Gung Hay Fat Choy! Happy Chinese New Year! Today marks the beginning of the Lunar New Year, and that means the commencement of the Year of the Dragon. In the eyes of ArenaNet Founder and President Mike O'Brien, however, the Year of the Dragon also means the year of Guild Wars 2, and he's dropped some aggressive Guild Wars 2 beta testing time frames for players to mark down on their calendars.

Specifically, Mike notes that February will see select press invited to participate in beta testing, while in March and April, ArenaNet will "aggressively ramp up the size of [their] beta test events." Mike also notes that Guild Wars 2 will release "later this year."

You can read Mike O'Brien's full blog post (and industry challenge!) over at the ArenaNet blog.

Check out ZAM's other Top Five Most Important MMOs of 2012:

• The Secret World
• TERA
• Firefall
• PlanetSide 2

If 2011 was the year of blockbuster RPGs and FPSs, then 2012 will certainly be the year of MMORPGs and online games. With almost a dozen highly anticipated titles confirmed to launch in 2012, there can be no doubt that this year will be a revolutionary one for MMO gaming. That being said, not all of you will have the time to check out all of these big releases, so ZAM has compiled a list of what we consider to be the Top Five Important MMOs of 2012. In this top five series, we'll look at some of the most innovative titles of 2012 and why you should keep a close eye on them. Today ZAM Staff Writer Paul "LockeColeMA" Cleveland will talk about.... Guild Wars 2!

"It all gets back to our basic design philosophy," wrote Mike O'Brien, executive producer for Guild Wars 2. "Our games aren't about preparing to have fun, or about grinding for a future fun reward. Our games are designed to be fun from moment to moment." The game has put forward enough information (and boasting) that it easily made the top of my list for anticipated games in 2012. So what is Guild Wars 2 claiming to offer to differentiate itself from the rest of the pack? Read on to find out!

The developers over at ArenaNet want to reassure you that work is still being done this holiday season for their upcoming game Guild Wars 2. Eric Flannum and John Peters sat down to give us an update on the intricacy of the achievement system and how they've taken the combat and "Turned the Thief Upside Down".

There are also subtle combat changes aswell, so for the full details check out the blog post on ArenaNet's website.

Lots of great information to be found in the Guild Wars 2 "AMA" (ask me anything) session on Reddit. Otherwise known as a Community Q&A, the team opened the floor to users, where they promptly got flooded with dozens of questions to answer about the Mesmer, PvP numbers, closed beta testing periods, and more. Of particular interest is the fact that this Friday, Closed Beta Testing for GW2 will be officially starting, although they note that "this phase of testing is still under NDA and is not open to the public." It's a bit ambiguous if they mean that the NDA is not open to the public (which is a bit redundant) or if the beta testing is not open to the public. I'm assuming the latter.

Other facts confirmed include the note that there can be "at least" 500 players on a World v. World match, some clarifications on Mesmer abilities, as well as small reveals on the team's development process. It's a great read for any Guild Wars 2 fan, so go check it out!

Man... Up to now, I was totally convinced I'd be playing an Engineer in Guild Wars 2, but the more I hear about this new Mesmer class, the more I get confused. And then I hit myself in my confusion and we get some sort of weird Pokemon references that nobody gets.

Anyway.

The official Mesmer reveal is now live on the Guild Wars 2 website, and with it comes a slew of information ready to make anyone drool. Mesmers fight with phantasms or clones that essentially act as physical illusions, either dealing damage or distracting enemies, respectively. The mesmer can also "shatter" their illusions, dealing a variety of different status effects. If any of this sounds remotely interesting to you, you should head over to the official Guild Wars 2 dev post to see if the mesmer is for you.

Some exciting news for Guild Wars 2 fanatics. In what appears to be an advance leak, a new trailer has revealed that Guild Wars 2's final class will be... the Mesmer! An official tweet from the GW2 team noted that someone had "jumped the gun" with the reveal, but they did confirm that the trailer was correct. Class details will be brought forth on Wednesday, so you can just enjoy this awesome trailer for now. Those sound effects are awesome!

