Structured PvP (sPvP) in Guild Wars 2 can be a freeing experience for the veteran MMO player. Compared to ArenaNet’s r/evolutionary vision for emergent and events-based gameplay in PvE and World-vs-World (WvW), the sPvP scenarios in Guild Wars 2 follow a more conventional design, which opens up a comfortable but still dynamic diversion for player-vs-player enthusiasts. On the one hand, ArenaNet has been lauded for its intention to shake up the traditional MMO mold as it relates to quest design and player participation in PvE areas. Rather than approaching Guild Wars 2 with the tried, true, and tired formula of centralized quest hubs and kill X, fetch Y activities, the Bellevue-based studio opted for a gameplay design based on dynamic content, wherein adventuring and advancement depend more upon tiered locational events than static quest givers. ArenaNet’s game also highly encourages open grouping, doing away with conventional mob tagging, and incentivizing player collaboration.
Many gamers have labeled Star Wars: The Old Republic a “singleplayer RPG”, but is this truly a fair criticism? What’s the larger issue here? We discuss it all in this week’s SWTOR column!
I’ve had the honor of stewarding this fine community here at MMORPG.com as your community manager for the last three years, and in that time I’ve seen all manner of comments posted on our forums. Working in community, you develop thick skin quickly and learn to resist jumping at the opportunity to respond to some of the more ridiculous statements you’ll inevitably encounter.
Unfortunately, one sort of comment has been nagging at me for going on two years now and I really can’t ignore it (or the subject) any longer. It goes something like this:
“Star Wars: The Old Republic is a singleplayer RPG.”
There are a ton of variations on this comment, but it’s pretty much used both in context when responding to threads about grouping or just as a catch-all criticism about the game whenever someone feels it’s deemed appropriate.
This statement is simply ridiculous, and I’ll explain more in a moment, but the most amusing part of all is that this was being thrown around even before Star Wars: The Old Republic was at all close to being released. You know, when no one really knew either way what the ratio of regular to group content would actually be? In fact, we even used to have a sticky thread dedicated entirely to this ‘discussion’ prior to the game’s launch.