Not a lot of time, but at least it's something.

???

It isn't letting me delete or copy and paste the facebook status from the developers. But there will be a stress test on May 14 from 11 AM to 6 PM PDT.

It's this:

We’ll be conducting a stress test on Monday May 14 from 11 AM to 6:00 PM PDT (-7 GMT).
This special test event is open only to Pre-Purchase customers who have registered their accounts. With your help, we can conduct important tests and address some of the issues we identified during our first Beta Weekend Event. During this event, all you need to do is play normally with a new or existing character on your Beta account using the same game client. Please note that since this is a stress test of our servers, you may experience some in-game performance issues. If you’ve pre-purchased Guild Wars 2 and wish to participate in the stress test, we recommend that you register the account and download the game client.
Pre-Purchase customers, log in to the Beta Forums for more information and/or to download the Beta client if needed.
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/stress/news/Getting-Started/169235
Having issues logging in? Contact Support: https://support.guildwars2.com/
~RB2

4am in the morning before a work day : /

Nooooooooooooo, I have a MASSIVE project due on the 5th... I won't have ANY time for this.

We’ll be conducting a stress test on Monday May 14 from 11 AM to 6:00 PM PDT (-7 GMT).
This special test event is open only to Pre-Purchase customers who have registered their accounts. With your help, we can conduct important tests and address some of the issues we identified during our first Beta Weekend Event. During this event, all you need to do is play normally with a new or existing character on your Beta account using the same game client. Please note that since this is a stress test of our servers, you may experience some in-game performance issues. If you’ve pre-purchased Guild Wars 2 and wish to participate in the stress test, we recommend that you register the account and download the game client.
Pre-Purchase customers, log in to the Beta Forums for more information and/or to download the Beta client if needed.
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/stress/news/Getting-Started/169235
Having issues logging in? Contact Support: https://support.guildwars2.com/
~RB2

So they didn't wipe the characters, or am I reading too much into this? Also, I am super happy that this is the week after the semester ended. Bullet. Dodged.

@Subjugation: Man, if only. Next week is the last week of the semester for me, which means it's 2000% more important.

@Subjugation said:

So they didn't wipe the characters, or am I reading too much into this?

They way they've phrased things up 'til now made it seem like everything would be wiped between beta sessions, so maybe this is specific to the stress test for whatever reason.

Got an exam on the 15th, so I'l be giving this one a miss. It does sound like the characters havent been wiped though.

That's about 6PM GMT so that'll be good for me = P

So Monday we'll have GW2 and Tuesday we'll be knee deep in D3 sounds like a good week.

Luckily I live in a GMT+1 zone. So I can start playing at 7pm.

@S0ndor said:

Luckily I live in a GMT+1 zone. So I can start playing at 7pm.

Gonna be a quite crazy gaming session. A straight transition from GW2 Beta into full-on Diablo 3 release, which'll likely happen 00:01 on the 15th, as per Blizzard's tradition. Just hope my client arrives ahead of time.

@S0ndor said:

Luckily I live in a GMT+1 zone. So I can start playing at 7pm.

And i play in a GMT-1 zone. But i won't get up so early to play. Maybe i just won't go to bed :D

What awesome timing, it starts as I clock in to work and ends roughly 20 minutes after I get home from work!

I preordered just in time! :)

Well unfortunately I have collections that day so I probably won't be getting on.

I'm in bed then at work during this period.
 
Not a good time for a UK test but maybe that's coming.

@cikame: You're in bed at 6pm and at work till 1am??

@cikame: I think your maths is the wrong my round my friend. I live in the UK too, and 11+8 is 19:00 last time I checked. If they're behind us you need to add 8 hours. (I had been using +7 cause it said GMT -7, forgot we're in BST now.)

@Chavtheworld: I live in the UK. It will run from 3am to 10am. PDT is behind us by 8 hours at the moment.

Hmm I'm not sure yet if I want to spend that much time playing a game right before D3... I'll probably take a nap instead.

@cikame said:

@Chavtheworld: Current time in Los Angeles 9:01. Current time here 17:01. Seems to be 8 hours behind me.

You're still not getting it ahahahaha. The times given in the post were LA time, not England! So, the event is from 7pm till 2am UK time /facepalm

@cikame: It's okay man! Just wanted you to know you probably can join in!

useless for me in europe, not going to stay up until 3am to start playing, especially for just a few meaningless hours. oh well, bring on the next weekend

@Rhaknar said:

useless for me in europe, not going to stay up until 3am to start playing, especially for just a few meaningless hours. oh well, bring on the next weekend

No. It's going to start-off on Monday evening at 19:00-20:00 for us European's (GMT+1). They'll likely open up the servers a 'lil early again too.

