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Guild Wars is the best MMO game ever made(IMO)
pingo
Member UncommonPosts: 608
I know that opening up a title like that screams of troll and fanboy, but I will try to give my personal thoughts about it. I hope we can have a mature discussion about if it(GW) deserves to be in the realm of possibilities, and I am looking forward to hear what other games you guys think deserves the spot.
To be fair, I will start out by listing some of the big problems I think Guild Wars have had over the last 4 years. Despite being(in my opinion) the best Online RPG, probably ever(I would rank it higher than Diablo, personally), I feel that there has been things with it that has been poor. Some I think was due to the games pricing, others because it was a new developer making their first game, others because it was a new IP, and others just for flawed gameplay design.
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The big problems with Guild Wars:
1)Guild Wars despite offering, decent character customization, has had problems with the players being able to be uniqe. It's true that there is a great Dye system, and plenty of Hairstyles, faces and skin color combos across the three campaigns, but in terms of particularly armor variations, GW has always been lacking.
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2)A sense of community has always been a problem. Emotes have been there, and a basic chat, but the lack of auction housing, not that great trading capabillities and party search functions, as well as no in-game Mail system, have all been helping in the community not being as good as it could have been. GW does not have Inn's or Taverns for Role players to enjoy themselfs in, and the simply because the way the game was build, it was not very easy to make Machinema videos or other community related things. Furthermore, the lack of subscription fee, made it so that people always(and still to this day) jump in and out. This is good in many ways, but a bad thing is that it makes it harder for an active guild, since GW players probably are more inactive than "traditional" MMORPG players who are "forced" or "encouraged" to get their money worth. so commitment has been less.
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3)Despite preaching casual gameplay for people who don't have lots of time, to really do good in PvP you need to play with a cordinated team, or you simply won't be able to muster in the long run, and it won't be fun. This is where the time dependency came in Guild Wars. It was not a long grind... But this was the bad side of having such a hardcore balanced mathmathically balanced system... You really needed other people to rely on. In other MMOs it's possible to somehow have a good PvP skirmish either in the form of Arena or Duels or just as a lone wolf on a big battleground, without being with a cordinated team. For some players this is a great thing, but it's a contradiction for those players who have 5-10 minutes before dinner. They cant pvp effectively, no matter how good they are.
In my opinion it's a big flaw of Guild Wars. ArenaNets stubboness have still refused to acknowledge any sort of PvP duel system in towns.
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4)Restrictions. While it's of no great importance on the gameplay, small things have always bugged players about guild wars, like Invisible Walls, the lack of a ability to swim or jump, no mounts, no way to have weapons on your back, no auction house. They were small nit picks, that many people were just annoyed at. Nothing big, but little annoyances, that grew bigger during the course of the game. Other things was stuff like no, actual day and night cycle and no weather effects... and of course skill attacks looking similiar and doing almost the same made for some boring skills...
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5)Instancing - Depending on who you are, this is a big or a small thing. For me, I am not bothered by it. To be completely honest, if you look at games like Wow, Conan and Warhammer, so many of them use such a heavy use of instancing(particularly during their end-game) that it has almost reached hypocracy levels to badmouth GW for it's use of it.
Personally I don't really need to see people out of town. It fits my normal MMO habits. players are usually a nusance for me outside of town.. I dont think they add to the immersion as its often some lame players bunny jumping somewhere, or people griefing or zerging or campigng.. I actually like that I have people in town, so I can go to them when I need them. no disturbances during missions. but I know this is a big thing for some players, so i will leave it on the list...
I think these five things are the biggest I can think off. Thinking about them, I have lot of problems with this Guild Wars and always had. But I still think, when everything is said and done, that this game is so much more impressive and fun than any other in the past. I also think this game is incredible misunderstood and misread by so many players. Maybe it's a stiff learning curve, bad torturial or not that helpful of a community, but many people I have talked to about the game have such a wrong idea about it.
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My points of positivity in Guild Wars:
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1)Guild Wars is the most challening Online RPG I have tried, and the hardest and the most rewarding. The AI in Guild Wars is more aggressive than any other I have seen in other games. It reminds me Ninja Gaiden. the harder enemies in Guild Wars, just don't charge you. They ambush you, flank you and outmanuvre you. The level cap of 20 makes sure that no players become divine and just plow through everything like it was easy mode.
The later introduced hard mode was a great introduction and challenge to the game as well. Beating the missions solo with the Heroes and Henchmen, is incredible difficult, and almost impossible for the average gamer, as it requires lots of knowledge of which skills to bring.
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2)Guild Wars is not a second job. Elements like Fast travel(press M and instantly travel to the town you want to go to) makes Guild Wars less of a chore than so many other MMOs. Guild Wars has a big advantage because since there is no monthly fee, ArenaNet has no initiative to slow players down by having them level slow and filling them up with time sinks and money sinks so they will pay for more months of gameplay before eventually nerd rage quitting in despair and frustration of the repetition and catch 22.
