I wasn’t able to play in the beta weekend (good thing because I’ve been terribly sick) but I want to show you guys some of my favorite stuff that I’ve found from around the various sites that do have coverage.

Finding a video that wasn’t some guy just saying the game is awesome (without showing us anything) or finding one that wasn’t trying to be all about the person talking was hard (that’s the annoying part of press betas — let me in so I can make some!)  Most of the videos of PvP were also just some guy standing there instead of actually participating.

//UPDATE//
I had to throw this one at the top. Want to know why WvWvW in GW2 will work? Because ArenaNet is putting in incentives that will get people out there fighting for bonuses for their entire server. This is like DAOC’s relic system. Now all we need are some really cool dungeons or locations within the mists that only the server ‘winning’ can access.

The best WvWvW video so far.  Lots of action, a cool mech suit, etc. 20 min mark a lot of action starts.

Check out the video below from MMORPG.com.  I want you to see how big the WvWvW zone is when he zooms all the way out.  It looks massive! Also, take note of the players banging on the door.  It reminds me of Dark Age of Camelot.  This keep he’s in looks like it will be a lot of fun to defend.  I can imagine having hundreds of players from all factions clashing together.  It’s a little unsettling to see the lag, though, but that may be from his computer since the IGN video seems to handle it better.

Next, IGN has a decent video explaining and showing some WvWvW stuff.  It’s funny how he talks about the map and thinks there are only two worlds instead of three… but he doesn’t zoom out to see he’s in just ONE of FOUR massive zones.  Anyway, lots of really cool things to see here like the staging area, a brief glimpse at what your “Competitive PvP character” will look like — that’s the one you’ll do Arenas and battlegrounds with (the inferior kind of PvP) — and how you can customize.

In the video I see him “waypoint” to the keep.  I think this may be a mistake for ArenaNet to allow people to just teleport to the keeps.  Keeping reinforcements from reaching a keep seems like a strategy that gets ignored if the keep can be flooded with people just teleporting there.  I think this might be only for the main big keep in each zone, though, and I am not sure if it can be done when the keep is under siege.  Anyone know?

Jump to 7:35 if you’re just interested in some keep fighting action.

I’m hyped about GW2.  If it’s not obvious, I’m hyped about WvWvW more than anything else.  Watching this stuff brought tears to my eyes … but I think that might be all the sneezing from my cold.

Read on. (more…)