It’s difficult finding an MMORPG to devote time to. Games either don’t live up to the unrealistic hype that other people create for them, or you happen across one you genuinely enjoy and it turns out nobody else does. The game’s empty.
And with so many MMOs having come out this year: PSO2 New Genesis, Swords of Legends Online, Bless Unleashed, Crowfall, Elyon, New World. Have the top 10 most played MMOs shifted? Is there something better out there that everyone is devoting their time to? Let’s find out. Together.
Especially given next month is the beginning of 2022, and you’re going to want something big to play, right?

Let’s start this off with the only Anime MMORPG in this list: MapleStory.
MapleStory released all the way back in 2003. This game has spawned a plethora of other titles under the same intellectual property: MapleStory M which was received with.. moderate enthusiasm, and a sequel, MapleStory 2, that shut down a year after launching.
Neither title truly managed to capture the quirky style that MapleStory employs. This is the only MMO in this list to utilize a horizontal graphical style – you move your character horizontally, left to right, across the screen. You can jump and climb, but the bulk of the game takes place on one level.
You take quests, you venture out, you group with other players, fight for control of the area, and… grind. This game is a grind. An unbelievable grind. Almost grindier than any other MMO I’ve played in the last decade. Thankfully it employs an incredibly fast, often chaotic action combat system to make up for the time you spend engaged in combat.
It’s got an adorable Anime-ish graphical style, and gets updated repeatedly over the course of the year, with new areas, new events and new classes. This brings players coming back to the game, and is what makes it one of Nexon’s highest grossing, most profitable franchises, averaging hundreds of thousands of players across all regions per month.
Yes, this list isn’t including specifically English-speaking countries.

Star Wars The Old Republic released back in 2011 as part of the greater “Star Wars” franchise. Movies, TV series, video games. And while The Old Republic – The MMO, never truly lived up to the potential of the IP, it still eventually found its footing, and allowed for Star Wars fans to channel their inner fan.
Now The Old Republic has had its highs, and its lows. With its low points lasting significantly longer than its high points, but that’s partly due to how the game has been handled up until this point.
This is an open-world MMO, with plenty of different regions – and as you’d expect, plenty of different, highly diverse worlds to explore at your leisure. The Old Republic has one of the deepest, most compelling narratives of any MMO.
And while that’s 2 for 2 thus far, its combat is much less impressive. It utilizes a fairly basic tab-target combat system that definitely looks and feels older than a 2011 MMO should, given RIFT, Aion and TERA.
Star Wars The Old Republic just released their latest expansion – which has garnered quite a bit of attention, and shot the game up to hundreds of thousands of players over the course of the last month. How long this lasts however is another question all together.

The Elder Scrolls Online released in 2014, a mere 7 years ago. It feels like it’s been out longer though, right? Much like Star Wars The Old Republic, The Elder Scrolls Online is set within an already existing franchise: The Elder Scrolls. You know. Morrowind. Oblivion. Skyrim. Yes, I listed the 3 best in order of best to most overrated.
ESO has been pretty steady for the last couple years. It’s never really had any large peaks in terms of growth, but at the same time, it hasn’t sunk very far beneath what it had already established itself as.
The game has a fantastic narrative, a large open world to explore, action combat, a fairly extensive class system allowing you to more or less equip what you want in terms of weapons and armor, while giving you freedom to craft your class – in terms of skills, however you like.
Graphically, the game holds up well. It’s one of the better looking Western MMOs out there, with Guild Wars 2 being the only real competition.
ESO averages a couple hundred thousand unique players per month, and has been averaging roughly a similar amount all year.

