Guild Wars Gone Gold, Previewed

Guild Wars, the first offering from NCSoft subsidiary ArenaNet, has gone gold. A preview of the game based on the last weekend of the Beta is available at 1up.com. From the article: "Once the wonder started to wear off, a creeping hangover of disorientation replaced it. Still standing there slack-jawed, the bustle of people going here and there with purpose made us suddenly aware of how clueless we were. Gathering our senses we fell into the familiar pattern of talking to the residents and picking up the quests of the day." Guild Wars is a unique MMOG offering, as it will not require a subscription cost, has almost no grind, and will focus on organized PvP. The game releases next Thursday, the 28th of April.

Comments

Uhm, no...

[Dragoon412]

Quoth the submitter:

Guild Wars is a unique MMOG offering...

Guild Wars is not a MMO. People label it as such, constantly, but it has far, far more in common with Diablo 2.

Gameplay is done entirely in instanced zones. For anyone unfamiliar with that concept, it's essentially a private copy of a zone for each player (or group) - it's just like Diablo 2.

The only part of Guild Wars that even vaguely touches on being massive are the handful city zones. However, they serve only as a staging area for missions and a place for players to trade. Once players go out into the world, it's all instanced, again. Think of them more as graphical Battlenet chatrooms, and you'll get the idea.

...none of this is to say Guild Wars is a bad game. I enjoyed the beta and am considering purchasing a copy. The environments are absolutely amazing, the PvP system outstanding and quite remarkably balanced, the character advancement system is very well thought-out, classes are refreshingly diverse (there are only a handful of classes, per se, but the sheer variety of abilities each has and the limitation to actively using 8 at a time means two players that are both the same class can have wildly divergant functions), and the game's animations are exceptionally fluid and well-done (especially the monk dance emotes). But for crying out loud, GUILD WARS IS NOT A MMO!

Beta

[Rs_Conqueror]

I beta tested it on the 15th. It was pretty good from what I've deen, although the only other MMORPG I have played has ben city of heroes, so I don't know how it holds up to other D&D based RPGs.

There were some things about it that kind of bugged me however, first, you can't jump. I know in RPGs where the point of the game is fighting and leveling up, jumping isn't that big of a deal, but still having the ability does make the game seem a bit more "real" for me.

Secondly, you can only play as a human, no elves, dwarfs, gnomes, or super intellegent shades of the color blue. This was a bit of a bummer for me, becuase I had really hoped to play as a shapeshifting elf (half elf half volf). But I guess they were really trying to avoid the steriotype that has been slapped on them as "WoW rip off".

And lastly, the lack of character design choices, you get maybe 12 hair types (that tend to be the same, no matter what profession you choose), 12 or so hair colors, 6 face types, your basic skin colors, and thats about it. I had really hoped to be able to change tome of the body proportions to have a character that actually looked like me, but all you can really change is hight. Also the clothing choices are very limited, in fact there are none. You get your basic profession spisific clothing and thats it. Although yes you can get new cloths in quests and by trading, it would still be nice to have say, three different suits to pick from at the start of the game.

The gameplay was pretty much what I expected, you have standerd WASD controls, you click objects to select ect... However one minor thing that bugged me was, the second you select an enamy object, you start attacking, regardless of its level. You CAN call off the attack and still have him selected so you can see what level it is, if you have a hand-to-hand weapon out, however if you are a range attacker you shoot one arrow, and you comitted to this fight till death (and death is useually the case).

now these problems are not rearly as bad as I make them out to be, the gameplay is very nice. I had a blast playing it. The quests are quite fun, and not in the least bit dull or tedious, the level design is breathtaking to say the least, even on lower graphic resolutions.And if you can rope a few friends to shell out the 50 bucks and pick it up, get a party going, there will be no end to the fun you will have.

Re:Beta

[wickedj]

It's true that using the mouse automatically starts an attack, however, you can cancel it out just by pressing the spacebar. Also, you can target enemies by using tab, [, ], or whatever you define in the options. By doing it this way, you select the enemy without engaging them. To begin attacking, just press the spacebar.

As for humans being the only race, Arena.net has stated that other races will become available in the expansions. Some ideas include the Charr and dwarves which are both already NPCs.

The character design choices might be limited for the beta (doubt it) but will most likely also increase as an expansion.

