Confession time: I’m pretty excited about Guild Wars 2. After being able to get in to both press beta weekends, I’ve been impressed by the amount of detail already in the game. All the major game systems are present and correct, letting me get a real feel for what’s involved. You can find some of my more general thoughts on the game over at ZAM.
As part of the process of adapting from more stationary MMOs like World of Warcraft and SWTOR to ones that are more movement focused like TERA and Guild Wars 2, I’ve been reassessing how to make the most of my MMO-designed Logitech G15 and Razer Naga Molten. It’s not as straightforward as you’d think. Guild Wars 2 only has a single action bar with 10 abilities, which in theory would make the Razer Naga pretty much redundant. Add modifiers like weapon switching and profession abilities into the mix, and combine them with trying to limit moving your left hand so you can stay mobile, and you can see why a different approach is needed.
It’s why I spent the last four weeks playing movement based games like Team Fortress 2 in order to get used to moving again. I used to play a lot of Counter Strike and Quake 3 Arena back in the day, but raiding as a Mage in World of Warcraft has made my reflexes and spacial awareness soft and flabby. There’s only so many ways you can stand at the back pressing One, One, One, Two and occasionally moving out of bad stuff.