Go over your math again. The annouced time of 11 AM refers to local time in Seattle or wherever ANet is at - we're 8 hours ahead (GMT+1) - so the official starting time for the stress test is 19:00 our time.

@Seppli: Hi, can I join a European server using a US key? Is it at all restricted in that way?

@Funkydupe said:

@Seppli: Hi, can I join a European server using a US key? Is it at all restricted in that way?

Yes you can. But any homeserver transfers (after the initial one) will cost gems. Dunno if you can chose servers again for the upcoming stress test. I guess you'll be able to chose your homeworld for each BWE seperately, and then for release. Guesting is world-wide (it's planned that you can play on any server of your chosing globally aka 'guesting'), albeit only PvE and matched PvP. WvW only from your homeserver, for your homeserver.

Cost for homeworld-transfer was 1200 gems during the BWE. About 12$ in IRL-money. Cooldown is 7 days, before you can switch again.

You can buy gems with in-game gold too (from your fellow players). Any in-game gold you get for gems (aka buying gold with IRL money) is generated by the playerbase, and thus the players do determine the exchange rate for gems and gold too. This and much more is made possible by a global auctionhouse (aka Trading Post). Should be an extremely satisfying economy for the 'Broker'-type of player. A market place millons of people strong, laced with some IRL-currency value.

It would be nice if we knew whether beta characters were being kept or not, through all BWE. I don't want to start a character on this stress test, for it to be deleted.

So on Monday - 6pm GW2, 11pm Diablo III. Damn you.

I honestly don't think this will be out until after the summer lull.

Too bad I'll be at MEPS.

@AMonkey said:

It would be nice if we knew whether beta characters were being kept or not, through all BWE. I don't want to start a character on this stress test, for it to be deleted.

Based on how Mike O'Brien phrased things in this post, I would hedge my bets on characters being wiped before every new BWE.

@Dark_Lord_Spam: It's completely logical. When they make a new backend server build (to optimize their server speed, fix bugs, etc), they often shuffle data structures around, which can break files that were made using the old structures. It's not worth them to invest in conversion now when they're in beta and are changing things all the time. They'll want to do a new BWE after every new major build has been pushed, so of course, they're going to have to scrap the old character files most of the time.

@Sooty said:

So on Monday - 6pm GW2, 11pm Diablo III. Damn you.

because d3 can't wait for 2 hours? that game isn't going anywhere for years once it comes out. gw2 is all about little tastes til it comes out. frankly, gw2 tastes a heck of a lot better than d3 atm.

Probably can't play

@AMonkey said:

It would be nice if we knew whether beta characters were being kept or not, through all BWE. I don't want to start a character on this stress test, for it to be deleted.

Characters from the last BWE are not being wiped for this stress test, but you should assume that they will be wiped by next BWE. That way you are suprised and excited if they are still there, which is unlikely.

Less than three hours, huzzah!

GET HYPE! It's almost time to feed the monkey.

Any minute now. My body is ready. Trained. Groomed. Fed.

Time to get my shitkickers dirty with nap-innards!

Edit: Not yet... wait for it...

One minute ago on the official Guild Wars 2 Twitter...

We're one hour away from the start of the stress test. Thanks in advance to all of you who jump in to help make Guild Wars 2 better! ~RB2

Who will be on Mumble then?

Still not working over here.

@Fattony12000 said:

Still not working over here.

Now it is!

The 4 hours between the start of the GW2 stresstest and Diablo 3 flew by. Spent my matched PvP currency on pimp looking gear and gave my warrior another whirl. Greatsword & Rifle. Tried out new runes and traits. Kicked major ass. Did some lvl 15-17 PvE later too. Killing some mole people and participating in the Meatoberfest festivities. Veterans are starting to drop mastercraft gear - got a neat rifle and hammer and greatsword. So sexy.

But it's time to jump into Diablo 3 now. Beta progress is going to be lost anyways and I'll do it all again soon enough. Time to roll my Demon Hunter!

Edit: Hehehe - Battlenet down for maintenance... well - back to Guild Wars 2 then.

Enjoying the GW2 stress test very much. Its a nice game.

Once again, Yak's Bend dominates WvW.