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3)the lack of monthly fee have been a god send over these last 4 years. purchased the game once, and no more fees. if one should choose to be interested in their new content, they could buy the other guild wars games, but they didnt have to. they were not forced to. they lvl cap remainded 20, so they were not forced if they wanted to remain competitive to go out and buy.
thats the power of the consumer. we can vote with our wallets. but if you play a MMO you cant really vote with your wallet. you cant choose to keep playing the MMORPG that you are playing, and still say no to keep funding them in their updates, expansions and the ways the game is headed in.
If I play World of Warcraft and I love the game and wanna keep playing it, but I dislike the new expansion I cant say no. I can.. but the consequences will be that my monthly fee will help finanse content that I don't want and that I think will ruin the game for me. furthermore I will be cut off from main elements in the game like end game because the catch 22 carrot on a stick never ending gameplay is maintained... no more end game pvp for me, unless i accept the new expansion and its new quests. I have no choice.
The lack of fee have allowed me in Guild Wars to play without having a guilty conscience for when I needed a break from it. I had it as my main game, I took a break from it, I played it as my side MMORPG while I was playing others. GW was just always there.
you can find threads this forum about people here who claimed that guild wars would shut down after a month. that it was impossible and a scam and that they would start forcing a monthly fee or the company would go bankrupt, or that the game would be unplayable due to bad servers and lag and that the launch of the game would be a disaster.
it was not just the payment model. Guild Wars was a post-WoW game. There was not a single online RPG released post November 2004 that was not marked and affected and measured against WoW. When WoW came out, Warcraft series had already been running for over 10 years, since the original Warcraft was released in 1994. Warcraft had gotten 10 years to build a fanbase, and Blizzard who were Gaming legends and celebrated as perhaps the best developer in the world had hordes of buying their product just because their name was on it.
ArenaNet was a new company. Guild Wars was a new IP with a risky business model. No elves and Orcs, and focus on PvP.. Many people doubted that a pvp focused game could be a success. everyone predicted that the PvE would suck and be an afterthought.
And here they were... Jeff Strain was originally the lead designer on WoW back in the late 90s. There was a splitting of opinions within Blizzard. Some wanted to do the Diablo sequel with a larger online focus, and others wanted to a traditional Everquest style MMO.
Jeff Strain left Blizzard when they shifted focus on to the EQ model. So yes... one of the fathers of Guild Wars, was actually one of the main guys responsible for World of Warcraft in the 1999. Jeff leaves, Mike O'Brian joins. They had lots of experience with creating Battle.Net. They had seen the troubles that had come with Diablo 2, and wanted to try new things. ArenaNet is created in 2000, and for the next 5 years they would plan their strategy to make a different kind of RPG....
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4)outstanding support. for the 4 years I have played this game, I have seen one single server downtime. otherwhise this game has been up and running all the time. no half day long patching bullcrap.. no stupid server restarts. even patching happens in the background while I am playing, and just requires me to log out and log in again. for a game without a fee, this is absolutely fantastic record.
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5) great optimization. this game ran on well on my 800 mhz with a freaking geforce mx 400 back in 2004 at the october event(the threads we made here from back then are still here).
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6)the art design is fantastic, some of the best video game art I have seen in my life.
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7)outstanding music - probably jeremy soules best score of all time, perhaps outside of KOTOR and Morrowinds main-theme.
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8)great interface. the way you can manipulate, alter, hide, remove, re-size and move every single piece of UI is fantastic.
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9)Balance. This is perhaps the most drastic thing about Guild Wars of everything. Everything is toned down. no high damage numbers, no massive overpowered godly weapons or armor that takes ten million years to obtain for the elitistic people who play 15 hours a day. no... a max damage sword in guild wars can be found 2-3 hours into the game. from there it's only tiny modifers that still help, but, its clear that spending time on getting gear is not what will make you good at guild wars.
the cleaver and uniqe design philosophy with only taking 8 skills to battle at a time, combined with the dual class system, gave truth to the saying: "less is more". by restraining players, they were allowed to make any sort of archertype character they ever wanted. any combination of crowd control, tank, dps, aoe, healer, support, debuffer, buffer, or melee variations or ranged variations of all these combined or mingled were possible.
the amount of skills was impressive and became the collecting element of the game. almost like how in pokemon you run around and collect all the pokemon(if you want to), so in guild wars you would run around for hundreds of hours and unlocking the skills for your characters.
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10)great PvE - Besides the challening PvE with fun engaging and truly hardcore AI, guild wars also had actual in-game cinematics, many which had voice acting with the players own characters speaking and supporting party in the background. several players could even vote to skip the cinematic had they seen it before. besides offering normal standard quests like other mmos, guild wars also had many large several hour epic missions that could either be done co-op or with henchmen/heroes.. these had stories, and any varied objectives. there was even secondary optional objectives should the players choose, and a ranking at the end of each mission, allowing people to aim for expert completion.
the pve was also longer and more consistent than anyone could have predicted from the pvp focused nature of the game. all the games litterly have thousands of hours worth of gameplay should the players choose or want to aim for getting all the skills for their characters, or aiming for completing hard mode or getting titles. missions were also always short enough not to force players to spend many hours at a time playing.
to this day GW is still practical to play for me, because it can even run on my netbook when I am at work and have a break, I can quickly do some missions or some quick pvp. I cant think of another MMO that allows me to this accesable drop-in drop-out gamestyle.
