Any Guild Wars Fans Here?
I always loved the idea of Guild Wars. I love their business model. I love so many of their game design concepts (full respec in town at will, great end game, many features designed to enhance community and social aspects, etc.). Unfortunately, when I played the game I just couldn’t get into it. The inability to jump was a game breaker, and the actual combat was kinda blah to me. Also, it never felt like I got stronger as I gained levels.
But the game was a huge success which is wonderful considering all the things they did well and right.
Some of my writers have been cranking out tons of great Guild Wars content lately, so I created a guide to all their guides. If you are a fan of Guild Wars, you definitely want to check this out:
Now, to make this something worth discussing, here’s are some questions for you all:
- Why was Guild Wars such a huge success?
- What is great about Guild Wars?
- Will ArenaNet be able to duplicate or exceed this success with Guild Wars 2?
There you go. Have at it!
The exp food pellet is a critical one I believe – the rats like having different flavors of food pellets. A sidekicking system or somesuch can make it not that big of a deal.
Here is a horrible, horrible thing I discovered in GW.
That is as far forward as you can move in that spot – the grey gravel texture is as impassable as a brick wall. My Guildmates don’t seem to think this is conversation worthy and would rather talk about Mel Gibson’s latest zany antics, BUT COME ON PEOPLE. IT’S AN IMPASSABLE TEXTURE.
GW always did give me the feeling of being a gerbil running through a series of tubes….
That is a very interesting point Bryan. I think there is definitely a long term effect to things like no jumping, blocking movement in cheap ways like a “grey texture” (rather than some kind of huge mountain or impassable wall), etc. It does eventually give one the feeling of being in a very fake, gerbil like structure rather than a world.
But then GW really never was much of a virtual world, per se. That’s ok I guess, because they did so many other things well and that is what the game focused on. The fact that 99% of the game was instanced pretty much ensured that the game wouldn’t have a true “world” feeling to it.
Is GW2 going to be more of a world?
Ye… was kind of the plan, to get some of that Warcraft money… isn’t going to be a soccer simulator any more…
Um, they’ve started the hype engine, you can read a lot of little developer posts at arena.net. (I remember when they first started out for GW1, and one little journal log said that buying the game online would pass some savings on to the customer – how naive and hilarious that was in hindsight.)
Perhaps the most meaningful thing they’ve announced is they’re idiot proofing skill bars to a large degree..
I also like how jaded we all are when it comes to class announcements. How excited can you get at some variation of Warrior / Paladin / Demon Knight / Ninja / Ranger / Wizard / Priest / Necromancer / Druid / Bard / Jester / Monk?
…more excited than should be allowed. Mythos’s Bloodletter is adorable :3
I got back into playing Guild Wars recently, and it’s been alot of fun. One of the coolest things about it is since I don’t have to pay, I can just start playing again whenever I feel the urge. And due to the non-existent grind, the top end gear I had when I played a couple years ago was still top end gear when I returned.
As far as the whole world thing goes, it doesn’t really matter to me either way. You could put me in a featureless 20×20 box and if the PvP was good enough, I’d play it for years without complaint.
I’ve got Guild Wars on the brain today, so I’m back to talk about it some more.
One thing that I -really- like about the game, is that despite the completely free and unlimited respeccing, character building is still very much a skill. I play an Assassin, and in my collection of skills, I have the tools to deal with pretty much anything and everything. However, I can’t take all of those skills with me. I have to prioritize and cut corners to fit as much utility as I can into my 8 skill slots. When I make the right decisions on what skills to take with me, I’m rewarded with success. When I don’t, I fail. The talents and such you choose from in other mmos don’t have nearly the impact that your skill selection in Guild Wars does.
Speaking of failure, I like the way failure works in Guild Wars. You don’t face any long term penalties for dieing. However, each time you die, your maximum health and mana is reduced by 15%. This means every time you die on a mission, it gets harder, and if you die too much you probably won’t be able to complete the mission unless you restart from the beginning of it(which erases the penalty). This design forces you to know and understand that you have failed, yet you are in no way crippled long term by it.
