Been looking online but haven't found anything yet. Preordered it on April 10th and was wondering if anyone had heard anything about when the first beta (for preorders anyway) will be or if there is a set schedule in general for the beta events. I work weekends and it'd be sweet to know so I could ask off at least once to be able to play this ridiculously awesome looking game! Thanks for any info

The beta events all take place on weekends, and there's one per month until release. The BWE for April will start on either the 20th or the 27th, but given that ArenaNet hasn't announced any further details yet, it'll probably be the 27th.

They said on twitter that there won't be another stress test this weekend, which leads me to believe there won't be a beta event either. Could be wrong though.

@Maystack said:

They said on twitter that there won't be another stress test this weekend, which leads me to believe there won't be a beta event either. Could be wrong though.

The fact there's no stress test scheduled for this week actually points more in favour of the 20th being the date. If there was problems last week, I'd have thought they'd be testing more now.

But if they're leaving it pretty late if that's the case. I'd expect confirmation today and the client to go up tonight/tomorrow, otherwise they're not leaving us much time..

@WinterSnowblind: I think I'm just being hopeful that there isn't one this weekend, seeing as my pre purchase hasn't even been shipped yet. If there is one, I may have to cancel the order, and just pay the £10 more for the digital version.

@Big_Mex: You do not get Beta access with a pre-order, only if you pre-purchase, i'm not sure if you're just confusing the terms.

@WinterSnowblind: Their site barely held it together for pre-purchases, we need quite some time if everyone is going to be dling 15gb clients. So i'd say its too late this week for a bwe, otherwise the servers will crash ,and forums will be raging like no other. Areanet has really screwed the pooch on information so far, the only way the community is getting responses is by creating fake Areanet emails, and posting them on Reddit.

Thanks for the responses and ya I meant pre-purchased from the website. Hopefully they'll say something soon in case it is this weekend.

Sweet. Tanks

Well, if they announce it today, it'd now give most of their fans just over a day to download the client, so that seems unlikely.

So we're looking at the 27th, which completely overlaps with the Guild Wars 1 anniversary event. Good job on giving people a reason to show up for that, Anet. Their lack of communication through this has been more than a little worrying. Do they really have no set dates for these things, they're just throwing it all together now? That's a very bad sign for the current state of the game and a huge slap in the face to everyone who's just paid for the game.

yeah i have been really disappointed with the way they are handling things..

they are still not saying if its the 20th or 27th but it can really be only the 27th now right?

i mean if its the 20th they don't give us a lot of people time to prepare...

When they're using the beta access as an incentive for people pre-purchasing the game but doesn't say when that access begins it kind of sucks, yes.

It better be on the 27th now. With the way my internet provider throttles, it'll take me 3 days to download the client. :P

@Funkydupe: When it begins is mostly irrelevant though, right? I mean, it'll be throughout several weekends, and only the weekends. So they've got the 27th confirmed, but it could be a month or two until we see another event.

I really like their setup though. a) It's useful to them to have complete discretion and control over their weekends. b) It gives me the chance to guarantee my entry into every weekend event. And c) not having a release date ensures that this game will get sufficient testing and release when ready.

@Big_Mex: It was announced today that the first beta event will be April 27th-29th. They'll announce when you can download the client. You should follow @GuildWars2 on Twitter.