Wow what a weekend. I've logged 30+ hours on my human commoner elementalist and reached level 27.

I have to admit that GW2 still requires a bit of work but they are minor details and I have so much to talk about.

Figuring things out.

In the beginning GW2 was just confusing. It must have taken me a few hours before I realized I could just buy gathering equipment. The combat actually felt a little bland during the first 4 levels but gets far more exciting (tactical) as you fight harder (more than 1) mobs.

I went around filling up hearts and participating in dynamic events with no real sense of achievement. It wasn't until later that I actively went to look for the changes that happened and it was at that point i began to feel like I was changing the world. The changes really don't hit you in the face until you get to kessocks hills (15-25 huamn area) As I said it's subtle.

At one point I felt lost in regards to what to do. I had filled up the hearts to my level and had no real direction. It took me some time to figure out that between DEs I could do personal Story and just explore for XP. Some time later I needed to 'farm' DEs although I enjoyed having to go out into the world and look for adventure. Sure I've defended that town 4 times already and escorted that same bull twice but I still had a good time doing it. I repeated events (even ones below my level) many times simply for the idea that I was defending against those damn centaurs. 

Early karma rewards are neglible but fun fluffy things to get for the collector. Later Karma rewards are far more substantial. Best gear came from karma and DE vendors by far. I was happy to see cool items related to the reknown hearts. One which was close to the water offered me a recipe for an underwater breathing apparatus. I wish I'd done the crafting =(

Getting settled in.

As I grew comfortable with the game and learned to set my own pace to adventure I started to enjoy myself a lot more. More often than not I would stumble onto things 2 levels higher (read as: much harder) and die in two hits with no hope of rallying. At that point I began to refine my tactics. I used that 4th skill I didn't care about, I ran out in front to reflect projectiles for 5 seconds then retreat back, I began to blind the enemy just as they did their big attack instead of on my personal cooldown. The subtle aspects of the game were starting to kick in and it felt so refreshing.

As my personal combat skills grew I found myself dying a lot less. I absolutely love the downed state when it is a close battle. Make no mistake here. You will see lots of downed state and death.  Monsters are dangerous and will continue to be dangerous no matter what level you are. You may have a few more skills later on but that does not mean you can stop moving. Down state will not help if you are being overwhelemed. 

One experience I would like to talk about is a harpy boss encounter...in a cave somewhere and there were about 6-7 of us doing the event. This boss took 3 melee out as soon as they waded in. This left some back line players dragging the boss around the room while others pelted it with conditions. It was pretty clear at this point that we were not going to make it if any of us were down. I took a risk during combat to ressurect my melee friends while the mesmer had its attention. The mesmer took one hit and died in the back of the room. I just finished res and went earth attunement for the boss as my melee friend started to res the others. I kited the boss as best I could switching between elements to blind/cripple/slow/bleed the boss until my friends could get themselves up. When my melee friends got back up they attracted the boss' attention they were far more careful this time around but still not immune to death. I took this time to res the mesmer that died earlier. After the mesmer was up I immediately switched to water attunement and spammed some heals on the floor in the hopes of providing some support before quickly switching to fire to burn the boss hard. Towards the end of the fight 4-5 of us were down again and it became a very desperate fight to survive/win. It was a classic raid boss down to 1% scenario where we came out the victors. That was by far the most exciting moment for me and I can't even remember what cave it was in.

*minor spoilers* Some dynamic events are activated by talking to NPCS. I happened to see an innocent looking villager and decided to speak to this person. They spoke of a nearby treasure and I pressed on for more information. Blah blah oh boy another escort quest. I didn't get far until something didn't seem right. AMBUSH! BAM DYNAMIC EVENT! Another great moment in the game that had to be activated by players.

The AI definitely seems harder in the second (15-25) zone. I noticed enemies running out of my AOE so i had to change tactics again and cripple/control before doing aoe.

There is so much more.

I didn't get into PVP or WvW. I only experienced one storyline. I only explored one home city. 

It was only on the last day that I really began to grow comfortable with my weapon skills. Learning when to use them takes a lot of observation and personal experience. I barely touched the crafting aspect of the game. Looked at the auction house for 3 seconds. 

I explored most of Dinivity's Reach and Lions Arch and all I have to say is gameplay videos do them absolutely no justice. I spent close to an hour exploring Lions Arch and was barely done with it. If I wasn't itching to go out and do stuff I could have spent much longer just taking it all in. 

One note is that my frame rate dropped like mad in LA. I can't wait till it is optimized. 

Initial concerns gone.