I am a big GuildWars fan – I the graphics are great, the stories are solid, and until recently it seemed even the GMs and coders had fun. I love the idea of Dhrum as a way to site ban people. But like another up there I am a MUDder. Still am a MUDder and many who I speak to on GW are or were too. Perhaps it is something in our idea of a game being more than something that is set and walked away from.
I like knowing the GMs are around even if we cannot see them. I do not mind it taking 4 or 5 times for me to figure the way that works for me to complete a mission. Most of all, I am used to things changing – code improvements, cheat blocks, bug fixes, and rebalancing. I play games such as guild wars to meet people, play the game and have some fun. I had just as much fin dying until i was at 60%dp in UW as I did completing it because the players I was with were playing a game and having fun.
Interesting viewpoint that GW is more appealing to MUDders, and I agree the Dhrum is a pretty cool way to deal with bans.
I may have already mentioned it, but I gave GW another shot about a year ago and I really enjoyed it for a few months. I still missed not being able to jump, and in the long run I think I don’t like that I MUST have a group (either PC or NPC) all the time. But overall, very good game.
A lady in my guild used to play Neverwinter Nights. The real one. On the AOLs.
It is… a game that isn’t talked about nearly as often as it should be.
I agree BryanM. The AOL Neverwinter Nights was massively ahead of its time. I think a web version of that game would do blockbuster sales.
There were some fans who could not let go, and tried making a clone (”Forgotten World”), that ignored interface inventions like information hiding and the mouse.
It turns out, it is possible to be DnD’ed out. Personally, if I was damned to design an old school clone, I’d go with a weird twisted version of the Jewish mythos. How awesome is a spell called Flesh to Salt from a scale of 1 to 10?
More Guild Warsyish words: my favorite way of playing it is by playing its metagame: For awhile I made a big push on getting the bots to use skills correctly (of big interest to me, since I play it as a soccer simulator most the time, which it is) – though the only big win I made was getting them to use Forked Arrow right. All me. Other things may be more subtle and perhaps not all me (like the current ability to use any level of /rank you’ve earned), but that was a 1:1 cause:effect from going through their channels.
Soccer simulator?
You have GOT to elaborate on that.
Nah, it’s just what the game feels like. You know, like how they chose to try and make it an e-sport, instead of fun? (And GvG is the least played portion of the game, such a waste. They could have had swords that drop meteors (or “meteor shower showers”).
So the monk is like a little goalie. The little bastard has skills 4x as powerful as anyone else’s, and you won’t score a kill (point) as long as he’s active and in control. The entire thing has a “minkwars” affect to it, and the combat feels more like a soccer match.
So in the PvE game, you’re a guy with seven bots under your control. Who are they, what skills should have, which equipment is optimal for their setup? This Football Manager style minigame is much more fun than the c-space combat…
From a higher vantage point, this is the strategic layer + tactical layer is the main draw of RPGs – that what you do between bouts of murdering is what makes them so special. Personally, I believe the tactical layer is mostly irreverent – it exists to augment the strategic layer. Games like Magic the Gathering are an example of a frightfully powerful strategic layer.
What I find astonishing is that, even in a very barebones game like the first Dragon Warrior… that thing still has a strategic layer. In what order should I get my upgrades? When should I move on from my current hunting ground? Where shall I hunt next?
tldr: The strategic layer in Guild Wars is like throwing together an army in Warhammer or a tactics game or a football game with orcs and ogres and trolls and bull centaurs and beastmen and angry half-nude elves….
… come to think about it, Guild Wars does kind of suck…
“Personally, I believe the tactical layer is mostly irreverent – it exists to augment the strategic layer.”
I feel the opposite, personally. To me the fun in this type of game is in deciding “which of my many abilities do I need to use at this specific moment in order to win?”. The strategy layer is important because it defines what options I have available to me in the tactical layer, but I am FAR more likely to enjoy a game with a good tactical layer than one with a good strategic layer.
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