Guild Wars

[Pindar]

What do those in the know, know about this game and its children?

[TevashSzat]

Well, I played the game substantially when it came out up to right after the Sorrows Furnance free update was released. The game is pretty nice and has a big community due to its no monthly fees, but the game will become boring unless you become a hardcore gamer. Once you finish the main missions, the game becomes more or less pointless due to the lack of any major diversity in dropped items except for hunting down all of the skills. The only thing to do after you finished everything in PvE is to go PvP. The thing is the only thing worthwhile to do in PvP is guild battles or Tombs both of which is impossible to do properly unless you are in a half decent guild or has pretty high ranking probably 3 or higher. Even if you are in a guild, you must be in a top ranked guild, preferably top 500 to be in lots of PvP, but since these battles have high stakes, the guilds usually only let its best players join. In my guild which was ranked 210 at its highest, the best players would often train togeather for hours on end in tombs so they could get ready for a guild battle. The only times I actually did serious PvP with my guild is if we needed an extra monk, the healer, in which I would help out.

[Xiahou]

^ Pretty much what he said. I played GuildWars quite a bit when it first came out. I even played in two of the pre-release beta weekends. There's a lot of fun to be had playing the storyline, but in hindsight, it's not very deep. Once you complete the main story, there is some replayability in terms of exploration, skill gathering, and playing with other classes. Also, you can buy any of the expansion and play thru them as well. Ultimately, the game does seem to cater to the PvP community- the first expansion made that clear to me.

GuildWars basically served as the gateway drug into MMOs for me. I moved from GW onto WoW for several months and finally broke free of that only to get started on Vanguard. I tried to go back to GW several times, and while it can still be fun, it lacks the depth that I've come to like in the other games I've played.

[econ21]

Point:

I bought Guild Wars with my son for the PvE part, but it did not really grab us (me especially). There's not much variation in the monsters you fight (at least initially), no strong plot or even interesting sidequests, no memorable NPC characters or speech worth anything, there's precious little loot n stuff, and the character development system was restrictive and strangely non-addictive (normally with RPGs you really want to go up levels, not here). The whole thing struck me as basically pointless.

I've never played any mmorpgs, so maybe this is the norm. But coming from the single player CRPG genre, Guild Wars reminded me of the worst kind of hack n slash - e.g. Dungeon Siege.

I can imagine the PvP is fun, but that's just not my cup of tea.

Counter-point:

Dungeon Siege

Ouch! Hey, stop cursing - GW is not quite _that_ bad.

Think of Guild Wars as a kind of hybrid between an RPG and an FPS. The gameplay focus in GW is to pick the right skills out of hundreds and use them to best effect in a tactical engagement - not to exploit an advantage in character levels or equipment. Granted, the PvE side is easy at first, but I've actually seen people that think the areas around Ascalon are too hard. Lowest denominator and all that...

The game has received deserved criticism for its pace. To keep things interesting, it's good advice to proceed briskly in GW and not do every possible sidequest. Only the main plot missions (shield thingies on world map) and sidequests that reward skills are of importance in the long run.

That said, PvP is where the main meat is. GW is one of the most demanding team games in the history of gaming - a bit like real-time Magic the Gathering where each player on the team controls a "hand" of 8 skills. High-level PvP requires constant communication (teams use voice comms), eye on positioning, adapting to opponent's tactics, skill to execute tactics correctly and wits to take advantage of opponent's mistakes. It's not hack'n'slash! Waaah!

Since that exchange, I once tried to go back to GW, but after 30 minutes I wanted to tear my brain out I was so incredibly bored. My son took pity on me and released me from the torment of having to keep playing it. It's the worst CRPG and indeed game I've bought for a quite a while.

If you want a good CRPG, my current recommendation is Jade Empire[1]. Great story, great characters, decent combat - it's the anti-Guild Wars in some ways, although I expect Crandeoleon will soon step in and say there are some marked similarities in combat etc.




[1]That's unless you somehow missed Vampire Bloodlines, the best CRPG since BG2.

[Navaros]

I played Guild Wars extensively for a long time.

Once you learn how to play and master all the missions there's not all that much to do in the PVE side of things.

