Slashdot Mirror

The prophecies towns and cities are quite empty, but I find that many Eye of the North, Factions towns still have people. And nowadays they have the daily activities stuff which does help the players that are left gather together: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki...

You can play with heroes too. Yes it's often fun to go with some random PUG (even if you fail) but sometimes you just want to try a custom team build. It's like having your own customizable army - and I actually like that part of GW1.

GW2 can't be like GW1 - you can't have a noninstanced MMO with the same skills and mechanics of GW1. That said they didn't even seem to really try that much to the point that to me it seems like it's closer to WoW/SWTOR than GW1.

Yes - still playing the first one. I prefer the game mechanics - not so much of that skill tree and gear grind stuff you get in many other MMOs (including in a way Guild Wars 2).

I find Guild vs Guild fun even when my team loses (as long as I don't make too many stupid mistakes :) ). Just don't take it so seriously like some - after all nobody is handing out huge prizes for winning anymore.

Nowadays there's even a group starting Fort Aspenwood matches at about 10pm EST. But not enough players for round the clock nonstop matches so it's far from a full blown revival.

But who knows - the game is still decent for an 8 year old game, so more old players might come back and maybe a few new players join too.

Maybe there might be more players if Anet sold a more affordable and sane PvP package with full PvP unlock (e.g. you get to play all the PvP matches/missions, no need to grind faction to unlock skills, weapon modifiers etc).
compare: http://www.guildwars.com/produ...
with this:http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/PvP_Access_Kit
https://secure.ncsoft.com/cgi-...
https://secure.ncsoft.com/cgi-...
So getting everything unlocked for PvP will either cost you a fair bit of $$$ or a lot of time.

Or you could go instead play games like TF2 where you only need to spend money for silly hats ;).

They can't easily change GW1 to be what GW2 is like.

They are very different games. Many GW1 players still prefer GW1 to GW2. I'd say the more casual players of MMOs like WoW might like or even prefer GW2.

In GW1 you can go around doing PvE with your private custom army using heroes and mercenaries - which can be fun for some people. You can assign skills to heroes and control them. The gameplay mechanics are different. It can be quite technical too. You can only have 8 skills at a time, but there are hundreds to choose from, and many are very powerful, and a number are pretty interesting in the effects (it's not the boring "heal, big heal" or "fireball, bigger fireball" that are common in many other MMOs[1]). Many GW1 skills would be overpowered in GW2's more massive PvP formats, or they won't work at those scales. So while GW2 is similar to GW1 in that you can only have 9 skills at a time (OK it's more complicated than that but...), the skills have to be different.

GW1 has significant flaws - you can't queue for PvP while doing something else interesting in game. So this causes many PvP formats to die due to lack of players (nobody wants to wait around indefinitely for enough people). The problem is it would not be easy to create such a feature, since the sort of skills you'd bring can differ a lot- different PvP or PvE. And some PvP formats require teams to have builds that work well together - you can't throw a random bunch of people together- if they all turn out to be healers they can't kill anything.

With GW2 there's no real healer class - everyone is responsible for their primary healing. So there's no healer to blame ;).

GW2 encourages players to help each other in PvE. GW1 is neutral to negative in this aspect -you can have your own private army, you don't need to team up with anyone else.

[1] Examples of interesting GW1 skills:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Visions_of_Regret
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Diversion
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Wastrel's_Worry
Use a skill get punished -get damaged or can't use it again for a long time. Don't use a skill get punished too.
Also: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Shield_of_Absorption
The more the target gets hit the less damage the target gets.

They can't easily change GW1 to be what GW2 is like.

They are very different games. Many GW1 players still prefer GW1 to GW2. I'd say the more casual players of MMOs like WoW might like or even prefer GW2.

