To arms – Guild Wars 2’s first raid, as part of the Heart of Thorns expansion, went live last night.

Composed of three wings, Spirit Vale is the first wing of the raid. It sees you and nine other players investigating the disappearance of a Pact squad in northern Maguuma. Obviously, enemies and dark secrets await. ArenaNet has introduced some nifty new squad AI to help players organize their raid groups better (and which play a larger part in World vs. World PvP gameplay) in a new patch.

The raid itself will offer quite a bit by way of rewards, including ascended gear, miniatures, new weapon skins and components required for crafting Legendary armour. There aren’t any prerequisites as such for accessing the raid, though you’re advised to be in tip top form.

What are your thoughts on Spirit Vale and the debut of raids into Guild Wars 2? Let us know in the comments.

It’s amazing to consider that ArenaNet’s Guild Wars 2 released three years ago and managed to avoid one of the biggest staples of the modern MMORPG genre – raids – for this long. That’s set to change with the raid in Heart of Thorns, the game’s first major expansion, which debuts its first of three raid wings on November 17th.

Spirit Vale will see you and nine other players descend into a magical forest to discover the whereabouts of a missing Pact squad. As is usually the case, dark forces await. The raid will introduce a new enhanced squad UI which lets you take better control of your raid group and can also be applied for up to 50 players in World vs. World PvP. Raid participants can look forward to some great rewards including ascended gear, miniatures, unique weapon skins and even the materials needed for building legendary armour.

Guild Wars 2 is available to try for free but you’ll need to purchase Heart of Thorns. Will you be taking part in Guild Wars 2’s first raid? Let us know in the comments.

Guild Wars 2 will see its first major expansion in Heart of Thorns which will bring a host of new quests and features along with a new PvP mode called Stronghold. If you’re curious as to what Stronghold will be like, then you’re in luck – ArenaNet has announced a public beta for the mode to be conducted on April 14th.

The public beta will last for 24 hours and is open to all players in North America and Europe. It will be the only mode available in the Unranked Arena. Ranked Arena players will still have Conquest PvP to look forward to. There will also be a Twitch stream of the open beta, the schedule of which you can check here. To further sweeten the deal for Heart of Thorns, Guild Wars 2 will be 75 percent off tomorrow till April 14th.

Heart of Thorns still lacks a release date so stay tuned for further details in the coming weeks on the same.

Guild Wars 2 is finally going to be getting its first major expansion this year. Although so far, ArenaNet have subscribed to a philosophy of continuous mechanical and narrative updates, negating the need for expansion packs entirely (at least in their own words), they seem to have changed their stance now, and heart of Thorns is due out for the game some time later this year.

The expansion introduces a lot of new features- two of these are the Map Bonus system, and the precursor crafting system. In a recent update on their website, ArenaNet detailed how these would work.

The precursor crafting system will be3 split into three sections or ‘collections,’ and isn’t even accessible until you hit Level 80; once you do, you can start the long journey of crafting it and turning it into your own legendary weapon.

The map bonuses system, on the other hand, is going to make the entire collection of materials a lot more directed and involved:

‘With Heart of Thorns, most explorable maps will have an associated set of bonus rewards that rotate on a regular basis. Starter maps will not be included in order to preserve the new-player experience. By completing events, jumping puzzles, and mini-dungeons in a map, you’ll be periodically awarded with one of its associated bonuses in addition to the normal rewards. For most maps, the bonus reward will be crafting materials. For instance, playing in Cursed Shore could reward you with ancient bones, charged cores, charged lodestones, or giant eyes during one rotation, and powerful venom sacs, glacial cores, glacial lodestones, or globs of ectoplasm during another rotation,’ they wrote on their website.

Heart of Thorns is due out later this year. Stay tuned to GamingBolt for more coverage and information.