Guild Wars 2

This is also something of a love letter to ArenaNet, I’ll admit at the heading.
I recently accepted a free 10 day trial of WoW’s latest expansion. I’ll be honest: I was curious about how they’d updated the character models. As someone who invested seven years of my life into that game, and had max characters at max level when I quit in 2011, yes, I was curious.
I was also curious about why so many friends have returned to it.
The following is my own opinion, modified by my husband’s (he too started WoW in 2004, left in 2011, played Guild Wars 2 with me, but has since grown bored with it, unlike me, who adores it).
While Blizzard has undoubtedly stayed true to their franchise’s style and concept, it has no real pull for me whatsoever, I discovered over the last couple of days.
There is simply far too much that Guild Wars does right – to date, no other MMO has offered me so much content for no subscription.

That said, there are some things that wouldn’t hurt to think about.

• Something the husband wildly misses is fishing. It was a great way to sit and spend time in WoW for him, and he laments it to this day. His take is that if GW added it as a harmless activity, he’d be ecstatic.
• Druids. I confess I missed them myself. Husband did too. WoW has since broken them anyway, so it’s not a draw back in, but the mechanic of shapeshifting as an inherent part of combat was just.. amazing. If sylvari could transform into fernhounds or whatever as plants rewrapping themselves differently or whatever, it’d be glorious. Or norn stay in their shapeshifted forms. No idea. It was just something really special and fun, and I’ve not seen any other game (including later iterations of WoW) attempt it. Pipe dream? Yes. Just a thought.
• There was always an incentive to grind for top gear in WoW. Now, I’m extremely conflicted about this, because I truly think GW2 has made a vastly healthier world, with fairer PvP for all. The person living in a basement can’t simply ruin the playing experience for the person who has a family and job by dint of buying/grinding the best gear and griefing. But the flip side of that is that there’s no huge motivation to get the best possible gear. I don’t think there’s any workable solution on that front, but it’s an interesting reason I’ve heard from a lot of players who couldn’t get into GW2 – they wanted something to aim at or struggle for.

Bottom line:
ArenaNet, you did so much right. My gods you did so much right. Sharing participation for mob and boss kills. No node stealing. Dodging. Intuitive combat and playstyle. Gorgeous GORGEOUS graphics and incredible customization. Fabulous diversity permissible ingame.
Of the three sole things I miss about WoW (and not enough to warrant a subscription fee my gods NO), I think the only one that’s at all plausible in GW2 would be fishing. It’d be pretty fun for the folks who enjoy just chilling in a game.

So thank you for making a game which almost perfectly nails my idea of a perfect game, guys. I can’t wait for today’s announcement, and who knows? Maybe you’ll have sneakily added fishing, and my hubby can come play in my favourite game with me again!

Splitter!

15 chars

Well at least you didn’t ask for mounts or the holy-trinity. So that’s something.
Finishing would be nice, new classes always welcomed, gear grinding… eh… not my thing.

Oh my no.. not splitting at ALL!
:) I have a ten day trial. And absolutely NO intention of returning to WoW ever. I was actually amused by the attitudes of friends who’d returned to WoW – as if once I touched it, I’d be back with no question.
And I won’t.
It’s not at ALL as good a game as GW2. If it was sub free I might say hi to friends there once a week or something. But the comic style isn’t my style, the story from all accounts as still as terribad as it was when I left (so NO thank you)..
I just couldn’t tolerate the crappy game mechanics.

But it got me to thinking about why on earth my friends HAVE returned to WoW. And the only things I could think of that WoW does slightly better than GW2 are what I noted. And three things better is NOT much.

:-)
Sorry – can never resist the opportunity to use a Monty Python reference!

Forgiven for awesome references
Still, I admit I’d like fishing in gw2. It would fit in really well I think!

Fishing would be nice.

