News from GameSpot.com:

Guild Wars 2 due 2011
NCsoft West CEO Jaeho Lee said that Guild Wars 2 may enter a testing phase in 2010, with the game's full launch scheduled for the following year. "I believe there will be a certain public event in the year 2010, so at this point it could be at least a closed beta test for Guild Wars 2 ... The commercialization will be expected at this point probably sometime in the year 2011." Read about it here.

News from GuildWars.com:

Community: Autumn Soiree!
The Order of the Phoenix Alliance invites you to attend their autumn celebration, the Soiree at the Sanctum on November 14th in the Imperial Sanctum! To learn more about this special event, check out this week's Community News.

We have come across a great story about a girl named Emily. She has heart failure and through the Make-A-Wish Foundation was allowed to tour the ArenaNet offices and play Guild Wars 2. Make-A-Wish Foundation is a children's organization that grants wishes to children with life-threatening medical conditions. Emily's Mom has up a great blog post about her tour of the ArenaNet offices and her experience there. You don't want to miss this!

After lunch, they let her play Guild Wars 2, with a bunch of people in the office. It was a blast to play with the developers; at one point she said, "I wish there were some sticks on this beach." One of the developers rewrote the game to put sticks there. There were lots of laughs, and the team really enjoyed watching her play and seeing what she focused on.

Read all about Emily's story here: Emily's Heart Updates.

From GuildWars.com:

Web Developer Job Opening
Are you an outstanding web developer with a passion for MMOGs? Why not join our team? Qualified candidates will be passionate, creative team players who produce high quality JavaScript code and love agile development. ASP.NET and ASP.NET MVC experience is a huge plus. Check out our job listing for more details!

Halloween Art Contest Winners!
It was a tough decision, but we have selected the Halloween Art Contest winners from a field of fantastic entries. Thank you to all who participated! Check out the winning art right here.

Halloween is just around the corner for Guild Wars and there's many things happening in the community you'll want to check out.

There's so much Halloween Art to check out custom created for the Guild Wars fan. The [Workshop] Guild Wars Halloween is continuing with costumes, cakes, art, models, plushies and more! You'll definitely want to head over and check out the progress these wonderful artists have made.

Next up is Derrick the Nomad with his Gear Trick Halloween Comic. I'll give you a thumbnail preview but you'll want to head over to his thread in Nolani to see the greatness. (It's a great comic, make sure you scroll through and see some of his other GW work).



Up next is a reminder for all the Halloween events upcoming:

• The King And Queen's Horrorween 2009 [The Official Thread] where there is a raffle, activities, Aion wing code giveaway, and more being done by BladeRadio.com.
• Mad King Freebies Hallowed revenge! is being done in International district 1 of Lions Arch this Hallow’s eve. With activities, costume contest, give-aways, and more!
• And Guild Wars official game Halloween event begins on October 23rd and runs until 12:01 AM Pacific time on November 2nd. The main festivities take place in Lion's Arch and Kamadan, but the Halloween spirit can be found in other places around Tyria.

Halloween Approaches!

Halloween is coming, so prepare for ten days of mayhem, mirth, and the Mad King! Festivities kick off on Friday, October 23rd at Noon Pacific (-7 GMT). Keep your eyes open for spooky special event collectors and monsters dropping trick-or-treat bags. Crash our annual PvP Costume Brawl! Venture into the Underworld on a series of all-new quests—if you dare! And, on Halloween, October 31st, Mad King Thorn will make a series of appearances!

Head over to our Halloween 2009 event page for all of the gory details!

We have a few things in the community to tell you about today! First up is some Halloween art that you'll both want to see and participate in!

• First up is [Workshop] Guild Wars Halloween where you can show off your progress for the Guild Wars Halloween Contest and also participate in a Guru Contest for the chance at 100k, Zaishen keys and more!
• Next is The King and Queen's 300k+ Horrorween Art Contest with the chance to win 100k and 10 Ectoplasm. Closing date on this is the 20th of October and is being done in conjunction with the The King And Queen's Horrorween 2009 event.

Next up is events:

• Brawler is trying to pull together The biggest sync dance known to GW history! so head over to the thread and help him out.
• The King And Queen's Horrorween 2009 [The Official Thread] where there is a raffle, activities, Aion wing code giveaway, and more being done by BladeRadio.com.
• Mad King Freebies Hallowed revenge! is being done in International district 1 of Lions Arch this Hallow’s eve. With activities, costume contest, give-aways, and more!

