Guild Wars 2

The opening to the Beta worked out pretty well. I can see some potential issues when or if you have to solo it. But I got through without any problems because there was a pretty good sized group working on it. The opening fits with the story of the Silverwastes/LS and feels like it fits with how things have worked up until now.

Once you are in Verdant Blink, things change. I had no real problems getting through the opening story. I played a Guardian because I am comfortable playing that profession with both ranged and melee skills. In some ways, the opening story and some of the game play felt like my Guardian was more powerful than I am used to. I had little problem staying alive and had enough power to get through the modrem without too much effort.

After getting out into the open world, things got a bit different. First of all, the map is gorgeous, but large and definitely multi-layered. Figuring out how to get to places got to be a pain. I realize that most of this is because it will be a totally new map and I have to learn it. But in a two hour playing period, I couldn’t get as much done as I would have liked.

I did get DCed once. I got the message that my client was DCed from the login server. I was able to get right back in, so it was more of an irritant than anything else. I did end up back at the waypoint however, so I had to walk back to where I had been working on an event.

The way to use the Mastery system is still not totally clear. I got two Mastery points pretty quickly. So then I had to click on the XP bar (nice pop up told me that). Then I picked which Mastery line I wanted to work on (Gliding, in my case). Then I had to grind to get the XP bar full. I actually didn’t not get it full in the first two hour period, so I’m hoping to continue to work on it in the next one. Gliding would definitely been a HUGE help in moving to the different levels. In some cases I could never find the way to walk down to some areas. Also, it would be nice to use the mushrooms, but that is another Mastery and another grind to get it started. None of that should be a big problem when you are playing for real. When you have a limited time to play the map, it feels like you will never get the Masteries learned. That is just the difference between playing in the beta vs. playing to build up an ongoing character.

I did find that some of the skills didn’t seem to work well or lagged. Since these were normal Guardian weapon skills, it was a bit frustrating.

I did not change weapons, skills or traits from what was set up. Those actually worked pretty well. I will probably change those in the next phase of the beta, just to see how some of the builds that I am used to will work. It is nice that I had a set of weapons so that I can change from a staff to a scepter or something else. I expect to keep using the GS as my melee weapon though.

So far, I am both impressed and frustrated. The maps are beautiful, the new monsters are interesting, and the events make some sense to me. I am frustrated just because there is so much to learn and so little to time to learn it.

Thanks Anet. I hope that you are getting some useful info out of this beta. I’ll add to this later.

After doing the second and third phases of the beta there are just a couple of things I want to add.

First of all, I LOVE gliding. Building the experience to actually use the Mastery was a pain. I felt that some of the events took way too long and didn’t pay off with enough experience to make it worth it. But the events were pretty well thought out, just long in terms of the time it takes to complete them. I never got enough experience to get a second Mastery level opened up, but some of that was a function of me just wanting to explore.

The other thing that I noticed that was there were no merchants. I wasn’t able to sell off any inventory. So I ended up destroying stuff just to make room. I did have to laugh at getting a Black Lion Chest and an unidentified dye. Nice to get them, but now way to use them. LOL

Both of those things are really just a function of being in a beta. In real life, I will be investing plenty of time in the game to build experience. And I’m sure that there will be some sorts of merchants. So as far as those being complaints, they are pretty much irrelevant in these circumstances.

In the last two 2-hour phases, I only had one bugged event. When we were doing the event to plant the wyvern eggs, the event quit counted eggs planted. So the event just kept going on with no ending. Other than that things went smoothly.

I continued using my Guardian for the entire beta. I changed by second weapon set during the second phase, but never changed traits. The build held up well. I didn’t die as often as I expected to. I did plenty of damage and played more melee that I usually do. I don’t think that there was anything special that was done to make the guardian more powerful. It was all just a function of the build that was set up.

Thanks Anet. It was fun. Now let’s do it again.