What can I say about this comic other than being young and young-at-heart can be really awesome! It's a bit reckless to be experimenting with things that many people may cast aside as being ridiculous or too risky, but who cares! Being unafraid of failure is a great way to play and test new ideas. Sure, those ideas may miss their mark, but maybe you'll get lucky and discover something amazing because of your will to play around and ability to learn from your endeavors.

Last weekend, Pie and I had set aside as much time as possible to enjoy the very limited run of the Guild Wars 2 beta. We've been highly anticipating this game and though we enjoy MMOs, getting revved up and excited prior to actually playing one is rare.

One of the most gratifying experiences from the weekend was being part of a guild before the actual launch of the game. It offered a great opportunity to see how large groups can function in the ever-changing PVE world and how restrictive a 5-person party would be. Since GW2 handles cooperative play so well, absolutely nothing was lost from the multiple groups, which is an amazing feat!

There were a few things that I felt were lacking however. Hit boxes for enemies and characters didn't feel as tight as they should be; certain attacks I was certain I had dodged landed regardless. It was a little tough to swallow, having just come out of playing the Tera open beta. In Tera, there were clear signs of big enemy attacks with eye glares and strafing and avoidance really mattered, even for "white" hits; I felt complete and fluid control over my character. In GW2, I got the feeling that dodging was only a fancy way to get out of ground-targeted AoEs, a sort of mesh between Tera and WoW. Perhaps this had to do with my class, the hybrid Mesmer, so I plan on testing it out again and under more scrutiny next beta weekend with a pure melee character.

The other big issue I had was in the human starting zone and the impending menace of marauding centaurs. Even though they pop up all over and have to be driven back constantly, I didn't feel any sort of presence from them. I suppose it's hard to care about AI enemies that don't give you a real reason to want to beat them back other than being checklist items on a zone completion list. Even though the story starts off with an invasion in progress, it just didn't seem to have that sense of urgency. It's funny because I immediately think of the Worgen starting zone in WoW and how much more effective it was at drawing me in. Supposedly, ArenaNet has stated they want people to be able to have a short starting experience so they could be free to do as they please, but it does come at a price for those interested in an overarching story.

My overall impression with the game was amazingly positive. Was everything perfect? No; but I still believe that the folks at ArenaNet have something very special here and Pie and I can't wait to devour more!