Guild Wars 2 beta gets new content this weekend

If you're one of the lucky thousands that got Guild Wars 2 beta keys from us last week on the site or during our livestream of the Gendarran Fields zone , your already-exciting weekend just got way better.

ArenaNet announced on their blog this morning that they're adding a heap of new content, upgrades, and features to this weekend's beta test. Here's the big stuff.

New content

• If you played in the previous beta weekend event, your characters will be available
• A new zone, Gendarran Fields, is open to everyone--but you'll need to be level 25 to survive it
• The Ascalon Catacombs dungeon's Explorable Mode is now available--this is the much more challenging version with more random elements.
• The already-awesome World vs. World vs. World map has been revamped to add in jumping puzzles, skill challenges, dynamic events, and an underground dungeon filled with traps and a so-called Dark Room

Everything else

• Player skills have been broken up into teirs, requiring players to invest a minimum number of points into a tier before moving onto the next
• A Mystic Forge in Lion's Arch lets you trade unwanted items for random rewards
• Automated PvP tournaments can be created to place eight teams of five players into bracketed, single-elimination competitive play against each other
• Improvements to combat animation, sound, and camera shakes
• Improvements to chat, the gem store (cash shop), overflow server tech, and UI elements

Did you get a beta code last week? If so, what profession are you going to be playing this weekend?