It's easy to say that some MMOs these days do away with grind, but Guild Wars 2 truly embodies that statement. The grind is virtually nonexistant. Enemies don't give nearly enough XP to farm constantly in order to power level, but it's a great thing, as it encourages players to break out of their grinding mold and experience the game as it was meant to be experienced.
Of course being a game with no monthly fees, ArenaNet once again employed a cash shop, albeit a much more sophisticated one this time around. Once again, there are absolutely no pay to win items available. Instead, you'll find various clothing options that you can switch out to when you're not in combat, various consumables like dyes and transmutation stones, and even boosts to crafting, XP or Karma.
Players do however have the ability to exchange Crystals (the cash shop currency) for Gold. However the exchange rate it somewhat small, and even at 800 Crystals, which is equivalent to $10, you only get about 1 Gold 25 Silver, which isn't really worth it.
While I look at Guild Wars 2 as a masterpiece in MMO design, it's not without flaws. Glitches, bugs and occasional performance issues were found during my time playing the game. Getting stuck in scenery, NPCs dropping their voice tracks, frame rates dropping to five frames-per-second — all this was somewhat common in my experience, and yet, I couldn't help but be okay with it. ArenaNet did so much right with Guild Wars 2 that it's almost impossible for me to fault a few bugs that popped up. However, they're constantly at work improving the game with constant updates and patches. Even these instances are pain free, as they kick you off the game for a few minutes, and you're back in the game almost instantly.
More skin visible obviously means better armor
It's mind blowing that all of this content is available to everyone for the mere price of the game, with absolutely no subscription fee. There are so many intricacies and things to explore and do in Guild Wars 2 that it would take me another few pages to list out, but just know that you are getting a full featured MMO.
I have to commend ArenaNet for the amazing job they did with Guild Wars 2. I've never been addicted to an MMO, and I've always wanted to be. I wanted that feeling of necessity to log on and see what fellow guild members are up to, to raise my crafting level, and participate in raids for awesome loot. Guild Wars 2 made this all happen, and trust me, that wasn't an easy feat.
Enter crafting, which is an entirely different beast altogether. Everything from cooking, to making armor, weapons, jewelry and accessories — you can take up two professions that you can level up 400 separate levels. The best part is that each new thing created (given it's not grayed out) will add experience to your level as well, allowing you to level up through crafting alone!
Crafting isn't predicated by recipes only; a lot of it has to do through discovering recipes yourself, through experimentation. Putting various items together will yield different results, and if the recipe is successful, it will also give you a huge boost to your crafting and character level. To say crafting is absolutely worth it is an understatement.
The map is huge and the environments are varied. Both big pluses
The PVE portion is heavily tied to exploration. As you quest through the various areas of Tyria, each map has a certain amount of Tasks, Waypoints (which allow you to quickly teleport long distances), Vistas, Points of Interest, and Skill Challenges. Finding and completing these is easily half the fun of Guild Wars 2. Vistas and Skill Challenges are especially fun, as they aren't always straight forward. Vistas almost always require some form of platforming to reach, as they're nested atop a high platform, and Skill Challenges task players with taking down powerful enemies. The feeling you get for getting 100% area completion is always extremely satisfying, not to mention you get some great items and a bunch of XP.
The thing that ties together this constant "just one more thing to do" mentality is the Achievement system. There are achievements for everything you do in the game — kill 500 of these, craft a certain number of these, complete story quests, etc. Though the two that will have you obsessively coming back every day are the daily and monthly achievements, which always net you a good amount of XP and rewards. Achievements might not be new to the MMO genre, but ArenaNet sure did a great job with making them feel absolutely necessary.
Tequatl the Sunless is a level 65 world boss. Hint: You're going to need a lot of people to take him down
So you're thinking, what happens at level 80? I'm happy to say that besides allowing you to access higher level areas, levels are almost inconsequential. Let me clarify. Let's say you get to level 60, only exploring the lands tied to your race, and you want to venture to another race's starting area, your level will then be scaled to match that area's level. I know it sounds strange in theory, but in practice, it's completely genius. Not only does it allow you to experience the entirety of the game without one-shotting everything you come across, it also allows you to help lower level friends without making it extremely easy, in turn ruining their experience.
That brings me to combat. ArenaNet did a great job with the combat mechanics. It's fast, aggressive, and feels more action-packed than other hotkey reliant MMOs. It's no TERA, but it still manages to keep you on your toes, actively dodge, and retaliate with some great looking attacks. Two or more players can even form combo attacks, such as dropping down a fire AoE attack that imbues the Ranger's arrows as it passes through. It allows for experimentation with what classes work wonders together to maximize damage. Lose all your hit points and you'll have a chance to resurrect by killing an enemy, much like Borderlands' mechanic. If you're down for good, you still have the option to be resurrected by another player.
Burn baby, burn!
So where do you take all of this battle proficiency? You have two choices — structured PVP, which pits two teams against each other in various maps in control of certain points, or the epic World vs. World event, which has literally hundreds of players fighting from your server and two other servers.
Let's talk about World vs. World, since it's a more integrated experience, unlike Structured. What I mean by this is that you take your armor and skills to a giant map where each server gets their own island, with a fourth island housing the largest keep and has all three servers duking it out for control of it.
