A Question for Guild Wars Players

Emloch · August 2010

I was wondering, given that there is no subscription fees, if the game has been well supported over the years and also if there has been any added content since the launch of the game (aside from the purchasable expansions).

I'm curious as Guild Wars 2 is on it's way and it would be nice to have an additional MMO to play and paying monthly subscriptions for several MMO's can be costly.

DeserttFoxx · August 2010

I was having this conversation with my boy, and basically my arguement was, because there is no subscription fee they have more incentive to create unnique innovated content, because the game will be supported by expansion packs, as such they are going to have to keep tehm frequent, and engaging..

If you think about what keeps players playing subscription based MMOs its the time sinks, so devs go out of their way to make cool content, but it requires you to spend days, weeks even months of repeatitive quests and instance runs to aquire them, Guild wars is more about the action, and less about trying to keep the player playing long enough because they need in order to make it to the finish line.

Zeroxin · August 2010

Originally posted by DeserttFoxx
I was having this conversation with my boy, and basically my arguement was, because there is no subscription fee they have more incentive to create unnique innovated content, because the game will be supported by expansion packs, as such they are going to have to keep tehm frequent, and engaging..

If you think about what keeps players playing subscription based MMOs its the time sinks, so devs go out of their way to make cool content, but it requires you to spend days, weeks even months of repeatitive quests and instance runs to aquire them, Guild wars is more about the action, and less about trying to keep the player playing long enough because they need in order to make it to the finish line.

I think it depends on the motive of the developer itself. Does the developer wants to create grind in their F2P game so that you are given reason to purchase XP gain boosts from their online store? or does the developer want to create engaging content so that you roll alts (basically you end up buying extra character slots) and make you become such a fan that you purchase their next expansion? Its all up to them.

In this case Anet seems to be going for the engaging content route and it seems to be serving them well, especially with GW2.

someforumguy · August 2010

Fortunately I never needed support in Guild Wars. But I have to admit that the spamming in chat channels can easily get out of hand. They never seem to have active GM's ingame that deal with it. Or maybe they are there, but just not visible as toon to the players. The trolls just disappear after a while, without anyone knowing if they were banned or just logged out.

EDIT: about adding free content. Yes, they added some features and also content. But nowhere near the amount of P2P MMOs. But I guess that is to be expected.

On the other hand, the events in GW are a lot of fun. I like them more then in other P2P games. Its not the same as new free PVE content, but still nice.

Emloch · August 2010

Originally posted by DeserttFoxx
I was having this conversation with my boy, and basically my arguement was, because there is no subscription fee they have more incentive to create unnique innovated content, because the game will be supported by expansion packs, as such they are going to have to keep tehm frequent, and engaging..

If you think about what keeps players playing subscription based MMOs its the time sinks, so devs go out of their way to make cool content, but it requires you to spend days, weeks even months of repeatitive quests and instance runs to aquire them, Guild wars is more about the action, and less about trying to keep the player playing long enough because they need in order to make it to the finish line.

I understand, concur and thank you for your response. However , respectfully, you didn't answer my question. Aside from the expansions that you purchase, is there any free extra content added regularly (new armor, new weapons new toon model features, quests, items, etc.)?

RawAttitude · August 2010

Originally posted by Emloch

Originally posted by DeserttFoxx

I was having this conversation with my boy, and basically my arguement was, because there is no subscription fee they have more incentive to create unnique innovated content, because the game will be supported by expansion packs, as such they are going to have to keep tehm frequent, and engaging..

If you think about what keeps players playing subscription based MMOs its the time sinks, so devs go out of their way to make cool content, but it requires you to spend days, weeks even months of repeatitive quests and instance runs to aquire them, Guild wars is more about the action, and less about trying to keep the player playing long enough because they need in order to make it to the finish line.

I understand, concur and thank you for your response. However , respectfully, you didn't answer my question. Aside from the expansions that you purchase, is there any free extra content added regularly (new armor, new weapons new toon model features, quests, items, etc.)?

Hardly, they have some new items and quests sometimes but that is only temporarily. Weapons get added sometimes but that is from Weapon Design contests. Almost everything is added by a new campaign/expansion.

athariel · August 2010

Depends. GW is anti-grind. WoW patches may seem big because you grind the same instance 20 times or more for badges/gear, in GW lots of content you do once, maybe second time on higher difficulty and that's it. It depends on the attitude, I have played GW for 3.5 years with some breaks and it's pretty fun as long as you play with friends.

