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Guild Wars 2 BWE

Lateralus

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The first one is coming up this weekend...finally. I hope it lives up to the hype.

I've got the client running in the background now...nice music after the first song ends 1:30. The first song is a bit too fanfarey (if that's a word) for me.

[YOUTUBE="wtcwJWn9MnE"]Guild Wars 2 Login Screen[/YOUTUBE]
 

BlackCat

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A friend of mine got into the Beta, I'm hoping to get my hands on the Guardian sometime during this next weekend. :D
 

JocktheMotie

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Also, how'd you get the client already? Part of previous betas?

I've been looking forward to the Elementalist the most. Of course.
 

Eckhart

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I also got an email yesterday evening with a link to the beta weekend client.
 

Lateralus

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I'm on Henge of Denravi. Character name is Happy Flight.

So far, the game is really good. It does need some tuning, though. For some of the renown hearts quests, the spawn rates are just too slow for the massive zerg of low level people around.
 

Eckhart

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When I played it lagged like hell so I decided I will try tomorrow again. Seems like only the American servers run fine again, who would have thought.
 

alcea rosea

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GW2 Beta weekend behind. I thought it was ok. Something from the original GW missing there. Too much people around. :laugh:
 

JocktheMotie

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It took me a long time to get used to the game, I won't lie. And I find it more challenging than the usual MMO fare, but extremely rewarding/tactical. Starting off as an Elementalist may have complicated the issue, as I was learning a fairly complex class while also learning the game mechanics. I played a Warrior, Elementalist, and a Ranger.

You really can't play this game like a classic MMO, where you just mash a rotation and trade blows or you will really get stomped, unless you're a Guardian. I like how the abilities are very situational and I felt like every class had tools to react to situations properly. I love the dynamic events, it's extremely seemless and completely overhauls the idea of quests in a way that's really wonderful. It reminds me of Rift, but executed far better. I also like how the events actually effect the world; if you don't repel that centaur attack you cannot port to that city and the merchants no longer exist. Very cool.

The personal story seems a little lackluster and very...tropey. Just your standard fantasy fare with over-enthusiastic caricatures instead of characters. But I don't play MMOs for the story, and a personal story is a nice little diversion every 2-3 levels.

Overall I was very impressed and really wanted to play more. I'd say the first 5 hours were a struggle actually but after I figured the game out it because very addictive.

Oh, and the Trading Post is amazing. I really hope there's a mobile app tie in, so I can buy/trade at my leisure.
 

BlackCat

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unless you're a Guardian.

scaled.php


Noooo... I want to be a Guardian. Are you saying that they fall into a more typical MMO role? When I was researching them they seemed more like the type of class that goes in and screws with everyone by healing and supporting their allies, and preventing damage being done by enemies. With their non typical combat system apparently there aren't any *real* tanks; so they seem to fall into the role of offensive support (which is my favorite role to play).
 

JocktheMotie

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scaled.php


Noooo... I want to be a Guardian. Are you saying that they fall into a more typical MMO role? When I was researching them they seemed more like the type of class that goes in and screws with everyone by healing and supporting their allies, and preventing damage being done by enemies. With their non typical combat system apparently there aren't any *real* tanks; so they seem to fall into the role of offensive support (which is my favorite role to play).

Well yes, this is what they do but I was more implying that Guardian's can be extremely resilient because of those offensive support abilities. Their auto attacks self heal, lots of defensive+healing buffs, attacks also granting boons [buffs] to people in a radius, good amount of enemy disruption, etc. It's true that there aren't real tanks, or roles really, because of how skills are more tied to weapons that you can actively change rather than talents or innate class skills. There's a ton of versatility, and you need to use it.
 

BlackCat

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Well yes, this is what they do but I was more implying that Guardian's can be extremely resilient because of those offensive support abilities. Their auto attacks self heal, lots of defensive+healing buffs, attacks also granting boons [buffs] to people in a radius, good amount of enemy disruption, etc. It's true that there aren't real tanks, or roles really, because of how skills are more tied to weapons that you can actively change rather than talents or innate class skills. There's a ton of versatility, and you need to use it.

That's the general vibe I got from the Guardian. I like it.

It looks really amazing, I like how all of the talent trees seem to be pretty different from each other and make it possible to play your class any way you want.
 

Lateralus

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I had a blast this weekend. This game is going to live up to most of the hype (it's not possible for any game to live up to all the hype because some hype is unrealistic). I played an elementalist and got up to level 26, leveled up jewelcrafting and tailoring to 90+. I didn't mess around with PvP during this BWE, but I will during the next one.

The lag and connections were really bad on Friday, but by the end of the weekend, it was SIGNIFICANTLY better. I hope the next BWE runs as smoothly as the game ran on Sunday.