I found cash shop keys are rare drops in game. Mystic lockboxes  cease to be annoying because I know I MIGHT get a key drop. They contain cool (cash shop) things like crafting/killing XP bossts, Repair Kits, Extra magic find boost. I got some bottles which turned me into a Skritt (ratman) and I regret not drinking the eagle transform bottle.

Day 1 lag was absolutely insane. If you were on the overlfow server you had 2 second ability lag. If you were on the REAL server it was unplayable. When it was at the point of ridiculous Anet pulled down the servers for about half an hour and applied a 500kb-1mb patch and suddenly the lag was gone. For the most part lag seemed to disappear completely. I played on Maguuma server connecting from Australia. Day 2 and 3 seemed really smooth from my end. Although that may have been because everyone stopped playing after patch. Read some horror stories about connection but they seem to be case by case. My friend and I had no problems logging in after patch.

I'd been looking forward to DEs for so long and at the start they felt a little grindy. It wasn't until later when events began overlapping that I started to feel like the world was alive around me and I could just go and do it. Singlehandedly drove back the undead from a Sylvari outpost.

I know too little to form a good opinion.

I only really played one class and one story for the entire weekend and was more than eager to follow my storyline further into the game despite how corny it seemed. 

All I know is that I want to level up so I can explore more of the map. I barely notice gear until I feel like I've been gimped in battle then see that all my gear is about 6 levels old, then I go check out some karma vendors :P

At the end of the human level 25 zone all I could think about was seeing more of the game. Unable to do so I decided to visit the Charr 15-25 area and realized that I had barely scratched the surface of the content. 

I realized that I could play the entire Charr 1-15 area and still get a little reward for it.

I can't wait to roll another class next beta. I can't wait to see what changes they will make.

Was I overwhelemed by the awesomeness? Yes and No. It's great but it's not THAT great.

Is this game going to bring about the same 12 hour play sessions like when I first started WoW? Oh yes. Yes it will.

Do I see myself playing this game for years? Definitely. 30 hours and I never saw that stupid shadow behemoth. I still want to fight it. And that's just launch content.

Agree with the difficulty thing. 1-15 areas had some challenge but for the most part they go easy on the player. Then you get into the 15+ zone, and you have centaurs throwing you around the map, whole towns under seige with cannons and rockets, barracuda swarming underwater and stacking bleed effects on you, etc. The difficulty spikes almost ridiculously. That's why I feel like they still have to work on evening the difficulty out a bit, rather than let it spike like that. Give people more of a taste of that difficulty in lower levels, and tone down some of what's there in mid-level ranges until people have at least all their utility skills.

My guess is that accounts for the discrepency between those who claimed the game was too easy (most of which never made it out of single digit levels), and those who found it too hard (and stopped at 15-18 where you get punished heavily for not dodging/timing your abilities). I don't want them to nerf the difficulty, I like it a lot, but the curve needs to be evened out some.

Originally posted by OldManFunk
Most of the tutorials were incomplete or missing. It should be a whole lot easier for new players to get into once it goes live.

Well at least ArenaNet added a tutorial for PvP, teaching people how to res & finish off opponents.

Originally posted by dontadow
Yeah at first i thought i could get buy in 1 to 15 with aoe and then i realized at 25 that these guys are moving out of my bomb effects, i began to have to use timing to get them.  

The bandits in the teir 2 area actively dodge.  And when they dodge your stun or big hit its annoying as hell.

The first night I played it was so chaotic, I had a few beers, and I was doing the usual rush into mobs and stand next to them while I killed them.  Needless to say, I was a bit overwelmed by the first night of GW2.

By Sunday I was in love with it and can't wait to lose myself in the game again.

There is something to be said about the systems in Gw2. You really have to throw away your conventions from other games and learn a whole new way of playing.

Noob areas have pretty tame events to teach you, they get better at 13 - 17+

It took me a whole day to figure out that I should stick around after dynamic events. 

I had to teach myself that there were secret areas not marked on the map. You have to look for stuff.

Salvage everything if you want mats. Sell for cash. Where the hell are the gathering tools? (I did find them)

Two days to appreciate conditions/boons and dodging.

You don't quest in one area. You run around and scout for DEs if you have no hearts to fill. Even going to old areas is a good idea.

Visit the zones from other races. You need to earn those skill points. Lots of easy points in noob zones.

Always visit the karma vendor after filling a heart. Visit level appropraite ones for gear.

Lower level mobs will drop gear relative to YOUR level. Although they will never be as good as the ones from your level. Suffixes, prefixes, sigils and whatnot.