As for ingame support, it is completely inexistant. There are no GMs, because game doesn't need them. There is a report functions for botters, spammers, flamers and such, but do not expect GMs to help you when you are stuck (maptravel helps).

GW's advantage is that you can't compare it to anything else. It's the only B2P game I know, so comparing it to WoW or Aion when it comes to content patches is irrelevant because you pay 3x more for these games. I paid like 180$ total for GW, while for WoW I'd pay 540$ for the same amount of time.

Zeroxin · August 2010

Originally posted by Emloch

Originally posted by DeserttFoxx

I was having this conversation with my boy, and basically my arguement was, because there is no subscription fee they have more incentive to create unnique innovated content, because the game will be supported by expansion packs, as such they are going to have to keep tehm frequent, and engaging..

If you think about what keeps players playing subscription based MMOs its the time sinks, so devs go out of their way to make cool content, but it requires you to spend days, weeks even months of repeatitive quests and instance runs to aquire them, Guild wars is more about the action, and less about trying to keep the player playing long enough because they need in order to make it to the finish line.

I understand, concur and thank you for your response. However , respectfully, you didn't answer my question. Aside from the expansions that you purchase, is there any free extra content added regularly (new armor, new weapons new toon model features, quests, items, etc.)?

A new storyline was added recently to start the connection between GW1 and 2. Its called the Guild Wars beyond series. There were also mission packs for old stories of heroes that are in the lore of Guildwars which can be found in the GW store available for purchase.

With the mission packs they added new weapon skins I believe and there's an interview with the new Lead Designer for GW1 in which he says that he would like to add some more content into areas like GW: Factions because he feels it needs to be expanded and explored more.

Here's the interview if you want to take a closer look at what he said.

MMOExposed · August 2010

I have to say,, being as unbiased as can be,

IMO If you can get P2P mmorpg over GW, than do that.

GW1 is not a mmo. Its more of a RPG that requires Internet to play.

The PvP in Guild Wars is so so. It can be fun sometimes like in GvG battles, but not much out side of that.

ALso another thing about the Myth over GW PvP being balanced, is false. That myth only started when people would compare Vanilla WoW to GW. Since back in Vanilla WoW, PvP was heavily effected by PvE gear, and since GW1 has no Gear Dependence in PvP.

But thats where the illusion ends. Instead of Gear giving the advantage in PvP, the Skill like Card Deck system does, which is the main sell point feature of the game.

What this means, is that, no matter how skilled you may be, you will never beat somebody with a better Action Bar/aka Card Deck, than you.

Which leads to gimmick builds and such. I would rather RP and enjoy my own builds, but I would be at a great disadvantage in PvP and PvE.

Another problem with GW1, is the PvE. Remember I told you, GW1 is NOT A MMO.

Which means it has NO PERSISTENT COMBAT NOR WORLD. The Main Towns are the only persistent areas, but they are basically a 3D chat room, with lots of spam. Most of the Avatars stand around like empty shells.

Also another thing. Since the Whole World in GW1 is basically a big Instanced Dungeon designed to mimic a Zone on a map, that means you would have a lot of Group PvE. But that leads to another problem with GW1's PvE and thats the fact that most players would rather PvE using NPC for party members instead of real players.

Another thing to keep in mind about GW1, is the lack of Progression feel that you get from most other MMORPGs. LvLs in GW1 are easy to get, and feel pointless, same with the Armor. There seems to be little to no values in upgrading armor and Weapons.

There is no traditional Crafting system. So also keep that in mind before getting GW1. If you are the type of person that enjoyed crafting in , lets say "Runescape", than this just isnt for you. The only Crafting, comes to making your Class's Predefined armor sets. Similar to WoW's Badge gear system, but without the diversity in what you can get, since all the armor in the game is Profession oriented. So is the weapons.

Another thing to keep in mind about the PvE, is the lack of a tanking system/mechanics. This means that in most fights, its going to be all over the place, aka a zerg fest. but this could be fun in some cases. But if thats not you cup of tea, then I suggest looking else where.

