Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend #1 part 3
Writing this while slightly tired. Why? Because I was up until 2.30 am (ish) playing the beta.
Saturday afternoon I switched over to the Norn theif for a bit of a wander around the North. I think I prefer the starting skills with the theif, and ended up with a dagger/pistol combo that seemed reasonably effective at doing ranged damage as well as getting me into and out of fights. The overall feel of the starting story and events is similar (go help a few people, drop into and out of personal story, join in random events), but the details are different enough to be interesting, and the scenary is, again, very pretty. The main city, Hoelbrak is also big, but I avoided getting quite as lost wandering around and tried to get more into my story. And found my first real bug when I decided that to get to the NPC I needed to talk to, I'd take the scenic route around the back of some places, and ended up jumping off a cliff, under a roofed area and getting stuck next to a cart, with apparently no way to get out and move again. That was my hint to take a break (after filing a bug report), eat, and get ready for something else I had to do Saturday evening (XBox motor-racing if you care).
I did try to get back on just after eating, and found out that the servers had collapsed again.
Eventually got back on after the race, and took the Necromancer for a wander. Can't remember if I mentioned the slightly skimpy outfit before, but it was interesting that as I improved her armour, the jackets I picked up did a good job of covering her upper half, while her skirt remained looking more like underwear. It's a little strange that armour does a worse job of covering up than town clothes.
I went for an explore as well as progressing the story a bit, and found out that it's possible to climb rocks and cliffs with a bit of careful jumping, and you can end up in places that a lot of games wouldn't let you go. It seems you can pretty much go anywhere you like, if you can find the right place to jump from.
Gave up about 1 am, because I had to get up for a tabletop gaming session on Sunday, so thought that was going to be it.
However during the gaming session, a rethink of timezones made me realise I could get some more Guild Wars 2 in when I got home, so at about midnight I was on again, creating a Charr Mesmer, to see what the Race is like, and how the funky-looking new Mesmer abilities work.
After a couple of hours, I've decided I don't really like the Charr, and this isn't just because I kept getting lost in the big city. As a fantasy race, they're kind of catlike in their facial features, and body shape and fur colouring (tiger stripes, leopard spots), but have also got horns and multiple ears, which end up making them also a bit cow-like. I'm not saying this is a bad thing in any way, why shouldn't fantasy races be a bit weird (I'm looking forward to trying the Asura and Sylvari at some point), but something about the way the Charr drop to all fours to run just feels wrong to me. I'm pretty sure that a lot of people are going to like them, given the reactions to them being announced as a playable race.
As for he Mesmer as a class, it took a little while to get the new illusion skills unlocked, because you have to earn the later weapon skills by using the ones you've got, and I started with a sword, and the first skill seemed to require running up to an opponent and hitting them (this isn't a melee class), and I still haven't adjusted to having to move into range myself. I also still need to learn how to dodge.
Once I got the skills unlocked (and got my hands on a pistol again), I was standing back and letting an illusionary copy of myself go up to the monsters, and a couple of other illusionary copies of me were standing next to me firing pistols at the target. Having the ability to destroy my illusions to cause damage or confusion to oponents was also interesting tactically. I can see me giving the Mesmer another try, though next Beta I'll probably play with the classes I've not touched yet.
So far I'm not sure I'd describe Guild Wars 2 as revolutionary. There are definitely things I've not seen or heard of before, but it feels more like an evolution, as it still feels like Guild Wars. The difficulty level seems reasonably OK so far, and even though the game engine and graphics aren't fully optimised yet, it was performing OK on my dual core laptop (as long as it was running on mains power, as battery power drops the processing ability a bit), and I didn't spot anything major that needs to be fixed to have a playable game.
OK, so the infrastructure and/or authentication servers couldn't cope, but I think Arena Net might have underestimated just how many people want to play this game *now* (seriously folks, whinging because bits (or indeed, temporarily, all) of the beta don't work makes you look like a spoiled child, and that you have no idea what a beta test is), but having everything fall over in this fashion this time should give them information to get things sorted so that when the game is finally released the systems have enough resiliancy to cope.
The initial "go and help people" non-dynamic tasks might need a bit of work to keep them interesting and stop them feeling like a grin every time you create a new character, and the frequency of the dynamic events might need to be tweaked (a long gap between them might be better), but I don't think it's far off being ready.
I do think the "double-click" to intereact needs to move you into range for melee attacks and picking up loot and objects though. This was particualrly annoying when doing the "pick up object, take it somewhere else" tasks like feeding cattle or putting out fires, because I'm used to double-clicking an object at range and having the character run over and pick it up; that may just be me and my gaming experience, I don't know.
Am I glad I pre-purchased the game and got access to the beta weekends? Oh hell, yes, but I'm also aware that the beta access was a nice bonus to the pre-purchase rewards of a few days headstart and a couple of nifty items.
Am I sad to see the end of the first beta weekend? Yes, because I was having fun, and missed chunks of the weekend because of other commitments, and no because I do have other things I need to do.
