I’m what you would call a veteran MMO player. In fact, at one point, I had retired. After thirteen years of running dungeons and raids, grinding and questing – I thought I’d had enough. From EverQuest to World of Warcraft to Star Wars: The Old Republic (and everything in between) it started to feel like all these games were doing was patching. For the last few years it was terrible cycle of attempting to fix one broken aspect while effectively ruining three others. I couldn’t get comfortable. I spent a lot of time complaining about it and not a lot of time embracing the changes. I finally gave in and put my spell book down for good.
It was going great. Extra time with my family, no late night raids, no hours of theory crafting to be the best of the best - and then ArenaNet came along and presented a game that shut me up and had me right back in front of my monitor.
Guild Wars 2 launched on August 28th, 2012. I had heard a lot about it already from my online cohorts, but was determined that I wouldn’t get back into another MMO. I started watching some of the beta videos that had been posted and reading up on the races and professions. I found myself getting excited again. Guild Wars 2 does have a lot of the standard MMO qualities that I enjoy. And just like every other game before it, blew me away with its undeniably gorgeous graphics and better-than-before combat systems. But this game? This game is different – in all the right ways.
For this gamer, the narrative story aspect and single player capabilities really drive this game in the direction of your standard RPG. From everything down to the choices you make on your character shaping your story, to the way your abilities are learned and progress makes me feel like I just picked up an epic single player game. Couple that with the dynamic world events, and thus far, it seems that a large amount of the progress can be made without ever being in a group. I will qualify that and say that I am not yet at the end game stages (I’m holding fast to my ‘I’m going to play this casually’ promise), but most of the gamers I have spoken with have had no argument.
Guild Wars 2 has thus far answered so many ‘Why can’t they just-‘s and ‘Would it be great if-‘s that I’m tempted to call it the Final Fantasy VII of the new age MMOs. Bold statement, I know. Will it get old? Will the end game hold our attention? Are all these changes from the normal routine enough? I can’t answer that yet. I can say though, with certainty, that ArenaNet has successfully problem-solved some of my most major complaints in this industry. Here are the five most predominant things I noticed that had me hooked by level ten:
1. The World Map and Travel:
Perhaps one of my favorite things is the fluidity of the world map. In nearly every game I have ever played, you start in one area and after five levels travel to another, another by level 15, and by the third or fourth place you have seen your map looks like a child’s game of Memory. Random spots are unlocked, none of them touch, and it takes an enormous amount of time to get back and forth from one to the other. Here, we have continuity of your story and map. At times, you don’t even realize you have changed areas. It guides you seamlessly from one recommended zone to the next, all the while collecting waypoints at various outposts and towns for you to quick travel to. That’s right, I said quick travel. For a nominal fee you can open your map from anywhere in the world, select a previously visited waypoint, and arrive there as fast as your computer will load the area. So far, that averages about three seconds. No coaches, no mounts, no ungodly runs back to a town just to spend six minutes on a flight path heading three zones over to find what you need.
2. Questing Redefined
There are no quests. There, I said it. They have renamed them ‘events’ and put the kibosh on your old school quest log. Sure, you are technically doing the same thing – performing a task for a citizen in whatever township you are near, but you are doing so in a very different manner. No longer are you forced to reach each quest hub, collect a handful of quests, and venture out into surrounding areas. No more quest chains that take you back and forth to the same spot five times. Instead, as you get near an area with something that needs to be done, you receive a notification in your event list. It tells you what to do, you do it, and you are rewarded. You never even have to go back to anywhere and turn it in. These dynamic events are not specific to your character either. As other players contribute to the cause, your completion meter also increases. The more you participate, however, the higher your rewards. Some of these are marked on your map as an empty heart icon. These are called “renown hearts,” and mark the location of a one-time story driven event. Once completed, the heart will fill in with color, and you will not have access to that event again. Unlike the other triggered events which are repeatable. And for the completionists out there – don’t worry about wasting time for no reward to go and collect all the renown hearts in lower level areas. Your level will always be scaled down to the appropriate one, keeping events challenging, and the rewards great.