I like the concept of the dynamic events and many of them were very, very good. But there does need to be some tuning done (as expected for a beta). Most events don't seem to scale well. The difficulty can range from very difficult while soloing to trivial with 20 people around. I expect ArenaNet to have this worked out by the time the game is released. The other problem with the dynamic events was how often some of them repeated. Some were repeating within a minute of being completed, and that's just silly. Lots of people have been complaining about this to ArenaNet, so I'm sure they'll fix this to a certain extent, but in some cases I think they just need more DEs, which may not be feasible to have before release.

I love the combat. I've heard some people complain about how the game is all about spamming buttons, but that's just noob talk. I didn't experience this at all. In fact, when I tried spamming skills, my effectiveness went way down. I was able to solo several veterans and there's absolutely no way I could have done that if I just spammed skills and stood still like someone playing WoW.

This game really does have a next-generation feel to it. It's not trying to copy WoW or ride its coattails. It's trying to be something different. And no subscription fee, so I won't feel like I'm wasting my money if I don't play!
 

JocktheMotie

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I had a blast this weekend. This game is going to live up to most of the hype (it's not possible for any game to live up to all the hype because some hype is unrealistic). I played an elementalist and got up to level 26, leveled up jewelcrafting and tailoring to 90+. I didn't mess around with PvP during this BWE, but I will during the next one.

The lag and connections were really bad on Friday, but by the end of the weekend, it was SIGNIFICANTLY better. I hope the next BWE runs as smoothly as the game ran on Sunday.

I like the concept of the dynamic events and many of them were very, very good. But there does need to be some tuning done (as expected for a beta). Most events don't seem to scale well. The difficulty can range from very difficult while soloing to trivial with 20 people around. I expect ArenaNet to have this worked out by the time the game is released. The other problem with the dynamic events was how often some of them repeated. Some were repeating within a minute of being completed, and that's just silly. Lots of people have been complaining about this to ArenaNet, so I'm sure they'll fix this to a certain extent, but in some cases I think they just need more DEs, which may not be feasible to have before release.

I love the combat. I've heard some people complain about how the game is all about spamming buttons, but that's just noob talk. I didn't experience this at all. In fact, when I tried spamming skills, my effectiveness went way down. I was able to solo several veterans and there's absolutely no way I could have done that if I just spammed skills and stood still like someone playing WoW.

This game really does have a next-generation feel to it. It's not trying to copy WoW or ride its coattails. It's trying to be something different. And no subscription fee, so I won't feel like I'm wasting my money if I don't play!

I only hit 16 with my Elementalist as I was trying a bunch of different classes but the Elementalist is definitely going to be my favorite. Attunement switching is awesome and I love the style of play, good amount of thinking/prep involved with fights and I always feel I've got multiple ways to manage the fights because of having so many skills. My only bummer with the class was that I couldn't easily weapon swap out of combat and some attunements on certain weapons just feel lackluster compared to other weapons. For example, Water is great on Staff but sort of so so on sceptre, while Fire on Sceptre beats the hell out of all of the others. Also, all the weapons have an ideal range, so it's easy to get stuck in Dagger/Dagger when you want to switch to Sceptre/Dagger or Staff for more range/AoE abilities.

The dynamic events do seem to recycle quickly but I wonder if that had more to do with there being so many people in the zones; I believe it reacts based on that. Also dabbled with crafting and found it to be a pretty deep/interesting system.
 

Lateralus

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I only hit 16 with my Elementalist as I was trying a bunch of different classes but the Elementalist is definitely going to be my favorite. Attunement switching is awesome and I love the style of play, good amount of thinking/prep involved with fights and I always feel I've got multiple ways to manage the fights because of having so many skills. My only bummer with the class was that I couldn't easily weapon swap out of combat and some attunements on certain weapons just feel lackluster compared to other weapons. For example, Water is great on Staff but sort of so so on sceptre, while Fire on Sceptre beats the hell out of all of the others. Also, all the weapons have an ideal range, so it's easy to get stuck in Dagger/Dagger when you want to switch to Sceptre/Dagger or Staff for more range/AoE abilities.
My favorite combo was scepter/focus. I also had two arcane damage abilities among my utility skills. I could absolutely wreck any normal mob. I could also run into a group of 3-4 mobs and kill them all within 4-5 seconds (if they were all within my AOE range) using a combination of Dragon's Tooth, Phoenix, Arcane Blast, and Arcane Wave. When I fought veterans, I would switch to air where I had a blind and a knockdown. I would occasionally use Rock Barrier (earth), but I didn't use water and earth much other than that, but that's mostly a matter of me not having time to fully explore them.

I was getting pretty good at using Phoenix by Sunday. I can't wait to play around with it some more.

The dynamic events do seem to recycle quickly but I wonder if that had more to do with there being so many people in the zones; I believe it reacts based on that. Also dabbled with crafting and found it to be a pretty deep/interesting system.
I'm sure the population has something to do with it, but I'm of the opinion that the game (events) should run better than that under heavy load. One of the things I hated about WoW was how screwed up the game was when there were lots of people in one area (like after Cataclysm went live). I'm sure ArenaNet can do a better job (though it wasn't nearly as bad as the stuff I saw in WoW).
 
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