Psssst I’m live now streaming GW2. Hit play to see the streeaaaammm. <3

ainevar ASKED

I played GW2 solidly for a couple weeks after it released and now I log in periodically for events and to go “yep, this is still Guild Wars 2”.

GW2 is an absolutely gorgeous game with a lot of neat mechanics but lacked anything that motivated me to log consistently.

I think it’s a solid game for “casual” play (whenever you feel like, no pressure to keep logging in) and I love that it has no monthly fee and yet still comes with breathtaking graphics.

Combat was interesting but I couldn’t find a character with gameplay that fit my personal play style. Their thief was the closest I could find but I still found myself feeling like I was “putting up with” combat in order to see new areas and complete new events.

The “dynamic world event” system had a lot of aspects that I really enjoyed. There were many different possible tasks that could make up an event (not just Kill X of Y, although there was that as well). The fact that I didn’t HAVE to do everything on the “dynamic world event” (quest) list in order to contribute helped me have fun in most events. I could kill X or carry Y or click on Z and it all still counted toward helping complete the event (and getting experience).

My absolute favorite part of GW2 has to be the jumping puzzles. They were SO much fun and I’ll never forget how accomplished Sashi and I felt when we got that one down in Lion’s Arch that lead to the pirate’s cafe (and to that fun ghost puzzle). I looked forward to those the most.

Ultimately I’m happy with my purchase. I’ve definitely gotten my money’s worth so far, and since I don’t have to pay a sub fee I can log in at any time.

However for me personally it just lacked something to keep me logging back in daily. That hook. That feeling we all know too well. When you wake up and one of your first thoughts is, “when do I get to play?” Once again all of my friends ended up staying in WoW and without the community aspect to hold me to a game what’s left to keep me playing is the gameplay itself and I didn’t find it personally rewarding. At the end of the day I found myself saying, “I could be doing something similar in WoW and that would help my character toward raiding/pvp/etc that I intend to do.”

That’s not to say that GW2 lacks any reason to continue logging in, the reasons just didn’t capture my particular gaming style.

I would suggest it to anyone interested in finding a good MMORPG without a sub fee.