The PVE presentation is not all that good, ie: the voice acting and cutscenes are almost univerally horrible across all 3 games. Most of the game is presented via NPCs standing in one spot whilst text blurbs float over their heads instead of voice acting, like in King's Quest 1 or something. The NPCs don't look that good. I literally have games from 1999 that have NPCs that look better than most of the Guild Wars' NPCs.

PVP is pretty deep but unless you intend to become a seriously hardcore player who devotes huge amounts of time to it, you will have little to no success. Making teams in PVP is a huge headache, often taking 1 - 3 hours of real time to assemble a competent team before you can even start playing. Then once the team loses 20 - 40 mins later, it disbands. And even if you become hardcore and win a lot, there are very little rewards for winning in PVP, which ulimately is why I lost interest in it. Also are very few PVP maps, and they just get copy and pasted into each new game (ie: no PVP content is created for new games, other than new classes and skills). And don't even think about trying PVP without hardcore third party voicechat programs like Ventrilo or Teamspeak running, because you will lose in the first round every single time if you do.

To add insult to injury, the devs are constantly nerfing the crap out of any good skills available in the game to appease bad PVP players' and their incessant complaining about skills they do not have the talent to beat. This means that if you like playing a certain class or using certain skills, chances are you will be extremely aggravated when the devs nerf it to smithereens against your will - which will inevitably happen.

After having played Oblivion a lot and recently loaded Guild Wars up again for a bit, I can say my eyes definitely have a very painful adjustment trying to readjust again to Guild Wars' vastly inferior graphics. I've seen games released in 2003 that have better graphics than Guild Wars, and in 2007 they are getting more and more noticeable to me. Although I've seen a lot of people ranting about how Guild Wars has "beautiful graphics", so perhaps my graphical standards are higher than yours may be. The graphics are the same in all 3 games.

When Guild Wars first came out I woulda gave it a 75%, but because of it's age and stagnating graphics, presentation, and gameplay (all 3 games are basically the same thing), at present time I'd give it 65%. On second thought, due to the devs' constant nerfing of everything that bad PVP players ask to be nerfed (which screws over PVE players too), I'm knocking the score down to 50%.

[Crandaeolon]

Fine, I'll bite. GW does have a few strong points.

Been playing GW (and its later chapters) since release, mostly PvP (Player vs Player) though I've finished each PvE (Player vs Environment) campaign at least once and completed all endgame PvE areas succesfully. My guild has been playing top-level PvP for well over a year now.

--- "Review" section ---

Guild Wars has a unique approach to team-based combat, and this is what the game really excels at. The skill system makes character "development" and team selection highly varied. Battles can get very hectic, and player statuses (health, afflictions etc) change wildly during combats. GW is one of the few games that has managed to make purely support classes interesting (and demanding) to play; indeed, skilled Monks are among the most respected players in GW.

Other strengths of the game are good art direction (though like Navaros said, from a technological standpoint the graphics are getting old) and a relatively large game world. A major problem with some recent CRPGs like KotORs, NWN2, Jade Empire et al is that they have no exploration to speak of - you'll eventually visit all of the areas the game has to offer just by following the story. GW doesn't suffer from this and feels expansive in comparison.

Character development differs dramatically from traditional RPGs. You'll collect XP, levels and attribute points, but the level cap is very low and attribute points can be reconfigured at will whenever visiting a town. Secondary class can also be changed at will, so only the primary class of the character is set permanently upon character creation. Perfect equipment is quite easy to attain, leveling the playing field.

Collecting skills is the primary means of character development. At any given time, you can have only 8 skills (out of hundreds) at your disposal. Skills can be changed freely in towns, but not during exploration or missions. The whole game revolves around this system, so it will make or break the character development and combat aspects for you. The system limits your power and encourages you to pick a specific role to complement other members of your team. Most of the time you'll need a team to succeed; soloing is quite limited in GW.

Monster AI (and, thanks to the skill system, diversity to a lesser extent) is far superior when compared to, well, pretty much anything else. (I still don't understand how they screwed this up in NWN2.) You can also clearly see what skills the targeted critter is using; a feature that would be most welcome in other recent RPG offerings.

The game is well balanced, with occasional rebalancing to shake things up, and there's a nice sense of danger in most fights. Endgame areas are challenging, and min-maxing doesn't result in stupidly overpowered characters like in Oblivion, KotoRs, NWN2, Gothic... well you get the idea.

