Borderlands 2 is pissing me off, and I place 100% of the blame on Guild Wars 2.

I was traveling through one of the massive zones in Borderlands 2 when I completed the objectives of a side quest and was instructed to turn the quest in. Remembering the instant gratification of receiving my quest rewards via in-game mail (accessible anywhere) in Guild Wars 2, I despaired when I realized that I would have to travel all the way across the zone to get my prize in Borderlands 2.

Fortunately, both games have fast travel systems. Once again, Guild Wars 2 spoiled me by generously placing several fast travel waypoints all over each of the game’s zones. Borderlands 2 has only one fast travel location in most zones, so there was no fast way for me to get back to the quest giver. I had to walk. Far. While getting shot at by enemies that had respawned throughout the areas I had already cleared. Ugh!

Putting my questing woes aside, I continued playing Borderlands 2, and soon a friend invited me to play some co-op. We killed a few bad guys and soon it was raining loot–which promptly vanished as my friend grabbed it. Unlike Guild Wars 2 (and Diablo III for that matter), which gives each player unique loot so that there is no fighting over drops, Borderlands 2 sticks to the old fashioned free-for-all method. Bring on the loot ninjas! Fastest click gets the spoils! Ugh, again.

We continued playing and came across a challenging group of enemies, which introduced me to the death mechanics in Borderlands 2. When you die, you have a short amount of time to kill an enemy, and if you succeed, you’ll have a second wind and be able to continue the fight with a small amount of health and full shields restored. Fail to do so and you are transported instantly to the most recent checkpoint. In Guild Wars 2, even if you fail to recover, you still remain lifelessly in place and can be revived by nearby players. In the case with my friend in Borderlands 2, my most recent checkpoint was clear across the other side of the zone, and it took me several minutes to catch up to him.

Another friend of mine invited me to play, but our characters were too far apart in level, and I would have been dead weight if I had joined. Yet again, Guild Wars 2 spoiled me with level scaling and a plethora of other features designed to make it easy to play with friends, which Borderlands 2 lacks.

In every way that Guild Wars 2 pushes cooperative gaming and RPG questing forward, Borderlands 2 stubbornly sticks to its old fashioned roots. It still manages to be a great game, with loot addiction driving the core of the gameplay, but there is a lot of room for improvement. I hope that Gearbox Software will take a close at Guild Wars 2 and consider improving and patching Borderlands 2 into today’s age of cooperative gaming and questing without the grind.