A belated report on the December beta weekend...
Hawkmoon - 31 Dec 2004

It's been one of those months where I seem to have been playing perpetual catch-up, with too many other things to distract me from important tasks like writing some comments on the December beta weekend... (note to self: seek professional help for Guild Wars fixation NOW)

Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to spend too much time playing with fellow RBers during the weekend, although I did spend most of Friday evening playing with Sirian. I spent basically the entire weekend playing Rye Tchuss, my monk/necro. Sirian was just starting off with a monk/warrior, and despite being level 5 he hadn't done any of the missions. I had done the first two the last beta weekend, but figured that a bit more experience couldn't hurt, so we did the first mission together, and spent an inordinate amount of time wandering around The Breach (where we never did find Master Mutara, or whatever his name was - despite doing a full clear of the area. Perhaps this is additional content that hasn't been completed yet?). We didn't die too often, and I managed to attain a lofty Level 6! (woot!)

Saturday evening I couldn't hook up with any of the RBers. I joined a random group for the second mission (since I hadn't gotten the bonus quest, I thought I'd give it another go). I was the highest level character; the others ranged from 3-5. We were doing okay until we ran into a big group of Charr, and in the thick of he fight, without warning, our party's warrior exited the game. The rest of us got slaughtered. Back in the staging area, two other party members had to leave, and the three of us remaining decided to try again. That turned out to be a bit of a mistake. The ranger and the mesmer got killed by a pack of Charr warriors and Fire-casters, and I had to run for my life. It took me literally about 30 minutes to kill off one enemy, then res the ranger and pour healing into him so that he could do some damage (my damage is pitiful), and finally res the mesmer. The poor ranger, who had the amusing name of The Honorable Leech, died multiple times and attained the dreaded -60% DP. Yikes, no wonder my healing spells were restoring his life bar to full! wassat But I finally got the hang of casting Resurrect followed immediately by Orison of Healing followed by Reversal of Fortune - that gave enough of a health buffer that Leech didn't die in the first couple of seconds, and after that I could keep up with healing. Those two players were really nice fellows - they thanked me profusely for my efforts on their behalf. After that debacle, the rest of the mission went relatively smoothly.

On Sunday evening, my first order of business was to upgrade my equipment by crafting all of the armor components that I didn't have yet - the game had told me that I ought not to try mission 3 (Ruins of Surmia) until I had the better armor. With that accomplished, I headed for the staging area, and was again forced to join up with random players due to a lack of RBers on at the same time as I was. We tried the Ruins of Surmia mission - I say tried, because we all died when we hit a sort of village full of nasty enemies, including a named boss. The archers simply decimated us with Ignite Arrows - it was not pretty! So we regrouped and tried again, with the same result. Then we spent a long time before re-entering the mission discussing tactics, deciding that we would all rush the archers that had caused us such difficulty. Of course, those plans went awry, because a couple of the party members just couldn't seem to follow directions. They went charging in for the boss, leaving everyone else behind to be archer fodder. This is why I prefer to play with RBers! angry So I can't say I was sorry to see them go when they made their excuses back in the staging area and left. We finally completed the mission on the next try, with a couple of new (higher level) characters. And at that point, it was time for me to log off and await the January event. Sigh.

Still no PvP or GvG action. Oh well, it may be best to wait at least until the character reset occurs, which will put everyone back to level 1, given Sirian and SoulEdge's experiences.

I think one of the strong points of Guild Wars is the real difference between the character classes, and how a party needs to be well balanced, and work together in order to be successful. Rye killed very few monsters (did he kill any??), but he was essential for the party, and everyone was very appreciative of his constant healing efforts. He went with 6 monk skills and 2 necro skills - he'd approach any battle by first debuffing the enemy with Shadow of Fear and Parasitic Bond, then start healing or casting Reversal of Fortune on allies. I think that in the future, crafting armor that adds to energy regeneration will be crucial, because it would be great to be able to maintain multiple enchantments while still having enough energy to cast healing spells.

One of the more amusing details of the game is how it's possible to remove all the character's armor, and see them in their underwear! While I was in town crafting armor, there was a general call in chat of "Let's go streaking!", and a bunch of scantily clad characters went running all through Ascalon. Quite the sight. Here's Rye in all his glory:
How can one fail to be impressed by such a striking figure? wink (and the cape is a nice touch!) But what is with those stodgy boxers?? He really ought to be in a thong!

I do wish there was more randomization possible in the area maps, or in which monsters populate them - it would make things much more interesting!

Unfotunately, I will have to miss all but Sunday of the January beta weekend, due to being out of town. crying I'll have to work hard to make up for time lost on Sunday, or in the February beta weekend!