Guild Wars 2: Is this MMO shaping up to be the true WoW Killer? .

Guild Wars 2 is the highly anticipated Fantasy MMORPG currently being developed by ArenaNet. Set 250 years after the first Guild Wars title, players must aid in reuniting members of the disbanded guild Destiny Edge in order to slay the undead Elder Dragon known as Zhaitan. Five Elder Dragons have wreaked havoc across Tyria and players will directly influence the fate of the world through their own decisions and efforts.

It goes without saying that it is a very rare experience when a world crafted with so much care and so much love emerges. We see new titles every week being released; all very much the same and few can truly earn the privilege to claim a place in your personal Top 5. What started out as a vague interest for me eventually turned into an obsession; this world is truly alive. It is one thing to develop a game, it is another to change the way we play them. The most refreshing feeling I can have is witnessing a developer taking a step back to look at MMORPG and saying “How can we make this better?”
First thing ArenaNet does is say goodbye to traditional questing, apparently it didn’t feel natural; and they are right. Now over 1500 Dynamic Events are called upon within the game using algorithms to call upon particular events depending on conditions that either are or aren’t being met. No longer do players have to consistently find quest givers and grind through boring descriptive text. Now a player can just wander into an area and see exactly what is happening in front of them, the problem is presented visually rather than in a box of text. Whether you stop and help that village being overrun by monsters or ignore it and move on?

Players must take into account the better of the world they play in with this system. Say players ignore the village being overrun by monsters, the attackers will eventually own that town and cause all the NPC to flee. This leaves some potentially vital NPC and Vendors unavailable until players reclaim the village. Once the village is reclaimed, the mobs don’t just respawn and the whole event starts over again like other MMORPGs; it stays reclaimed just don’t forget to protect it next time!
This gameplay system alone takes the immersion levels, and playing experience of the game to an entirely new level. ArenaNet also looked at the standard dungeon crawling group, they weren’t happy with that and instead streamlined combat whilst giving every class healing abilities. Reducing complexity of classes to maintain balance, while keeping combat smooth and engaging isn’t a simple task; they have managed to pull it off however. Gladly all this devotion hasn’t just gone to one aspect of the game, innovations for PvP mechanics have also been put in place.

With PvP always being a main focus for Guild Wars it is no doubt that ArenaNet would focus on making it as easy as possible for players to begin participating. Players are essentially able to begin joining in on some PvP action just after character creation, joining Hot Play matches allows players to match up against opponents on the map and game mode of their choice. Upon joining a PvP match every player is temporarily boosted to max level and given an identical set of skills and equipment to the other players. 
Giving players an even playing field allows for matches to be completely based on the skills of the gamer rather than an overpowered set of gear. For those who take things more seriously, there are tournaments run all year long for teams of 5 to compete in. Truly one of the most satisfying experiences is World PvP, it is hard to maintain a large hub of active PvP in your game world sometimes however. Arenanet has a solution to failing World PvP, and that is their World vs. World Battlegrounds.

On a large-scale map battles will take place over 2 week periods between 3 servers. ArenaNet has allowed for these battles to consist of hundreds of players on either side, and players may join and leave this fight at any time. Upon joining players are given max level, but retain their own equipment but may level up entirely in this battleground. For those who only want to PvP, players drop loot similar to mobs (not their own loot of course) so that players may still receive currency and gear. Alongside all this intense action, are destructible environments; you can run but you can’t hide. 
There is still a huge list of changes and improvements made by ArenaNet that may truly change what we expect from our MMO. There is more focus on the real reason gamers play video games, having fun. With all these innovations and improvements, Guild Wars 2 is definitely shaping up to be a title that could very well become the true “WoW Killer”. I applaud ArenaNet for what has shown to be the result of true dedication and a passion to make a great game, I hereby pledge thousands of hours to you; promise.