Why even non-MMORPG fans will like Guild Wars 2? A review from a genre anti-fan

Greetings. I have always been unimpressed with the MMORPG genre. On paper, in previews and press releases, everything always looked magnificent - "PLAYER INTERACTION!", "YOU DECIDE THE FATE OF THE WORLD!", "EPIC BATTLES!", "TOTAL FREEDOM OF ACTION" and so on. However, reality disappointed me time and again - other players were annoying and served only as a hindrance or a constant threat (hello to all Lineage players). In any case, more or less decent interaction could only be organized with friends, and then the game became at least somewhat tolerable. But with friends, you can play any game with interest, whether it’s battleship online or a Korean grind #1432412. The game should be interesting even without familiar people.

It’s very hard to ignore the inexplicable desire of totally random people to finish off the monster you’ve been poking for a minute. It’s even harder to understand the logic of noble warriors who seem to want to make a carpet out of the hides of slain newbies. I never killed strangers just like that, for established visual contact. Well, and killing blatantly weaker opponents was simply uninteresting to me. But even if we set aside the outright pathetic (outside of guilds and friends) interactions with other players found in 99% of MMORPGs, there remains the problem of the absolute insignificance of the player up to level ###. Most games of this genre immediately make it clear to the player that they are absolutely nothing here, just another random crab. If a crab wants a decent game - they first have to level up to 60009, that’s where the fun begins. But for now, you are nobody, you are the lowest form of life, here’s a wooden sword - go queue up to kill the quest monster. And may Thor help you if you don’t land the final blow. And don’t forget to wear your shabby rag; newbies shouldn’t look like people.

The player understood that to start getting that elusive "fun", the character needs to be leveled up. For the first N levels, the player was engaged in a boring routine, whether it was completing tedious collection quests (WoW) or killing, for example, jumping beetles in hats (any Korean MMORPG). During this time, somewhere in the world, something interesting was happening; people were going on raids, fighting epic bosses, but you weren’t allowed in - that’s for high-level players. After some time, any player got tired of all this nonsense and, having reached some level, went to raids... only to find they were forever doomed to either play the role of Fyodor Neprobiyaevich Valuyev\SuperHealBot 3000\CritMachine von Reipinga, or be a useless hybrid\sidekick. The player was expected to perform their role from the very first raid and all the way until the game was deleted. Tanks must tank, after all.

Let the Savior Come!

After all this, it’s clear why in every new MMORPG I would level up to around the twentieth-thirtieth level and then completely ignore it. Time and again, I saw the same thing - grind, dedication, and unnecessary running that separated me from getting "fun". The fun was somewhere up there, at higher levels, and I didn’t want to wait and endure all kinds of tedious tasks to get there. But one day, I stumbled upon (or was pushed towards, I can’t remember exactly) one of the first trailers for GW2. The trailer piqued my interest, given that I had read quite a bit about the first part and sometimes regretted not trying it out, as the classes, combat system, and quests seemed rather unusual to me even back then (at least on paper). Unfortunately (or fortunately?), it was already too late to join the millions (AND MILLIONS!) of GW fans, so I just started following the news and waiting for the second part.

Gradually, the developers revealed more and more information. They showed classes, races, dragons, and PvP. I decided to buy the game the moment I saw necromancers. Necromancers had long been my favorite side/class because they BLACK AS MY SOUL were often quite original and stylish. I didn't care much about dragons (I considered them end-game content that ordinary players would only see when they became farmable) or the standard races of human\elf\beast\small smart creature. I was particularly interested in the classes, not even all of them. I expected to see the standard tank\healer\melee DPS\ranged DPS\mage, spiced up with interesting mesmer (something inexplicable but clever from the first part), necromancer (which I only expected curses and, surprise, undead) and engineer, who was supposedly the only master of firearms and explosives. Overall, I just anticipated a beautiful MMORPG with a couple of interesting classes.

