Gamers Giving Back are throwing a toga party in Chahbek Village on April 21st, 12pm to 6pm CDT (UTC-), and you're all invited! The party is being thrown to raise awareness and funds in support for those affected by Multiple Sclerosis and there will be a toga costume contest, trivia as well as a scavenger hunt complete with prizes.



Don't know how to make a toga in Guild Wars? Don't worry, any creative combination of armor pieces that, when squinting, resembles a toga will surely please the judges. You can find all the details regarding the effort as well as the contest rules here.

It's time for some Spring Cleaning! And it looks like ArenaNet has gotten the bug because they've updated their site with a bit of news regarding some upcoming changes. From GuildWars.com:

Get ready, because within the next few weeks you're going to see some major improvements to the Guild Wars website! We're working on some big changes behind the scenes that will result in a sleek, shiny new GuildWars.com. This redesigned site will feature an updated appearance and an improved layout, but most importantly, it will help you stay up to date on everything that's happening in the Guild Wars game and community. See you soon on the new website!

March Madness has made its way to gaming! This month, Curse and Alienware have teamed up to present a March Madness-style tournament by pitting famous video game characters against each other. It's up to you to decide who wins. This first round begins with a few old school heroes from Guild Wars and Zojja, Eir, Rytlock, Caithe and Logan representing Guild Wars 2.

If you haven't heard the news, ArenaNet is currently working on their server infrastructure in regards to a new security system they have put in place. With that news, Stephane, French Community Manager, has posted on the official support forums asking members of the community to help test the new system.

1. Create a shortcut icon for your Guild Wars client

2. Right-click and go to Properties

3. In the Target line, add the following text after file path: ?/newauth?
Note: Exclude the quotation marks and add a space between it and the previous text (see picture in attachment)
Note 2: if you get an error message saying ?not a valid target location?, make sure that you put the target line between double-quotes before adding /newauth

4. Make sure you can log in to Guild Wars and do some basic things like map travel, missions, checking your storage, and making sure your character data is saved if you log out and back in again

5. Keep playing Guild Wars by using the new system with this shortcut (if you?re not getting any problem)

For more information regarding the test, make sure to read the entire forum post.



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After years since their last video was released, the cast of STARNEWS23 has returned with its ninth in-game news report, appropriately titled "Who The $@%# Are These Guys?"







STARNEWS23 is a mock-news machinima similar to your traditional 10 o'clock news. In their videos, the cast reports on events that take place in the Guild Wars universe.



To view the release thread, click here.

Get ready to roll! Folks over at guild-hall2.net are hosting a Winds of Change group event on Friday, February 17, 2012 starting at 7PM GMT. Over the course of a couple days people will be encouraged to group and work through the content together. Anyone is free to join!

The TGH Admins and staff will be on the TGH voice chat room on Dolby Axon (PM Lonesamurai or ask on the facebook page for more information, or head over to the Dolby Axon Website to make an account and download the software) Anyone is free to join in, whether you have done the missions or not (in fact people who HAVE done them would be welcome to guide new players through them aswell) Lonesamurai will be around for most of the event and will be on axon through out the weekend which will be starting 7pm GMT (2pm EST) on Friday 17th February (barring time he has to sleep of course, even he does sometimes)

More information can be found on their Facebook page or on their website posting.

The third, and last, chapter to the Winds of Change event begins today and includes "9 new quests, exciting new rewards, and a number of hidden scenes for players to discover that flesh out the story." But not only that, ArenaNet has brought to you the tale of Miku, a story from the perspective of the assassin, one of the important characters in this Guild Wars: Beyond trilogy.

As players engage with Winds of Change, they will find themselves caught between the Ministry of Purity and their crusade against the rival gangs of Kaineng -- the Jade Brotherhood and the Am Fah. With the Jade Brotherhood and the Am Fah facing the might of the Ministry, the gangs are forced to retaliate with brutal and destructive force. With the violence escalating, the people of Cantha begin to wonder of the price of security worth the cost. As the Ministry ascends in power and control, intrigue sets in as the people of Cantha begin to wonder at the true motives of the Ministry.

