We’re happy to announce that we’ll soon begin inviting select individuals to help us test the new World vs. World desert Borderlands map coming with the release of Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns™. This initial test will be small in size and duration and will focus on stressing the stability of our systems. We’re planning on expanding the number of participants involved for later tests, and we’ll release more information on how you can participate in those tests sometime in the future. This initial test will feature some of the most active WvW players in Guild Wars 2.

Even if you don’t make it into the stress test yourself, you can catch the first glimpse of live gameplay on Twitch as many of our participants will be streaming and won’t be under any sort of nondisclosure agreement.

Future Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns Tests

We want to take this opportunity to clarify how we’re running each of our public tests for Heart of Thorns.

First of all, our Stronghold Player vs. Player public beta tests will always be open to anyone who owns Guild Wars 2. There are no sign-ups or special requirements. Keep an eye on the Guild Wars 2 site for future announcements on when Stronghold will be available to play in PvP.

Secondly, our Heart of Thorns PvE closed beta events are open to players who have found a portal to the Heart of Maguuma in-game or may have been selected by signing up for the Guild Wars 2 newsletter. More information on gaining access to Heart of Thorns PvE closed beta events can be found in our recent blog post.

Finally, stress tests like our WvW Borderlands stress tests are limited in nature and will run on an entirely separate client. More information on how you can get an invite to participate will be released at a later time.