1981

You hit the “F” to tame it and its done.

Quite simple, hard part seems to be finding them.

1982

That’s a good point. I hadn’t noticed it, but thinking back, performance is definitely much better now than in the first weekend test.

1983

Go get a bear in the Norn newbie area. It’s very close to the city, where there’s a bear cave and you help feed the cubs, etc. Probably the second quest Heart you come across.

Bears, at least previously, are durable mofos.

1984

You can also have two separate pets for when you’re underwater if you so choose. I had a shark and drake during the last beta for trips underwater, while I ran with a moa/dog for land.

1985

Even if you don’t PvP, go to the Mists where everyone has maxed abilities, so you can see everyone doing it wrong on a major scale.

1986

Yeah, the combat is fast-paced so it’s hard to get a handle on what the buffs are doing, etc. I get it that I can cast a spell that works as a buff and it’s not targeted at other players or allies but just ricochets among them, but I don’t really get any kind of feedback that lets me know the buff is valuable.

Basically, I’m just mashing keys right now. My necro has about 4-5 attacks and I cycle through them over and over, including one that is both a buff for the good guys and a debuff for the bad guys.

Another thing I’m not sure I’m getting is what I’m supposed to be doing when I’m too low level for my story quest? I don’t have other quests in my queue. Am I supposed to walk around until I find something to do or just grind XP from monsters?

I’m still having disconnect problems. It was better late last night. Here in the day again I’m not lasting more than a few minutes before I get dropped.

1987

I can normally complete the quest if I’m several levels behind - usually about three or four levels of if I fail the quest I usually go do more hearts until I gain a level.

1988

You get a pretty good chunk of XP from exploration alone, and events are probably the biggest total source of XP. You also get XP from gathering materials and crafting, so there should never be need for kill-grinding.

If you’ve explored as far as your level allows and for some reason you’re still behind, you can also travel to other races’ starting areas from your capital and do some exploring and events there.

So basically yes, you are supposed to walk around and find something to do. :)

1989

There are a fairly small number of buffs in the game and they all either have a fixed effect that simply varies in duration (Swiftness always grants +33% movement - adding more Swiftness just makes it last longer) or they stack with each other to become more powerful (Might increases damage based on how many Might boons are applied, I think it works out to be around +2-3% damage per boon).

A list of the eight boons in the game and what they do is here:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Boon

The game provides XP for doing a variety of things, of which killing monsters is probably the least efficient method. Exploration bonuses actually add up quite a bit - traveling to new zones and unlocking waypoints can be lucrative. Crafting also will give you XP - each crafting skill provides roughly 10 levels worth of XP to max out.

In general, exploring and doing events/hearts you come across while gathering materials to craft that you find is probably the faster route to XP, although you really can do any or all of the above. It’s more about the ride than the destination in this game.

1990

If you’re behind on XP, check the map and look for unexplored points of interest, waypoints, vistas, or skill challenges. First three are great for exp and skill challenges give you additional skill points to learn your 6-0 skills. As others mentioned, crafting also gives a decent chunk of exp. I noticed that I was usually ahead of the curve quite a bit if I just ran after every event that popped up nearby.

1991

Yeah, I’m learning how the game plays and picking up XP is a bit easier now. I haven’t even touched crafting because I have the game for a weekend and that’s it, but if I get it later I will do some crafting.

I wish the main city wasn’t so big, though. I don’t really see the point. Yeah, I can get waypoints and teleport around, but why does it need to be so big? I earned some XP exploring it but it was boring. It’s filled with uninteresting NPCs.

Overall I’m impressed with the game. When it works for me it’s interesting and challenging at times. This is the first MMO I’ve played in a long time that looks like it could hold onto players for more than a few months.

1992

Man, this game is going to eat so much of my time when it’s released.

Yesterday I rolled an Asura Thief. I had expected to dislike both Asura and Thief, and Thief was the last profession I hadn’t tried yet during the beta weekend events, so I thought I would get this race and class out of the way so that I wouldn’t “waste” time trying them at release. I ended up having a blast!

The Asura aren’t nearly as annoying and “cute” as I thought they would be, and a lot of the dialog overheard (in the starting area at least) is actually pretty funny. I also did some WvW for the first time, and being so small feels like a distinct advantage when trying to hide in a crowd or run away (that could just be my perception, though).

Thief turned out to be a blast, though that might be due to it being my first time in WvW as much as anything. I specifically enjoyed using the shortbow to fire explosive arrows toward the tops of keep walls and detonating them in mid-air to hit everyone clustered together up there. The targeted Poison field was fun to drop in between my team and the enemies, especially with the recent visual cues that let you know who gets buffed by your field effects. Suddenly my whole team is shooting poison arrows/bullets/etc.

The shortbow also has a backward evade skill that looks like a dodge, and I had taken the healing skill that causes you to evade/dodge backward while healing (and also helps you escape from roots), so I had 4 effective dodges including the two normal ones. Add to that the ability to teleport when in the Downed state and I felt very mobile and durable.

So now I have another class to choose from on release. After having tried them all now, the only classes that don’t appeal to me much are Necromancer and Ranger (I’m not much into pet classes, though I had expected to really like Necromancer, but found it pretty dull). I’m going to have a hard time choosing in August (but that just makes me more excited for this game)!

1993

It needs to be big because it’s supposed to feel like a real city, not just a place you go to get everything gathered in one area. The waypoints are there so the ‘realism’ of it’s size doesn’t ruin gameplay in the long run.

Theoretically you could just have a pull down menu represent everything you could do in the city, this would be far more convenient but at the complete opposite spectrum of realism vs convenience. I think they found a happy medium.

1994

Regarding thief, they are a bit ‘behind the curve’ with regards to pvp performance right now. However I find them very fun and flavorful and quite good in pve.