Guild Wars 2 was released back in 2012, and has since gone on to become one of the most played free MMOs. More than that, it’s generally considered to have the friendliest community of any MMO online.
The main issue with Guild Wars 2 is that for the last several years, content has been released fairly slowly. This is due to NCSoft being incompetent, and inhibiting ArenaNet from truly making Guild Wars 2 one of the greatest MMORPGs of this generation.
And with slow releases, comes an expected decline in terms of player population. Although with the recent announcement of its latest expansion, “End of Dragons” looming on the horizon, players have come back in droves to play catch-up, and new players are jumping in to see what all the hype is about.
Guild Wars 2 is a gorgeous game with an incredibly large world. It has plenty of class customization, an active PvP community and one of the better narratives out there.
The game utilizes a very high quality hybrid action combat system, allowing for players to change their entire playstyle by merely altering the weapon they have equipped.

Now this one is a little different. See, on the one hand, Star Citizen hasn’t launched yet. It’s an indie MMO that has been in development for years, and has, over the course of its time spent in development, acquired hundreds of millions of dollars worth of funding.
More funding than Final Fantasy XIV. More than World of Warcraft. And we’re still years – perhaps decades off from being capable of playing a fully realized game. However, that hasn’t stopped players from playing it in the form it’s available in.
This is a very incomplete game, with very few fully implemented features. Yet last year they reported that they had – at their peak, hundreds of thousands of active players. Which is some of the most ridiculous numbers I’ve ever seen for an unreleased title that is still so far off from being ready.

RuneScape is the oldest title in this list, releasing back in 2001. I’m not entirely certain how this game has retained the playerbase that it has, but I guess this is a testament to how good the game must be, right?
Now I’ve never dedicated much time to the game. I’ll be the first to admit that – not every person will enjoy every MMO, right? It’s asinine to believe that anyone would enjoy every single title in this list.
RuneScape is an enormous game, with more content than you can realistically dream of partaking of if you’re a new player. Sure, it’s very dated – both in terms of how it looks and how it plays. But that’s part of its appeal.
Even though it’s 2 decades old at this juncture, this game – these developers push out more updates than almost any of its competitors, paid or free.
Thankfully player numbers are public, so we can see that there are hundreds of thousands of active players at almost any point in the day. Even if some people claim that half of them are bots.

Black Desert Online released way back in 2014. Yeah, almost 8 years ago. Eight. Years. In all that time, not a single MMORPG released has come close to competing with the game’s dominance over the market in terms of graphics or combat.
To date, BDO is considered to be the “pinnacle of the MMORPG genre,” that one game that every MMO has to live up to. And I can honestly understand why.
Not only is this game absolutely stunning – the world itself, which is completely open, no loading screens at all. Entirely explorable without limitations, whether on land or sea.
But the depth of the character customization is unrivaled. Name one MMO with as good of a creator as BDO. You won’t find one. Couple that with some of the best action combat, and you have what should be the best MMORPG available, yet due to its horrendous pay to win, RNG and grind, falls short.
Pearl Abyss have confirmed hundreds of thousands of active players – on the higher end of the spectrum – which sets it above almost every other MMO in this list.

While New World is less than 2 months old at this moment, it is definitely worth noting that even with all of its issues, all of the exploits, the hacks, the duplication of items, of gold, the lack of endgame, Amazon’s poor handling of all of this, their choice to make the grind even longer in a recent update.. there are still hundreds of thousands of people playing this.
At the time of writing, there was still a peak of 132,000 players concurrently logged in, with likely over a million players still playing over the course of the last month – minimum.
New World features a large, open world – albeit the world itself seems to lack much in diversity – both with regards to the environment, and the monsters found within it.
It utilizes an action combat system that honestly isn’t bad but felt too limiting to me when I played it. There’s an extensive crafting system, a territory system and so much more that is completely overshadowed by how often new exploits are taken advantage of, repeatedly ruining the experience for everyone playing.

World of Warcraft released back in 2004, and up until 2020 was the most populated MMORPG. It was completely unrivaled. Nothing came close to competing with it, especially after WoW Classic launched.
Yet like everything, eventually things fall into obscurity. And while WoW is far from falling into obscurity, with the game still having over a million active players across both Retail and WoW Classic, it’s a far cry from what it once was.
This is evident by the premature end of Shadowlands, in their mad rush to push out something new to re-ignite the playerbase’ passion to play through something new and potentially exciting.
WoW is definitely a dated looking game – for most of it anyway. Newer zones are absolutely gorgeous, and the game features what is arguably the best tab-target combat in the genre. With the exception being maybe Aion or ArcheAge.
It also features more lore than almost any other game I’ve ever seen, but its story has become so disconnected, such a convoluted mess that it’s almost funny trying to keep track of what’s going on.