But the developers continued to amaze. They (thank Odin!) abandoned the disgusting tank\healer\DPS formula, allowing all classes to perform any of the necessary roles, at the player’s discretion. Now there would be no need to respec, create multiple characters, and calculate your average DPS with a calculator - everything changes on the fly, thanks to an incredibly flexible ability system. The same engineer, if anything, didn’t build mechanical dragons; he had a sea of tools at his disposal. The defender, who at first glance seemed like an ordinary tank paladin, turned out to be an honest-to-goodness battle priest\light mage in heavy armor, as well as, on top of that, Alexander the Great when it came to tactics. Overall, from the perspective of classes, the game was becoming more and more interesting.

This is how Sylvari looked at first

And what about races? Initially, I expected to see an almost standard set, except that the elves were green, and underground smart little ones didn’t have beards. In the end, I was met with a race of living trees! And these weren’t just treants or tree-huggers; they were noble flexible humanoid plants, a unique find by the developers. The intelligent asari turned out to be a powerful science empire, surpassing all other races in terms of technological development by a couple of centuries and having yet to discover cold fusion. The giant noble viking shapeshifters served as the final touch. Moreover, some of them can turn into real ravens. Even the standard race of humans in such games got a couple of amusing traits, such as universal religiosity and the ability to call upon their favorite god in times of need.

Later, it seems, the developers asked themselves - we have great races, magnificent classes, good combat, what else is missing? Giant world-destroying dragons and magnificent bosses! Epic creatures were generously distributed to players to give them something to strive for. Analyzing everything I saw, I pre-ordered the game and eagerly awaited the beta.

Time to Chew Gum and Interact with Other Players

Honestly, even after everything I saw, I still expected a gameplay clone of WoW. I simply couldn’t imagine what else could be done in an MMORPG. It seemed to me that upon entering the beta, I would find dozens of players farming the same monsters in the same locations just to get the chance to move on and farm stronger monsters. I couldn’t picture doing anything else. I expected that from the start my character (the necromancer) would fire some green junk from his staff until I leveled up and got, for example, a purple junk that was slightly better. And around me would be similar necromancers with the same staffs. We would obstruct each other while completing boring numbered quests and queueing for the tutorial boss. My first day in the beta shattered all preconceptions I had about MMORPGs.

I created a viking hunter-necromancer-shapeshifter (AKA Norn) and... I couldn’t believe my eyes. From the very beginning, my necromancer could summon some unknown bloodsucking creature, which made it quite easy to find food and healers. My necromancer could do something at least somewhat impressive even with a mundane axe in hand, simply because the axe granted him UNIQUE abilities. Each type of weapon differs with an absolutely different set of abilities unique to the chosen class. A necromancer with a staff is a specialist in setting traps to curse enemies, while a necromancer with a horn and dagger specializes more in poisons and AoE attacks. The same necromancer can withstand significant amounts of damage thanks to the ability to turn into an invulnerable ghost when a certain level of accumulated life energy from enemies is reached. And if you need to heal the group – there’s an ability to summon a healing spring around the dark mage. Additionally, each class possesses its own personal healing skill (the bloodsucking creature sends its regards), so that in dungeons, without a specialized healer, the group is no longer doomed to disintegrate at the first group of monsters.

Surprised that for once a character could do something from the start that corresponded to its class, I headed towards the quest boss that finalized the training. Someone was already hitting this gigantic serpent, so out of habit ingrained in me from other games of this genre, I prepared to wait a couple of days for my turn... but then I noticed that new players were rushing towards the serpent, and he continued to throw everyone aside. My spider-sense told me that for once someone besides the creators of WAR had figured out how to make dynamic groups and that I could join right now, to smash the mythical creature alongside completely unfamiliar people without getting in anyone’s way. Also, as it turned out, anyone here can resurrect a fallen player, which allows Adventurers to always count on help from completely random players in any mass fight.