Taking down other players is both satisfying and rewarding
World vs. World can definitely be daunting at first. Whether it's taking over encampments, collecting supplies, sieging castles, protecting or taking down supply caravans and killing other players, there is a ton to do, and it's all brutally fun. You can participate in WvW as soon as you hit level 10, and doing so will immediately ascend you to level 80. Sure you might not have the greatest gear fitted to survive, but you can still contribute. The key to having the most fun is to queue up with friends or guild members. You can find other groups to join, but it's much more enjoyable to roam the islands with a group of guildies.
Structured PVP is almost like a completely separate game, as it gives you completely different gear and has you accumulating separate XP. Whatever you attain in Structured PVP remains there. Finding loot that isn't for your class isn't a big deal either, as you can store these items in your communal locker and have other characters on your account use them. As the name implies, it's less chaotic, and more… well, structured. Much like WvW, I found that solo-queueing into a match wasn't nearly as fun as queueing up with multiple people from your guild, especially since you already know one another's playstyle, and therefore, work together better when capturing points.
It isn't easy to make a successful MMO these days. Just ask BioWare. They had a seemingly infallible formula, but it just showed that you can't rush an MMO that didn't offer content for the hardcore players who rush through leveling, not to mention that a subscription fee just isn't an option in the age of Free-2-Play.
The original Guild Wars released in 2005, and while it was a drastic departure from standard MMORPGs and focused a lot more on PVP content, it did allow adopters to play without the burden of paying monthly and still enjoying everything the game has to offer. Between then and now, developer ArenaNet had a lot of time to figure out where the next game will be headed, how it will differ from the first, and what worked and what didn't. Needless to say, it was worth the wait — every minute of it — as Guild Wars 2 is easily the best MMORPG currently available.
Band together and save Tyria from evil Dragons
Take everything you ever hated, thought was annoying or tedious, or quit another MMO because of, and throw it away. That is Guild Wars 2 in a nutshell. Honestly, every tedium you ever had in other MMOs is completely gone, and in its place is a streamlined product that makes everything from level 1 to level 80 completely fun! GW2 is never afraid of stepping out of the conventional MMO box, and honestly, that's what makes it so damn awesome.
Some classes make a return from the original Guild Wars, with a total of eight in total and five different races. ArenaNet cleverly decided to drop a healer class, and in turn give every single class the ability to heal. It's genius since there is no longer that person in a group that sits back, has no fun, and just keeps clicking heal the entire time. Whether you want to play as the defense heavy Warrior or Guardian, the magic imbued Elementalist, Necromancer or Mesmer, the stealthy Thief, the gun-toting Engineer, or the pet-dependant Ranger, each class has enough diversity to fit anyone's playstyle.
The Engineer relies on turrets and long range weapons in combat
To further the customizability of each character class, every level starting from 11 nets you a Trait point, which you can then put into five separate categories. It's not as deep as skill trees in other MMOs, but it does let you focus on various attributes. You can go full DPS and be a glass cannon, or build more Tanky and be able to withstand more damage. Every 10 points in each category (totaling up to 30) will also let you pick a specialized Trait — like doing more damage when attuned to fire (Elementalist), increase damage percentually based on your Adrenaline, or do more damage when under 25% of health (Warrior).
Guild Wars 2 has an overarching storyline that not only dives into your character's backstory a bit (which can be determined during character creation), but also deals with the fate of the entire continent of Tyria and how the races must band together to defeat the threat of massive Dragons. The clever writing and terrific voice acting not only made me care about my character, but all supporting characters as well. That is truly a feat for an MMO.
Fist bumping with this guy might cause your knuckles to bleed
Like I've said previously, it's about what Guild Wars 2 doesn't do, rather than what it does. Gone are standard exclamation points and question marks that signal the start and end of a questline. Instead, players can freely take part in Tasks that are scattered all around the world. Activating a Task is simple as running into an area and taking part in whatever the task requires. Sometimes it's silly stuff like catching bugs or watering plants on a farm, but more often than not, you'll be defending areas from attackers, killing various beasts, collecting samples from monsters and more. What's even better is that each Task consists of various things to do, so if all you want to do is help a lady water her plants until she's completely satisfied, instead of clearing her crops of giant Wurms, you have that option.
Taking things even further are dynamic events. Enemies sometimes take over settlements and in turn must be won back, a lab must be defended from a Krait invasion to protect the contents within, or a giant enemy spawns in certain areas that require multiple people to band together and take it down. Whatever the event, they're all great and are worth the experience and Karma (the game's currency for various special vendors) you get, which is also based on how much you participated during the event.
Don't worry about stealing his kill, Guild Wars 2 encourages you to help out!
This takes me to groups. Quite possibly one of the best parts of GW2 is grouping, or the lack of a need to group. No longer is a monster bound to the person who attacked it first; if you see someone fighting an enemy, you're encouraged to help, since you both get the same amount of experience regardless of who actually killed it. It's a genius formula that makes grouping feel almost pointless, and yet reinforces player camaraderie to a level I've never seen in an MMO before.
Even better is the fact that resource nodes and player loot is instanced, rather than shared across the map. Remember when you saw that Iron Ore deposit from far away, only to see someone snatch it away from you and depleting it before you could even take a swing at it? Not in GW2. Everyone gets their swing at any resource — be it wood, vegetables or ore — everyone's entitled to it, no matter who gets to it first.
