What kind of state is the game in these days? I remember playing this years ago but it didn't leave much of an impression, though some of the features (the group events instead of quests, active story) were pretty neat.
The base game maps are pitifully easy, not very fun to play in, look uninspiring, and are ignored by vets. Once you start getting into the expansion maps (HoT onwards), they are more challenging, have more sophisticated event design, look better and are more visually imaginative, and have more people playing them. The HoT expansions maps are the most fun (tougher mobs, multilayered map design, every map has a fun meta event) but some of the later maps are fun too (Dragonfall, Drizzlewood Coast, and Dragon's End are the most popular maps after the HoT maps, mainly due to the meta event).
Starting with the HoT expansion, the devs began adding elite specializations for each class. Basically there are 27 elite specs/classes to choose from. Most of them aren't notable mechanically but you do get some variety in aesthetics so there are probably a few that appeal to you. Soulbeast is a ranger elite spec where he eats his pet to gain its ability, so you're kinda like a druid but you're still running around as a warrior with your sword or bow rather who can use a variety of animal attacks rather than becoming an animal. Untamed has gooey/oozey trap magic, I didn't like it at first (it was hyped up as a beastmaster spec but doesn't deliver on that fantasy) but I've begun warming up to the aesthetic of it and think it's pretty unique. Necromancer and Thief got evil themed heal elite specs that use sand or shadow magic (Scourge and Specter respectively) which is pretty unique for the genre. WoW and FF14 don't have evil themed healing specs or classes yet. Mechanist uses a golem made out of jade infused with magic to fight. Dragonhunter is a bow wielding paladin. Bladesworn is an anime swordsman who can flashstep but wields a gunpowder blade that detonates powder charges to accelerate his blade and dash forward or to blow up his enemy in the face. Etc. Latest expansion allows you to mix and match weapons from any elite spec.
Top row: Bladesworn, Scourge, Dragonhunter. Bottom row: Mechanist, Specter, Untamed.
The base game storyline starts off good (the level 1 to 30 story depends upon which race you pick. Sylvari story is boring but Charr one was engaging for me). The first two seasons are meh and you get saddled with an overall lackluster new cast of characters, also the player character is unvoiced during these two seasons and I didn't realize how much I missed my character's voice until it was gone. Story picks back up again with HoT, as you get more exciting adventure, the more entertaining base game characters are back, and the player character is voiced again, and the story now has a trajectory to follow (fighting the Elder Dragons and guarding the egg). The story continues to be fun as every 2 hours you get to visit a brand new high fantasy location and play through setpieces, some of which were cool. The story climaxes with season 4, which was written to be a soft ending for GW2 as the future of the game's development was in doubt. Then the game got greenlit for a continuation in Icebrood Saga, but then trouble happened behind the scenes that led to layoffs and IBS being aborted. By this point most of the original leads and writers were gone. End of Dragons concluded the story but it feels very disconnected with the rest of the game and does not feel like the resolution the original writers had envisioned, and overall feels inferior to the season 4 finale. Also, my minute-to-minute enjoyment of the story plummeted as you spend more time standing around listening to unlikeable, narcissistic NPCs talk about their feelings rather than running away from boulders or fighting eldritch dragons.
The player character is voice acted during the story, which really adds a lot and helps get you more into the moment. The quality of your voice actor depends upon your race/gender combo. I main male Charr, so we had Ron Yuan at the start and he was fantastic. Then he replaced by Lex Lang in season 3, who started off rough but I began warming up to him and now he's great too, though I think I slightly preferred Ron Yuan's edge. I've played a little bit of the story as a male Asura and he sounds good too, not a grizzled badass like the male Charr but does still feel heroic and confident. I don't know about the other race/gender voices.
Soundtrack quality is overall... fine? I just relistened to the entire GW2 discography outside of the game a couple weeks back. The highlight is definitely the base game's music by Jeremy Soule and his brother Julian Soule. The music after is by a variety of musicians (mainly MacClaine Diemer), and while their hit rate is lower than Soule's, you still get some bangers now and then. Hearing Minions of Kralkatorik while descending upon him during his meta event or Parabellum in EoD got me pumped.
Overall it's a good fantasy adventure game. For $200 ($100 to buy all of the content and then an additional $100 to buy some QoL features and nice skins for your two main mounts), I definitely got more than my money's worth and quite enjoyed the PvE adventure. It's just that once you finally beat the story, there isn't much reason to stick around and keep playing it. There is 5v5 SPvP and WvW zerg PvP, but those game modes have been neglected for many years and their playerbases have dwindled. I haven't played the new mini-expansion yet since I was a little dispirited by how lackluster EoD was compared to prior expansions but I still intend to eventually get around to it.
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