Winter is definitely upon us, and ArenaNet is continuing their tradition of rolling out fun holiday events for Guild Wars fans. From December 14th through January 3rd, Guild Wars 2 will be decked out in all the holiday cheer of Wintersday, Tyria’s winter-flavored holiday event. The team released a teaser page for the event so far, which shows off some colorful concept art drawings, and tells players a bit about what to expect during Wintersday.

Toys. That’s right. Wintersday is all about toys and goodies. Toymaker Trixx will be visiting Lion’s Arch this year, and toys and fun will both be aplenty. Sounds festive!

Visit ArenaNet’s Wintersday page for more information.

In other recent, not-quite-related news, the Black Lion Trading Company now sells Self-Style Hair Kits and Makeover Kits that players can use to completely change their in-game looks. The hair kits cost 250 gems for one kit or five kits for 1000 gems. The makeover kits cost 350 gems apiece or five for 1400. As an added bonus, gender changes are also a part of the makeover kit.

Hello, guys. What I wanted to do for the community today is to give you a realistic view of chasing a legendary. This is the view from a person actually chasing it himself. As usual, I’ll get to the point and give you the facts. This is the fastest way to achieve your goals. Let’s go right into it. Feel free to discuss everything listed, and add suggestions if you happen to have any.

Shadow of the Mad King is packed full of spooky fun, sneaky surprises, and tasty goodies, but there’s one small problem when it comes to grabbing some of the best event items out there– the rarer items that come from the special Halloween Black Lion chests can be extremely rare. Ever since the event began, players have been reporting the amount of rare items obtained from opening the chests, and for most players, the amount’s lower than expected. This is a surprise to many players, especially those who have purchased Gems in order to try their luck with Halloween chests.

Good news, event item hunters– ArenaNet’s planning on changing up the system a bit. Here’s the announcement, which was delivered by Regina Buenaobra, North American Community Team Lead:

Originally posted by ReginaBuenaobra (Source)

---

Hey, everyone. As mentioned earlier in this thread, the team has taken on board your feedback and concerns.

We’d recommend not throwing away or selling the items you’ve been receiving in the Black Lion Chests, as we’ll be providing ways in which those items can be used to obtain Halloween-related items…

We’ll have further updates when they become available.

Thank you again for all your feedback.

We’ll just have to see what the team comes up with. In the meantime, happy hunting– and haunting!

ArenaNet announced yesterday that select retail stores will now be selling Gem Cards for Guild Wars 2. Players can purchase Gem Cards and use them in-game to receive Gems without having to utilize a credit card. Here’s the official announcement:

“You can purchase gems in-game from the Black Lion Trading Company, but starting this week you can also purchase Guild Wars 2 gems in real life at select retailers. These cards, which make a great gift, contain a serial code that can be redeemed in Guild Wars 2 for gems.

If gem cards aren’t in stock at your favorite retailer yet, be sure to ask if and when they’ll be arriving.

For redemption instructions and additional information about gems, visit the Guild Wars 2 Support page.”

Update 10/17: ArenaNet has released a list of retailers where Gem Cards can be purchased.

For crafters or salvagers looking for ways to get the most bang from your Guild Wars 2 time, here’s an interesting item to consider: Mystic Salvage Kits. These yellow-quality kits raise the chances of finding rarer materials by 25% and recovering upgrades by 80%. The item recovery stats are the same as the stats on Master’s Salvage Kits, but with an interesting twist– they come in stacks of 250. Yes, 250! Out on a long farming session or WvWvW adventure and often run into bag space issues? Mystic Salvage Kits may be your answer.

There’s a slight catch, naturally. Mystic Salvage Kits must be made at the Mystic Forge, and require the following materials: 1 Fine Salvage Kit, 1 Journeyman’s Salvage Kit, 1 Master’s Salvage Kit, and 3 Mystic Forge Stones. Mystic Forge Stones are available in the Black Lion Trading Company Gem Store, which makes forging these kits a little complicated. Still, it’s an interesting option.

Check out this video, where Dontain talks about Mystic Salvage Kits.

What do you think– worth the Gems, or no?

As we round the final bend toward Guild Wars 2′s launch, it’s impossible to not notice the rising storm of excitement, anticipation, and– well, there’s no sense in beating around the bush– hype. There, I said it. GW2 is carrying a lot of hype right now. MMO players are eager for something new, something shiny, and most importantly– something different. As most modern MMO fans know, hype can be a risky business, but GW2 has a lot of things going right for it so far. The combination of the game’s dynamic event system, dynamic leveling adjustment system, WvWvW feature, cooperative world system, and non-trinity combat system is a fairly innovative step in the industry, and a large reason for the hype.

Another innovative step is the move away from the classic subscription model. Most MMORPGs these days launch with a subscription model that may or may not prove the test of time, and if the game ends up slipping into a free-to-play model, many players feel frustrated with the model slip no matter their stance. Why? Because the developers will often veil the changes in flowery, positive PR lingo, change the way content patches are added to the game, and in general– change the game dramatically. Gamers prefer their games and development teams at face value– and that’s where Guild Wars 2 comes in.

For those of us who are diving headfirst into Guild Wars 2 from other MMOs that don’t feature microtransaction/cash shops, the idea of such a shop in GW2 may still taste a little bitter on our tongues. We’ve all heard the horror stories of games drifting to unwanted pay-to-win territories, and we’re all hoping that ArenaNet avoids going anywhere near that path. Will the company succeed? I sure hope so. They’re doing some excellent things with their cash shop. Still, my eyes remain sharp to the changes being made to it. As a result, I’ve been tracking the shop’s differences between beta weekends.

Every beta weekend event has seen some pretty large changes to the in-game gem/cash shop. Since BWE2, it now sports a new name: Black Lion Trading Company. For those interested in tracking the changes made along with me, here are the changes made between BWE2 and BWE3.

The Gem Store has seen a facelift of sorts since the first beta weekend event. This past weekend, we saw its new version, now known as the Black Lion Trading Company. A good amount of the items are the same, but there have been a couple significant changes. The store UI itself has been redone, for one thing. The new UI is easier to navigate, and the art is more in-tune with the rest of Guild Wars 2′s UI artistic elements. Most items have new graphics, and some have new names as well.

Among the added items is the rumored character slot expansion, some nifty glasses and sunglasses, a partial Trading Post summon item, a multiple-buff booster pack, and a “Box o’ Fun”. The Style tab, especially, is beginning to expand. Read on for more information!