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Guild Wars was a great game if you ask me. Even if you disliked it, you could not denie it's innovations or the courage it took to give all other RPGs the finger and going in a different route. Many RPGs, and MMORPGs are about items. It's really ally about the smal pixels we use to outfit our avatars. Here came Guild Wars, and acted like it couldn't care less about the need for uber items and that sort of stuff. I think Factions was pretty good too. It was nicely received by many people, but also hated by certain people who where fans of the first title. Factions was quite different. People equally enjoy it more, or hate it more, for it's faster levelling, harder monsters and missions, and generel gameplay. Neither game has been anywere near perfect. As with all ambitious games that tries to think outside the box, it's normally assosiated with all sorts of problems, and GW, was and is no different. Perhaps the biggest, was the story. Telling a deep and interactive story in an online RPG is pretty much impossible. GW did it anyway. And while the story was pretty good and epic in GW, it was about average in Factions. The problem was more the execution. ArenaNet just didnt had the time to create deep and time consuming, 50 minutes final fantasy pre rendered cut scenes. Other flaws would probably be the "invisible walls" problem where people felt restricted and like the game was on rails instead of an free roaming world. Despite these and quite a few other, well founded arguments against Guild Wars, it probably remains the most tactical, deep(combat wise) and balanced Action RPG of all time. It was what the game was created for from the ground up, and it shows. It's 5 years of balancing act, shows as an reminder to why they just can't raise the cap to lvl 100, even though there are enough missions and content to substain that x2, with Factions. GW is and will most likely always be a game about the tactical combat aspect. Perhaps we can even argue if it's an RPG outside of it's stat levelling, which seems to be more of a torturial to the trials that awaits every player. It's probably also this sort of mentality that makes Guild Wars one of does games, that are as good as the player is willing to get at it. Since there is only one way to win, which is to be smart, think fast, and react fast and have a good tactical understanding of the game, as opposed to the mantra of almost all other MMORPGs and online RPGs, which is massive time investments, equals winning over enemies with less time invested. The Guild Wars community is probably currently devided into two main groups. The PvEers and PvPers. GW is a game that is renouned for it's PvP, but it has just as many people who are also or only interested in the PvE aspect. And as time have gone by, alot of effort in improving Guild Wars has been geared toward PvE. The end game PvE of consists of getting titles(completing various hard challanges put up by the game, to get a title under your avatars name for everyone to fear, respect and admire), exploring, farming, running, rare item collecting, collecting skills, doing the many many many hundreds of quests, redoing missions and trying to get bonus and master on them, exploring the entire continents, and levelling new tons, and various other things... The other part, is the PvPers. The people who play mostly on PvP characters, and people who do Heroes Ascent. The official tournament, where people from Taiwan, USA, Europe, Japan and Korea goes head to head for the favor of the gods, and acces to the high level god realms, of the Underworld and FoW. Having been a supporter and fan of Guild Wars since the first beta I tried back in 2004, I have always acknowledged that Guild Wars had flaws and many places it could be improved. Better story telling, better voice acting, more character customization, deeper and more varied PvP, more use of the advantages of having an instanced world, more newbie friendly gameplay for beginners, more fresh characters, monsters and settings than the typical westeren Tolkinish or Orientel fantasy games that has dominated the marked for so long, in everything RPGs. I have to say this. Guild Wars Nightfall absolutely blow the two previous games out of the water. As good as they are, Nightfall absolutely kills them. Now having an awesome story, lip synching, high quality voice acting, well written and highly entertaining plot by Jeff Grub, one of the co-creators of Forgotten Realms Nightfalls basic premise is so much better than anyone could have hoped for. Cut scenes are not basic emotes done over and over. characters are actually individually animated. Elonia, where the game takes place is storngly inspired by African, middle easteren and persian culture. It's not only incredible fresh, and a uniqe take on fantasy and a setting. The quests and gameplay is much more streamlined and easier to get into. The areas are massive and open ended. You can virtually many times go as far as the eye can see, and this says something as the graphics have been improved. But so has most things. Right of the bat the game is much easier for new people to instantly get new armors and weapons without much hassle. this was a major problem in the previous games. telling friends about the game and having them losing interest within the first couple of hours in the