And finally, Final Fantasy XIV. Final Fantasy XIV released initially back in 2010, and was such a critical failure that they overhauled the game from the ground-up costing hundreds of millions of dollars.
This was the largest undertaking in the entire MMO genre, and has paid off, given it is now the most played, most popular MMORPG. And with Endwalker having just launched into Early Access, and both Mrs Stix and I playing through it, this is probably going to be the largest year for the game to date.
Final Fantasy XIV already confirmed they had hit their highest concurrent player numbers before the mass exodus of WoW players, and the combination of the those additions to the game with fans are going to make queue times unbearable.
Final Fantasy XIV features a large open world, with each expansion introducing even larger areas than the last. It’s a gorgeous game with an incredible narrative. Shadowbringers was by far the best storytelling I’ve seen in an MMO. And I’ve played almost all of them.
Its combat isn’t the best, but it’s good enough that it doesn’t bring the game down – doesn’t hinder it.
The amalgamation of everything that Final Fantasy XIV does right has shown continued success, with the game once being rivaled by Guild Wars 2, and now tripling, maybe quadrupling it in terms of active player numbers.
Nobody ever thought Final Fantasy XIV would dethrone WoW. They thought WoW would to that to itself, and Final Fantasy XIV would continue on the route it was. Boy were we wrong.

And that’s everything. They’re the 10 most played MMORPGs in 2021, moving into 2022. Were they what you expected?

I never thought I’d ever finish the entire base game of Guild Wars 2 but as of January 2021, both Mrs Stix and I managed to clear the base game, beginning our journey into Heart of Thorns, followed by Path of Fire.

This will be a collection of my thoughts on the way to max level.

Let me start off by stating that Guild Wars 2 is one of the few high quality MMORPGs left available to players. This is an MMO that is so contrastingly different to any other MMO on the market that if you haven’t played it, you’re doing yourself a disservice. You need to take a moment right now, navigate on over to the Guild Wars 2 website, and set the game to download. Trust me, you won’t regret it.

Guild Wars 2 is an expansive open-world MMORPG with a story that captivates you, combat that is engaging and intuitive, a world that is thrilling to explore, and features not only a unique questing system, but progression system allowing you so much creative freedom over your character and how you ultimately build them. This ranges from the default character customization options when creating your character for the first time (with each race having individual customization options,) but also to your build, your abilities, your selection of weapons to equip.. Guild Wars 2 provides more depth than I’ve ever encountered in an MMO, so much so that I often found myself completely overwhelmed. But that’s also where some of the fun comes into play, as you’re given the freedom to (as an example) play a tanky Guardian like myself, and hurl around thunderbolts with a staff. Yeah. However that’s also a double-edged sword, considering if you’re not running the optimal weapon-skill-gear build that everyone else runs then people won’t want you in their group, citing suboptimal parses.

Thankfully, however, Guild Wars 2 has an incredibly friendly community – more friendly than any other community I’ve come across in an MMO, much to my surprise. They’re always around and willing to help you out if you need assistance, and that sense of camaraderie is sorely missing from the genre.

But the game isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. While yes, the game is definitely one of the better titles out there, it’s worth noting that there are some aspects of the game – such as dungeons, that are so empty – so void of participation that it’s almost impossible to find people to play with outside of story instances. And this is highly disappointing, considering Mrs Stix and my favorite thing to do when playing MMOs is to experience dungeons and raids for the first time.

