Flame Throwing

So I may be a little biased. I do write a blog about a game that hasn't released yet. But this weekend's Guild Wars 2 event was the most fun beta weekend of the three I've had recently, Tera, Diablo 3, and Guild Wars 2.

I'm going to break it down like I did for Tera so it's easy to digest. Keep in mind (also with my Tera list) that these lists are not comprehensive, just things that pop out while I'm playing.

Good Things

• Traditional questing has been replaced, and it's really fun
• Skill progression is excellent
• Combat is fun
• Personal story is fun
• Structured PvP is a blast and there's a good learning curve to keep it interesting
• The game promotes exploration in a fun way

Bad Things

• Combat sometimes lacks fluidity
• Combat gets a little chaotic, especially in WvW.
• I know it's controversial, but I'd love to see some type of Group Finder
• Not sure I'm a fan of the discovery craft style, usually leads to just googling it.
• Looting. If I hit 'F' to loot, I shouldn't have to use my mouse to grab the item, also AoE?
• There's a lot of small bugs to clean up: spawning, lag spikes, etc

What's the biggest thing missing from Guild Wars 2?

I'm about to get all hyper nerd on you. For an MMO to be truly next generational, Guild Wars 2 is missing a connected, public toolset. It's the place I look and say, "Oh, so your game is 2012 but everything surrounding it is still 2002." I know they are working on mobile apps, but we haven't seen them and the features so far sound more baubly than not. (I made up that word)

Guild Wars 2 should have an open API, that Arena.net can own and control, with validation and limits. Community hackers shouldn't be building game data miners and putting up any old thing they find.

Plus, wouldn't it be awesome to be your Guild Wars character across the web? The number one thing I'd like to see is a Guild Wars 2 Oauth Account. I want to log into fan sites with my Guild Wars 2 account and tell them who I am. Screw Facebook Connect, when I'm in Guild Wars, I'm Cuth Spies, explorer and adventurer.

Now the game isn't out, and historically game devs release these things after release, I'm just itching to get my hands on them.