GW interface is window-based (no digging through millions of menus) and fully customisable - all elements can be repositioned, hidden and resized. I honestly can't remember another game interface that could best GW.

The game runs flawlessly in windowed mode and is very solid and bug-free. Server downtime is practically non-existent, though European players have occasionally suffered from lag. Hardware requirements are low.

Even though GW is an online game, it can be played with computer-controlled henchmen and heroes. I wouldn't recommend GW to pure singleplayers though, unless they like action RPGs. Like others have said, GW has a rather poor story and cutscenes. GW is at its best for a group of buddies, preferably on voice chat, who enjoy action and exploration and don't take their entertainment too seriously - many of the cutscenes are so horrible that they actually have comedy value.

--- PvP-exclusive bits ---

I'd like to offer a few counterpoints to Navaros's gripes about PvP group forming, rewards and balance updates.

In team-based games, forming groups efficiently for high-level play is all about the social networks you've managed to build. (This probably holds true for all games, even Total War.) If people in the network are inefficient (or random), wait times will increase and/or performance will decrease. For example, my guild has an efficient system for arranging games; wait times before games are practically zero if enough players are present. Building a social network can be time-consuming of course, but for the hardcore it's the only option. You'll need playing skill, communication skills, organisation and social ability to succeed in high-end PvP play.

I think there are enough PvP modes and maps for both the casual and the hardcore. More is not necessarily better; other competitive games have already proven this. No one played Bombing Run or Double Domination in UT2004, which is why the next UT installment actually has less gametypes than the previous one. Same holds true for maps. Sure, it'd be nice to have new well made maps, but quality trumps quantity here as well. Ever played de_dust with real fanatics?

PvP rewards are a non-issue in my opinion. I'm not playing PvP for in-game rewards; I'm playing it because it's fun. The current rewards for PvP play (faction points, titles, rank, cape trims, recognition via observer mode etc.) are more than adequate.

Rebalancing is a heated issue in PvP circles. However, I believe the community is realising the impossibility of balancing 1000+ skills perfectly with the first try. What the game _really_ needs is more frequent rebalancing with less drastic adjustments, helped by player feedback.

--- Closing words ---

Guild Wars best suits action-oriented, social players. Interest in PvP is good, you'll get more value for your money, but the vast majority of GW community are mostly PvE players. A casual playthrough of each chapter should last anywhere between 40 and 100 hours. For a hardcore PvP player who wants a controlled, level playing field, GW is the only choice at the moment.

For most singleplayer RPG fans, Oblivion (even with its flaws) is probably the premier CRPG. It has a nice balance of story, action, character development and exploration, all wrapped in a good-looking package.

[TevashSzat]

I just remember their nerf of smiting farmers with the creatures running away from balthazar's aura and symbol of wrath. That just broke the game for me as I ran out of any way to make decent amounts of money except for trapping farming which just takes forever

[Lehesu]

Guild Wars really is a unique beast in terms of how it fits in the MMORPG mould. I think comparing Jade Empire to it is rather unfair, just as it would be unfair to compare Diablo II to, say, Morrowind. I have all three Guild Wars and have certainly derived enough pleasure to justify the costs. The skill system is very elegant, imho, and you have subtle variations of builds even in the same class. There is certainly more thought involved in how you set up your character and approach tactical situations than the average RPG.

That being said, the game is still essentially a more refined hack and slash, but one in which loot plays a rather insignificant part in. This has a tendency to make combat tedious when you are just trying to work through the campaign. However, the higher level missions can be really rewarding if you have active, intelligent guildmates. Being able to advance through high level missions like UW or FoW with a competent party can be rewarding.

Really, GW will only appeal to you if you can appreciate the tactical side of the combat; the storylines are rather weak, the loot isn't all that important, and the level cap is low. I still play the game, and have been doing a lot of AB recently, because I enjoy the actual mechanics of the combat itself.

[TevashSzat]

I essentially agree with Lehesu. The only people able to stay in Guild Wars for long periods of time are those who are in active and good guilds or hardcore PvPers, but the release of new expansions is making the game last longer for those who are more relaxed and casual

[John86]

Play it. Now.

My ingame name is Hiji the Mute for anyone who plays.

Currently, sorta, kinda Looking for top 100 GvG guild, If anyone is recruiting.

[Pindar]

Thank you for all the replies.