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11)Great support from the developer. ArenaNet have to be the best developer I have seen on the planet. I am amazed that they still have community managers engaging with the players in the game, and still doing skill balancing and adding stuff to the game and revising.
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12)support with the sequel, guild wars 2. it really shows that they care about the product and the continued life of guild wars, for when Guild Wars 2 comes out, stuff and accomplishments from Guild Wars 1 will be unlocked, creating a permenent initiative for gw2 players to go back and play Guild Wars 1. It's a great way to keep a healthy population in both games.
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13)guild wars run on one big shard, meaning that everybody is playing in the same world. no seperate servers, with different ladders.. if your the best guild, then your the best guild in the entire world. nobody has your name on a different server either, and you can go to europe, or america to play with whoever you want to. its nice to see that some developers still believe in mmos being global instead of forcing players to play with people from their own region.
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I could go on and on with why I love this game. I think the design is genius and outstanding. there is room here for improvement, and maybe GW2 will fix some of those things, maybe it won't. All I know is that I keep coming back to Guild Wars, and that I have never ever had gotten so much worth out of my money as I have spent on the guild wars games. I love them. Outstanding, and I recommend everyone to give them a shot.
they take a while to get under your skin. it all is monotone in the first couple of hours. but once you get the hang out of great skill combos and making your own uniqe build and your very own class.. then it really takes off.
if you have friends to play with, then that's a great starting point, or to be able to find a good guild.
At the end of the day I think the game is a big success. 6 million copies sold for a new franchise, from a new ip, for a new company with a risky business model in a post WoW world, is great.
But I also think that at the end of the day GW is still in the shadow of WoW. I also think that the e-sport element of GW never really took off like something like Starcraft did. Everything considered GW has done great, but I think the misconception and stereotype of the game is that it's a poor mans MMORPG and that it's simple.
Which I think is nonsense. It's true that it doesnt have the social features or the crafting, but the game is honest about being hardcore 100% combat focused, and it truly excells at that across its teamplay foundation and balance and PvE and massive long story mode and optional solo/group play all the way through. it really also has the best balanced and most rewarding combat system out of any online rpg I have tried. Its so much more than many MMORPGs were you just use a few buttons during the end game.
I have been playing MMOs for a long time now(first one I tried was M59) and while I have never been addicted to any of them, I regret how much time I spent on many of them. Because 95% of them are just time consuming just for the sake giving the developers more monthly fee.. not great games. great single player games wouldnt be fun if the gameplay was copy-pasted for hundreds of hours. could you imagine if half-life took 800 hours to complete? if each section had just copy pasted layers of enemies and similiar looking coridors sprinkled on top of each other...? i think many MMOs would be much better had they been faster and streamlined.
I dont see the reward or good feeling in passing on through a big grind. I think its a waste of time, and not worthy feat of skill. its hard to beat a hard game that takes brains, eye cordination or teamwork.. but just something that just takes a long time for the sake of taking long time? I call that a waste of time, and I regret wasting my time.
That's why I feel so strongly for guild wars. perhaps I love the ideology and design behind Guild Wars more than the game itself even. there is no doubt in my mind that it's the right solution to go about it. life is simply to short.. and there are lots of other great games out there.
I don't personally buy the argument that it justifies playing a meaningless grind game because it takes out from the time they would watch TV. I don't watch tv myself, as I find it boring, and I cant tell other people how to live their lives, but thats just my regret. As I said.. I was never addicted. these games never consumed my life. and yes.. i HAD FANTASTIC times in many of the games I played(UO, SWG, Planetside, WoW, LOTRO, DaOC, Conan and more I dont remember) but I also acknowledge that I also had allot of time when I was just playing through grind, frustration and time sinks and money sinks. the fun is in there.. but its surrounded by not so fun parts.. but the good parts mask it.. its particularly dangerous for optimistic people who focus on the positive. "well its not so fun for the next four hours, but then I will lvl and it will be really fun because i get that new skill and can use that cool helmet i got".
Guild Wars has grind objectives too, in terms of collecting faction standing points and completing for titles.. but the great thing is that these things are optional and wont hinder your progress through to becoming as character stat wise as powerful as you can be.
the rest of it is learning to be good player. actually learning what the over 1000 skills do and how to counter each one of them, and each combination to use them.. thats player skill and tactics and I find that much more interesting, soothing and stimulating to focus on rather than math statistics on the character sheet.
Comments
Guild Wars is not an MMO, otherwise nice review..
Some are probable going to actually take the bait on this one and try to flame away but all I can say is Guild Wars is your favorite game since you think it's the best ever made I'm glad you found such satisfaction.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
Yah Guild wars Is Not really a MMo. It's good but not the best ever it has done a lot right but done some wrongs to. Like you said I played it for sometime then stopped playing it for 2 years or so.
Just want to start off by saying, good luck to anyone who wants to quote the entire OP.
