In around 30 minutes time the ArenaNet team are going to be streaming Guild Wars 2: Heart Of Thorns live. For anyone who can't view the stream, I'm going to be covering it here while it's on. We don't yet know what we'll learn, but I'm sure there will be a few revealing things. 

LIVE BLOG (HIT F5 TO REFRESH!)

11:55: There's 5 minutes to go until the live stream starts. Have you all been to the toilet and got a drink/popcorn?

12:00: Thanks BogOtter! Always good to see a starter zone crushed under the weight of a thousand screaming fans. 

12:02: Well this isn't good, Guild Wars 2's Twitch has stopped loading for me!

12:03: Crisis averted. Nothing like pulling out an Ethernet cable to fix something! 

12:04: WE'RE LIVE! Countess Anise? She's sassy. She looks like my old boss. 

12:05: Rubi introduces Anthony Orden and Steve Hwang. Rubi seems nervous! 

12:06: Oooh, is that a hint from Rubi that the Mursaat aren't the friendlist of characters? She's currently showing off some fan art, one painted Mursaat.

12:07: Over 11,000 currently viewing the live stream. Clearly none of us have social lives on a Friday.

12:08: Here we go, Heart Of Thorns content is go! 

12:09: Anthony introduces a new map, showing vines absolutely everywhere and tons of crashed Pact ships. Everything is burning.

12:10: We're going to be taking a look at an Adventure inside one of the crashed Pact ships. 

12:11: Anthony is disucssing how this map and its story revolves around the Pact fleet survivors. Striking out during the day, capturing key objectives before night time. At night Mordremoth comes out and will attempt to take the land back. The more progress you make during the day, the better chance you have at surviving at night. Steve disucsses how new maps are entirely focused or based upon the map wide objective. In this case, surviving Mordremoth and gathering survivors which leads to Outposts. Anthony also adds that different areas of the map are controlled by different sub-factions. He also discusses how Outposts can be claimed or unclaimed, which adds a marker for people to navigate to. 

12:13: Steve adds that claiming an Outpost, you can own it for well over an hour. Anthony adds that Outposts help you realise what the changes to the map are and it drives home what changes are happening. 

12:14: All the Outposts help the map wide objective, but are contextualised in the area they're in. They tell different stories - from serious to lighthearted "stuff". It isn't a case of cap it and walk away, it's about keeping the character cast important. Anthony insists that this time around, stories are told with a smaller cast of characters with long event chains and webs of the same characters so you can learn their personalities. 

12:16: The map on show is the first area of the expansion, where the survivors of the Pact ship are trying to re-establish themselves.

12:17: There's a new creature we can see, a tentacle-like creature that spews more creatures when you engage it. Looks like there's some high powered sniper rifles on show as well. 

12:18: We're told that Outposts can be upgraded to receive new benefits: more NPC interactions, Waypoints, Adventures, services and vendors.

12:19: Adventures are marked by a flag placed in the ground, with a gold symbol above them. It's an evolution like the Renown Heart. Adventures provide a challenge, at end game, that require you to change the way you play or to play well. They'll all be littered across the map. 

12:20: There's talk of how races, jumping puzzles, shooting galleries make up Adventures that are performance based and which are repeatedable. They're going to try to hook these up to Leaderboards so you can compete against friends and guildies. They'll also be tied to the Mastery system.

12:21: We start the Lethal Vantage Adventure. There's supplies inside and the ship is containing carge that's important to the survivors. The Adventure is to clear the vines surrounding the ship. Most will be instanced so when you start the Adventure, others can't "steal" your objective.

12:23: Obtaining a high score in the Adventure depends on speed and quickly killing the trolls. The map is called Verdant Brink.

12:25: The challenge to Adventures is approachable and if you fail it, you can hit the "X" on the UI to restart it quickly. 

12:26: This demo is available at PAX East and Anthony's top score is 90 - that's the challenge.

12:27: There's a bonus episode of Points Of Interest next week on Wednesday at 12:00pm PST (Noon). Dave Webb and Nellie Hughes will be joining to show off gliding and mushroom jumping! 

12:30: Rubi plays out a video from Aurora for some outtake footage. That's your lot! 

12:31: Few things to note from the stream. Looks like we'll celebrate specific years. There's evidence of "Celebrating The Year Of The Ram." on the user interface, it also looks like Warrior's might have a second burst skill. Lastly, here's the Revenant icon.