latest beta impressions with IGN’s latest article covering Ranger gameplay:

After knocking a target back, it’s a good idea to follow up with Hunter’s Shot, which deals damage and also lowers the target’s defense. A couple of long range shots will then do higher damage, or better yet you could use Rapid Fire, which launches a sustained volley of arrows at the target for a few seconds. The individual shots don’t do as much damage individually as the long range auto-attack, but can be a great way to get in some free, fast damage as the opponent is trying to close back in after getting knocked away.

Make sure you check out the rest of the article as the author discusses other combat mechanics and the different weapons a Ranger can use.

Today, Venturebeat.com published an article with their opinion of Guild Wars 2:

During my beta adventures I only scratched the surface of Guild Wars 2. The amount of content and gameplay options, combined with the lack of a monthly subscription fee, makes this a very compelling product. It should appeal to most MMO players and even to fans of single-player RPGs like Bethesda’s multi-million selling The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim.

Guild Wars 2 does a much better job than its predecessor of offering interesting content for solo players and creating the feeling of a dynamic, live game world. I got to do cool things quickly with minimal amounts of irritation and confusion. Though I focused on the firearms-wielding and turrets-building engineer, the seven other character classes seem equally interesting.

Make sure you check out the rest of their preview in the link above and see if your agree with their assessment of how GW2 is challenging the MMORPG market with their subscription-less method.

A few more videos from the latest beta weekend, this time from Woodenpotatoes as he goes over lore, class mechanics, microtransations and more!

Some time today the first public yet still closed beta test begins. Many people will get their first hands on the game for the first time. Keep in mind that this is still a closed beta test and a very important and possibly heavily enforced rule is that this is still under NDA.

Earlier this month ArenaNet hosted another event for select media sites. Lucky for us many high quality videos were released showing nearly every aspect. Following this event we featured class spotlights with some select videos giving as much detail about the class as possible. In case you missed them or perhaps you were not selected for this beta event and you still need a Guild Wars 2 fix, check them out.

Totalbiscuit talks about the hardcore and normal mode of explorable dungeons in Guild Wars 2. Players in the video represent levels 34 through 48 in a dungeon with level 35 mobs. Watch as the players explore the dungeon taking part of many events and encounters within the dungeon.

Today Mike O’Brien, president of ArenaNet, wrote a blog giving us our first glimpse to what kind of Microtransactions we’ll see in Guild Wars 2.

We think players should have the opportunity to spend money on items that provide visual distinction and offer more ways to express themselves. They should also be able to spend money on account services and on time-saving convenience items. But it’s never OK for players to buy a game and not be able to enjoy what they paid for without additional purchases, and it’s never OK for players who spend money to have an unfair advantage over players who spend time.

One other interesting phrase we saw was Mike O’Brien likening their system to EVE’s; where you can buy in game currency with “gems” or GW2′s pay-for currency.

MMO veterans will note the similarities of our system to EVE Online’s PLEX system. As in that case, our system takes gold trading out of the hands of real-money trading (RMT) companies and puts it directly in the hands of players.

Stay tuned after this weekend’s beta test as they will begin showing what the store will look.

Moments ago a new Dev Blog was posted, this time by Lief Chappelle Game Designer working on Guild Wars 2. Lief goes into detail on the design behind the personal story line system. For any game replay value is a very important aspect players look at. Playing an alt in a MMO can often become a boring task. One which we dredge through to get to the max level where usually “the game really starts”. Now the story for each alt can be unique, providing to some extent a unique experience for each.

To start with, let’s talk about the numbers involved. Each of our five playable races begins with its own starting area—this is where your story commences. You likely know about the biography in character creation, where choosing one of several options translates into a different story for your character. This three-way split exists for all five races. Furthermore, each of those three stories contains decisions you must make that further affect how the story plays out. This means that, to experience every potential storyline being told from level 1 to 10, you’d need to play the game 30 times (5 races times 3 initial stories times 2 internal branches in each storyline)…

This lengthy post is yet more proof on how amazing Guild Wars 2 is going to be. Many people who have hated alts may find themselves altaholics when the game ships later this year.

Ranger in Guild Wars 2 is not far from what players have come to expect with the class. They are the masters of damage from afar with the long bow. It is mentioned in the vid that at the time of the press closed beta, ranger with long bow was extremely effective in pvp. Yet they can hold their own if their targets do happen to get into melee range.

In addition to their personal abilities rangers are also the true beast masters. While you do start with only a few options for your companion at character creation, you can tame ‘juvenile’ beast you come across. This actually may give rangers the crown when it comes to customization, as each pet offers unique abilities. Not to mention the role play value of being able to have the pet you want.

Log into your email client and check to see if you have been selected for the end of March beta event. If you didn’t find an invite in your box yet and you hit refresh every thirty seconds for the last eleven hours since this was posted on Facebook (yes I know I was slow with this) don’t lose hope. The invites are being spread out over the next few days.

I could have sworn yesterday one of the other fan sites posted that they received their invite. Granted that was thinking it was another media site only event. The great news is that this event seems to be for everyone! You will have to keep your mouth shut as the event is under NDA. Crash your email server while waiting for the invite BUT if you do get one, don’t be like these people!! Saying that you have been invited could end up being great way to get uninvited.

Anyway back to my inbox and the refresh button.

The necromancer class generally is one with a large diverse tool set. The weapon skills provide the bulk of the damage and secondary effects yet no pets are found in them. Instead with this usually pet heavy class you find them all as options in the healing, utility, and elite skill slots. Death shroud, the classes unique ability may seem simple with only four spells but they give you everything you need. From the looks of it the highest damage for the class can be found while in death shroud.

It is surprising that the class is not more pet focused. In fact the pets from the descriptions and video seem to be the under-powered aspect of the class. At this point the minion master play style from Guild Wars does not seem to have crossed over.