In GW1 you can go around doing PvE with your private custom army using heroes and mercenaries - which can be fun for some people. You can assign skills to heroes and control them. The gameplay mechanics are different. It can be quite technical too. You can only have 8 skills at a time, but there are hundreds to choose from, and many are very powerful, and a number are pretty interesting in the effects (it's not the boring "heal, big heal" or "fireball, bigger fireball" that are common in many other MMOs[1]). Many GW1 skills would be overpowered in GW2's more massive PvP formats, or they won't work at those scales. So while GW2 is similar to GW1 in that you can only have 9 skills at a time (OK it's more complicated than that but...), the skills have to be different.

GW1 has significant flaws - you can't queue for PvP while doing something else interesting in game. So this causes many PvP formats to die due to lack of players (nobody wants to wait around indefinitely for enough people). The problem is it would not be easy to create such a feature, since the sort of skills you'd bring can differ a lot- different PvP or PvE. And some PvP formats require teams to have builds that work well together - you can't throw a random bunch of people together- if they all turn out to be healers they can't kill anything.

With GW2 there's no real healer class - everyone is responsible for their primary healing. So there's no healer to blame ;).

GW2 encourages players to help each other in PvE. GW1 is neutral to negative in this aspect -you can have your own private army, you don't need to team up with anyone else.

[1] Examples of interesting GW1 skills:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Visions_of_Regret
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Diversion
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Wastrel's_Worry
Use a skill get punished -get damaged or can't use it again for a long time. Don't use a skill get punished too.
Also: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Shield_of_Absorption
The more the target gets hit the less damage the target gets.

They can't easily change GW1 to be what GW2 is like.

They are very different games. Many GW1 players still prefer GW1 to GW2. I'd say the more casual players of MMOs like WoW might like or even prefer GW2.

In GW1 you can go around doing PvE with your private custom army using heroes and mercenaries - which can be fun for some people. You can assign skills to heroes and control them. The gameplay mechanics are different. It can be quite technical too. You can only have 8 skills at a time, but there are hundreds to choose from, and many are very powerful, and a number are pretty interesting in the effects (it's not the boring "heal, big heal" or "fireball, bigger fireball" that are common in many other MMOs[1]). Many GW1 skills would be overpowered in GW2's more massive PvP formats, or they won't work at those scales. So while GW2 is similar to GW1 in that you can only have 9 skills at a time (OK it's more complicated than that but...), the skills have to be different.

GW1 has significant flaws - you can't queue for PvP while doing something else interesting in game. So this causes many PvP formats to die due to lack of players (nobody wants to wait around indefinitely for enough people). The problem is it would not be easy to create such a feature, since the sort of skills you'd bring can differ a lot- different PvP or PvE. And some PvP formats require teams to have builds that work well together - you can't throw a random bunch of people together- if they all turn out to be healers they can't kill anything.

With GW2 there's no real healer class - everyone is responsible for their primary healing. So there's no healer to blame ;).

GW2 encourages players to help each other in PvE. GW1 is neutral to negative in this aspect -you can have your own private army, you don't need to team up with anyone else.

[1] Examples of interesting GW1 skills:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Visions_of_Regret
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Diversion
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Wastrel's_Worry
Use a skill get punished -get damaged or can't use it again for a long time. Don't use a skill get punished too.
Also: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Shield_of_Absorption
The more the target gets hit the less damage the target gets.

They can't easily change GW1 to be what GW2 is like.

They are very different games. Many GW1 players still prefer GW1 to GW2. I'd say the more casual players of MMOs like WoW might like or even prefer GW2.

In GW1 you can go around doing PvE with your private custom army using heroes and mercenaries - which can be fun for some people. You can assign skills to heroes and control them. The gameplay mechanics are different. It can be quite technical too. You can only have 8 skills at a time, but there are hundreds to choose from, and many are very powerful, and a number are pretty interesting in the effects (it's not the boring "heal, big heal" or "fireball, bigger fireball" that are common in many other MMOs[1]). Many GW1 skills would be overpowered in GW2's more massive PvP formats, or they won't work at those scales. So while GW2 is similar to GW1 in that you can only have 9 skills at a time (OK it's more complicated than that but...), the skills have to be different.