I have yet to participate in PvP, but that is mainly due to the fact that we were busy exploring the world, fully completing maps, playing with our viewers and guild members and just.. enjoying our time spent in-game. That’s the goal of the game after all, and while, yes, admittedly I didn’t have all that much fun initially, it definitely grew on me over time. As an MMO should. No game is perfect, especially when playing the first few hours of it. Thankfully it was gripping enough that we stuck with it and began to appreciate the unique gem this title is.

I’m sure you guys recall when ArenaNet, the team behind Guild Wars 2 announced their brand new End of Dragons expansion, right? Of course you do.
But the expansion was still a ways off – a year, maybe 2 before being ready to actually roll out onto the live servers. That was fine though, as they had revealed something that was equally as important – maybe more so.
Currently, the game has only ever been actively available and playable via their own personal launcher. So when players learned that Guild Wars 2 was coming to Steam, players were ecstatic.
We’d finally be able to play it via Steam – which would not only be easier to play with friends, but it would also provide a larger platform for players to both find and play the game.

It’s no secret that launching an MMO on to Steam has the potential to drive thousands, tens of thousands of new players to the game. This is one of the reasons The Elder Scrolls Online, Final Fantasy XIV and even more recently, Star Wars The Old Republic all rolled out Steam-compatibility.
Guild Wars 2 and ArenaNet wanted the very same – with the launch date for the Steam iteration of the game coming in November 2020 – yeah, this month.
However, according to a report that came just a few days ago on the official Guild Wars 2 website titled “Guild Wars 2 Steam Release News,” that is no longer the case.

Let’s take a look through and read this..

“At the end of summer, we gave you a first look at the next Guild Wars 2 expansion, Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons. We have been overwhelmed by the response. Delivering this next chapter in the Guild Wars® universe is our highest priority.

With this in mind, we’ve made the decision to put the Guild Wars 2 Steam release on hold for the time being. Our number one priority right now is crafting Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons with the high quality you expect and deserve.
Additionally, we’re full speed ahead on delivering an epic climax to The Icebrood Saga that lives up to (and we hope exceeds) previous Living World finales.

In the meantime, we’re looking forward to showing you the first trailer for The Icebrood Saga: Champions next Thursday, November 5.”

Yup, they have officially confirmed that the Steam release of Guild Wars 2 has been delayed indefinitely.
Now there are any number of reasons for this. They claim that it’s so they can focus their attention on the upcoming End of Dragons expansion, when – while yes, that is no doubt part of their reasoning, I want to offer my thoughts.
What I think is that if they launch the game on to Steam this month, and players jump into the game for the first time right now, maybe – MAYBE they’ll buy the Path of Fire expansion that includes Heart of Thorns.
But if they launch the game on to Steam at the time of the expansion’s release, players will have the option of purchasing the expansion pack at full price, as opposed to the substantially discounted price that Path of Fire is at currently.
My thought is that this is all pertaining to money – how much they can make off of their newest expansion. And you know what? That’s perfectly fine. It doesn’t bother me either way.

There’s further evidence to back up my thought though: When playing Guild Wars 2 via Steam you won’t be able to use the Guild Wars 2 account you’ve been using up until this point. They’re going to offer no character or account transfers, or connectivity whatsoever.
Meaning that if you want to migrate over to the Steam version of Guild Wars 2, you’ll be required to purchase the Heart of Thorns and Path of Fire expansions all over again.
When End of Dragons launches, the price for all 3 expansions is going to be quite a bit more expensive than it is now, meaning if you want to play on Steam – with all your Steam friends – you’re going to be forced into quite an investment.

Again, I have no issue with this, I just wish they weren’t claiming it’s because they’re focusing on End of Dragons now, when the Steam release was supposed to be this month.

Regardless, I’m still excited for End of Dragons. Mrs Stix and I stream Guild Wars 2 every Saturday and we’re inching ever closer to that level cap every weekend we play.
While we’ve never played neither expansion in the past, we’re not only excited to get into them and try them out, but to also get into the most recent expansion to see how it holds up against Shadowbringers and Shadowlands.

