Poll: Guild Wars 2 Beta Thoughts?

[Aris Khandr]

Played a bit with a friend this weekend. And it was a huge pain in the ass. We could not stay in the same instance. After every quest, after every zoning, we'd have to fiddle with things and try to resync. In the end, it wasn't worth it. If the game doesn't even let you team up with your friends, what's the point of it being an MMO?

 

[Frostbite3789]

Wish I had an opinion, uncooperative beta code with no word from support.

 

[Tanakh]

Well, today our realm finally achived WORLD DOMINATION on the eternal BGs; and I must say, this is how world freaking PvP should have always been. An amazing WvW experience, the best massive PvP I have had; though i am sure green and blue aren't as pleased.

Besides the game not assigning the party members to the same overflow server, have no mayor complains about the game. And seeing how they went out of the way to make sure people in different servers could play togueter with server guests, i am quite sure the overflow problem will be adressed before launch.

 

[Scarim Coral]

This is coming from a GW fan but to sum it up- it had lived up to my expectation.

I was able to had a go with all 8 professions and they weren't that hard to control. I did however found the Engineer, Elementist, Mesmer and Ranger to be the easiest well quickest to master. Engineer can only use pistol and rifle and the Elementist had limited weapons so you're able to learn their skill faster while the Mesmer illusions came in very handle.

My favourite had to be the Ranger that is once you get a long/ short bow and their pet actually came in handy unlike the GW 1 Ranger. The Guardian was my least favourite but only because I didn't fully utilise their skills (I didn't get why they had a blue flame on the left side of the skill bar).

I found myself to be more interest in the Charr story due to each Legions story were different from each other while the Norn only interest me a little.

The areas in that game is huge, really huge and I like the fact that the area will sometime have different events going on. Example in the human starter area one of the quests is to pick apples in a apple farm which is killing spiders and collecting the apples. When I made another human character, there was a spider queen in the apple farm and later on Bats were in the farm.

My main concern with the game is more of a long term effect. Some of the quests were somewhat easy to powl through due to having many players in the area. Sure it will be like this in the first year and so but what about five years later? When the new players descrease dramatically it will be very hard for those players to take on the harder quest like the bosses roaming in the area.

EDIT- Oh yeah the team need to fix the clipping problem with the Norn warrior as the beard stick through the helmet.

 

[Abedeus]

Waiting for open beta. Not really feeling optimistic about it, considering they forgot about fans who spent a LOT of money on game (two accounts with Trilogy + EotN) and played the game since the beginning (my oldest character just finished 5 years, and my main account is almost 6,5 years old). No beta invite. Kind of disappointed, though not surprising after Eye of the North.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Waiting for open beta. Not really feeling optimistic about it, considering they forgot about fans who spent a LOT of money on game (two accounts with Trilogy + EotN) and played the game since the beginning (my oldest character just finished 5 years, and my main account is almost 6,5 years old). No beta invite. Kind of disappointed, though not surprising after Eye of the North.

You have to prepruchase the game since they will send you the code (or if you bought the package the code is inside) in order to play the beta.
The beta is not over as they will have another beta weekend for every end of the month until the official release.

 

[Abedeus]

Waiting for open beta. Not really feeling optimistic about it, considering they forgot about fans who spent a LOT of money on game (two accounts with Trilogy + EotN) and played the game since the beginning (my oldest character just finished 5 years, and my main account is almost 6,5 years old). No beta invite. Kind of disappointed, though not surprising after Eye of the North.

You have to prepruchase the game since they will send you the code (or if you bought the package the code is inside) in order to play the beta.
The beta is not over as they will have another beta weekend for every end of the month until the official release.

Well aware that I have to pre-purchase the game.

My point was that they could've at least given some chance for old-time fans who supported them for years at least some "thank you" instead of "Buy our next game!! then you'll get a chance to see it!".

Unless there's some actual open beta, they lost me to Diablo 3.

 

[Davey Woo]

Only had connection issues for a few hours on the first night. Other than that I manage to complete my Charr Engineer's storyline and I think it's great. I've also managed to try most of the classes, and I like how they've changed them from the first game.
I spent most of the time on my own and other than a couple of quests found it relatively easy going. However that Charr Flame Shaman event can go die, it's horrible.

 

[kzeelio]

Played to level 21 as a Charr Warrior. The personal story seems to pick up a bit at around level 10, but it's hard to get into. The cutscenes are awful. "Dynamic Events" are just Public Quests, but they're still fun, especially the ones that have you fighting ridiculously large enemies or ridiculously large amounts of enemies. I didn't find the questing to be particularly rewarding though, as I didn't seem to get much reward in the way of loot and you don't get any real benefit from leveling until level 10. Loved the fiery-death Champion Bloodthirsty Black Moas.

Anyway, it was what I expected it to be.

 

[cielle]

Played a bit with a friend this weekend. And it was a huge pain in the ass. We could not stay in the same instance. After every quest, after every zoning, we'd have to fiddle with things and try to resync. In the end, it wasn't worth it. If the game doesn't even let you team up with your friends, what's the point of it being an MMO?

yes, this was a pain. My understanding though is that the system is meant to put party members into the same overflow when overflow is necessary. Hopefully it will be fixed for the next beta.

