ArenaNet announced today that it will be showing off a new Guild Wars 2 demo at Gamescom next month that includes a lot of public premieres: the Charr starter area, the playable sylvari and asura races, character customization and PvP! Here's an overview of what will be shown at NCsoft's booth:

• Seven professions – Play all seven professions that we’ve revealed so far: engineer, thief, guardian, necromancer, ranger, warrior, and elementalist.
• Charr starter experience – For the first time, you can forge your destiny as a member of the Iron, Ash, or Blood Legion in our charr starter area. You can also choose to play the human and norn starting experience as well.
• Mid level demo – As always, we’ve prepared a higher level demo experience for players who want a challenge. Face powerful Orrian enemies on land, engage them in battle underwater and face off against a new boss.
• Sylvari and asura – Did I mention that you’ll be playing sylvari and asura characters for this high level content? Yes, for the first time, players will be able to get their hands on these unique races – believe me, they are impressive!
• Character appearance customization – Also for the first time, you’ll be able to play around with our character appearance customization feature and control the way your character looks.
• PvP – Last but certainly not least, we’re premiering Guild Wars 2 Player vs Player (PvP) at gamescom!

Gamescom will be held in Cologne, Germany from August 17-21.

On June 24, ArenaNet invited members of the Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 communities to visit their new offices in Bellevue, Washington for a day-long open house event. The group got to take a tour of the studio, play through Guild Wars 2 dungeons and underwater combat, and even help record sound effects for the game.

Want to get a brief tour of the ArenaNet offices? Then watch the video below!

In the latest Guild Wars 2 dev blog entry, Cinematic Department Lead Horia Dociu has posted the cinematic intro for the Ascalonian Catacombs dungeon. "We want the cinematics to feel like moving paintings," Dociu said, and they've certainly accomplished that task. Watch the video below to hear iconic charr Rytlock Brimstone tell the tale of the fall of the human kingdom of Ascalon.

Dungeons have been a major focus in ArenaNet's blog this week. Content Designer William Fairfield has written an in-depth blog entry that explains how the team is designing dungeons in Guild Wars 2, and Lore and Continuity Designer Jeff Grubb's dev blog entry covers the entire dungeon system.

Content Designer William Fairfield has written an in-depth blog entry that explains how the ArenaNet team is designing dungeons in Guild Wars 2. He introduces the members of the dungeon team, outlines how a dungeon starts off as a paper design and goes through internal playtesting, and even gives some details on the Ascalonian Catacombs and Sorrow's Embrace dungeons.

Guild Wars 2 doesn't have the "holy trinity" of tank, DPS and healer for dungeons. Instead, it's all about the team as a whole. Here are more details from Fairfield:

"Traditional MMO boss fights consist of one character running up to get aggro, another character healing them, and the rest of the team just slamming their heads against the boss. Instead, we have players making conscious decisions in combat about where to stand, what role to play, when to roll out, etc. Overall, our dungeons have a more team-oriented feel to them. One person does not dictate the flow of a dungeon; the entire team contributes to the direction. This could mean making decisions as a team on which path to take or splitting up to fight two pieces of a boss at the same time."

For more details on dungeons, check out Lore and Continuity Designer Jeff Grubb's recent dev blog entry that covers the entire dungeon system.

Over the past several months, we've been working on revamping our forum interface to make posting on ZAM a more streamlined and enjoyable experience. We are proud to announce that our upgraded forums are now live! We've stripped away the clutter and added a variety of new features, from updated contact information options to the ability to embed YouTube videos in your posts.

The main focus of this revamp is to make our forums easy to use. Posting buttons are more prominent, you can quickly reply to a thread directly from the thread view page, and you can now search within a thread. We've also expanded the options for our non-premium members. They can now select from a variety of pre-made avatars, use emoticons, enjoy mouse-over previews and post images and polls after reaching a specific post count.

We have forums for multiple games and topics, and we've made it easier to move from forum to forum. In the top right corner of the main forum page, you can quickly jump to any category. Whether you want to talk about games like Rift and World of Warcraft or more general topics like computer hardware or TV and movies, we've got you covered. We even have a new Star Wars: The Old Republic forum, so be one of the first users to share your thoughts on this highly anticipated MMO!

For more details on all of these changes, check out our design update notes after the jump. We hope you enjoy our forum upgrade! If you have any feedback or comments, please feel free to post them in this thread or send a private message to Kaolian, our senior forum administrator, or Darqflame, our customer relations manager.

ArenaNet just published a pair of Guild Wars 2 developer blog entries that focus on dungeons and underwater combat, and they complement each other nicely. They're both worth reading if you're looking forward to Guild Wars 2, but we'll give you the highlights.

Lore and Continuity Designer Jeff Grubb explains that dungeons are multiplayer, instanced adventuring areas that open up at level 35. There are currently eight dungeons in the game, and each one has a story version and three explorable versions. You'll have to complete the story version first to unlock the explorable versions. Bonus dynamic events can be triggered in the dungeons by player actions, by location, or even by random chance.

Game Designer Jonathan “Chaplan” Sharp goes in-depth into Guild Wars 2's underwater combat system, emphasizing that "there’s a huge amount of underwater content" to explore. When you dive underwater, you'll get a breathing appartus and special underwater weapons and skills. The transition from land to water is "seamless and immersive," and the underwater experience will be a "vital" part of the game. Expect to get your feet wet in dungeons!

"What makes a good MMORPG?"

I've decided to devote a bit of my time and a few articles to exploring this. In my last article, I talked about gameplay mechanics and combat, and in the one before I spoke of story and premise. Now I'll focus on character progression and the leveling process!