That's nice and all, however the only thing I'm worried about is how endgame dungeons will play out without the trinity.
Instead of having a hyper specialized team, think of it more like a military squad. Everyone has a specialty, but they aren't limited to doing only that one thing. So you might have a marksman, a heavy weapon specialist, and a combat medic, but every one of them can fire a gun, throw a grenade, or dress a wound. They play off each other's specialties, but don't rely on the others do do everything for them.
The same will happen in this game. Guardian has access to a number of defensive and supportive abilities, but he also can deal plenty of damage if he needs to, and apply conditions to enemies. Elementalist seems like a typical glass cannon mage, but he has access to a number of abilities to control enemy movement, evade attacks, and even improve his defensive abilities if he gets engaged directly. What this means is he doesn't have to cower behind a tank, and can instead jump into the fray, so long as he pays attention and keeps himself alive. Rangers can effortlessly switch between ranged combat and melee combat, and be incredibly effective at both.
You can play a mage class in GW2, though. In fact, GW2 gives 90% of the MMO player-base the ability to do exactly what they always wanted to do: do tons of damage and not have to worry about finding healers to enable them to do tons of damage.
Correction: 90% of MMO players want to do nothing but do damage, and have someone else take care of them. In Guild Wars 2, you have to protect and heal yourself or you die. The typical DPS mentaility will lead to a number of deaths and probably more than a few ragequits.
Regardless, I totally understand why GW2 is the way it is, and I'm fine with it. I was a little disappointed at first, but I've come to terms with it fairly quickly (within 12 hours, as you may have seen earlier). In particular, this design setup allows for the very large-scale ungrouped encounters that seem to be on center stage in the game. I think that part is wonderful to see, and I'm glad there exists a game where that's much more easily done. But I just do not buy this "GW2 doesn't let you play the roles you're used to" because it does, as long as it's not a dedicated healer or dedicated tank.
I think there are a lot of ways to deal with the "problem" of 90% of the MMO playerbase not wanting to be a healer or a tank, and GW2's way is one of them. I hope to see other ways in the future too. Meanwhile, I'll find my niche in GW2 and have fun with what's given to me.
And that's absolutely the way to go about it. Again, I wasn't really trying to direct my post at you specifically, but at a sentiment I've seen from a number of MMO players who are very set in their ways.
Actually, I had pretty mixed feelings about the removal of the trinity myself, at least initially. I knew it was flawed, but I thought maybe they could have fixed it a different way. Ultimately, this is how they choose to deal with the problem, and from what I've seen it has worked for them. But I'm definitely not opposed to other games out there who find a different solution. I really hope someone does it. I just don't want people selling Guild Wars 2 short because they chose to make a different game, and thus the exact same strategies don't work.
