Game Review: Guild Wars

[The_Pope]

We review the no-fees MMORPG. With some innovative features, Guild Wars could make some substantial headway. We also take an in-depth look at how the game will utilise high-end graphics cards.

http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/2005/...eview_1/1.html

[Murdoc]

You forgot the link

'doc

[koola]

I pre-ordered GuildWars off Amazon ages ago and I'm glad I did!

This is the best game out at the moment and I have been playing it solid for the last 2 weeks for at least 8 hours a day (Yes, I have no life!). I'm impressed with the latest update seperating the districts into different languages as this makes finding English speaking people for quests easier.

Great game - buy it!

[hughwi]

Nice, i always liked these RPG games... but i never felt myself that attatched to them to pay the monthly fees! This looks awesome ;D

[Da Dego]

It is a great game!

Wil, you missed a few VERY important things in the review...unless you needed it to be one page, these points are important to note for those who are looking at the game:

Leveling up is not nearly as important in this game as in almost any other RPG. In fact, you can only hit level 20, and 10 of those levels can easily come from the tutorial! The key is in finding skills (little rings, you can only wear 8 at a time), and learning how to use them with your character. Think D&D hybridized with Magic: The Gathering, and that's a little of how you level up. It's all about your strategy of what skills you equip going into missions. And since the missions are "sharded" (ie, an instance for each party), you don't have to worry about coming across some 10 year old kid's Lvl 200 character with a pre-teen aggression streak while you're still trying to find something in training. When you level your 'attributes', there's even a very lenient buy-back scheme, so you never have to worry about having built your character all wrong, or having to restart because you don't like what you've done with it.

Also, not quite a loot-whoring game, as your weapons are best with (and your armor only can come as) being customized to you, making NO OTHER PLAYER able to use them, even between your own characters. This is nice as it removes camping, market cornering, and prevents rewarding people who just have nothing better to do than sit around and kill the big monsters earning uber-levels and uber-loot, killing everyone who dares to come near. Now you CAN buy someone's armor and salvage it for upgrade components, a nice feature (this takes all of 2 clicks, by the way!).

Finally, a note on the PvP that was completely overlooked:
Your pvp only characters are all level 20 immediately, but have access to all the skills and weapons you unlocked in the other quest-focused (PvE) part of the game. So everyone goes into PvP on equal footing, except for how much they've played the PvE game. This is a HUGE change compared to all other MMOs. This really rewards skill intead of time spent, and really removes the "n00b factor" (which, to me, is wonderful). And if you don't know how to use the skills you've found, well...all the skills in the game won't save you if you don't know any strategy (the game is VERY well balanced). So you'll still be able to wipe the floor with those pre-teen "j00 n00b! j00 pwned!!!111!!! r0x0r!" schmucks. It's a great feeling....

(EDIT: My apologies to all our pre-teen readers, but if you've ever played Everquest, Eve, World of Warcraft, Ultima Online, or any other game that has been wrecked by these annoyances, you'll understand the generalization...and if you're not one of those, don't take offense .)

[Atomic]

Had to look twice at the thread title, first time I saw

Game Review: Pope Wars

[Bindibadgi]

Originally Posted by Atomic

Game Review: Pope Wars

I'd pay good money to see that.


Guild Wars is a great game, probably the only online game ive played in a long time where i actually enjoy playing with people. I always end up the designated group healer though, which doesnt bother me as my secondary monk skills are considerably better than my elementalist magic.

[Florian]

sports one of the most customisable character generation of any MMORPG

I'm a little disappointed that the review started with such a blatantly wrong statement. Guild Wars' character customization is extremely limited compared to some (even older) MMORPG's.

I've tried MMOs before, and been thoroughly bored by the monotony that appears prevalent.

While I don't disagree with that, it does sound a little like hearsay. Was there nobody with more MMO experience available to review this game?

Finally, Guild Wars is very fun for a MMO, although it does feel more like a regular single/multiplayer game, since most of the time you are in private instances either by yourself or with a handful of other players. The biggest problem seems to be longevity. Guild Wars doesn't have a lot of PVE content (~ 2 months of casual gaming). The first (inevitable) expansion will have to come out fairly soon to satisfy players who don't enjoy PVP.

[Da Dego]

Originally Posted by Florian

Finally, Guild Wars is very fun for a MMO, although it does feel more like a regular single/multiplayer game, since most of the time you are in private instances either by yourself or with a handful of other players. The biggest problem seems to be longevity. Guild Wars doesn't have a lot of PVE content (~ 2 months of casual gaming). The first (inevitable) expansion will have to come out fairly soon to satisfy players who don't enjoy PVP.