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If you've been following the Twitter accounts of some of the ArenaNet devs and CM's, you'd know that they've been having some issues getting into work because of the heavy snow up in Seattle this week. Because of that, they've had to put a hold on the latest game build for Guild Wars. Stephane has graciously given us a head's up and has posted a preview of the skill update on the forums for us, which can be found here.



Robert Gee's posted some interesting changes for the PvP crowd and has promised that the changes will go live before this month's Automated Tournament (Jan. 28th):

Assassin: Assassins are in a pretty good place right now, but their compressed damage is a little faster than we'd like. We're taking off a little bit of damage from two of their key damage skills to address this.

Dervish: Lately, GvG has been filled with nothing but Onslaught Dervish. While we like to see that Dervishes have found their place in GvG, we feel that several elements are out of line with this particular template. Crippling Victory's Cripple condition is a little too easy to meet, so we're removing it from the AoE component. This should mean that proper use of blocking will allow players to avoid it. Twin Moon Sweep is providing a little too much damage for the speed at which it is being charged, and Wearying Strike is available a little too often, so we're tweaking these skills accordingly. Onslaught itself will have its movement speed bonus removed, which should expand the bar a bit, meaning some damage will have to be removed in order to accommodate a new run boost.

Elementalist: In order to provide a more significant choice between defense-oriented Elementalists with Blinding Surge and offense-oriented Elementalists with Invoke Lighting we're increasing the recharge on Blinding Flash slightly. This should provide some tension between taking Surge for better defensive cover or Invoke for more damage. Glyph of Sacrifice is being changed to remove a skill combination that was providing too much compressed damage in conjunction with spear attacks. Finally, Obsidian Flame has been split in order to prevent the expected emergence of a spike build that is currently kept in check by this month's Flux. We're choosing to reduce the damage on this skill rather than revert the cast time on the split version because we feel the lowered cast time provides reliable damage that Earth Elementalists need in order to stay viable.

Monk: We feel that the new Shield Guardian has a strong place against heavy melee teams, but its cost has been keeping it off many Monk bars. We're reducing the Energy cost but raising the cast time to 1.5 seconds to compensate. Spirit Bond will receive a small buff to respond to the shift in the metagame towards smaller, more frequent packets of damage. Because Monks have a delicate balance in Guild Wars, we'll be watching these two skills especially carefully in the next few weeks to make sure they don't become overpowered.

Paragon: We've seen many Warriors [sic] taking this skill without investment in Spear Mastery in order to remove stances. Despite how innovative this is, we feel that this type of skill should require investment in Spear Mastery to be effective, but don't want to link it to Leadership lest it take away from legitimate A/P or R/P builds. The disable time will make it less appealing to builds utilizing weapon swaps, but keep it viable on dedicated spear builds.

Ranger: The last updates to this skill took it out of play for the most part. We feel this small quality-of-life improvement for Rangers is simple enough to include with this update.

Warrior: Enraged Smash as an adrenaline engine has proved to be too powerful when combined with Auspicious Blow, allowing the two skills to charge each other indefinitely while enabling frequent, disruptive knockdowns. The recharge on this skill will be increased to put it in line with Bull's Strike, slowing down the adrenaline gain. Yeti Smash's single-second activation time is making it too easy to chain knockdowns, so we're removing that but reducing the adrenaline cost to keep it useful in other formats.

Guild Wars Guru presents our first Wintersday Trivia Contest! We're bringing the joy of giving from ArenaNet straight to you.



Take a break from endless Polar Bear farming and join Kvinna & Jenn this Tuesday, December 23th @ 12 PM (noon) PST/8 PM GMT in Lion's Arch ID 1 for a chance to win one of 15 costume code 2-packs. These are wonderful to add to any fashion conscience player and are sure to get you in the holiday mood!



Still feeling Grenthy? We have an Everlasting Reindeer tonic to give away as well! This holiday tonic will turn you into the cutest of Dwayna's helpers complete with a bright red nose to shine the way from Ascalon to Kryta. One click of this tonic will melt the hearts of everyone around you and throw them into the Wintersday spirit.



Make sure to check out the thread for more info!