Slashdot Mirror
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.
That's what they call the release that comes in the box before you apply the patch, right?
Of course they're also planning on releasing expansions every few months.
This of course is your monthly fee.
Vermifax
Logout
" When you have hundreds of people in an area sumiltaneously before a new "zone" is created."
Sorta like 100s of people in diablo chat rooms before the instance is created.
Vermifax
Logout
Massively - The game is going to support scads of people. Heavy instancing will be used, to be sure, but City of Heroes does the same thing. GW is just going to a further extreme.
Multiplayer - More than one person can play.
Online - Going to be an internet based game.
Game - Yup.
I don't see how it is not a MMOG?
What I think is cool about this is that Guild Wars is pushing the boundary of MMOG. The PVP aspect and low level cap will ensure that a lot of skill is going to be required of the players. 'Hit A and Walk Away' won't be enough, and hopefull there won't be as much of a market for farmers as in certain other games.
Massively - The game is going to support scads of people. Heavy instancing will be used, to be sure, but City of Heroes does the same thing. GW is just going to a further extreme.
Multiplayer - More than one person can play.
It is massive. It is multiplayer. It is online. It has involves gaming.
However: the Gaming part (fighting monsters, etc) only involves a handful of people at once, so there is no "massively multiplayer" gaming going on.
There is a "massively multiplayer chat and trade area" but the primary part of the game is limited to just a few at once.
$8.95/mo web hosting
Sorry, that's the only way to put it. The game has clearly superior graphics, more content (smaller map but you will never run 10 minutes without seeing a single moving thing), PERFECTLY BALANCED for both PvE and PvP, minimal amount of grind, still challenging as hell (you can only say this game is easy once you're guild is at the top and you've cleared the Fissure of Woe with no problems at all), and one of the major things: It's free!
And by free, i mean it's really free. Not like "it's free but you have to...". The only thing that could possibly be considered a substitute for awful monthly fees is the expansion system. There will be "Chapters" Released every 6 to 8 months. The prices have not been confirmed, probably 50 bucks (by my guess), because the content contained in the expansions will be equal to that of the first release. Which means chapter 2 will make the map twice as big and add twice as much stuff! You don't even have to buy them! And if you don't, you can keep playing. And you can still play with all your friends that have bought different expansion packs in the chapters you have in common. Have chapters 1 3 and 5 but your friend has only 2, 3, and 4? Have fun playing together in number 3 and even better yet: on an even playing field!
This game is clearly superior to World of Warcraft and runs on a seemless world. It's worth your money to try it!
Go to the many fansite forums full of addicted fans or to the official site (guildwars.com) to find out more!
ArenaNet is headed up by brilliant ex-Blizzard staff - "Wyatt was Blizzard's Vice President of Research and Development and most recently acted as the Team Lead and Lead Programmer of Battle.net. O'Brien was the Team Lead and Lead Programmer of Warcraft III, having personally developed the game's 3D rendering engine. Jeff Strain was also a Team Lead and Lead Programmer there and is the author of the Starcraft Campaign Editor
I am sure they are all excellent programmers but I think things are mixed up and/or overstated. Which is the norm when you start a new company and go out looking for venture capital. Only your most recent title matters, not how long you had it.
I believe O'Brien, not Wyatt, was the brains behind Battle.net. There was some game magazine that listed 50 or 100 influential game programmers and I am pretty sure he was "the" Battle.net guy. The various game credits seem to back this up.
According to the Warcraft 3 credits the game engine seems to have been really lead by Jay Patel. I think NVIDIA published something referring to Patel as the 3D guy for Warcraft 3 as well. O'Brien left very early in Warcraft 3's development and from watching the game change over the course of several E3 trade shows the engine seems to have been completely redone.
Now if you want to talk Warcraft 2, Diablo, Starcraft, and Diablo 2 they have an excellent track record. Now add Guild Wars and the credit it deserves. However keep in mind that individuals don't make great games, teams do. Blizzard's success is not attributable to a handful of guys but rather large teams. Arena.net will only be successful if these guys can build teams that are effective. Their individual talents are not enough.
I plan on playing both. With no monthly subscription wheres the harm? I think that monthy subscription fees are the only reason that online games lose their casual feel, you kind of feel obligated to play it more because you're paying for it either way.