Content/quests are being updated regularly by guildwars staff, even before the expansion. So if you go back to the world every month or so, there will always be at least a little new stuff to find. And with over 150 skills per character class, you would have to play each character for a lot longer than that to get the full experience. At the very least, you may play through casually like you said, leave it sit, and come back with a new type of character...just like any other RPG.

Besides, the PvP is such a change from the old styles that most people who didn't like PvP before may find the change refreshing (most people get very sick of getting their rears kicked by a pipsqueak with way too much time on their hands, turns them away from the whole experience).

So, I guess I see what you're saying, but the fault you find ignores the very premise of an RPG, where multiple characters = multiple ways to do the same thing. Add in the ability for a multiplayer party (or just henchmen) and you have replayability for a long way out, far better than for your average FPS, etc.

[orend]

Originally Posted by The_Pope

We review the no-fees MMORPG. With some innovative features, Guild Wars could make some substantial headway. We also take an in-depth look at how the game will utilise high-end graphics cards.

http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/2005/...eview_1/1.html

Why do you keep insiting calling Guild Wars an MMORPG?! Guild Wars is NOT an MMORPG and calling it one is a HUGE mistake. Not only do you show your ignorance in the subject matter, but you mislead potential buyers as well.

Nobody ever claimed MMORPG to be a Massively Multiplayer, as it is NOT. The actual gameplay is limited to small groups in instanced areas; nothing massive about it.

ArenaNet itself doesn't call Guild Wars MMORPG, and has never claimed it to be one! They call it a Competitive Online Roleplaying Game, which is a fair description.

So you categorise Guild Wars as an MMORPG, and then are amazed by the fact it doesn't entail a monthly fee. But since it is NOT an MMORPG, the monthly fee is not granted to begin with!

I think you should stick to reviewing hardware. If you want to review software, please do proper research and don't treat a review like an afterthought.

[Da Dego]

Originally Posted by orend

Why do you keep insiting calling Guild Wars an MMORPG?! Guild Wars is NOT an MMORPG and calling it one is a HUGE mistake. Not only do you show your ignorance in the subject matter, but you mislead potential buyers as well.

Nobody ever claimed MMORPG to be a Massively Multiplayer, as it is NOT. The actual gameplay is limited to small groups in instanced areas; nothing massive about it.

ArenaNet itself doesn't call Guild Wars MMORPG, and has never claimed it to be one! They call it a Competitive Online Roleplaying Game, which is a fair description.

So you categorise Guild Wars as an MMORPG, and then are amazed by the fact it doesn't entail a monthly fee. But since it is NOT an MMORPG, the monthly fee is not granted to begin with!

I think you should stick to reviewing hardware. If you want to review software, please do proper research and don't treat a review like an afterthought.

Ahem:

Is Guild Wars an MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game)?

Guild Wars has some similarities to existing MMORPGs, but it also has some key differences. Like existing MMOs, Guild Wars is played entirely online in a secure hosted environment. Thousands of players inhabit the same virtual world. Players can meet new friends in gathering places like towns and outposts where they form parties and go questing with them. Unlike many MMOs, when players form a party and embark upon a quest in Guild Wars, they get their own private copy of the area where the quest takes place. This design eliminates some of the frustrating gameplay elements commonly associated with MMOs, such as spawn camping, loot stealing, and standing in a queue in order to complete a quest.

Guild Wars takes place in a large virtual world made up of many different zones, and players can walk from one end of the world to the other. In Guild Wars much of the tedium of traveling through the world has been eliminated. Players can instantly return to any safe area (town or outpost) that they have previously visited just by clicking on it in the world overview map.

Rather than labeling Guild Wars an MMORPG, we prefer to call it a CORPG (Competitive Online Role-Playing Game). Guild Wars was designed from the ground up to create the best possible competitive role-playing experience. Success in Guild Wars is always the result of player skill, not time spent playing or the size of one's guild. As characters progress, they acquire a diverse set of skills and items, enabling them to use new strategies in combat. Players can do battle in open arenas or compete in guild-vs-guild warfare or the international tournament. Engaging in combat is always the player's choice, however; there is no player-killing in cooperative areas of the world.

Players in Guild Wars can play with or against players from around the world in the global tournaments and arenas. And while players are initially placed in a region based on their selected language (so that there is a greater likelihood that others will be speaking their language) they can join up in the always-available International District to form parties and to play with anyone from anywhere in the world.

The quote you are referencing is meant to categorize Massive Multiplayer Online experiences into different types, and ArenaNet decided to call their little spot on the hill a CORPG, a subset of the MMORPG.

If you have a particular definition YOU would like to use for MMORPG, that's great! However, for most people, it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck. May have brown feathers instead of white, but it's a duck. You can't play it without online access, and you can't go into towns without encountering other people.