Oh yeah, before I forget, another problem with GW1's PvP, which is all instanced, is that players can freely leave the PvP group in the middle of battle without consequences. This type of system makes it bad all the other players left behind, because NEW PvP QUEUE'RS CANT TAKE THEIR PLACE AFTER THEY LEAVE THE GROUP.

If you have ever played WoW, you would understand what I mean better, by comparing this system to the BG deserter system. GW1 lacks this system, so players can leave freely without punishment, and at the same time, Players that are in the queue can not join in the game to replace deserters. You would think, after all these years, they would address this issue by now.

Dookz · August 2010

Originally posted by Emloch
I was wondering, given that there is no subscription fees, if the game has been well supported over the years and also if there has been any added content since the launch of the game (aside from the purchasable expansions).

I'm curious as Guild Wars 2 is on it's way and it would be nice to have an additional MMO to play and paying monthly subscriptions for several MMO's can be costly.

To answer the OP. Yes, there were two free content update that I recall. The first one was an add-on pack called Sorrow's Furnace, that you apply from the in-game store for free. You can also download the musical score as well, I think that was free too. The most recent one is the War in Kryta content update which is also free. http://www.guildwars.com/warinkryta/

Guild Wars 1 was big in holiday events. There was a holiday for Easter, St. Patrick's, Thanksgiving?, Chinese New Year, Christmas and Christmas in July, a Dragon Festival in the summer, and Halloween. The biggest of them all is Christmas, Chinese New Year and Halloween with some cities dressed up in their own unique fashion. There are various mini-games/board walk games, racing games, and items that are unique to the event, tickets you can win from games and turn it for some prizes and masks that are different everyear, sometimes different cities give different masks, these are for the Finale event when a holiday figure appears, in the Chinese New year the holiday figure is a celestial animal representing that year (pig, rat,etc) . Also there are holiday-related quests, that sometimes you get ported into an area either by yourself or with a group and battle your way in pve and fight holiday looking monsters.

In Pvp, Snowball fights with various snow skills (like yellow snow, ice fort, jack frost) and combos. In Costume PvP (I think this was Halloween?), you are dressed a certain famous hero with preset skills for the profession combo you chose, and games where you have to collect gifts for the Grentch or the Angel while stopping the other team from scoring points by using snow skill combos......Those were all free.

New PvP arenas had been added with very different rulesets. The arena I liked was when each day, the list of skills you can use in your class combo changes while disabling the rest. So everyday there's always a refreshing tactic. They also added Chests, where you can use balthazaar keys you exchange for balthazaar faction points from pvping. Inside the chest, theres a whole range of items you can acquire, some are super rare like tonics that if you drink it your avatar becomes completely something else (this changes every month) or some nice-looking swords.

There is also a an Arena House that was added. You try to predict the teams or individuals that will win a tournament for in-game prizes.

Sometimes they also hold contest to design capes, come up with boss names or skill combos for pvp, to design weapon skins. The winners get their stuff implemented in the game and recognized.

Not to mention, theres always something to fix or adjust or update wethere it is minor or as big as a series of skill balancing. At one point the UI changed look to apear more streamlined way into the launch.

These were all free and added in the course of the game.

EDIT: Oh and I forgot everyear there are a dozen or so mini-pets everyone can acquire on the day of their character's birthday. Some rare, some uncommon, some common. Each year of your character's brithday is a different collection of mini-pets. By the way these mini-pets along with certain weapons and armors and accomplishment can be placed in your hall of monument which is connected to Guild Wars 2. Your name and all their stuff and accomplishments in the hall of monument will be immortalized from GW1 into GW2.

Kanaxai · August 2010

Originally posted by MMOExposed
I have to say,, being as unbiased as can be,

IMO If you can get P2P mmorpg over GW, than do that.

I disagree.

GW1 is not a mmo. Its more of a RPG that requires Internet to play.

Hmm...since when did MMO not mean "Massively Multiplayer Online"?

The PvP in Guild Wars is so so. It can be fun sometimes like in GvG battles, but not much out side of that.

This is definitely your opinion. A lot of people believe the pvp in guild wars is some of the most fun and balanced.

ALso another thing about the Myth over GW PvP being balanced, is false. That myth only started when people would compare Vanilla WoW to GW. Since back in Vanilla WoW, PvP was heavily effected by PvE gear, and since GW1 has no Gear Dependence in PvP.

The fact there is still absolutely no gear dependence proves that GW pvp is far more balanced than almost every game out there.

