Guild Wars 2

I played the BETA this weekend, as many others and decided to give my opinion and feedback about it. So please sit back, relax and hopefully enjoy the read

STORYTELLING

The storytelling of the first, and only, instance that we got to play was simply put amazing. I believe the team has done a really great job on the matter and then I’m not taking the actual story into account.

The fact that you character now has a voice that he/she actively uses instead of cutscenes (and an additional text bubble over the head) provides a great way to experience the story. You are now literally a part of the story as you can still move around while your character talks, whereas before you would be locked in a cutscene. Your character, being the Pact commander, has a sense of authority that can be found in both the voice acting as the actual content. – The fact that Mordremoth talks to the Sylvari players is a huge plus as well!

VERDANT BRINK

The first map of the expansion, Verdant Brink, is a wonderful piece of art. The designers really did a great job on designing this map, even though we only experienced a slice of it. The map has a lot to offer and is built with a lot of detail. The graphics and effects of the map really give the feel of a jungle and the smoke and flying Wyverns in the air give a nice feel. The Hylek village is really well designed as are the few caves (mushroom cave!).

Exploring the map has truly been a blast and is a feast for the eye. The new exploration modes, such as the bouncy mushrooms and gliding, fit right in to this map and provide us with a new experience.

Events: The events in the map, providing that they aren’t bugged, are all different. Most of the events are somewhat challenging if you compare them to existing events in the game and are greatly enjoyable. The difference between day and night also shows in the events which gives the map an entirely new feel to it.
It would be nice though if you would see some sort of progression according to how well you did during the day, meaning that if all went well during the day this is shown during the night by having more resources for instance (something I have not noticed thus far).

Adding to the night/day cycle, I believe the “night” should be just a little bit darker than it currently is to make the difference bigger.

Creatures: There are various new creatures in the new map, most of which have new abilities that make them more challenging. The creatures fit right in with the environment and more often than not you find yourself in a spot where some sort of group play is encouraged. The creatures are present with great numbers and can thus be overwhelming for just one player. Luckily, there are plenty of players around to lend a hand

Adventures: The adventures in the map are interesting to say the least. All three of which we got to play in the small chunk of the map available to us are nice additions to the game. All of them are different but greatly enjoyable. They are fun to redo many times over and even encourage you to, so that you can compete on the leaderbords that come with it.

The adventures are easy to recognize while you play by their flag and on the map. However, I believe that it would be great to have more information indicating that the adventure is currently not playable and why. Now, if it is closed and you interact with it, it will tell you that it isn’t playable at that time, but you don’t know why.

Note: This might already be in the works, but I believe that some vistas would be a nice addition to the map to show the beautiful environment.

Continue:

MASTERIES

The idea behind the mastery system is great and it gives players a great way to progress their characters. The fact that it is account bound is even better as then it doesn’t become too repetitive but you build upon something for all your characters.

At first I felt that obtaining masteries was rather fast but after I while it started to feel a lot slower, which I think is great. The mastery system shouldn’t be something that you can obtain in just a matter of days, weeks even. It should be something that takes a while to obtain as it is the way to progress our characters after all. Obtaining the first few masteries at a somewhat faster pace isn’t all that bad though, as gliding and jumping on mushrooms adds a lot of gameplay to the new map.

There don’t seem to be a lot of tracks available but each track has multiple masteries and obtaining all of them will take quite a while. The mastery system seems to be a system that can easily be expanded in the future with new masteries to add as new content gets added to the game.

Gliding: Gliding is simply amazing! It allows players to reach locations at a faster pace and to avoid certain mobs. Due to the many hills and cliffs in the map it’s also a great lifesaver! I have yet to find locations that wouldn’t be accessible without the gliding though. (also a great way to film new footage).

Mushroom bouncing: Mushroom bouncing is just like gliding, rather useful and amazing to quickly climb your way up hills or cliffs. You have to be careful though as if you don’t position yourself properly you’ll land badly and sometimes even die. (not sure if that’s intentional or not).

MUSIC – SOUNDS

The sounds in the new map are wonderful both that of the creatures, the jungle itself and the ambient sounds that we hear. The jungle is and feels alive just based on the sounds alone!
The music that’s being played is an amazing piece of art, the sound teams have done an incredible job here!

Overall I think the map and other content we’ve seen so far is great and with some improvements (and bug fixes) will be incredible. Kudos to the teams