I learned to hate centaurs. Die centaurs.

The best advice for anyone that bought it and didn't like it is to just take a closer look. The good things really don't stand out until you know where to look for them. I really was a little letdown when I first started the game. After I understood what was going on around me the game got a whole lot better. 

"Was I overwhelemed by the awesomeness? Yes and No. It's great but it's not THAT great"

you lost me here. :P

I just wanted to avoid the second coming :P

After seeing lions arch personally. I want to say it IS that great.

But it's not perfect because it's greatness is hard to see if you don't look for it. 

So 99/100 for this beta. Let's hope their tutorial gets that 1 point. 

I understand why some people think "This wasn't what they promised!" but I think that those people are just too used to the standard fomula to appreciate what's been done here. Myself included. 

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Originally posted by gaeanprayer
Agree with the difficulty thing. 1-15 areas had some challenge but for the most part they go easy on the player. Then you get into the 15+ zone, and you have centaurs throwing you around the map, whole towns under seige with cannons and rockets, barracuda swarming underwater and stacking bleed effects on you, etc. The difficulty spikes almost ridiculously. That's why I feel like they still have to work on evening the difficulty out a bit, rather than let it spike like that. Give people more of a taste of that difficulty in lower levels, and tone down some of what's there in mid-level ranges until people have at least all their utility skills.
My guess is that accounts for the discrepency between those who claimed the game was too easy (most of which never made it out of single digit levels), and those who found it too hard (and stopped at 15-18 where you get punished heavily for not dodging/timing your abilities). I don't want them to nerf the difficulty, I like it a lot, but the curve needs to be evened out some.

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About the difficulty aspect, i also hope they won't lower the difficulty too much, i think one of the strength of the game is also because it was challenging, and it kind of fit the overall concept of the game very well i think. I didn't played past lv15 because i tried 3 class, and went pvp as much as pve. What i want them to keep is easier and more difficult mobs/events, so to keep a bit of everything for everyone taste. I kind of disagree about evening the difficulty, that's what all other mmo are doing, and i think its just wrong, you should have all kind of difficulty in your level range. Imo they should more tweak the rewards, so that killing mobs in 2 skill won't reward you as much as killing some that really put you in danger as it was pretty much always the case in other mmos. So if you can kill 5 mob in a minute in an area, and only kill one in an other, well that minute should net you similar rewards. Because i'm really fed up of kill 5level lower mobs to get max xp/gear drop kind of mmo attitude, this kind of dummy like mmo style just make no sense whatsoever to me, and should never have been.

Also from my experience, many time events and groups of people would lead me far away from my leveling zones during the beta because groups would just go from an event to an other, and well, you would just follow because it was so fun, and i would end up in 5 to 10 level higher zone, and found the mobs to be really hard once alone. So i kind of began to learn to check my character level and see if i wasn't just in an unappropriated zone. And if i was i would try to find a partner to duo, and many time i did that. I personally loved the loot system because i really could play with other people around, that was really nice, and it's the first time in mmo i felt that playing with a random guy was positive for both of us (and once more difficulty made this happen too).
 
And i was really impress with the pve, i was thinking the game would be more of a pvp game, but honestly they made a great job with pve, i was really impressed here, and have to admit it was a hard decision for me to choose pvp or pve.

beautiful review.

Originally posted by Magnetia

There is something to be said about the systems in Gw2. You really have to throw away your conventions from other games and learn a whole new way of playing.

Without realizing it, I think this is a major factor for those who have tried GW2 and got turned off.  I made a post on these forums awhile back (here) predicting this might happen.  GW2 takes a level of skill that not everyone possesses, even long time vetrans of the genre.  They are going into this game expecting it to play like any other MMO (except with Dynamic Events thrown in) and that's not the case.  The whole approach to how combat works has been redesigned.

i love being able to effectively level up in the other zones of lower levels. i leveled from 20 to 25 at the starting zone of norns with my human character. It was still challenging (though slightly easier with better equipments and more skills and traits) to level up in places for characters 15+ level lower than me

Originally posted by Butregenyo

i love being able to effectively level up in the other zones of lower levels. i leveled from 20 to 25 at the starting zone of norns with my human character. It was still challenging (though slightly easier with better equipments and more skills and traits) to level up in places for characters 15+ level lower than me

That is key to the "Endgame starts at lv 1" comment.

Think about it. What does end game usually mean. PvP and 4 or 5 raids? 4 or 5 bits of content.

GW2 has the ENTIRE game open at max level. Go see stuff you missed. See how a zone has changed.