Speaking of mass battles – on each location, there are 4-5 dynamic events, like a stampede of raging bulls. The player is free to decide whether to participate or not, and if yes, how. You can chase the bulls in an attempt to poke them with something sharp, shoot at the whole herd from a distance with AoE attacks, or just resurrect fallen players and buff the whole cheering crowd. Sooner or later, it goes without saying, the events will repeat, but that’s just an incentive to move on or do something else. Each location is simply packed with reputation quests that don’t even need to be picked up - you just need to approach the area where they can be completed. You are presented with numerous objectives in them, and each quest is amusing and interesting in its own way. For example, with the Norns, you are transformed into a snow leopard and must hunt deer, play with kittens, and search for badgers. The leopard even has its own set of unique abilities! These quests are not obligatory to complete, but they are very interesting, allowing you to diversify your gameplay and take a break from running and fighting. Additionally, I’d like to reiterate that during all this time, other players are pursuing their own goals and can quite possibly help you along the way, significantly speeding up quest completion.

If you want something story-driven - you have "personal" quest lines unique to your character. Practically all locations and places in this quest line are instances solely for uncovering your alter ego’s story. While completing these, your personal space in this world will also change, a sort of house analogue, which you can access from the central city of your race. This instance is unique to each player and occupies quite a sizable part of the space. In your home area, you may even have your own merchants and unique NPCs that appear there during the course of the personal quest.

I’m Throwing Money at the Monitor and Nothing Happens

As I mentioned, each class radically changes its skill set depending on the weapon in hand. That is, a hunter with a sword is not at all the same as a warrior with a sword. The hunter is oriented towards mobile fighting with dodges and jumps, while the warrior will simply butcher targets, carving new mouths and eyes onto their backs, and perhaps not just once. An elementalist with a staff is capable of unleashing a whole arsenal of powerful area spells on enemies, while a defender with the same weapon can seriously make YOU SHALL NOT PASS and create an impenetrable barrier against enemies. In the end, you will have separate weapons and unique class skills even UNDERWATER; the game is so well thought-out!

Thanks to the changing class emphasis depending on the weapon picked up, it makes a lot of sense to try to acquire not only the best axe in the world, but also some legendary sword and horn, to switch them depending on the situation right in the heat of battle. But this character customization doesn’t stop there (otherwise sooner or later everyone would get bored) - you also have a bunch of so-called traits that you earn via exploring the world. There are indeed many traits, which modify various skills and provide diverse abilities and may serve many different purposes. The catch is that there are very few slots for them, and there are no obvious favorites among them; so the choice depends solely on your preference. It’s quite possible that no one would use specific traps for hunters, but you could perfectly integrate them into your playstyle. Many of the skills perform quite differently, for example, in PvP. Unfortunately, I have yet to fully test this part of the game; hence, I won’t write anything, but will just say that thanks to the dodging mechanics, non-target skills, and World vs. World fights, this all promises to be very interesting. As it can be seen, any player will always find something to do here; farming and grinding are only a small part of the activities available in the game.

Nevertheless, for me personally, one of the biggest advantages of the game became the ability to freely explore the world. Simply running through the beautifully designed locations, finding some interesting moments, completing quests that don’t need to be turned in, and all that. For the first time ever in MMORPGs, I was having FUN, right from the start. I was interested in reaching vantage points (located in quite hard-to-reach places) and watching beautiful videos showing part of the location from the most favorable angle. I could go and shoot at targets or help hunters set traps. I was interested in helping other players for no reason. I could help them kill a monster and not suffer any penalties or a flood of hatred for it. For the first time I felt like "myself" in the wider world, it genuinely made me want to interact with other players. Think of any other MMORPG - you play the first N levels practically in single-player mode. You are of no use to anyone; the MMO aspect is simply absent, and then it turns into some wild hell, resembling relationships in prison, with factions and constant mistrust towards each other. In GW2, it’s the opposite, and that’s precisely why it is so unusual; it encourages experimentation and diversity. Be sure to try the game, even from a friend’s account, play for at least an hour. You need to see it for yourself.