While the official Guild Wars 2 forums were still active after the second weekend beta event, there was a player-made topic asking for wish lists of features and fixes players most hoped to see before GW2 launches. The thread had some great ideas and suggestions for the developer team. Guild Wars 2 is looking very impressive even though it’s still in its beta stages, but there’s always room for improvement! In fact, many of these features are seen as almost necessary to some players.

We thought we’d post some of the ideas from that list and find out about other features and fixes the community would like to see implemented. Feel free to post your ideas in the comments section!

Player vs. Player is always a hot topic when a new game comes out. Arenanet has been talking about their player vs player in Guild Wars 2 for quite sometime and I decided to dive in and start to poke around their matchmaking competitive systems.

In Guild Wars 2 all inter-player battle takes place in a special realm called the Mists. Ironically enough, based on some lore digging and NPC chatter, the Mists are also the after-life (uh-oh). There are two ways to take part in player vs player while in the Mists. They are as separate and distinct from one another as PvP and PvE.

ArenaNet announced for the second Beta Weekend Event, several features that they have made to the game since the last time players entered the world of Tyria.

One of the items that stands out to me is Improved Overflow Servers. In the first Beta Weekend Event, there were significant problems getting together with friends. According to ArenaNet, they’ve implemented a new party UI that notifies you when party members are in different overflow worlds. This is a great start, doesn’t fully rectify the problem of having people separated to begin with.

A new developer blog has been posted detailing some of the changes to WvW by Mike Ferguson. Along with some updates to squads and seige work, there is a WvW scoreboard from last BWE1. How did your server fare?

On Squads:

The commander system is another area where we’ve spent some significant time. We’ve made it easier to join squads, as you can now right-click on someone’s name in chat and choose to join their squad. And squad chat now works both ways, allowing members to talk to their commander. In another improvement, commanders can now check the followers tab in their contacts panel to see a list of people who are in their squad.

Check out the rest over at Arenanet’s website.

Arenanet has posted a short video interview going over a preview of what to expect for this weekend’s BWE2.

Marketing Coordinator, David Campbell, is joined by Guild Wars 2 Lead Producer, Chris Whiteside to give a preview of the next Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend Event.

Keep reading to watch the video.

Eric Flannum, Lead Game Designer, talked to Massively yesterday about the new changes posted in the recent dev blog and here’s what he had to say:

On the newly added Mystic Forge:

Massively: The Mystic Forge that players will now be able to find in Lion’s Arch seems exciting. Will it be random, or will players be able to develop “recipes” of what to toss in in order to receive certain items?

Eric Flannum: The Mystic Forge uses a combination of random and non-random recipes. For example, if I throw four rare swords into the forge, it will return a random sword to me with a chance for that sword to be substantially better. There are also specific items that can be created by throwing four very specific items into the forge with no random involved at all. Players should look for clues hidden around the world and in items for what combinations might work. Another exciting aspect of the Mystic Forge is that it is very easy for us to add recipes, so post-launch, we can continue to add new things for players to discover.

And on the new PVP mini-dungeon:

Massively: How will the new PvE elements feel like they’re intersecting with WvW gameplay, rather than running parallel to it? Will they have any bearing on WvW? Might players find blueprints in treasure chests or anything else to help them feel like they’re contributing to the greater fight?

Eric Flannum: The mini-dungeon we added to the WvW center map was added with PvP specifically in mind. This goes for how the area flows, how traps work, and what reward you get at the end. There are definitely blueprints in the chest as well as other things that WvW players will find valuable.

You can read the rest of the interview over at Massively.

This morning we get an announcement of the date of the next BWE:

Heroes of Tyria!
My name is Chris Whiteside, and I’m the lead producer of Guild Wars 2. Normally, I’m head-down in the trenches, making sure we’re producing the best MMO possible, but I wanted to come up for air and share some exciting news with you:

Beta Weekend Event 2 will begin on Friday, June 8th, at noon PDT (GMT-7) and will run until Sunday, June 10th, at 11:59 p.m. PDT (GMT-7).

If that isn’t enough to get you all bursting with excitement, here is some more news:

Your existing beta characters have not been deleted, and you will be able to continue right where you left off! This means that enterprising players with characters level 35 or higher will be able to test their mettle against the explorable version of the Ascalonian Catacombs dungeon!

In addition to sharing this news with you, I want to convey a massive “thank you” to all of you for playing in our beta events so far. The participation and enthusiasm we’ve seen has exceeded our expectations, and we’re all very grateful and appreciative here at the studio. Your support during our first Beta Weekend Event and throughout development has been instrumental in getting us prepared for launch and helping us take massive steps in the evolution of Guild Wars 2 as a whole. You, our community, are an integral part of the development process, and Guild Wars 2 simply would not be what it is today without you.

To read the full dev blog, please visit this link.

Today we get a new update from GW2′s Facebook page:

We know you are all very eager to begin the next Beta Weekend Event. Our community did an amazing job in the previous Beta Weekend Event and stress tests, providing our team with great feedback. Our goal has always been to do this right and treat the beta testing process as what it should be: a way to work out the bugs beforehand and give you the best game we possibly can at launch.

With that as our goal, the development team is working extremely hard to address your current feedback and prepare Guild Wars 2 for the next Beta Weekend Event. Once they’re finished, they’ll be ready for you to head back to Tyria for the next phase of testing.

We’re going to adhere to a monthly schedule as much as feedback and development allow, so it may be a little more or a little less each time, depending on how things progress. For now, we will have more information on upcoming Beta Weekend Events and stress tests as soon as we’re able, and we thank each of you for being an important part of the creation of Guild Wars 2. ~RB2

Since I am well-versed in dev speak, you can interpret this message as, “We’re not quite yet ready to have BWE2 yet.” Reading the tea-leaves, I would guess that the next beta weekend event is coming the first or second week of June. Arenanet hasn’t given us a set schedule yet other than once a month. Perhaps with “little more or a little less” than a month apart we might see two events in June.