The patch for the second living story season gets released next week (2nd June 2014). As part of the changes, ALL living story “episodes” will have some permanent content that essentially extends the personal story of all characters on your account.
You’ll need to log in once each cycle (so once every 2 weeks) to unlock the new story missions on your account. Then the unlocked episode will be permanently available to any character you ever create.
ArenaNet: Introducing the Story Journal.
Hi everyone,
There’s a large feature pack being released on the 15th April, featuring major changes to:
The page collating this information is on the GW2 site here, and they’ve been releasing information a bit at a time, so you may want to keep an eye on it over the next week.
With today’s patch, ArenaNet made the following changes to karma consumables:
This however meant that people who had been saving up their karma jugs to drink with boosts suddenly lost a ton of value (since they went from having a potential 95-107% boost down to a flat 50%).
ArenaNet have temporarily reverted this change because they had intended to notify players before implementing it, and had forgotten to.
You have until the content patch on the 3rd September to drink karma consumables with boosts, before the above changes will take effect. We do have a guild-karma-boost day planned for Sun 25th Aug, so do try to make that if you want to drink karma with boosts active. If you cannot make that, please let us know what times are possible for you (comment below, or talk with Melana/Lhi in-game is fine), so that we can plan an additional karma day to give everyone the chance to take advantage of it before it’s gone!
Ref: https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/info/news/Karma-Changes-Temporary-Rollback/
ArenaNet have released information on the January 2013 content patch for GW2: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/january-2013
Flame and Frost: Prelude
January 28
The sky falls and the ground shakes in the lands of the north. Charr and norn refugees crawl from the wreckage of their homes in the Wayfarer Foothills and Diessa Plateau, struggling to find shelter in the south. The call goes out for volunteers to assist the victims in this time of need, when earth and sky seem to have become the enemy…
Flame and Frost: Prelude is the prologue to a multi-stage narrative that will bring big changes to Guild Wars 2 in the months to come.
New Features
Temple of the Silent Storm Week
From January 28—February 4 the regular eight-team/three-round paid tournaments will be replaced by two-team/single-round paid tournaments in the Temple of the Silent Storm map. After the week is over, we’ll add Temple of the Silent Storm to the regular rotation of both free and paid tournaments.
Improved Achievement System
We’re adding a new rotation of daily achievements to add variety and encourage you to explore the open world. You’ll get different achievements every day of the week and a new achievement tracker in the UI to make it easier to track your progress.
New Achievement Laurels
You’ll earn these brand-new laurels as a reward for daily and monthly achievements!
Redeem these laurels for rewards like the new Ascended gear and Infusions!
Guesting
With the new guesting system, you can play with friends on other worlds in the same region (North America, Europe) without changing your homeworld. Guesting is free, but going forward there will be a gem fee for transferring home worlds, so make sure you’re on the home world you want to permanently play on before 28 January!
New Utility Infusions and Ascended Amulets
We’re adding a wide range of new gear that can be purchased with the new laurels.
With 5 new Utility Infusions and 30 Ascended Amulets to choose from, there’s something for every style of player.
More Upgrades and Improvements
We’re making a ton of other improvements to the game this month, such as enhanced performance in WvW, tweaks to the dynamic level adjustment system, and UI improvements, which will be detailed in our release notes.
New Items in the Gem Store
It’s a new year, which means all-new items and a redesigned favorite in the Gem Store!
From Baby Quaggan Backpacks to Riding Brooms to the revamped Box o’ Fun, you’ll find it all in the Gem Store!
The guesting feature has been announced to be released in the January content patch, due 28th Jan. Full post on the ArenaNet site at https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/guesting-is-coming/.
With guesting, account transfers to other worlds will cost gems, so it’s important that if you have any friends that join the game you make sure that they’re aware of what server you’re on if they want to play WvW with you.
A summary of how guesting will work:
New ArenaNet news post: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/colin-johanson-on-guild-wars-2-in-the-months-ahead/.
