Subtle Innovation: How Guild Wars 2 Is Changing the Feel of the MMORPG

Bella · Jun 22, 2012

MarcoPolo over at PostGamer.net has taken the time to explain why he feels Guild Wars 2 is changing the feel of MMORPG's. I have to say I completely agree with him!

Subtle Innovation: How Guild Wars 2 Is Changing the Feel of the MMORPG
Published on June 22, 2012, by MicroPolo

My thoughts after 40 hours in 2 beta weekend events.

NOTE: If you are not familiar with Guild Wars 2, you may want to check out my BWE1 impressions video. This article makes the assumption that you are somewhat familiar with the game.

I’ve played quite a few mmos in my day. Ever since Ultima Online sunk its teeth into me, I’ve had a love for the genre. There is just something about being part of a large online world full of other people that appeals to me. For years I have I met good friends, got in fights, tricked people, and killed monsters for loot. Of the dozens of MMO’s I’ve played over the last decade, few have satisfied my itch for a massive online experience as well as Guild Wars 2 has.

Testing out my PVP build in The Heart of the Mysts

Guild Wars 2, at its core, is actually still a fairly standard MMO according to today’s standards. However the game also brings on a large enough batch of small innovations, that when summed up, result in a major change in the ‘big box’ MMO feel. I want to really drive home that point of feeling. The entire time while playing, I felt like I was involved in something different. It is due to many reasons, but there are a few features and design decisions that stood out more than others.

There has been a ton of press about dynamic events, and they are great… but these are not what changed the gameplay up all that much (for me). Rift, another popular MMO, has a (not as good) version of dynamic events as well, but that game didn’t change the feel of the modern MMO nearly as much. Why is that? Again, it’s a number of reasons, but lets start with heart quests. I would argue that the heart quests innovate more than the dynamic events do for two reasons.

1. Heart quests change how we explore the world:
It’s not “Go over there and kill these” anymore. It works differently now, it’s “I wonder what there is to do over there”. This is kind of a big deal for me. Now I get to proceed through the game as I please, there is no standard quest line (not on heart quests at least). I have a genuine sense of exploration, and while im doing it I feel like I’m making progress. Sure I could explore around in WOW, but it seemed like a total waste of time in comparison to knocking out quests.

Its been awhile since I felt that way. Darkfall Online, actually did a fantastic job of this. Too bad the intense grind in Darkfall drove me to quit the game. Guild Wars 2 manages to bring an amazing sense of exploration in an awesomely designed world, and you will feel great about spending your game time doing it.

2. Heart quests encourage teamwork:
We all know the feeling of getting a quest requirement ninja’d by another obnoxious player. Or how about those times when you have to use a movement ability to sprint to the next monster to get the first hit before the guy next to you does? Or what about having to give up the loot you need because you lost a dice roll to a group mate? All of these concerns are now gone. These are subtle changes, they are all little gripes we may have had in the past. Each one has been thought through and eliminated. It is these types of small, well thought changes that really make Guild Wars 2 stand out from the lot of games out right now.

This brings me to my 2nd favorite innovation of Guild Wars 2 : the combat. Naturally the combat system works in tandem with nearly every aspect of the game. The combat in guild wars 2 is fast and fluid. It requires a higher level of attention than most other MMO’s in its class. There are exceptions… Tera Online comes to mind, as well as Darkfall, which is a small game in comparison.

Its **** like this world designers. (in a good way)

At first glance it may appear as though the combat in Guild Wars 2 is a hotkey based system similar to World of Warcraft. It plays (and feels) very differently than other big box mmos (WoW, SWTOR, and Rift to name a few) the combat feel adds another subtle innovation to the games synergetic profile.

Here is the root of what’s going on with the combat:

1. You’re moving and dodging:
The game has a dodge, this really changes things significantly in the combat department. There are a lot of attacks that can be out-maneuvered. Solo PVE is hard, you will be moving around like a mad man just to stay alive.

2. It requires skill and planning:
There is a beautiful type of complexity to the build and combat systems. You have a limited set of abilities with a large bank to choose from. Take some time to browse some of the Guild Wars 2 build websites and you will see what I mean.

Some of my gameplay footage:

About the video: Here an extended take of me playing my human necromancer at level 22. This video is all pve, I run into a group, help with an event boss and decide what to do next. Notice how I’m frequently stumbling upon activities. It feels great to “Let the wind take you where it leads” so to speak. The world really does seem to be living around you.

Theres a lot of other reasons why I have been loving this game, and I’m sure to write more about them in future posts. In the meantime I will be regularly checking into r/guildwars2 (great place to read about the game) for my daily fixes of Guild Wars 2 and its future community of players.

Thanks to both MarcoPolo & PostGamer.net!

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