We’ve partnered with SteelSeries to celebrate the release of The Icebrood Saga episode “No Quarter“—and you could win a brand-new SteelSeries headset, Guild Wars 2 mousepad, or Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire™ Ultimate Edition.
Visit the official SteelSeries Gleam competition portal and choose from the list of ways to enter, like following SteelSeries and Guild Wars 2 on social media or reading our latest blog posts. The more entries you complete, the more chances you have to win!
We’ve partnered up with players to showcase their creative Guild Wars 2-inspired content on the official Guild Wars 2 Twitch channel. Read on for this week’s scheduled programming, and don’t forget to check out the Guild Wars 2 category on Twitch for more great streams!
Streams for the week of June 1Wednesday, June 3
The Guild Wars 2 Art Show (by Fiaoradd)(English) Noon Pacific Time (UTC-7) Watch ArenaNet Creative Partner Fiaoradd create art on this week’s show.
If you need help converting times into your own time zone, you can use this tool. Thanks for watching!
We’ve partnered up with players to showcase their creative Guild Wars 2-inspired content on the official Guild Wars 2 Twitch channel. Read on for this week’s scheduled programming, and don’t forget to check out the Guild Wars 2 category on Twitch for more great streams!
Streams for the week of May 25Wednesday, May 27
The Guild Wars 2 Art Show (by Fiaoradd)(English) Noon Pacific Time (UTC-7) Watch ArenaNet Creative Partner Fiaoradd create art on this week’s show.
If you need help converting times into your own time zone, you can use this tool. Thanks for watching!
“No Quarter,” the third episode of The Icebrood Saga , is now live! Check out the release page for all the details and read the update notes on our forums.
Join us this Friday for the next episode of the Guild Chat livestream, where Rubi and her developer guests will discuss “No Quarter.” Please note that this stream will contain spoilers for the episode.
Guild Chat will air Friday, May 29 at noon Pacific Time (UTC-7) on the official Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook channels.
For the adventurer looking for a bit more excitement in their gliding, we’ve created the new Spellweaver Glider. This glider has everything you need—a fierce pose, ethereal magic, and very special magic rocks!
Enigmatic Artifacts Chest
Inside each chest you’re guaranteed to find a redeemable Black Lion Statuette, a Black Lion Claim Ticket Scrap, and two common items. You also have a chance to find something rarer in the fifth slot, including exclusive items, glyphs, and skins from the War God’s Weapon Collection and Equinox Weapon Collection.
Exclusive Item: Seven Reapers Grasps Watch your enemies flee in terror as you approach with the fearsome Seven Reapers Grasps, inspired by Grenth’s most loyal servants.
Ice Reaver Weapon Collection These are perfect weapons for the champion who does not fear death. But beware—behind the beauty of these icy masterpieces lies a seeping corruption.
Black Lion Weapon Collections—Back for a Limited Time!
Starting May 26, a pair of even more special Black Lion Weapons Specialists has been employed to offer a staggering variety of exclusive weapon skins to collectors. Visit them in the Black Lion Vault in Lion’s Arch to arm yourself!
Three Black Lion Weapon Tickets
Orchestral Weapon Collection
Desert King Weapon Collection
Inquest Mark II Weapon Collection
Improvised Weapon Collection
Glittering Weapon Collection
Dominator Weapon Collection
Beastslayer Weapon Collection
Timekeeper Weapon Collection
Merciless Weapon Collection
Five Black Lion Weapon Tickets
Chaos Weapon Collection
Fused Weapon Collection
Pact Fleet Weapon Collection
Abaddon Weapon Collection
Dreamthistle Weapon Collection
Tormented Weapon Collection
Zodiac Weapon Collection
Phoenix Weapon Collection
Balthazar’s Weapon Collection
What’s in Stock
We’re rotating our seasonal outfit inventory this week, so keep an eye out for returning favorites!
Returning Today
Black Lion Garden Plot Deed
Recharging Teleport to Friend
Returning This Week
Branded Mounts Pack
Glacial Harvesting Tool
Glacial Mining Tool
Glacial Logging Tool
Available Now in the Gem Store!
Log into Guild Wars 2 and press 'O' to access the Black Lion Trading Company for these great offers and more!
Join host Rubi Bayer and her developer guests to discuss the latest episode of The Icebrood Saga , “No Quarter,” on this week’s Guild Chat. This livestream will contain heavy spoilers for the episode story, so proceed with caution!
Guild Chat will air this Friday, May 29 at noon Pacific Time (UTC-7) on the official Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook channels.
To unlock it, simply log in before May 26. If you don’t own Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire™ yet your unlocked episodes will be available to play as soon as you purchase it.
Seize the day! We’re bringing back some of the Gem Store’s most popular items this week, from convenience items to novelties to fashions for your wardrobe.
May 19
Black Lion Keys and Scrap Package
Magnificent Hummingbird Skimmer Skin and Dreadnought Raptor Skin
Emblazoned Cape, Winter Monarch Cape, and Celestial Rat Cape
May 20
Wintersday Appearance Package, Winter Monarch Outfit, and Glacial Glider—20% Off
Nightfang Griffon Skin and Tremor Armadillo Roller Beetle Skin
Glacial Chair
May 21
Copper-Fed Salvage-O-Matic—25% Off
Home instance node packages—30% Off
Shrine Guardian Jackal Skin and Sun Temple Gecko Springer Skin
Shrine Guardian Ears Package and Skyscale Horns Package
May 22
Character Slot Expansion—25% Off
Bag Slot Expansion—30% Off
Living World Complete Package Sales—30% Off
Catch up on all the events of Living World before the next episode of The Icebrood Saga, “No Quarter,” arrives, with 30% off Season 2, Season 3, and Season 4 Complete Packages!
