The unthinkable has happened. With Guild Wars I have found an MMORPG I actually like. Given my hatred of most things World of Warcraft or Eve (the two MMOs I had actually tried before Guild Wars) this comes as quite a surprise for me.
Since I am very, very late to the GW party, just let me count the ways the game ignores, deconstructs or subverts just about everything I have always hated about its genre.
Firstly, the MMO-typical mass of idiots and other people you wouldn't want to meet in real life, even less while trying to have fun is absent from most of the game by judicious use of instancing. The only real public places are the city hubs and the PvP areas. The greater part of the game is played either with people whom you have partied up with or with decently capable NPCs.
This leads directly into the second point, much more immersive wilderness and dungeons, without those goddamn queues of people waiting for boss monsters to spawn, which usually are a real immersion breaker for me. If I want to stand in a queue, I've got a supermarket just around the corner.
Thirdly I was surprised to find an MMO that wants to tell a story and actually knows how to do it. I'm not very far in at the moment, but even quite early in the game I have found actual writing and NPCs who feel a little deeper than that dwarf around the corner who just wants 300 goblin lungs (for his breakfast, I suppose). Most of the sidequests tend a to be about killing something or other, but they are decently integrated into the plot. You always have a reason to do what you do.
Fourthly: There is no grinding! I repeat: No grinding!
Fifthly: The skill and attribute systems reward diversity. You can't ruin a character's build, because everything is reconfigurable in the next hub. The most interesting in-game rewards are in the form of new skills.
Sixthly: Even PvP play is fun and has a certain air of friendliness surrounding it, a little like baseball, again thanks to the use of instancing and a highly regulated environment that doesn't allow people to act like asshats.
Seventhly: No monthly fees.
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