April 15-17 Beta Weekend Event Diary

Richard Cox Posted: Apr 19, 2005 8:00 PM ET
Category: Previews 0

It was almost a year ago that ArenaNet shocked the world by allowing everyone who had an inkling to do so to try out Guild Wars during the weekend of E3. I, much like many many people spent the majority of that weekend playing the game until our eyes bled; much to the chagrin of family, friends and significant others. And we won't even talk about the loss of sleep and such. Unfortunately with so much on my plate since then I haven't had a chance to take advantage of any of the BWEs between then and now. Well when I realized this was going to be the last BWE before the game launched I felt I had to have another go at it, just to make sure this was going to be a game I really wanted to pick up.

So Friday morning I realize that if I want to get in on the Charr killing excitement I'm going to need a Preorder box... After reading all the nightmare stories online of all the people who can't find them in their area due to being sold out; I was not looking forward to driving all over town to find one. I decided to try my trusty neighborhood EB Games first. The know me there and seem to like me for some reason; even going so far as to try to get me to work there on several occasions. When I get there luckily the manager is the one working and not one of the newer people who don't really know me that well. When I explain what I'm looking for and why I need it he promptly pulls the last 2 copies of the Preorder box out of the "Reserved" cabinet behind the counter and hands them to me. His logic was that if they reserved them and hadn't picked them up by now they probably forgot about them. Well, I wasn't about to argue with him; so I paid him and ran home. After quickly hopping online and handing out the 3 spare keys I had (gratz to those of you who got one, sorry to those of you who emailed me and I couldn't hook you up) I popped the disk in and got it installed.

The installation and patching process was still as amazingly quick and painless as I remember it from last year. And of course the graphics are still drop dead gorgeous, so far what's not to love about this game? The first option presented to me of course is the RP or PVP screen; feeling like I wanted to get a feel for the game again and go through some of the storyline I pick the RP side first. Heading into character creation I decided I wanted to go with my typical tank character but with a little something extra. A couple minutes later I'm logging in as Kunou Everhate, Warrior/Mesmer extraordinaire. Ok, so there's really nothing special about him, he's level one and kinda sucky at the moment, but one day he'll be extraordinaire!

So I spent the better part of Friday afternoon and evening tooling around in the RP side of the game, going through the missions and other quests, working my way up to level eleven. Not great, but not bad for a days worth of play. I would have continued far into the night I'm sure but my loving wife decided that we were going to go out to eat. All attempts at trying to sway here with suggestions of delivery or take out were brutally smashed, she was dead set on going somewhere and sitting down and eating, thus taking precious hours away from my limited Guild Wars time. Well by time she was ready and we had the kids ready and we decided where we were going; then got there and ate and then ran the eleventy bajillion (ok, maybe a slight exaggeration there) errands she "remembered" she needed to go do after dinner we finally made it back home.

Well, Friday night was shot for me, it was far too late and I was far too pooped to even try to get any more Charr slaying in so I just called it a night. Plus I was getting that "if you don't come to bed WITH me instead of several hours after me you can just sleep on the couch" look from my wife. So fast-forward a bit to Saturday morning. I'm up bright and early, before the wife and kids even, house is silent, nothing to disturb me or prevent me from getting back to the BWE. Well after only about an hour of playing my wife comes into my office to tell me to get ready to go. With QUITE the startled look on my face I ask her exactly where she thinks I'm going. She then proceeds to "remind me" about a birthday party slash crawfish boil slash cookout thing we're supposed to be going to. I swear I knew nothing about this beforehand and am starting to thing she's in league with the Charr; plotting against me to prevent my aiding Ascalon.

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