Guild Wars is a well done game, but sadly it didn't keep me entertained more than a month. I only played during the first release, and I just couldn't keep playing because the world didn't seem as open to me. It was way too zoned and just meeting people in the cities and outposts made me feel alone. I tried to play it again a while ago also, and wasn't able to bring myself to playing it again.
The combat of the game was well done, and I like how you have to only pick a few abilities to use before going out to adventure. It made everything seem a lot more strategic, and allowed for people to be a bit more different. I also admit I never tried the pvp aspects of the game so I might have missed out on a lot of fun with that. I am still interested to see how Guild Wars 2 turns out. From what I have read they will have fixed my complaints so I might have to give it a try.
As I mentioned, games like WoW such instancing now in their end game to such a massive level, that it's almost hypocracy to seperate the two. It's simply a question about how much they use it.
Guild Wars has persistent towns and outposts, all character data is logged away on foreign servers and economy is driven by supply and demand, in essence making it player run(even though thats a very shallow way of putting it.. basically the vendor sellers just increase/decrease prices depending on drop consumption and use from players).
Furthermore I wanna pin point that guild wars is running on big unfied shard, where a game like WoW is seperated into many hundreds of individual shards running on their own server. since then there have come cross battlegroups, but its still only a small chunk of people that you are basically competing against, and these are all from your own region.. not that international!? if my name is taken on one server, i just go to a different one. is that massively compared to a game like EVE that is under same one-shard principle? you can walk back and forth with analogies like that...
you have games like Conan and DDO which boosts similiar inter-connecting instancing with MMO that... I honestly thought we were past that.
No, Guild Wars is not a traditional MMORPG(and it doesnt try to be) as it tries to kill many of the very fundaments that are in the genre. but it certainly has some of the traits as seen in MMOs.
MMO games are the only genre of games that are famous for things like persistent worlds and server stored character data. I think these elements take it into a MMO realm.
a few MMORPGs truly allow for thousands of people to interact and play at the same time. I know WoW dont and have seen GMs break up raids and protests in games because of fear of server crash. so what is massively multiplayer anyway? I have tried a Lineage 2 battle with like 1500 people I think... WoW is nothing in comparison. So does that mean WoW is not a MMORPG?
You see my point mate? It's basically just arguing small nit picky semantics about small individual rules which and which not make a game a MMORPG for whatever reason. I sure as hell think its weird when 95% of the acitivitists you do in many MMOs involve heavy use of instancingn(wow being a good example).
but then I will change my statement, to my favorite Online RPG as well. This game has had longer running legs for me now than Diablo 1 and 2 and even Neverwinter Nights(which I also loooooveeeeed)! It's too bad Dragon Age has no online capabillities, but the single player looks amazing!
I think there are perhaps hundreds of thousands of players exactly like you. I completely understand and I agree with you. But if you ever have a friend who wants to play it too, it can be a good way for you to get into it, if you just start out with a few friends.
But I get what you are saying. It really demands something of the user, as there is allot of skill reading, and hunting for the right materials to craft armor. it takes its toil and its not instantly gratifying like WoW for example.
Say what you want about WoW, but the game has such an amazing intro experience. doesnt need any kind of torturial.. even my mother can play that game and understand it. GW is complex, and confusing in comparison. I think many people just give up.. Its not really that fun to read those dry skill descriptions either. its very dry. They need to spice it up for guild wars 2, me thinks.
As I mentioned, games like WoW such instancing now in their end game to such a massive level, that it's almost hypocracy to seperate the two. It's simply a question about how much they use it.
Guild Wars has persistent towns and outposts, all character data is logged away on foreign servers and economy is driven by supply and demand, in essence making it player run(even though thats a very shallow way of putting it.. basically the vendor sellers just increase/decrease prices depending on drop consumption and use from players).
Furthermore I wanna pin point that guild wars is running on big unfied shard, where a game like WoW is seperated into many hundreds of individual shards running on their own server. since then there have come cross battlegroups, but its still only a small chunk of people that you are basically competing against, and these are all from your own region.. not that international!? if my name is taken on one server, i just go to a different one. is that massively compared to a game like EVE that is under same one-shard principle? you can walk back and forth with analogies like that...
you have games like Conan and DDO which boosts similiar inter-connecting instancing with MMO that... I honestly thought we were past that.
No, Guild Wars is not a traditional MMORPG(and it doesnt try to be) as it tries to kill many of the very fundaments that are in the genre. but it certainly has some of the traits as seen in MMOs.
MMO games are the only genre of games that are famous for things like persistent worlds and server stored character data. I think these elements take it into a MMO realm.
a few MMORPGs truly allow for thousands of people to interact and play at the same time. I know WoW dont and have seen GMs break up raids and protests in games because of fear of server crash. so what is massively multiplayer anyway? I have tried a Lineage 2 battle with like 1500 people I think... WoW is nothing in comparison. So does that mean WoW is not a MMORPG?
