YESH! Made my day!

mine too thanks for the reformat I suck with formatting this stuff

This excites me in ways pixals should not!

update: <[ANet]Community> Ok, just to get this out of the way here: We have a studio internal selection process for our Closed Beta that starts on Friday. There will be no public application form.

Well to be honest, that was expected. I figured they would simply open up the closed beta to more people of the same ilk currently testing Alpha. All of which, are none of us lol. Still, be nice if a few GW2 fanbase staff members *points to himself* also got in!

Finally and to think I almost ordered SWTOR out of boredom. (and me too Venomania!)

Yay! One step closer to the end of boredom

Our salvation is fast approaching. I can almost taste it.

Well the 1st closed betas of games are generally like that. It's devs, friends & family that have the right to play 1st ^__^

We shouldn't be too concerned tho, it'll be more leaked content and of course another step forward to a Closed Beta with invitation to public :p

The sooner they test the game the sooner it releases!

That's how I see it So its all good news imo ^^

This is something I needed to hear after hearing that GameForge is becoming the publisher for Aion Europe. I love you Arena Net!

Great news! GW2 release is getting closer by the day

any idea if we can sign up for open beta somewhere so we can get information when its close?

Originally Posted by dilko

any idea if we can sign up for open beta somewhere so we can get information when its close?

Not right now no, when information on open beta is released feel assured it will be posted on our forums for you to see.

CAN'T WAIT!!! All the professions are released and to me, it means it's one step closer for the game to be released!! i know thousands of people say this but, I CAN'T WAIT FOR THIS GAME TO BE RELEASED!!!

---------- Post added 10-01-2012 at 11:59 ----------

CANT WAIT!!!

I'm so anxious to play. When that day comes, we shall rejoice. It will be a great day.

Has anyone seen this?

Web dev from ArenaNet opened up on SomethingAwful forums, releasing some info on the closed beta. : Guildwars2

Tivac, a web developer on ArenaNet opened up and answered a few common questions on SomethingAwful Forums. Here is a list of what he let out of new info: -

We just finished up the first Closed Beta Test at the end of 2011. More will follow, depending on how those go we'll do a few short open betas, then assuming everything goes as planned it'll launch.
The lack of dates there is deliberate, FYI.

Later he expanded on the lenght of the beta

First closed beta test was 12/16 - 12/30.

After that he touched on what output they got from the beta

User asked: So that means all the zones and dungeons and pvp maps etc. are complete and just need polish/balance? I'd been wondering if content was considered separate from 'features', but if they both fall under the same umbrella then that's incredibly comforting to hear.
Answer from Tivac: Some maps need more polish, which given our iterative dev process can sometimes end up blurring the line between content/feature. As far as I'm aware every feature we want to ship is in the game even if it's still rudimentary. I could be wrong though, I don't work directly on that stuff and the game is huge.

The most interesting though in my opinion was this

We use the traditional definition for beta, the game is effectively feature complete but needs polish & user feedback.

---

Apart from talking about the beta he said this:

You can also interrupt skills, there's a whole priority system for skills & actions that determines what queues & what interrupts. It ends up being super actiony & fun.

-
I have seen some people here on Reddit have been concerned about the instant turning mobs do when they get attacked from the other side, he touched a bit on that aswell:

He's not blending animations when he rotates properly for some reason. Unsure if that's a bug or a factor of limited animator time to do that for every creature.
Either way, yuck. (sadface)

-Lastly he told what kind of beta they are going to have

We use the traditional definition for beta, the game is effectively feature complete but needs polish & user feedback.

---

Alright, now you may ask what the legitimacy of this is. Well, SomethingAwful forums is a little different that your average forum. There are very little trolls, and people genuenly talk nice to each other and have healthy conversations. Also, you pay $10 to get an account, and money for a lot of services on the site. Tivac has been a user since 2003, so if he was a troll people would have noticed. There is a minimal chance that this still is a troll, but it is so low that it makes this beliveable. Also Tivac is an actual twitter account owned by someone at ArenaNet.
Lastly he ended with this

Now I'm fired thanks gw2guru. (smileyface)
AFAIK I haven't told you guys anything secret. The AMA on Reddit covered all the beta-related stuff.

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EDIT: Oh yeah and this:
Currently Achievement awards are gold + exp that materialize in a chest next to you & you loot. I like it but I could see how some people would wail about "MY IMMERSION".

If this is true, that would be amazing. I felt like all the features were already done it seems to be just the polish balance refinement stage. However, as we know with the current extreme class make overs. This is not a stage to be taken lightly with Arena Net, they truly look dedicated to making every feature right.

If this is right, perhaps we are looking at a summer latest release! Gawd, could I be more excited? I think not!

I saw Interview: Interview with Angel Leigh McCoy | Nevermet Press - Guild Wars 2 Guru Forums <- this earlier. She says they're preparing for open beta.

*swoons*

Yeah, this following an earlier interview (quite some time back I think) where one of the devs stated that the time from open beta announcement to full release would most likely be shorter than that of GW1. Which makes me wonder, since I never followed GW1 prior to release, how long was that period of time, approximately?

Although I was only present for one of them; it was a system employed on the weekends over a couple of weeks.

Beta Weekend Event - Guild Wars Wiki (GWW)

The above is the closet thing I could find to how it resembled from my perspective... funny thing is I don't remember needing any key, for some reason my memory is telling me I got in on my own accord rather than how they have it down in there, i.e. "People who wanted to play had to obtain a key from someone who pre-ordered the game or get an access key from a number of fansites." I think the time I 'got in' was more of a preview event and it had the Maguuma Jungle area open for exploration.

I do wonder if they plan on keeping to that routine pattern of presenting the 'OB' phase over the weekends for a few weeks or just perform it was just one block event. I kind of dislike the partitioned system (was sick of it by Rift tbh heh.)