The Tyrian Chronicle: Hands-On With Heart of Thorns .

This week myself and two others from MMOGames got the opportunity to take part in the Guild Wars 2 Heart of Thorns beta. This was for all of us our first chance to see and touch the expansion for ourselves. Unfortunately with timezones being what they are we went in to it knowing we would only get time to play the first and second events. After the first play session I was feeling slightly underwhelmed but the second play session changed my mind completely while also proving that a fear I had was true.

The first time you log into the beta you have to play through the story to get yourself into the new zone. Thankfully, being genre savvy I knew when to look away or alt tab out of the game to avoid spoilers. As much as I want to know the story, I don’t want to know until it’s live. Then I plan to devour it. The three of us met up and started following a mass of people who were doing an event. We followed the event across the zone but it fell apart before it could get into the later stages of the chain. The rest of our time was spent exploring the zone, doing minor events and getting used to Revenant. My thoughts afterwards could really be summed up with, “Meh.”

The second session was a completely different experience altogether. We already had our characters made so we were able to log straight in, this time getting on a much more populated map. We were able to follow that event chain to the end. Not the end of the chain mind you, it felt like the event ended prematurely, but the end of where it was in beta. At one point we were snipers standing on top of a wall preventing Mordrem from getting up to where we were. It was the most fun I’ve had all week. I really do hope that if Thief gets sniper like so many theorize and hope, that it will be like that. Thief sniper confirmed. Half Life 3 confirmed.

Unfortunately it confirmed what I suspected would be true. When the zone has low population or for whatever reason just can’t get organized, things just don’t come together and you can’t really progress. This is something we’ve already seen in the Silverwastes and Dry Top. These zones only work as intended when there’s a mass of people there to do the content. Dry Top got a bit of a boost during the event to hunt for beta invites, but prior to that it was mostly empty because everyone had moved on to the Silverwastes. Anyone who has tried playing that zone at 3 in the morning knows that unless you’re there in peak time the zone will fail. When the expansion comes out and we move beyond the Silverwastes it will be the same story there. An empty, broken zone that struggles to get anything put together. Now, I also know that this will hold true in the new areas being introduced in Heart of Thorns.

Revenant was exactly what I want it to be – fun. There were times when it was a little hard to tell what I was doing as there were 90 other Revenants right next to me but that’s hardly anyone’s fault. We all wanted to play with the new shiny. It’s showy and you can really tell you’re making a difference in any given battle. I am very much looking forward to other weapons on Revenant and really getting to spend a large amount of time with the class. That being said, I adored hammer. In fact I enjoyed it maybe a little too much, I forgot to even try the other weapon out! The class mechanic was really easy to adjust to and very easy to use. It wasn’t very long before I felt right at home on my Revenant which is something that’s really important to me. Even after all this time I’m still not quite as comfortable on my Mesmer or Necromancer.

The Mastery system was somewhat confusing though this may have been entirely our doing as it didn’t seem like others had much trouble with it. Even after being given a brief introduction to it the three of us really didn’t understand how it worked. It wasn’t until the end of our first play session that we worked it out. By that time it was a little bit too late for most of us. This is because the mastery system is linked to your XP gain. In our first play session, we did see one person gleefully announce that he had unlocked the first tier of gliding. So, two hours to get started? Not bad at all I’d say. Will these numbers still be true when the expansion launches? That’s anyone’s guess really. As it is just a beta these sorts of things are certainly subject to change. Even so, it gives a rough idea of what to expect. One person in our group did manage to play around with gliding for a little while during the second play session. He seemed to enjoy it quite a bit as he spent most of that play session away from the rest of us gliding and doing events.

At the end of the day, the pros outweighed the cons in my mind. The beta was a success if only in convincing me even more that I need to get the expansion. At the moment I don’t know when I’ll get another chance to play it but I do hope it’s soon. Now that the itch has been scratched the need to play it is driving me mad.