This takes me back...

as someone who plays both gw2 and ffxiv I can't imagine describing shadow of the mad king to someone who plays xiv only. halloween in xiv is like here's a silly little sidequest that gives you some glam armor or a minion, maybe an emote if we're feeling like mixing it up this year. and then gw2's like here's a maze that we run around for hours on end killing the same mobs over and over to get trick or treat bags and candy corn. these are some of the best items for flipping on the market for profit and you can make hundreds of gold in a handful of hours. every so often everyone in the maze stops to kill a skeleton with a chainsaw the players have named steve. it's considered good etiquette to be under-geared so enemies die slower and everyone gets a chance to tag for loot. here's a jumping puzzle that only takes a couple minutes to complete but even veteran players struggle with it. in lore halloween started because a human king went insane and killed his family and then was executed by his subjects. he is now a minor deity and comes to the mortal realm to play simon says. his greatest adversary is a flamboyant zombie dictator that you killed years ago but the king's minions created a fake version of him because the king was depressed.

guild wars is an insane setting because it's a normal fantasy world but also the closest elf analogue that exists is humanity. what people would at first glance assume to be ""elves"" are actually just vaguely humanoid plant monsters made to serve an unbelievably ancient god-dragon that's also a living jungle and also all of the plant people are at maximum 25 years old because their entire species are basically collectively babies in terms of how long they've existed in-universe. also the orcs are giant cat people. the gnomes are rats. the dwarves are normal but also they're steadily going extinct and also all living rock people now. nobody even knows what a horse is

guild wars 2 is a homoerotic dress up game with occasional combat elements sprinkled in