Guild Wars 2 Beta Impressions

I absolutely loved it.  I think it offers something just different enough from WoW and SWTOR to stand out on its own.  (I love both WoW and SWTOR btw).

I quested until about level 16 with an Elemental Human (comparable to a WoW mage).  I started using a scepter/dagger combo, but eventually ended up using a staff the most and loving it.  I stuck with fire, and never really leveled my water, air, or earth skills.  Between the four element "stances" and the different skills available by using different weapons, there are probably hundreds of different ways to play as an elemental.  I really enjoyed the questing the personal storylines.  It was nice not having to run around to turn in quests all the time, although going to the heart person (quest "giver") did usually let you buy some decent items with the karma points.  Questing can be done solo with no problems, or you can team up.  Me and my buddy helped each other with our personal storylines a lot and this let us do the higher level quests sooner.  The dynamic events were awesome.  I loved getting an alert that centaurs were attacking somewhere and then you run there with a dozen or more other people and take them all down.  Events were tons of fun.

The WvW is where it is at though.  I was on Moledune server, and we were fighting Anvil Rock and Sorrow (or something like that).  We were in dead last place, but it was a still a blast.  When I first entered the eternal battlegrounds I was a little confused.  I eventually found a battle using the map, and it turned out to be a group of about 40-50 of my server-mates ravaging the country-side and taking over keeps and towers.  I guess this is called a "Zerg"?....a huge group of people just overrunning everything.  The zergs are fun as hell, but since there are a ton of people in them, nothing gets defended.  It was a fun way to start out though. 

Eventually, I got invited to a guild and we formed a small party of 5 people and decided to branch off from the zerg.  We snuck behind enemy lines and took two supply bases, which crippled one of their keeps (ogre).  We then managed to get a ton of other people to come help us take the keep and we claimed it for our guild.  We lost it about 5 minutes later when one of the other servers decided they wanted it back, but attacking, taking, and then defending the keep was some of the most fun I've had in a multiplayer game in a long time.  I leveled from 16 to 18 just doing WvW, and while it was definitely slower to level than by questing, it was still nice to get rewards for playing such a fun PvP mode.

The beta had a lot of issues.  Team chat wasn't working, party chat sometimes didn't work, the overflow server system is a nice idea, but it was impossible to get groups on the same Queensdale server to do any quests together.  Once we got past Queenesdale to Kessex, everything was fine though.  Arrow carts are way over-powered, and people were still figuring out WvW, but I think it will be an awesome mode.

Overall, I can't wait for more betas and the final release.  The game is gorgeous and a blast to play!

I've gotta say that I thoroughly enjoying playing the beta. I played as a Warrior, Necromancer, Mesmer, and Guardian. My game play style seemed to go best with Guardian, and Mesmer a close 2nd. The amount of ways to play a character are unbelievable. Love the change from close to long distance weaponry. Would like to see close range be a bit more powerful, as it seemed that long range has been stronger. 

The party system is fantastic. You can join a party, leave, make a new character, and when you're back in the game, the party is still intact. Wow.

Gotta agree WvW is totally where it's at. PvP was not as bad as I expected, but it needs some improvement. There is definitely incentive to playing PvP as there are some nice items. Experience can also be gained in WvW which is very nice. I was a bit overwhelmed by how huge the areas were. 

If I had one complaint, it would be that when things got heavy in battle, which happens a lot, connection goes down the crapper. I can only hope that will improve.

Appreciated the moments where you could input your opinions on quests after they had finished, such as rating on difficulty, fun, char development. 

Looking forward to playing the real thing, especially when we have a full fledged Guild to own the world.

PROS

It really is a game changer, especially for us MMO nerds.  All the skill combinations which change with weapons combos are such a cool feature, so even when you are up against the same class/same level, the play is different.  Playing a staff Necromancer vs. a dagger + offhand Necromancer plays very different.  Playing a sword + pistol thief vs a dual wield dagger thief plays completely different.  So far, it looks awesome for min-maxing and theory nerdcrafting.  Adding in underwater combat with even more diverse skills and weapons, and you are definitely having some good times.