Now, they did not completely eliminate the idea of a quest chain. Sometimes, they do have follow up events, like little checkpoints, but they update as you go, carrying you through the map in one trip. There are some that will inform you that they are group quests and will require you to have some others help you along. So far this seems not to be an issue, as most areas of the map were populated as I went through them. That could change though. As players make their way to the end game, it is pretty standard that the starting areas become more and more desolate. Arguably, the best change here is the lack of a quest log. Instead of limiting the amount of tasks you can have active, GW2 drops the event when you are too far away to complete it, but saves your progress for the next time you return. Only kill half the minotaurs invading Wayfarer Foothills? No problem, they will still be there the next time you visit and they will only ask you to kill the ones you missed.
3. The Collectables Screen and Making Crafting Fun
The lack of bag and bank space is always an issue for any adventurer. GW2 has sought to ease the pain of having to go to town and empty your bags every 20 minutes by adding a Collectables tab to your bank. Any item that is deemed a crafting material can be right clicked and added to your tab – from anywhere in the world. A separate bank for crafting materials? Yes, please! I’ve only been asking for that for, I don’t know, eight years? And here’s the real kicker for me. Every character you have can collect all of the resources – mining, harvesting, and logging – and deposit them. And every character can access them. Your entire bank, similar to the one in Diablo 3, is shared throughout your account. Going one step further than Blizzard, GW2 allows you to craft from this tab, never needing to pull materials out and clog up your precious bag space.
Now about making crafting fun – hard to believe, I know – let me say, it isn’t for everyone. There are a couple of neat changes to this area, in my humble opinion. One is the discovery pane. Yes, you do still get your basic recipes when you chose your craft, but they are mostly patterns to make components. Much like in Minecraft, you take those components, open up your discovery pane, and mix and match until you learn to make something new. It does have a built in elimination system, so you will never waste materials learning the same recipe twice, and as you add items to the proverbial pot, it will tell you how many possible combinations remain. Secondly, while you can only have two active crafting skills, you are able to switch to another for a fee, and will not lose any leveling progress in the dropped skill. Essentially, one character could master them all.
4. Everyone is a Healer, No One is a Tank
The battle system is another area where GW2 shines as a traditional RPG. Gone are the predetermined roles of each class. Gone are the hours of waiting for a healer or a tank to log on for your dungeon party. Everyone does everything, all the time. Each class has a dedicated action button for their personal healing spell, and there is no taunt mechanic. There are other abilities throughout the classes that heal players close to you, so not all is lost. Essentially, what ArenaNet has done is dissolved the notion that these games require what we gamers call ‘the holy trinity’ – a tank, healer, and dps combo. This is an idea and system that carried over from the original Guild Wars, which I will admit, I did not play. It is new to me, and I love it. ArenaNet did release the information (2011 MMORPGITALIA) that there are threat mechanics in place to determine who the monsters attack, quelling accusations that there is no way to control a fight without these roles. Most of it involves an AI system, where each type of monster will act accordingly and based on many factors. This means that any group of five players can complete a dungeon together. Sure, there are bound to be favorable combinations, but nothing is impossible. The reality is that all players are in control of how their fights work.
5. Here – Have Some Free XP!
Last but not least, one key point that most games have introduced through the years, but that ArenaNet offers us from launch – everything gives you experience. There are a handful of little goals to achieve in every area that all earn you experience as well. Vista points to climb to, areas of interest to explore, and yes – even collecting waypoints. From gathering resources, to PvP, to crafting - you are always getting some experience out of whatever you do. In fact, you can hit the level 80 cap without ever killing a single beast. Each crafting discipline awards you exactly ten levels worth of experience. There are eight disciplines. Provided you have the materials gathered on other characters, or the funds to purchase them all, you could train and max out each discipline and get your character to level 80, without ever leaving town.
All in all, I’m one impressed gamer. All the textures and intricate scenery aside, this game is a lot of fun. I never feel like I am standing around accomplishing nothing, which was a chief complaint near the end of my Warcraft days. I have yet to feel like I can’t complete an event, and though I have had groups for a portion of my time in this game, my solo track record is equally as good. People are saying this could be the next World of Warcraft. Only time will tell. It is natural for an MMORPG to come out and steal the show for a few months. Those that make it last years and years – those that fail often last only a few months. If I were a gambler, I’d put money on seeing this game through into the over five year range. Guild Wars 2 is based on the same MMO foundation that makes all these successful games work. I find it to be different enough though; that I believe it could work better.