Shing Jea Island in Factions, or Pre-Searing in the original GW, because it was a hassle and sort of annoying to really get things done. Everything feels much more streamlined. Also alot more effort has went into quests, and simple dialouge. Often the game throws references at you to the other campaigns. Nightfall is the clousure arc of the Guild Wars Trilogy. It will end the questions that was unanswered in the first two games. There will be MUCH more guild wars after Nightfall, but does will be a new era. GW Nightfall seems to be the Return of the King, of the Guild Wars world. The big final battle, to the war. But many other things in GWNF has improved. The music for one thing is one of the best soundtracks I have ever heard. Jeremy Soule returns once again to show why he is king of westeren gaming composition. It easily tops the previous games soundtracks aswell as his work for games like IceWind Dale, Oblivion, Neverwinter Nights, Knights of the old Republic and more. Perhaps the only thing that comes close to what he is doing here, was his award winning score for Morrowind, years ago. Heroes, which are highly customized AI companions that follow you are awesome to have around with you. Letting you be more independed, giving you the option for more micro management if your into that sort of thing, or just filling the gaps in groups when a certain class or skills are needed. Intellegent and fast responded they are for a online persistent enviorment. Not flawlessly working, as no AI we have today is, but very good. The fact that you can bring these heroes with you two the old campaigns should enhance the experience with the two games alot. The Two new proffesions that come with the game are both well rounded and sort of uniqe in their own right. One of them, the Deverish who is a Scytche based fighter, has many melee AOE attacks but weaker armor than the traditional Warrior. The Paragon throws spears. A first for a main class in an RPG, I think? Like the setting of the game and the premise and look and the feel of it, these new proffesions also feels uniqe. For once you can open a game and play it and honestly say that its something you have not played or seen before, and yet feel its not wacky or tacky or strange as it has been strongly inspired by real african places, real middle easteren mythology and so on. Will Nightfall fix all the problems that the other games had? No, i dont think so. At least not right of the bat. We still have the problem of needing to find a better way to trade with other players. It has been suggested many times to add an auction house or bazar. Also, there can be communication barriers and problems with finding the people that are good for you. This is because of a sort of clunky chat interface, but probably also because of the chaotic-ness of the outposts and cities that are filled with players, due to the massive popularity of the titles. Another thing is probably more desired character customization and even more rare looking weapon skins and harder to get armor(100k armors have been suggested). In game voice communications is also still very desired due to the team based nature of the game. All of these features are highly possible to be in development for the game as we speak, for download in future updates. Still. If your one of does people out there who did not enjoy the first two games... Then I swear to you as an honest person - Try this. BUY IT and have faith in that when I tell that it is ages better than the previous games. I have not had as much fun with GW as I had in that preview event. I can honestly first time, say that I think that we got a true online RPG AAA game on our hands. I think a part of Guild Wars great results is because of it trying to nail itself down to the things it want to do. GW contains no massive raids, crafting, player housing, player cities, heavy social structure, player run econonomy and so on. It's a game about skill and combat and having fun, and particularly Nightfall seems to be accomplishing this extrodinarly well. The game is a challange. It's a game that makes you feel sad for all the people who will dismiss it, for all it's great results, impressive design sheet, flawless execution to its craftsmanship and it's innovations. The 8 skill system, where you can onyl bring 8 skills at one time into battle, despite all characters having both a primary and secondary class, and many many many hundreds of skills to choose from, is a testment to how sometimes more simple design decisions can change into much greater complexity and enhance the replayability of the game. Never have I seen a game that in such a dramatic way challanged my wits and brains. Simply thinking about the litterly billions of uniqe builds you can make and all the counters, blow my mind. Yes, I must recommend GW Nightfall to you on my biggest recomendation even if you seriously disliked the previous games. I feel this game is to good to be missed by anyone and that is why im making this post, so I hopefully will catch some of you people who gave up on this series a long time ago. Still no monthly fee and still not much time required to have fun, so there is nothing to loose. Give it a shot and I think you will love it. After that you can always go back if you like it and buy the older camapigns and add them to your NF. |
she will beat the hell out of you for that. 
