One of the things I loved doing in World of Warcraft was exploring, especially exploring outside of the zones and into the areas that were not finished yet. Areas like Mount Hyjal, Old Ironforge or Caverns of Time, they were still there before they were open to players and getting in there meant you had to do some platforming and/or some exploits.

Here is a old video showing how to get into Mount Hyjal before it was open and before flying mounts:

I used to jump around a whole lot in WoW, bouncing around Orgrimmar when I was bored or scaling mountains that where designed to keep the player out.

When i later tried Guild Wars for the first time i realized how much I missed jumping, that game has no jumping of any description and there are tons of impenetrable invisible walls. That's one thing that really annoyed me about Guild Wars.

When the details of Guild Wars 2 arose and i heard that you could jump in that game I was instantly more interested, they had fixed some of their past mistakes.

But when tried the beta I they went a step further, they added platforming as a part of the exploring and the level design.

First of there are Vistas, floating spinning maps that you can activate for a short cinematic flyby of the area you are currently in. They are marked on the map, but to reach them you have to do a short jumping puzzle. There is currently 161 vistas in the game.

Here is a video of some vistas:

There is also longer jumping puzzles, with traps, dangerous obstacles and boss events at the end. More penalties if you screw up and more rewards finish it. I didn't have time to find any of them in the beta myself but the videos look damn fun.

Especially this one.

Here is another one:

Anyone know any other MMO’s that does this? Guild Wars 2 looks great in many ways, but this is a big thing i look forward to doing when Guild Wars 2 releases.

EDIT: Between me writing this post and actually posting it, Rock Paper Shotgun posted an article on this subject: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/07/27/arenanet-on-guild-wars-2-as-a-platformer/