In case you missed it, Guild Wars 2’s final beta weekend started yesterday. And according to all my friends, all I ever talk about when I’m not on camera recording Spoiler Warning is Guild Wars. So I figured, why not let you all in on the magic as I drive everyone else who actually shows up completely insane by talking about Guild Wars while playing Guild Wars? Everyone wins!
We’ll be streaming the beta tomorrow (Sunday) from the usual ‘liberated’ Rutskarn Channel at 4 PM Pacific. That’s 7 PM on the East Coast of the United States, midnight in London, and 1 AM in the Netherlands and Sweden, and probably a bunch of other countries I’ve failed to mention. I’ll be there, Randy will be there, Shamus will… probably be there, depending on how masochistic he’s feeling. We’ll probably be able to rope Chris into showing up, he never seems to realize what’s happening until it’s too late.
Shamus will probably demand we play some PvE content, but rest assured, Randy and I will no doubt quickly hijack things and go try to kill each other in PvP. Or something equally absurd.
See you there! Or, not, if you’re a reasonable, well-adjusted human being. But when has that ever gotten anyone anywhere?
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Sweet I was waiting for something that gave me a good reason to preorder. This should be rather fun.
Anything has to be better than Diablo 3 …
Well I skipped it the moment i heard you had to be always connected to the internet to play. Unlike a lot of other gamers I don’t have a double standard when it comes to some studios, I hated it when Ubisoft did it(I still refuse to buy their products) so why would I like it just because Blizzard does it?
Have you participated in any of their many betas yet? If not, it could be interesting watching someone learn how to play an MMO…
Yay! I just got back, so I’ll be able to participate in this one much more than the last one.
Wow, so soon after the last one? Well, hopefully I’ll be able to stay for the whole thing this time.
Oh man, Another midnight hangout? But I just finally got my sleep pattern back!
*sigh* I’ll be there regardless.
I have fun playing beta content on a PvE character that I know is going to get wiped in 2 days. That’s how much I enjoy this game.
I might have to check this out. I couldn’t stand GW1 (luckily I got it on sale on Steam so I wasn’t out much), but a few friends are trying to convince me to preorder this one. A stream may be able to at least show me some of the game before I decide.
The sequel is mechanically entirely different. Moderately active combat, notably less free-form skill selection, persistent world, the likes. GW2 is probably worth a shot ;)
Silly question: did you win or lose that Total War/Shogun campaign?
Yes, what happened?
No kidding, I want the wrap up …
I think I remember him saying/writing he will return to it when he finished moving.
Will there be a recording of this available to watch later? I’m busy this weekend playing the Guild Wars 2 beta.
You can usually watch the archived footage from the stream page, although some of the ending and any after party will be probably be missing
Wished it was today…sadly I have to work at 5AM on Monday, so I can’t reasonably watch that…
Speaking of online games. I’ve been wanting to try getting a DayZ group together made up of TwentySided readers. I’ve only played it a few times, all of them by myself, and I’ve heard its much more memorable with a group. Anyone interested in getting together and seeing how hilariously we can die/get eaten?
I’ve been basing whether I even get ARMA on whether people I semi know will play DayZ. If some of us from here got together then that would be great.
Same.
I’ll be stuck at work.
Well, there’s a chance I might show up really, really late, if you’re still doing it after like 10. Er, 8 in your time.
Fortunately I don’t feel bad about dropping in and out as time permits. Because otherwise, this could result in some seriously bad relationship behavior between me and the live-streams. “Sorry guys, can’t play, gotta go watch a complete stranger play videogames on the Internet while making snarky witicisms 5 seconds too late in the chat box…”
And I’ve heard good things about Guild Wars, so I’m curious too what it will be like and whether it might be something I want to play.
A completely random question:
For years on game sites I used the handle “Sabredance.” Then I started being part of professional websites and mailing lists and started using my name. And I’m thinking it would be good to go back to Sabredance here, particularly because that matches my steam and xbox handles.
Is there a good way to migrate this so people here and elsewhere catch the switch? Like signing Sabredance (ne MatthewH) for a couple of weeks?
Doing “Sabredance (MatthewH)” for a week or two will be fine. It’s what I did to rid myself of “Gamer” and start using “newdarkcloud” to consolidate my online identity.
That can work. Also note that if you keep the same email, your icon will remain the same. That should also help.
I STILL post this way.
Hey, maybe if I watch this I will gain some idea of how to play the damn game without dying every five seconds.
*exceedingly dissapointed in the game thus far*
I’m guessing your main problem is that you can’t spend all your time on the main quest you’re given. You have to spend quite a bit of time wandering around the areas, doing the events and things so that you’re an appropriate level for the next stage of the quest.
Levels don’t matter that much if you don’t avoid damage ;) Seeing that you’re underleveled honestly should be obvious enough for that not to be a problem anyways.
If you’re dying because you’re behind on levels… Unfortunately, playing through the game in a fairly completionist fashion consistently leaves you behind the leveling curve. Every few levels, you pretty much have to break off what you’re doing, and either PvP, or do some quests in another zone. (Which is, IMO, a colossal blunder by Arena.net. Reeks of the classic WoW leveling curve.)
Otherwise, though, avoiding damage (By dodging out of the way of big attacks), or not being in range of the enemies you’re fighting (Line of sight, kiting, skills that inflict blind) should keep you alive.
AWESOME! Excited to see you guys play tomorrow.
Well this is perfect timing. I’m going on a trip on Monday, which means I should really go to sleep early. So no staying up until 2 am to catch any of this.
What’s really interesting is that while I was already going on the trip before, I had thought I would leave on Tuesday up until last Friday.
Meh, another night before a work night. Might watch, might not.
But one thing I really never understood was MMO betas. What’s the point? The thing that makes MMOs enjoyable is keeping stuff. Knowing it’ll all be gone, an MMO beta is like an MMO without everything that’s fun in an MMO.
Everyone wins, but some people might lose their minds.
Having to get up early sucks. Looks like I’ll be skipping this one as well if I want to stay sane tomorrow. Friday or Saturday night would be a lot more preferable with my current schedule. Alas.
I missed the hangout last Monday. The reason? My memory is bad. But here’s the other thing: I spend a lot of time in streams, mostly people from That Guy With The Glasses, and they tweet when they are starting their streams. So would it be asking too much for whoever is going to be running the stream to tweet when they start?
I really like how you are considerate of demographics. Same compliment of course to Shamus for doing this in his posts. Giving the starting time of your Hangout for other timezones and things like that, really makes me (and I guess others too) feel appreciated as a reader/viewer. Always a good incentive to return to the site.