GW1 has significant flaws - you can't queue for PvP while doing something else interesting in game. So this causes many PvP formats to die due to lack of players (nobody wants to wait around indefinitely for enough people). The problem is it would not be easy to create such a feature, since the sort of skills you'd bring can differ a lot- different PvP or PvE. And some PvP formats require teams to have builds that work well together - you can't throw a random bunch of people together- if they all turn out to be healers they can't kill anything.

With GW2 there's no real healer class - everyone is responsible for their primary healing. So there's no healer to blame ;).

GW2 encourages players to help each other in PvE. GW1 is neutral to negative in this aspect -you can have your own private army, you don't need to team up with anyone else.

[1] Examples of interesting GW1 skills:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Visions_of_Regret
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Diversion
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Wastrel's_Worry
Use a skill get punished -get damaged or can't use it again for a long time. Don't use a skill get punished too.
Also: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Shield_of_Absorption
The more the target gets hit the less damage the target gets.

The computer game has a retail economy. Many people are making the argument that players should have known that the price was too good to be true and therefore should not have purchased the items.

Speaking of purchasing, how can you buy things which you do not own? Doesn't their ToS have something in there that items have no value and they're not your property and everything is owned by the company?

After looking at their terms of use they specifically state that you don't own the account.

By agreeing to the User Agreement you agree that you do not own either the Master Account or Game Account (collectively, the "Account") you use to access the service, the characters created on the Account and that NC Interactive stores on NC Interactive servers, the items stored on these servers, or any other data from which the servers and accounts are comprised.

and elsewhere:

Members can upload to and create content on our servers in various forms, such as in selections you make and characters and items you create for the Game(s), and in bulletin boards and similar user-to-user areas ("Member Content"). By submitting Member Content to or creating Member Content on any area of the Service, you acknowledge and agree that such Member Content is the sole property of NC Interactive. To the extent that NC Interactive cannot claim exclusive rights in Member Content by operation of law, you hereby grant (or you warrant that the owner of such Member Content has expressly granted) to NC Interactive and its related Game Content Providers a non-exclusive, universal, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, sublicenseable right to exercise all rights of any kind or nature associated with such Member Content, and all ancillary and subsidiary rights thereto, in any languages and media now known or not currently known.

While this behavior is assholish, couldn't it be argued that nothing changed hands?

Well according to: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_2 there is no monthly fee with guild wars 2. There isn't a monthly fee with the first one either.

Jeff Strain formulated it like this: "the team that is best poised to deliver a successful game that is an evolution of WoW is... well, the WoW team".

Oh for Gyala Hatchery if you do the "long/back way" that's even easier than Eternal Grove (in terms of finishing with "Masters"). What you do is run right immediately and ignore the NPCs then go down all the way and clear out all the kurzick stuff (be patient and try not to get swamped). Then clear the kurzick bunch one by one and and make your way back to the NPCs at the start. Then you escort them to the end slowly through the mostly cleared path (some kurz will appear out of nowhere at some parts).

See: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Gyala_Hatchery#Back_way

It's lame of course, but it works :).

so that is how M.O.X is powered.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/M.O.X.

always wondered what it used.

Guild Wars did "stick figures for a day" as a joke on April 1, 2008.

Dude,

you're approaching to this in the worst way possible.

Firstly, all campaigns require 50 EUR (or less, if you buy with discount). Why buy unlock packs when you can have everything you need for slightly more (or less, with discounts) along with all campaign content?

Secondly, to unlock 8 specific skills, you need, in the worst scenario, 10K points in Balthasar faction. This is an hour of enjoyable Jade Quarry play. You don't need to unlock all skills, merely those you wish to use.

Thirdly, for guidance and support of community, there are two important sites to get your started (and save from some common mistakes):
http://wiki.guildwars.com/
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/
http://pvx.wikia.com/

Regards,
Ruemere

Guild Wars: almost no grind, almost no economy, quite a lot of raiding (no massive raiding though - the game is constructed around concept of 8 people in the party), great PvP.