But thats where the illusion ends. Instead of Gear giving the advantage in PvP, the Skill like Card Deck system does, which is the main sell point feature of the game.

What this means, is that, no matter how skilled you may be, you will never beat somebody with a better Action Bar/aka Card Deck, than you.

Which leads to gimmick builds and such. I would rather RP and enjoy my own builds, but I would be at a great disadvantage in PvP and PvE.

I disagree. There will always be FotM builds, but what those came to fruition through experimentation. I have created several unique builds only known by me that have absolutely rocked Random Arenas. If you are lazy and only use the builds on pvxwiki, then that is your fault.

Another problem with GW1, is the PvE. Remember I told you, GW1 is NOT A MMO.

Which means it has NO PERSISTENT COMBAT NOR WORLD. The Main Towns are the only persistent areas, but they are basically a 3D chat room, with lots of spam. Most of the Avatars stand around like empty shells.

No comment.

Also another thing. Since the Whole World in GW1 is basically a big Instanced Dungeon designed to mimic a Zone on a map, that means you would have a lot of Group PvE. But that leads to another problem with GW1's PvE and thats the fact that most players would rather PvE using NPC for party members instead of real players.

Do not speak for the entire playerbase. In the early-level missions, they are so easily run with henchmen that it is far more tedious to seek actual players willing to do it, since so many people have passed that content. But towards the ends of campaigns, the missions are absolutely IMPOSSIBLE to run without a full party of people. Most dungeons are impossible to run with just heroes and henchmen as well. So, to say that most players would rather use NPC's is a blatant exaggeration.

Another thing to keep in mind about GW1, is the lack of Progression feel that you get from most other MMORPGs. LvLs in GW1 are easy to get, and feel pointless, same with the Armor. There seems to be little to no values in upgrading armor and Weapons.

A lot of people don't need levels to feel accomplished. You can beat a campaign, or beat it in Hard Mode, or farm titles, or obtain rare skinned weapons. Grinds aren't the only things that yield a feeling of accomplishment.

There is no traditional Crafting system. So also keep that in mind before getting GW1. If you are the type of person that enjoyed crafting in , lets say "Runescape", than this just isnt for you. The only Crafting, comes to making your Class's Predefined armor sets. Similar to WoW's Badge gear system, but without the diversity in what you can get, since all the armor in the game is Profession oriented. So is the weapons.

no comment. Just a feature they decided not to implement.

Another thing to keep in mind about the PvE, is the lack of a tanking system/mechanics. This means that in most fights, its going to be all over the place, aka a zerg fest. but this could be fun in some cases. But if thats not you cup of tea, then I suggest looking else where.

This is true to a certain extent. The use of AoE's and snares are critical to the success of a battle. However, the enemies weren't designed to be tanked by one person. Enemies frequently switch targets, apply debuffs and conditions, and have varying skills. This is to keep the action fast-paced, especially for the healers.

Oh yeah, before I forget, another problem with GW1's PvP, which is all instanced, is that players can freely leave the PvP group in the middle of battle without consequences. This type of system makes it bad all the other players left behind, because NEW PvP QUEUE'RS CANT TAKE THEIR PLACE AFTER THEY LEAVE THE GROUP.

If you have ever played WoW, you would understand what I mean better, by comparing this system to the BG deserter system. GW1 lacks this system, so players can leave freely without punishment, and at the same time, Players that are in the queue can not join in the game to replace deserters. You would think, after all these years, they would address this issue by now.

Absolutely false. You leave once in Random Arenas, nothing. Every subsequent leave after that is increasing dishonorable status. I think after 5 leaves you get a 24 ban from entering pvp. Don't quote me on that though.

This "review" was incredibly subjective and actually offered little factual information about the game. There was even less information that was true. I suggest you stick to playing games rather than reviewing them.

Ramadar · August 2010

Originally posted by Emloch
I was wondering, given that there is no subscription fees, if the game has been well supported over the years and also if there has been any added content since the launch of the game

Yes it has been well supported I been playing since release, and yes they had added some new content. now ANet had said when they announced GW 2 that Eye of the North will be the only expansion and major content for GW and new content won't be frequent nor massive, but the newest content is the War in Kryta which was a shock to me I wasn't expecting anything new for GW at all anymore I like many other vet's are doing just holding out for GW 2 .

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