I enjoyed it very much. There were moments when it definitely just felt typical MMO grindy, as I tried to find an event that would finish off my level. Still, it was a lot of fun.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Played a bit with a friend this weekend. And it was a huge pain in the ass. We could not stay in the same instance. After every quest, after every zoning, we'd have to fiddle with things and try to resync. In the end, it wasn't worth it. If the game doesn't even let you team up with your friends, what's the point of it being an MMO?

This was indeed extremely annoying. So annoying, in fact, and so completely pointless, that I am 100% certain it's just a bug/beta oversight and will be corrected in short order.

 

[Ickorus]

I'm not too keen. I like the ideas, but the lack of clear roles and parties means that the whole thing just feels like one big uncooperative every man for himself cluster fuck..

Really? So far since the lack of party roles, I find myself working with others more then I do then other MMO's.

But are you really working with them or are you just both attacking the same thing? It might just be because I was playing a thief but none of my abilities lent themselves to team play.

The thief isn't really a team player, if you want to see some of the fabled cooperation you'll be wanting to try out a Guardian, most of your abilities in that profession function best in group combat.

 

[AlotFirst]

Played a bit with a friend this weekend. And it was a huge pain in the ass. We could not stay in the same instance. After every quest, after every zoning, we'd have to fiddle with things and try to resync. In the end, it wasn't worth it. If the game doesn't even let you team up with your friends, what's the point of it being an MMO?

This was indeed extremely annoying. So annoying, in fact, and so completely pointless, that I am 100% certain it's just a bug/beta oversight and will be corrected in short order.

It isn't pointless. It is supposed to prevent zones from getting too crowded. Although it is indeed annoying that parties get split up by this mechanic, it is better than making queue up for the zone.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

It isn't pointless. It is supposed to prevent zones from getting too crowded. Although it is indeed annoying that parties get split up by this mechanic, it is better than making queue up for the zone.

I'm talking about splitting parties, not the existence of the overflow zones. Anyone with a functioning brain knows what the point of the overflow zones is.

There's really no excuse for splitting the parties. It's not "better than" anything. It's completely intolerable, hence why I assume it's a bug, and not a feature.

 

[Tanakh]

My point was that they could've at least given some chance for old-time fans who supported them for years at least some "thank you"

Yeah, if only they gave dedicated GW 1 players, i dunno, sweet exclusive weaps, pets, armour, titles...

I do actually have a GW 1 account that i can't manage to grind to get those, find the PvE leveling too damn lame.

The thief isn't really a team player, if you want to see some of the fabled cooperation you'll be wanting to try out a Guardian, most of your abilities in that profession function best in group combat.

You mean besides stuns, slows, armour debuffs, pulls, blinds? A good theif is an amazing team player, he is just not a team buffer.

 

[Abedeus]

My point was that they could've at least given some chance for old-time fans who supported them for years at least some "thank you"

Yeah, if only they gave dedicated GW 1 players, i dunno, sweet exclusive weaps, pets, armour, titles...

They also give it to anyone who bought the game just before release and managed to get those 30 points.

Or someone who bought account second-hand off ebay for few bucks to get the weapons.

Again, it's the "old-timers vs newcomers" thing. Old-time players get exactly the same things new players get. What's the incentive for the old players to play the game? Pretty sure if I got to play the beta, like I had the chance with Diablo 3, I might've considered pre-purchasing it.

Now, not so sure. Already pre-ordered D3, and if it wasn't coming out this year, I would've went for GW2 instead.

 

[Korten12]

My point was that they could've at least given some chance for old-time fans who supported them for years at least some "thank you"

Yeah, if only they gave dedicated GW 1 players, i dunno, sweet exclusive weaps, pets, armour, titles...

They also give it to anyone who bought the game just before release and managed to get those 30 points.

Or someone who bought account second-hand off ebay for few bucks to get the weapons.

Again, it's the "old-timers vs newcomers" thing. Old-time players get exactly the same things new players get. What's the incentive for the old players to play the game? Pretty sure if I got to play the beta, like I had the chance with Diablo 3, I might've considered pre-purchasing it.

Now, not so sure. Already pre-ordered D3, and if it wasn't coming out this year, I would've went for GW2 instead.

So... Essentially because they weren't treating you super special compared to the rest, your not going to preorder it?

 

[ShadowsofHope]

Waiting for open beta. Not really feeling optimistic about it, considering they forgot about fans who spent a LOT of money on game (two accounts with Trilogy + EotN) and played the game since the beginning (my oldest character just finished 5 years, and my main account is almost 6,5 years old). No beta invite. Kind of disappointed, though not surprising after Eye of the North.

You have to prepruchase the game since they will send you the code (or if you bought the package the code is inside) in order to play the beta.
The beta is not over as they will have another beta weekend for every end of the month until the official release.

Well aware that I have to pre-purchase the game.

My point was that they could've at least given some chance for old-time fans who supported them for years at least some "thank you" instead of "Buy our next game!! then you'll get a chance to see it!".

