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Guild Wars Ramps Up To E3, Previewed Effusively
Thanks to GameSpot for its hands-on impressions of ArenaNet/NCSoft's online PC RPG, Guild Wars, a subscription-free title that's previously received positive press. The preview explains that "the game relies on a skill-based system that's reminiscent of the card game Magic: The Gathering. You can collect and earn a wide variety of powerful skills and abilities, but... you'll be allowed to select only eight of them to take into battle", meaning that "a relatively new player will have a chance against seasoned veterans." It's also noted: "One of the most surprising aspects of Guild Wars is that the entire game will download to your computer while you play it", with only a "small executable program, about 90 kilobytes in size" needed - this is shown by the official download page for the E3 For Everyone alpha demo event, explained thus: "From May 12 through 14, while Guild Wars is being demonstrated on the E3 show floor, players from around the world will be able to play the same experience over the Internet."
This is correct. You can be invited into a new area without buying the expansion, but you cannot initiate that mission yourself if you havn't purchased it. Very interesting idea.
Something else to keep in mind, it is PVP, but it's all consentual. If you don't want to PVP, don't enter a PVP map. PVP is different from traditional MMO's, in that normal missions only have the people you are grouped with in it. You can't be attacked by other players while crawling a dungeon, cuase it's instanced. Noone else is in the dungeon but your party. There are competitive PVP "missions" that pit willing contestants against each other in a variety of settings. (ladder, Free for all, King of the Hill, etc) It's an iteresting mix of persistant and instanced play styles.