Guild Wars

[Sonic the Vampire]

Pride a game is only worth what you are willing to pay for it, and a lot of people think WoW is a great investment at fifty dollars, but maybe when it's hit the $100 mark it starts to feel expensive, or people who play it closer to $150 (about 8 months or so including the first 30 days free) and realize that they could have in that same time purchased multiple less expensive games and had more variety. People make a big deal out of it being free because it's just one less issue to worry about. You don't lose money from putting down the game and your character is persistent regardless, yadda yadda.

As far as "paying to support the game industry" that just sounds foolish. The rest of the game industry is doing just fine without re-charging for 1/3rd of their games every subsequent month. Guild Wars has servers to maintain, fine, but you are blowing it out of proportion and taking it out of context to say too many players will make them collapse on themselves. Guild Wars isn't a persistent world, it's a little bit closer to battle.net's scheme of taking groups of people and putting them in their own missions without thousands of people being accounted for running around them. The strain is not as epic as a massively persistent world filled with people, so I don't see them having a tremendously horrible time keeping the servers happy. Besides, I keep hearing about these 6-monthly new installations that may charge us for continuations of the story or game or something like that, and if they start doing that, that will be a meager but effective source of income to revamp the servers once in a while. Regardless, if you did play the game for a few months and it crashed and ended all of a sudden due to lack of funding, you've still gotten your $50 out of the game or maybe more, so it wasn't a terrible investment. Nobody expects their WoW characters to follow them forever. Nobody here is going to turn 80 and still be using their character, sooner or later you put down the game and all the work you spent on it, so I would discount arguments about disappointment if something horrific somehow happened to Guild Wars over time.

The game is fun, the PvP has enough variation, and the skill system is tactical enough to justify a purchase for people who are interested in a kind of Diablo 2-WoW crossbreed with a story.

 

[SaiyanPrideXIX]

My overall point--which I failed to make in my last post, actually--was that, 50 bucks for a new update after six months...or 50 bucks for 6 months of continual small fixes and patches, really averages out to be about the same.

I know nothing about the game, aside from the screenshot posted in this thread I've never even seen it to be blunt. So I have/had no idea that the game is mostly instanced.

The only foreseeable downside is the obvious one: before long people are going to start finding exploits in the gameplay, and it'll spread throughout, and there won't be much support on fixing it.

But again, like I said, I don't know anything about the game. So I'm not really one to talk. I just like the idea of 24/7 persistent world stuff, personally.

Going back to the original topic...still no one's given me a really direct answer of what this game's gameplay is like.

 

[Shuyin]

Not being pressured to pay, means that instead of hassling around cancelling accounts or reactivating accounts. You buy the game, if you want more to the game, you'll buy the expansions that come out when the hell you want.

Now the game itself seems a little different to some of the other mmorpgs. Usually going out solo and "grinding" is the typical thing to do. This however, requires you to work with a team, or you *won't* survive. Yes there are AI npc bots you can take, but players *can* be more effective ( some of them anyway..)
Grinding isn't as much in effect because the level cap is 20. That sucks? Well the whole game doesn't revolve around levelling up. You then have to think very tactically and not relie on levelling up to make things easy for you.
Skills are a VERY big thing in this game, and decide alot of the outcome of your team. So far there is something like 80+ skills per class from what i know. For the price of a normal game without *having* to pay anything else, i think this game was definately worth me getting.

The only foreseeable downside is the obvious one: before long people are going to start finding exploits in the gameplay, and it'll spread throughout, and there won't be much support on fixing it.

Nope they patch frequently just like the other mmorpgs.

Getting back on topic: Isn't Guild Wars all instanced zones anyway? Like, even the cities and such? And I still don't know what the combat's like, either.

A town is split into Districts. You can change District whenever you like. Great for moving to a less crowded, or more crowded area, and to meet up with your friends. When you leave towns however, only your party will be the players outside. Although it doesn't sound good, this means there is no looting, kill stealers or anything. You all work together. Combat i can't really explain, you just have to play it.


And lastly, Guildwars is part of NCSOFT who made lineage/lineageII/City Of Heroes. So i doubt it's gonna have money problems.


*edit* ~Phatslugga : The difference is, teams/partys aren't just for levelling or company in this case. You simply just can't solo in Guildwars. It's pretty much impossible.

 

[Phatslugga]

Now the game itself seems a little different to some of the other mmorpgs. Usually going out solo and "grinding" is the typical thing to do. This however, requires you to work with a team, or you *won't* survive. Yes there are AI npc bots you can take, but players *can* be more effective ( some of them anyway..)

Out of personal experience, I find that in pretty much all MMORPGs you need a team or a guild to level properly, or at least a partner for that matter. That's one of the many aspects that always kept me away from MMORPGs. I like to play alone, and just do my thing, and you can't do that and have fun in most of those.

 

[Jesus]

pride, it isnt $50 for the updates, its only $25, and you dont have to pay for them if you dont want to continue paying, also, bug fixes and stuff will be released regardless of update timing, so if theres a problem in the system, it will be fixed, the updates are going to include new quests, skills, locations etc. to keep gamers wanting to play.

 

[-JLN-]

Going back to the original topic...still no one's given me a really direct answer of what this game's gameplay is like.