The game is so different from standard grind-and-level-up MMORPG that quite a few people ignore the game. However, once you sink the teeth in, you cannot stop playing (or returning to it).

regards,
ruemere

Actually, it's the Guild Wars Live Team with the nerf bat (Linsey is only one member of that), so you can't blame her for everything - it's not like the Izzy days. I still am waiting for them to make skills like Magnetic Aura and Swirling Aura useful (Magnetic is used in raptor baby farming sometimes, but generally it's awful), but I don't think it'll ever happen. Even my 'in' to ANet isn't much help since he won't talk shop unless we're discussing shader tech (which we do occasionally).

Pretty much all builds run on Mesmer are Cryway based these days, with Visions of Regret, Ineptitude, or Mantra of Recovery as the elite. Real mesmers tend to be preferred because they can fast cast the hex and have more utility skills, but yes, you do see some others standing in as criers. A Visions of Regret mesmer with Sabway (a bunch of necros) can rip through most areas of PvE in HM.

    Sins were heavily nerfed before the PvE/PvP skill split because they destroyed casters in PvP and could even drop warriors. They completely misbalanced Randoms and AB for a while, and could quickly down the Guild Lord as well (so were popular solo or duo gankers in HA and GvG, which kinda defeats the word [ganker = gang killer]).

Well you can "kind of" do stuff like that in Guild Wars.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/%22You_Move_Like_a_Dwarf!%22

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Slippery_Ground

There also used to be this:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/index.php?title=Tease&oldid=935123

But I guess it wasn't popular (or was too annoying, or both ;) ), so it got changed.

And this is funny (and useful):

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/%22I_Meant_to_Do_That!%22

Well you can "kind of" do stuff like that in Guild Wars.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/%22You_Move_Like_a_Dwarf!%22

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Slippery_Ground

There also used to be this:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/index.php?title=Tease&oldid=935123

But I guess it wasn't popular (or was too annoying, or both ;) ), so it got changed.

And this is funny (and useful):

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/%22I_Meant_to_Do_That!%22

Well you can "kind of" do stuff like that in Guild Wars.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/%22You_Move_Like_a_Dwarf!%22

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Slippery_Ground

There also used to be this:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/index.php?title=Tease&oldid=935123

But I guess it wasn't popular (or was too annoying, or both ;) ), so it got changed.

And this is funny (and useful):

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/%22I_Meant_to_Do_That!%22

Well you can "kind of" do stuff like that in Guild Wars.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/%22You_Move_Like_a_Dwarf!%22

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Slippery_Ground

There also used to be this:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/index.php?title=Tease&oldid=935123

But I guess it wasn't popular (or was too annoying, or both ;) ), so it got changed.

And this is funny (and useful):

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/%22I_Meant_to_Do_That!%22

MMOGchart is stuck in yesterday's subscription-based world.

Zero-subs MMOs like Guild Wars have audiences of millions, yet such games don't figure on those charts at all. They're exceedingly popular because the lack of subs puts casual players on a par with hardcore, and you're effectively "subscribed forever". They're cost-effective even when you can play only once every few months, whereas games with monthly subs are extortionate for such players.

And as reported this week, zero-sub episodal MMOs and micro-transaction funded games are all the rage among developers now.

So don't rely too strongly on that chart, as it's a very partial and slanted view. The only really undeniable statistic from it is that WoW is still doing very well.

You can play Guild Wars forever for just the $20 cost of a campaign game pack, since there are no subscriptions to pay.

Each extra campaign (and there are only 3 total) costs you another $20 or less if you want them, but they're optional. And there's also the Eye of the North expansion for a similar amount, but again it's optional. And no subs anywhere.

So the free-of-monthly-subs gaming model has been here for years.

Try Sins of a Solar Empire, one of the best games of the year that has no copy protection.

Is having no copy protection enough to call a game "DRM-free" though? (I'm just asking, wondering which kind of digital restrictions come under "DRM" and which don't.)