Aethgar.1784:

Oh my no.. not splitting at ALL!
:) I have a ten day trial. And absolutely NO intention of returning to WoW ever. I was actually amused by the attitudes of friends who’d returned to WoW – as if once I touched it, I’d be back with no question.
And I won’t.
It’s not at ALL as good a game as GW2. If it was sub free I might say hi to friends there once a week or something. But the comic style isn’t my style, the story from all accounts as still as terribad as it was when I left (so NO thank you)..
I just couldn’t tolerate the crappy game mechanics.

But it got me to thinking about why on earth my friends HAVE returned to WoW. And the only things I could think of that WoW does slightly better than GW2 are what I noted. And three things better is NOT much.

>complains about story in WoW
>plays GW 2
confirmed for b8. If you are not joking and you actually thing GW2 is better game than WoW, you have seriously low standards.

Oh man, you lured me into a reply.
It’ll be lengthy, since I quit WoW due to story after being a seven year fangirl. (and prior if you count the RTS, and I do)
Yes, GW has a VASTLY better story that the mmo WoW. The RTS Warcraft was frankly excellent, but it took a nosedive in its online incarnation. To split up my problems with it (and again, I was a massive lorenerd):

• The ingame lore changes and retcons and representations:
  -Orcs by the end of Frozen Throne were on a path to redemption with shamanism and rejection of demonic fel energies. In WoW, we suddenly had pandering to the fans, the inclusion of the Forsaken without warning, and orc warlocks despite their clear disbarment from the Horde.
  -Night elves in the RTS were a strong race of matriarchal types, and sufficiently scary to warrant being a faction on par with Horde and Alliance alike. From nocturnal xenophobic amazons, they developed an inane idle animation in the mmo, and were gutted expansion after expansion, with territory constantly lost and the Cenarion Circle looking elsewhere. That drove me nuts.
  -Burning Crusade was whack, storywise. Suddenly Illidan, suddenly crazy, killable. At the end of TFT he was something of an anti-villain, and was actually interesting and compelling. By Black temple, he was muttering to himself and wearing his undies on his head in effect. The introduction of the blood elves to the same people who largely leveled their homeland was very forced, and clearly designed to address player imbalance in representation. In the 2nd War, the orcs burnt Quel’thelas such that Anasterian rejected humanity due to thinking the orcs got off too lightly in internment camps, and that humanity didn’t help the queldorei enough against the orcs.
  -The draenei were… an odd injection. And very poorly implemented at that. Once caught int their lore oops publicly, Blizzard ran as fast from Draenei lore as they could for years, which wasn’t exactly fair.

• Story failures.
  -Me’dan. Oh gods Me’dan. Why?
  -The whole Rhonin atrocity. An army of dinosaurs. Really? REALLY?
  -Varian Wrynn being split in two cause rage, then killing Onyxia cause leet, and so on and so on. Come on, that stuff was terrible.
  -Staghelm hated Malfurion evidently, and had been driven mad. Okay. So at his hated rival’s wedding to the high priestess he likewise despises, does Staghelm, you know, attack the person he’s obsessively loathed? No? No. he attacks some nobody orc he’s never met, because Metzen needed to interject his rl issues into the game apparently, leading to that unspeakably bad 4.2 quest arc involving us putting Thrall back together despite him badmouthing Alliance. As an Alliance player, that was really annoying.
  -Cenarius being cool with orcs despite the events of WC3.
  -Thrall being a blind moron or totally evil for years in ignoring the evidence under his nose that the Forsaken would do things like unleashing the blight.

I could go on.

In guild wars, we have a really well done strong story from the first game which involves betrayal, sorrow, and antihero-ing. We lose a prince and put him down again after being tricked by Khilbron. The Afflicted storyline was actually really well done, albeit with terribad voice acting. GW has consistently offered diverse, interesting stories with compelling bad guys, strong but flawed heroes and heroines, and no embarrassing racial stereotypes. Trolls were embarrassing, as were goblins, and I got utterly tired of the ‘All Orcs, All the Time’ mode of storytelling I saw in WoW.
So yes. I will defend GW’s brilliant writing without any question.