Guild Wars 2... wow, where do I start? First off, this is an AMAZING game, second, it's not quite without faults, but most of them are due to beta status and should hopefully be resolved before launch (whenever that is).
Issues during beta:
-Hundreds of thousands of players joined up and server/login issues were abound during the first 8 or so hours, and there were some errors that even prevented people from playing the game at all during the beta weekend.
-Lots of people in the starting areas created a lot of queues into the area, but the overflow worked so no one was stuck not being able to play. But it did create issues with people trying to play together and group up.
-Along with game server issues, the forums went down several times throughout the weekend but was generally working well and was a good source for people with issues.
I leveled a human Elementalist to level 13 throughout the beta and I was able to enjoy many of the events and story quests. Towards the end I was able to craft some awesome new armors for my character and even visit other starter areas (Norn and Char) to do their events as well. The reason why I joined up with other starter areas was that the content for my level was pretty difficult because there wasn't that many people in those areas, but more on that later, here are my views on the main points of Guild Wars 2 so far:
- Combat
Bottom line: Deep and enjoyable. I never got tired leveling all my weapon's skills, nor which skill set I should use for the coming battle. All skills have their purpose in combat and I used all of them pretty frequently.
In addition to all the weapon skills (5 possible skills) there were 1+4+1 class skill slots that unlocked as I leveled (1 slot for your healing skill (already unlocked), 4 for other skills, and 1 for your elite skill). I got 2 slots and you use skill points to unlock the skills and you get skill points by doing the skill point challenges scattered across the map. By the time I was done I unlocked 3 skills and a new healing skill. There are also skill combos that I have yet to figure out how to use.
Movement is paramount in GW2, I found myself circle strafing foes, dodging, jumping over obstacles to get out of the way of any attacks. Most enemies have a large cone of attack so even if you think you are out of the way, you still get hit (maybe caused by lag). Using skills that hindered or slowed enemies added strategy to the mix along with aoe skills and luring enemies into the aoe field worked well.
- Controls
Bottom Line: Keyboard/Mouse movement and combat works great for Right handed people. Since I am left handed and can't really use my right hand I had to find an alternative. Gamepad works well for me, and using XPadder it was actually and advantageous setup.
Using a PS2 gamepad: left stick to arrow keys, right stick to camera direction, buttons to skills and looting, combat and journeying became a blast and extremely comfortable. With combat, skill 1 is always auto-attack, and if you press it it will immediately attack your closest foe within range. This made targeting extremely easy and I very rarely had issues with needing to target single foes like bosses.
I was able to map the right to camera movements by using the push-right-stick button map to toggle right-click on/off. And by leaving the mouse cursor about an inch above my character's head before activating it, this made AoE targeting skills easy to target via using the camera stick.
Gamepad works extremely well, at least AS WELL as keyboard/mouse for combat so long as you set it up right and have a Playstation controller. Can't really say about Xbox controllers or anything else. I am looking forward to setting up my projector and sitting back on the couch playing GW2 in the future :)
- Questing
Bottom line: FUN!
Every character does have a main quest that's designed around the choices you made during character creation and this quest line can be done at any time but does have a level recommendation next next to the quest before you go.
You get to those levels by doing events (group area missions), these events are familiar to anyone who's played Warhammer, but there are a LOT more of them and are a LOT more fun to play! Some of them even get complex; for example you start off feeding some cows and watering plants, but by the end you wind up fighting a giant worm boss. You get quest rewards and a medallion (bronze, silver, gold) based on your overall involvement within the event. There's also points of interest and waypoints scattered across the map that you gain experience from if you find them.
A few issues:
-It got a little confusing as sometimes two events might be close enough to be triggered simultaneously but you might not know which one you are doing.
-Sometimes you might get a reward for the event, but he event is not over, there could be more sections to the event.
-When venturing into obviously more difficult events, I would immediately get killed and then leave to find something else only to get quest rewards (sometimes gold-level) several minutes later when I'm no where near it.
- Crafting
Bottom line: FUN!
While getting all the skills in my final weapon of the beta (staff), I farmed for ingredients for my crafting class (cloth), and I was able to get new customized armor for my toon. Crafting is simple, fun and rewards testing.
I could have crafting the basic tunic that it gave me but after getting the required elements I went to the discovery pane, put in both parts of the tunic, and an insignia (there's also an additional optional slot for something else) and the game let me know that there is definitely a recipe behind this combination of elements and the difficulty of crafting it, pressed the craft button and viola! I had a new (and very useful) tunic with armor art that was NOT found anywhere else either buying or looting! Plus it saved the recipe that I discovered in my main recipe list for easy crafting next time if I wanted to.
There is a little bit of hand holding, but overall it's very enjoyable and rewarding after quite a bit of farming for a day.
- Conclusion
Guild Wars 2 is awesome. Guild Wars 2 is AWESOME!
I can definitely see myself playing this game for years just like GW1, and with no subscription fee that's just icing on the cake. They could have easily applied a subscription fee and it still would have become immensely popular than anything else. And working extremely well with a gamepad is a huge plus. This game is everything I needed and wanted it to be and more. And it's just the BETA!
Next beta weekend, I am going to only level one class, and I think it will be a Mesmer, hopefully Asuran or Sylvari.
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