Poll: Guild Wars 2 Beta Thoughts?

[Korten12]

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.

 

[BENZOOKA]

Haven't tried the beta.

I have grown to dislike all MMO's (haven't really played, but WoW in 2006 for a couple of months) because they offer nothing enjoyable.

Then again, Guild Wars 2 seems really promising. I'll consider it once it's released.

The nice thing about GW2 is that it has no subscription fee, which is why I will probably buy it.

I am not a big MMO fan either, but occasionally I get the itch to do a raid or play some PvP. When that happens, that itch usually goes unscratched, because I refuse to buy a month of WoW subscription to play PvP for 3 hours. In GW2 that wont happen. Woot!

Exactly. No monthly fee is a huge selling point. Those are kind of ludicrous anyways and easily lead to "I'd like to play, but I haven't payed and it's a bit of a trouble to do. Or I don't want to play for a whole month (which is usually a much worse deal than longer time packages), if I'll just play a bit" and "I've got two months of payed time and I feel I have to play it for the time or it's a waste of money".

Just paying for the game itself is the best way to give the makers their revenue, and other systems seem to be more or less bullshit. Free-to-play is a neat idea, but it means they are getting the money by other means. Paying for additional content can work alright if it's merely for cosmetic stuff but the constant reminder of purchasable stuff is annoying and if you can buy anything that gives more of an edge than a top hat and a monocle for your character: that's just ridiculous. Anyways, free-to-play-but-something-to-buy gives the feeling that there is always something that you don't have, not because you haven't done enough nor aren't skilled enough, but because you haven't payed enough. Free-to-plays also invite bots and cheaters, who are nearly impossible to stop, since a new account costs nothing.

What was the topic again? Oh, right. There's a few things that MMO's got going for them, some things even exclusively, and GW2 sure sounds like the desperately needed, renewed, cool breeze to put those things on a pedestal and make the game, IMHO, worthy of consideration despite the bad things associated with the genre.

 

[Chairman Miaow]

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.

 

[Korten12]

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.

It is true, that we are mostly just attacking the same thing. But on occasions where there is a dynamic event or a cave where it requires more then one person or it gets though. Having those people rez each other and just help kill the enemies is better imo then not being able to do content because you don't have a healer or tank. Being able to work together without a party is a godsend, it makes it a lot easier to get things done.

 

[Atlus0016]

I lost three hours of my life before I knew, if that is any indication.

It's coming along. The game is still very much a Beta, but that's the point. The people that will complain the most and find every little flaw are going to be the fans.

Combat is good. I had mixed feelings when I heard about the set weapon skills, but I see the importance now. The unlock system is exterminate simple. Equip the weapon and use. I have heard of a scaling problem, both up and down, and I agree it's there. I just have faith A-net will fix it before the game is released.

Story is meh. It's personal, different for each choice you make while making a character. But it's a little bland. Granted, I have not got up the level 20 stuff and doubt I will make it that far before it ends.

Teaming up is a big issue right now. Parties can't even stay together walking out of a gate. I am betting this has to do with servers being over ran, it's annoying, but fixable. Stress test are a good thing.

All in all, it's a good MMORPG that I will enjoy playing with my friend for countless hours. Which is what I wanted.

 

[Absolutionis]

When I first played the GW1 beta, the tutorials were completely nonexistent and I didn't even know what "Attribute Points" were. Fast forward a few months, and the game became much more newbie-friendly.

It's a beta, so I'm sure they'll figure it out and get things working better.
I honestly didn't understand what the Thief's Initiative was until I read about it online.

You can set which ability becomes your "auto attack" by holding control and right clicking on it. That way, whenever you are between abilities, you will automatically use that ability, provided it isn't on cooldown/you have enough initiative etc. So far, I haven't found a use for this, as I haven't played a class which has an ability other than their "1" ability which can be repeated often.

That's actually really helpful. The Engineer's Flamethrower has a '1' ability that must be manually pressed every time as a 'basic' attack.

 

[Chairman Miaow]

snip

Glad to be of help.

It's so weird to go on GW1 now and find my character has like a 7th birthday present. The first has actually aged really well.

 

[Kungfu_Teddybear]

Other than the annoying connection issues I'm loving it. I was adamant that I was going to be going a Charr but when I got on the game I was actually drawn to the Norn for some reason, love them. It's clear the game still needs a bit of work though, I had a bug on the quest tracker yesterday. I was supposed to go back and find Legionnaire Steelbane at one point but the quest tracker as pointing me to some random Charr NPC and it took me ages to find Steelbane.

I pre-ordered the collectors edition and I'm happy enough with the beta, and I only know the game is going to get better, that I feel it was worth purchasing the collectors edition, plus that Rytlock statue is so cool.

 

[Polock]

Words cannot describe the fun I had in WvW with my 5 friends. We held a keep and earned new guild mates through our sheer influence on the battle field. The Guardian is awesome.

 

[Rednog]

I don't know why but I find the game kind of hard, I'm only like level 12 or 13, but as a thief I find my self getting absolutely blown up by mobs, as soon as there is more than a single mob my health just goes up in smoke. I don't know, it just feels frustrating when questing to have my health constantly tanking and I have to use my heal every fight.

