Guild Wars 2 beta, smells like home cookin'

There was a time when I said I couldn't cook and I'd hear from all kinds of people “Oh cooking's easy, anybody can cook!” It's true, anybody can boil water, preheat an oven, and add various meat & vegetables to make something edible. But is it wonderful? I suppose what I meant when I said I couldn't cook was that my heart wasn't in it, therefore the food I made was nothing to write home about.

Guild Wars 2 is soul food. Every character, landscape, interface page, piece of dialog and sea creature that is found within the game, bears with it the love & passion of it's creators. The game is beaming with the type of innovation that can only come from free minds. Minds driven to give birth to a reflection of everything that's made them who they are, blessed in the opportunity to do so.

My praise may seem like a little much to some, but I believe anything that inspires good will deserves such praise. ArenaNet is not simply making a game, they're creating a healthy community. Such directive was evident in the company's blogs and Twitter post, but became a natural state of being when playing the game. People helped people, we fought together, we overcame obstacles and we lost some battles. Looking back I realize I wasn't playing the game, but experiencing it.

Like in the way that frozen food will never compare to Mom's lasagna, ArenaNet has given us a taste of something you can't get anywhere else.

-InstaBayne

A special thanks goes out to ArenaNet for making such an amazing game, their community team for their resilience, and my wife for putting up with my 3 day “absence” during beta. :)

Clear your schedule, it's time to take this dragon for a test fly.

Well we have a date for the first Beta Weekend Event and it's April 27-29. I will be playing the entire time, getting as many pictures (and hopefully video) as I can. Going to stock up on easy make food, caffeine, and let my wife know that while I may be here in person, my mind is on vacation.

I love this. Nothing makes me feel like a kid again quite like when I lose myself to the excitement of a new game. It doesn't happen that often for me, as I try not to buy many new games, and honestly, few games do anything overwhelmingly new to warrant the excitement. But Guild Wars 2 sure is doing it for me.

There was a twitter post by MK saying they'd let us know what content will be available for testing soon. I wonder if we'll be extremely limited in the first test, then given more room in future beta weekends. Whatever the case, as soon as I know what's available, I'm going to set a game plan for coverage and post it here. If there's anything you'd like to know about the game, let me know in the comments and I'll do my best to cover it.

As far as what I'd like to see? Well I'm very interested in the Sylvari race, being the nature loving guy that I am. It would be nice to at least get to experience character creation for all the classes so that I'm not spending an hour on each race till I find the perfect look. And trust me, I will. Hopefully I can create a guild in the beta and familiarize myself with the guild tools. I'd like to focus on the top 3 professions that interest me: Warrior, Elementalist, Warlock within the first 2 days, then on the last day, I'd like to just explore, try out all the other classes and answer any questions presented to me.

So yeah, I'm very excited to finally play the game and looking forward to enjoying the childlike experience of a shiny new toy. I'm turning 30 in May, but until then, this guy is reverting back to 12. :)

That guy sure is a character!

Throughout my life, I've used entertainment, like many Americans, as an escape from reality. As I'm nearing age 30, I've spent more time questioning that effect on my life. Is this escapism creating a false sense of reality in me and is it in turn affecting my expectations in life?

What makes fictional stories so different than reality? I thought about this a lot the other day, as my wife was watching Office Space on Netflix, a movie about a disgruntled office employee. The main character goes about life in a careless way, with everything falling into place even though he'd given up all effort to be productive at his job. I could never be late for work everyday and skip the days I don't feel like coming in, all while having a “I don't care” attitude and tearing down my cubicle, without the consequence of losing my job. But this character did, in fact he got a promotion, and it made for a great story.

The difference is, I have bills, 2 cats, and a wife. However, there's that part of me that desires more chaos in the world and a bit more freedom. It's that part of me that wonders if these characters are truly so far fetched. It's not that we can't be outrageous, it's that we won't. Pressures from society and fear of being different, or abnormal, save us from potentially making fools of ourselves. That is, unless you live in Berkeley, CA.

A good story has colorful characters, each with their own flavor. The problem with real life, at least in American society, is that we're so caught up with fitting in, that the the lines of individuality become thin. When someone acts out of the norm, such as owning a flock of cats, or tattooing feline spots on their face, they're looked at as freaks. But at the same time, many people suppress their desire to stand out in fear of being ostracized. Where's the fun in that?

So I've come to the conclusion that many of these fictional stories, that masterfully transport our minds to a place more colorful, are not so out of touch as we are from life. People can, and should be eccentric, they should take chances, and their appearance should reflect how they feel inside instead of adhering to social pressure. Remember that character is defined as the aggregate of features and traits that form the individual nature of some person or thing. Do you have character?