The highly repetitive game play and level design in Hellgate is in stark contrast to Guild Wars beautifully designed levels. The story line in GW, while less interesting, flows much better.
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That's another one of those expectation things. I was hoping for randomly generated maps in Guild Wars and I found the mission maps extremely tedious because there isn't even any variation in the placement of creatures except for the occasional difference in bosses.
As far as the storyline, I found the inflexible aspect of the missions so intolerable that I never had a chance to experience the storyline. I went through the entire game 3 times without knowing (or caring) about any of the story or the NPCs because I didn't bother doing the missions.
I find the NPCs in Hellgate much more intriguing and, while the storyline was a bit jarring at first, once I got used to the terminology and pace of the game the storyline seemed to flow much better. Of course that could also have something to do with the fact that I have been through the first 3 chapters at least 6 times counting the beta.
Anet's unarguable server superiority is based on the fact that it was designed by the creators of b.net. If only Anet had designed the game servers and Flagship designed the game it would have been perfect.
Of course, that probably would have happened if both groups still worked for Blizzard (as well as a lot more beta testing).
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