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Guild Wars Launches
NCSoft's newest edition to their ever expanding stable of games, Guild Wars, has launched in North America and Europe. From what I saw while in-game things seem to be working well from a technical standpoint. Commentary from the player base is already available from the fine souls at f13.net and Grimwell.com. More specific commentary comes from AFKGamer, who has commentary about the title a few days ahead of time, and on day one of play.
Bought my copy today. Reading the WoW VN boards gives the impression that the players are scared that GW will be better than WoW. Given that WoW has a poor endgame, a real level grind to 60 & non-implemented Battlegrounds; and GW already has a PvP oriented endgame, I think it's going to steal quite a bit of Blizzards business.
It'll probably take mine.
Guild Wars is a pretty sweet game. I had a preorder, so I was able to play for several weekends over the past 6 months or so.
It's a 3D RPG-style game similar in design to Diablo II. The PvP, the best part IMO, is really fast-paced and fun and team-oriented -- it's similar to a lot of FPSs in that regard, you play a brief round and if you die, you can be resurrected but you don't respawn automatically.
It's loads of fun; the drawback is that if you are playing alone, it gets boring quickly, because you are playing with random people who you don't know, and you usually get crushed if you don't have a decent amount of coordination.
To fully experience the game, I highly recommend joining a guild that uses a voice chat system to talk to each other during battles. It makes a huge difference in the quality of your organization, and you get to know your guildmates pretty well.
Another drawback of the game is that it runs only on Windows. Windows makes me extremely sad and I dearly hope they port it, because my Windows machine is several years old and it hates everything.
I've been wanting to get in on this all week, but I can't find a place to download anything other than the "pre-order" client. I would presume they offer a download of the game somewhere on the publisher's site... right?!
... You need to play this game. Guildwars has literally taken every element I dislike about MMORPGs and fixed it.
Never actually owning the game, just renting it via monthly fees? Nixed that, since there is no monthly fees.
Down time between battles? Nixed that, since after your out of combat your health/mana regen shoot through the roof.
Crowded dungeons, trading spawns, etc.. Yep, every zone is intanced. You will only be playing with friends and never have to worry about your adventure getting interrupted by anyone else.
Like PVP occasionally, but hate getting griefed or risking losing items/time from death penalties? Well your in an instance so your safe from griefers, and if you do want to PVP just go to an arena and battle your heart out.. when you leave it is as if you were never there (save for the gained rank points).
Even the smaller things I never even really knew I hated until they were not there.. Spending half my time running from location to location - Gone (just open up map, click on destination, and bam you teleport). Spending the other half of my time trying to form a group - Much easier now, since a 'gathering stone' type system is built in.
There are some other things I really like, but it might irk some MMORPG fans.. For one your power in the game is mostly dependent on your playing skill. You will get a bit stronger by gaining levels, but by and large it is a skill based system. Combat is skill based and very fast paced, as most debuffs/buffs last for about 15 sec. PVP is ruled by a balanced group, rather then 4 people spamming the template of the week.
I would encourage everyone to give it a try, this is not like any MMORPG you have seen yet.
--- "End Of Line" - MCP
But note: I am going to play this game to completion. For those of you neh sayers that claim that this game is going to be too short... Try to collect all of the skills. And good luck trying to... each profession has 75 for a grand total of 450. All I have to say is: Settle in... GW is here to stay! See you on the servers!
The first Beta Weekend I loved it. The second and third, I had a hard time reconciling the changes made to the XP system and other items with how free-flowing and fast the first weekend was. Now, I am going to pick up my preorder but I'm going to have to wait a couple weeks because neither of my home computers have 3D cards at this time.
I think with the interesting people, their lives can't possibly be wrapped up into a nice little package.
Why does this have to happen when I'm for three months in a place with no internet except for HTTP?
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
One of the guildies dared comment on how FUCKED the player pathing is in this game. i.e. you will follow the assigned path, no jumping, no falling, no straying from the designated path in any way (hail, counter-intuitive!), and ListAddition01 called him an IGN noob.
This is one of the things I really didn't like when trying the beta weekends. No ability to slide down a hill or jump off a ledge. Feels like you have these invisible walls blocking in your movement.
I especially didn't like that some of the maps make you take a long winding path around because of this. Even though it looks like you could just down a 2 foot drop to where you need to go.