[TevashSzat]

Gimmik builds are usually just used to get to Hall of Heroes since Guild Battles add in another dimension to the game with npcs and the such, but they really do ruin the game since most PUGs would only run the gimmik build of that time. If you don't have the right skills or character and is not a hardcore gamer with like rank 4 or 5, it would be near impossible to find a decent PUG. I remember all of gimmiks at the game's start. It was first just spiking with lightning eles, then e/mo smiters with ether renewal + zealots fire + draw conditions, rangers spikers with either quickshot + quickening zephry + tigers fury or punishing shot, then towards the end of my playing of guild wars, FRICKING IWAY TEAMS that would get owned easily by any decent team with a brain.

[Navaros]

FRICKING IWAY TEAMS that would get owned easily by any decent team with a brain.

That's exactly the point I was making earlier. Despite the fact that IWAY teams would get owned easily by any decent team with a brain, IWAY has been directly nerfed at least 5 - 10 times to appease those who complained about it. But after each nerfing, most people still loved it because it's the only build that a PUG without hardcore third party voicechat could run. So they kept using it despite the nerfings. Then the complainers kept complaining and the devs nerfed 8vs8 to 6vs6 (which is like cutting off one's nose to spite one's face) just to get rid of it.

The "stale" exsuse to justify unnecessary nerfings comes up a lot. Any game that needs to drastically change & warp the rules from one week to the next in order to not be "stale", is not a worthwhile game to begin with.

[TevashSzat]

What really pissed me off by it was that it had no really good basis. All it really gave you was insane health regen and armor for like 10 secs when you had lots of dead teammates which by that time the game is basically over for your team anyways. If they had a reliable way to kill of their pets it might have been a mediocre build, but still they would have had trouble against any other build.

IMO, gimmicky builds are nerfed because they simply makes the game less fun. The people that originally came up with the build probably had lots of successful so everyone started copying the build, but they can't pull the build off and before you know it, all you see is the gimmiky build just destroying the game for anyone who can't be a part of that build.

Was just playing for 15 min last weekend and noticed that quickshot was nerfed too....sigh. They turned an elite skill that was already only usable under very special circumstances and skill shots into one that has no benefits under any circumstances

[Crandaeolon]

Over-usedness is sometimes a good reason for nerfing. Relative balance also differs between game modes and skill level of players. Take IWAY, for example. It wasn't imbalanced at high levels of player skill; the imbalance was lower. Crap IWAY teams could pretty much always defeat other crap teams, which forced the other crap teams to switch to IWAY or lose. Nav's comment proves my point:

[IWAY is] the only build that a PUG without hardcore third party voicechat could run.

Indeed, it was pretty much the only build that a PUG could run. They couldn't win good teams, but they could roll mediocre or bad teams. This resulted in Tombs filled with IWAY teams. It's the very definition of degenerate, or stale, gameplay when 9 out of 10 teams you encounter use the same build.

I didn't mind good IWAYs, the best of them were actually good players and the games were hectic and furious. It's the vast hordes of dung IWAYs that were the problem.

[Productivity]

Gimmik builds are usually just used to get to Hall of Heroes since Guild Battles add in another dimension to the game with npcs and the such

I see your comment and respond with (insert imba build here) on Isle of Jade, Rift Spike, Ranger Spike, Necro Spike, all of which have been run very successfully in GVG.

Don't kid yourself, gimmicks while more common in HA than GVG are still extremely prevalent, especially in tournament settings where you know which map you're going to be on and can abuse it.

And re. IWAY, it's initial form was ridiculously powerful. Tiger's Fury, IWAY stacking IAS, double orders, other things that I can't remember. After the nerf to orders to not stack then it became a perfectly balanced build, it actually added a lot more to the HA community than people will give credit for. It kept people playing, it kept games flowing. In a sense it was the blood of HA. Beleive me, I have sat in the HoH for 20 minutes seeing "No opposing party". Facing an IWAY and having a game is far better than that. I don't think IWAY ever got actually specifically nerfed beyond that, there were just incidental nerfs that kept hitting it.

Good IWAY was actually really fun to play against. There's a lot of brainless IWAY hate out there, it doesn't bother me too much as I never played IWAY, but it just seems a bit stupid to me.

* Of my ~2300 fame, precisely 0 of it has come from IWAY, in fact I'd say 95%+ came while on a monk.