Some additional clarifications:
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/Will-existing-achievements-get-converted/1213373
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/Will-existing-achievements-get-converted/1214070
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/Will-existing-achievements-get-converted/1214179
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/Will-existing-achievements-get-converted/1232053
Summary:
Note that this is the long-term plans for the first 1/2 of this year – not all of it is going to be released this month ;). Exact dates for any of it haven’t been specified…
There’s been more details released about the Wintersday event, so our event page here has been updated with the schedule of events (in Melbourne timezone).
The first five days are going to be a series of 24h visits to one of the Racial cities (visiting all 5 over the course of the 5 days), and while Tixx the Toymaker is in each city there will be special events available in that city.
After those 5 days are over, Tixx arrives in Lion’s Arch, and the Toypocalypse event (instance?) becomes available. All events from the 5 days of visiting are ALSO available for replay from then until the end of the Wintersday event.
Good news: there are NO one-time-only events. Even the 1-day visits are replayable later, so hopefully we won’t have people missing out this time. Low level characters will be automatically scaled to level 80 for the Wintersday events, so everyone can participate!
Snowball fights, a jumping puzzle, a musical event, special instances, Wintersday-specific items and crafting recipes will all be available.
For more details, visit the official ArenaNet page: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/december-2012/.
Details for the final stage for Halloween have been released, and uploaded to our calendar here. This is a heads up – if you want to do the Mad King’s mini-dungeon that opened in Stage 3, you MUST do it before the start of Stage 4 – which pretty much means TONIGHT. The door is in Lion’s Arch where the Lion Statue used to be (Thorn blew the statue up). All characters level 2-80 can enter the dungeon, you’ll be scaled up to level 80 automatically, and it takes about 10-15 minutes (a little longer the first time while you work out what it happening).
To attend the party in Stage 4, log into game some time on Thursday and drop into Lion’s Arch. The party is non-stop, so whenever you get a chance drop in for a minute or two.
ArenaNet have released some information about the upcoming Halloween festival for GW2:
Coming Soon
Halloween is almost here.
There’s a baleful moon on the rise and a chill in the air.
Ghosts bemoan their lonesome graves,
and bats in the belfry grow restless and crazed.
Prepare your costume; get ready for sweets.
It’s almost time to shout, “Trick or treat!”
Shadow of the Mad King
Release Overview
Halloween has a long history in Tyria, and in times past was always marked by the spirit of Mad King Thorn cavorting among the people unleashing his own brand of insanity. However, it’s been over 250 years since he was last seen, and for most people he is merely a figure of folklore. Despite this, rumors persist among the populace that something wicked this way comes.
Shadow of the Mad King is the first major game release for Guild Wars 2 and will go live on October 22. This new game update will include a number of new features for all of our players to enjoy, new content to explore and see, and a week-long Halloween event.
Release Highlights
Halloween
Halloween is coming! Festivities are afoot, and Tyria will be transformed with decorations, new mini-games, new dynamic events, and more. Despite the celebrations there are those who dread the coming of Halloween and all that it may bring, for it is the time of year when barriers between the realms are weakest. Be prepared for an epic adventure in four acts starting October 22 and running until October 31.
Black Lion Trading Company
Never one to miss out on an opportunity, Evon Gnashblade has stocked all new items at the Black Lion Trading Company, including Halloween costumes and new transforms that will allow you to play Costume Brawl with fellow costumed players.
PvP Paid Tournaments
Paid tournaments will be available for competitive, five-person teams. These tournaments require tickets to enter and give better prizes than normal tournaments. Participating teams will earn qualifier points that will allow them to compete in future, larger tournaments. Tournament tickets can be earned from winning normal tournaments or purchased in the Gem Store.
Tyria Evolving
The world continues to evolve with new events, jumping puzzles, bosses, mini-dungeons, and achievements appearing across a variety of maps.
From facebook:
At midnight PDT (3 hours from now) we will be bringing the servers down for maintenance. The estimated downtime will be between 20 – 60 min. Thank you for your patience. ~RB
The server will be shutting down at 5pm Melbourne time this evening, and is expected to be offline for 20-60 minutes.
No information on what is actually being done during this time, but I figured people would appreciate the warning.
EDIT: The game came back up at 5:30pm, so it was down for about 30 minutes 🙂