Also the inventory system, I don't get why MMOs haven't done this, if you have stuff that can be used in a profession please slot it in a side unlimited inventory bag.
Seriously, I picked up just Leatherworking and Huntsman and the insane variety of materials you can get pre working them down at a workstation is just insane. A hide is a hide, I don't need every animal to drop different named hides if they all turn into the same thing.

Loved PvP though, I couldn't find a way to just simply exit so I ended up playing like 10 games back to back and I absolutely dominated.

 

[Polock]

I don't know why but I find the game kind of hard, I'm only like level 12 or 13, but as a thief I find my self getting absolutely blown up by mobs, as soon as there is more than a single mob my health just goes up in smoke. I don't know, it just feels frustrating when questing to have my health constantly tanking and I have to use my heal every fight.

Also the inventory system, I don't get why MMOs haven't done this, if you have stuff that can be used in a profession please slot it in a side unlimited inventory bag.
Seriously, I picked up just Leatherworking and Huntsman and the insane variety of materials you can get pre working them down at a workstation is just insane. A hide is a hide, I don't need every animal to drop different named hides if they all turn into the same thing.

Loved PvP though, I couldn't find a way to just simply exit so I ended up playing like 10 games back to back and I absolutely dominated.

My friend played a thief and he kicked ass too. I was a Guardian, so our combined power kept him alive and doing even more damage. It was a brutal combo.

 

[JWRosser]

This may be a silly question, but I haven't had much time to play due to work and exams, but is it possible to enter an 'explorable area' privately? For example, in the human story, I was in the Queensdale area, and there are a lot of other players there.

Whilst it's sometimes fun to go around with other random players, I'm sure I speak for a lot of people when I say it's fun to have a small private party too. My housemate and I want to start together, so is there a way that we could enter our own 'private' explorable area as a two person party?

 

[Korten12]

This may be a silly question, but I haven't had much time to play due to work and exams, but is it possible to enter an 'explorable area' privately? For example, in the human story, I was in the Queensdale area, and there are a lot of other players there.

Whilst it's sometimes fun to go around with other random players, I'm sure I speak for a lot of people when I say it's fun to have a small private party too. My housemate and I want to start together, so is there a way that we could enter our own 'private' explorable area as a two person party?

No, you can't enter area's privately. It's not like GW1 in that regard.

 

[Norrdicus]

Tried it for a while on my friend's computer and I'm pretty damn sure I'll be joining him in the next open beta.

It's just so impossible to resist joining a group of players that's doing an event right next to you.

"I should be going for the next skill point quest but... okay, let's join in on this ONE fight"

*2 hours and several events later*

"Oh right, that skill point, I forgot!"

 

[JWRosser]

This may be a silly question, but I haven't had much time to play due to work and exams, but is it possible to enter an 'explorable area' privately? For example, in the human story, I was in the Queensdale area, and there are a lot of other players there.

Whilst it's sometimes fun to go around with other random players, I'm sure I speak for a lot of people when I say it's fun to have a small private party too. My housemate and I want to start together, so is there a way that we could enter our own 'private' explorable area as a two person party?

No, you can't enter area's privately. It's not like GW1 in that regard.

Ahhh ok....shame, that was a lot of fun - going off on little adventures. But oh well.

 

[Sunrider]

5. Early in beta still, but the game needs more robust tutorials in the worst way. It's a total fucking mystery what's going on half the time.

Really? I can't say I've been confused at all so far (except when creating a Mesmer and going straight into PvP. Too much mindfuck for me.).
It took me a few minutes to find the PvP menu and all that, but other than that, everything has been crystal clear to me, and I never played the first Guild Wars for more than 20 minutes.

OT: Love it. It's not perfect, and people before me in this thread has some valid complaints, but I am not disappointed.
The aesthetics are marvelous. Exploring is a joy, which hasn't been the case for any MMO I've played since the first time I played WoW, and even then, this is far cooler.
I was thinking about how they need to improve slightly on the feel of the combat, like delay when casting spells and such, but I guess I can't say that when it's still in beta, considering the latency issues and disconnects.

Either way, I'm hooked. Let's hope they release it before I die of old age.

 

[Tanakh]

Ahhh ok....shame, that was a lot of fun - going off on little adventures. But oh well.

Guess you have noticed by now but the personal quest zones are instanced and your party can go there. That is as close as it gets.

 

[JWRosser]

Ahhh ok....shame, that was a lot of fun - going off on little adventures. But oh well.

Guess you have noticed by now but the personal quest zones are instanced and your party can go there. That is as close as it gets.

Ah interesting. As I said I've been too busy to play it so haven't discovered this yet - hopefully come the next beta I will have more time!

To be honest I'm not mega fussed about playing the beta at the moment - but I cannot wait for the full game to be released!

 

[eventhorizon525]

Beta is proving a whole lot more fun than I expected, though there have been a few issues. Mostly it was just getting into the same area as a party member, or connecting to the game in the first place. Outside of that, the combat was great, if a bit unforgiving at times. Then again, I am doing duel dagger elementalist which is some of the most tricky gameplay I've done in any game.

The boss fights seem sort of poorly balanced atm, with them either having attacks anyone can ignore or they one shot you.

Also, I've had some weird experience with the scaling, I'd prefer if it would let me always be higher than the mobs in the zone if I'm sufficiently leveled. Not full power mind you, but not going from 17 to 4, then fighting level 5s in groups. That was not particularly fun.