Actually, it does. Let me try and sum this up because there's a lot to remember but it's worth knowing if you're interested:
- Experience points can be earned in everything you do. This includes fighting monsters, completing story missions, mining (or in somebody elses case any gathering profession), crafting, exploring a new area, reviving a dead player or npc, competing in pvp, partaking in world events, getting achievements etc.
The thing about this is that it's all balanced out nicely whereas other games that offer this usually offer a severely decreased amount of exp for anything other than questing/killing monsters. I played some pvp for an hour last night and hopped up two levels. It would've taken me that long if I was questing.
- Everybody has a personal story. During character creation you're asked a bunch of questions about your character that shape your story campaign. For instance one question I was asked was 'What did you dream about before being born' (this race of tree-things are born adults but live in this dream place before they mature) and I clicked one of a few options which was a chivalrous green knight. Now my story missions are aimed at taking down this vicious green knight that has been killing civies and is invincible for some reason.
There's dialogue from your character and others, choices to make and from what I've seen the personal story seems to go on for a lonnnng time, though you take those missions as and when you feel ready to take them on.
- It's fun. Coming from WoW, I expect to only play alongside other players if I am running a dungeon or if I reach top level. Straight off the bat in this game as I am walking along the path at level 2 I get a notification that an event is happening nearby. I wander along and sure enough a village is under siege by undead and about 13 players are working together to defend it. I entered the fray and when the mission was complete I got a bunch of experience and karma points, as well as made a friend out of it.
Events are happening ALL the time in this game and Guild Wars 2 doesn't shy away from teamwork. If I revive a random player I come across then I will get points, exp and thanks from the person for it. If I see some guy having trouble with an enemy and I step in to finish it off, I'll get EXP. Just because somebody attacks something first, doesn't mean it's now worthless to you.
- Rather than being given a set of quests, you're given a list of people marked on your map that require help. Head over to them and instead of a quest, you'll get a bunch of things written down that will HELP this person. For instance in the town where the undead attacked, I could 'help' by killing undead in the area, setting up barricades, sparring the watchmen to train them up and also some other things. If I don't want to go out there and grind undead, I can happily do any combination of the other things. My doing a certain number of these things, I gain this person's favor. They'll sell me things I can't get anywhere else and I'll also gain a bunch of exp.
This is your non-personal questing right here. But don't forget, once again, you get exp for EVERYTHING.
- This last point is just something that adds a bunch of variety to this game. I noticed a certain collectible called a vista (think of like an eagle vision spot on Assassin's Creed) way up on a tall rock. I started moving around the rock to find a way up and I did. Except it wasn't a path, it was small rocks and very thin beams of wood going up that required skill, patience and timing to jump to and from in order to reach the top. It took me four tries.
In this game, it doesn't just give you a path and tell you to walk to the end for the next bit. It lets you explore properly by scaling rocks and forests with precision in order to reach the top.
All in all I have got to say that Guild Wars 2 doesn't sit in the MMO pitfall. It doesn't have a subscription and instead allows you to purchase 'gems' which are a kind of currency used to buy special things from sparkly cosmetic pieces to experience boosters. The thing about this, though, is that you can trade your in-game money for gems too, and at a decent rate! I honestly can't see anything wrong with this game other than my inability to play it on HIGH GRAPHICS because it's fucking beautiful. My laptop is cruddy though.