Guild Wars 2

I've enjoyed wandering around without much of a plan for 1000 hours. I will continue.

If your like I was a month ago, and you are thinking to yourself "I wish I had a good MMO to play now that most of the ones I played when younger are slowly being turned into trash". Well then you kinda found a good game to bide your time. I've never had the pleasure of playing a game that values your time as much as Guild Wars 2. Everything is very achievable, just given time.

Your not going to get the classic MMO experience with this game. Yes the combat is very similar, except for the dodge ability, but the base mechanics are very wild. For starters, you don't have a GCD. Each ability has a specific Cool Down. This means that you can now Queue ability uses (To a max of 2 abilities at any given point in time) so that instead of thinking "What's the next ability in line" it's "What's the ability after next". This allows you to focus more on mechanics.

The Traditional MMO "Trinity" of Tank, Healer, DPS is a bit skewed in this game as well. Tanking is a specific role that is usually covered by a healer, since they can stand in one place and do their job, and they have gear that gives them the highest toughness. There is no taunts, if an enemy needs to be tanked, it's either "The first person to hit the enemy" or "The person with the highest Toughness Stat". There are other "Sub-Roles" in each raid and strike, but the main must haves is Alacrity generators, and Quickness Generators. There are both Heal and DPS version of each generator, called a Boon DPS. They are always required, where as other jobs, such as Pusher, Kiter, or Tank, are a "per-Fight" basis.

Finally, Gearing. Gearing is a bit funky. Once you hit max level, you'll most likely have a wonky full set of Exotic gear. However, the stats arn't going to be exactly perfect. So your first goal is a full set of Exotic gear that melds with your abilities. You can use a build, or theory craft something yourself, but there is no "You must use meta builds" rule in this game. As long as you can do mechanics and apply a minor to moderate amount of damage to a boss, you'll get along fine.

After Exotic gear, you get Ascended gear. This gear is Bind on Account so you can transfer it between multiple characters. This is also the highest your recieved stats will get. Full Ascended gear is "Gearing Complete". However, there is one more option, and this is where the game get's most of it's play loop.

You can craft Legendary Gear. Currently, you can get a legendary for every single slot in the game, and every armor type in the game, including "relics" which are trinkets that give you a bonus ability such as "When you dodge roll, you do increased damage".

This legendary gear has the same stats as Ascended gear, but with a few caveats.

First, you can change the stats on the gear to ANY you desire on the fly, no need to do fancy craftin recipes or mystic forge nonsense, just plug and play.

And finally, and this is the biggest thing: IT DOES NOT TAKE UP AN INVENTORY SLOT. It has a "Legendary Armory" that you can equip it from anywhere, any time, on any toon, save the armor, which is class specific (Heavy, medium, and light armor respectively)

This is called Horizontal Progression. Your not getting bigger and better, your getting convenience, your unlocking achievements, doing weird challenges for legendary materials. There is no "New expansion? Everything else is irrelevant except the new stuff" it's just 'Some of the new stuff is pretty cool and slightly better on some classes, but you can still use any of the other expansions stuff just as effectively."

i highly recommend this game if you have a hole in your heart for the grind, but want the game to value your time rather than making you suffer the entire way through it.

It's a fun game, and if you want to use your ArenaNet account, just add "-provider Portal" to the launch options. I've played this game on and off for years now, and I just now realized that I can use my original ArenaNet account, so I don't have to start over.

I love Guild Wars 2. I have almost 4000 hours in this game outside of Steam (existing accounts can not play through Steam).
I really recommend playing this game. It is probably the best MMORPG currently. There is no subscription, not even optional one. You are not forced to regularly spend money to not be fighting some inconvenience at every corner or to stay competitive. There are few cash shop items that will make your life easier, but you buy those items once and benefit forever. You can buy gems (premium currency purchasable for real money) also using gold in game. You can also use these gems to buy episodes of Living World Seasons (smaller story content outside of expansions). Expansions have to be purchased outside of game, there is no option to buy those for gems.
Probably the only thing that I do not like about Guild Wars 2 are lootboxes. Black Lion Chest you can get as drop while playing, but you need Black Lion Chest Key to open it. Keys can also drop while playing, but it is quite rare. People who want specific item from the chest tend to spend gems on buying keys. Content of the chest is regularly updated and usually most desirable items both for convenience and fashion are only available in there.
Free to play version is good enough to try the game out. You can play whole base game and reach max level with few restrictions - see:
If you want to play then I strongly recommend not playing through Steam. Steam version has many limitations and inconveniences - see:
For example you can not link Guild Wars 1 account to Steam GW2 account to get rewards in GW2 for progress in GW1. You can not use gem codes to get gems. I think you also can not buy expansions outside of Steam. Last 2 expansions are available on Steam only as Standard edition; Deluxe or Ultimate editions are not available on Steam.
Steam version may be worth considering if you live in a country with local pricing on Steam and this price (without discounts) is substantially less than default EUR/USD price you would have to pay otherwise.

Just Play it.
Seriously, I'm no good at reviews but since it starts out as free-to-play, there's no reason not to give it a try.
Okay, okay, if you want more than that, here's what I've got:
Two of my favorite games are Dragon Age Origins and Divinity.
I'm a sucker for compelling story and player choice. This game has both in spades.
I spent years playing WoW and lived through how badly it went downhill.
I later gave FFIV the ol' college try, but, while it had it's charm, I just wasn't feeling it.
Gameplay wasn't intuitive and progression felt overly linear, eventually requiring specific modes of play to move forward, with which I felt uncomfortable.
On the other hand - here's GW2, which wins outright for me with a lack of monthly subscription (Yeah, there's a cash shop - but it's never felt like a pay-to-win thing. It's mostly just cosmetic and quality of life purchases that aren't essential to successful play).
Anyway, I'm not great with people - shocker right? But yeah, I get really nervous if I'm forced to do group stuff, especially if I'm just trying to progress the story. I really hate that - it was always a problem for me once I hit End Game content. Here though, there's far more freedom. You can 1 or 2 man dungeons in story mode or skip them altogether if that doesn't float your boat. It's a great feeling.
Weirdly though (maybe since I don't feel like I'm forced into it), I've gotten more comfortable doing the big group stuff in GW2. The point of entry for End Game/Meta events is simple and straightforward. And it helps that the whole community is super welcoming and chill.
Everyone seems to lookout for each other in general here. Plus, I've never gotten any creeps whispering me or following me around just because I'm a chick. It's been pretty great.
Meanwhile, the game is just fun to play. You can tell they stuck to their design principals throughout and avoided the pitfalls of other MMOs (cough..WoW..cough).
You're encouraged to play in a way that's fun for you personally, and rewarded for thinking outside the box. You're never railroaded into a specific play-style just to be competitive. You can have fun the way you feel comfortable.
I don't know. I really just love it, and I don't think there's many who wouldn't.
I'd say if you're already considering playing by checking out reviews - then you should really just give it a try. It's seriously good.
Oh, and combat is super fun!
Anyway, that's everything - that is my review - now go dl GW2.
(Sh*t, ignore that haiku - it was unintentional...)

This is my first time writing a review, so it may be a little poorly structured or poorly worded, but I love Guild Wars 2 to bits, obviously because of my playtime. I recommend this game to anyone who wants to get into something long term. The game especially excels at being an MMO that respects your time, so I'd recommend it to any person that wants to get into an mmorpg long-term, AND anyone who doesn't have the time to play as frequently as others, like people with time demanding jobs, families to take care of and such, but still want to play a game without feeling pressured to play. I will list down the big things I like, and dislike in this game though.
GOOD:
HORIZONTAL PROGRESSION
The game has horizontal progression when it comes to gear, and in short, what that means is when you get best in slot gear for your character, like exotic or ascended (The two best tiers of gear in the game), you can quit for any amount of time at any given moment-- Like say, 1 year or more and your character will not have lost any power at all, granted the 'meta' or optimal stats may change at that time, but stat swapping your gear in this game is very cheap, which means you can get back in the groove of grinding again whenever you feel like playing again.
I should say though, the only part of the game that would be really time-specific and time-gated aside from crafting legendaries (Stat-swappable gear, but has the same stats as ascended armor.) would be the seasonal events that last 20 or so days that happen every year. Though this doesn't really matter unless you want a specific weapon skin or armor piece that happens to be account-bound in game.
OPEN WORLD CONTENT
This is honestly the biggest selling point of the game for me, most mmos I've played have felt a lot like you get most of your content by queueing for a dungeon, forming a group and getting gear to move on to the next dungeon. In GW2 however, they have events called 'Meta-events' where a HUUUGE cluster of players (Like 50 or more) all gather into one instance and do an entire clear of the map together. These meta events have honestly been some of the most fun I've ever had while playing games, and all content, because of horizontal progression, stay relevant and worth doing for all players, meaning a lot of content, no matter how old still have both new players, and end game players doing them even after 10 years.
COMBAT & ACCESSIBILITY
While I feel like combat is a rather subjective topic when it comes to mmorpgs, the combat in this game is REALLY good. At least that's how I feel. The combat is a mix of tab targetting and point and click, which is rather unique to any other mmos I've played. You can also customize the combat to be more like an action rpg with having to aim like a third person game if you don't like right clicking to move the camera to look at a specific direction and such. You can also play GW2 with a controller, though from what I hear, it's a bit tricky to set up. But I know controllers are often used as a method of playing games, especially for people with physical limitations, where they map the controller's control scheme to their own device to play video games.
GEM STORE & GOLD CONVERSIONS
While this may sound like a surprise, because some are probably thinking 'Why am I mentioning the micro transaction part of the game as a good thing?' Well there is a specific part of the store that is part of the system itself, where you can convert your in-game currency into the premium currency, (gems) of this game. While there are some bad things in the store I'll touch up on later , the method of converting gold to gems is really smart I feel. Since it's not managed by players, and managed by the game itself, you don't have to worry about getting scammed at all when you wanna buy something in the store that costs gems, which is a problem in a couple of games I've played like warframe, where they do allow player to player trading from items to platinum, it still comes with the risk that you may be scammed out of your part of the deal. The gold to gems trading system in guild wars 2 isn't absurdly unreasonable either that you're forced to buy gems or spend 800+ hrs to get $5 worth of gems. Since I first got my Living World Season through the gem store completely through grinding at about 150 hours, and that time includes the amount of time grinding the main story. So it's absolutely attainable.
MEGASERVERS
Megaservers are a part of this game and only really matter when you play WvW, otherwise, your friends can pick any server they want to play on and you would still be able to play open world and instanced PvE or PvP content regardless of which server you picked, so long as you're both on the same region, NA or EU.
NO SUBSCRIPTION FEE/ONE TIME PAYMENT SYSTEM
The game's main mode of monetization are the DLCs and the gem store. The DLCs of this game are the only thing you can't buy through in-game grinding, and you're actually required to pay a fixed amount of money to get some of the best content in the game. I can say with confidence that if you have the money, the DLCs are absolutely worth it, no doubt.
disclaimer
There are however a bit of quirks I have problems with, I don't feel that it warrants a negative review, and overall doesn't make the game horrible by any means at all, since some of the things that I mention may not affect others in a playthrough, or may seem VERY nitpicky, but I think these problems are worth mentioning anyway.
PROBLEMS
THE 'FREE TO PLAY' (NO DLC) EXPERIENCE IS PRETTY BAD...
I cannot, in good faith, no matter how much I love this game recommend it to someone who doesn't plan on buying DLCs. As the game locks you out of a lot of key features such as the Trading Post, which is how I personally got like 90% of my in-game money, being unable to send players mail, unable to whisper players that aren't mutually friends with you, and map-chat (global chat) being limited. AND convering GOLD -> GEMS being restricted, and having some objectively better subclasses locked behind DLC, which affects Free modes such as WvW and PvP, and mounts. So if you don't plan on getting the DLCs, unless you're willing to put up with this experience, I wouldn't recommend it at all. You can see the full list of restrictions here.
SOME CONTENT IS LOCKED FROM THE STEAM LAUNCHER
Being new to the game, I made my Guild Wars 2 account on steam when I got the game, and having experienced it, there's this specific line of achievements that gets you a title known as 'Gods Walking Amongst Mere Mortals' otherwise known as 'GWAMM.' I didn't know about this up until I was already about 800+ hours into the game, and since I had such an amazing time in Guild Wars 2, I had wanted to try out Guild Wars 1 anyway and one of the main motivators was to get this title, not only because it looks cool, but also because there's 500 or so achievement points locked behind this achievement. Upon learning that I can't get this achievement because my account is on steam, kind of annoyed me because some achievement point landmarks (mostly every 5,000 AP) gets you a free 400 gems you can spend on the gem store. And there is no way to link your GW1 account to your GW2 Account if your GW2 account is made on steam. Which kind of sucks and annoys me a bit, but by no means makes the game unplayable. So in order to get this, I'd have to RESET from a fresh, ANet account, abandoning my 1,000 hours of progress, and money spent on DLC on this account. So if you're like me and might want this later on, don't do what I did, and get an ANet account. I duly hope a workaround about this appears sometime in the near future.

