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Where Guild Wars 2 goes wrong
I'm not going to lie to you, people: Guild Wars 2 is a darn good game. Hard-hitting truths, I know. The game won our 2012 Game of the Year award for good reason. There's a lot to praise within that package, from the art direction to the game mechanics to the flexibility. Many parts of it push the design paradigm in interesting ways and could lead to a much better understanding of what can be done with online games. And then there are places where the paradigm pushes back. I come here not to praise Guild Wars 2 but to look at the game after the honeymoon has ended and we've all had a chance to settle down. It deserves its status as the best game released this year, but man there are some places where the game is an irritating piece of work. And there are lessons to be found here both for future development on the game and for anyone thinking that it's a gold standard.
The Daily Grind: What struck you as unnecessarily annoying?
If you took part in the recent City of Heroes double XP weekend, as a long-standing customer or a returning visitor, you most likely had a chance to take part in one of the game's Safeguard/Mayhem missions. Heroes are tasked with preventing a bank robbery, while villains are instead given the job of robbing said bank. Unfortunately for villains, their robbery is faced with several enemy groups that spawn without warning and will follow you all over if you happen to miss them. Worse yet, death puts you in prison, forcing you to fight your way out and possibly condemning you to another swift death. There are a lot of little things that can add up in a game, little choices in design that wind up making the whole play experience more tedious and unpleasant than seems reasonable. As a result, the whole experience can wind up going straight down the tubes. What part of a game proved to be annoying when it really didn't need to be? Was it a quest with more travel or fighting than seemed necessary, an area with some particularly obnoxious geographical feature, or just something that was a whole lot of effort for very little reward?
