I just wanted to share some of my GW2 beta experience that I had a chance to play last weekend with my old Ifrit comrades . I don't usually gush about a game especially with what has been released in the last few years, pretty well all big disapoinments. I always found myself going back to WoW and I had pretty well given up playing anything. I heard about GW2 a while back but I didnt like GW1 so I didnt follow the development but there was a pre-sale with guaranteed beta access and I figured why not, it will give me something to bitch about It turns out that this is the best game I have ever played and it's just Beta . The game offers a huge open world with PVE, Dynamic Events that just blowed me away and massive World vs World vs World PVP in which 3 servers battle for supremacy in an PVP area called The mysts complete with siege weapons et all and when you enter this area your boosted to level 80 with the best gear! so it's all about skill very refreshing. The game encourages you to venture and explore and that's where you start to get really involved and the fun begins. Gone are the days of kill stealing, if someone starts to hammer the mob you are fighting, everyone gets full xp and loot, this applies also for gathering nodes, very clever You can send and receive mail direct from your character screen as well access the auction house to buy and sell. The races and classes seem to be very well balanced all being very playable. I played mostly a Warrior and loved it. You have 2 weapon slots so you can equip a greatsword and a rifle and switch beteween the two as required during battles as each weapon has its unique abilities AOE, snares, stuns etc. I could go on and on but I'll recommend that you check it out and draw your own conclusions
This is going to be a hell of of huge game when it releases and dare i say, bye bye WoW it was nice while it lasted.
"The King is dead, long live the King"

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Please learn to paragraph

Almost all the reviews I've seen of this beta are positive, when usually from what I remember betas are all usually like "well there are problems but of course it's still beta, it'll be fixed by live" and those problems are never fixed.

Hope the game does well, I'm certainly going to try it, but I think a lot of people who enjoy ganking or being ridiculously OP with gear (many in the WoW crowd) won't like this game lol

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No sig because 3 sigs in a row people make me change my sig and I refuse to have a pony sig!

I played the first one, and I was completely unimpressed. Are they sticking with the same format?

From what I recall, you saw people in town, and then everywhere else was instanced. And you capped at like level 25, or something.

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It barely has any resemblance to the first game.

Choosing your skillbar is gone (for the most part). Your first 5 skills are based on what weapon you are using. Your next three and elite skill are unlocked by using "skill points" you get by leveling and finding/beating skill challenges. You also get, depending on the class, skills on your F1-F4 buttons.

The world is not instanced, you will see other people as you quest. Speaking of which, pretty much every quest is public. You will not be fighting people for kills. There are also dynamic events where you will earn rewards based on your participation.

You will have your own story with choices, just like SWTOR.

Level cap is 80.

Just to name a few..

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-Formerly Movien, greatest Beastmaster evah

So its been a few months since anyone posted on this in a while. I'm just curious if anyone else had any beta Weekend experience or perhaps an informative link or two on the subject of Guild Wars 2. I'm moderately interested in picking up a new MMO and this one seems like it might have some of that RvR flair of DaoC which I enjoyed. Maybe WvW will turn out to suck a la Warhammer, but w/e I'm basically just looking for some people's impressions before I plunk down money for it.

I'm familiar with the general concepts of the game, but I'm curious. After a weekend of playing do you think people will still love playing it a month down the line? 6? Or is it like d3 where the game is fine till you hit max level and suddenly its a different less fun game. And obviously most any game can be good for a weekend so let me know some specific stuff you lvoed or hated, or thoguht were medicore.

For example: I watched some guy doing a story quest and I could tell straight away the "cut scenes" were not as involved as say the ones in SWTOR. Consisting primarily of 2 characters and a still background. For me, while I noticed the drop in production values I'm totally fine with that style of cut scene for what is essentially quest text. There's still (presumably) plenty of events outside of quest text that can be exciting.

picked this game up. only played for about 40 minutes so far. seems solid and it's definitely tons of fun.

What server?

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I'm on Ferguson's Crossing. it's a high pop american

I'm currently in Ehmry Bay, midget thief or kitty warrior. The game is pretty solid.

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How is the solo/casual game play? Or is it a huge time sink?

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I'm just a question knowing my answer,
hope I'm wrong.

It's not bad at all. You don't need to grind for WvW or for sPVP. I'm still level 56 and 49 and I started playing during head start (granted I didn't play for a week). Crafting is fun and rewarding as well.

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it's not a required time sink at all. it's easy to pick up and play by yourself or with your friends and feel like you've accomplished something whether you play for 5 minutes or 1 hour. the UI is really slick, gameplay is fluid, and the graphics/environments are really nice looking. great release.

Fluid, slick, with a great release. describes my morning perfectly, thank you shower, how i love thee.

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