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.