The first
open Beta Weekend for Guild Wars 2 and I’m at work. It’s rather awful. I just did a quick run through all the web
forums that I stop in on to see if there was much of anything than can distract
me from the fact it’s 2 hours from the launch event.
And no, nothing
did. That’s why I’m writing.
I’m lucky in the fact that I can stream video at work. I’m hoping to catch the special pre-Beta
Tales of Tyria when it starts in an hour
or so. (http://www.talesoftyria.com/) Will that feed this hunger and
addiction I have for Guild Wars 2?
UNLIKELY!
Even with all the buzz around the beta weekend event, and
the excitement that I have towards the game launching in general. I won’t be playing this weekend. Nope.
Not playing. Not at all. I’ll be watching some live casts and keeping
up on what people are saying about the game, but after being involved in two
prior beta test for different games, I don’t want to do it again.
YES! I want to do all
the things!
When I do them, I want to see them fresh and on the first
time through. I’ve intentionally kept myself ignorant to
certain aspects of the game. Among my most
favorite things about games is the discovery aspect of it. Part of the appeal of puzzles is figuring it
out, the idea of the puzzle is ruined if you read a guide somewhere that tells
you how to solve it. I don’t need to
know how to do all the things before I start playing the game, I WANT TO
DISCOVER THEM while I’m playing.
More than that, I don’t want to burn myself out. There is an investment of energy into
playing a game. Because that investment isn’t carried over
from the beta to the live launch; and we haven’t heard that it’s carrying over
from beta to beta. When I begin playing
the live launch, I want all of my energy, excitement and enthusiasm that I’ve
poured into that experience to carry with that character for as long as I
play. I’ve burnt out before, and part of
the reason was having to do “the same thing again” because I did it in a beta.
It’s okay not to beta
test.
Arena.net has plenty of people testing their product for
them. I don’t need to do that. BUT GO AND PLAY! Tannlin will be watching from the sidelines; taking notes, observing trends, and waiting to REPORT BACK TO YOU!
<--- Not a betta test.