The devs have mentioned something will be done to thieves.

1995

At lower levels, only some pets are good. Bears are awesome from the get go, as are Pigs, Boars, and Siamoths. The big lizards are good too - you can tame one in the human starting area, in the water by the dam where the level 3 heart is. My bear could tank just like in WoW from the start. And once you can swap them out, swapping in a second tanky pet makes them last forever. I’ve also had good luck with Hyenas and the Kryten Bloodhound. Many other pets (including most cat types) I found pretty weak at the start. I understand you can get traits that give them heals on a critical strike, and when you get that, the cat type pets are supposed to be great. I picked up a spider of some sort for WvW and it’s great too, he sits at range and lobs poison into the crowd.

Hyenas are fun too, their F2 ability summons a second Hyena which runs around like it’s on crack. It’s funny because none of the aggro it generates transfers to you, so if it runs crazy and dies, it’s no big deal.

The Signet of (I think) Stone is good for your pet. When you activate it, your pet takes no damage, so it’s really useful when you’re fighting a big boss and your pet is taking it on the chin and you need him to last a little bit longer.

Once you tame it you are asked if you want to use it. If you don’t it’s put into storage. You can change your pet assignments at any time when you’re not in combat by clicking on the pet portrait.

As far as Rangers feeling weak, I agree. I was reading that last time the Greatsword Rangers were mashing everything, so I heard the damage on Greatsword has been reduced. Even though it may be “weak” (on a relative basis) I don’t have any trouble leveling for the most part. My problem with Ranger is that I feel it doesn’t do anything besides vanilla damage (excepting the shortbow, which does a lot of fun condition damage). I compare it to the other classes I’ve tried (Engineer, Mesmer) and I find the other ones more interesting - though I do find the Ranger levels pretty easily - until he gets into trouble. Then I feel he doesn’t really have any get out of jail card.

Guild Wars 2 doesn’t really have quests. You’re still thinking in the Wow-model. The hearts you see on the map are more or less guideposts that you know you can go to a certain area and find an activity. But that’s just sort of a guidepost. You should be keeping your eye open for dynamic events. If you just go from heart to heart, doing one and moving on to the next, you’ll definitely be underleveled. As mentioned upstream, you can get lots of XP from crafting, exploring, and doing the dynamic events. Gathering also gives you lots of xp, and since all crafting nodes are instanced for each player, nobody can nab the nodes that are yours. Even if you’re not a crafter, it makes sense to gather wood and ore and plants when you can.

If you end up too low for a zone, or you finish a zone and are too low to continue, you can do stuff like try to get map completion in the zone you just finished, or get a map completion in your capital city. Or you can head to Lion’s Arch (using the purple portal in your capital city) and go to one of the other race’s capitals, and go explore the countryside from there. Or you can go to WvWvW, that’s another way to get some XP.

1996

The problem is that it can never feel like a real city because it’s filled with empty-headed NPCs stuck in place. If it did feel like a real city maybe I’d be happier about the size.

I dunno – maybe there’s a lot of cool stuff going on in the city that rewards wandering around. I haven’t seen any yet.

Anyway, minor complaint. It would be nice if the teleports all worked without having to discover them initially, especially for a second character.

1997

Great post KevinC. I was trying to explain these concepts to my guildmates on the weekend who have only just started playing BWE3.

BWE3 was in a nutshell awesome. Some observations from BWE3:

  • Tightened up the graphics engine and it no longer chugs in cities.
  • Added a ton of incidental graphic and sound effects to the game. I noticed this immediately at the human 1-15 area after completing the starter story.
  • Lot’s more sounds in the cities. They feel even more alive than before.
  • The Asura and Sylvari city zones are tremendous.
  • I had a bit of a nerdgasm when I heard the voiceover of one of the main Asura characters.
  • I had a chance to try all of the classes this BWE. It made me realise I don’t really have one favorite class. They are all excellent. I can see myself having some serious alt-time in this MMO.
  • The scaling of dynamic battles has been improved with the proximity and number of players.
  • Many of the dynamic events were attended by 2-3 devs checking to see how they were scaling and looking for any other bugs. I had one following me around as we quested to check on heart events. It was great to see this level of participation by members of the ArenaNet team.
  • The only issue I had was not being able to login initially. I had to add more exceptions to my firewall. A couple of guildmates had trouble not being able to log in at all this weekend even with firewall turned off. I know this issue was affecting a lot of players so I hope ArenaNet can nail down this problem ASAP.
  • I love how this MMO encourages participation through rewards with no enforced grouping. Help kill a mob - get points. Help a fallen player - get points. This really needs to become the standard game mechanic for all MMO’s.
  • Special mention: this game has the most beautiful implementation of water/ponds/rivers/lakes and associated water effects I have ever experienced in a game. Even better than that in Skyrim.
1998

That doesn’t sound like a server load issue. I have been getting game crashes. Maybe once every 3-4 hours or so. The game pops up with a message requesting the details be sent to ArenaNet and you have a chance to type in what you were doing at the time. I assume you weren’t getting this message?

1999

I played Ranger fairly extensively on the weekend. My advice is in the early game buy a complete set of weapons to unlock all weapon abilities asa soon as possible. The Ranger has some very strong AOE and CC abilities once you start levelling your traits.

Don’t try to use your pet as a tank. Think of it as a minor support tool that gives you an extra buff and only send it in when you absolutely need to. Once you have enough points to unlock Beastmastery it becomes a lot more useful.

2000

ArenaNet will be adding more events to cities. If you look carefully you will see numerous place holder locations for future events. I find the cities in GW2 very interesting - stop and listen to some of the conversations and don’t just run through it. Well worth it. ;)