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. A couple times 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!

Last week I talked a bit about leveling areas. This week my brain’s still stuck in leveling mode, mostly due to my super slow (yet super fun!) leveling style. So, what’s your leveling style? Have you been 80 for a week or so, or are you taking your sweet time to smell the roses– er, cow pies and herds of grazing dolyaks?

Yesterday on the official Guild Wars 2 forums, one ArenaNet representative said some encouraging words about the type of future content releases they have planned for the game. In the thread in question, players wondered if the company will release most forms of new content in expansions that need to be purchased. Being B2P definitely comes with some interesting options, and most players responded positively, saying that they would be happy to purchase bundles of content, as long as the content is worth the price. Here is what Colin Johanson, the ArenaNet representative had to say:

Gw2 will feature consistent free content updates and in-game events going forward. Our goal is to make it so you get more from Gw2 for free than you get from a game you pay a subscription for.

On top of a large amount of free bonus content, we will be expanding on offerings in the Black Lion Trading Company going forward, as well as be doing large-scale expansion content down the road.

We’ll cover a lot of the details on the kind of support and plans we have in place over the next month or so on the Gw2 blog and with our press partners.

We do appreciate that you’d like to buy lots of new content, but we’d prefer to give a lot of it to you for free, cause that’s what we think a responsible MMO company does!

From the sounds of it, we’ll both be seeing free large content updates as well as expansion-type content updates that can be purchased through the Black Lion Trading Company, similar to the Digital Deluxe Upgrade that’s currently available.

Players are taking this bit of news pretty well, and are looking forward to finding out more information about the types of plans ArenaNet has in store for Guild Wars 2.

As more and more Guild Wars 2 players are reaching higher levels, the playerbase is finding out one very interesting fact about being higher leveled in the game– Waypoint prices can get pretty high. Instead of Waypoint costs being dictated by an area’s level range, they’re dictated by the actual level of the player. And by actual level I mean real level, not adjusted level. This effectively means that doing a large amount of traveling– even on low-level maps– after a character gains a solid amount of levels under their belt can be pretty detrimental to a player’s gold funds.

This discovery has surprised quite a few players. Not only can it make low-level material farming difficult, but it also affects higher-level players who travel with lower-level friends. To make matters worse, the price jump between levels is actually pretty significant, rising to well over 1 silver. Gold in Guild Wars 2 isn’t ridiculously hard to come by, but it can take a bit of farming and careful saving. The ironic part? Sometimes the travel costs seem to discourage farming altogether.

Originally posted by Mike Ferguson (Source)

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Hey everyone, sorry to not post about this sooner, the last few days have been a little hectic and I wanted to verify a couple things first about the issues we’ve been seeing with the queues before posting anything.

As many of you know, it is possible for someone to queue up for a map after you and get in first. We’re trying to get that fixed as soon as possible but unfortunately we still need a bit more time to solve the problem. We will definitely keep you updated when there is any news on our progress.

I have been checking the queue sizes and wait times for each matchup, and there are a couple interesting things I’ve observed so far that may help reduce queue times for some of you.

Worlds at the top of the rankings can have queues that reach multiple hours (particularly for the Eternal Battlegrounds map), but most of the worlds in the bottom half of the ranking quite frequently have open spots in at least a few maps, and the lower ranked the server is, the more likely it is that there are spots available. I’ll be posting the up to date world rankings shortly.

When there are queues for every map, the wait time for borderland maps tends to be shorter. Enemy team borderlands tend to have the smallest queues for just about every team so you may want to try entering those maps first before attempting to queue for the Eternal Battlegrounds. If you are just entering the queue for the battlegrounds and not checking the borderlands maps first to see if they have space open, you could be missing out on playing in the Borderlands while you wait for a spot to open up for you in the Battlegrounds.

Make sure to continue reading.

BRIGHTON, UK – SEPTEMBER 13, 2012: NCsoft®, the world’s premier publisher and developer of massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) and ArenaNet, developer of the renowned Guild Wars franchise, has announced that the chart-topping MMO Guild Wars 2 has sold more than two million units. Despite temporarily halting first-party sales and replenishing retail stores to maintain an optimal player experience, Guild Wars 2 surpassed the two million sales milestone shortly after turning sales back on.

Guild Wars 2, which launched just over two weeks ago, has captured the imagination of the gaming community around the world. With peak concurrency regularly exceeding 400,000 players and first week sales that placed it at the top of the All Formats charts across ten European territories, it’s clear that demand for the game hasn’t slowed.

“Reactions from around the world justified the time and care we put into developing Guild Wars 2 and making it into the game it is today”, said Mike O’Brien, president and co-founder of ArenaNet. “And this is only the beginning. We’re continually fine-tuning the game to deliver the polished experience that our players expect, and we’re already working on new adventures and experiences to introduce into this truly dynamic online world.”

Congratulations to Arenanet!

Originally posted by Mike Ferguson (Source)

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The match that ends Friday September 14 is scheduled to be our last 24 hour match.
The match that starts on Friday will be 1 week in length. We anticipate having week long matches for a couple weeks before switching to the 2 week format.

We are switching to a 1 week schedule so we can continue to let the ranking formula adjust server rankings faster than every 2 weeks, and it will hopefully help people get acclimated to the cadence of a longer match.

Originally posted by MikeFerguson (Source)

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Starting on September 1 we began using the results of the 24 hour WvW matches to begin rematching worlds using our matchmatching system. We needed to fix a few bugs with the matchmaking server in the first few days which is why our data starts at that point.

Below are the current up to date rankings for all worlds. At some point we would like to deliver this data in a much better format but for now we just want to get the data out there for everyone to take a look at.

