You know what I wish I was doing? If you guessed playing Guild Wars 2, you guessed right. Last week we talked about the most recent Guild Wars 2 BWE, and I’m itching to play this game again, really bad. I had fun in the previous betas, but something was different this time. ArenaNet must have done some optimization on the game. Some new events also gave me a really nice surprise as I played. It just seems that each time I play it; I get more excited about it.
It was nice to see the game run as smooth as it did. I was able to jump into WvW and join in on some massive battles. My frame rate still dropped some, but I could actually tell what was going on. This really let me feel how addicting WvW can be. Since I could tell what was going on, I could defend myself, attack players, and assist in bringing down the fort gates. I was slightly concerned that WvW would only be playable by those who have the top of the line set ups, but seeing this amount of progress is really encouraging. I hope to see a lot more.
What really hooked me this time was playing new events. I had a completely different experience in areas I’ve already played. I also think they changed the speed at which an event would restart in an area. I do know that previous forum posts from players stated that they thought the events restarted too quickly, so this may be a change ArenanNet threw in to see how we would react. I think the timing is almost there for most of them. For some they still don’t happen often enough.
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You can transform your junk into slightly better junk!
If you are like me, you like to pick up most of your loot. There’s nothing wrong with carrying some things around to pick up a few coins later on. You have two ways to do that: selling to a merchant, or selling to players. There is now another option, the Mystic Forge. This little addition to Lion’s Arch enhanced my time with the game by quite a bit actually. To use the Mystic Forge, you just throw in 4 compatible items that are just using up space in your bags. Combine them to forge a new item. The item may be worthless, it may be incredibly useful. It’s just nice to take a gamble without much risk.
There are lots of things to love about our experiences with the most recent beta. There is one thing that really did bum me out though. While exploring the lands of Tyria, each step revealed more and more of the many beautiful landscapes ArenaNet created. Time passes and I’m having a lot of fun, and then it happens. I think I’m about to enter a new area, but a big old red slash is through the gateway, and my adventure comes to an end. My thirst for exploring isn’t quenched, but I didn’t have anything else to explore, or so I thought.
Let’s talk a bit more about WvW for a minute. ArenaNet made some crazy additions to the WvW maps. One of them was the new underground dungeon. The neat thing about this new feature was that you could set traps for the other teams to trigger, making it harder for them to progress. The next new addition is the hidden skill point challenges that are scattered throughout the map. The reason I love this addition so much is because it gives you a reward for going around and exploring the WvW areas. AreanaNet took a lot of time and effort into making the competitive areas look just as amazing as those found in the rest of the game. And to add some more icing on the cake, I think players might fight over control of those areas.
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I'm going to go ask a fortune teller when the next BWE will happen.
The last Guild Wars 2 BWE was just awesome. I love most of the changes, and the others may grow on me over time. But overall ArenaNet is doing a lot of work to fine tune the game. The best part is that they are letting us take part to do just that. I hope that during the next beta we will get a chance to see even more progression to the game. I don’t know what the future holds, but I just know that I want more. I guess I’ll just have to go distract myself until the next BWE.
