There’s been so much material posted after the ArenaNet closed beta test event last weekend that there’s no way to summarize it. Over at GuildMag, Dutch Sunshine has been aggregating everything into a very long post (probably the most comprehensive list out there, he said modestly). I helped out with gathering material on Monday, and Dutch has been busy since then, adding more and more to the list.
Top-posting Update: The beta program is being widened. You can apply to join the next phase of the Guild Wars 2 beta at beta.guildwars2.com. No guarantees that you’ll get in, however, as they will be looking for people with various hardware configurations and (probably) different gaming backgrounds. Also note that this is not an open beta: it’s a closed beta and you have to sign (and be governed by) a non-disclosure agreement — which means the first rule of Guild Wars 2 beta is that you don’t talk about it if you’re in. Beta FAQ page is here. <End of update>
Just to give a sense of the (overwhelmingly positive) press reaction to their weekend access, here’s Sardu at Ten Ton Hammer:
Following the press beta event for Guild Wars 2, it occurred to me that there is absolutely no way that I would be able to encapsulate the entirety of my experiences in a single article. The game is just too different from anything you think you know about what an MMO can be, and far more awesome than any other title currently on the market or in development.
While I realize that’s a pretty bold statement, I have absolutely no doubts that once you get the chance to play GW2 you’ll be nodding your head in agreement and exclaiming, “You know, Sardu was spot on in his assessments about Guild Wars 2 being the MMO equivalent of the creation of sliced bread.” True story.
Realizing full well that it would be a challenge to properly convey just how monumental an impact GW2 is going to have on the online gaming industry, I created the handy reference chart below. I thoroughly encourage you to take full advantage of your right mouse button, select “Save Image As…” and post this chart anywhere and everywhere you can think of as you traverse the web in the coming weeks.
At PC Gamer, Josh answers the reader question “How epic is the World vs. World vs. World PvP?”
Josh: This could’ve been the only content in all of Guild Wars 2 and I would probably still have bought it. It’s almost impossible to convey the scope of this semi-open-world zone that 3 sides of massive numbers of players battle over. It’s like having 20 old-school Alterac Valleys all lumped together in a huge intricate valley with caves, towers, castles, and rivers — without all the crappy side quests and with a lot more siege weaponry. There are three teams on the map, which pit the entire populations of three different servers against each other, and anyone can go into it at any time. Gavin’s putting together a full video on it for later this week, but I had an absolutely blast forming impromptu warbands with my Red-Team brethren. We assaulted caves overrun by enemy players to steal their resources and used them to build catapults. Then we drove those catapults to their towers and laid siege to the keep doors to break our way in and try to take control of it (before dying horribly as a huge group of enemy players rode across the hills to trap us in the valley). Capturing these towers and keeps gives boons to everyone on my server (aka Red Team), no matter where they are playing at the time. This is the sort of thing that guilds will organize watch shifts and specialized raiding parties for.
[. . .]
Gavin: I said earlier that PvP instances feel like real war scenarios in GW2, but WvW makes them look like child’s play. I can’t stress it enough, this is huge! The four maps contain the largest PvP land masses of any MMO I’ve played to date. I ignorantly thought I had time to explore them entirely in a couple hours and probably only saw a fifth of everything before the servers shut down. The various forms of terrain are peppered with objectives to capture and defend. Three servers duke it out for every objective trying to earn bonuses for their entire server. At one point I was helping assault a blue keep when out of nowhere an army of green players showed up and flanked us, causing an absolute slaughter. It was amazing. The next advance, we were destroyed by trebuchets and catapults raining explosives down on us.
The resource systems adds essential depth to the overall warfare. Capturing and securing supply points allows players to begin crafting defensive or offensive structures. I saw player created trebuchets, mortars, and even a war golem that ran around pounding players and NPCs into a pulp. The ability to create machines of war not only adds immersion to larger battles, but forces a new way of thinking when forming strategies on which objectives need to be assaulted, defended, or let go to enhance your servers standing.
Update: TotalBiscuit narrates some in-game footage for a human Guardian:
Update, the second: Pwyff at ZAM on the combat system:
At one point, ArenaNet noted that their combat system simply wouldn’t allow for traditional tanking or healing, and after my first dungeon run in the Ascalon Catacombs, I can confirm that this is true. Most of the “tanking” in Guild Wars 2 is done by whoever happens to be closest to the target at the time. Currently, threat is calculated based on a combination of proximity and overall damage / healing being done. One dev I spoke to said that, in optimal situations, players would be rolling in and out of the fight, with each teammate taking a turn at “tanking” the boss through skill rotations and rolling. I can also confirm that even journalists don’t know how to listen to combat advice, because while, in theory, this sounds like a dynamic combat system — and it is! — when nobody plays properly, fights quickly become messy affairs.
This is probably my only real concern with Guild Wars 2 in the future. There is a deep and robust combat system in play here that is a delight to behold in controlled situations (organized PvP will be incredible and I’ll touch on that later), but once things go slightly off-kilter, or you get a dungeon running group that just doesn’t understand the importance of positioning, all those nuances get thrown out the door and you’re left with barely controlled chaos. I want to genuinely believe that every player out there will easily pick up on GW2‘s combat system, but after being a raid leader in hundreds of raids in World of Warcraft and Star Wars: The Old Republic, where a startling number of players still don’t understand how to avoid standing in fire (or missiles, in the case of SWTOR), I do have serious doubts.
