I know. You’re thinking this title’s crazy. It probably is, but hey– you can’t totally fault me. I was inspired by a piece of in-game architecture! An old pillar in Metrica Province reads “Given asura ‘Place of Ultra-Mega-Importance’ status in 1325 A.E.” When I first found the pillar a couple hours into my Metric Province leveling adventure during Headstart, I instantly fell in love with the area, and everything to do with the asura race– even though, you know, I’m really a tiger-striped lumbering charr. No matter. Awesomeness is awesomeness, right?

With that attitude in mind, I come to you with a brand new Guild Wars 2 Junkies feature. You can call it the Question Box. You can call it whatever you want, really, but what I’m calling it is a “Place of Ultra-Mega Awesomeness.” 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.

During the final Beta Weekend Event, I got a chance to play among the trees and frolic in the leaves as a sylvari. While doing so, I explored the sylvari starting area– Caledon Forest. The area is one of the most beautiful I’ve seen in the game so far. If you choose to explore Caledon Forest, you’ll find plenty of lush foliage, underwater treasures, and forts gleaming in the sun along with dangerous enemies, sharp terrain, and swamp creatures. As a bonus, most of the events and storylines are quite enjoyable. I highly recommend a scenic tour– just, uh, be sure to take a few weapons or spells along on the journey.

Now, Guild Wars 2 isn’t really a game where walkthroughs are needed, and in fact exploration and running off the beaten paths is sometimes encouraged and extremely rewarding, but I do think there are times when a rough guideline of sorts can come in handy, especially for players new to GW2 and many of its unique mechanics. With that philosophy in mind, I have created a guide of sorts for the Caledon Forest area. Its emphasis is on the renown heart quests, and suggests a path that branches them together. Players are free, of course, to follow whatever patch they choose– that’s the beauty of GW2– paths can vary quite considerably. I’ve also included a nifty map of the entire area, showcasing points of interest.

Part 1: Tutorial and Introduction

Regardless of your choice of your personal story, as a human, your tutorial level will start you with a quest to protect the people of Shaemoor. Directly in front of you as you start out is Corporal Beirne, he has a green quest icon, and is calling out for your assistance. He will request that you head to the Inn, which is a simple enough beginner task. Just continue south and run to the large green star on your mini map.

I don’t recommend deviating from this goal, because there’s not a lot of value in Guild Wars 2 to grinding mobs. There are plenty of level 1 centaurs that are attacking the village, however they yield approximately 2 exp per kill, and you need 2,000 exp to hit level 2. Also, because you’re in the tutorial level, they do not count as kills towards your achievements. Along the way, however, do be sure to talk to villagers and tell them to go to the inn for their safety. You will be rewarded with 2 Karma points for each villager that you send to the inn.

Today we received news that we’ll be able to finally play as the asura and sylvari races in the next beta weekend event, which runs from July 20th to July 22nd. Along with the news, we also got a sneak peek at some screenshots and details about the lush landscapes these two races call home.

For asura players, this means beginning your tale in Metrica Province, a vivid, exotic jungle area full of high-tech laboratories, quirky golems, and competing krewes of mad scientists. Nearby, the massive monoliths of the asuran capital Rata Sum hum with technomagical power. These diminutive geniuses may seem cute at first glance, but never underestimate an asura…

Sylvari players begin their story in the Grove, a luminous living city nestled in the shade of the Pale Tree, the “mother” of every member of this young race of plant humanoids. The sylvari are an enigmatic race of chivalrous explorers who are driven by an insatiable curiosity and guided by a collective Dream.

The two starting areas sound amazing. Make sure and check out the full developer blog and the accompanying screenshots!

Oh, and if you’re curious about some in-game asura footage, check out this Gamespot video.

Today we get a great hands on preview of the Asura from PCGamer. Check out the article as the author takes us through character creation through the starting area.

Now, this one really wasn’t my fault, I swear! It’s those crazy developers at ArenaNet and their awesome dynamic event system, which kept the kiddie scientists’ lab in seemingly constant peril from enraged fire elementals, giant yaks and the like. Every time I ran by the laboratory, the kids were running outside, fleeing some new horrible disaster they’d created—and no matter how times I helped, they always found some horrible new way to endanger their lives. It was, frankly, quite exciting to see what they’d cook up next and I kept poking my head in to sadistically spy on their unfortunate circumstances. The nastiest brought this angry broodmother to their doorstep.

Also included in the article are a bunch of new screenshots that you might not have seen yet!

Source: Guild Wars 2 Asura preview: Experimental science and our exclusive hands-on impressions