This past weekend I spent pretty much all my waking hours in the Guild Wars 2 beta (yes, I did sleep). This is a game I’ve been looking forward to for since I heard about it. And I must admit – I had a LOT of fun, and I do not regret pre-purchasing. For this BWE I only played PvE, but I’m certain much of what I’m about to say applies to PvP also.

Does GW2 live up to the hype? In my opinion, it comes pretty damn close.

Make no mistake, GW2 is not for everyone. But it never was intended to be. The team at ArenaNet have spent a lot of time thinking about what makes a game fun and what isn’t fun. They have addressed many of the issues and shortcomings many people have with current MMOs. And for people, like me, these changes are welcome!

GAMEPLAY
This, by far, is GW2’s strongest point. If you’re a veteran of the original GW, it will only help you understand a little of the gameplay in GW2, mostly in how the skill bar works. But even then there are huge changes.

GW2’s skill bar works like this: You have 10 slots/buttons for skills. The first 5 are determined by your weapon - #1-2 come from your primary weapon, #4-5 are from your off-hand, #3 is determined by what your primary and off-hand are. Two hand weapons use up all #1-5. You start off with just your #1 basic attack and learn the others as you use the weapons. But learning the skills is very quick.

Skill #6 is your self-heal. Every profession has this. There is no dedicated healer class. Though some professions do have ways to boost healing in others, you are responsible for keeping yourself alive.

Slots #7-9 are skills you chose. The slots are empty initially, but open up as you gain levels. Through play you earn skill points, which you use to purchase skills. Slot #10 is for your Elite Skill. I never made it high enough to earn this. Above your skill bar is a small area for profession specific abilities.

This may sound complicated, or simplistic, depending on your point of view. But, in practice, it works! It’s actually quite intuitive, and makes sense once you get used to it. Also, ArenaNet noticed that in most other MMOs (including GW1) you are given dozens and dozens of skills, many of which are just the same thing. So they’ve done a lot of consolidation to reduce the number of redundant skills.

Because your first 5 skills are determined by your weapons, most professions have 2 weapon sets ready (Elementalists swap their magic attunement instead). You can swap these sets at any time, though in combat there’s a few seconds before you can swap again. For example, on my Thief I settled on a long sword/dagger for close in, and dual pistols for ranged, and had worked out a few strategies for them depending on the situation.

Another thing that took a little getting used to is that you can dodge. Not only can you, it’s pretty much necessary to learn. And because the agro mechanics are not simplistic like other MMOs, an enemy might switch targets at any time. Or an enemy might perform an area effect, so you have to pay attention if you want to avoid damage. But this isn’t some game where you need super twitch skills, even a guy like me can dodge reasonably well after a couple days.

And that’s another thing – gone is the “holy trinity” of Tank, Heal, DPS. Instead ArenaNet has developed a system of Control, Support, Damage. Control is anything that effects what an enemy can do, whether it’s a stun, fear, cripple, etc. Support is anything that aids you and your allies – boons (buffs) are only the most obvious. Damage is, well, damage.

This means that you can group with anyone, at any time, and still be effective. Certainly, a mixed group of professions will be more versatile, but even a bunch of the same profession should be able to handle anything a mixed group can.

While you can form groups, it’s not necessary (except in instanced dungeons). In PvE, the whole world is essentially one large public quest area. If you help kill something, you get XP and loot. If you see loot drop, it is yours. Period. There is no such thing as kill and loot stealing in GW2.

Also, if you get beaten up, you are not automatically killed. Instead you enter a “downed state” where you have a chance to recover. You are given just a few skills, and If you can manage to kill something, or not be attacked long enough to heal yourself, you get back up. Also, anyone around can help heal you if you are downed, or even killed.

What all of this means is that because much of the competition is removed, GW2 fosters a much stronger sense of cooperation than other MMOs. You can’t kill-steal, you can’t take someone else’s loot, and you actually are given some XP when you revive someone. People will form ad-hoc groups to accomplish something, even without being in a party. People tend to work out their roles in these situations pretty quickly even without a single word of chat to coordinate. This makes adventuring much more dynamic and interesting.

QUESTING
GW2 has done some pretty nifty tweaking to questing. There are three types of quests – your Personal Story, Dynamic Events, and Heart quests.

Your Personal Story is just that – a story where many events are determined by choices you made at character creation, and choices you make as the story plays out. It all happens in personal instances, even instanced areas of the world map. You can solo your Personal Story, or invite friends along to help (though friends can’t effect your story).

Dynamic Events are things that happen in the world, and they are happening all the time, whether any players are there or not! Some are static, some move such as with escort missions. Their outcomes are determined by the players’ actions. DEs have branches, and as such you can see many different things happen in the same area. For example – bandits may try to poison the water supply. If the players jump in they can fend off the bandits. If the players do poorly, or there’s no one around, the water is poisoned. Then a new DE appears, where players fend off slime creatures and take samples to an NPC so he can create an antidote. You can join a DE at any time, while it is already in progress. In the beginning zones they are small things, I hear that as you move out DE's can affect huge areas of a zone. While, honestly, DEs have little lasting impact on the world, they are a lot more interesting than traditional quests.

