Why I'm not all that rarararara about GW2.

I don't play Guild Wars for any sort of social interaction. If any social interaction happens, it's completely incidental. I play Guild Wars because single-player RPGs are very hard to find on the PC nowadays, and the funny part is that even taken as a purely single-player RPG, Guild Wars (starting with Nightfall) is still better than 99% of single-player RPGs made in the past ten years. I'm still debating if that's because Guild Wars is so good, or because other RPGs made suck just that much.

That said, the Companion system (as it was proposed) was going to have little impact on grouping. They don't take party slots, so they don't discourage it. The removal does, however, negatively impact soloing in its complexity. For all the focus on how easy soloing will be in GW2, someone seems to have forgotten how *fun* it should be. I've played the "one character spams attack skills on one monster until someone falls down" game in MMOs before many times. If you've leveled up in one MMO, you've done it on all of them, and there's only so much you can do to that formula to make it interesting for any extended period of time. AI Companions would have been a big change in keeping things interesting and adding that extra level of tactical choice in combats.

It sounds like they're removing everything that made the Guild Wars series special and replacing it with flashy things that won't matter in the long run. Seriously, no one is going to care about environmental weapons two weeks in the game. Either that, or they'll over-use it like Blizz did with vehicles and annoy everyone with it.

via guildwars2guru.com

Neatly sums up my impressions so far.

Oh yes it's very beautiful. Is that enough?

Sacred 2 was very beautiful. -_- And it was also a crappy game that utterly failed to live up to its predecessor. Oh wells. Cross the juicy chicken fingers I guess.

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(very behind on responses lately, sorry!)

Hmm... I can't say I relate to this particular point of view. For me, GW was always about chasing the story, because I can't play single-player games. The making builds part has only come in very recently, and is, for me, merely a means to an end - though it can be fun and satisfying, to be sure.

I guess the part where I'm lost is how managing companions/heroes is fun. I never found it that way, so I'm obviously missing a huge part of what you find compelling about GW, and also obviously not mourning the loss of companions in GW2 for the same reason. Not that I find MMO combat to be fun in and of itself, but again, even that is just means to an end (which is why I have complained about the frequency of combat in GW1 in the past).

Meanwhile, my husband likes companions due to the relationships he can have with them, and thus is not won over by the hero presence in GW1 and simultaneously mourning the absence of companions in GW2! It takes all kinds.

— Randomessa
Yah, I understands. But MMOs (with the exception of Jade Dynasty which is just too freaking surreal XD) have never been about the story for me. More of challenging myself and that whole 'playing alone together' thingie.

As for companions/heroes - I know not everyone likes it but lemme try to explain. GW is like... is like playing Wizardry where all the mobs react as close to PvP-like as any MMO I've ever seen, but there's no need to deal with all the icky human emotion that goes with PvP. I LOVED those Wizardry type games where I was some bodiless thing controlling a party. XD GW is very much that, it just happens that I also have an avatar - but really, when I bring full heroes (or henchies too really), I wield the party, not the avatar. That's a huge thing for me. That's why I have keybinds for different things that I want my heroes to do (e.g. it's not always the same hero, but aegis is always on the same skillbar slot in the same party order).

And for GW - I find combat to be fun in and of itself in PvE when it is at the HM pre-nerf white mantle level. That's beautiful. Otherwise, combat is fun in and of itself in group PvP (I like having goals other than gank the other people faster).

For the rest, combat is fun as a foil for testing theories.

So yah - I see why GW2 would have appeal to you... but at the same time, it steadily loses its appeal for me. :(

Still, ANet has enuff of my <3>s good enuff in the short run yah?

— Glorious McNugget
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