I am still trying to format the results of the 24 hour matches so I can start posting them here as well, but right now I have an excel table with lots of columns that I need to convert over and it’s not playing nice. Hopefully I can post them sometime in the next few days. I’ll try to update this thread with current rankings whenever possible.

Continue reading to see the results.

For crafters or salvagers looking for ways to get the most bang from your Guild Wars 2 time, here’s an interesting item to consider: Mystic Salvage Kits. These yellow-quality kits raise the chances of finding rarer materials by 25% and recovering upgrades by 80%. The item recovery stats are the same as the stats on Master’s Salvage Kits, but with an interesting twist– they come in stacks of 250. Yes, 250! Out on a long farming session or WvWvW adventure and often run into bag space issues? Mystic Salvage Kits may be your answer.

There’s a slight catch, naturally. Mystic Salvage Kits must be made at the Mystic Forge, and require the following materials: 1 Fine Salvage Kit, 1 Journeyman’s Salvage Kit, 1 Master’s Salvage Kit, and 3 Mystic Forge Stones. Mystic Forge Stones are available in the Black Lion Trading Company Gem Store, which makes forging these kits a little complicated. Still, it’s an interesting option.

Check out this video, where Dontain talks about Mystic Salvage Kits.

What do you think– worth the Gems, or no?

Guildwars 2 is now live and it’s one of the fastest growing MMORPGs on the planet and we’re looking for help to cover everything that might be interesting! If you love the game and want to share your knowledge and skill with the rest of the world, this is the best place to do it. We’re looking for all types of talent from writers, to bloggers, to video recorders. Here are a few details.

• Guide Writers: Dungeons, Crafting, Professions, Leveling
• Bloggers: Write about your stories. If it’s interesting, we’ll publish it.
• Community Beat Writers: Want to write about guild drama? The latest funny video? Find a great guide you want to talk about? This position is for you.
• News Writers: Help cover the up to date news of Arenanet and GW2

Maybe you want to do all of them? It’s up to you. There are no deadlines, no expectations; we just want you to have fun and be part of building something great. So if you’re really interested in joining Junkies Nation shoot me an email at [email protected] and let me know how you’d like to help. Make sure you include a short writing sample as well!

The official forums are now officially launched with full profession, game, pve etc. discussion ready to go.

Official forum link: https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum

From Arenanet’s latest Press Release:

ArenaNet suspended first-party sales and retail replenishment on August 30—just two days after the game’s retail release—to catch up with record demand and to ensure that players who bought the game would continue to have the best online experience possible. Despite the suspension of first-party sales and retail replenishment, Guild Wars 2 grabbed the number one position in the All Formats charts across 10 European markets— the first PC game in the UK to have accomplished this in nearly two years.

Since suspending sales, ArenaNet and NCsoft have substantially expanded the game’s capacity by deploying new servers in both North America and Europe, and by nearly doubling the number of customer support agents. Game systems that have been under extremely heavy demand, such as the Trading Post, have been bolstered and prepared for the continued influx of players.

“Preserving the customer experience has always been our top priority,” said Mike O’Brien, president and cofounder of ArenaNet. “We’re supporting Guild Wars 2 for the long run. We’ll always do what it takes to deliver the best online gaming experience for our customers, even when that means throttling sales.”

To celebrate the reopening of sales, ArenaNet has released the Our Time Is Now video. The video was directed by James McTeigue, known for his work on the Matrix Trilogy and V for Vendetta. Our Time Is Now captures the revolutionary spirit of Guild Wars 2 and puts forth a call-to-arms for gamers everywhere.

Ah, Metrica Province– home of tiny asura, cool floating staircases, cube-shaped elevating objects, some weird frog dudes, and lots and lots of exploration to be had. While running around, it’s pretty easy to lose track of a Vista Point or get stuck on how to find the way to that Point of Interest. Look no further– we’ve got all your answers.

For these condensed-style guides, we’ll just be covering the more difficult-to-find Points of Interest, all of the Vista Points, and all of the Skill Challenges. Also included is a humungous map, showing all the pockets of the map, with every major Point of Interest (PoI) and Waypoint (WP) labeled. Points of Interest have black-bordered text, Waypoints dark blue. Renown (heart) quests are also labeled with their suggested level. This should help you decide on a path of adventure, if you so choose.

I’ve also labeled nearby portals to other maps as well as the entrance to the map’s secret jumping puzzle area. Stay tuned for additional 100% completion maps, as well as detailed guides for the more difficult jumping puzzles.

Were you part of this three way fight this weekend? If you’re into competitive W3 play, then these three servers are probably worth checking out if you haven’t found a home yet.

World vs. World is a fantastic part of GW2 that is just starting to shape up. The better servers are bubbling to the top; but everything is not hunky-dorey. Queues are killing a lot of people’s will to play. Some players are reporting up to 5 hour queues. Let’s hope Arenanet is working on this issue now.

In other news, GW2 is sold out digitally and at retailers all over the world.

Account Security

Hackers have lists of email addresses and passwords stolen from other games and web sites, and collected through spyware, and are systematically testing Guild Wars 2 looking for matching accounts. To protect yourself, use a strong, unique password for Guild Wars 2 that you’ve never used anywhere else! If your current password isn’t unique to Guild Wars 2, change it today! Do not under any circumstances use the same password for Guild Wars 2 as you do for your email account.

We’ve observed hack attempts against hundreds of thousands of accounts that don’t even exist. To protect those people in case they purchase Guild Wars 2 and create an account, we will now disallow customers from picking passwords that we’ve previously seen used in a hack attempt.

See this article for more tips on choosing good passwords and keeping your account secure.