For example, Guild Wars has no copy protection, and you can trivially copy it onto all your machines and use any of them at any time, with any GW account (your own, a friends's, or anyone else's), without any re-registration nor any re-enabling required. However, ONCE ONLY you have to register each campaign upgrade you buy as belonging to a specific account (by entering a long key), and it's tied to that account, not to your box.

So does this upgrade-activation by key fall under "DRM", or is the game "DRM-free" because there is no copy protection?

It's just a matter of definition, but we should all be using the same definition for the discussion about "DRM-free games" to make sense.

Guild Wars is not an MMORPG
http://www.guildwars.com/products/guildwars/features/default.php#details

Guild Wars has some similarities to existing MMORPGs
[...]
Rather than labeling Guild Wars an MMORPG, we prefer to call it a CORPG (Competitive Online Role-Playing Game).

Others have pointed out that Guild Wars has had henchmen for hire from the start, but that idea gained an even more striking boost in the 3rd GW campaign, Nightfall --- Heroes.

In the original two campaigns (Profecies, and Factions), you had a choice of one or two henchmen (both male and female) per profession in the game, which at that time had 8 different professions (now 10). Most professions offered only one henchman for hire per town, but the important professions of monk (healer/protection) and warrier provided two henchmen in most places. So, for example, in a town with a maximum teamsize of 8 members which can be either live players or henchmen, you might build a team with 7 henchmen of various kinds plus yourself, or 7 real people plus a henchman to fill the empty slot, or any other combination.

However, those original henchmen had a fixed skill set and a standard AI behaviour which you could not alter, and you could not control their positions either. They simply followed the human team players around, and fought whatever you fought.

When Nightfall came out, the original henchmen remained available, but to them were added customizable Heroes which you earned by completion of special storyline quests. When you complete such a quest, the corresponding Hero is "unlocked", which means that it is available to you in every town or campaign in the game, forever more, and the level of customization is extremely impressive. (Each human player can add up to 3 Heroes to a team, and the mix of players, Heroes and henchmen can be anything you like.)

Not only can you set up the weapons and shields of each of each of your own Heroes, but you can also set up two properties on each of their 5 pieces of armor (insignias and runes, on each of head/chest/arms/legs/feet). Furthermore, while each Hero has a fixed primary profession, you can change the secondary profession of each one at will, and spread the Hero's available attribute points across any of the Hero's skill attributes. Typically you do this just before heading into a fight zone or dungeon, so that your Heroes are most effectively configured for the battle ahead.

In addition to the above, you can configure up each Hero's skills bar with 8 active skills (the same as human players get), chosen from among any of the skills that any of the characters on your account have acquired, in other words thousands of skills once you've played the game for a while. The combination of skill attribute points allocation and set of skills on the skills bar is called a build in GW parlance, and you can can configure such a build in just a couple of seconds, simply by loading a skill template that you stored away earlier, or which another player has given you.

And, the icing on the cake: each Hero recruited has a "control flag" button on the window decoration surrounding the mini-map/radar of its owner, and with a click of that button you can make the corresponding hero go to any spot on the map or terrain and remain there until the control button is unclicked. There is also a general team control flag which any henchmen in your team will obey, and this is also obeyed by your Heroes unless overridden by their individual flags.

Finally, the UI allows the behavioural AI of heroes to be varied a bit as well, by giving them individual attack targets, and also by setting their fight mode to Fight, Guard, or Avoid Combat. And, for the most part, they will each use their 8 chosen skills quite intelligently, often better than players. :-)

This level of customization and control is very powerful, and the balance between control and complexity is quite good. It sounds complex at first, but it takes only a few hours to become quite expert at using the control interface at high speed during the mayhem of battle. And, since the skills deployed by Heroes are ordinary player skills, the competence you acquire with skills on your own characters i

We see unlockable demos in the shareware arena, but I don't think I've ever seen a big title go this route before, and I don't see why it hasn't happened yet.

You mean like Portal, or World of Warcraft, or Guild Wars, or Final Fantasy XI, or City of Heroes, or etc., etc.?

> If a game had no grind, players would lose interest quickly

That is incorrect.

