Over the weekend, ArenaNet published a video starring Guild Wars 2 Narrative Designer Scott McGough as he talks a little about the ambitions and goals for the Consortium, who play a large role in the events currently going on in Southsun Cove. Watch out Black Lion Trading Company– it seems you’ve got a bit of a competition. He also touches on the goals and ambitions that ArenaNet has concerning May’s content update and the Living World story arcs as a whole. Jump past the cut to take a look.

Oh, yeah, and it seems ArenaNet is gearing up to release additional information on the next phase of May’s Southsun event. On the Secret of Southsun information page, there is a new teaser box for a May 28th update known as “Last Stand at Southsun.” The box doesn’t link to a page just yet, but that will change in the near future we’re sure! All we know so far is that it involves “A desperate villain– a monstrous plan!”

All right, I’ll come clean. I’m a music nerd. Marching band, jazz band– the whole nine yards. I’m also a MMORPG nerd, which should come as no surprise. Put the two together and what do you get? That’s right– game music! Guild Wars 2 has some real gems as far as music is concerned, and one of my all-time favorite Guild Wars tracks has to be “Fear Not This Night”, which is featured in Guild Wars 2 and is composed by Jeremy Soule, who has made some fantastic game soundtracks through the years. It helps, of course, that the vocal version of “Fear Not This Night” is enchanting to listen to.

So, I can’t help myself. I have another fan-made music video for you today, this time featuring “Fear Not This Night” performed mainly with violins. It’s a beautiful rendition, and the video’s fairly goofy to boot, which makes for a fun combo. Keep reading to check it out!

Join us as we discuss the imminent changes to WvW as well as we discuss the current state of the game and what we’d do to fix it!

We also get some insight into how Red Guard gets the job done. Red Guard has become notorious for overcoming tough odds with the use of strategy, skilled play, and great build combinations.

Watch this week’s episode by hitting continue.

I know, I know. Wintersday is over. But that doesn’t mean the music stops! I think it’s safe to say that music will be a major appeal to many Guild Wars 2 fans from now on, thanks to the lovely Unbreakable Bell item. Speaking of which, we’ve got a treat today for Guild Wars 2 fans who happen to also be Portal fans. One talented fan took Portal’s “Still Alive” end title track and performed it using nothing but the Unbreakable Bell, GW2′s in-game organ, and a bit of editing (okay, more than a bit). It’s nothing short of impressive!

Keep reading to see the video.

Ever wanted to hop on, quickly take care of your daily achievement, and move on to something more fun? Matt Visual over on YouTube shows Guild Wars 2 players an extremely fast way of farming the needed amount of kills and events needed to nab the bit of extra karma and cash obtained from doing the achievement every day. His favorite farming location happens to be Queensdale, and he directs players on which mobs to kill and provides a sample route. As a bonus, he’s a pretty entertaining guy.

Keep reading to check it out.

As Wintersday winds down and the holidays come to an end, we have one final Wintersday video to share. This one’s a little unique in that it’s featuring a popular GW2 theme– the iconic “Fear Not This Night“, which is part of the official soundtrack– but with a twist. One musician took the theme and made an intrumental fan remix of the tune, made it available for fans, and even created a matching Wintersday-themed video. Keep reading to take a peek! It’s definitely worth a listen.

It’s been a good week for The Lost Shores information reveals! Yesterday we received another developer blog update from Leah Rivera, who showed off some details and a cool video about the new dungeon that’s built out of mini-dungeons being added Friday– Fractals of the Mist:

This dungeon is unlike anything you’ve played in Guild Wars 2. It’s built of an array of mini-dungeons, which we call fractals. These fractals are slices of the Mists, fragments of time that have been stabilized by the intrepid asura researcher Dessa. Some of these vignettes from history may be familiar to original Guild Wars players, while others will represent previously unseen events. Because of their eclectic origin, each fractal is built as a distinct, separate experience with themes, mechanics, and art specific to that fractal.

Leah Rivera goes on to explain the fractals system, which plops your party at a central hub every time a mini-dungeon, or fractal, has been cleared. After this point, the party has the opportunity to explore a different fractal, which is completely random and scales in difficulty as your party advances. This new dungeon will be open for players of all levels, since it will scale us to level 80, but it’s definitely meant to be a challenge, especially for lower level parties.

Keep reading to check out the video, which is quite impressive!

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.

Hello, all. Around two weeks ago, I came up with a Guardian Paladin WoW-style build. Some viewed it as a glass cannon. “Can’t possibly live,” some said. Well, they were proven wrong. But I was not satisfied with that build at all. It didn’t have enough sustained healing for my liking, and not quite enough defenses.

So, enter Guardian Paladin 2.0 version. In this version you have more defenses, sustained healing, higher burst crits, and the ability to cancel 8 attacks in a row with skills. Does that sound fun and extremely good to you? Well, let me start with the build. Keep reading to see the stat breakdowns, explanations, examples of it in action, and more!

Act 4: Mad King’s Simon Says

Our final act of Shadow of the Mad King is, well, less mad, and more of a reason to celebrate. The Mad King is now cool with everyone and wants to play a little game. He does a Simon Says-type game he calls “Mad King says” in Lion’s Arch. It’s pretty straight forward to figure out, and one of the rewards for completing the mini-game is a witch’s hat that seems to be offered at silver level participation or above.

For those who are not familiar with Simon Says the game– it’s quite simple. The Mad King will say a random emote, and the player must repeat that emote directly after. If he does not say an emote, then do nothing. Failure to correctly repeat the emotes gets you a flat lining debuff that floors you. That’s about it!