There are plenty of posts about what is not working for people about Guild Wars 2 but there are so many things that I love about the game that I felt like I needed to list those things. Feel free to join in with what you really like/love about it as well:
- I love that there isn’t the traditional trinity. I love being able to fill any roll.
- I absolutely love the combat system which is active and interesting.
- I love that I’m reminded by the patching going on lately that the game is made by ordinary people. People who are working for a living and trying to make something enjoyable, people with feelings. I’ve enjoyed the bug where my character says random things from other classes – because it’s funny, it reminds me of the above and because it’s part of the adventure. I’ll be able to remind friends later – remember when…
- I love the variety of races and face models which allows for a huge variety of customization.
- The same for the wardrobe and dye systems – amazing amount of variety!
- I love that each race isn’t just physically different but has a unique personality of it’s own. Great place to start roleplaying from.
- I love the humor in the game – from the way the Norn, Charr and the Asura are written to the way the different races interact. That conversation between the Asura gate keeper and his protege in the Grove alluding to “Blade Runner” gets me every time. And the ironic Asura “fist to face” method of problem solving – what at hoot. I also love the way players find the humor in unique “looking for group” posts and in how they individually relate to the game. And candy corn elements and mining nodes!
- I love that there are multiple levels of story telling and lore going on at the same time – the renown hearts, the personal story and the living story. Each adds its own depth to the story telling and a richness to the game.
- I love that the world does actually change with the events. I was reminded of this last night when I was in the Morgan’s Spiral area and couldn’t get to the jumping puzzle because an event had failed.
- I love the way the game’s writers don’t spoon feed us all of the information giving us pieces of lore from the each of the races’ beginning story lines, random NPCs in the world, dungeons, etc so that the unfolding storyline becomes a kind of scavenger hunt in itself creating yet another way to play the game.
- Along with the last point, I love that there is an active lore community that is always ready and willing to debate lore points and answer questions.
- I love the way there is a never-ending variety of things to do: maddening jumping puzzles, events and dungeons, WvW, map completion, crafting, scavenger hunts, PvP, exploration, etc – each having to be created and coded to fold into the world.
- I love the beautiful world of Tyria – the mountains of the Shiverpeaks, the glowing plants in the Maguuma, the rocky plains of Ascalon, the farms outside Divinity’s Reach. And Orr! It’s beautiful and terrible at the same time. I could stand at the vista SW of the Drowned Brine looking back over the gorgeous ruin for hours.
- I love that the game creates an environment that supports cooperative game play – from the universal resource nodes to events, and everyone can rez.
- I love that none of the game is exclusive – anyone can do anything at any time.
- I love that there are NPCs like Trahearne and Caithe that inspire strong feelings in players. Whether we like them or not, we remember them.
- I love that there are things like these forums and “Points of Interest” going on outside of the game.
So in broad strokes these are some of the things I love about the game. What about you?