The Arena.Net blog has been updated with a preview of this weekend's Guild Wars 2 beta. Included in the post are useful factoids about character carry-over, new dungeons to explore and other improvements in the game since the first weekend.

UI Improvements

MMO players are often very particular about their user interface, and we’re no exception. We’ve listened to your feedback and have refined our UI to make it even easier to use. We’ve revamped the mini-map in the bottom-right corner of the screen. The formerly round mini-map is now square and can easily be resized for better navigation.

Read the full blog post on the Guild Wars 2 site.

OMG can't wait.

Only get to play Saturday night/ all day Sunday, but I can't wait to get back into GW2.

Can't wait. I need something decent to play after my Diablo 3 disappointment-fatigue.

I love the new mini map and being able to resize it. I missed that from Guild Wars 1.

It's refreshing to see so many little things the player base requested are just flat out in. No spin or double speak vaguely explaining why certain requested features aren't possible, they simply got to work and got them in game - and that's on top of a ton of other improvements and additions.

That's the opposite of what I experienced in other recent betas over the past 7 months, in which suggestions like that were the equivelant of wishful thinking, and any changes we did see were tiny rather than impressive.

The mystic stone is pretty clever. Reduces storage space clutter, while at the same time rewarding the player for doing so. Nice touch.

Changes sound awesome. but more specifically the structured pvp tournies! Man, I wont be able to play much this weekend but I hope to get into one of those tournaments and check out WvW stuff.

Originally posted by Valkaern

It's refreshing to see so many little things the player base requested are just flat out in. No spin or double speak vaguely explaining why certain requested features aren't possible, they simply got to work and got them in game - and that's on top of a ton of other improvements and additions.

That's the opposite of what I experienced in other recent betas over the past 7 months, in which suggestions like that were the equivelant of wishful thinking, and any changes we did see were tiny rather than impressive.

That's what i was thinking too.  They did all this in around 2 months or less too.  Very impressive!

Dunno whether I should continue leveling my guardian or make a new profession D: DAMN THE LACK OF TIME WITH NEW CONTENT! I also hope they introduce sylvari despite the fact they said that they wouldn't include em. You know, like a surprise or something. The blog did have a picture of a Sylvari Ranger soooo.... fingers crossed

Chat bubbles :) zone chat :) resizeble mini map :) overflow issues :) dungeon in WvWvW :) ................. im a happy happy man :)

Now I'm glad they delayed the Beta Event because it gave them enough time to implement all of this. I mean seriously, this is a heck of a lot of new features and improvements to be implemented in just over a month and a lot of it was taken from the feedback people gave (especially the Overflow problem). Other supposed Triple A devs should take note and listen to the beta feedback, of their target playerbase. Maybe then we'll have less mediocre MMORPGs.

Originally posted by FreeBooteR

The mystic stone is pretty clever. Reduces storage space clutter, while at the same time rewarding the player for doing so. Nice touch.

Where I can learn more about that stone? Reduces storage space clutter how?

Originally posted by thedarkess

Originally posted by FreeBooteR

The mystic stone is pretty clever. Reduces storage space clutter, while at the same time rewarding the player for doing so. Nice touch.

Where I can learn more about that stone? Reduces storage space clutter how?

Talking about the Mystic Forge and it's in the Blog Post... Read it.

I was happy with the way the game was last beta.. if they'd have released it then it would have been my money well spent IMO. But it just keeps getting better and better. I've never seen a game improve so much (in theory, we are yet to try it) in such a short amount of time.

Originally posted by Master10K

Originally posted by thedarkess

Originally posted by FreeBooteR

The mystic stone is pretty clever. Reduces storage space clutter, while at the same time rewarding the player for doing so. Nice touch.

Where I can learn more about that stone? Reduces storage space clutter how?

Talking about the Mystic Forge and it's in the Blog Post... Read it.

Actually there's also a mystic stone in the cashshop and we are wondering what it does -_-

.hope it ain't necessary to use the mystic forge

Sounds like some great changes.  Unfortunately it looks like we're only getting 500 more gems.  So no server transfers for those who wanted to switch to a friend's server.  Other than that, awesome stuff.  It's refreshing to see a company that listens to player feedback.

Originally posted by Epierce41

Sounds like some great changes.  Unfortunately it looks like we're only getting 500 more gems.  So no server transfers for those who wanted to switch to a friend's server.  Other than that, awesome stuff.  It's refreshing to see a company that listens to player feedback.

 

Well as long as you don't care about playing WvW with friends you can play everything else on their server.

Originally posted by thedarkess

Originally posted by Epierce41

Sounds like some great changes.  Unfortunately it looks like we're only getting 500 more gems.  So no server transfers for those who wanted to switch to a friend's server.  Other than that, awesome stuff.  It's refreshing to see a company that listens to player feedback.

 

Well as long as you don't care about playing WvW with friends you can play everything else on their server.

That's kind of exactly what I wanted to do, lol

Holy crap, all good things come to those who wait indeed. That's a HUGE amount of work in such a short amount of time. So excited >_< Crap, and I had meant to ignore the beta this weekend. Not going to happen, now.