What Happened to Guild Wars?

Two weeks ago I reminisced about how much I missed Guild Wars. So nostalgic was I that I reinstalled it with all of the expansions that I never got around to, and jumped back into the game that set a new standard for how online games could function.

And then I discovered that the game had changed rather significantly in the last five years. The sense of community seems to have faded, at least in the campaigns, and so the feeling of questing, adventuring, and monster-slaying no longer feels wholesome. What happened to Guild Wars?

More Online Games Need to be Like Guild Wars

I really miss Guild Wars. It was a fine game that, at the time, handled the MMORPG scene in a unique and interesting way. While other mainstream MMOs featured persistent environments with large-scale level grinding, Guild Wars used instanced zones with mission-based gameplay. Guild Wars proved to be a highly rewarding experience that didn't require the same kind of commitment as other MMOs, and blended single-player gameplay with massively-multiplayer gameplay.

I also really miss the feeling of playing an MMO, of being involved with a large community of players experiencing the same content and working together to accomplish common goals. But I don't have the time to commit to grinding hours a day for months at a time just to keep up with the in-game community. Which is why more online games need to be like Guild Wars. So I'm going to take some time to examine what Guild Wars did well and why it'd be nice for more games to be like it. More after the jump.