A harsh review of the latest World of Warcraft expansion in the PC World gaming column:
As I’ve played the new WoW expansion this week and journeyed through the lands of Pandaria I’ve been struck by two seemingly contradictory facts: Blizzard has crafted the best expansion for World of Warcraft yet, and if I didn’t have a ton of friends playing the game I would likely never open up WoW again.
As if to stick the knife in further, he closes the column by praising some direct competitor games for various aspects, but one particular game comes in for the highest accolades:
This year has seen the release Guild Wars 2, Star Wars: The Old Republic, and The Secret World. Of those 3 only Guild Wars 2 has had any real success, but all three of them manage to innovate on WoW’s formulae in interesting ways. The Old Republic and The Secret World both tell better stories more ably than WoW did at the time (though with Mists of Pandaria it seems like Blizzard is catching up) and Guild Wars 2 manages to do something even more impressive.
It created an MMO I want to play not just with my friends, but with anyone.
When I see another player out questing in WoW I’m annoyed. I’m expecting them to grab my quest items, enemies and other resources for themselves. In theory I can group up with at least some of these players, but in practice they usually steal my kills and run off before I can click on them and ask them to join. Even if I do manage to do so, they have little incentive to join me; they’ve already gotten credit for the quest and have no reason to help me.
Guild Wars 2, on the other hand, rewards cooperation at every turn. Every player that contributes to a kill gets loot and experience even if they aren’t grouped together. Every player is rewarded for contributing to quest objectives even if other players contributed more. Every time another player shows up on your screen in PvE, that player can only help you.
