Guild Wars 2 Open Beta Weekend 4/28/2012

  So I lost a lot of sleep over the weekend playing the first open beta event.  It started Friday night and I played all the way through Sunday night (with a little nap and a shower).  When release hits I'll be playing an Elementalist so I went ahead and previewed the class by leveling and doing some PvP.

Leveling 1-20

  I stopped leveling at 20 because the main quest line that tells your characters personal story ended with a big "to be continued in release" message.  After 20 I PvP'd the rest of the way.  It took me about 24 hours to make it to 20, but I was going through and reading some of the story line and quest text and taking my time.  This was my first beta event also, so that will make you slower when you're learning the game and setting up your key binds.

  Leveling as an Elementalist is pretty easy.  I was level 16 kiting level 21 veterans (lowest level elites) with no problems other than it taking an extremely long time to kill them.  You get a pretty decent tool-set to handle doing damage in a lot of circumstances, and most of your abilities can be used while running.  I think I spent more time taking trips back to the main city to empty my bags and craft than I did leveling.  You can get a nice set of 8 slot bags without much effort as a blacksmith, tailor, or leather worker.

  The quests are entertaining I think, and very non-traditional event oriented.  Think Rift, but better.  You don't have to spend a lot of time hunting exclamation points for finding quests at linear hubs along the way.  Things happen on the map, you hear and see announcements, and you go to those events and investigate... then you participate and get XP.  It's really a refreshing approach I think.  It's definitely 100 times better than killing another set of 10 wolves for meager XP.  You basically hang out in an area design for your level (or in my case several levels above most of the time) and you do stuff in that area and you level.

  As I leveled I used a given weapon/attunement arrangement just long enough to level skills and then I would switch weapons or switch my attunement so I could unlock all of the skills.  It took me about 16 levels of focusing on that to unlock every Elementalist skill (including underwater).

  I'm going to write separate articles about Elementalist skills, but overall I was very pleased with the Beta weekend.