But as for Guild Wars 2 on Steam? We’re looking at a time AFTER the next expansion’s launch, not before. I know that’s upsetting for a lot of people – I’ve seen the forums, I’ve seen the subreddit – I understand.
But until then.. well, all we can do is wait, right?

This has been an interesting couple weeks. We’ve had some new MMOs announced, we’ve had some entire publisher studios shut down, and gotten some announcements we’ve been actively waiting on for.. years now.
So you guys should be excited! We’ve got quite a bit to talk about in this week’s Weekly Byte of MMORPG News video.

miHoYo, the developers behind the upcoming Genshin Impact game have announced that they’re going to be launching on September 28th – globally, on the PC, PS4 and mobile devices.
Yes, the PS4 release was expected to be delayed due to the beta test period being extended well beyond the PC and mobile test periods, but apparently they pushed through and will now have a simultaneous release across all platforms.
I’ve talked about Genshin Impact quite extensively over the course of the last year, and I’m happy to say that it’s finally almost time for everyone to get in-game and play.
Together, with other players if you want to – Mrs Stix and I – or at least Mrs Stix is definitely going to be playing as I think the multiplayer experience is utter garbage, but disregarding the multiplayer aspect the game is truly an incredible game.. well that and the Gacha system is terrible.
PS4 pre-registration is also available right now for players that want to register for the PS4 launch – or at least it was when I wrote this up.

I was directed to an article on MMOCulture this morning where I learned that Nexon are in the process of developing a brand new PC MMORPG that they’re calling a “AAA-class masterpiece game that can satisfy users in all aspects such as content and visuals.”
I know, guys, Nexon has disappointed us with every single release in the history of their studio, but maybe they can change. Maybe they- okay, I can’t continue that sentence with a straight face.
While the project has a currently unnamed title, they did go on to announce what they’re creating: A medieval fantasy MMORPG based on a completely new IP with a seamless, open world that features no loading screens, has guild content, will be cross-platform between PC and mobile devices like Genshin Impact or Tower of Fantasy and – if I read correctly.. might be an isometric MMO like Diablo or Path of Exile?
They’re also developing another project, “Project HP” but little is known about that thus far other than it’ll be another medieval game with magic.

For those of you waiting on any news pertaining to Project TL.. here you go, finally! NCSoft confirmed that the game is going to be undergoing a test phase from the 31st of August through the 4th of September, with an upcoming Closed Beta scheduled for later this year.
I had reported on this earlier this year, where I mentioned that both Project TL and Project BBQ were both going into some form of testing this year, but this confirms things – at least for Project TL.
NCSoft also just registered the “TL” and “TL: Origin” trademarks as well, which leads us to believe it’s close to releasing – with them promising it’ll launch by 2021!
They went on to elaborate that they have every intention of launching globally, with “Project TL being developed for the global audience with technologies and visuals they are familiar with,” further going on to state that this is supposed to be the “start of a new universe.”

En Masse Entertainment, the publisher behind both TERA and Closers announced last week that they were actually shutting down.
Meaning all of their staff members – people that have worked on their games for almost a decade now, or over a decade, actually, since I believe they started 11 years ago, are now jobless – a terrible situation for any person.
While it’s always sad to see a publisher shut down, or MMOs go offline, it’s worth noting that Naddic Games, the developers behind Closers have several updates for the game planned, including continuing to publish the game in the regions it’s currently available in.
We’ve heard nothing pertaining to TERA’s fate currently though, but it’s a safe bet to assume Gameforge will likely publish it since they recently attained South East Asian publishing rights for the game on top of their European publishing rights.