Guild Wars is an example of an online game that has (almost) no grind, and yet is massively popular (millions), and growing.

And GW has (almost) no bots, since there is almost no boring grinding for bots to replace. As a result, the only reason left to run bots in GW is for farming for drops, but it's very rarely done.

So no, you're wrong. WoW (and EverQuest and others) did not need to be designed as time sinks, but they were, simply because that extends the companies' monthly revenues. And now Blizzard deserves to be overrun with Glider-type bots, because the grinding problem is of their own design and making.

The need for grinding is a sign of a very badly designed game. Repetition has no redeeming aspects at all.

In Guild Wars, you can choose the nationality or language of your district when in any town or outpost. This makes it a great game for practicing languages, including far eastern ones.

There are no subscription costs either, just the single fairly low purchase price, although if you became interested in the gaming you'd end up buying the two other campaigns and the expansion as well.

The downside is that games players can't spell for shit, so you'd be learning from very bad teachers. Learning languages via MMO needs some grammar and spell-checking add-ons. :-)

Guild Wars employs this style of gameplay, although there are multiple ways for a lowbie to succeed in high-level content. Strategy, teamplay, and even unconventional things like running (you or somebody in your party makes a mad dash for the end of the instanced area to warp the whole party) mix it up a decent bit.

Still, I like the smallest bit of scaling-to-player in a game. I don't want it to be the core of gameplay, but it really does help smooth out gameplay over a wide range of skill levels.

Has ArenaNet considered just purchasing GuildWiki from Phil (Gravewit)?
Technically, it's not possible for Phil to sell the content of GuildWiki. He doesn't own it. The site contains articles written by hundreds of different people, and each author still holds the copyrights for the articles that he or she wrote. The Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license used by GuildWiki provides certain rights, but selling the content for profit is not a right that's provided by that license. So Phil doesn't own the content and he's not allowed to make a profit by selling it.
Individual contributors still hold the copyrights to their articles and can license them however they wish. Anyone who wrote an article for GuildWiki can choose to also make that article available to another site under another license. That's a choice for contributors to make, but it's not a choice that Phil is legally allowed to make on their behalf.
Has ArenaNet considered leaving the content on Phil's site and just paying his hosting bills?
The content on Phil's site uses the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license, which probably prevents us from using it as a primary source of documentation for our games or building wiki integration into our games, regardless of whether Phil runs the site or we do.
Does Phil earn a living from selling ads on his site, and will ArenaNet be taking that away from him by hosting a wiki with no ads?
When we talked with Phil, he told us that the ads on his site only help to defray some of the costs of running the site, and that he still has to spend a lot of his own money to pay for server hosting and bandwidth. Phil is unfortunately in a position where hosting the Guild Wars wiki can't ever become a profitable business for him, because he is hosting it under the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license that disallows him from making a profit off the site's content. Phil has started building new wiki sites for other games using the Free Document License instead of the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license, so it is possible that his new wikis may become profitable businesses for him. We are very grateful to Phil for everything he has done for Guild Wars; we want to keep his best interests in mind; and we sincerely wish him success in his endeavors.
Can ArenaNet 'fork' the GuildWiki site and use it as a basis for ArenaNet's hosted site?
We don't have the right to do that, and Phil doesn't have the right to do that. Only individual contributors have the right to upload the articles they've written to a different site under a different license.

In the summary it says "they're free to play" as in the game is free too. Game's website

So you didn't pay for the game. Therefore, what things should they have given you when you "paid" for a free game?

It's kind of a neat concept. Imagine WoW where you could pay a dollar to get a good sword.

Speaking of WoW, why should I have to pay every month to play a game that I paid for. Guild Wars is free once you buy the game. And Eve-Online is free for the game, but you pay every month. WoW skrews(sic) you instead.

Guild Wars

No monthly fee, a skill > time spent design, and and very nice graphics even on mid-range systems. You can be as social or solo as you like.

Perhaps blizzard should take a quick peek at http://www.guildwars.com/? It has pretty much what you suggested.

