Guild Wars 2: The MMORPG You’re Looking For?

If you’re like me, you’ve flittered between MMORPG’s like a veracious junkie, always trying the new drugs but never finding yourselves satisfied. It all began with World of Warcraft and a confused Dwarven Hunter. Since then it has been Guild Wars, Lord of Rings Online, Eve, City of Heroes, Age of Conan, Star Wars the Old Republic and lately The Secret World. The list is probably bigger but the guilt I feel from so many half-arsed, half level characters burns deep within my heart, to go on would be torture.

There is always something new just around the corner, something to pull you away from what was new and shiny a few months ago. And soon it looks like The Secret World will be just one more brief memory, thrown away like so many cheap lovers, left to die in the gutter… metaphorically of course… because Guild Wars 2 (GW2) is making a flashy and impressive leap into the arena, to fight for my precious monthly $15. But wait. What’s that? GW2 doesn’t require a monthly subscription fee? Holy shit on a stick!

If you’ve returned after having begun downloading your new copy of GW2, your sweaty fingers mashing the keyboard in your excited haste, let me tell you why you’ve just made the best decision of you week. Maybe even your month. The original Guild Wars started the revolution of doing away with the monthly fee and this long awaited sequel carries on this tradition with a whole lot more spit and polish. At least… eight times as much by my calculations.

Goodbye Quest Hubs of Yesterday

With Guild Wars 2 the days of quest hubs are gone. No longer must you spend half of your time working out which quests to do in which order and running backwards and forwards across the map to hand them all in. This new entry to the market allows players to simply start killing, questing and collecting and get the rewards as you go.

We play these games to get into the action and get the rewards. Does anyone really listen to and watch the quest cut scenes after the first few? I sure don’t. Less cutting scenes more cutting monsters I say. And so does GW2.

Immediate PvP Enjoyment

A lot of games recently have tried implementing PvP to be available for all players no matter what your level. Unfortunately this doesn’t really work as later level skills and gear make higher level players better no matter how much you tweak the stats. One argument for this is that higher level players deserve to be better because they’ve done the hard yerds. GW2 punches this argument in its figurative groin. Lower level players who want to mess each other up in PvP will have immediate access to level capped stats, skills AND gear.

But for those of the former persuasion fear not. GW2 will have World PvP where you’ll still be able to gank those lower level noobs foolish enough to enter your realm of pain. It’s like beating up children, it makes you feel like a man, taking that away just wouldn’t be fair. Unless you’re already child. Then I guess it’s like beating up a baby. Hmmm. Things are getting a little morally messy. Let’s move on.

Group of 4 LF Healer… (silence*)

I wonder how many of you have ever rolled a Healer. I tried it recently. I got bored. I rerolled with a big hammer and a shotgun. Being a healer is lame. Soloing is an epic grind of self masturbating healing spam. Grouping is the same, but for some DPS Douche Canoe who doesn’t realise he needs to run away when the Boss is powering up, and then trolls you when he dies. PvPing as a Healer is like bring a packet of Panadol to a gun fight. Woefully useless.

Similarly it’s a pain in the butt for groups full of DPSing goodness sitting around waiting for hours to get into a Dungeon because no one likes taking a skill called “Natures Gift.” In GW2 all of these concerns are over. Everyone can be a healer or tank and there is no such thing as a dedicated roles. Share the love and get on with the raiding.

Lvl 22? Urrrghhh. I’m level 25. I guess I’ll catch you around man

GW2 has come up with (stole from City of Heroes) a wonderful system to allow players of highly differing levels to still play together. It’s like a buddy system where a higher level player can tag along with a lower level character, get in on some friendly questing and still get an experience benefit from it. This is great for people that have friends who they want to play with but have different levels of commitment to the game.

Clever. Maybe too clever.

In depth and experience gaining crafting system

You’ve just entered the world of Tyria. There lies before you endless hours of adventure, killing and questing. But you’re just kind of slack. Adventuring is for them young folks, you’d rather live the quiet life and craft swords for a living. Well now you can.

The crafting system in GW2 actually gives you experience. It is also much more elaborate and should provide a good challenge for those who prefer wielding a smiths hammer than a warriors one.

So go out and buy it already, I know I am

There are plenty more wonderful features of Guild Wars 2, many of which I frankly don’t know about yet because I haven’t had a chance to jump in and get my hands dirty with it. But the plans are in motion and you can be assured you’ll get a review of some of the finer details of the game in the near future.

So keep on gaming and let us know in the comments below whether you caved in and bought it. Or if you just don’t have the heart for another MMO.

Guild Wars 2 is available for sale now either through our affiliate GameFanShop or through Amazon.

Just make sure you are getting the right copy for your region, anyone outside North America or Europe defaults to North American region.