GUILDWARSINSIDER

“Narrative Designers Angel McCoy and Scott McGough discuss the lore behind the Flame and Frost storyline and how the characters and events lead into future Living World storylines.” 

Looks like the next area we’ll be moving into is Southsun Cove, let’s hope the karka are far less in abundance. Plus they mentioned that they will have a full years worth of content already planned out!

The latest patch for Guild Wars 2 went live earlier today and, wow, it was a good one. This patch features the final story arc for the Living Story and brings the players face to face with the Molten Alliance. I’ve had a chance to play through the new five player dungeon and it is excellent. Be sure to check it out.

For you PvP fans out there you will be especially pleased with this patch as you finally have spectator mode! This new mode allows players the chance to watch other teams duke it out. You’ll be able to see everything that happens, including the players build and skills, and should provide some much needed tools for the community.

There are also some new items available on the trading post which include Rox’s Quiver and Braham’s mace, which are great skins! All this plus profession changes, event updates, bug fixes, and more. Check out the full list of notes after the break. (more…)

The Living Story is about to reach its ultimate conclusion on April 30th with the release of Retribution! This patch will see some exciting new features being added to the game such as:

• New Dungeon: Molten Weapon Facility! Face off against the combined might of the Dredge and the Flame Legion, and take part in a battle that will “go down in Guild Wars 2 history.”
  
• Custome PvP Arenas and Spectator Mode. These features will still be in a beta type testing phase, but they are the most sought after features for the PvP crowd in the game and it’s good to see some progress being made to add these features.
• New Guild Missions let you become a quaggan. Can’t you just hear the squees of glee now?
• New WvW abilities. This feature will enable you to become a master of the arrow cart, making the enemy fear seeing you take control of this deadly weapon.
• New Guild Back Banners. Not content with just a backpack that displays your guilds emblem? Charge into battle with a banner for all to see instead!

Of course there will be bug fixes and other improvements as well, and we should have the new patch notes soon. This looks to be an exciting patch and one that should mark a turning point in the Guild Wars 2 universe! 

Those logging in to the game today and going to the Trading Post or gem store are going to find some new items worthy of attention: two new dye packs and an unlimited-use mining pick!

When you use the new mining pick, molten environmental effects come out of the node. These effects are visible to all players in the game world.

The mining pick, priced at 800 gems, has an unlimited number of uses and can mine any node in the game. It is account-bound on purchase but becomes soul-bound once you equip it on a character. There is currently no other gathering tools of this kind available on the store.

There are also two new dye kits — the Frost dye kit and Flame dye kit. Each kit includes one of 25 colors aligned with the kit name (frost colors, or flame colors), and each includes six dye colors not available anywhere else. The kits each go for 125 gems apiece or five for 500 gems.

For a breakdown of the new colors, check out this Reddit post from community member I_ate_paintchips.