Unless there's some actual open beta, they lost me to Diablo 3.

In case you weren't aware, the Hall of Hero's from EoTN will return in the Norn area and have exclusive items at each returning GW1's player beck and call decided by all the different achievements the player had completed over the course of their playtime, including armor, mounts, powerups, etc.

As for long time players getting instant access into the beta's.. why? No company that I'm aware of ever does that, and really doesn't have any reason to do so. Hell, no one even had to subscribe to the game to play it, only their time was being consumed. And, the incentive should be playing the game that is the sequel to the one you loved playing, not being rewarded for how long you have been a fanboy. Seriously.

In Diablo 3's open beta, the beta was really, really small in terms of explorable area's and story progression in the first Act. Guild Wars 2 was much larger in these respects.

 

[WoW Killer]

I was in the closed beta so my mind was already set on "pretty damn good, but might not be exactly what its fans were hoping for". Though I had a scare with the lag at the start. I went through the closed beta without a single wiff of lag, but with it it's a totally different game as I'm sure you can all understand. When you have an Ettin take a great big slow telegraphed swipe at you, and by the time he swings you're behind him and 12 foot away, but then you still get hit... yeah, that defeats the point of the game. I was glad when they seemed to have sorted that out. If they have those kind of problems after launch it'll break the game. The gameplay is spot on so long as your latency behaves itself.

Is anybody in the know about video editing and uploading? Like I want to take snippets of avi files from fraps and put them together in a video, maybe with a voice over and with some fading in and out. What freeware can I do that with? And what sort of compression should you use when uploading to Youtube?

 

[targren]

NB: Guild Wars "Hardcore" player - 50/50 HoM here. Needless to say, I was a fan of the original.

That said, the game was, while I could play it, disappointing. I'm not going to complain about lag, bugs, or lack of optimization, since I know what "beta" means.

That's not to say it's a BAD game by any stretch of the imagination. It just didn't live up to expectations. Other than the names of places, races, and skill callbacks, there's really nothing of Guild Wars in the game.

"But Targren," it's been said, "It's a completely different type of game! ANet is finally making the real MMO they've always wanted to make. How can you expect it to be like Guild Wars?"

"Because, grasshopper," I would reply with patient serenity, "It's Guild Wars 2. It takes place far enough in the future from the last game that the story isn't really tied to it, and if they weren't courting fans of the original, they could have named it anything else."


But, never let it be said that I'm not even handed. So I did put a lot of thought into judging it on its own merits.

As others have mentioned, the tutorial really needs to be buffed up. It takes too long to figure out what's going on, how public events work, etc. I put in 20 hours into the beta and I still am not quite sure how most of the events I played through 5-10 times (in Shaemoor) are actually TRIGGERED. I just sort of hung around in the area and hope'd they'd start. Hopefully, that's something addressed by release.

The vaunted combat system is a little too frantic. Between the fact that any event done right is basically a mass charlie-foxtrot, and the flooding particle effects making it barely possible to follow the action, the nuances like "dodging" don't really have as heavy an effect as they might have intended. Add in a crazy amount of PBAoE (point blank AoE, a.k.a. anti-melee AoE) and characters like the "glass cannon" thief run into a big problem in melee. They've done away with holy trinity roles like "Tanking" but kept the one-shot-kills toward squishies dumb enough to get too close (how do you retreat from combat if the first hit downs you?)

There are some balance issues that bother me. I can see the logic for making fast-travel a money sink, but I really think that having to pay money to rez at a waypoint is a little excessive, considering that you're already going to have to pay to repair your gear, plus you've more than likely got a good hike to get back to where you died. It's also unduly hard on low-level players. 15 copper on top of repair fees is a lot when you're derping around shaemoor fields, and by the time you get out of there, it's nothing at all. So there's really no point to having it there, IMO.

My last big worry is the cash shop. I said from the day that they started selling "Mercenary Heroes" that we'd have to worry about them selling power. I was, alas, not wrong. The standard power-boosting fare of XP buffs, item drop buffs, etc... are available on top of the normal, pointless-but-fun cosmetic stuff. Particularly insulting are the "mystic keys," lifted straight out of TF2, and the fact that you can trade "gems" (the cash shop "tokens") for gold, legitimizing gold-buying as a gameplay mechanic. How badly that works out, I suppose, is going to depend on how much gems cost, both in terms of real cash and in gold, but I don't foresee it ending well.

For a "social" game, the communication system is woefully inadequate. No Zone chat at all, just a "local" channel which seems to just cover some arbitrary radius.


Now, lest I give the impression that I only had complaints, some of the good things:

The game is gorgeous. Full stop. I have no complaints about the aesthetics, at all.

I was afraid I'd hate the new weapon-skill system, but I really enjoyed it. It takes about 50 kills to unlock all 5 weapons for a particular loadout, but I've always liked a little grind. Most of the achievements seem a little pointless, but they're basically just titles renamed. Giving points for them seems a bit too XBL-like and has no real purpose, though. It would be better if you could do something with them.

I like that I get a "completion" status on every load screen. Great for a completionist whore like me.