Guild Wars Reporter Episode 22

Chris and Celeste are joined by Bill of MMO Reporter and LoTRO Reporter, Anexxia of TOR Reporter, and Sallennia of Rift Reporter for an epic roundtable to discuss the second beta weekend event.

What class/race everyone played:

Sallennia – Human Elementalist

Bill – Human Mesmer (charr engineer)

Anexxia– Norn Elementalist and Charr Mesmer

Celeste – Human Elementalist

Chris – Norn Guardian is amazing

The Good

WvW
Dying clothes to match
Being able to sell items in the AH from anywhere
Grabbing your mail from anywhere
Amazing Exp from events, hearts, and exploration/completion
Fast travel… I mean REALLY fast
Group persistence – my wife and I stayed grouped for the entire beta, no matter how often we logged out (or what characters we logged into)
Fantastic Swim mechanics/ water appropriate damage skills.
New map UI – small, out of the way, yet still functional

The Bad

wasn’t crazy about the UI changes, not really bad but mediocre. still a WIP with beta being active so it’s probably going to change a bit in the meantime
Skills system…still doesn’t make a ton of sense as you go along
Forcing me to pay to rez myself at a location far away from where I died
The expense of the quick travel methods vs the low drop rate of coin/salable items. My first character was nearly broke for her first few levels
Only allowing us to deposit some of my items in the bank from out in the field (the blue quality items defined in the bank collections)
Being dropped from the server, and logging back in at completely random places, AND having to pay to port back to my group.
bad water in hi-res screenshots, it’s irritating and awful
Death Nudity Sucks
BWE2 ended :( Need more hours in day

Most improved:

Overflow and forming/finding party members

Funnest Moment:

Celeste: more than 2 people in a group makes content feel lovely and you feel like progression goes at a wonderful pace.
Anexxia: Getting a free box of vanity pets! (bought with the gems they gave us)
Sallennia: Wayfarer Hills – BIG event with close to 40 players participating, taking back control of an area. Only ‘Epic’ thing we did all weekend.
Bill: Story quest (LAWYERED!)
Chris: WuvWuv

No matter how much they change the packaging, X is still boring/frustrating:

Anexxia: I will never be rich enough to get anywhere w/crafting. Also, the discovery system for crafting patterns is like that memory card game only real time and online and some of the cards are missing. And you have to use a crafting bench to make items — hate being tied to a city to craft.
Celeste: empty zones and not being able to finish events because of this

Coolest new feature: