u/Standard_Giraffe8994

I played 6 hours straight without moving from my computer. This is so fucking addictive! The combat feels good after getting used to dodging, there are not too many players but still encounters. Died 3 times, killed more than 10 players and extracted many times. During the whole session, there was 1 bot. Overall very fun session!

The reason I'm more optimistic about the story now than I was before yesterday's blog isn't because of the little information we got, but because of person who wrote it. The narrative lead, Aaron Linde, was narrative Lead at ArenaNet also during Path of Fire and Living World Season 4, which, in my opinion, was the peak of storytelling in the entire franchise. Just because of this I'm quite hyped to see what the team can cook up with him in charge.

Reddit and also this sub is honestly pretty laughable. If they included a subscription in the Founder's Packs, people would be crying about how it's "crazy P2W" and accusing them of milking players to buy all the packs. But when they don't include a subscription, people complain that the Founder Packs only offer early access and cosmetics.

It honestly seems like some people are complaining just for the sake of complaining. This is a pretty good representation of today's MMO community in Reddit.

It's been really cool to see so many low-rank players in WvW lately. Remember: If you're dying a lot, just stick with it. We've all been there, and you'll get the hang of it sooner than you think. Once things start to click, WvW really starts to shine.

Most of all, just have fun and enjoy the best game mode in any MMO.

I've read the released blog posts several times already, and there are two parts from the second post that I find especially interesting:

"The world is designed to reward curiosity, exploration, and most of all, return visits where you can find entirely new experiences in places your character has previously adventured."

And:

"You'll see the results of conflicts play out in the places you spend time in, and, over time, your relationship with those places—and most importantly, the people who live there—will start to evolve."

These two quotes make me think about a few points:

1. No traditional character levels. I have a feeling there won't be a traditional leveling system. Instead, we'll probably have some combination of achievements, mastery progression, collectible skills, and a horizontal gear system (some of those can be somehow combined). If the goal is to make every zone relevant throughout the entire game, removing character power levels is (in my opinion) cleanest ways to avoid hassle of correct amount of level scaling. GW2 does scaling quite well but enemies in low level areas are still very easy for max level characters. ANet seems to be putting a huge emphasis on exploration and combat, and neither of those systems actually requires traditional levels.

2. Reputation or trust with settlements. I also think we'll build "trust" or reputation with different villages (or other types of settlements). NPCs could treat you differently depending on your standing with them, affecting things like available merchants, fast travel options, quests, or other services.

The trust could also slowly declined over time. If you ignored a village for a long period, the inhabitants might become less trusting (or perhaps even hostile). That would encourage players to revisit older locations instead of abandoning them forever after completing them once.

3. A world that visibly changes based on things what happens there. I expect the world itself to change visually based on the outcomes of events. For example, imagine a troll camp launching attacks against nearby kodan villages. If no players come to defend the village, the trolls could burn it down. After they leave, the villagers would begin rebuilding, creating a completely different set of events than before. During the rebuilding phase, players might gather supplies or protect workers, and once the village is restored, there could even be a retaliatory assault on the troll camp. That couls happen hours later as the rebuilding will take time.

There are SO many possibilities now that they aren't limited by a decades-old engine and can design system for today's hardware and server technology.

I think I can see how they could make GW3 work on a smaller scale while still being almost fully open-world.

They will make fast traveling very limited and there will be only small number of waypoints. You'd probably only be able to fast travel to major cities, and from there you'd have to travel (on solo or with a small party) to explore the surrounding world.

The world could still have dynamic events happening across regions, but with limited party sizes and restricted fast travel, players wouldn't be able to instantly jump across the map. That would make the world feel larger and more meaningful. And make it automatically more small-scale focused.

I'm quite sure the game won't be heavily instanced. ArenaNet has been pretty clear about that in both this and earlier blog posts. Everything they've said so far points toward a persistent open world rather than a lobby-based or instance-heavy design.

Why I'm so hyped about GW3?

Because of the following reasons:

ArenaNet is developing new game, but at the same time they also seem to be investing more (e.g. GW reforged) into old ones. To me, that's not the behavior of a studio that is uncertain about its next project. It feels more like they believe GW3 is strong enough that they don't need to put the rest of the franchise on hold or on maintanance mode. Money talks and without strong believe to new game they wouldn't be investing more to old games.

The other thing was the message they chose for the reveal. They could have focused on graphics, world size, or any of the usual MMO selling points. Instead, they highlighted smooth combat and evolving the MMO genre. Those are ambitious goals, and ArenaNet has enough experience to know exactly what expectations that creates.

What also makes this interesting is the business model they've described. The game will have horizontal progression and no battle pass, which isn't really the direction most modern live-service games have gone. Ofc that's Arenanet style, but there are factor NCSoft, which (forced) involvement stands out to me. A project like this requires a big investment from the parent company. If NCSoft is willing to back a horizontal progression MMO without a battle pass on 2020s, they probably see something in the game that gives them confidence it can succeed without relying on the usual money-making systems.

And that's where I come back to the combat. ArenaNet has spent more than 20 years making online games and combat has always been one of their strengths. If they chose to make combat one of the key points of the reveal, and if both ArenaNet and NCSoft have enough confidence to invest heavily in this kind of player-friendly model (again, on 2027), then I think it's fair to assume they see the combat mechanics (and the whole concept) as exceptional good. And if you land combat, you don't even need to land every aspect perfectly to get crazy popularity.

Of course, none of this guarantees success. But I'm so so so hyped. I think the game will be THE mmo of the 2020s.