You see my point mate? It's basically just arguing small nit picky semantics about small individual rules which and which not make a game a MMORPG for whatever reason. I sure as hell think its weird when 95% of the acitivitists you do in many MMOs involve heavy use of instancingn(wow being a good example).
but then I will change my statement, to my favorite Online RPG as well. This game has had longer running legs for me now than Diablo 1 and 2 and even Neverwinter Nights(which I also loooooveeeeed)! It's too bad Dragon Age has no online capabillities, but the single player looks amazing!
Wow has an open world Guildwars has an instanced world. Even the creators of GW"s say this game isn't an mmo. It was never designed to be one. Get over it
Thanks:) I am glad I have it. I truly feel that its just a part of me. I just have this game and I can play it whenever I want without being annoyed at myself for spending obscene amounts of time on it.. and just that I can run it on my netbook! I love it:D
Looking back at it, I wish I had not speculated so much about if the game would be a success or not. I used allot of time and energy thinking about if I should play this instead of WoW, and vice-versa. I thought the two games couldn't co-exsist. that GW would die... It seemed so likely back then.
And thats whats so weird, because everybody expected the other Ex-Blizzard folks(Flagship studios) and their Hellgate London to be the next crowning jewel, and that game failed hard. Very hard.
You are right there.................probably GW is the best Online RPG game together with Diablo (made by the same team by the way)
The problem though is that GW was not a MMORPG, just a multiplayer game with a 3d lobby room (cities)
I finished all the single player content of GW, never really played the online part, it wasn't interesting enough.
So in conclusion your review is spot on except for the fact GW is not a MMORPG, therefore it can't be the best MMORPG sorry.
Arenanet proves my point since the producer of GW2 himself said they learnt from their mistakes and GW2 will have a seamless world, hence it will be a real MMORPG.
So we will talk about this again when GW2 will be released.
As I mentioned, games like WoW such instancing now in their end game to such a massive level, that it's almost hypocracy to seperate the two. It's simply a question about how much they use it.
Guild Wars has persistent towns and outposts, all character data is logged away on foreign servers and economy is driven by supply and demand, in essence making it player run(even though thats a very shallow way of putting it.. basically the vendor sellers just increase/decrease prices depending on drop consumption and use from players).
Furthermore I wanna pin point that guild wars is running on big unfied shard, where a game like WoW is seperated into many hundreds of individual shards running on their own server. since then there have come cross battlegroups, but its still only a small chunk of people that you are basically competing against, and these are all from your own region.. not that international!? if my name is taken on one server, i just go to a different one. is that massively compared to a game like EVE that is under same one-shard principle? you can walk back and forth with analogies like that...
you have games like Conan and DDO which boosts similiar inter-connecting instancing with MMO that... I honestly thought we were past that.
No, Guild Wars is not a traditional MMORPG(and it doesnt try to be) as it tries to kill many of the very fundaments that are in the genre. but it certainly has some of the traits as seen in MMOs.
MMO games are the only genre of games that are famous for things like persistent worlds and server stored character data. I think these elements take it into a MMO realm.
a few MMORPGs truly allow for thousands of people to interact and play at the same time. I know WoW dont and have seen GMs break up raids and protests in games because of fear of server crash. so what is massively multiplayer anyway? I have tried a Lineage 2 battle with like 1500 people I think... WoW is nothing in comparison. So does that mean WoW is not a MMORPG?
You see my point mate? It's basically just arguing small nit picky semantics about small individual rules which and which not make a game a MMORPG for whatever reason. I sure as hell think its weird when 95% of the acitivitists you do in many MMOs involve heavy use of instancingn(wow being a good example).
but then I will change my statement, to my favorite Online RPG as well. This game has had longer running legs for me now than Diablo 1 and 2 and even Neverwinter Nights(which I also loooooveeeeed)! It's too bad Dragon Age has no online capabillities, but the single player looks amazing!
Wow has an open world Guildwars has an instanced world. Even the creators of GW"s say this game isn't an mmo. It was never designed to be one. Get over it
They said they took the best elements from MMORPGs and took away the best parts. Here is a great interview with Jeff Strain where he explains the technology and what persistent world means. Basically its the same thing. when you go into a battleground in WoW its an instance. Guild Wars chooses to do this with all combat areas, were wow has quesitng areas that are also persistent, but it is the same thing. What the discussion is reduced to is basically how much instancing is allowed not to make it a MMO. Conan? Dungeons and Dragons Online?
IGNPC: Speaking of bandwidth, Guild Wars has no monthly fee, which will be more than a little appealing to the masses. Assuming the game sells well, how are you preparing for a possible bandwidth onslaught?
Jeff Strain: We expect Guild Wars to do well and we are looking forward to having a large number of players consuming a great deal of bandwidth. So while we are maximizing bandwidth efficiency to make the game run as economically as possible, we are actually more focused on creating a game experience that allows the game to sell itself. In our opinion, the traditional MMO limits itself by charging a monthly fee and making more profit from a limited number of players. Our commitment is to offer a great game experience without a subscription fee, and we feel that having a larger community will balance our bandwidth costs.
