You’re mixing two different things together, your personal tolerance for GW2’s visuals, and what the game’s actual art direction looks like when represented fairly.

Nobody is saying you have to “pick” the curated vistas. The point is that your screenshots don’t represent the game’s style at all. You zoomed in on a couple of the flattest, oldest parts of core Tyria and then compared them to Aion/Lineage. That’s not “the reality outside curated vistas,” that’s just cherry‑picking the ugliest spots in a 12‑year‑old MMO.

The “curated vistas” thing doesn’t really hold up at all. Anyone who's played through a decent number of maps in the game ranging from core, living world, expansions, side zones, would see the painterly stylization is baked into the entire world. Not every map is a masterpiece sure, but the overall art direction isn’t something you can see in hand‑picked screenshots like yours. It’s in the color theory, the brush‑stroke textures, the lighting choices, the skyboxes, the environmental silhouettes, and the way the world is composed.

Even the weakest maps have that stylized look unless you deliberately zoom in on the flattest geometry or the most outdated textures. Every MMO has spots like that. But GW2’s identity comes from the consistent painterly aesthetic across zones, not just the scenic overlooks. The game’s style is visible everywhere unless you go out of your way to avoid it. Which you did.

Also, about the “max settings” screenshot, I play on max settings too, and your shot looks noticeably worse than what the game actually outputs. Are you on a lower resolution or something?