Heart quests are sort of localized environmental tasks, the closest to traditional quests. They are called Heart quests because you see a heart where they are centered on your map. You get them automatically when you get near enough. You do any of the tasks required (often you wind up completing a Heart just by doing DEs or killing things anyway) then the NPC who "initiated" the quest becomes a merchant you can purchase items from.

I found a lot of variety in the heart events, and even some dynamic events. Some examples: you can put out fires, feed cows, capture run away bunnies, wipe graffiti off surfaces, stomp on bug nests. In one case I even found an event where you can talk down Charr about to get into a bar fight. Yes, there is a lot of "kill this" or "fetch this and bring it back", but there's other things to do also.

The reason to do quests, besides XP and cash, is for Karma. This is basically a sort of Reputation score you get for helping folks, and you can use Karma to purchase items at specific merchants (such as the Heart quest NPC). Also, the way the various quest systems work, you fell much more like you’re a part of the world than most other MMOs.

And one thing GW2 does right when selling stuff – there is a button marked “sell junk” which does exactly what it says! It won’t sell items of potential use, like gear and crafting materials, but all the entirely useless crap you pick up just disappears with one click.

LEVELING & SCALING & PROGRESSION
These things are very much related. When you go into lower level areas you are automatically scaled down. You can't go in and just slaughter with impunity, because nothing is ever "greyed out". You are, at best, only slightly better off than if you were the exact level of the area.

In other games, it takes longer and longer to gain levels as you progress. In GW2 the level progression is flat. Because the automatic scaling, you earn the same XP no matter where you go. In one 2½ day weekend I got 40 levels total between three character. If I had chosen to stay on one character the whole time, I still would have 40 levels.

Gear doesn't have tiers and multiple levels of power. If you are level 14 and equip gear that has a minimal requirement of level 14, that's as good as you're going to get till you can put on higher level gear. The real choice in gear isn't how big the numbers are, it's which stat or condition boost you want, and for appearance.

On top of it all, one of the greatest things about Dynamic Events is that they scale to the number of people participating. This means that, if you're careful, you can solo them. If people show up in the middle of one, more enemies will spawn. Enemies also often show smarter tactics besides just numbers. So this means that a DE should always be able to present a challenge, but not be impossible. Unless you come across one marked [Group Event], then you'll need help. Hehe.

All of this makes it so that lower level areas never become trivial wastes of time, in fact you are rewarded for exploring the world. You never become so overpowered that you can lay waste to whole armies in a single blow, even the beginner areas can still present a challenge. It makes levels only an indication what areas you are ready to move on to, so you spend more time having fun and less time grinding.

GRAPHICS, SOUND, & THE WORLD
GW2 is a beautiful world. Because ArenaNet is going for an artistic style, instead of hyper realistic, the graphics won’t become out dated for some time. Even on my system, with all the options turned down, I was constantly in awe at what they have done. The only criticism on the graphics I have is that everyone looks young and pretty. It would be nice to see some mature, and less than perfect faces around.

And the zones are HUGE! It takes several minutes to run all the way across these zones (not counting any delays from encountering hostiles). There are several villages throughout the human lands, hunting lodges in the Norn lands, forts in the Charr lands. The cities, likewise, are impressive. If there is any potential problem here, it’s that the cities may be too large. Fortunately, there are many waypoints in cities and the lands you can use to teleport to at any time.

Sound effects are varied, and well done. The environmental sounds always match the area very well - You hear chatter and people moving around in cities, wind and animal calls in the wilds, etc. After playing a Mesmer for a bit I got to learn the sounds of their magics, and could tell when other Mesmers were around.

There are NPCs, including children, all over. You can catch bits of random conversations all the time. And they aren’t static – people move around, children run to-and-fro playing, etc. It really helps bring the world to life. I even found a small tunnel just outside of Divinity’s Reach, with a few children obviously “getting away” from grown ups, and saying all sorts of things that children say! Actually greet an NPC and you can get all sorts of responses.

Music is… well, Jeremy Soule, who has done music for many games like the original GW and Elder Scrolls. In my opinion he’s okay, but very little of his work stands out and makes me want to get a soundtrack. Fortunately, there is a way to add music to a custom directory so it plays instead (though I haven’t bothered to do that yet).

OTHER THOUGHTS
About time I wrapped it up, don’t you think?

I didn’t take the time to test out crafting. Nor have I played in PvP. But given what I’ve read on them I think I’ll likely enjoy them. While there is no housing (though it may come later), you do have a “home district” in your starter city that is a private instance where much of your Personal Story takes place. You can invite folks to visit while you’re there. And guild will have halls, though they weren’t in this beta. But there ARE many places in the cities and the world that can be potential RP hubs.

IS GUILD WARS 2 FOR YOU?
If you are tired of the grind that becomes more work than fun, tired of gear progression that leaves non-raiders weak and unable to participate in high-end adventuring, tired of being left behind because you don’t have the time to play 8+ hours a day every day, tired of systems that foster competition instead of cooperation, tired of monthly subscriptions, then you should try Guild Wars 2.

The combat is a bit more “actiony” than EQ2 or WoW, but not unduly so that most of us can’t adapt. You can’t just stand still and spam buttons, but neither do you need to be able to beat Ninja Gaiden with one hand tied behind your back. With a group of folks around, you can relax some and just go with the flow of things.

Guild Wars 2 isn’t perfect. But it is a huge step forward. And if anyone else here is interested, my guild, The Sojourners, will be there.