To someone who doesn’t frequent MMOs, this may sound trivial, but for this decade-long MMO player, it’s nothing short of revolutionary. Gathering nodes for crafting are also on an individual basis, so everyone who runs up to that node can grab it, not just the first person to start chipping away at it. As a result, players are genuinely more cooperative and actually work together, instead of competing with each other.
Instanced content also has some ingenious ways of facilitating people in playing with others. Each of the dungeons has a maximum level, so while a player of any level can still participate in the dungeon, they’ll be temporarily down-leveled. This simply means that you’ll have about the stats, health, and damage of a player of the correct level for the dungeon. Yes, this means you can’t just rush your lower level friends through dungeons, but it also means that you can have a properly fun and challenging experience with your friends, even if they are much lower in level to you! Don’t worry though - the loot drops you get will often still be tailored to your true level, so everyone has the chance to get something that useful to them! Zones in the open world have a similar down-leveling mechanic, so you don’t have to worry about level 80s strolling into your level 15 zone and just one-shotting everything in sight!
I could certainly ramble on and on about Guild Wars 2, but I’ll end on this note: Guild Wars 2 represents one of the best cooperative experiences I’ve ever seen in an MMO. It’s easy to play with friends, and it’s easy to cooperate with strangers as well. MMOs have a long tradition of intentionally or unintentionally encouraging players to have a competitive mindset even in PVE. GW2 seeks to break this school of thought, and I think it does it marvelously.
Are you playing Guild Wars 2? What are some of your favorite co-opportunities that it exhibits?