June Tournament Reminders

Don't forget! The finale of the June Automated Tournament is this weekend, so place those last minute Xunlai Tournament House votes. Also, the deadline for claiming your May Xunlai prizes is this weekend. To get your rewards, speak with your neighborhood Xunlai Agent.

Guild Wars 2 Questions? We've Got Answers!

So what are we doing with Guild Wars 2, anyway? Check the FAQ to find out!

Upcoming Play! Performances

The "Play! A Video Game Symphony" tour has returned to the states with two new performance dates. The first appearance will be in Baltimore, Maryland on July 18. The second showing will be in San Francisco, California on August 23.

This is your opportunity to hear Guild Wars music performed by a full orchestra! Read more details about the symphony on their official website.

The Dragon Festival Approaches

Join us at the Shing Jea Monastery this Fourth of July weekend to celebrate the annual Dragon Festival! The celebration includes the Shing Jea Boardwalk, Dragon Arena, Rollerbeetle Racing, and reenactments of past events. Festivities start at Noon Pacific (-7 GMT) on Thursday, July 3 and continue until 11:59 PM Pacific on Sunday, July 6. Read all the details and see a schedule of events here.

Guild Wars Guru Hosts New GvG Tournament

GuildWarsGuru.com, in connection with OnlineGamingRadio.com, has announced the GvG Challenge 2008. The tournament is sponsored by Electronics Extreme and offers more than $10,000 in prizes such as laptops and portable DVD players. It even has a contest just for making accurate predictions! Registration is open to everyone and goes until Friday, July 11, 2008 at 8:59 AM Pacific (-7 GMT). The tournament itself takes place on July 12. Visit the official tournament page for a full list of prizes and contest rules.

Beware of Fake Emails

Please watch for fake emails telling players that they are eligible to participate in the Guild Wars 2 Closed Beta. These emails are blatant phishing attempts to steal account information. Players should not reply to them.

ArenaNet or NCsoft employees will never ask for your password.

Dev Update: Skill Balance Changes

In this Dev Update, the design team explains the goals behind the most recent skill balance changes. Head over to the official wiki to check it out.

Sweepstakes Winners Announced

We're pleased to announce the results of the Guild Wars 3^rd Anniversary Sweepstakes! To see who won prizes, visit the sweepstakes page. Congratulations to these lucky winners!

Community News RSS Feed Available

If you're interested in community events, we now offer Community News in its own RSS feed. To get updates from this feed, add it to your RSS reader.

June Transmogrifier Tonic

In today's live update we'll be adding a brand new transmogrifier tonic to the Zaishen Chest, so get your keys ready. For future reference, these monthly tonics will now be released in the first live update of every month, so watch those update notes and the Zaishen Rewards Calendar to see the currently available monthly tonic.

May Tournament News

With an unexpected build using two Ritualists, Rebel Rising [Rawr] siezed an unprecedented fifth championship win this May. They defeated Stealing Society [StS], a popular European guild, to win the title.

In Hero Battles, we crown a first-time champion, Luv Benoit Ftw, who triumphed over Vi Ru in the final round. Luv takes the championship after narrowly coming in second last month. Congratulations to all the guilds and players in our tournament!

Be sure to check out the newly updated skill usage charts for this tournament, as well as detailed results for both GvG and Hero Battles.

Dev Update: PvP/PvE Skill Balancing

The design team has a preview of the upcoming skill balance changes, including balancing key skills separately for PvP and PvE, which you can read here.

Dev Update: Skill Balancing

The design team shares new plans for skill balancing, as well as addresses some of the problems of PvP nerfs affecting PvE. These changes are scheduled to come out in the next few weeks, along with another skill balance update. The Dev Update provides more details on the new skill balance system, which you can check out here.

New Zaishen Rewards Announced

With the conclusion of April's tournament, we're now moving over to our brand new in-game reward system. To learn more about what's in store, check out our new Zaishen Rewards page. You can also view our newly updated automated tournament rules here.

State of the Game: Meet Dark Alley

Meet Dark Alley [dR], the most recent champions of both the April tournament and the Rawr Cup. Formed primarily from former members of guilds such as Idiot Savants [iQ] and Team Quitter [QQ], Dark Alley sits down with us to share their stories. Read what they have to say here.

April Tournament News

The April tournament has ended, with the extra-heavy cash prizes flowing freely to the lucky and skillful contenders. In first place for GvG, Dark Alley [dR] defeated a prior tournament winner, Mistral Edge [Me]. Over in the Hero Battles realm, Tibo L Invincible won over Luv Benoit Ftw. Congratulations to all our winners and runners-up, and we hope they enjoy their Amazon gift cards!

And, we've updated the following:

• Final match reports
• Complete tournament standings
• Skill usage charts

Daniel Dociu Interview

The folks over at the architectural blog, BLDGBLOG, have posted an interview with our Art Director, Daniel Dociu. In this article, Daniel discusses what inspires him and provides detailed insight into the creation process of many of his pieces. Head over to the blog to see what Daniel has to say.

Guild Wars Anniversary Sweepstakes

The third anniversary of Guild Wars is here! To thank all of you for another awesome year, we're holding a sweepstakes. You have a chance to win fantastic prizes, including an Alienware laptop. Read all about it here.

April PvP Predictors

For April, we bring you the predictions and analysis of Jakal Storm, a regular monthly contributor. Check here to see how Jakal thinks the tournament will play out, and why.

Celebrate Three Years of Guild Wars

You're invited to the party as we celebrate the Guild Wars Third Anniversary! The festivities include a brand new reward after finishing the Hell's Precipice mission in the original campaign, boardwalk games at the Shing Jea Monastery, and starting April 28, third birthday presents for characters created on this date. Join us for the celebration, starting April 24!

Third-Party Tournament News: 2008 RAWR Cup Wraps Up

The 2008 RAWR Cup recently finished, with full third-party sponsorship and organization. We're happy to see this healthy competition among our players. In fact, one of our contract writers, known as Billiard (who also advised on the committee for this second RAWR cup), covered the event and wrote a summary for us. Find it here!

Guild Wars and Sarah Brightman

As some of our eagle-eyed players have noticed, Symphony, the latest album from world-renowned vocalist Sarah Brightman features art from Guild Wars. Several months ago Ms. Brightman approached ArenaNet Art Director Daniel Dociu, feeling that his art style was a great match for this album. The album and website include concept art from Guild Wars, as well as original art created specifically for Symphony.

For more information, visit the official Sarah Brightman website.

Welcome Regina!

We'd like to introduce the newest member to the Guild Wars community team. Her name is Regina Buenaobra, and she starts today! She's created a user page on the wiki, so check it out.

March Automated Tournament News

Rebel Rising [rawr] wins the GvG tournament! Rebel Rising is a familiar guild to see in competitive play and has won several gold capes. In Hero Battles, Pls Patch Crossing defeated Cs Element to take first place. Congratulations to all our winners.

The final match reports are now available, as are the complete tournament standings, the updated tournament rules, and the ever-popular skill usage charts. Enjoy!

Andrew's New Role

Andrew Patrick has decided he will be moving on from community to QA. Read all about his decision and wish him well on his new role at ArenaNet.