In a new dev blog post from Guild Wars 2's Jim Boer, the team highlights some of their trials and tribulations with bringing cinematic conversations to players. Specifically, Jim notes that the team was working with some fairly lengthy criteria: cinematic conversations needed to be "reasonably fast and easy for designers to create," while also offering opportunities for players to direct the conversation while still feeling engaged with the events at hand.

One thing that particularly impressed me was the idea that ArenaNet would create a "painted over" cinematic scene that frames the characters. This gives a more "private" feel to the conversation and since they don't have to render the world during those scenes, they can ensure that these conversations will be as smooth as possible. Looking good, Guild Wars 2!

There's really hefty article up on The Guild Wars 2 site that talks all about the updated cinematic conversations that will take place in GW2. ArenaNet's Chuck Jackman (why do I keep wanting to type Hugh?) notes that GW2 has three tiers of cutscenes that they wanted to do. Tier One would be "full Cinematics," reserved for dragon-smashing scenes of visual glory, Tier Two scenes, "Cinematic Conversations" are not pre-rendered and are usually reserved for exposition and information. Tier Three scenes, Jackman simply refers to as "Scenes," and never speaks of them again. How odd.

Regardless, in the article, Jackman details the lengths the GW2 team has gone to in order to create believable, vibrant cinematic conversations. They've done this through a combination of strong lip-synching and a lot of motion captured body language. By adding in so much physical language, their characters are now able to convey emotions and discussions across in a much more convincing manner in Guild Wars 2's Cinematic Conversations. I realize I'm butchering this explanation, so why not head over to the GW2 website to see exactly what they have in store. Or watch the video below for a strong example if you're not into reading.

Given that most North American media outlets won't be attending G-Star 2011 in Korea, NCsoft has kindly rustled up a developer blog post outlining what went into their brand new G-Star 2011 demo, as well as some of the new features it shows off. It's particularly interesting to know that this would be the first hands-on experience ever for Korean players, and NCsoft went all out with a fully translated demo experience.

Also in this new demo are changes to the character creation and customization system, featuring the opportunity to do some in-depth facial customization. There are also some nice UI improvements from previous builds, as well as a new skill-acquisition system, where players learn specific weapon skills by killing enemies with that weapon equipped. As well, ArenaNet is planning to introduce "skill challenges," where players can undertake dangerous challenges in order to get new skill points. GW2's Eric Flannum notes that these challenges can "range from defeating tough opponents, to answering riddles, to drinking a particularly potent drink."

Read more of the Guild Wars 2 G-Star 2011 Developer Blog here!

 It's time for a bit of developer update love from ArenaNet! In their latest dev update, designer John Peters talks about some upcoming changes to Ranger Pets, Engineer Tool Belts, and Cross Profession Combos. Of particular interest is that Ranger pets can be swapped on call, with two pets to switch between on land, and two seperate pets to swap between in water. If your pet dies, you can switch to your other pet, and a downed pet that was swapped out can be swapped back in at full health. Obviously this will have some cast times and cooldowns associated with it, but it's a nice approach for Rangers who constantly find their useless pets hitting the floor too soon.

I know that I'm hoping to play a teeny tiny Asuran Engineer (if possible), so this tool belt discussion is of specific interest for me. Apparently ArenaNet has designed twenty-three new skills to go with their newly renovated toolbelt, to the point where they now have a tool belt skill for every heal and utility skill. Some of the examples they give are also pretty cool, like a Rocket Kick that causes AoE fire damage, or Super Speed that... well... gives super speed, or even a Throwing Elixir H that randomly grants vigor, protection, or regeneration to allies in a target area.

Finally, the team revealed cross profession combos! Players in GW2 will be able to throw out "initiators" that set down "fields" in the area. Anyone who uses a "finisher" skill within a specific field will be able to create a skill combination. The example they use was that an Elementalist could freeze the ground, and a Warrior could use a "Stomp" finisher within that frozen ground in order to grant an Armor of Frost buff to all nearby allies. All in all, some very cool things in this dev blog!