I know. You’re thinking this title’s crazy. It probably is, but hey– you can’t totally fault me. I was inspired by a piece of in-game architecture! An old pillar in Metrica Province reads “Given asura ‘Place of Ultra-Mega-Importance’ status in 1325 A.E.” When I first found the pillar a couple hours into my Metric Province leveling adventure during Headstart, I instantly fell in love with the area, and everything to do with the asura race– even though, you know, I’m really a tiger-striped lumbering charr. No matter. Awesomeness is awesomeness, right?

With that attitude in mind, I come to you with a brand new Guild Wars 2 Junkies feature. You can call it the Question Box. You can call it whatever you want, really, but what I’m calling it is a “Place of Ultra-Mega Awesomeness.” We all have things we love about Guild Wars 2, places that make us cheer out and say “yes, this is my ultra-mega place!” We all have classes, abilities, and features we’re passionate about, either negatively or positively. This is a place to share all that. A couple times a week I’ll be raising a Guild Wars 2 question to the community– hopefully an interesting one– and we’ll share our opinions.

Reddit user donoftheslum has put together an amazing compilation of armor and weapon models for each race of all the PVP armor sets that you can find in the lockers. So if you’re trying to finally decide on a race, then this collection is for you.

Due to the request of original poster, we have kept the links to the original galleries intact. Thanks don!

Information

There are four different model types:

• Asura Male and Female
• Charr Male and Female
• Human, Sylvari, Norn Male
• Human, Sylvari, Norn Female

I chose Charr Male, Asura Female, Human Male (Norn starting area wasn't working) and Human Female. This should cover all the available armor types.

Want to see what Norn Male armor looks like? View Human Male. They are the same. Sylvari Female? Human Female is the same. Hence the * in the title.

Keep reading for all the gallery links!

Welcome to This is My Story, a brand new column on Guild Wars 2 Junkies where I’ll be diving deep into the corner pockets of Tyria and showcasing interesting tidbits I happen to find along the way. For the most part, this column will focus on the PvE adventures of a casual gamer with a raiding past who’s a bit of an altaholic and very much an exploration nut. Colorful nuggets to hunt for in the wild and dangerous battles to charge haphazardly into are among my delicious recipes for… happiness? Disaster? A bit of both, sure– but think of the potential! Join me as I bring a little randomness to the GW2 scene.

As we make our way toward the much-anticipated GW2 headstart, I’ll be talking a bit about what there is to look forward to once we’re unleashed in Tyria. If you’re thinking something along the lines of, “Duh– everything!” right now, you’re probably correct, but hey, let’s narrow it down a bit, eh? First up this week, let’s talk about how awesome the different races of Guild Wars 2 are, and what a difficult decision it can be to choose between them.

Ever wonder what Asura children teasing each other are like? Wonder no more! Those clever and humorous devs over at Arenanet have put in some cool “flavor” if you’re willing to wander around and find it.

Check out the video. Your momma’s IQ is so low…

With BWE3 coming this weekend, Arenanet will be wiping all characters and will also be adding both the Sylvari and Asura race. Since launch is only a month and a half away, what will you being doing this weekend? Will you be checking out the new races or will you be trying out multiple classes to figure out what you’ll be playing at launch?

Beta is a great time to get prepared for how you’ll be playing once the game goes live. Since there is no public ongoing test server, there are tons of changes from Weekend Event to Weekend Event. Rumor has it that a few of the classes, namely the Engineer, have gone through some major changes. Are you an engineer itching to get your hands on a flamethrower again?

Regardless of your chosen class or race, there is a lot of content to be tested. Arenanet is opening up new pvp maps, adding new things to W3 and allowing players to choose between two brand new races. There is certainly a lot to be tested and most likely, you won’t have time to check all of it out. If you’re a min/maxing Junkie then you might want to focus on one single area and get the most out of your time.

Here are two things that would most likely be important to discover, keep reading to see if you agree.

