Guild Wars Nightfall: MMORPG.com Review

Stradden

Our own Jeremy Starley takes a look at the stand-alone game, Guild Wars Nightfall.

Everyone's favorite subscription-free MMORPG is back with another new campaign, launched a mere six months after the release of Factions - Guild Wars' Asian-flavored expansion. This time we are visiting the African-themed lands of Elona, and the ride is quite a bit longer. As is the case with the previous expansion, the base game is not required to play, but you won't have access to the material from the original game or Factions unless you own them.

Rather than the ultra-short PVE campaign of Factions, Nightfall treats us to a much longer storyline. In fact, you will most likely hit the level cap - yes, it's still 20 - about one-quarter of the way through the game. As has been said before about Guild Wars, maxing out your level does not indicate the end of your character's growth, but rather the point in his career where it gets interesting.

You can read the review here.

tigris67

awesome! a review for a game I own! ,



With that said I actually really enjoyed the review and thought it was spot on although the score could have been slightly higher.  But anywho I am one of those gamers that took like over a year to finish just prophecies alone and still have countless quests in the campaign to finish.  Therefore nightfall is going to keep me occupied for probably over a year haha. I most likely won't be touching any more expansions for quite some time until I finish this one.

QSatu

I agree with the review.. the game is veery good but community is very bad and it lacks roleplaying. I visit 1 nice forum for over a year.. and unlucly since NFs release all I see is troll troll and whine == it;s sad 'cus those ppl complaing about bad  community and at the same time act as an  idiots >.> On the other had I play GW for almost 2 years and only a few times I had a problem with ppl.. usually I meet those  more 'mature'  =]

jaix

good review...interesting scores however...i think you went a bit too conservative on trying not to upset your base population :-P

Meon

Great review! I do feel that community is bad, but not any worse than in other games. Although the instancing does take away from the community value. In the european english speaking servers, i don't have any problems with half-adolescent idiots.

Spellshaper

Great review. I am playing GW for about 1,5yrs and I agree with you in most things maybe except one... You didnt mention that you can go throught the missions and PvP with your guild and THAT is the best option ;-) But still very good review!

docminus

Interesting review - makes me consider playing GW again.

But I wonder - if the community sucks so badly, and you mainly play with henchmen/heroes, what is the point of it being an MMO?

It's still not the same as playing solo in other MMOs somehow. Dunno.

neuronomad

Played both all but the last campaign in the GW saga.  I am one of those that loved Factions more than Prophecies.  But I still haven't tried NF though I plan on doing so soon.   As far as grouping in GW, I only grouped one time for PVE and that was just to get the gate open pre-searing so I could wander outside the gate.  None the less I loved the first two campaigns.

pureazure

I'd have to say NCSoft have some of the best customer service I have ever seen.



I once sent in a query and got a answer (from a person, not automated) in my inbox 9 minutes later!

Krzy5iu

I think the problem with Customer Service the reviewer had was the lack of GMs, although Guild Wars is rock solid and you rarely need GMs, or any support for that matter.

Tyrranosaur

Great review, I very much agree with your points. In fact, as I've been playing NF and the other two GW campaigns, I have to concede that I almost never interact with other players unless they are friends from out of game, because to be honest I can almost never make any sense of the chat that's going on....there's so much shorthand, slang, and leet speak going on that the general chat is utterly incomprehensible to me.

But dang, these are the best rpgs I've played on the PC, and I enjoy them more than Oblivion, to be honest!

BattleFelon

Sorry Jeremy -while I liked your coverage I really need to disagree with your final score. Most other review sites rated Nightfall in the 8-9 category, with PC Gamer giving it around 90%. You yourself give it 8s and 9s in fun/gameplay/graphics/stability yet give it in the end a dismal 73%, which in most gamers minds does not equal "great game with a few idiots" but rather "failed game that borders on piece of crap."

Roleplaying should only be a deciding factor IF a game is set up to be roleplaying oriented - i.e., DDO or old Star Wars Galaxies. In SWG, you had all kinds of roleplaying opportunities, from acting as an Imperial officer  to smuggling goods out the basement of your cantina. The Guild Wars series was never meant to  be a "roleplaying" game where you take on an online persona - it's at heart an action RPG. At very best, the roleplaying score should have been given about quarter the weight as other scores when determining final score.

I'd also give the community a 5 or 6 - personally I've found even more idiots in WOW.

Crysalis

Well I'd have to say that it was a very fair review and the end score made sense considering the community and actual lack of role playing. As the no-monthly-cost games go this is the end all in that category for sure. I'd have to say that I wasn't a huge fan of the Factions and I've never tried Prophecies but still this game beats them both for sure. The graphics for this game really are amazing even on a 22" wide screen and the dungeons are VERY interactive, a lot more than WoW. And just like the reviewer stated its one of those games you can put down for a while and head back to it and its fun as ever with out worrying about monthly costs.

