GW:EN Sneak Peak: The Realization

I think it's finally hit me just what bothers me so about the expansion. Why I spend so much time going “Well, that's great, that's awesome, but...”. It's the same thing I always worried about, the same fear that drove so many of my suggestions and activities. And that's the game's various facets becoming unglued. The separation of the game into one piece for PvE, one piece for PvP, and dozens of shards and splinters beyond. That's not the Guild Wars I was promised. That's not the Guild Wars I spent so long wanting to play. And it's certainly not the one I worked so hard to build interest in.

GW:EN is a PvE expansion, there's really no other way to look at it. The PvP changes are said to be coming, but they're coming through changes independent of that box. They'll fix the Arenas, the Comp Missions, tweak the skills, and give everyone a +40AL mount with perma-Sprint. One of these days. But they're finally gone and separated the two halves, not just in experience and purpose, but execution as well.

The game I signed up for was one perfectly suited to a casual player, like myself. Someone who might have an hour to spend with the game or a day. Who might want to plunge headfirst into competitive play on the weekends while sneaking in a few minutes here and there while they should be working. And the game was supposed to support that with a variety of things, of gameplay methods to play and try and sample and become enthralled or disenchanted with. But there would always be something else to do when you got bored. A quick way to get your fix when you didn't have the time to really invest in your preferred activities. If you liked to run missions and became stuck at a certain plot point, you could always head to the Arenas and blow off some steam. If you were waiting for your guild to get it together, you could always go farm in some EA. It was a world of possibilities. Connected, interwoven with one another into a grand tapestry of enjoyment. Not everyone had to play the same way, not everyone would want to. There'd be something for everyone and always something to lead them out of their box and into someplace new.

But now? The sides have been drawn up. People have long picked one side or the other and the developers have responded in kind. Instead of facilitating, encouraging them to come out of their shells and embrace the frightening new, they've only been given what they've wanted. Not what they've needed to keep the factions from hardening. Guild Wars: Eye of the North is the last expansion. The last game that will ever be released to hold the line. It should be a celebration, a relevation, a breath of fresh air into a game that's become stale with age. But one that has all its old charms even as it fades away to make room for something better. Instead, it's an offkey dirge. A eulogy told by a passing stranger who had no connection to the deceased. Only a passing sense, a brief understanding, of just what it was that made the dead so worthy of being lauded in the first place.