I've played all the betas since the E3 release last year. It's a pretty fun game. I was a big fan of Diablo and the similarities are striking. I wouldn't consider this an MMOG. Though the towns contain many people, they are more like virtual chatrooms with your character as an avatar. Each town has districts which could be considered "channels".

I did find that you can almost explore the entire map without dying by grabbing a party full of computer players and then making a run for it. Your computer players take the brunt of the attack and you can run on to new areas.

If you are looking for a good single player experience, I wouldn't get this game. It's primary focus is PvP. The PvE will get old quick as it's the same as any other RPG type game. Find this and deliver here. Fight this boss and come back. Still, it is a pretty good game.

Re:no subscription.....

[wickedj]

That's true but you're not required to purchase the expansion packs to get to the areas contained in them. Basically, if a friend is in that area and wants to quest with you, they can "invite" you to the area and you'll get a streamed download. Now, if the expansions contain new characters, classes and races, well, then I suppose you might want to buy it.

Re:So this is it

[Anonymous Coward]

No worries, PvE zones are all instantces. Only you and your party. PvP is done in a gladiator/colliseum type of model. This isn't like the gankfest that PvP servers in WoW has turned into. You only PvP in the PvP areas. PvE is strictly adventuring/questing and farming gold/loot to better prepare yourself for PvP.

Re:Gone Gold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually with the streaming technology you won't even notice patches most of the time. You just get a little download icon in the corner of your screen that shows you're getting new content. Every time you load into a new area if there are any changes they are streamed to you for just that area.

Occasionally they do a major change that requires you to shut down the client and open it again.. but it's almost always very fast. Other than that, Guild Wars has been very stable during the events, and will hopefully remain that way for release next week.

Not just free monthly

[Ossus_10]

There are other great technologies in play in Guild Wars. A streaming update system allows on the fly patching, content additions, and quest tweaks. Zones arround you are streamed so the number of files to load when you first enter a zone is minimal. The game also changes for you based on choices you make. For example: if you do a quest that rids the world of "lizard men" then when you return to that zone, there are still no lizard men. If you return with someone who has not done the quest, there are only half as many lizard men as there would be if niether of you had done the quest. The game focuses on skills gained rather than levels. As such, your spells do no more damage on leveling, they do more damage when skill points are put into them (gotten from leveling, completeing quests, doing PvP or GvG). That being said, the level cap is at 20. For a free MMO (dissagree with the post before, the game is Massive, it is a multiplayer game, and it is online), the content is huge. There is so much to the game that after 4 Betas, I hadn't even scratched the surface

Re:Vs. WoW

[Anonymous Coward]

The biggest difference is gameplay, hard to describe really. WoW is a traditional MMORPG with all the level treadmilling and player griefing that goes with that.

Guild Wars was designed to attempt to eliminate these "unfun" things ("fun" is subjective, but Guild Wars is based on the premise that these things are not fun).

There are 3 major points of difference between GW and Wow

1. instanced maps - All missions and explorable areas in GW are instanced. That is, only you and your party are in the instance. There can not be any player griefing (PKing, kill stealing, ect) because there is nobody else there to do it.

2. Low level cap - GW is a competitive game with a high focus on PvP, as such game balance is essential. As such the level cap is 20, something that can be achieved in 2-3 days (or even sooner). The low level cap does not mean the game ends quickly though, as the main premise is the aquisition of skills (each player has access to ~150) once level 20 is reached new 'levels' give the ability to aquire another skill, so really the entire concept of levels is different in GW

3. No monthly fee. This is the one that gets all the press (go figure), It is also the least understood. The game charges no monthly fee, rather there will be expansions (new missions, new skill and characters classes, ect.) released every 6-9 months. The GW developers are convinced this model will work and monthly fees are unnessecary, time will tell.

I cannot do the game justice in this post, I would suggest checking the Guild Wars official site and some of the Fan Sites for more info.

Re:Excellent

[adam.skinner]

There is no ganking in Guild Wars (one of it's many attractions). All zones are instanced, and hence only people on your own group will be playing with you when you enter a zone.

Guild Wars has done much to limit "griefer" behaviour and the things that make playing these kinds of games unenjoyable sometimes. For one, There's no kill-stealing, no camping, and no ninja-looting. You can't attack people in your own group. PvP, however, is a very major part of the game, and there are a number of zones designed specifically for this, as well as different types of PvP gameplay. The Tombs allow pickup groups to play vs one another. There's also Guild v Guild. The "Arena" allows you to just join without even forming a group and it's your random group vs the other.