Avid fans of "Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns" will be able to play the video game's second expansion beta next month. ArenaNet has announced that the second Beta Weekend Event will happen on September 4 from noon until 11:59 p.m. on September 9, a report from IGN said on Thursday.
"These beta weekend events are your opportunity to help shape the development process and the experience you'll have when Guild Wars 2: Heart of ThornsTM is completed. These are real beta tests, and you have the real opportunity to make our expansion better with your feedback," said ArenaNet's Colin Johanson as posted on "Guild Wars" website.
ArenaNet, however, stressed that it will not show everything in the expansion during the September Beta Weekends Event. "We want to keep a strong sense of discovery and not spoil huge parts of the story ahead of time. We're going to test enough to help us broadly understand how everything works and also apply those lessons to the parts of the game we won't be showing during beta weekends," it said.
IGN reports that gamers will be able to play only the first story chapter and parts of the first map. However, players can create the new profession, the revenant. Aside from this, players can also try the new chronomancer, dragonhunter, reaper, tempest, berserker, herald, and thief specializations. It was said that the base game has been sold with five million copies as of this posting.
Players will also be able to create a fully geared level 80 beta character if they have pre-purchased the expansion. A button will appear on the character creation screen serves as an indicator, and players can only use four character slots.
Characters that were created in the previous beta weekend can still be used. Aside from these, gamers will also be able to play the game's new elite specialization system that grows any character profession into new elite specializations.
"The Stronghold PvP mode will be turned on for the whole weekend, along with the new Mist Champion selection system. If you've pre-purchased the Heart of Thorns expansion, all of the Mist Champions will be unlocked for you to use," IGN added.