Once again...a most fair and excellent review.

BattleFelon

Uhmm no. Looking around at other reviews on this site, I found that this review ranks Nightfall on par with Shadowbane and SWG - both terrible to play games that are on the verge of cancellation. 7.3 is just not a fair score for a game that's as fun to play and well-polished as Nightfall.

I also noticed that the WOW review gives community and roleplaying scores of 8 and 9, which is completely ludicrous 2 years into that game. Why doesn't GW score at least a 5 or 6 in community for all the community events ArenaNEt hosts, including the awesome Halloween, 4th of July, and Christmas holday events? How can you say GW has no community when hundreds of thousands of players are online celebrating the return of the Mad Pumpkin King?

Please have some consistency to your reviews - if nobody gets 9 and an 8.5 (which I think is the score for Eve and WOW) is considered perfection, then I can see Nightfall falling in the 7s. But in that case, Shadowbane and the new SWG should be in the 6s. If you are grading how everyone else in the freaking gaming review business do, then a game with great graphics/perfect stability/high fun and replay factor deserves a score in the high 80s.

jaix

I completely agree with you BattleFelon. I guess my obscure reference to the reviewer obviously not wanting to upset the base population (read Eve Online majority) went unnoticed. There is obvious bias to the scoring system no matter how often they say there isn't. Let's just hope at some point and time they'll realize the way to get more users (and therefore more reasons for sponsors to provide  more revenue) is to actually provide balanced coverage and not estrange the other users just because they're not the majority...

rpgmachine

 In the time I spent in Guild Wars back when it was a very young game, I would have agreed with the reviewer that the community was pretty bad.

 However, although I couldn't state what the GW community is like currently, I can't imagine it being worse than the nest of leet kiddies and retards that can be found upon logging into any WoW server.

 The fact that WoW has received a 9 and an 8 in community scores is quite literally hilarious.

Akaraxle

Good review overall, but highly disputable on two areas:

1) Community: a 4 is far too harsh, it's not that bad or that much worse than any other MMORPG's, really. "Community" is also a very fluctuating parameter in addition to not being dependent on the game itself; you can find a bunch of idiots or very helpful people alike, depending on your luck.
The reason why this community appears bad is because of the kind of game it is. It is very easy to fail at Guild Wars: since the game takes actual skill rather than button mashing, it doesn't forgive mistakes but instead punishes them harshly and the bad players stand out. When starting Guild Wars you should find a good guild ASAP, since every player soon realizes that relying on pick-up groups is generally a bad idea.
All this considered I'd give Community 5.5/6, tops.

2) Roleplaying: the game should've gotten a N/A, rather than a low score. Guild Wars is definitely not about roleplaying, although a few players try to do so.

Secrom

Originally posted by Akaraxle

Good review overall, but highly disputable on two areas:1) Community: a 4 is far too harsh, it's not that bad or that much worse than any other MMORPG's, really. "Community" is also a very fluctuating parameter in addition to not being dependent on the game itself; you can find a bunch of idiots or very helpful people alike, depending on your luck.
The reason why this community appears bad is because of the kind of game it is. It is very easy to fail at Guild Wars: since the game takes actual skill rather than button mashing, it doesn't forgive mistakes but instead punishes them harshly and the bad players stand out. When starting Guild Wars you should find a good guild ASAP, since every player soon realizes that relying on pick-up groups is generally a bad idea.
All this considered I'd give Community 5.5/6, tops.2) Roleplaying: the game should've gotten a N/A, rather than a low score. Guild Wars is definitely not about roleplaying, although a few players try to do so.

Or maybe the "Community" category should be reassessed. Maybe consider "Community interaction", as in tools provided to enhance player communication...

You can't blame a game's developer for people's stupidity, can you?

Also, roleplaying... I have yet to see a MMO with real RP value. "Can't roleplay, must grind!"

JelloB2000

So what other games have gotten around 3/4 in community & rpg?
Lets see:
Dark & Light Review
Lineage 2 Re-Review
...thats all of them.

(Only game to ever get lower scores in community and rpg is RYL). WoW having 9(!), well I cant see how comparisons have been made.

hierodule

Originally posted by Akaraxle


Good review overall, but highly disputable on two areas:
1) Community: a 4 is far too harsh, <snip>
2) Roleplaying: the game should've gotten a N/A, rather than a low score. Guild Wars is definitely not about roleplaying, although a few players try to do so.

My sentiments exactly. Overall it was good... but the fabric of the review frayed badly in those two areas...



Sidenote: even if it's not really an RPG, having my PC say stupid, out of character things like "Groovy!" or "I like pie" kills whatever little  atmosphere they tried to create in the PvE game. What's the point of having someone like Jeff Grubb writing for Nightfall then? I mean, I  can't believe he would shoot his own writing like that... well, who knows, but that must be some one else's doing.