Guild Wars 2 beta brings new zones, PvP tournaments, and mor

With the second Guild Wars 2 beta weekend event fast approaching, the ArenaNet blog has been updated with some new details about updates to beta client.

As we've been told before, players' characters from the previous BWE and stress test will roll over into this event, allowing people who put the effort into leveling their toons to reap the sweet, sweet rewards of higher-level content. That higher-level content comes in the form of the Ascalonian Catacombs dungeon's story mode (for level 30 characters), explorable mode (for level 35 characters), and a new map human-territory map, Gendarran Fields (for level 25-35 characters). Additionally, players can travel to Lion's Arch and give their unwanted weapons and items to the Mystic Forge to see what it spits out in return. Apparently, the forge runs on pure djinn power (253% more green than any fuel we've got, we're guessing) -- the djinn Zommoros is held within the Mystic Forge, and is evidently content to take players' stuff in exchange for mysterious goods of unknown value.

On the PvP side of things, WvW maps have received quite an update! Along with the normal face-stopping and zerging associated with WvW, players will now be able to participate in a newly-added mini-dungeon, skill challenges, jumping puzzles, and even dynamic events. Players participating in structured PvP will have the option to form into five-player groups and take part in eight-team tournaments for chests full of goodies, and will find that structured PvP matches reward them with Rank as well as Glory.

Updates have been made to general gameplay and design, as well. Overflow server technology is now being made functional by the ability to see when party members are on overflow worlds, travel to those party members' worlds, and stick together between zones. Chat has been improved with chat bubbles, map chat, and an update to local chat. Those of you who've been waiting on key-binding functionality will find that it's got a new interface (which includes the binding of modifier keys, thank the five gods). Skills have been split into three tiers -- players now have to unlock a certain number of skills on one tier to be able to unlock any skills on the next level, in order to encourage a sense of progression and to make adding new skills more feasible in the future.

Full details of the update can be read on the ArenaNet blog.

http://www.arena.net/blog/the-big-beta-weekend-preview

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