Guild Wars 2 - Beta Weekend Event 2

For those of you that are non-gamers, you'll probably want to skip this post since I'll be talking about the second Beta Weekend Event for Guild Wars 2.  You have been warned ;)

So this past weekend was the second Beta Weekend Event (BWE2) for the upcoming MMO Guild Wars 2. I also took part in BWE1 at the end of April, and will try to mesh my thoughts of both events together in this one post.  Please excuse me if t comes off as a confusing mess :)

For anyone interested in more information on this game, it's features, and professions, you should absolutely check out THIS POST on GuildWars2Guru.  It's a one stop shop for information, and will give you a better understanding of things I may reference here ;)

For BWE1 I played a Human Elementalist.  I wasn't as focused on the profession itself because I was too in awe of the beauty of the game in general, and all the overwhelming newness of a different MMO.

I should probably take a minute here to explain that I was a pretty hardcore WoW player for almost 4 years.  I was a WoW purist.  Any other MMO I tried, I would always compare it to WoW and think "Why bother changing?".  Well my time with WoW ran it's course (Read: Cataclysm ruined the game), and I decided it was time to take a step away from online gaming for a while.

A couple friends I played WoW with (and who quit way before me) started telling me about this new game on the horizon called Guild Wars 2.  Now, I tried GW1 on a free trial and I wasn't impressed at all.  You couldn't even JUMP ffs.  But the more they talked about it, the more interested i got.  Before I knew it I was in BWE1 and OMG was I happy I gave it a chance!

This game is BEAUTIFUL.  I'm not kidding.  The art department, animators, creators, EVERYONE should be proud of themselves.  It took my breath away.

Divinity's Reach  (BWE1)

Queensdale (BWE1)

Lion's Arch (BWE1)

Lion's Arch (BWE1)

As I said, for BWE1 I rolled a Human Elementalist.  It was the obvious choice for me since it was in my comfort zone (I always played caster classes in WoW, a shaman being my main).  During that event I got to enjoy and explore Divinity's Reach, Queensdale and Lion's Arch.  I had a love/hate relationship with the vast number of spells (Earth, Air, Water, Fire) that were available to that profession.  I guess I just didn't have enough time to play with them all, and pretty much stuck to one element while I played.

One thing I noticed right away about GW2 was that the UI is very clean, simple and out-of-the-box usable.  By that I mean that GW2 has accomplished what took me lots of addons to achieve in WoW.

UI from BWE1, during combat.

UI from BWE2, out of combat.  The major differences this time were the change to the minimap, and the dodge meter was moved to arc the health bubble.  Love.

For this event I decided to roll something completely different:  Norn Necromancer.  I don't have too many bad things to say about this profession.  The only thing that I didn't like was that my minion's health didn't return after combat like mine did, and that his AI was lacking.  After playing an Elementalist for BWE1, it was nice to be able to try out the weapon swapping this time.  


I was able to check out Hoelbrak & Wayfarer's Foothills during this event.  I completed both maps:

It wasn't nearly as 'overall pretty' as the human areas, but there were still some gorgeous spots.

As for storyline, it was pretty awesome.  One of my favourite lines:

 For the record, she ended up kicking his ass ;)

The armor dye system makes me so happy!  No more shoddy looking gear while you level!  Check out a small taste of armor progression as I leveled up to 12:

 In the 3rd & 4th shot, it's the same chest piece, just different dyes :)

So far my favourite area in the game is Lion's Arch.  It is AMAZING!  I could absolutely do a whole blog post about it, and probably will someday...  Here's a quick video, it's even more beautiful at night :)



Alright, alright, I'll stop now and go do something productive.  I just needed to share how amazing this is.  Hopefully I'll see some of you in game :)

Have a fab Monday!