Free Items
For the next seven days, you can pick up a free Black Lion Miniature Claim Ticket from the Gem Store. Visit on Friday, May 22, for a free Heroic Booster.
What’s in Stock
We’re refreshing our inventory of armor skin sets, so it’s a perfect time to update your summer look!
Available Now in the Gem Store!
Log into Guild Wars 2 and press 'O' to access the Black Lion Trading Company for these great offers and more!
Check out our Soundcloud on May 21 as well. We’ll release the music from previous episodes of The Icebrood Saga so you can listen to them whenever you like!
In games, there’s more to storytelling than just characters and plot. The experience of a player in the world is also a major component. For the Narrative Team, our job as writers is to bring all three elements together to craft a compelling, gripping story. In Guild Wars 2 Living World episodes, plot turns and plot twists most often live in instances, and character arcs weave throughout as invisible drivers of the episodes. But where and when does the player experience get to hog the spotlight, hmmm?
Gather round, y’all. Today we are talking about the mysterious and wondrous subject of open world storytelling. Oooooooh. Aaaaahhhh.
The open world is usually where our biggest gameplay happens in an episode. In order to really make a player’s experience part of the narrative, that gameplay has to mean something. Your character’s actions—whether battling beside allies, solving a puzzle, or partying in a mosh pit—are all a part of the commander’s story. Those actions might move the episode along by changing the world’s circumstances or by influencing how other characters see the commander. The play becomes part of the story and the story part of the play.
Every event you participate in adds to your view of what’s important in a given episode. When the stakes of the gameplay align with the stakes of the story, the story becomes more immediate for you. So if we come up with events that add to the core themes of the story, we can give you a richer player experience, which in turn makes the story itself more compelling. Even if an event doesn’t feature any key NPCs from the episode, we can impact the commander’s emotional journey by setting event goals that reflect where you are in the narrative.
Which brings me to another aspect of the open world that we use to crank up the story: immersion. One of the things we all love about Guild Wars 2 is how fully fleshed out the world is and how we feel a part of that world while playing.
The open world is the most living world of Living World episodes. It’s where the environment that makes up the story really shines through. The look and feel of the terrain, the lighting, the weather, the sounds of life or the lack thereof, all contribute to a player’s experience of the world and set the moods that color the themes of the golden path story.
With map-wide announcements we can bring characters into the open world who might otherwise be confined to story instances. For example, Bangar Ruinbringer’s rotating loudspeaker announcements in The Icebrood Saga‘s prologue episode “Bound by Blood” give you glimpses into who he is and what he cares about. With ambient dialogue, the casual conversations between random NPCs around the open world, we can convey the heart of the story. Similarly, interactions with event NPCs offer players another immersive path into the story. What are these characters’ hopes, their dreams, their fears? The tone of the episode, the state of the world, the themes that the golden path is tackling—all these become more immediate and more real through the conversations of the average people that populate the world.
Sometimes the very presence of other players alongside you is what adds to the story in the open world. The Metal Legion concert in “Bound by Blood” is a perfect example. In instances in that episode, it was Bangar standing up on a stage or a wintery overhang riling up the crowds. In those instances, players are mostly witnesses to those moments. In the open world, players become the crowd and get to feel that energy for themselves. That communal, frenetic energy of the concert let you feel what it’s like to be charr—even if you don’t usually play as one. That was the positive side of that episode’s coin. The flip side was that maybe you also understood how easy it might be to get swept up into the mob mentality that Bangar later takes advantage of. Story in the open world can be just as complex and nuanced as what’s contained in instances.
And that’s just what we can do with an average event.
Map-wide meta-events are a chance for us to amp up the player experience even more. If you’re not familiar with them, these are a series of events of varying sizes that are all working toward a single overarching goal. Meta-events are usually cyclical—they regularly reset and are not tied to the linear progression of the episode’s golden path story. Yet they have the chance to embody some of the most resonant storytelling in a Living World episode if we craft them carefully and intentionally. In the case of the upcoming episode “No Quarter,” the map-wide meta-event is going to put you right into the thick of the charr civil war.
Every element of open world storytelling mentioned above is going to make an appearance in the meta-event for “No Quarter.” Plus, when we chose which NPCs to guide you through the linked events, we made sure to select characters with personal stakes in both the outcome of the meta and outcome of the golden path story. You’ll be spending quality time with a couple of the legion imperators, Efram Greetsglory and Malice Swordshadow, each with their own perspective on and experience of the civil war. And because the actions and activities that player characters engage in during this epic battle are tied to the most important themes of the episode, every moment you spend participating in this open world meta-event will make the commander’s journey richer and the story more impactful.
There you have it. In open world storytelling, player experience is the star. So what are you waiting for, Commander? Jump into the trenches in “No Quarter” and find out just what this civil war means for the charr.
