Guild Wars Nightfall World Preview Event

The Guild Wars Nightfall World Preview Event was an open beta event that gave players a first peek at the PvE aspect of Guild Wars Nightfall, and also allowed them to test the Nightfall professions in PvP again.

Schedule
The event was originally scheduled for the September 22 - 24, 2006 weekend, but was extended until September 25 at Noon PDT.
 * It was originally scheduled to start at 12:01 a.m. PDT on the 22nd (7:01 a.m. UTC).
 * and ended at 11:59 a.m. PDT on the 25th (18:59 UTC, September 25th).

Access
In order to access the PvE preview area, players had to create a new roleplaying character with homeland Elona. This could be done with a free character slot on any of the following three account types:
 * an existing retail account for Prophecies and/or Factions
 * an existing trial account created for any previous preview event
 * a new trial account created with one of the following key codes:
 * America: 2BBQF-MG981-PRQD7-KDM6Q-C78H3
 * Europe: 944NC-B1LJ4-MD6L9-718L6-1HM38

In order to access the PvP preview players could create a new PvP character using a free character slot on any of the three account types, as explained above.

Content
From the Press Release:


 * "The Guild Wars Nightfall World Preview Event will feature previews of the new environments, new missions, and new battle arenas. The event will allow players to create Nightfall-specific characters from the six core professions as well as the two new Nightfall professions, the Dervish and the Paragon, and try out new Nightfall skills. The entire Istani province of the new realm Elona will be open for player exploration, and players will be able to view the first Nightfall in-game cinematics. In addition, two new arenas will make their debut, the Sunspear Arena and Churranu Island."

From the official info page:
 * "Participants in the Nightfall World Preview Event will get to test out the exciting new Hero feature that Nightfall will bring to the game. As players progress through the underlying story, they will be able to enlist the aid of a variety of Heroes who have a strong impact on the narrative of the Nightfall campaign. These Heroes can be customized and even controlled by players as they progress through the game."


 * "For PvP players, the Nightfall World Preview Event offers even more excitement. Not only will the Dervish and Paragon professions be fully available for PvP character creation, but players will be able to take these new professions or their favorite core builds into existing arenas, as well as two Nightfall-exclusive arenas—the Sunspear Arena and the Churranu Island Arena."

Deleted or Frozen?
According to Gaile Gray, all Nightfall characters will be RESET at the end of the preview weekend, and you will keep all unlocks for your PvP characters. From the official site:


 * "The Nightfall World Preview Event will begin September 22 at 12:01 a.m. PDT and run until 11:59 p.m. PDT on September 24. At the end of the event, all Nightfall characters that players have created and all Nightfall items they've acquired will be removed from participating accounts, and the Nightfall content will be removed from the live servers. So, don't miss out!"

As of right now all Nightfall characters are temporarily locked.