It’s nearly here: After five years of waiting, the August 28th launch of Guild Wars 2 is just around the corner.

It’s been a long and exciting journey that you, our community, has taken with us, and we will enjoy launch that much more if we can spend it with you. To that end, members of the Guild Wars 2 team will be traveling around the United States* on September 1st to celebrate launch in New York, Austin, Orlando, Los Angeles, and of course Seattle.

At each event, ArenaNet employees will be on hand to sign your Guild Wars 2 games, books, and posters. We’ll also have giveaways of t-shirts, posters, and an exclusive in-game item. The giveaways are first-come-first-serve as long as our supplies hold out, but we’ll also have Guild Wars 2 quiz contests, so be sure to brush up on your knowledge of all things Tyria. Finally, we’ll hold a raffle at each GameStop location for one Guild Wars 2 Collector’s Edition.

**Bring your friends**

We’d love to see as many of you as we can at these events and thank you in person for your support. Since Guild Wars 2 is all about playing with your friends, bring them along to enjoy the festivities–and maybe even introduce someone new to GW2.

Flip through the photo album to see some of what we’ll be bringing to the party, then check out the times and locations below. We can’t wait to see you there and celebrate beginning of your story in Guild Wars 2! (All times listed are local time.)

• Seattle: September 1, 6:00 – 10:00 PM Pink Ultra Lounge (Pacific Place), 600 Pine St. 4th Floor in Pacific Place, Seattle, WA, 98101. If you’re attending PAX we’d love for you to stop by!

• Austin: September 1, 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM GameStop store at 10000 Research Blvd., STE 564, Austin, TX, 78759

• Orlando: September 1, 1:00 – 4:00 PM GameStop store (Waterford Lakes Mall), 675 N Alafaya Trl, STE P05, Orlando, FL, 32828

• New York: September 1, 1:00 – 4:00 PM GameStop store (Broadway & 85th), 2322 Broadway, New York, NY, 10024

• Los Angeles: September 1, 1:00 – 4:00 PM GameStop store GameStop (West Hollywood Gateway), 7100 Santa Monica Blvd. Ste 117, West Hollywood, CA, 90046

For our European players we’ll be partnering with fan-sites and press to distribute similar prizes. More information to come!

We've got some exciting new updates regarding the GW2DB to announce! (And more to come later!)

Profession Calculator Updates

• Now lists traits and stats!
  
• Improved condition and boon display!
  
• Ability to save, rate and comment on builds!

Vendors

• If an item is sold by a vendor, it lists the vendor name and how much the item sells for!

Lots and lots of polish and bug fixes!

We will be conducting a Stress Test TODAY from 1:20 PM PDT to 2:00 PM PDT.

We will be actively working on the game during the event, so you might experience connectivity problems or discover features that are not working as designed.

Any issues you experience are a result of the rigorous conditions of the stress test, and are in no way representative of the state of the game at launch.
...

By participating in this stress test, you’re helping us make Guild Wars 2 a better game.

Please note:

* The Stress Test is open to anyone who has pre-PURCHASED Guild Wars 2.
* You will not be able to purchase gems.

Thanks for your cooperation—we’ll see you in-game!

~RB

When we announced the start of Guild Wars 2 development, players responded with enthusiasm and a whole lot of questions. One of the most common questions we received was whether there would be some sort of “historical link” between Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2  and whether they could somehow show off their Guild Wars accomplishments in Guild Wars 2.

The answer to that question was a resounding “Yes.” We introduced the Hall of Monuments Reward Calculator, which allowed Guild Wars players to calculate how many points they had earned in the original games for use in Guild Wars 2. As you know, these points can be redeemed for unique weapon and armor skins, pets, animal companions, and more.

Hey, everyone, I’m Bill Freist. I’m here to discuss two topics we’ve been seeing a lot of questions about over the last few months: optimization and performance.

Before getting into that, though, you might be asking yourself, “Who is this Bill guy?” I’m part of the Quality Assurance department here at ArenaNet, and I specialize in gathering information from you, the players, about performance and compatibility issues. I make sure that the programming team gets the appropriate information and reproduction steps needed to achieve quick turnarounds with fixes for technical issues. In short, my job is to help ensure that the game is compatible with as many different computer configurations as possible—with solid performance to boot.

We're very happy today to welcome a new member in the Guild Wars 2 wiki family: the official Guild Wars 2 Spanish wiki is live! This is a great time for Spanish players to create articles about the game will include Spanish text localization.