[GW2] Voices of the Blogosphere

As expected, Guild Wars 2 has set the blogosphere on fire and I am trying to catch up on all the great articles that have been released these past few days, while I was also frankly playing a ton of GW2. I haven’t played as much of any game since WoW…and boy, did I need coffee this Monday morning! All that said it feels awesome – awesome to feel like an MMO player again, rushing home after work, eating at your desk with your red eyes burning from staring at the screen. Never mind sleep, sleep is for the weak!

While I take a precious break from playing the game, just a few (far from all) blogger highlights that caught my attention:

• Bhagpuss is at his usual, delightful posting speed, sharing many interesting GW2 details with a sharp eye and overall impressions. He is also asking the question of how serious that future “events desertion” worry truly is, considering that fun is an individual factor in MMOs and that frankly, this issue is far from new nor unique to GW2. Personally, I call premature hype on the matter. Yeah, it remains to be seen what happens to some of the mass events later in the game. Tadaaa!

• The ever keen-witted Klepsacovic compares WoW’s hegemonic influence to the stereotypical American tourist, lacking the open-mindedness to accept different cultures as equal. While most MMO players tend to vigorously compare games they play, there must be room for a new game to do its own thing and also time granted to evolve in areas WoW had years to polish. No doubt, there is a fraction of the MMO population approaching GW2 with very WoW-tinted glasses right now – alas, that really is their loss! Or as Syp from Biobreak recently pointed out so beautifully: “I keep thinking, if you can instantly dismiss GW2 and hop on the backlash wagon, there’s just no saving you whatsoever.”

• Meanwhile, Chris from Game by Night struggles with playing his Asura thief; something just feels wrong with that particular race-class combination! He goes to explain how especially in GW2, the accomplished overall story and setting for the five races impact heavily on players’ class choices. I’d be interested to hear how others feel about this issue!

• Rohan takes a stand talking about all the ways in which GW2 does not appeal to him, naming lack of story, combat mechanics and character models as main offenders. I think he makes some good points, although I disagree completely where combat and events are concerned. It was interesting to read all the balanced comments to his post – yes, the blogosphere can actually deal with nay-sayers! Whoever expected a flock of trolls to show up for that article got disappointed.

• KTR, namely Ravious and Zubon, have been busy bees sharing their GW2 launch experiences, covering a lot of ground: Zubon is “full of love” for all the ways in which GW2 let’s you complete heart challenges, while Ravious highlights the not-to-be-missed meta-events (!) and comments on ANet’s unorthodox, yet effective way of dealing with their community. I was impressed with that reddit thread; while ANet could have communicated more here and there in the past, it does feel like they’re much more active and approachable ever since official launch. (Considering there’s still so much to fix in the game, that is a good thing.)

• And last but not least, Keen turns a critical eye on the speed at which the first GW2 player reached max level, already during head-start weekend. Is this a sign of bad pacing in the game and something developers should/could prevent in MMOs? I agree – leveling in GW2 is rather fast, it seems to happen in spite of you. However, this also steers focus away from the whole leveling process which is quite enjoyable. The fact that the gem store still offers EXP boost items is somewhat baffling in that context!

Naturally, all these short summaries are meant as teasers and you should absolutely go and read up on all articles! So much for today, with no doubt more to come. Happy Moday everybody, inside and outside of Tyria!