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.
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
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
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.
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