Amazon Game Studios, you know, the very same people behind Crucible and New World, have announced that they entered into a publishing agreement with Smilegate RPG, the developers of Lost Ark.
This sparked a wave of interest, as they went on to confirm that “Amazon Games is committed to bringing our customers the most engaging game experiences, both through our own internal development teams and from the very best external development studios around the world.”
This is confirmation that they are open to working with other developers around the world to bring foreign MMOs to the global market. MMOs that would have otherwise been completely ignored, self-published, or published by companies like Gameforge or MY.GAMES – something none of us want.
They went on to note that Smilegate has a “strong track record of creating big games that players love, built to offer years of enjoyment.”
Currently, Smilgate has developed and publishes 3 PC games within South Korea: Soul Worker, Tales Runner and Lost Ark. Since Soul Worker is published by Gameforge, and Tales Runner is in no way a AAA budget PC title, it’s all but confirmed we’ll be getting Lost Ark.
Next year, actually, since they confirmed the game will be launching “some time during 2021,” with specific details being revealed at “a later date.”

ArenaNet made 2 large announcements concerning Guild Wars 2 earlier this week: The first is that the game is going to receive a much needed boost in population when it launches on to Steam in November 2020 – yup, players will finally be able to connect the game to their steam accounts.
This is something that players have wanted for a long time. But one issue with that reveal is that you’re going to be required to make a brand new account as unlike Star Wars The Old Republic and PSO2, ArenaNet will not be supporting account migration options.
What this means is that if you have an account on ArenaNet, you’re stuck there. You can’t connect your account to Steam, instead, you’re required to make a brand new account via the Steam client – something I know has caused a lot of upset in the community as it just seems ridiculous.
Second, they announced that their next expansion, which is taking us back to Cantha, is actually titled “End of Dragons,” although not much was really shown or detailed during the reveal, including an expected release date.

So New World is having a Preview event held until September 4th, allowing players to log in if they’re pre-ordered the game at some point in the past and test the game completely.
I actually just did a video on this yesterday, where I went over my experience within the game and while I was definitely disappointed – I feel like Amazon have plenty of time to fix issues both Mrs Stix and I had with the game.
This definitely has a target audience that will enjoy the game, as it’s not in any way a bad game, but that audience is definitely not the MMORPG niche as it felt like a survival crafter more than anything else.
If you’re interested, I urge you to head on over and watch my New World video to decide for yourself.

Last week Intrepid Studios, the team behind the upcoming Ashes of Creation MMORPG announced that they were breaking off their partnership with MY.GAMES, who was in charge of publishing the game within Europe.
Intrepid instead have opted to open their own publishing studio within Europe to handle publishing within the region, which while I’m glad to see – as MY.GAMES are terrible, look at Revelation Online and Skyforge, I don’t know how well this will turn out considering this is a smaller indie dev studio we’re talking about here.
Ashes of Creation is still a very, very long way off releasing, as is the way of the indie MMO scene.

This is coming earlier than I’d anticipated. People were assuming “end of December” for the Shadowlands release, but apparently Blizzard just announced yesterday – or, a couple days ago as of this going live, that Shadowlands would be going live on October 27th, 2020.
This means that the pre-patch is going to be hitting the live servers very soon, like it always does ahead of a new expansion.
It’s been a while since we’ve gotten new content, so it’s nice to see that it’s only a short wait between now and then, and both Mrs Stix and I are incredibly excited, so much so that not only will we be starting brand new characters once the pre-patch hits, but we’ll also be leveling those characters on stream. And you guys are more than welcome to join us in-stream and in our new guild as well! We play on Stormrage, FYI.

By now you’re all well aware that Bless Unleashed is also releasing on PS4 under Bandai Namco – which if it’s anything like the Xbox release handled by Bamco won’t really be bad, but also that Neowiz is self-publishing the PC version of the game on Steam.
And that version probably will be, as Bamco actually distanced themselves from the PC release claiming they have “nothing to do with it.” But I digress.
The PC iteration of Bless Unleashed is going into Closed Beta testing next month, and there’s a pre-registration form for players that are interested in testing the game out on PC.
The PC Beta will run for 12 hours on September 26th, and there won’t be any restrictions preventing players from across the glove from participating. Yup – this and likely the full release of the game will feature a full global release.