Some of your "next big hit MMO" ideas have already seen the light of day: Guild Wars already has the challenge of "guessing your opponents' load-out" in that you can only have 8 skills/spells in your current arsenal at any one time out of a potential pool of hundreds, so knowing or prediciting what your opponent might have is a big factor in determining the outcome of a particular PvP match.

It's instanced and only massively multiplayer in towns - how is that different than, say, the Battlefield series which is massive only on the "find a game" screen and otherwise instanced? Yes, there are minor differences (a character based find a party and trade stuff view rather than a list), but it's not really massively multiplayer. Speaking of, however, Guild Wars 2 is supposed to be massively multiplayer and support massive areas, shards, and instances and include no monthly fees, but won't be in beta until late 2008 (so I wouldn't expect to see it until Christmas 2008 at best - probably more like March or April 2009).

Oddly enough, this month's PC gamer (May issue released April 3) includes an exclusive preview of the coming expansion pack and GW2.

My predictions:
While graphics cards are getting to the point where there is less and less benefit graphically, don't expect the upgrade parade to die soon - the pipelines are becoming more and more general purpose, and therefore, expect them to be used more and more in physics and environmental effects. Graphics still has a ways to go, as well, because most of the techniques being used still have aliasing and artifacting from pseudo-raytracing estimations. Techniques like subsurface scattering, which give us very realistic skin (non-plastic-y) and water are just starting to make their way out of research and into use.

Less games with years in them - this trend already started, but I predicted it would happen way back in the early 2000s - it just took longer than expected. The problem is you date games that would ordinarily have a good shelf life (e.g. Unreal Tournament 2004).

More of the same - while there are some people still stretching the bounds of games, they are the famous named people - nobody else will be given the money or time to create something like Spore. Everyone else gets imitation and repeated imitation - I wouldn't be surprised to see an Unreal 4, Half Life 3, Elder Scrolls V, etc.

Fewer traditional MMORPGs. While some are highly popular and successful and therefore cash cows, too many have failed, which will make publishers more reluctant to make them. I expect only the big successful franchises to continue (Blizzard, Sony, NCSoft) or ones with huge licenses (e.g. Conan, D&D, LotR) - where Planetside failed, you could probably repackage the game as "Starcraft MMO" and have a complete success. Another possibility is the Anarchy Online model, where free accounts can be had if you accept advertising and paid accounts have none.

I think he's wrong - Fallout 3 can be a success among fanboys, but Bethesda needs to give us characters in the game we care about, which is something Black Isle did a fantastic job of and Bethesda not so good. The only character in Elder Scrolls IV that was vaguely interesting was the king, but he doesn't even last the opening of the game. Characters that I think could be interesting or provide an interesting twist like the female bandits that seduce and rob men and give female characters an opportunity to join them always end the same as the male thread. I'd love to see you able to double-cross the guards, or maybe make the girls realize it's time to move on rather than having to kill them (heck, even the male thread could have had this). Frankly, I find combat resolution to nearly every situation tedious and boring, which is why I like response trees - "I'm the guard, you're all under arrest" leading to combat, or "the guard is on to you and is waiting outside - you've got to get out of here" as another - this may lead to combat with the guard or a stealthy retreat. It doesn't even have to be tree based - if you've been to prison a few times, the guards already look at you as untrustworthy and the thieves should see you as trustworthy (at least for not being a guard). I really was not a fan of the leveled monsters in Oblivion, either - I had to restart 3 times before I had a character "

Flash's absolute hugest problem though is its potential for abuse. Well, I suppose it's not really 'potential' any more. It's REAL. Flashblock for Firefox is an absolute must-have, unless you like being surprised by buzzing mosquitoes and crazy frogs in flash ads. And am I right in thinking that Last Measure used some flash?

Unfortunately, this necessity means that sites that depend heavily on flash look like crap until the user enables all the flash on them.

I know alot of people do call it one, but guildwars isn't a mmorpg. Its not massively multiplayer, you play with fewer people than in counterstrike. Its just like diablo 2, its certainly online, but you are just playing little 8 player instanced missions.

