By: Abby Ray

While, for obvious reasons, most students dread the end of August, PC gamers had a reason to celebrate. With the start of school came the release of the year’s hottest MMORPG “Guild Wars 2.”

Before delving into the meat of the game, there may be those out there in need of knowing what a MMORPG really is.

A MMORPG is just this: a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game. Sure, it’s a mouthful, but it’s what PC gamers truly crave.

Now, the phrase “massively multiplayer online roleplaying game” means that the game is played online with millions of other people around the world and the story is driven by classic roleplaying game elements. If someone is so inclined, they may group with friends to meet a common goal, or they may go at it alone.

Announced in early 2007, “Guild Wars 2” has been anticipated by fans of the first game for a full five years.

Now, the wait is finally over.

“Guild Wars 2” takes place 250 years after a “Guild Wars” expansion (“Eye of the North”). At this time, five dozing dragons have awakened to wreak havoc across the world of Tyria, where our story takes place. The player, in order to stop the powerful Elder Dragon Zhaitan, must reunite the members of the powerful adventure guild Divinity’s Edge.

To start their adventure, the player must make a character. In “Guild Wars 2.” the player has the option of creating a character from one of five races, each vastly different from the next.

There are the humans (pretty self-explanatory); the charr (the war-hungry race of anthropomorphic feline-like creatures); the asura (the hyper-smart race of dwarf-like people); the norn (the spiritual race of towering human-like people); and the sylvari (the human-like plant people).

As soon as a race is selected, the player is prompted to choose a class from the eight classes available, which are as follows: thief, mesmer, warrior, guardian, ranger, engineer, necromancer and elementalist.

Each class offers the player a unique gameplay experience and all are worth checking out.

With a race and a class selected, the player then goes through the stages of physically building their character (which is a very rich experience, might I add), and the story can then begin.

For all the different races, there is a different personal storyline, which the player must go through in order to reach their final goal. The progression of each storyline is directly affected by choices that the player must make and by decisions made during the late stages of character creation.

This dynamic storyline, which is new to the world of MMORPGs but standard to single player roleplaying games, is one of the many things that allow “Guild Wars 2” to stand out from the rest.

By: Abby Ray

That, and that the game requires no monthly subscriptions to play.

The environments are interactive, immersive and all around beautiful. The music is lovely, too, to say the least. The character models themselves look fantastic as well.

Combat varies greatly from class to class, but there is never a dull moment. Each class has a specific variety of weapons available to them, and with each upgrade or downgrade in weapon type, a whole new set of combat skills becomes available for the player to unlock.

“Guild Wars 2” is constantly changing as the player progresses, and that allows for it to be a fun and immersive game that no PC gamer should miss.