Will Guild Wars 2 Evolve MMO's?

Many MMO's have come along since WoW in an attempt to compete with the beast, but they pretty much all have failed. Some of the bigger releases, such as Warhammer and AION may have managed to pull some players in their direction, but even then, a large portion of those people ended up going back to WoW after a couple months. It's a sad cycle, but compared to other MMO's, WoW just does too many things right. For now anyway.

Aside from Blade & Soul, there's another upcoming MMO that's been in the works for quite a few years now. Guild Wars 2. And yes, it looks AMAZING. Now some people may think "Psh, yeah right. Guild Wars 1 sucked!" I gave part 1 a shot, and I'll admit, I wasn't a huge fan of it. It was decent, but it just didn't hook me. Guild Wars 2, though, has me hooked already.

Combat looks awesome

First off, the combat in Guild Wars 2 looks like a blast! It's a mix between standard MMO controls with action game elements. Players can actually dodge! And no, I don't mean you have a chance to dodge, based on an invisible roll of the dice along with your dodge percentage. There's an actual button that lets you evade. To me, this is a HUGE step in the right direction for how these games should play. Along with that, there's no auto-attacking in Guild Wars 2. Your character will not attack unless you use a skill. Yeah, it'll be a bit less ezmode, sorry. Sadface.

There's five unique races to choose from when making a character. Sylvari are the elf-like, nature loving race. The Norn are proud, shape-shifting brutes. Charr are blood thirsty, dog men who wish to conquer. Asura; very small, magicians and alchemists. And of course, the standard humans.
 

Big Daddy? O_o

So far, four classes have been announced (Ranger, Elementalist, Warrior, and Necromancer), with another four yet to be revealed. Along with the combat requiring players to be more responsive than most MMO's, actually building your character will also require a lot of thought.

Your character will only be allowed to have ten skills equipped at a time. Of these ten, five of them will be preset, depending on both your class, and what weapon you have equipped. The other five, you pick yourself, according to your play style, and if it's going to be anything like Guild Wars 1, there will be plenty of skills to choose from. This feature alone makes customizing your character a lot more fun in my opinion. The possibilities will be endless, and even though I'm sure there will be "cookie-cutter" builds eventually, there will still be a ton of variety in the classes.

The Elementalist has a wide range of spells

Another change to the standard MMO formula is the questing system. From what I've read, quests are replaced by "dynamic events", which randomly happen as you're out and about in the world. Also, depending on how you respond to these events, NPC's will react to you in different ways. Help a farmer fight bandits off his land, and you'll be renowned to him as a hero. Turn your back on the situation, and... who knows? He might become a super-powered demon and try to kill you one day. A bit exaggerated, but you get the point. This system will add a lot to your overall experience as you level up, hopefully making it more fun, rather than a chore.