I did a video covering this a couple days ago, but apparently Jandisoft, the developer behind the upcoming Grim-dark MMORPG Mad World have stated that after being mostly silent throughout the year, they still have an expected release date of 2020.
The game was initially expected to release back in 2018 but suffered quite a few setbacks that ultimately resulted in the game being delayed as long as it has been. There have been a few small updates made over the course of the year, but otherwise I find it interesting that they still expect to release in the next couple months.

Who would’ve thought that Grand Fantasia would continue to receive updates? Because I got some good news for players still active within the game – Gamigo has rolled out a large update that allows players to tackle a brand new dungeon with new bosses, new items and more.
I wasn’t aware that the game was still – well, can we say “actively updated?” Because let’s be honest, yes this is an update, but it’s in no way being “actively updated,” right?

ArenaNet made some waves earlier this week with the announcement that Guild Wars 2 is not only coming to Steam, but by also providing the trailer – or, rather a teaser for their third expansion titled “End of Dragons.”

That’s right, in a post made on their forums, Butterfly Kingdom.8349 made a post stating that Guild Wars 2 is coming to Steam in November 2020. Players will be able to log in through Steam and play alongside non Steam players in both North America and Europe, however to play through Steam you’ll be required to create a brand new account as they will not support account conversions between platforms, unlike Phantasy Star Online 2 and Microsoft/Sega’s release onto the platform.

The third expansion is called “End of Dragons,” although not much was really shown, nor is much regarding the expansion really known at present, including its release date.
Regardless, with these announcements you can bet the community is enthralled with and theory-crafting as I write this up, discussing and contemplating what every small sentence made within the teaser meant.

I’m no stranger to Guild Wars 2. I streamed it what, 3 years ago? 4 years ago back when I started this channel. But I hadn’t touched it since. Until the last month, that is, when Mrs Stix and I decided y’know what? It’s time we jump into it and see how it’s holding up in 2020, going into 2021.
So we began streaming it on Twitch every weekend and we’ve been having an absolute blast so far.
We haven’t had this much fun leveling in an MMO since Final Fantasy XIV, and we’d like to share our experiences with you guys… so let’s do this.

We’ve made it to level 30 so far in Guild Wars 2, and are about to begin running dungeons. Granted, presently we have yet to unlock quite a few features. Gliding, mounts and a lot of end-game features escape us en route to the expansion content, but we’re making steady progress every week towards our goal.
Guild Wars 2 is an incredibly fun journey, providing many opportunities for players to not only work together with one another in scaled content, but also to foster a sense of camaraderie.
The game world utilizes segregated zones, featuring miles and miles of content to explore in each zone – filled with various types of quests, encounters, boss fights, dungeons and jumping puzzles, which are the bane of our existence.
Yes, we really, really suck at jumping puzzles, and have to have a Mesmer follow us around at all times. Lest we never finish one. Or, Mrs Stix does. I’m not terrible, but she is. Although don’t let her know I said that as.. well I’ll be sleeping on the guest bed tonight.
We’re still getting used to the game, coming from years in World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV. It’s a very different beast and we both look forward to spending additional time exploring, leveling and making progress through the world of Tyria.
Hopefully you guys will continue to support us in our journey forward as we continue to not only stream, but do follow-up videos on Guild Wars 2. We’d love to have you!

Developers of Guild Wars 2, ArenaNet, celebrated the power of gaming to bring people together with their Friend/Ships event, asking people to share stories of their online friendships forged in Guild Wars 2, and now the winners of that contest have been announced.

The winners will receive discount merchandise codes, a commissioned portrait of one of their in-game characters and a trip to the ArenaNet studio in Seattle.

Congratulations to the winners! For the official announcement of the contest winners, check the Guild Wars 2 News Post Here.

Some of my closest friends are people I have never met.

Not long ago, proclaiming something like that would have gained me nothing but weird looks and snide comments, but in an age where the internet brings us closer together than ever before, what better place for a gamer to make friends than in the virtual world you call your own? From in-game guild mates to discord community regulars, I’d say that the people who know me online know the real me far better than any of my non-gamer “real life” friends. These are people I a talk to for hours every day, create a community with, fight alongside, and work with, who accept me for who I am and all the flaws I have, and expect nothing from me but to be myself and to heal them.