Well, that's a little vague. I did try in my post to give a brief summary of the main aspects of the game. If you ask some more specific questions I'd be happy to answer though

~Phatslugga : The difference is, teams/partys aren't just for levelling or company in this case. You simply just can't solo in Guildwars. It's pretty much impossible.

That's not strictly true in Guild Wars. To complete the missions which are designed as cooperative missions, then yes, you will have to get some help (though if you really don't like socialising there are bot "henchmen" to help you). However, for quests, which are smaller, or just general exploring, I find it very easy to solo. That might be partly down to me being a warrior/ranger and having a pet, but even so I find I can take on some pretty heavy odds by myself.

 

[SaiyanPrideXIX]

First thanks to all the people who gave me details.

I guess when I say gameplay I mean combat. Combats a big deal for me. I ask because I recently saw a demo of DnD Online at a job fair, and that game actually does a cool thing where the fighting is real time. I was curious about how it works, if it was like Warcraft/CoH style where you have a bunch of "moves" or if it was real time--which I figured was possible if the game was zoned that way.

 

[Jesus]

combat in GW is realtime.

 

[-JLN-]

Real time? Not really. It's more real time than other MMO's in that I think if you dodge an enemy fireball, it won't hurt. If an enemy can't reach you, it can't attack you. But just like WoW if you click on an enemy, you'll run over and start doing a bunch of preset attacks automatically. Like WoW, you can interupt your normal combat by using skills for various other attacks. Basically, in my opinion at least, combat feels a lot like WoW, except faster. If you like the combat in WoW, I would say it's unlikely that you'll dislike Guild War combat and vice versa.

 

[Raiden22]

*sigh* ive played GW so much...lv 20 w/m :X lol look at my sig *sigh*

 

[PsychoUSJ]

*sigh* ive played GW so much...lv 20 w/m :X lol look at my sig *sigh*

I saw you in the game^^
but you never wanted to join my party

 

[Brim]

Holy ****, are you telling me that you have played that game for 112 hours out of 168? That means that you have only done other things for 56 hours if you add in 6 hours of sleep a night, that leaves 12 hours of doing something other than that game...its spring man, get out

 

[-JLN-]

Holy ****! That sounds a lot like my first week of WoW
But yeah, you should get out more

 

[Sonic the Vampire]

Yes, it's real time in that if you see an arrow or a fireball coming and you're far enough away you can get out of its path and you wont get hurt, but otherwise it's about like WoW. Hits build up adrenaline that you can use to trigger skills, or you can spend energy to use skills, depending on what skills and classes you have. There are also some mesmer skills that are designed to interupt spellcasting, so if you see someone start casting a spell and you trigger your skill fast enough you will stop and damage them.

 

[Raiden22]

I saw you in the game^^
but you never wanted to join my party

oi im sowwy :X i was probably busy getting eh plate mail or doing runs for guild members... being a officer is tough :X lol but i do have a life thank you lol i have a wife and i do take breaks and goto work and all that stuff so

 

[Dirty]

ok i didnt read the whole posts (only read up to the pic) but i played on the E3 for everyone weekend way up in feb 2004 and like there was one city were u spawned and like u went to a guy that showed a map... with like I II III IIII and pvp arena.... never got to the pvp arena only got to II after the full relese... is it still played like that map (diablo style) act stuff or .... do u run around like in WOW... if u do run around that would trully seal the deal for me... i didnt like diablo much but i still liked GW if the game play turned even more WOW like THEN WOW... lol yea ill definatly get it!

 

[Esf_Newbie]

Afew things. There are going to be expantions with new quests, classes, skills and maybe even races. Released every 6-9 months.

Guildwars is a game where PvP is a strong element. So if you're the type who would rather try beating a real person who can think and adept rather then an AI you'll defenitly like the pvp part of the game. Its tactical based pvp meaning planning ahead and changing strategies in game yeilds huge rewards.

Either way, if the people who broke off and made Guild Wars are even remotely comprised of the Starcraft designers, the game is probably as unbalanced as the Republican vote in Congress is.

What the hell are you talking about? Starcraft is one of THE most balanced games in history. Theres no question don't even try to argue this point... People will think you're a complete retard. Just look at what happened with that game in korea. Do you honestly think a person can become a pro gamer making real money out of playing a game that isn't balanced? Now, with guildwars there are no glaring balance issues. There might be issues with afew skills but who cares? The game has just been out for what? 2-3 weeks? Complete balance takes months if not years to accomplish. Guildwars is pretty darn good in the balance area for a game that just came out.

 

[Dirty]

i think i just might buy guild wars! but i dunno if my comp can handel it... what are the lowest rec? scratch that ill check the site

 

[SaiyanPrideXIX]

What the hell are you talking about? Starcraft is one of THE most balanced games in history. Theres no question don't even try to argue this point... People will think you're a complete retard.

1.) If you want to start another thread and debate whether Starcraft is the most unbalanced game ever made (which I will gladly participate in, since the evidence is sitting in the map editor anyway), feel free. But I'd like to formally request that this particular metaphor I used not be a source for any further non-Guild Wars debate in this thread.

In fact, I'm officially deciding that no other games should be brought up in this thread, solely to keep the focus on Guild Wars discussion. That means unless it's a direct comparison, we should all stop bringing up other games' gameplay in the Guild Wars thread.

2.) Not good to call people names on the forum. But generally speaking it's also not a good idea to call the moderators retards. Since technically you didn't I'm not going to push the issue. But it's something to keep in mind.

Carry on!