I don't write long-form reviews like this, but I have to change that. Guild Wars 2 is a great game with lots of activities to participate in and secrets to discover.
It's an MMO for folks who might not like "traditional" MMOs; it respects your time and does not force you to log in every day to stay up to date.
Its horizontal progression means you can stop playing, come back in 3 years, and have your gear still be relevant. If you're unsure of what horizontal progression means, it boils down to vertical progression having a gear and number grind to complete content whereas horizontal progression focuses more on how you actually play the game.
The progression in Guild Wars 2 is not defined by its gear chase, but rather your character abilities and account-wide unlocks. Action-based combat where skill is rewarded compared to strictly having the best gear to deal damage is fantastic. There are, of course, long-term grinds and objectives for folks who want to chase that, but it is by no means necessary to participate in anything but the highest end of content. Exotic gear found off the player marketboard is rather inexpensive and will be more than enough for the majority of players.
The mounts in this game are the BEST of this genre, bar none. Each one fills a specific role and they all feel satisfying to roam around the overworld with. Getting these mounts helps with world completion, which ties into getting rarer materials, more XP, and event completion for some achievements. This game is perfect for people who tire of doing the same thing all the time and enjoy variety. Dropping an activity to do something else is welcome and even rewarded. 
While exploring the world, you might find some enemies that actually pose a challenge. As expected, the early level enemies are easy. As you progress and unlock more parts of the map, however, enemies will slowly start getting harder; showing up in greater numbers, being more aggressive, having more health, and being a higher enemy tier such as veteran or champion are some of the ways that Guild Wars 2 starts to slowly scale the difficulty. Note that you will always sync down to the area's level, so while you can overlevel enemies, its significance is negated after a certain threshold. GW2 sets you up for success for the later areas, as those have some pretty difficult mobs if you're not ready for them. The game strikes a good balance between being AFK easy and being quite challenging. Your skills are mostly tested in fixed points such as a story mission or a meta event, so you aren't ever blindsided by a difficulty spike. This isn't so much the case in expansion areas, but by the time you reach those areas, you should be ready to tackle some harder mobs.
The best part of Guild Wars 2 is its pay-to-play monetization model. Currently, there are four expansions (with the first two expansions being bundled into a single purchase) which do NOT require a subscription fee to access. Combined with its horizontal progression, the permanent access to these areas makes playing through the expansions a stress-free ride. No worrying about finishing a mount collection or obtaining those last few mastery points before your subscription runs out. You are free to play through these expansions at your own leisure, and there is no penalty if you decide to drop it and go do something else in the game. Guild Wars 2 is the most chill MMO I have ever played, and is a great game to have on the side if your "main" game isn't keeping you engaged.
While this is all good, the game does have some faults.
Gearing for the first time is not obvious-- there are numerous types of gear substats that impact classes differently. For example, there are multiple types of DPS-focused substats (called attributes) like power, precision, and expertise, but the distribution and allocation of these attributes is different for every piece of armor. There are 8 total attributes and finding the correct one for your class can be confusing if not following a build (which you should not worry about until level 80). In short, be prepared to do external research to see what gear best fits your character needs.
Speaking of external research, it is difficult to find your way around the game's world and systems. There are countless currencies, materials, and consumables that make playing without a wiki tab open nigh impossible. Good luck finding recipes and crafting items without the wiki. Given enough time, you'll eventually wrap your head around what is important to you and what isn't. I'm personally still learning a lot and I wouldn't be surprised if I'm sitting at 1k hours still wondering what exactly something is. If you prefer to keep all of your experience in the game or like to play and find out, Guild Wars 2 is not the game for you. The /wiki command helps with this, but it is nonetheless an external resource. 
Finding out what to do at max level can also be very overwhelming. There is just so many things to do that it can leave players with decision paralysis. I mean, you have mastery points to obtain, world completion, expac/living world stories, PvP and WvW (which seems to be actually good? shocking in an MMO), raid content, crafting, world bosses, fashion chase... there is just.. So. Much. Stuff. Picking what to do in this situation is an uncomfortable space to be in. Your best bet as a fresh 80 character is to just pick something and stick to it.
Another point worth bringing up is Guild Wars 2's living worlds. Living worlds act as the game's seasonal content that takes place between each expansion. The living world idea was retired and is no longer being added to the game, but the existing ones have stayed. The living worlds themselves are not a problem, but the way you access them does not make much sense. Living world content has to be purchased and there is no way around it. You have a few options, with one of them being converting in-game currency to the paid currency. It is technically possible, but with each chapter being 200 gems individually (or a varying cheaper price when bundled), you're going to be spending a lot more time than it is worth grinding access to every LW chapter. You also have the option to buy the $100 complete collection, but that is a high immediate asking price. It's actually good value and you will be saving money in the long run, but that's given you even make it to that point. You might bounce off the game after deciding to buy the complete collection and feel ripped off as a result. Your final option is to buy the LWs through gems, which is what I ended up doing. I didn't feel confident buying the collection in case I never saw that content, but since I ended up sticking with it, I decided to buy it when it went on sale in the gem store. Since LWs have been retired, they should either become way cheaper if not free, or be thrown into the HoT/PoF bundle and have its price increased as a result.
With all of that said, when my main points of contention boil down to "too much to do" and sensory overload, I would still absolutely recommend this game to anyone who might be even a little interested. The F2P version gives you the entire base Guild Wars 2 maps and story. It is a hell of a lot of content and not even I have seen the entire map. I've been busy doing other stuff, like working on my Griffon mount and leveling my crafters to prepare for a legendary weapon grind. 
On the whole, Guild Wars 2 is an MMO that does its own thing and breaks the mold of the MMORPG genre. It delivers a wholly new experience that its peers should learn from even 11 years later. Thanks for reading.