Beta Update: What's New With Guild Wars 2?

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Another weekend, another [app=6096]Guild Wars 2[/app] beta test - so what's changed, since the first time we looked? James Pinnell dove face-first into the latest window of opportunity, and came back with this report.

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[Mythor]

I forgot to go check out the Mystic Forge. I had so much junk I could have thrown in there.

The Ascalonian Catacombs have been available previously (I think Tim may have written about them for GON?) but the new thing this time was the "Exploration Mode" which does... I don't know what. But the story mode is meant for level 30 characters while exploring is left to level 35s.
I almost got into a random group with my Ranger but someone else grabbed the going spot while I was still trying to reorganise my Traits.

The change to tiers for skills is the worst thing ever because it puts the Charzooka out of reach for a long, long time.

[Marius]

I found the game performance also a lot better. Did WvW without any significant lag.

I like the trait tiers too. It opens up many builds, because you're not forced into a 'perfect' build just using the clearly 7 best traits.

[James Pinnell]

The Ascalonian Catacombs have been available previously (I think Tim may have written about them for GON?) but the new thing this time was the "Exploration Mode" which does... I don't know what. But the story mode is meant for level 30 characters while exploring is left to level 35s.

Thanks for the clarification. As I wrote, I didn't get a chance to explore them but I also didn't realize that the dungeon was available in the last *public* beta, rather than the press-only betas.

I found the game performance also a lot better. Did WvW without any significant lag.

I forgot to mention that while I lamented the fact that the game is *still* running Direct X 9, the performance was leaps and bounds better than the last weekend. There were rumours of GPU compatibility changes being patched into the client and it shows.

[Fenryrbr]

Question for the people who played the Beta. How did you find the latency affected the playability? Especially in WvW/PvP

[Marius]

Latency was fine.

In PvP and WvW I didn't notice it. There were easily 50+ people on my screen in a big skirmish at one time and I didn't lag.

Probably didn't notice it in WvW because it's mass PvP. There's so much incoming fire that if you dodge at any time you'll dodge something. So even if you miss your original dodge, you'll still dodge the next incoming hit.

[DeathMist]

WvW was AMAZING. I spent most of my time playing it... On moledune versing the second best Zerging WvWvW server. It was awesome!

[Mythor]

I noticed some lag but it's nothing out of the ordinary for an MMO. In fact if anything GW2 is handling it better in beta than some have done even well after launch.
Like Marius said, dozens of people on each side in WvW and yet if you see something incoming you can still dodge it and it'll work. I regularly leaped sideways or backwards to get out of an incoming red ring of damage/bad things.

If you're used to the latency in any other MMO based in America, you'll be fine. If you only play FPS games on local servers you're probably going to be horrified.

[Disco LT]

I signed up for the beta way back but never scored an invite, now they keep emailing me to join in on the new betas..once I pre order a copy. Screw you! No beta, now I wait for a review before I buy it.

[Marius]

Betas were limited to about 50K people from a pool of 1 million. And I scored an invite, so ha. Then I pre-ordered based on that.

I really like the game. Was unsure about some things in closed beta, but it's coming along in leaps and bounds. Already it's more polished than many MMOs at launch.

[Disco LT]

Betas were limited to about 50K people from a pool of 1 million. And I scored an invite, so ha. Then I pre-ordered based on that.

**** >.< I'm just irked that they're like "screw you, no beta! pre order now!" (I know they're not.. its just how I feel!)

[>XaartaX<]

Lag seemed to be fine so long as u weren't on Optus or using an ISP that used Optus. For those users, they had regular lag spikes, periods where nothing would move for a good minute, disconnects etc. Not a GW2 issue it seems as there's plenty of other Aussies who were playing at the same time and had no problems.

[Vand]

I agree on it being a million times smoother than the last beta weekend I played, it was incredibly laggy then, and was an absolute smooth play this weekend. Can't wait for them to make it more GPU based though.

[Angeredsoul]

hitting anything in melee is an exercise in frustration in pvp, but other than that. this game is solid as. looking forward to release.

[Marius]

Really? Melee weapons have a huge reach. Daggers seem to have a 2 metre range. I found it ok...