Hunter over at Hunters Insight has been posting up a storm about the latest articles and information to reach our way on the Guild Wars 2 front. Since he’s been doing such a bang-up job on not only linking all the good stuff, but inserting commentary and sparking good conversation, I’ll do the lazy thing and just link away:
The most recent news is ArenaNet’s blog post about non-combat activities and minigames in GW2 (as Aspen noted, and I agree, these activities are crucial for helping create the world-like feeling that keeps players invested in their MMOs), which followed an interview touching on Achievements and Feats among other things, including travel (in short: yes, map travel is in, in some cases for a fee depending on distance traveled. No, players won’t be bombarded with loading screens).
As with crafting, I am a fan of any and all attempts to engage my interest in-game that doesn’t involve mass slaughter, because sometimes I just get tired of killing things and yet am not ready to log off for the night. My hope is that these activities and mini-games provide me with precisely this content. I’m also looking forward to seeing if there are any non-competitive options among the list: crafting might be it, or perhaps the minigame using instruments that ANet mentioned.
Either way, I am counting the days until we finally get to see some, any of this in action. August can’t get here soon enough.
Casual Is As Casual Does 
Thanks for the link. and yeah I agree. alternate activities are like gold to MMOs, you have to have them if you want to be successful. To me all these activities are great, and will keep me busy for a very long time.
The only two things i’m curious about are crafting like you mentioned, and what exactly their chat interface will be like. I’ve always thought a good chat interface is integral to a good online game.
Was hard not to get excited reading about the social activities and the housing before that. It’s amazing they can develop this game without subscription fees coming in and yet no none of the upcoming subscription mmo’s can seem to incorporate this stuff.
I really wasn’t anticipating this one at all initially because of my past dealings with NCSoft but the more I hear, the more I like.