Guild Wars 2

I tested holosmith (both power and condi, in wvw and pvp) and found the photon forge mechanic interesting, although ultimately it seemed to have little sustain for a melee spec despite the defensive traits it offers. Regarding the sword, I had really hoped the holosmith would also allow for a p/sw combination. It would be interesting to know why it isn’t available as an off-hand weapon. However, I liked the design in general and had some nice duels over the beta weekend.

Now that pandora’s box has already been opened: I’m voting for raccoonmanders, obviously.

I’m one of those people who spend the majority of time playing the game instead of writing about it, but after exploring the demo zone in the crystal desert for a few hours I just had to post. I liked the map design; the hearts and mastery point challenges were fun (with just the right amount of Guild Wars 1 nostalgia) and even though I initially wasn’t excited about adding mounts to the game, I think that the dev team has done a brilliant job. The running and idle animations (and audio) feel realistic and add character to the mount, and the dis/mounting is very smooth. It still needs a bit of fixing here and there, but that didn’t stop me from officially adding raptor races in the desert to the things I enjoy the most after WvW. I’m looking forward to testing the new elite specs next week.

Almost a pity that it’s over, gg. It’s been a nice week despite the nightcapping. Let’s hope both WSR/Vabbi manage to focus the winning server in future matchups instead of being content with battling for second though!

“Adorable charm to them. Not quite naive, but very curious and honest” /agree

I don’t think that the voice acting of the ps is as devastatingly horrible as some of the comments suggest. However, I agree that this part of the game is very inconsistent. I think Brandon Bales did a great job and I also enjoyed Nolan North’s performance (“When we find Kellach, I swear, I’m going to stick a bag over his head, beat him with a shovel, and bury him in a hill of fire-ants.” – great delivery), though I understand that it is impossible for a voice to meet everyone’s taste. So naturally there are and will be different opinions about that. In my opinion the ps could use some improvement in terms of the writing and presentation. Often there is no real sense of an actual conversation between the player character and the npc. To say that all of the voice acting is bad is an exaggeration though. Constructive critisism is more likely to add to future improvements.

I really like how dynamic events turned out and think that they absolutely should stay the dominant form of quests in the game. However I agree that they are not quite able to support the immersion in the same way traditional quests are capable of, at least in terms of storytelling. One of the things I really enjoyed about GW1 was the lore and how it was presented. When I started playing GW2 however I felt that something was missing, despite it being designed with loving attention to detail. I would love to see the history of the world of Kryta being implemented in a more visible and/or prominent way, especially for those who haven’t played the predecessor. I don’t know if adding traditional quests is the answer though. In my opinion some good points were made in this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vcykr_Gw0Go