Introduction
Stop reading this review right now. Go spend the 50 or so dollars and start playignGuild Wars right now. However if you must read this review…Once
upon a time there were only a few massively multi-player online role playing
games (MMORPGs). They came in two flavors. One was a land filled with griefers who had no desire except to kill your character as
soon as they left a safe area. The other
involved walking a long way and waiting for a creature to drop a trinket…a
trinket that a dispatched foe might drop once every few hours or days. It was MMORPGs like
the above that turned me away from this genre of games. Also I did not want to spend about fifteen
dollars a month for something that I did not enjoy in any way shape or form.
Guild Wars changed my opinion of this genre. And while I may be a little dizzy from such a
rapid spin around I have found Guildwars to be the
most fun RPG of any sort I have played in a very long time.
Character Building
Guild Wars takes an interesting premise in that it assumes
all characters are basically the same statistically. What separates characters
are their abilities, which is defined by a class structure. There classes are as follows:
Warrior: Your standard tank, whose skills with melee
weapons, armor and melee weapons is without equal.
Ranger: A jack of all trades sort of class that
combines the standard ranger archetype with druids and rogues. They specialize in bow weapons and can have
an animal companion. They are well
rounded and dynamic characters.
Necromancer: A mage specializing in all that is undead,
curses and life draining
Monk: A healer type that has some offensive punch
too and one of the few classes mandatory in a party.
Elementalist: Your standard elemental effect type wizard
that is the heavy artillery of a party
Mesmer: An interesting class that does much to drain and
grief opponents very quickly.
There are less character classes than I would have liked,
but within each class is such a diversity of skills that two characters of the same
classes can be very different. You could
have a ranger focused on having an animal companion and traps with a secondary
class or warrior. Someone else could
have a ranger that is all about missile damage and elemental damage from their
secondary class.
Characters gain skill points as they progress in levels,
which can be assigned to four attributes (per class). Each of these attributes then have skills that are acquired through quests, items or
purchased. A neat aspect is that a
character is not locked into a particular or attribute. For example if my warrior Kith comes across a
very nice sword and she is invested in the hammers attribute. I can simply reapply the hammer attribute
points into swords. Then the skills that
tie into the sword attribute I can swap in and the hammer skills are swapped
out. Players have points to change
skills which are gained every 250 experience points. Usually this pool is maxed out quickly and
stays there for some time.
At any given time a character has access to eight
skills. This leads to some interesting
choices in regards to what build a player choses to do with their character. Practical game play has suggested to get very good in 2-3 attributes and carry around only
skills related to those attributes. For example
my necromancer/monk Riga
has a maxed (for her still low level) attribute for Blood Magic and is well
invested with smiting and soul reaping.
But say Riga
teams up with a party that needs a focus on healing,
all that needs to be done is to reassign the attributes and re-slot
skills. The only time skills can be
changed is when the PC is in a safe area (e.g. a city or encampment). This is a slight frustration if you need to
change something in mid quest or while adventuring you are stuck until a safe
area is reached or you want to return to a safe area. Returning to a safe area is easy as you just
click on a map location and you automatically appear there. The bad news is the area you just left
resets. Should you die and not be
resurrected, there are shrines all around the world and you will appear at the
closest one, but in a
slightly weakened state.
However you have all your stuff, which is a big plus if you decide to go
do something a little less challenging.
After a primary character is chosen a player can add on a
secondary class for any of the above. It
will be without an exclucive attribute and armor is
determined by the primary class. Even
with a fairly limited number of classes this second class can be
intriguing. It usually boils down to
what compliments the core class best.
Though there are no wrong combinations there are ones that seem to work
better (for example warrior/monk…heck anything a monk is usually good).
Equipment for characters is perhaps the least important
aspect about Guild Wars. While a good
weapon and armor can make a difference, the skill of the player and skills of
the character weigh in more heavily.
There is a lot of loot in Guild Wars, but about 95% of it is stuff you
will sell, trade or breakdown. Aquiring good gear is usually a matter of finding a seller,
crafter or luck in treasure drops. As
well there are enchantments that you can add on to your existing gear to boost
skills, attributes, etc. An interesting
aspect of Guild Wars is that in order to get better equipment (armor in
particular) is to obtain the money and materials to have the armor
crafted. This is done via salvage kits
of which there are two. One kit extracts
basic materials while the other can extract complex materials and add-ons to an
item (like a rune or bowstring).
Some nice touches in Guild Wars is
the customized appearance of a character.
There are ample skin tones, hair styles, sizes and faces. If there is a character from a pen and paper
RPG that you want to recreate, likely you can do it in Guild Wars. Unfortunately the only playable race is
humans, but there is enough diversity in appearances that is not a big
deal. Though in
practice it seems that players chose to have characters that look very much
alike even with a terrific amount of selection to choose from. As well with dyes and a plethora of equipment
as the game advances means characters can be distinguished.
There can be a lot of stuff to get and keep. A great feature of the game is you have a
storage area that after a very nominal fee per character gives access to all
you characters. For example Riga finds a ranger rune
that my other character kith could use.
I dump the item into storage and change logins. As well money can be kept in storage so that
can mean a boost for you future characters when they need to buy spendy armor upgrades.
