(Cross-posted from GuildMag)

After posting yesterday’s report, I read this tweet from Hunter (of Hunter’s Insight) “You can tell someone went into GW2 with a negative attitude to begin with when they start a post with complaints. Confirmation bias.” That’s very true, and I hope I’ve managed to keep my commentary balanced. I don’t want to come across as a total fanboy over Guild Wars 2, so I’m pointing out issues and concerns, but don’t misundestand me: I really enjoyed my brief time in Tyria 250 years later. When Natural Sword and I teamed up again for the last few hours of the beta weekend event, it was amusing how often we’d use words like “epic” and “awesome” in discussing the most recent dynamic event chain. We’d both made it past level 20 but the content scaling seemed to be working quite well — it was challenging without being too deadly.

It was a beta event, but aside from the few bugs I mentioned in the earlier installments, and a few more I encountered on Sunday, the game felt very polished and immersive. After I finally got to bed this morning (3:00 a.m. local time), I found I was dreaming with the Guild Wars 2 UI overlaid (the dream wasn’t GW2-related, but I had to use the WASD keys to move and I kept pressing the F key to interact with people… I’m going to feel like I’m wading through mud when I get back into Guild Wars, as the character movement in Guild Wars 2 is so fluid it almost feels like you’re on ball bearings. I found I was frequently “over-correcting” my movements for the first few minutes in game.

I spent somewhere in the region of 30-32 hours this weekend playing (I forgot to check before the finale), and I would have played even more if I could have physically taken it. The only times I found my frame rate dropping badly was during the first few minutes in the starting area on Friday (with hundreds of other brand-new characters cluttering up the terrain), and the last hour on Monday morning, as the zerg formed and rolled through Wayfarer Foothills.

(more…)

(Cross-posted from GuildMag)

With my ranger pet being nerfed after level 7 (see yesterday’s post for details, including the comments), there didn’t seem to be much point carrying on any further with my ranger. I was dying regularly enough with an active pet … no point in spending the rest of the weekend practicing my “downed” skill set! (And many thanks to the noble souls who revived me a few times last night.)

After witnessing the land rush to certain servers on opening day of the beta weekend event, I now hope that ArenaNet can come up with some method of allowing long-established guilds to all start on the same server: as I mentioned yesterday, my guild only managed to get a small number in before the capacity of Sorrow’s Furnace was reached. For the BWE, it doesn’t really matter that much (except for WvW fans), but I think it’s a major concern for lots of players who want to enjoy the company of the guild/alliance they’re used to working with in Guild Wars. The transfer fee for switching worlds was waived for the first 24 hours of the BWE to help with this, but you still can’t transfer to a server that’s at or over capacity.

(more…)

(Cross-posted from GuildMag)

Like most of you, I hadn’t had the chance to play Guild Wars 2 until this weekend. It’s (already) been an enlightening experience. I started writing this on Friday evening, after about four hours of game play. Lots of things I’m encountering are probably more a reflection of my lack of knowledge about MMOs in general (I haven’t really played any other games than Guild Wars).

I’d managed to get my human ranger to level 6, unlock most of the basic weapon skills for axe, dagger, and shortbow. It’s been lots of fun so far, but the server my guild/alliance was hoping to all be on maxed out early, so anyone who tried getting in more than half-an-hour after the BWE started has had to go to a different server instead.

(more…)

My weekly column at GuildMag is now online. It’s wall-to-wall Beta Weekend Event anticipation, advice, and speculation. Everyone who pre-purchased Guild Wars 2 is able to take part in the beta event.

At about 3:00 this afternoon, I’ll be disappearing into the beta event (technical issues permitting) and won’t be back to normal blogging until Monday. I might be able to get a few posts up over the weekend, but I’m planning on total immersion into Guild Wars 2.

If you’re in the beta, the GuildMag North American staff will be playing on the “Sorrow’s Furnace” server. Plans apparently changed. GuildMag staffers will be playing in several servers in North America. As my guild and alliance are going to be on “Sorrow’s Furnace”, that’s were I’ll be.

My weekly column at GuildMag has been posted. This week everyone is talking about the upcoming Beta Weekend Event. Everyone who pre-purchases Guild Wars 2 will be able to take part in the beta event.

If you want to get into the beta event you can prepurchase a copy of the game through the authorized sellers in your region or through the official website.

I think it’ll be safe to say that there will almost certainly be no blog updates from whenever on the 27th the event begins until sometime on April 30th. The Beta Weekend Event is open to everyone who has pre-purchased Guild Wars 2 (you can still get in on the event by pre-purchasing the game at buy.guildwars2.com).

It is still a beta, so you can anticipate finding some rough edges — reporting problems is part of the beta experience. Characters created during the beta program are not carried over into the released game, so don’t get too attached to your on-screen avatar yet.

Update, 19 April: Here’s the ArenaNet blog post with details:

We’re counting the days until the first public Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend Event, which begins on Friday, April 27, at noon PDT (GMT-8) and ends on Sunday, April 29, at 11:59 p.m. PDT (GMT-8). Hundreds of thousands of players from around the world will get their first taste of Guild Wars 2 — and rest assured, we’ll be playing alongside them!

There are a couple important things you need to know about this Beta Weekend Event:

• The only way to absolutely guarantee your access to this or any future Beta Weekend Events is to pre-purchase any edition of Guild Wars 2.
• Customers who have pre-purchased the game will receive an e-mail next week with instructions on how to download the client and participate in the Beta.
• This is a public event, which means that you’re not bound by a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). So go ahead, feel free to take screenshots, shoot video, blog, tweet, write, or compose a rock opera to share your Guild Wars 2 experience with the world.

Let’s take a look at all the cool stuff you’ll be doing during the Beta Weekend Event.

My weekly column at GuildMag has been posted. This week’s highlight was that pre-purchases started on Tuesday. Everyone who pre-purchases Guild Wars 2 will be able to take part in all the remaining beta events up until formal launch (date not yet nailed down, but definitely in 2012). You also get a three-day head start before the game goes on sale to the general public (only one day if you pre-order rather than pre-purchase). You can buy through the authorized sellers in your region or through the official website.

The Guild Wars 2 Pre-purchase page went live first thing this morning (Seattle time).

My weekly column at GuildMag has been posted. The big news this week was the fan event that ArenaNet hosted in their Brighton offices, plus some news about squads in World vs. World play, and the usual community spazz-out over the latest information on regional locking.

Reminder that pre-purchases start on Tuesday, and everyone who pre-purchases the game will be able to take part in all the remaining beta events up until formal launch (date not yet nailed down, but definitely in 2012). You can buy through the authorized sellers in your region or through the official website.

After finally (I hope) resolving the connection issue I was having with the site, my weekly column at GuildMag has been posted. I’d started to work on the big beta aggregation post, but when I lost connection to the site, I couldn’t keep updating that post. Much (but not all) of the overflow now gets wrapped up in the weekly column along with the usual assortment of blog posts, videos, and podcasts.

In my other life as weekly roundup columnist for GuildMag, we’re still expanding our Guild Wars 2 beta aggregation page for articles and videos coming out of last weekend’s beta: beta test weekend.