When we decided to create Guild Wars and offer it without a monthly fee, our decision was based on years of developing AAA titles with significant online gameplay. In our view, the most successful way to sell a game is to have people play it and experience the quality of the game. We feel that one of the main obstacles against the wide scale success of online RPGs is the subscription fee associated with massively online games. The fee simply prevents a majority of gamers, of all types and ages, from even trying a game so the subscription fee has negated your best sales tool, the quality of gameplay. It is our opinion that the free online gaming model combined with frequent content updates is the optimum online paradigm for interfacing with consumers and creating a significant, enduring gaming franchise.
Ironically, our preparation to offset bandwidth use and server costs is to create a game that a great number of people can play and enjoy. We feel the larger numbers of players who will purchase Guild Wars will offset bandwidth consumption and online infrastructure.
IGNPC: Guild Wars is supposed to offer a "shardless world"--how is this going to change the MMO experience for gamers?
Jeff Strain: Having an online game divided into shards or servers has created problems for gamers who desire to play with their friends. A challenge that arises is that, after creating your characters on a specific server and investing a significant amount of time progressing in the game, you discover you are unable to play with other friends because they are playing on a different server. Historically, this has been a difficult problem to address without starting over and recreating characters, buying additional accounts or paying a character transfer fee.
In Guild Wars, we wanted to eliminate this situation. An online game fundamentally offers the enjoyment of a social experience with both your friends and people you have never met before. We want to bring people together, to give players the opportunity to play with their friends at any time without hassles.
An additional benefit of a shardless world is that we can offer true worldwide competitions via our arenas and tournaments. With an undivided game world, you can be not just the winner of a certain region or a specific area of the globe; you can be the true world champion.
IGNPC: The game creates a unique instance for each group of players, like Diablo, but it maintains persistent towns. What made you choose this design structure, and how does it work? How does it work from the player's perspective?
Jeff Strain: We are great fans of online games and recognize that they have brought several wonderful features into gaming. We designed Guild Wars to incorporate what we felt were the best of these online gameplay elements while reducing much of the tedium often associated online gameplay. For example, our game design features social areas such as persistent towns for social and trading opportunities, persistent outposts for ease in finding groups for a specific mission and then instanced missions for the quests, allowing you and your group to share a private adventure designed just for a single group.
We created persistent towns because as games ourselves, we know how important it is to be able to meet new people, and to develop friendships, communities and guilds. Therefore Guild Wars offers persistent towns in each region of the world with hundreds of other people running around purchasing supplies, upgrading weapons and armor, training in new skills and so forth.
Forming a party is a significant component of online gaming; if the process is not well designed, it can become a hurdle and prevent you from playing a mission. We specifically created Guild Wars to make forming a party and getting into the game as fast and simple as possible. We have created an outpost specific to each collaborative and competitive mission, so when you want to tackle a specific mission, you simply head to the outpost for that mission and meet up with others, all of whom are there for the same reason. As experienced in our E3 event, this system eliminates time wasted looking for a group and increases your time spent meeting new people and playing the game.
And finally, we believe that the best possible gaming experience is provided via private missions for each team or individual who enters an area. The instanced mission structure allows us to create an experience designed explicitly for you and your group, with a personal story that allows you to experience the impact of your actions. This structure also cuts down on some of the problems with many massive online games, such as kill stealing, spawn camping, and standing in line to kill the boss (payoff) monster. Instanced missions assure that the in-game play style is entirely consensual, that no one is PK'd by a griefer, and that parties are formed and controlled by those directly involved in the missions themselves.
From a player's perspective, it is our belief that players will greatly enjoy the private mission design because it focuses the time you spend in game on what's fun, actually playing the game. The numerous positive comments we received from E3 confirm our design approach, as gamers talked about always having fun, limited downtime, and not being forced to waste time. As we have said before, we want you to spend time having fun, rather than preparing to have fun.
more here. it's great stuff if your interested in the subject: http://pc.ign.com/articles/534/534454p1.html
You are right there.................probably GW is the best Online RPG game together with Diablo (made by the same team by the way)
The problem though is that GW was not a MMORPG, just a multiplayer game with a 3d lobby room (cities)
I finished all the single player content of GW, never really played the online part, it wasn't interesting enough.
So in conclusion your review is spot on except for the fact GW is not a MMORPG, therefore it can't be the best MMORPG sorry.
Arenanet proves my point since the producer of GW2 himself said they learnt from their mistakes and GW2 will have a seamless world, hence it will be a real MMORPG.
So we will talk about this again when GW2 will be released.
I disagree. Your playing online even if you are in an instance. every single drop, piece of data is run online. you can not play guild wars offline. the data is stored on their networks, using their bandwith.
You must not misunderstood the comments about GW2. GW2 will still have use of instancing, as it goes into their core philosophy of game design, but yes, they are aiming to make bigger more seamless worlds, but there will still be instancing. how heavy the use will be, we will have to see though.
Most if not ALL of GW content is easy to solo Blizzards WoW Endgame content cannot be soloed (also im using blizzards WoW sense you want to take sooo many shots at it) GW is like Half MMORPG half Solo Player the PvP is very Online but the PvE content is not actualy you can solo the entire game the only reason you need internet for this game is to PvP and it must save that data if the Design team doesent count it as a MMORPG how are you standing here telling us it is? That is like saying Diablo 2 was a MMORPG it is not it has lobby rooms for you to play with other players but beyond that you dont need them.