News from GuildWars.com:

Halloween Art Contest
Help us celebrate the season by entering your Guild Wars themed Halloween art in our fifth annual contest. Design a costume, bake a cake, carve a pumpkin—go nuts! Check out the details here.

Henchman Skill Bar Contest Winners!
Congratulations to the winners of the Henchman Skill Bar Contest! Who won? Find out right here. You can then head to our Riverside Inn forum to discuss the results here: Henchman Skill Bar Contest Winners!.

News from GuildWars.com:

Kill Ten Rats Interview Posted
Guild Wars Live Team Lead Designer Linsey Murdock and Guild Wars 2 Game Designer Isaiah "Izzy" Cartwright recently sat down with the folks from Kill Ten Rats to discuss Guild Wars combat and the metrics used for skill balance. Head over to see what they have to say! You can then discuss all the latest in our forum thread in our Riverside Inn here: KillTenRats.com Interview with Linsey Murdock and Isaiah “Izzy” Cartwright

PAX Videos Are Now Online!
Couldn't make it to PAX this year? To make sure you didn't miss anything, we've posted videos of our panel interviews from the Penny Arcade Expo on our YouTube channel. Head over to watch discussions about the art of Guild Wars 2, a panel interview with the Guild Wars Live Team, and a lore-filled talk about the upcoming Fall of Ascalon novel!

Community: Discussions and Awesome Tunes!
Interested in Guild Wars discussion? Love music? Tune in to the Ascension Show this month on Sanitarium.fm! For more details, check out Community News!

The Guild Wars Live Team had a Q&A panel at PAX 2009 this year and ArenaNet has posted those videos on their YouTube channel for us to watch! Highlights include upcoming plans, Shadow Form, Test Krewe, XTH, sealed deck and more! You don't want to miss this series of 3 videos. You can head to our forum thread in Riverside Inn for discussions and links from Razon: Arenanet Q&A Panel on Youtube is up.

If you’re looking for all the latest tidbits of information for Guild Wars 2 from PAX 2009, you’ll want to head over to our GuildWars2Guru.com site where we have a thread with video, quotes, fan reports, pics of the Guild Wars 2 booth, artbook and much more. See all the latest here: Guild Wars 2 at PAX.

News from GuildWars.com:

Test Krewe Applications Closing September 8th
As a reminder for those interested in becoming a member of the Guild Wars Live Test Krewe, the deadline for submitting applications is this upcoming Tuesday, September 8th. If you haven't submitted your Test Krewe application, be sure to do so before then.

Thanks to everyone who has applied! Going through all the applications will take some time, but we'll announce the Test Krewe members as soon as we can. Stay tuned!

News from GuildWars.com:

Join us in sunny Seattle for the sixth annual Penny Arcade Expo (better known as "PAX"). We'll be at the show for the entire weekend of September 4th—6th, so be sure to visit us at booth #842 in the Exhibit Hall. Community Managers Regina Buenaobra and Martin Kerstein will be at the booth all weekend, so stop by and say hi!

Here's a rundown of some of the ArenaNet activities happening at the expo: Click Here.

Linsey Murdock has posted an extensive update that you'll want to check out on numerous things that are on the community's mind:

(TA + HB)^Sealed = WIN! - This is a pretty big one, so we really wanted to warn everyone of this in advance. The plan is to remove both the Hero Battles and Team Arena PvP formats and replace them with a 4v4 Sealed Deck format.

Welcome Robert Gee - First off, I am delighted to announce that we have filled the open design position on the Live Team! Robert Gee comes to us from Big Huge Games and the Guildhall at SMU. He is a big Guild Wars fan, having played since the first BWE's. He rivals even me when it comes to game play hours and general Guild Wars knowledge.

Check out the full update in our forums: New Designer, Updates, PvP, XTH, and more! courtesy of Linsey Murdock.

News from GuildWars.com:
We've listened to the voices of many players and are removing heroes from Guild vs. Guild and Heroes Ascent play. In order to give all players the ability to participate in those formats (even if they can't form a full party with other players) we're replacing heroes with a selection of new, henchmen.

Do you have ideas for great, competitive henchmen skill bars? Enter your best skill bars in our Henchman Skill Bar Contest!

We came to an agreement with the Zaishen Order, so they're helping us out on this.
The contest will run from August 27, 2009 to September 10, 2009

Read on for more details.

