Game Of Thorns: Test Out Guild Wars 2's First Expansion

ArenaNet are letting seep a slow drip of Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns [official site], the sequel's first expansion pack. There's still no release date, but starting May 26th you have a chance to test out some of the new PvE content in the closed beta - if you completed the key tasks. If not, well, you can probably watch it streamed.

The short beta consists of a small amount of expansion story content, followed by two beta versions of outposts in the new Verdant Brink map - The latter of which includes an "early, partially completed version of the day/night cycle meta-event experience," the developers announced on its official blog. They continue, with Joycean flair: "If you obtained a portal to the Heart of Maguuma during the special event in Dry Top and the Silverwastes, you’ll receive an e-mail with all the details you’ll need to get started." What prose, it wafts over me like sweet perfume.

Anyhow, for those who prefer lazily dozing, the event won't be under any NDA restrictions. Which means you can expect to find it all streamed on Twitch during the scheduled beta period. Here's the schedule - The events will take place in two hour chunks, with a break in between:

11:30 a.m. Pacific Time (UTC-7) to 1:30 p.m. Pacific Time (UTC-7)
3:30 p.m. Pacific Time (UTC-7) to 5:30 p.m. Pacific Time (UTC-7)
7:30 p.m. Pacific Time (UTC-7) to 9:30 p.m. Pacific Time (UTC-7)