Join Us for a Stronghold PvP Public Beta!

[Karizee]

Join Us for a Stronghold PvP
Public Beta!

by The Guild Wars 2 Team on May 29, 2015


If you can’t wait for Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns™ to get your hands on the new Stronghold Player vs. Player game mode, be sure to join us on June 2 at noon Pacific Time (UTC‑7) for the second Stronghold PvP Public Beta! The map will be available live within Guild Wars 2 for 24 hours, so you’ll have plenty of time to storm the enemy gates (and to defend your own).

To get started in Stronghold, you’ll need to head to the Heart of the Mists, which can be accessed through the main portal in Lion’s Arch or through the PvP panel icon located at the top of your screen. Once you’re ready, queue for an Unranked Arena match. You’ll see Battle of Champion’s Dusk as the featured map; vote for it, hit “Accept” when your queue pops, and enjoy the battle! Conquest matches can still be played in Ranked Arena.

Want to learn more about how to play Stronghold? Check out Ready Up episode 28, or read all about it on the official Guild Wars 2 site.


Tournaments

As part of the Stronghold beta, tournament organizers ESL, Academy Gaming, and AspectGG will also be hosting the first ever Stronghold tournaments available on live servers. Teams stand to earn gem codes for placing highly in the tournament, and all teams that win a round in the events will be rewarded with a mini llama for participation. Because sign-ups are limited to 16 teams per region, we recommend that you reserve your slot in these tournaments as soon as possible. These tournaments are open to all players with no restriction. If you aren’t competing, you can always catch the tournament broadcast live on Twitch.

Europe: ESL Stronghold 5v5 Cup

Tournament time: Tuesday, June 2, at 12:30 p.m. Pacific Time (UTC-7)
Livestreams:

• English, hosted by Jebro and ChroNick: http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2
• German, hosted by Sputti and ChroNick: http://www.twitch.tv/guildnews
• French, hosted by Waffle and Audio: http://www.twitch.tv/fureurwebtv
• Spanish, hosted by FariFariNos and Reihn: http://www.twitch.tv/farifarinos

Click here to sign up.


North America: Academy Gaming/AspectGG Stronghold Beta Cup

Tournament time: Tuesday, June 2, at 5:30 p.m. Pacific Time (UTC-7)
Livestreams:

• English, hosted by Storm and Heurix: http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2

Click here to sign up.


https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/j...p-public-beta/

[Arlee]

Oh yay! I had a ton of fun the last time they did this.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I wasn't able to play last time, so hopefully I'll be able to check it out on Tuesday!

[Tidezen]

Sounds very...MOBA.

I'll give a it a shot though, who knows, could be fun.

[Karizee]

Beta opens in 1 hour!

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/p...ic-beta-today/


Edit: Here's the changes for today's beta!
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/foru...s-for-6-2-Beta

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I successfully communed with the mist essences three different times during a match but not once ever saw a hero. Hell; I didn't even know who I was summoning. There was no RP, no name, no thing. No hero spawned (from what I could see) when I summoned, so basically these heroes are just invisible buffs? IDK. Not very heroic if you can't actually fight alongside them.

[Deleted]

I successfully communed with the mist essences three different times during a match but not once ever saw a hero. Hell; I didn't even know who I was summoning. There was no RP, no name, no thing. No hero spawned (from what I could see) when I summoned, so basically these heroes are just invisible buffs? IDK. Not very heroic if you can't actually fight alongside them.

I didnt play in this beta so i dont know if it was any different, but in the previous one red and blue had their own hero that would make their way to the other team's base and you'd get buffs if you fought beside them (they didnt move very fast). As far as I know you just had to commune with the mist essence for this.

[Karizee]

I successfully communed with the mist essences three different times during a match but not once ever saw a hero. Hell; I didn't even know who I was summoning. There was no RP, no name, no thing. No hero spawned (from what I could see) when I summoned, so basically these heroes are just invisible buffs? IDK. Not very heroic if you can't actually fight alongside them.

The Hero spawns in your offensive lane, you'll see a red fist icon moving up the lane on your mini map. Turai Ossa for blue team and Grymm Svaard for red. They are rather large fellows, you can't miss them

When you are in their range (an aoe buff white circle surrounding them) you get a blue fire aura on your character which indicates you have the buff. They attack mobs and can damage gates, you can stack might on them to make them extremely powerful.

[PixelFox]

Meh, I'm gonna (or have already?) miss it.

/sadface

No worries, you have 2.5 hours left at this point.

[Arlee]

Meh, I'm gonna (or have already?) miss it.

/sadface

I sadly missed it as well. Real life decided to not let me play last night I wonder if the changes they made helped some of the issues from the last test. It was nice to see them tweaking things in between betas

[Karizee]

There was a bunch of feedback from players wanting a separate queue for Stronghold mode, yesterday after the patch went live we saw this for a few moments:




Then this post from John Corpening.

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/foru...st#post5133175

This is a work in progress and the UI for it made it out on accident today. We have corrected that.

Since we spilled the beans on it , I’m happy to let you know that this feature has come about from the feedback we have received from our community during our Stronghold Betas. We hope to be showing it for real in the next test we do for Stronghold.

John

[PixelFox]

Stronghold honestly is not much different from the other PvP maps. It's much closer to the existing maps than it is any kind of true MOBA, but having more control when queuing is nice (up to the point that you want to do a map that nobody else wants to even have the possibility of doing and your queue times skyrocket).

So I have somewhat mixed feelings about it.