I realize this sounds like a small thing, but it just seemed like a stupid game mechanic.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
I am not in the least bit entertained by click-kill monster grinding through the PVE part of the game. I guess a lot of people who haven't played MMORPGS think leveling up is fun. Its just progress quest with a new name and fancy graphics.
Maybe PVP will be entertaining. Who knows, you have to do this overhead to get there.
God spoke to me.
I played a few beta weekends way, way back and it was one of the funnest games I've played in a long time.
Our intelligent designer has never created an animal that we couldn't improve by strapping a bomb to it.
I always want to play these MMORPG's but I'm always afraid I'll pay $50 for something I won't like..
Is there a trial available? I don't care if it's only a week..
I preordered, so I've been playing since lastnight (prerelease event). It's been pretty fun so far. And I should mention I'm an avid WoW player ;)
My Necromancer Dancing (xvid,added audio) or no audio. I know the framerate seems a bit jumpy, I wanna do a better recording.
Its like other MMORPGS, but only takes 5 seconds to log on. Thats right, no stupid logo screens, no loading screens, just instantly in the game.
God spoke to me.
It's probably fair to say that you don't represent the majority of the buying public. If your gaming sessions are an hour or more, does it really matter that it takes 15 seconds to log on to another game?
Wish I had the mod points.
:)
Far too often do people call a design choice they don't like or understand 'An easy way out' or 'Stupid' or some other way of saying 'its not what I would have done, so its wrong'.
Except they didn't do anything.
For me, playing guild wars has been like Looking at all the things that other mmogs have tried doing but failed... except done in a way that works. It really looks like the designers have played other games that would be considered competitors and aggressively looked at what pissed players off the most and tried very hard not to include those aspects of the games. (Things like level grinding, mean death penalties ect...) All the while creating a unique and thoroughly fun gaming experience.
I really think this game shows what can happen when people who like games, and know about games... make games.
Well that's my two bits, feel free to disagree with me. (I can't believe I just wrote that
I preordered this back in December.. but I left my key at home (I'm at the dorm right now)... so irritating!
those aren't the problems with mmo's and wow
This has always been the number one problem in Australia with EQ - a 6 hour downtime for patching during Australian prime time, followed by minimum 5 minutes, sometimes half an hour of downloading, and then your P4 3GHz PC takes its time logging you in. Then you're on for half an hour, there's a little network problem, and you come back (after another couple of minutes) to find you've just died and you're not exactly sure which way you were running when you were disconnected...
Or better still, like a friend of mine - sitting on the boat, and during a bit of lag ending up stranded on an island that the boat passed through, with some pretty mean looking goblins eyeing you over. Care to spend an hour or three swimming out of trouble - if you can avoid the sharks??? And no, despite petitioning, there was no divine assistance offered to the victim of a bug.
At least on GW if you suffer from a bug (I got stuck under the stairs I should have bee on during the last beta weekend), you can close the client, log back in and 5 seconds later ... it's like the bug never happened.
If you want continuity, to me it looks like GW will provide it. I'm checking the funds, and most likely buying a key tonight.
Nuff' said
Or better still, like a friend of mine - sitting on the boat, and during a bit of lag ending up stranded on an island that the boat passed through, with some pretty mean looking goblins eyeing you over. Care to spend an hour or three swimming out of trouble - if you can avoid the sharks??? And no, despite petitioning, there was no divine assistance offered to the victim of a bug.
sounds like he got shipwrecked. i'm suprised it wasn't part of the game. he should have built a treehouse and gotten one of the goblins to be his butler.
I believe the term I used was "stupid game mechanic" and perhaps that's not exactly what I should have said. Maybe "incongruous game mechanic" would be better. I just feel that when you have a full 3D engine being blocked from getting to places it LOOKS like you should be able to get to is a bit incongruous.
They have every right to choose whatever game mechanics they want, obviously. It's their game.
Subjectively, how their choices make me feel will determine whether I want to play the game or not.
Given that one of things I like about MMOs is the great big open world to explore, this mechanic did bother me. The path railroading just felt wrong.
Particularly when you can see where you need to go and it is right next to you but down a three foot drop and instead you need to travel down a long windy path to get there. It's kind of like in the old game Doom when they would put the key directly in front of you but one block up. Since you couldn't jump or reach up in Doom you had to take some long windy path around to get the key. Putting the key right there always annoyed me, it was like flaunting the limitations of the game engine.
That's my two bits and it's just my subjectve opinion. There really isn't a right or wrong when you are talking about whether you find a game mechanic annoying or not.
Sometimes my arms bend back.