Guild Wars 2 BWE2 was pure awesome sauce.

I loved the PvE.  The End. 

Typically I absolutely hate PvE of all kinds in any mmo.  Arenanet has flat out made an excruciatingly fantastic and fun game to play.  At a minimum of every hour, I found myself fighting alongside a group of 10 to 20 people to bring a BIG monster or another down.

WvW

WvW in general brought many a flashback from my Warhammer days.  It has a slightly different flavor.  We weren't map jumping near as much as we did in Warhammer, but the feel of battle lines moving to and fro was very similar.  I have no doubt an elite sPvP group could act similar to a Warhammer "bomb group" and move that battle line by themselves. 

One thing that GW2>Warhammer (among many things mind you) that stood out was the abundant use of seige weapons.  They were everywhere and EXTREMELY useful.  In fact, if you didn't have an arrow cart up when trying to get through a chokepoint, you quickly found yourself losing.  And that's just the lowly arrow cart.  That doesn't include Catapults, Trebuchets, Rams, Siege Golems, and... and... and...

With Warhammer siege weapons, we really only used the ram because all the other weapons were bugged or just not quite as effective.  Granted if it was a big fight, we'd bring them out, but not near as often.

I had high hopes for GW2 and honestly, I think somehow Arenanet has surpassed them.  I never, ever expected any game to make me want to play PvE.  I also never ever expected any game to do RvR as well as DAOC.  Guild Wars 2 threatens to do both and do it well.  GW2 can't be released soon enough.

yup pve is nice, aswelll as the wvw, just one thing is missing the keep with our banner on top ;)

Saturday night I had 3 different keeps claimed by Gaiscioch but being only 1 had the logo available we only had our griffin flying over one.

I enjoyed the WvW, some of it was confusing (no idea how to put up or operate the siege weapons) and it was too frantic to shower people with my noob questions in vent, but the rest of it was fun. I had an epic personal end to the beta. I took a level 2 ranger into a 15-17 zone to get an owl and after about 6 deaths I managed to get one! Mission accomplished! Can't wait for this to be released already!

That castle siege was epic and so much fun. I look forward to many nights with these kind of battles.

The siege on the garrison was a great time. I loved how we used our skills with .. well skill!! Spotters for our siege to zero in on the opposition! Muwahahah

Agreed, that final siege on the garrison keep was epic. When we put up all that siege equipment on the hill targeting the wall I had to throw my head back and just laugh out loud. That was awesome! Unfortunately right in the middle of it I had to run in to the other room to feed my baby boy a bottle before he woke the wife up! But I got back for the final push on and through the main gate. I didn't get a hit on the lord however and got no credit for the keep taking. No big deal, it's beta. I have a few other concerns regarding WvW however, such as the confused mess of AOE circles being everywhere to the point that I couldn't tell which enemy I had targeted. I simply could not see my targeting circles on the ground in all the mess. I tried to melee in some of the larger fights but just couldn't because I never knew who my target was or where he/she was. It got very frustrating after a while. I'm only assuming there are also going to me more organizational tools built in to the game as we get closer to launch. Being limited to five person groups was rather pathetic in a WvW environment, for example. Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking the game. It's a very good product and I understand it's still in beta. I sent in a lot of feedback when given the opportunity including most of my concerns above. I'd hate to think that I'll be forced to turn my graphics way down for WvW just to be able to see my targets though. I hope they come up with a better targeting system, or at least a more tunable one. For instance, let me choose between a targeting circle on the ground or a big overhead arrow, or both, etc...

» Edited on: 2012-06-11 20:33:46

I really see myself doing the same sort of stuff I did in Camelot and Warhammer to some extent. I have nothing against people that run in large groups and such (zergs) as it's very necessary. But with the plethora of targets available to hit, I will have probably the most fun harassing supply camps and such. Hopefully, we'll be able to implement that sort of thing into the overall battle plan.

For my part, I'm in love with the potential of WvWvW combat in Guild Wars. The epic encounters we've had so far seem to only be the tip of the iceberg, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what we can dream up with a little more planning and organisation when this goes live and we get a better feel for what our toons can potentially do for one another. Master of Elements was telling me on vent about an epic Thief ability that can apparently produce a 10 second area of effect stealth. Arenanet have mentioned that other classes can work together to create a similar effect using "combos". The tactical fun that could be had with this one effect alone... * Master suggested a bunch of Thieves could co-ordinate to chain this ability - extending the stealth and allowing a coordinated large group to sneak right up to a Keep. * For my part I imagined hitting that stealth right behind a keep/tower door when the enemy break it down - imagine their shock when they run right past the stealthed defenders to get hit in the back. * I noticed a number of towers/keeps have some useful places to hide - if the enemy numbers are too great to defend, hide inside to take the place back when they leave (old Warhammer trick), with the AoE stealth ability as a very useful backup to prevent discovery. * Just imagine the potential ambushes an AoE stealth could provide in the open field. And that's just one ability. There are supposedly a huge number of Combo-abilities that could provide a serious edge for coordinated play, and the potential fun that could be had with siege that can be placed anywhere just makes me giddy. So many insane ideas just begging to be tried out.

Agreed. It was a very fun weekend. Saturday nights WvWvW being the funnest for me. The Garrison battle being the pinnacle point of the weekend. To finish that epic battle and win, just in time to get the two minute warning about the server restart was just perfect. The funnest times I had in PvE was when I found upon the random, fellow guildy and was able to do some events with them for a while. I really think this is a game that's fun on it's own but REALLY fun with friends and in packs.

Re AoE Stealth and combos, I spent some time looking into these today on the wiki. Seems like Group Stealth is a Smoke Field + a Blast finisher. Smoke Fields: Thief - "Black Powder" (Pistol 5) [6 initiative] Thief - "Smoke Screen" (utility skill) [30s cooldown] Engy - "Smoke Bomb" (Bomb kit 4) [25s cooldown] For thief the Blast Finisher is Cluster Bomb (shortbow 2 = 3 init). For engy it's Big Ol Bomb, plus quite a few others. But any class with a Blast can finish the combo (that's everyone except Mesmer, if the wiki is right). It would be cool to test this out, and see which combos can be repeated often even (cooldowns/init) and which (if any) don't leave telltale traces when chained.

» Edited on: 2012-06-12 18:24:53

Back on topic, the highlight of my weekend was from 2am to 4am PST (!) when Saren lead Dargron and me through the dungeon in WvW Eternal Battlegrounds. Wow. Raiders of the Lost Ark has nothing on this place! I don't want to spoil it so I'll just leave it at: it's amazing.

I was kinda bummed I couldn't get on the server with you guys. It was full and locked all weekend. I didn't really get a chance to see the awesome pvp stuff. I hope there isn't an issue with the guild's chosen server being full when the game launches. I am getting on there early next beta weekend.

I had a fabulous time playing with the guild for the first time this BWE. I'm looking forward to many more adventures with my fellow guildies!

I managed to Role Play in the form of teaching advanced ways to play Elementalist. Now THAT was really enjoyable. Sadly, I couldn't do WvW because of my unstable internet connection.

» Edited on: 2012-06-14 01:45:07