A good addition to your dictionary of terms, perhaps, would be an addendum under ignorant: an adjective to describe someone who believes that only their own definitions are proper and insults others who do not comply to them. Then again, I suppose you could file that under the term "Arrogant Ass."

In the future, you could be a little bit nicer and you probably won't encounter replies like this. There were many ways you could have attempted to rephrase that to something that at least resembled manners.

Thanks!

[Haddy]

Do you still connect to servers to play or is it like p2p co-ops?

As for orend, just becasue the company wants to use a new buzz word doesnt mean thats its not still just a mmorpg. The definition for MMORPG is subject and depends on your personal openion.

If it has multiple players (more than 2), you play online, and its a roleplaying game, its a MMORPG. Now thats jmo and counts for nothing except in my own little world =)

Its one thing to have a difference of openion, but its entirely different to just be blatently hostile. If you dont like the article I think you know where the back button is....

[orend]

Originally Posted by Haddy

Do you still connect to servers to play or is it like p2p co-ops?

As for orend, just becasue the company wants to use a new buzz word doesnt mean thats its not still just a mmorpg. The definition for MMORPG is subject and depends on your personal openion.

If it has multiple players (more than 2), you play online, and its a roleplaying game, its a MMORPG. Now thats jmo and counts for nothing except in my own little world =)

By your definition Diablo II is also an MMORPG. But it's not, you know.

You refer to "multiple" players". Heck, you could play Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights online with more than 2 people (thus "multiple" according to your definition), and they are roleplaying game, but they are NOT MMORPGs. Would you could these MMORPGs as well?

What you miss is that the term is "massively multiplayer". This means that hundreds of people can PLAY together. In Guild Wars that's not possible as all the actual gameplay happens in instances with very small groups.

[orend]

Originally Posted by Da Dego

Ahem:


The quote you are referencing is meant to categorize Massive Multiplayer Online experiences into different types, and ArenaNet decided to call their little spot on the hill a CORPG, a subset of the MMORPG.

If you have a particular definition YOU would like to use for MMORPG, that's great! However, for most people, it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck. May have brown feathers instead of white, but it's a duck. You can't play it without online access, and you can't go into towns without encountering other people.

A good addition to your dictionary of terms, perhaps, would be an addendum under ignorant: an adjective to describe someone who believes that only their own definitions are proper and insults others who do not comply to them. Then again, I suppose you could file that under the term "Arrogant Ass."

In the future, you could be a little bit nicer and you probably won't encounter replies like this. There were many ways you could have attempted to rephrase that to something that at least resembled manners.

Thanks!

Well, for me it does not look like a duck and does not walk like duck. I've been playing MMORPGs since 1997 (Ultima Online), and have played over 10 of them since. Guild Wars does not feel like an MMORPG at all.

Regarding your quote. First of all, I'm aware of it. Second, it means nothing, as AreaNet would NEVER dare to call Guild Wars an MMORPG in reality, because that would bring the wrath of many many people, including gaming industry leaders. Guild Wars is simply an online mutiplayer roleplaying game. It is NOT a massively multiplayer one. Note that "massively" is an adjective coming to describe the type of multiplayer, exactly what Guild War don't have. I can find other quotes, for example Jeff Strain, producer at AreaNet proclaiming: "Guild Wars is not an MMORPG". Google for it, you'll find it.

Imagine Ultima Online: a big seamless fantasy world, where thousands of players can meet each other, adventure together, fight each other solo or in all-out battles. A persistent world where you can build houses and castles on the terrain of the worlds, where you have the thrill of strangers helping you suddenly just when you thought you are going to die. Where you can harvest resources from the trees and mines. Or imagine Star Wars Galaxies, which has all of the above and in addition lets you be the mayor of a city if you want, or being a musician or dancer entertaining people in cantinas. Now, these ARE MMORPGs. They have persistent worlds and deep social (roleplaying) elements. If you categorize Guild Wars as an MMORPG that does not bid well to the genre, as it's such a limited game compared to the above two (and to most of the other games categorized as MMORPGs). It's a castrated version of the original ambitious MMORPG idea.

[:: kna ::]

You're right, maybe we should stick to reviewing hardware because we somewhat mistakenly make a ambigious reference to the genre of a game, which is not clearly clarified because a new label was defined by the makers.

On the offchance we call a branded 'Rotary Tool' a Dremel when it's not produced by Dremel, maybe we ought to stop modding as well?

If you wish the analogy to be more specific (and duck related), we're calling it a bird, but they prefer to call it a Mallard.

Thanks for your feedback, however I feel you're making a mountain out of a molehill.

[orend]

Sorry that my original post was so harsh. It followed a heated discussion on this trivial indeed subject on some other forums, and I came here a bit angried. I should have phrased my gripes in a different way.