The world events are a very cool feature which I loved in Warhammer Online, but this is so much better done and rewards are based on contribution.  In the beginning they are simple...gather up apples so some NPC can make a pie, but they scale a lot harder to where you are fighting world mobs.  The bonus?  You just jump in solo....you don't need a group at all.  Also, these are literally all over the place so you can participate in these through all your levels.

WvW is simply phenomenal and with four worlds competing at once, there are always so many opponents to encounter.  Tank, I agree with you on the attacking the gates/walls aspects.  The part that you couldn't see is these are intended to be taken with siege weapons.  Rams, trebuchets, golems, etc.  The problem is, we were all such low levels and poor that we couldn't purchase the schematics to build these.  They aren't expensive at all and by the time everyone is just a low level 20 even, people will have the money to build these.  There is also some aspect of being able to claim castles/keeps for your guild, but we didn't get to discover much about this.  Doodi capped one for us when we took it, but I don't know if he ever figured out what that meant.

Guild prestige.  Doing things along the game line increases the guilds prestige level for which you get bonuses.  I don't know yet how cool this will be, but just reading about it makes it sound pretty win.

CONS

Microtransactions.  I call this a con, but depending on your view, this may very well be a pro.  It appears that everything you can buy, you can also earn in game if you wanted to.  What concerns me any time these things are available are in people spending hundreds and maxing out their toon and becoming a god.  It doesn't appear to be this way in this game however.  Instead, the microtransactions are for things like leveling (XP) buffs against NPCs, vanity items like pets and dies, etc.  I didn't personally get to look at the vendor offerings, but listening to others talking about them made me think most things were very very cheap and since there is no sub fee, some little bit a month sounds like it could be fun.

So far, it seems like the game is far less about grouping with friends.  I am sure this will change down the road, but at early levels, you really are grouping with the rest of the people in your zone.  Unclear guild benefits.

The hotkeys are not ideal and not fully mappable.  They work great for me using a Naga mouse, but people using a keyboard may have a small issue hitting the higher number keys.  Some of the UI elements are not highly intuitive.

I know what I'm using gems for.  Storage.  Storage, and more storage.  I think that's a premium.  I spent some of the gems on stupid stuff and first, but then quickly realized that space was something I could buy.  I like how you can right click an item, and either sell it in the market place, or send it to your bank.  Very nice feature.  

I didn't get to play to much this weekend, but I already know it's awesome.  WvWvW, and the world events are pretty freaking cool I must say.

This was on my must buy list but now that my pc has decided to play stupid fucker it doesn't look like I'll get it for a while.

Servers are apparently online today for a stress test. (If you pre-ordered.) My characters from the previous beta are still intact.

I played about 3.5 hours of WvW last night and almost hit 20.  I'm addicted.  I was having fun playing user-made Portal 2 maps until yesterday, but now all I can think about is assaulting keeps and trying to take down castle walls with 50-60 other Realm-mates.

I can't wait for this game to come out.  Hopefully I can get on the 2o2p server and we can form a WvW contigent within the Guild.  I want Stonemist Castle.  And with organization, we can take the thing easily.

Also hoping this rumor today is true:

http://kotaku.com/5910509/guild-wars-2-retail-ad-shows-june-28-release-date

just an fyi.  There is a beta weekend coming June 8th.  If you pre purchased you should be in.  All toons will remain, which is nice.

Need a real open beta.  Don't want to pre-order to determine whether or not I want this title.

Tried this beta out for less than an hour.  While my machine will handle Battlefield 3 (and so far any other game I've wanted to play) without issues, the graphic quality seemed very low and it was very jittery.  I think it has a lot of promise but I just couldn't play with it that way.  I hope it's not that I'm low on the requirements list and that maybe it was something else, especially since I did buy the Deluxe Edition.  I have a gaming laptop so it can't be upgraded easily (to my knowledge).  Anyone experience anything similar and/or have any suggestions for next Beta?

Edit: In case you're curious, I have i7 with 8GB of Ram:
http://www.asus.com/Notebooks/Gaming_Powerhouse/G73SW/#specifications

Ok good that makes me feel better, I was hoping they had locked it down and hearing you guys had the same issues.  Any of you do the dungeons? I'm curious how the dungeons worked with there not being a defined tank/healer/dps...