From the official site:
"Rather than labeling Guild Wars an MMORPG, we prefer to call it a CORPG"

If anyone has ever played a game called Guild Wars, it's like the MMORPG equivelant of this. There are soon to be over 1000 skills that can be used (after the October 28th release of the latest update), and the game has so many similarities to Magic the Gathering that they can't be ignored.

Basically, each player can have up to 8 skills in use at a time. You have to pick the skills carefully before battle, and it's important to pick skills that synergize with each other. You form a group of up to 8 players, so 8 players with 8 skills each means you're basically building a Magic deck with a total of 64 cards.

Every skill is an attack, spell, enchantment, or hex. The game focuses on balanced gameplay, with every type of skill having a counter, or sometimes multiple counters. For example, a warrior might have an axe attack skill called "Eviscerate" that will do a lot of damage to you if it hits. An elementalist might bring a skill called "Blinding Flash", which if he casts it on the warrior, will temporarily blind him, causing 90% of his attacks to miss, and therefore countering the damage that would be caused by the "Eviscerate". To make things even more fun/complex, the warrior will have an allied monk on his team, who brings a skill called "Mend condition", which will remove blindness from the warrior, allowing his attacks to hit. This all happens in real-time, with skills having anywhere between 1/4 second and 10 second activation times, so you have to think quickly. The game is really like a fast game of Magic, or speed chess if you will.

One of the things that impresses me the most about Guild Wars is the amount of time that they spend balancing the game and making sure that no one build or set of skills is all powerful. Unbalanced skills make gameplay boring because everyone will bring the most powerful skill and then it's just a question of who has the fastest reflexes. Arenanet, the developer of Guild Wars even hired James Finney, the guy that used to work for Blizzard and made the amazing game Starcraft well balanced, to head up the group that is in charge of balancing all the skills.

Another thing they do to balance things is allow anyone to create a level-20 PVP character (maximum level), and there are no overpowered items, like in WoW. If you want to try a game that is MMORPG-like, but with the balance of a well-crafted card game like MtG, I highly recommend Guild Wars.

Why is Guild Wars not even covered in this chart? Especially, now that they've just sold 2 million copies. Is it because there is no monthly fee to play? I think that is a very stupid metric.

Not every good MMORPG requires a fee to play, but it looks like even if you create an immensely popular game, unless you're bending your customers over and asking them to take it in the ass every month to the tune of $14.95, you don't get listed.

Actually, I'd say that in many ways, Guildwars is World of Diablo, not least because arenanet (the company who produces it) was founded by three ex-blizzard developpers.

And it shows. Some longtime Blizzard members left to form ArenaNet, and to be honest, they're even MORE responsive to their fans than Blizzard, though I suppose this is probably due to the design and smaller scale of Guild Wars compared to something World of Warcraft. But you know your fanbase loves you when they send you a gift basket as congratulations for finishing an expansion they hadn't even played yet.

here you go !!!

here you go !!!

here you go !!!

here you go !!!

I know what you're saying, and I agree with you. I also have a question for you. I'm just curious as to what your opinion is.

How do the following screenshots fare with you? (I realize it's not technically considered an MMORPG, but I'm curious none the less, as the founders are ex-blizzard)

Here they are. Or you can go here for the gallery.

Thanks

I know what you're saying, and I agree with you. I also have a question for you. I'm just curious as to what your opinion is.

How do the following screenshots fare with you? (I realize it's not technically considered an MMORPG, but I'm curious none the less, as the founders are ex-blizzard)

Here they are. Or you can go here for the gallery.

Thanks

I know what you're saying, and I agree with you. I also have a question for you. I'm just curious as to what your opinion is.

How do the following screenshots fare with you? (I realize it's not technically considered an MMORPG, but I'm curious none the less, as the founders are ex-blizzard)

Here they are. Or you can go here for the gallery.

Thanks

That's not the only one missing.. how about Guild Wars? It only won a few awards..

That's not the only one missing.. how about Guild Wars? It only won a few awards..