Despite Arenanet's terrible community management and development promises, GW2 wasn't "just another MMO". It promised and delivered radically new things that were previously foreign to MMOs, like how Living Stories were played out, as well as the healthiest free-market economy I've ever seen in any game - and everyone that's ever seen my posts on the *shudder* Era section about how laughable the economy is, knows how picky I am about them. It went away with features of traditional MMOs like the mob single-drop which is incredibly frustrating in Archeage and other MMOs and encouraged cooperating with strangers if one so wished to do so. Quests have no annoying backtracking, dynamic events actually feel like quests you have to complete and not "Kill 15 rats and return to farmer José!" World vs. World, when played right, is by far the greatest cross-server PvP since Dark Age of Camelot. The thrill of being able to step up and lead a zerg of 40+ players on your server, especially when a lot of tactical and strategical thinking came to play on reset nights - can't find it in any other MMO.

Archeage brought two new features to MMOs - open world housing and the redesigned dynamic class system. While the class system was pretty neat and finally not terribly two-dimensional and linear, it ultimately was wasted due to how poor combat mechanics are in the game. It felt like I was playing a 2D version of Arma 2. Open world housing might as well be instanced since no one gives a **** about your house other than you and guildmates, and it's limited to housing districts. What's "open world" about that? Other than this, it's absolutely no different than your traditional MMO.

I now understand why I've never heard about this game in NA throughout its life in Korea until an NA patch was announced.