How Guild Wars 2 Ruined Other MMORPGs For Me

Not to sound like a fanboy but I'm serious when I say that playing Guild Wars 2 has ruined plenty of other MMORPGs for me. It's not that "ooh it's so good you won't want to play other games" because I'm currently playing other MMORPGs but it's the various helpful features that you take for granted which you actually miss when playing other titles.


Let's divide this into numbered points because I tend to ramble when it's not organized well. As usual when I make a list, these are in no particular order.

1. Fast Paced Action Combat
I really love the action style combat in Guild Wars 2. I know that Guild Wars 2 isn't the first MMO to use this kind of combat but I just love how they added plenty of interesting stuff into the mix like Skill Combos, which plenty of people are unaware of. The action combat in Guild Wars 2 is fast paced and in my opinion faster than the ones in other games and I love it because of it. After playing Guild Wars 2, I can't stand playing games with "traditional MMORPG combat" where your character and the enemy just stand in front of each other and take turns hitting each other for 5 minutes. That's just boring.

2. Instanced Loot and Resource Node
Ever got really mad because someone took that node that you've waited for hours to respawn? Yeah, me too. So imagine my surprise when I see people actually having their own instanced loot and resource node. No more racing for resources, no more kill stealing and all that nonsense. Now go back to other games and imagine the irritation of having to fight some mobs that happens to be guarding a resource node just to have some jackass swoop in at the last second and take that node. That just makes people hate each other and be even more antisocial and loathe seeing other players in the world.

3. Help Each other instead of Compete with Each Other
People helping each other in an MMORPG? without having to group up? that can't be happening right? but it does happen and it happens every day in Guild Wars 2. See other people having a hard time fighting a monster? help them out, they'll even be thankful and not curse you because you reduced their kill experience. An event is happening? rush there together with a bunch of people and start working together to finish it. It's just more fun to be able to work together with other players instead of competing for stupid reasons. Competing over quest objectives? over mob kills? over kill experience? I can't imagine myself having to think about that stuff anymore.

4. Dynamic Events
I'm so sick and tired of the usual NPC stands at point A, NPC gives quest, you do quest at point B, you finish quest and you return to point A to report quest. It's a waste of time and it's boring as hell. In Guild Wars 2 you still have to interact with some NPC sometimes but the Dynamic Event system actually rewards you for participating and helping with whatever you can. It even rewards exploration and experimentation with hidden events that can only be triggered when you do certain stuff (I bet even most of the Guild Wars 2 community doesn't even know these exist right? It's awesome).

5. Rewards Exploration
The only other MMORPG I know that rewards exploration is Warhammer Online. Say whatever you want about how it fails on so many levels (which it does) but the game does reward exploration and that part I really love. You can explore remote places of the world and find stuff to read and learn. In Guild Wars 2 it's the same thing. Hidden lore and event around the world makes it really interesting for those who likes to explore in MMORPGs. The fact that the world looks just gorgeous is also a big plus.

6. Living World
The world constantly evolves, not only in the form of limited scripted changes in the form of Dynamic Events but also because of the Monthly Events done by ArenaNet. I really love ArenaNet for this, I really do. They created this really beautiful and large world and they don't say "well, that's that" and stops there but they created all these events, each month that changes the world. Remember that lion statue in Lion's Arch that got destroyed by the Mad King on Halloween? remember how it just pops up one day later like nothing happened? what? it doesn't? You can actually see that the statue is slowly being rebuilt each month? well, that's what I meant by a living world. And of course it's not only limited to some statue in the middle of a town as you can see from the Lost Shores event or Flame and Frost which is happening right now.

7. Horizontal Progression
Ah, gear progression in MMOs. When you have the usual gear treadmill, people hate you. When you try to remove the gear treadmill, people still hate you because they think the game has no "end-game". Well you can't make everyone happy I suppose but ArenaNet does a pretty decent job in keeping gear treadmill to a minimum. In fact, you can get the best quality gear in the game without having to grind much at all. No seriously, even those who only does dungeon runs once or twice each day can get a full exotic gear within a month or so. And now, with the new daily achievement system you get even more way to get good gears for just playing the game everyday.

8. No "Failed" Build
Ah, "failed builds" how I don't miss you at all. I really dislike having to reroll a character because I put 1 too many points in Sweaterknitting or Diaperfolding or whatever but game developer still think that it is fun to do that, even in newer games that I'm quite fond of like Path of Exile and Torchlight II (yes I know these 2 titles aren't MMORPGs). Game devs, please, stop this madness. People like to experiment with builds, they really do. So how about giving them a chance to do so without having to waste their whole life? Guild Wars 2 is really great in this regard. You want to try out builds? just make a character of the class you want and go to the PvP area, AT LEVEL ONE. You get to experiment all you like and the game even lets you experiment with gears too. Other games, are you even trying?

Well, that's my 8 reasons of why Guild Wars 2 has ruined other MMORPG for me. Of course, I don't intend to say that Guild Wars 2 is the best MMORPG ever and it's perfect without any flaws, because it's not. The game has its flaws and weaknesses but what it does right it does it really well that I can't imagine playing other games without these remarkable gameplay elements.