Lvl 75 Black Mage/White Mage ffxi
Lvl 80 Druid WoW
Lvl 34 Ranger Aion
You are right there.................probably GW is the best Online RPG game together with Diablo (made by the same team by the way)
The problem though is that GW was not a MMORPG, just a multiplayer game with a 3d lobby room (cities)
I finished all the single player content of GW, never really played the online part, it wasn't interesting enough.
So in conclusion your review is spot on except for the fact GW is not a MMORPG, therefore it can't be the best MMORPG sorry.
Arenanet proves my point since the producer of GW2 himself said they learnt from their mistakes and GW2 will have a seamless world, hence it will be a real MMORPG.
So we will talk about this again when GW2 will be released.
I disagree. Your playing online even if you are in an instance. every single drop, piece of data is run online. you can not play guild wars offline. the data is stored on their networks, using their bandwith.
You must not misunderstood the comments about GW2. GW2 will still have use of instancing, as it goes into their core philosophy of game design, but yes, they are aiming to make bigger more seamless worlds, but there will still be instancing. how heavy the use will be, we will have to see though.
See your wrong the game is just an online rpg. The world isn't open the cities themselves are basically lobbies to go in the individuals personal world. The developers even agree that the game itself isn't an mmorpg. Hell it was never meant to be one to begin with. GW2 however will be an mmorpg.
Lol are you kidding me or are u serious?
)
The fact that technically I was playing online doesn't make any difference, since I was playing the single player content, in the instance was all alone the whole time.
I was playing a single player game on a server instead of my computer.
Also the fact you fail to understand what a seamless world mean makes me think you haven't played many MMO, hence why you consider GW a MMORPG.
Just for your information, EQ2 and AoC have more or as much instances as GW, still they are MMORPGs, while GW is not.
And if you cannot understand the difference between EQ2 and GW, then there is no point arguing with you.
GW is Diablo with a graphic 3D lobby room, and Diablo wasn't a MMORPG (or was it?
Also I never said that GW2 will not be instanced, what I said is it will have a seamless world with instances........just like EQ2 and AoC.
The problem with D2 was that it didnt have the persistent element, and this allowed hacking and dubing to happen!
I find WoW much more easy and less of a challenge that Guild Wars. Particularly in hard mode. The AI is more agressive. Granted I was not a raider in WoW(didn't have time for it) but the solo and 5 man content I tried, I thought were not hard. It's not that I think WoW was "OMG LOL EASY MODE". No I think the it required lots of skill in PvP, but I also thought the PvP was unevenly balanced due to all the factors, and outragous damage modifiers on gear. Skill matters in WoW, but Gear is also very important. particularly for Warrior which I played(and loved!:D ).
I find Guild Wars hard in some instances in the later missions in Factions and Nightfall. when the AI has vicious enemies that rez, and heal each other that fast, you just need to know the specific skills to bring or your toast. I find some of them near impossible to do with human players.
But I wouldnt call myself a skilled 1337 gamerz. I always just played for fun and entertainment! Never strived to be good(and therefore never was:P ).
Lol are you kidding me or are u serious?
)
The fact that technically I was playing online doesn't make any difference, since I was playing the single player content, in the instance was all alone the whole time.
I was playing a single player game on a server instead of my computer.
Also the fact you fail to understand what a seamless world mean makes me think you haven't played many MMO, hence why you consider GW a MMORPG.
Just for your information, EQ2 and AoC have more or as much instances as GW, still they are MMORPGs, while GW is not.
And if you cannot understand the difference between EQ2 and GW, then there is no point arguing with you.
GW is Diablo with a graphic 3D lobby room, and Diablo wasn't a MMORPG (or was it?
Also I never said that GW2 will not be instanced, what I said is it will have a seamless world with instances........just like EQ2 and AoC.
A persistent town is a persistent town? Basically you are saying the same thing is as before, but its the same thing. And GW is under one shard even! All united.. even with Koreans, Chinese and Japanese. Most MMOs have their own individual versions of clients.
In my mind it's the same thing. Yes, you could go over the line and say that WoWs main world - kalimdor is basically one big chatroom like Diablo 2. But that would generalising.
The way I view a persistent world is if things keep going on even though you are not there. basically if you shut down a single player game like Morrowind, nobody is living in the world. the game is shut off. In Guild Wars, in the towns and outposts its exactly like a MMORPG. you log off, and people are still trading and doing activities and so on and so forth.
So I don't see the difference, I am not an expert in server technology though, but I don't think there is any official description of what a MMO is. Surely not doing these times when many normal games mixes MMO elements into other genres(GW being one of them).
EDIT:
Also ste you wrote this;
"I finished all the single player content of GW, never really played the online part, it wasn't interesting enough." It just made me wonder because you can't play without an internet connection. It's the same principle that goes with all other online games.
