To say that Guild Wars 2 is a highly anticipated MMO from ArenaNet is an understatement. Its predecessor, Guild Wars, came out in 2005—just months after World of Warcraft—and enjoyed a steady, solid userbase for years. If not as numerous as WoW’s, Guild Wars players were just as dedicated, and many of them have waited years for the release of Guild Wars 2. I got into Guild Wars myself in 2010, so I was lucky enough to only have to wait less than two years—a small trial compared to the five or more years that others have waited since the initial announcement of Guild Wars 2. The game became available for pre-purchasers close to midnight of August 25, and becomes open to all players today, August 28. I’m about 20 hours into this game, but I have only played PvE so far, and my review therefore only covers those events outside of the PvP part of the game.
Cooperation
Guild Wars 2 is the most group-oriented game I’ve played since Left4Dead, and the groups are much, much larger. Groups come together spontaneously just because of proximity and the fact that something is happening. It doesn’t matter what is happening—so long as something is happening, a group is probably going to form for it. I was walking through a swamp when suddenly a giant monster emerged from it, and before I knew it, I was among 60 people fighting that monster, running around picking up fallen allies, throwing all my skills at it frenetically, and sharing all the undiminished rewards for winning the fight. No one suffered a smaller share of experience, money, or items based on the size of the group, and so no one felt the need to solo it, or wait their turn, or any such group-discouraging nonsense. The monster gained health, defense, and damage based on the size of the group, so the fun was left intact too. Sure, there were still advantages to working in such a big group, and maybe some skeptical players will worry that this removes the challenge, but from my experiences so far, it doesn’t. It just makes the game more dynamic and makes you feel like part of an army of heroes that looks out for each other when fighting monsters rather than lone heroes competing against each other for the monsters’ spoils.
Aesthetics
Guild Wars looks wonderful. It doesn’t matter what you’re discussing, either. Everything about it is wrought with style, care, finesse, and talent. The character models are lovely (and customizable), the landscape is beautiful, even the UI is nice to look at. My main character is a Human Mesmer, but I might start over as a Sylvari Mesmer instead just because of how wonderful their starting area looks and because I’m in love with their visual design. Sylvari are plant people, and they look like it. Their skin, hair, and clothes are made of leaves or bark or vines, but each part stands out somehow for what it is. They masterfully embody a fairytale sensibility. Each of the five races has its unique visual themes that stand out from the others, and the art directors did a fantastic job of executing this.
Similarly, the classes stand out from one another pretty well. The only classes I confuse are Warrior and Guardian. Otherwise, I can tell what someone is playing just by looking at them. The Engineers tote flamethrowers and rifles and are decked out with gear, while the Mesmers are well-dressed magicians who visually express their illusion motif. The skills and equipment look appropriate to each class, as well. My Thief is acrobatic and nimble. He dives with his daggers and does flips. My Mesmer looks graceful when throwing his energy bolts around, and illusory butterflies appear when I shatter my clones. The Warrior’s attacks carry the ferocity one would expect from them as they leap on their prey.
The landscapes are fantastic. Guild Wars 2 makes good use of vertical space, environmental features such as rivers and hills, and intense locational motifs. I mentioned the Sylvari homeland earlier: it’s gorgeous. Giant trees and vines, curly plants, mushrooms, unaccountable lights, and a general sense of magic makes the grove come alive as a mysterious faerie forest. It’s positively enchanting. The Norn area is snowy and mountainous, and calls for vigor and brawn. The Human area is expansive and dotted with villages and standard fantasy fare mixed with the unique flair of Guild Wars. Perhaps the most outstanding is the Charr Homeland. Once fertile fields converted into bastions of wartime technology, the Charr lands are a duality of the natural and mechanical that reflects the race it houses.
Fun
I have yet to have a boring moment playing Guild Wars 2. Everything is fun and there’s always something to do. You don’t have to go out and get quests from NPCs to do them. They just happen based on your location, and anyone can join in at any time. The skills are fun to use and have noticeable, interesting effects. There’s no mana system, so using a skill is just a matter of waiting for its cooldown time to end, although Thieves are an exception here. They get to manage an Initiative system that lets them use skills with no cooldown so long as they have enough Initiative points to pay for the skill, and those replenish pretty quickly. One of my favorite things to do is to explore hard-to-reach places and use my short-range teleport skill to try to cross gaps or get to places that I couldn’t otherwise get to. It’s a little iffy, and the success rate isn’t very high, but when I manage it, it’s very enjoyable. The fact that I can use combat skills out-of-combat—and often to interesting effect in non-combat situations—makes the game that much more enjoyable to me. I don’t like being prevented from using my skills because I’m not in the correct situation for them, so this is great. There are some skills you can’t activate without a target, but plenty of them will go off wherever you are when you activate them.
The combat is different than in the first Guild Wars, and it took some getting used to. It seems a little more flighty and less solid, but once I got the hang of it, that complaint vanished. The big difference is mobility. In Guild Wars, you had to stand still for a moment to attack or cast a spell. In Guild Wars 2, you can do just about everything on-the-move. Healing, attacking, whatever—you can do it while running and dodging. The mobility is pretty nice and makes for faster pacing in combat. The scope of combat has a rather large range, too. I’ve experienced a lot of one-on-one fights with monsters, but I’ve also been involved in huge battles with dozens of combatants on either side. Combat is glorious and interesting.
Bottom Line
Whether you live for MMOs and are looking for a new love, or you’re getting your feet wet in the genre, Guild Wars 2 offers damn near everything you could want. It has interesting and fun quests, colorful and enormous locations, lots of player freedom, and the most seamless, integrated cooperative experience I’ve ever had in a video game.
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