Guild Wars 2

I went into the beta with fairly low expectations. The “verticality” concept sounded suspicious and I feared it would be a constant zerg fest.

How very wrong I was.

The vertical expansion gives much more play space for a given “floor area.” I didn’t feel in constant danger of falling to my death as I feared. There was room to play solo and in small groups.

Some general likes:

The personal story continues the pattern of excellence. On my walk this evening I wondered about the Mordrem Court and it’s connection to the Nightmare court. Why did Ventari create the Pale Tree? What’s Glint’s connection to the Silvari and Centaurs?
Where do the Zephyrites really stand? It will be fascinating to see how the story plays out. At some point if feels like there needs to be a reckoning between Rox and Rytlock. She did try to follow him through the portal. It seems likely he believes she abandoned him.

The Art in general was amazing and worth the trouble of getting the portal.

The Mordrem felt toned down a bit that was good.. they may have been nerfed a hair too much.

The Pale Reavers and their laser sighted rifles were a pleasant surprise. I may have to dust off my Warrior if those become available.

The aoe brambles. These feel contrived and excessive in Orr. In HoT they seem to fit perfectly.

The pocket raptors were really neat. Kudos on a cool idea, ANET.

I chose to play a Mesmer, so not much to say about Revenants. I liked the different shaped aoe footprints and the graphics that I saw. They didn’t seem wildly OP which was a major concern I had.

Some dislikes:

It wasn’t clear that I needed to click the top bar on the Mastery page to begin training. I missed my chance to try gliding because I didn’t understand that fully, big QQ.

The personal story battles seemed too easy. I never felt seriously threatened. Rytlock’s statement at the end of the personal story episode felt a bit contrived and stilted.

The pit event where we were asked to recover parts of a down pact aircraft didn’t work. The event itself seemed to work, but there was no apparent place to take the parts once we recovered them.

One thing I heard repeatedly from players on map chat was the wish for mounts. I’ll add my voice to that. Even if the mount itself were non combatant, it’d be fun to be able to ride. Maybe it could be non-combatant, but one could still fight while mounted. I suspect the Gem Store would make a killing on such a thing.

Overall, I’d say it’s not quite ready for prime time. It’ll be a lot of fun when it is though.