World vs. World
New objectives have been added to the Mists of W3 called Sentries. A good place to start is to find all of their locations and see how many points or experience they give. These may be good places to hit as a low level player to receive some quick rewards.

Asura and Sylvari are Now Available
The final two races are now available to play, and if you plan on playing one at launch, now is your opportunity to explore and learn the maps. If your objective is to level as fast as possible, you might want to learn the flow of the map so that you can get the most out of your time at launch, gain levels and skill points faster, and crush your opponents in W3 swiftly.

There is one caveat that is worthy of testing. The bulk of anyone’s experience comes from events and events are more rewarding when there are more players available. The more people around, the faster events are completed which gives you more experience. Typically in other MMO launches, you want to stay ahead of the tide of players so you don’t run into competition. In GW2, this is not an issue, and staying at the crest of the wave might be more beneficial (assuming you don’t have a large guild to level with).

So this weekend you can test which is faster, leveling with the masses or shooting out ahead. The Sylvari and Asura maps will most likely be more crowded and give you the opportunity to test this.

Assuming that you’ve spend a lot of time throughout all the Weekend Events playing GW2 and you won’t be playing just for the pure joy of the game, what will you be doing this weekend?

Today we received news that we’ll be able to finally play as the asura and sylvari races in the next beta weekend event, which runs from July 20th to July 22nd. Along with the news, we also got a sneak peek at some screenshots and details about the lush landscapes these two races call home.

For asura players, this means beginning your tale in Metrica Province, a vivid, exotic jungle area full of high-tech laboratories, quirky golems, and competing krewes of mad scientists. Nearby, the massive monoliths of the asuran capital Rata Sum hum with technomagical power. These diminutive geniuses may seem cute at first glance, but never underestimate an asura…

Sylvari players begin their story in the Grove, a luminous living city nestled in the shade of the Pale Tree, the “mother” of every member of this young race of plant humanoids. The sylvari are an enigmatic race of chivalrous explorers who are driven by an insatiable curiosity and guided by a collective Dream.

The two starting areas sound amazing. Make sure and check out the full developer blog and the accompanying screenshots!

Oh, and if you’re curious about some in-game asura footage, check out this Gamespot video.

We got a chance to ask Guild Wars 2 Lead Designer, Eric Flannum, a few questions about the game ranging from World vs World, class balance, PVP vs. PVE progression and more. We’re very excited to share this with, especially on the same day that Arenanet has announced that the game’s launch is August 28, just two months from now!

GW2 Junkies: Guild Wars 2 has some amazing character models, ranging from gigantic norn to tiny asura. With any competitive MMO, players worry about hit boxes and how character models affect gameplay. Since a player can get hit by stray damage, how have you designed the hit boxes for all the varied sizes and shapes that GW2 has to offer—asura are short, norn are tall, charr are wide (and low to the ground when they are running), etc.?

Eric Flannum: Every player character in Guild Wars 2 has the exact same sized collision cylinder. For asura this means that the cylinder is larger than they are and for norn it means that it is smaller. Very early in the process of making the game we knew this was going to be the case, so the min and max sizes of our races are heavily influenced by this.

Today we get a great hands on preview of the Asura from PCGamer. Check out the article as the author takes us through character creation through the starting area.

Now, this one really wasn’t my fault, I swear! It’s those crazy developers at ArenaNet and their awesome dynamic event system, which kept the kiddie scientists’ lab in seemingly constant peril from enraged fire elementals, giant yaks and the like. Every time I ran by the laboratory, the kids were running outside, fleeing some new horrible disaster they’d created—and no matter how times I helped, they always found some horrible new way to endanger their lives. It was, frankly, quite exciting to see what they’d cook up next and I kept poking my head in to sadistically spy on their unfortunate circumstances. The nastiest brought this angry broodmother to their doorstep.

Also included in the article are a bunch of new screenshots that you might not have seen yet!

Source: Guild Wars 2 Asura preview: Experimental science and our exclusive hands-on impressions

Guild Wars 2 has reach a new Like milestone and has released a new piece of concept art. Keep liking them so we can get more!