Guild Wars 2: The Saving Grace

This is no in-depth explanation of the game.  This is just one MMORPG fanatics humble opinion, and I am going to keep this brief:  Guild Wars 2 will be the best MMORPG to come out since World of Warcraft.

And the reason for this?  Simple: It's not trying to be World of Warcraft.  Over the last half decade so many games have come out trying to imitate something else to get a piece of the big success.  Call of Duty has hundreds of clones, and virtually every MMORPG to come out since 2004 has attempted to create the next "World of Warcraft" by attempting to make World of Warcraft.  But did anyone ever stop to think, "Hey, WoW wasn't the first MMO!  I bet it drew it's inspiration from somewhere!"  Well, luckily for us, ArenaNet did.

As I discuss at length in the MMONDAY podcasts (viewable at www.youtube.com/thevidyaweekly), Community and PvP are two of the most important aspects to a successful MMORPG.  Games like SWTOR and Rift have focused far too heavily on the PvE experience, which is finite in it's nature.  I like to call SWTOR a "single player game with multi-player component" because not a single part of that game qualifies as "massive" at any given time.  It's just an online RPG.  When it comes to the mass quantity of MMORPG's like Rift, Aion, and all the others to come out in WoW' shadow, Guild Wars 2 set out to be different.  It set out to evolve rather than expand.

It's hard to describe everything that makes this game great because there is so much that's different from other MMO's it's a real mouthful to try and put it all into words.  The PvE aspect of the game promotes an active community.  It promotes working together to accomplish goals and assist everyone.  There is no "mob tagging".  There are no "quest hubs" or "fetch quests."  You pick a direction, run in it, explore until you find something interesting. 

To quote from sixdee.net's article The Last Portal to Tyria:

"WoW loves competition. Specifically, pitting players against each other in even the most innocuous of situations. Factions are designed specifically to engender artificial hatred towards half the server population, and Blizzard goes to extraordinary lengths in the lore to reignite this “fauxtred” whenever it appears to be lagging. Mob tagging means you end up fighting your own side, more often that not, for access to that tenth rat c’mon man I only need one more, and seriously I was camping this named spawn for like fifteen minutes, why’d you have to come along and gank it you asshole? Would it really have killed you to wait your fucking turn? (And what do you mean “group up”? Why would I want to group with that doucheknuckle?)"

And it's very true - I couldn't have put it better myself.  That's why Guild Wars 2 has fantastic PvE.  It has none of that.  Everything you do in PvE promotes working together which promotes a healthy community.  The type of community we used to see in the Elder Games such as Asheron's Call and Dark Age of Camelot.

In regards to the PvP of the game - the main focus - it's brilliant.  It made me nostalgia hard for Dark Age of Camelot.  The way it works, the way it's run, the formula and the gameplay...it's the true spiritual successor to DAoC that we've been hungry for.  The PvP of Guild Wars 2 promotes working together, which promotes a healthy and happy community, which promotes longevity.  Server v. Server means that servers will have pride.  People will want to rep their server the same way we wanted to rep our realm's so long ago in Dark Age of Camelot.  We've waited long, my friends, but the time has come.  

Unfortunately, during the previous beta event I neglected to actually open FRAPS whilst jamming on my "capture video" button and realized too late that the entire weekend had passed and I hadn't taken any video.  Lame, I know, but that should speak volumes to how wrapped up I was in the game.  An MMORPG hasn't had this kind of hold on me in many, many years.  

This game is a mold breaker, it is the next step, a natural evolution.  Where all others take a step sideways, this takes a step forwards.  This is going to break us out of the stagnation that the genre has fallen into, and I couldn't be more pleased.  I anxiously await this game and welcome it into the world with open arms.