I’ve known people who have crossed half world to reach the one they fell in love with in an online game, and I know people who open up about their issues to their online friends because no one in their “real” life cared or understood. The world is a much better place when you can surround yourself with so many friends from across the planet, and I’m glad the “real” world is finally realising this.

What about you? Do you think of the friends you’ve made online as “real” friends? Do you know anyone who’s fallen in love online, or gotten married from being in an online relationship through gaming? Leave a comment below!

Starting March 29th the Super Adventure Box event will return to Guild Wars 2, available until April 19th.

The Super Adventure Box is ArenaNet’s tribute to retro 8 bit games of old, and features a great range of platform-style adventures in a colourful 8 bit universe, alongside references and homage to classics like Super Mario and Zelda. Fans of Guild Wars 2’s Jumping Puzzle system should enjoy the content a great deal.

In what everyone can guess is ArenaNet’s 2018 April Fools joke, Seats of Power – the chair sitting expansion, has been teased on Youtube.

April Fools aside, the ability to actually sit in a chair in Guild Wars 2 would be a welcome addition to the game, as currently all a character can do is sit on the floor using an emote action.

[EDIT:] This feature is now integrated in to the game, with “Over 1,400 chairs” now able to be sat on.

As well as the Super Adventure Box and the announced massive technological marvel that is sitting down on things, ArenaNet have rolled out a large list of bug fixes and performance improvements for the game. The full patch notes can be viewed on official Guild Wars 2 Forum Thread Here

And what would a game update be without new things to throw money at? The Istani Isles Mount Skins have been added to the game (I really want the Killer Whale Skimmer!!), the Elonian Beasts dye pack and elusive fan favourites Bunny and Cat Ears have been added back in to the gem store for a limited time. The the full Gem Store announcement, check out the official post Here.

MMORPGs are a social platform. From chatting to monster slaying all the way up to end game raiding, almost all of it is something you will experience with other people.

That’s all fine and dandy when you’re starting a brand new game with a group of friends, but what if you’re hopping in to a game solo?

I’ve tried my hand at many MMORPGs as a lone wolf, from titans of the industry like World of Warcraft, to niche anime titles such as Mabinogi, and pretty much all of them make integrating yourself with the existing community a very daunting task. These hurdles include, but aren’t limited to;

• Barren starting zones totally devoid of players
• Limited resources on maps which you need to compete for
• Lack of chat channels available to new players for socialising
• Hostile veteran communities
• A lack of general guidance without seeking information from third party sources like wikis or fansites
• A general lack of incentive for the existing community to interact with and help newer players

All of these factors and more combined can make being a novice player in an MMORPG quite a lonely experience, even with other new players around you.

Guild Wars 2, I have found, doesn’t suffer from these issues.

Title: Guild Wars 2
Status: Released
Graphics: 3D
Genre: MMORPG/Fantasy
Developer: ArenaNet
Publisher: NCSoft
Playerbase: Large
Official Review: Is Guild Wars 2 Worth Playing?

Guild Wars 2 is a mostly free to play MMORPG (requiring you to purchase additional expansions such as Heart of Thorns and Path of Fire to partake in their content) that is set in a large open-instanced world.

Featuring some of the best storytelling, expansive lore, largest worlds, entertaining action combat and best voice acting in an MMORPG, Guild Wars 2 takes you on an adventure you won’t soon forget.

Operating System: Windows XP SP 2 or newer
CPU: Core 2 Duo 2 GHz, Core i3 OR Athlon 64 X2 or better
RAM: 2 GB RAM
Video Card: GeForce 7800, ATI X1800, or Intel HD 3000
Hard Disk Space: 25 GB available space

Operating System: Mac OS X 10.7.X or later
CPU: Intel Core i5 or better
RAM: 4 GB RAM
Video Card: GeForce 320M, ATI Radeon HD 6630M, Intel HD 3000 or better
Hard Disk Space: 25 GB available space