WvW Season 1 has been delayed and was the next free trial leaked?

In a blog post released last Friday, Devon Carver of the Guild Wars 2 World vs. World (WvW) team announced that ArenaNet is pushing back the start of the first WvW Season. The delay is due to a restructuring of the Leagues in the NA bracket.

Originally, there were going to be three leagues of nine for the EU and only two leagues of 12 for the NA. Since WvW match-ups would only be against other worlds within a league, the leagues needed to be divisible by three since each match-up would include three worlds.

After feedback from the community, ArenaNet has decided to expand the NA bracket to three leagues which will hopefully allow a more competitive atmosphere. The Gold League will include the top six worlds while the Silver and Bronze Leagues will include nine worlds each. The EU will remain unchanged with nine worlds in each league.

The delay will push WvW Season 1 from its originally start date of October 4th back a couple weeks to October 18th. Not all of the features that were coming with the new season however, are getting pushed back. World Ability Points will still be reset with the patch on October 1st with no other refund happening prior to the season's start. Additionally the bonus chest rewards for match-up placement will be going live with the patch. At the end of each week, player's will receive 1-3 bonus WvW rank up chests depending on where their world placed during the matchup. This reward will happen every week after the patch independent of a current WvW Season.

Currently there is a free trial happening for Guild Wars 2 which lasts through this Thursday (sign up at register.guildwars2.com/trial). In celebration of this free trial, Alienware is hosting a competition for new players to try the game, get to level 10 on any character with the free trial and be entered to win a new Alienware laptop.

Upon examining the fine print of this contest, ZAM discovered some interesting new information about the Free Trial: "Guild Wars 2 will be available for free trial periods running September 27, 2013 – October 2, 2013 and November 8, 2013 - November 14, 2013". So if you have been missing out on the GW2 free trials due to abrupt announcement and start, time to circle the second weekend in November for some quality action.

For current players the next content patch is coming tomorrow. Check back in the morning for ZAM's preview of this exciting new content. In the meantime, check out the new story released on the official Guild Wars 2 site that gives a little background on some of the major NPC characters of tomorrow's update.

MOST SECRET (This communication is intended only for the addressed recipient.)

Our informants have identified a new Aetherblade pirate stronghold inside the Twilight Arbor complex. We believe that they are under the direct control of Scarlet and that Briar herself may be onsite.

Your orders are to travel to Caledon Forest and meet Warden Idon outside Twilight Arbor. He will provide you with further information.

Be on your guard ~ these are dangerous times and our enemies are many.

~ Deputy Turma, Lionguard

Matt "Mattsta" Adams

Follow me @MattstaNinja