Saturday afternoon I switched over to the Norn theif for a bit of a wander around the North. I think I prefer the starting skills with the theif, and ended up with a dagger/pistol combo that seemed reasonably effective at doing ranged damage as well as getting me into and out of fights. The overall feel of the starting story and events is similar (go help a few people, drop into and out of personal story, join in random events), but the details are different enough to be interesting, and the scenary is, again, very pretty. The main city, Hoelbrak is also big, but I avoided getting quite as lost wandering around and tried to get more into my story. And found my first real bug when I decided that to get to the NPC I needed to talk to, I'd take the scenic route around the back of some places, and ended up jumping off a cliff, under a roofed area and getting stuck next to a cart, with apparently no way to get out and move again. That was my hint to take a break (after filing a bug report), eat, and get ready for something else I had to do Saturday evening (XBox motor-racing if you care).
I did try to get back on just after eating, and found out that the servers had collapsed again.
Eventually got back on after the race, and took the Necromancer for a wander. Can't remember if I mentioned the slightly skimpy outfit before, but it was interesting that as I improved her armour, the jackets I picked up did a good job of covering her upper half, while her skirt remained looking more like underwear. It's a little strange that armour does a worse job of covering up than town clothes.
I went for an explore as well as progressing the story a bit, and found out that it's possible to climb rocks and cliffs with a bit of careful jumping, and you can end up in places that a lot of games wouldn't let you go. It seems you can pretty much go anywhere you like, if you can find the right place to jump from.
Gave up about 1 am, because I had to get up for a tabletop gaming session on Sunday, so thought that was going to be it.
However during the gaming session, a rethink of timezones made me realise I could get some more Guild Wars 2 in when I got home, so at about midnight I was on again, creating a Charr Mesmer, to see what the Race is like, and how the funky-looking new Mesmer abilities work.
After a couple of hours, I've decided I don't really like the Charr, and this isn't just because I kept getting lost in the big city. As a fantasy race, they're kind of catlike in their facial features, and body shape and fur colouring (tiger stripes, leopard spots), but have also got horns and multiple ears, which end up making them also a bit cow-like. I'm not saying this is a bad thing in any way, why shouldn't fantasy races be a bit weird (I'm looking forward to trying the Asura and Sylvari at some point), but something about the way the Charr drop to all fours to run just feels wrong to me. I'm pretty sure that a lot of people are going to like them, given the reactions to them being announced as a playable race.
As for he Mesmer as a class, it took a little while to get the new illusion skills unlocked, because you have to earn the later weapon skills by using the ones you've got, and I started with a sword, and the first skill seemed to require running up to an opponent and hitting them (this isn't a melee class), and I still haven't adjusted to having to move into range myself. I also still need to learn how to dodge.
Once I got the skills unlocked (and got my hands on a pistol again), I was standing back and letting an illusionary copy of myself go up to the monsters, and a couple of other illusionary copies of me were standing next to me firing pistols at the target. Having the ability to destroy my illusions to cause damage or confusion to oponents was also interesting tactically. I can see me giving the Mesmer another try, though next Beta I'll probably play with the classes I've not touched yet.
So far I'm not sure I'd describe Guild Wars 2 as revolutionary. There are definitely things I've not seen or heard of before, but it feels more like an evolution, as it still feels like Guild Wars. The difficulty level seems reasonably OK so far, and even though the game engine and graphics aren't fully optimised yet, it was performing OK on my dual core laptop (as long as it was running on mains power, as battery power drops the processing ability a bit), and I didn't spot anything major that needs to be fixed to have a playable game.
OK, so the infrastructure and/or authentication servers couldn't cope, but I think Arena Net might have underestimated just how many people want to play this game *now* (seriously folks, whinging because bits (or indeed, temporarily, all) of the beta don't work makes you look like a spoiled child, and that you have no idea what a beta test is), but having everything fall over in this fashion this time should give them information to get things sorted so that when the game is finally released the systems have enough resiliancy to cope.
The initial "go and help people" non-dynamic tasks might need a bit of work to keep them interesting and stop them feeling like a grin every time you create a new character, and the frequency of the dynamic events might need to be tweaked (a long gap between them might be better), but I don't think it's far off being ready.
I do think the "double-click" to intereact needs to move you into range for melee attacks and picking up loot and objects though. This was particualrly annoying when doing the "pick up object, take it somewhere else" tasks like feeding cattle or putting out fires, because I'm used to double-clicking an object at range and having the character run over and pick it up; that may just be me and my gaming experience, I don't know.
Am I glad I pre-purchased the game and got access to the beta weekends? Oh hell, yes, but I'm also aware that the beta access was a nice bonus to the pre-purchase rewards of a few days headstart and a couple of nifty items.
Am I sad to see the end of the first beta weekend? Yes, because I was having fun, and missed chunks of the weekend because of other commitments, and no because I do have other things I need to do.