Initial Impressions: Guild Wars 2

MMORPGs have been on the decline of late. Even the mighty "World of Warcraft" has been slowly but surely losing subscribers over the past year due to a variety of factors. In short, to say that there's a bit of MMO-fatigue in the gaming community at large might be stating things a bit too gently.

Fortunately for "Guild Wars 2," it has a lot of important factors working in its favor, not the least of which being that its a very well-made and entertaining game based on the dozen-or-so hours I've spent with it so far.

Rather than churning out a wall of text about the gritty details of the game, I'm instead going to boil this down to the top 10 things that make "Guild Wars 2" worth checking out based on what I've seen thus far:

• a plethora of desirable configuration options such as interface scaling 
• a respectable selection of interesting races and classes to choose from during character creation
• decisions made during character creation provide unique if subtle story and gameplay variations
• new characters gain early access to fast travel options
• the ability to harvest crafting resources without "gathering professions"
• fast-paced and engaging combat with dodging and weapon and/or combat discipline-specific abilities
• a unique and well-realized art style
• a location/proximity-based questing system that rewards exploration and group play
• a vast, open world to explore
• no monthly fee

For more on "Guild Wars 2," check out this video:

As always, these "Initial Impressions" pieces are not meant to be taken as a "review" of the game. It will be quite some time before I've seen enough of "Guild Wars 2" to make any sort of definitive statements about it; however, I have greatly enjoyed what I've seen so far and would encourage anyone who finds any of this intriguing to give it a look.

Guild Wars 2 - http://www.guildwars2.com