In any case, I agree that Guild Wars is a great game, so your score was on-spot.

And talking about molehills, I recommend reading Duncton Wood. Great book.

[Da Dego]

Originally Posted by orend

Sorry that my original post was so harsh. It followed a heated discussion on this trivial indeed subject on some other forums, and I came here a bit angried. I should have phrased my gripes in a different way.

In any case, I agree that Guild Wars is a great game, so your score was on-spot.

And talking about molehills, I recommend reading Duncton Wood. Great book.

Since you're now being much more civil, welcome to the forums!

Different opinions are valued here, so I won't dismiss your original argument. But you mention that the quote I listed means nothing, when it was the backbone of your first argument ("ArenaNet itself doesn't call Guild Wars MMORPG, and has never claimed it to be one! They call it a Competitive Online Roleplaying Game, which is a fair description."). The quote I pulled IS the statement by them directly on their website, so I'd say that means plenty.

It's a different type of MMO. The reason that *I* feel it still qualifies is this:
(1) You must connect to servers each time to play, there is no possible solo instance of it (a shame for me).
(2) You cannot block out the existence of other players 100% of the time, they still exist in cities, etc.
(3) It provides the ability without requiring anything outside of the program to find new, unknown people to adventure with, and by your choosing can be different every time, or none at all.

I see your point about persistent worlds and whatnot, but there is a big difference between GW and Diablo or Neverwinter, too. The biggest one being that when you adventure in those games, you're either with them, starting from scratch and going through the end, or you're restarting somewhere else. My character, records, etc are saved on a server, accessible anywhere, and I can choose to only play a little quest with a random person. For neverwinter, I have to locate people outside the program, decide on servers, meeting times, when we can all play, etc. in order to have any progression. For GW, I can just go to the town and say "Hey, anyone want to do this quest with me?"

So, I guess in some ways, I see what you're saying about parties vs. rescued by strangers and persistent worlds. But I hope you can see that there are at least a lot of MMO-specific things about GW that can justifiably leave it under that title. It may not be the most accurate description, but as Kna said...they called it a bird, it is more specifically a mallard. Because mallards quack instead of sing, swim, etc., there are important differences in that. But it doesn't make it lose the quality of being a bird...still has feathers and wings and the body shape. It may not be a Star Wars or Eve or Ultima, but neither is Everquest or WoW. They're still all MMOs.

[danko9696]

Originally Posted by Da Dego

My character, records, etc are saved on a server, accessible anywhere, and I can choose to only play a little quest with a random person.
[...]
For GW, I can just go to the town and say "Hey, anyone want to do this quest with me?"
[...]
(2) You cannot block out the existence of other players 100% of the time, they still exist in cities, etc.
(3) It provides the ability without requiring anything outside of the program to find new, unknown people to adventure with, and by your choosing can be different every time, or none at all.

Same as Diablo 2. In closed multiplayer, games and characters are saved in Bnet servers, and you play on that servers (in open mplayer you can be the server).

As stated before "Nobody ever claimed MMORPG to be a Massively Multiplayer, as it is NOT. The actual gameplay is limited to small groups in instanced areas; nothing massive about it."

(2) and (3): same as D2 (and D2 all agree is not a MMO). (1): D2 has an offline mode, single player or multiplayer in lan.

MMORPG

M --> MASSIVELY: in gw you can met other players in towns, but actual gameplay is out of them. And 8 players per instance is not massive.
M --> MULTIPLAYER: gw has it
O --> ONLINE: gw is an online game
RPG --> I think all agree with gw being an rpg.


I believe you think about GW being a MMO because you played NWN. But I played NWN and D2, and I think GW is way near D2 than any other online game. Chat rooms in D2 are replaced by towns, where you can trade (you cannot trade in chat rooms in D2). But real gameplay in GW is not trading but doing missions and quests (in PVE), and is limited to 8 players.

Anyway I think GW is the best online game on the market if you consider about it has the best PVP (if you don´t like massive battles like those in wow and lineages). I would play gw even if wow or lineages2 wouldn´t have fee.


PD: search in www.wikipedia.com for both ´guild wars´ and ´MMORPG´

[Firehed]

oh dear, someone didn't realize that we decided we really don't care, and went back in time two weeks to do it.

[banzaroo]

Is it illegal to look at bug sites? Does ArenaNet have any sort of code that can track if I am reading an exploit and dupe site for Guild Wars out of personal curiousity? I do not plan on cheating any, I just came across a site with some GW exploits and clicked it just to see what was on the other side.

MOD EDIT: No need to link it thank you. Also, unlikely you stumbled across it as it's your own site you were pimping. This is against forum rules.