A key point as money really does not start rolling in until well into
the campaign.
Trading is easy and fair.
It is imposable to swindle anyone as the trading interface is doubly protected. First you select the item(s) you want then
see what the other player offers then confirm the trade.
Game Play
Guild Wars has a very low learning curve. But do not let that deceive you, there are many nuances to the game that are enjoyable
to learn as you move forward. There are
early quests and pop up tutorial boxes that do a good job of teaching a player
the ins and outs of game play. When
learning about secondary classes, you get the chance to test drive secondary
classes to find one that suits your character and playing style.
Quests abound in Guild Wars and the game encourages
adventuring. There are no reasons to
camp as all creatures spawn upon exit and reentry into an area and item drops
are very, very random (i.e. a low level critter might drop a cool or valuable
item and a powerful one might not, but it will never be predictable). In the first part of the game after a few
hours playing I had accumulated over 15 quests and had not resolved all of
them. Missions are used as bridges to the
other parts of the game world. Team play
is a big aspect here as henchmen can be a little underpowered. With missions it is an all or nothing style
of play. If the party is wiped out
everyone returns to the last safe area and another run at the gauntlet is
required.
An aspect that I like a great deal is the early levels are
segregated from the later ones through a plot mechanic. The low level area is completely cut off as
it takes place back in time before the Searing of Ascalon. So unless a low level character makes an
early jump into the next phase of the game you will not see twentieth level
character cavorting with first level ones.
And given there are a number of mandatory quests to gain base class
attributes the chances of a total newbie character making the next step
prematurely is slight.
For much of the game Guild Wars can be a solo effort. If you need a party and can’t find one to
join for missions or quests, just have hirelings. They are typically less powerful and less
intuitive but they have their strengths.
In some ways the AI is more conducive to play as they tend to be
protective of the player and will key in on targets slightly better than
humans. But they are less powerful and
some of the henchmen seem to be focused on attributes and skills that are less
exciting (the necromancer henchman is dreadful for example). Playing with other people can be fun, but
typically if you are not a warrior or monk you are less welcome in parties. My experience is that almost any party make up beyond a single tank and dedicated healer is
workable. As well if you are questing or
teaming up in an arena with strangers your mileage may vary as to how good of
team mates you have.
An interesting touch to Guild Wars is the player versus
player aspect. There are arenas set up
for this function. In the questing (or
player versus environment) part of the game the only place players meet are in
safe areas. Outside of a safe area you
only interact with your party (or nobody if you are solo). The arenas are split into level bands so a 20th
level character will not be partnering up with a 3rd level
character. Also there is a guild
structure that keeps track of what your guild has done in the arenas and also
adds some perks to the game. Thus the
only downside is if you are playing with poor strategists or they get
cutoff. My opinion is the player versus
environment is what makes the game and the competitive game play is a
bonus. My hunch is the developers felt
that way too. There is an option to have
a player versus player character that is maximized and well equipped, but that
is all they are usable for. However to
get the skills you have to obtain them in the player versus environment game
play.
Combat is simple.
Select a target and your character will close to attack. For ranged characters this means the longest
minimum distance, for melee oriented characters this means in your face
action. Then it is a matter of selecting
skills to apply to the combat. Changing
targets can be a little dodgy however as the screen can be very busy. Also changing targets via keyboard does not
start attacking, you have to mouse click or use a
skill. A nibbling critique as usually
there are only 3-7 opponents at any time and usually half will be melee the
other half missile. The AI for creatures
is good and they will use their abilities very well to heal or attack
themselves. Sometime the AI is too good
as they will seemingly dog pile your healer and/or elementalist. This is not necessarily a bad thing as an
area effect spell will do wonders against massed enemies and healers can
usually heal quick enough that a good party can take the critters down…it is
just very predictable sometimes.
One last item, playing Guild Wars is free (outside of the
initial purchase of the game). There is
no monthly fee and frankly the game play is more enjoyable than games I have
had to pay money for.
Technical Stuff
(Note I am running a system with an AMD FX64 3500, 1GB RAM
and a 256MB nVidia 6800 GT graphics card, 20’
widescreen LCD and broadband, so your mileage many vary).
The graphics in Guild Wars are very well done. The character and monster presentation and
animations are slick. The game interface
has lots of options and windows so you only need to keep open what you might want
or filter out dialogue). The
environments early in Guild Wars are great and hard to beat…especially with the
next chapter being a ruined, barren, wasteland.
NC Soft does a good job at updating Guild Wars and it seems
lots of improvements and tweaks come along about once every 10-14 days. Some of this is new content, which is very
cool as new quests are added that make for a new experience when replaying with
a new character.
Synopsis
Guild Wars is the best CRPG to come down the pike in what
seems like years. It offers a simple
core game with nuances that experienced gamers are likely to appreciate. There is little bad
I can say about Guild Wars, though as a long time pencil and paper RPG player
it took me a while to appreciate the fact that there are no statistics like
strength and dexterity in Guild Wars, only attributes and skills. All of which can be modified to suit your
fancy at any point over the course of play.
Guild Wars is a great hybrid of RPG and MMORPG and does both styles well and at a monthly cost of zero dollars.