GuildWars.com News:

Your Wings Await! Wings for Guild Wars characters? Yes! You may not be able to fly, but you'll look awesome on the ground with these flashy wings from NCsoft's upcoming MMORPG Aion™. For a limited time, when you purchase either the Aion SteelBook edition or the Aion Limited Collector's Edition, you will receive an exclusive emote that allows you to summon a pair of Aion wings for your Guild Wars character!

Read on for more details.

As you all know, Guild Wars 2 news is coming very soon. With that, I'd like to officially introduce you all to Guild Wars 2 Guru! You can all ready find all the latest released info from GamesCon 2009 and ArenaNet on the homepage. Complete with pictures, video and the latest information.

Then head over to the Guild Wars 2 Guru Forums to catch up with all your fellow gamers anxiously awaiting the release of the game. We have a lot of things in store for the community and will be ramping up as more information on Guild Wars 2 becomes available. We hope to become your community resource for ArenaNet's Guild Wars 2 title!

We have posted on the homepage of Guild Wars 2 Guru the new Trailer! As well as a link to an exclusive IGN interview and more!

News from GuildWars.com:

Get Imba with Razer

Play through Razer's Get Imba Quest, and you could win the new Razer Naga, the first MMO Gaming Mouse of its kind. One of the seven quest letters you need to find is hidden right here on Guild Wars.com! Click here for more details.

	News from GuildWars.com:  Test Krewe Application: Back Online!	18 August 2009
	Our Asuran engineers have completed their troubleshooting on the Test Krewe application web form, and it's now back up! Thanks for your patience and understanding while our team did their work. Don't worry, if you've already submitted your application form, you don't have to do it again. If you're interested in giving new content and balance changes a good run-through before they hit the live servers, head over to our Guild Wars Live Test Krewe application page for your chance to become a Test Krewe member!

Just to keep us all excited, Mike O'Brien has posted this on the Official Wiki:

Hey all, Last week I promised you’d get your first glimpse of Guild Wars 2 “very soon now”. That day is almost here.

I want to thank all our fans for their patience as we developed the game to the point where we can start talking about it publically. I know you’ve all been anxiously awaiting this moment. You’ll soon understand how ambitious we’ve been and what we’ve accomplished during these past two years of development. We still have a lot of work ahead of us, but from here on out we’ll be able to provide you with more regular updates.

Guild Wars 2 is going to be a huge leap beyond the original. We have the best team in the industry executing at the top of their game, and I’m very proud of what our team has accomplished so far. As I said last week, I’m confident that when you get your first look at what we’ve been working on, you’re going to love what you see. Stay tuned for an exciting week ahead.

You'll also want to see the small teaser that is www.GuildWars2.com you can then head over to our Riverside Inn to discuss: Guild Wars 2 Website

Some news of interest to the Guild Wars community:


Discuss and read all the latest here in our Riverside Inn.

EDIT: There's been a statement from Mike O'Brien posted on the Guild Wars Wiki:

I wanted to take a moment to offer my personal note on Jeff's departure.

Jeff is a personal friend of mine. We worked together very closely from the time he joined Blizzard in 1996, through our founding of ArenaNet in 2000, until he left ArenaNet to join NCsoft West in 2008. I'm sad to see him leaving NCsoft now. We remain good friends and I wish him great success in his next endeavor.

It's important to understand that ArenaNet is a separate and self-contained development studio. Jeff hasn't been involved in the day-to-day development of Guild Wars 2 since he left ArenaNet more than a year ago, and I don't expect his departure to have a direct impact on our studio or on Guild Wars 2. I continue to lead ArenaNet, and I'm not going anywhere.

We have an amazing team here at ArenaNet, and we continue to work hard on Guild Wars 2, preparing for the day when we can first reveal it to the world. That day is coming very soon now. I'm confident that, when you see Guild Wars 2 for the first time, you're going to love what you see, and any worries you have about its development will fade away.

- Mike O'Brien

August Skill Updates
We introduced a variety of changes to skills in this month's live update. For more info about the skill changes and an explanation of why each change was made, head on over to this month's developer update.

We have a fun Guild Wars community announcement from one of our forum posters, Endrosz:


Head on over to the forum thread in our Community News, Contests and Events for the first event, starting today August 1st at 2PM PST/10 PM GMT: Haiku Hide-and-Seek - Every second Saturday.