It's time for Tinkerfest, the Norrathian celebration of all things Gnomish! Your EQII ZAM staff has the scoop on the awesome new additions to this player favorite. 2013 brings back all the old favorites and adds more quests, rewards, house items, and recipes!  There are new holiday Achievements, a functioning door to make, and Clockwork Mercenaries!

Tinkerfest 2013 will start July 26th and run through August 13th. Keep track of all your alts and every quest with our convenient Tinkerfest Quest Tracker!

There’s a strange new MMO that’s hitting the streets later this year, and it’s like nothing else we’ve played before. There’s no dedicated tanking or healing, so combat looks completely different. It doesn’t have any endgame raiding, with everything revolving around PvP combat. It doesn’t even require a monthly subscription in order to play.

You’ve probably heard us talking about how Guild Wars 2 breaks the traditional MMO rule set, but doesn’t that mean it’s setting itself up to fail? ArenaNet doesn’t believe so, and for once we’re inclined to agree with them. The choices they’ve made actually make sense for the game that they’ve built, even though sometimes it’s not immediately obvious. I mean, why does end-game begin at level one?

We’ve done a bit of a thought experiment here at ZAM, collecting the top five most common arguments against Guild Wars 2. We’ve then applied intense scrutiny to these arguments before pulling them apart like delicious cake, all for your pleasure. See which ones stand up to our analysis and which ones crumble like the finest chocolate sponge. Grab yourself a plate as we dig in but remember: no leaving crumbs.