Normal online RPGs like Neverwinter, Diablo, Titan Quest, Dungeon Siege and so on, dont have persistency. everything is stored is on the owners own computer, nothing is tracked, stacked and followed and put in some server, that in my opinion is a staple of MMORPGs.:)
They sayed it only to create a idea that the game is different from others MMOs(in fact is it but they wanted to give a overhype a marketing, play).
Great list. I might even refer this thread to those interested.
BTW: I mainly call GW a MMORPG to piss off the purists. So sad bunch those people... like it matters what you call it. It's on this site isn't it?
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
The OP said Guild Wars was an MMO. MMO=Massive Multiplayer Online Game. Is it massive? Yes, GW tons of content and areas over the games and expansion. Does it have multiplayer? Yes, it does. Is it online? *gasp* It is! I guess GW is an MMO then. Sorry haters.
Thank you!! Finally someone who gets it.
So, for all of the haters, if I decided to solo quest my way to 80 on WoW, without grouping up a single time, does that make it not an MMO because I chose not to play with other people? No, it still is. Same thing with Guild Wars. Either you choose to do things with other people, or you don't. The beauty of MMORPG's is that you have the ability (in most games) to play by yourself OR with others, which you most definitely do in Guild Wars.
9)Balance. This is perhaps the most drastic thing about Guild Wars of everything. Everything is toned down. no high damage numbers, no massive overpowered godly weapons or armor that takes ten million years to obtain for the elitistic people who play 15 hours a day. no... a max damage sword in guild wars can be found 2-3 hours into the game. from there it's only tiny modifers that still help, but, its clear that spending time on getting gear is not what will make you good at guild wars.
the cleaver and uniqe design philosophy with only taking 8 skills to battle at a time, combined with the dual class system, gave truth to the saying: "less is more". by restraining players, they were allowed to make any sort of archertype character they ever wanted. any combination of crowd control, tank, dps, aoe, healer, support, debuffer, buffer, or melee variations or ranged variations of all these combined or mingled were possible.
the amount of skills was impressive and became the collecting element of the game. almost like how in pokemon you run around and collect all the pokemon(if you want to), so in guild wars you would run around for hundreds of hours and unlocking the skills for your characters.
Guild Wars may have low numbers, but they also have Low HP. So its basically the same as having high hp and high damage. (Same Fractoryal ratio) Iav been Shadow Stepped and Bursted down Instanly in GW. I dont call that Balance. Cause no MMORPG can be 100% Balanced. Even CoRPG cant be 100% balanced. Also the 8skill system, gives players with better builds, advantages over other with gimper builds. (Again Thats not Balance)
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10)great PvE - Besides the challening PvE with fun engaging and truly hardcore AI, guild wars also had actual in-game cinematics, many which had voice acting with the players own characters speaking and supporting party in the background. several players could even vote to skip the cinematic had they seen it before. besides offering normal standard quests like other mmos, guild wars also had many large several hour epic missions that could either be done co-op or with henchmen/heroes.. these had stories, and any varied objectives. there was even secondary optional objectives should the players choose, and a ranking at the end of each mission, allowing people to aim for expert completion.
the pve was also longer and more consistent than anyone could have predicted from the pvp focused nature of the game. all the games litterly have thousands of hours worth of gameplay should the players choose or want to aim for getting all the skills for their characters, or aiming for completing hard mode or getting titles. missions were also always short enough not to force players to spend many hours at a time playing.
to this day GW is still practical to play for me, because it can even run on my netbook when I am at work and have a break, I can quickly do some missions or some quick pvp. I cant think of another MMO that allows me to this accesable drop-in drop-out gamestyle.
PvE in this game SUcked Hard! I cant stand having to wait around town looking for a group to do anything, if I want to play without npc.Cause everybody wants to run with NPC now over RL players. Cant truely Solo at all in this game. The game mimics a MMORPG, but lacks in any Large Scale grouped PvE. The game also Lacks in Character development. Since everything is handed to ya.
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For these 2
When many people of the opposite team focus on you, yeah you are going to be spiked. If you are saying you have gotten bursted down instantly by one person then I'm calling BS on you.
When many people of the opposite team focus on you, yeah you are going to be spiked. If you are saying you have gotten bursted down instantly by one person then I'm calling BS on you.
Shadow Steping Assassin burst Build?
(dam that was a lot)
When many people of the opposite team focus on you, yeah you are going to be spiked. If you are saying you have gotten bursted down instantly by one person then I'm calling BS on you.
Shadow Steping Assassin burst Build?
(dam that was a lot)
I'll go ahead and say that you weren't doing anything to defend yourself once he stepped.
When many people of the opposite team focus on you, yeah you are going to be spiked. If you are saying you have gotten bursted down instantly by one person then I'm calling BS on you.
Shadow Steping Assassin burst Build?
(dam that was a lot)
I'll go ahead and say that you weren't doing anything to defend yourself once he stepped.
Oh wait,,,,,
I can know at all times, when somebody is going to SS to me out of nowhere, and Burst me down. So I can run around at all times with my 8 spell build + 2-3 of the defensive spells needed to counter them, when they randomly show up in PvP.
/roll eyes