What exactly IS Guild Wars?

With the possibility of an announced GW2 on the horizon, we could be seeing the entirety of the game change as we know it. Sure, for it to be called "Guild Wars 2", it needs to have many elements of the game to carry over, or rather, the spirit of the game to carry over. However, this raises a question in my mind:

What exactly is Guild Wars?

To clarify the question, what differentiates Guild Wars from other games? What elements, either individually or combined, cause Guild Wars to stand out from every other game like it?

Some elements might include: No monthly fee, 8 skills, elite skills, PvP, frequent updates/balancing, lvl 20 cap, primary & secondary classes, etc.


Please refrain from turning this into any kind of GW vs. WoW crap, and also try to keep the flames and rants to a minimum.

To me, Guild Wars is an online roleplaying game that has one superior goal: to have fun no matter if you play 1h/week or 12h/every day.

Compared to many MMO's, Guild Wars doesn't exatcly 'slave' player in front of computer. No need to grind same dungeon/instance hundred times to get that last armour part needed for next dungeon etc. Guild Wars is healthier for real life

I agree with Jackie, and I must add that you can't die in peace without doing the ZENO SQUAD luxon quest in faction either.

- No monthly fee
- Quickly-reached level cap
- "Perfect" stuff available low-cost
- 8 Skills
- Costless unlimited build change while in town
- The whole PvP-character system, easy & quick.

I sure have forgotten something, but I think the most important is there.

GW is easy to use without being kiddy

GW is FREE to play (once you've bought it)

GW is MY LIFE! 8D

The thing I like about GW is how easy is it to just jump in it play for a bit and then leave.
You can do a quick quest, some PvP or whatever without spending lots of time planning.

A couple of weeks ago I decided to use the 14 day Lineage II key that was in the GW NF box. Although I liked the game and how the charactesr look and stuff, I knew I would not sign up. I spent a huge amount of time just trying to level my character. I was sick of killing orcs and fungus after a couple of days.

So yeah that is what GW is, a fun fast game and is easily picked up and played.

The PvP structure (or at least, what it's supposed to be) interests me more than any other game currently does (or did).

When I first played this game, I was blown away at how big of a leap they took from other games. But only after about 1 day of playing, I realised that they opened alot of doors to improve upon as well.

Some people might think they opened too many doors and aren't walking through them fast enough :S.

It doesn't take long to pick up... and one of the devs put it nicely when he said something like "you can put this game away for a month, or even a year, and when you come back to it, you'll still get a blast!"

I think that community interaction within GuildWars is crap and should be improved. However, their community relations between developers and fans is 1st class, better than first class, in fact. So that's definately commendable.

I can't really say much that hasn't already been said.

But yeah, most of all, I like the fact it is free. I don't care how much anyone tries to justify it, I simply refuse to pay monthly to play any game, it's just ridiculous. I don't mind something like Xbox Live, which is one yearly fee, for a single unified online system for all games, but for one single game, having to pay for it constantly just doesn't seem right.

Monthly costs also bring other problems, since you're paying for it, you feel you have to be playing it all the time, otherwise you're just wasting money. With Guild Wars it doesn't matter if I decide to take a week or two away.

The low level cap is nice, I don't like how every other MMO turns into a massive grind to get to the highest level possible, just so you can look better than everyone else. I tried playing PSO back in the Dreamcast days, but either me, or one of my friends would eventually just get sick of it because they've fallen too far behind and can't keep up. Guild Wars doesn't have to worry about that, if your friend is a few levels lower, they can easily tag along to get some more experience.

And finally, I like the fact I don't have to play with other users if I don't want to. I sometimes team up with other people, but generally speaking I've played through all three games, with just one friend with me and henchmen/heroes.

There are four key points to Guild Wars that make it a great game in my book:

(1) It's a game that you can still feel like you've accomplished something after you've played a mere half hour.

(2) There is no monthly fee.

(3) The emphasis on player skill over a character's skills is key. Along with this, equipment is secondary to player skill. Since you can only carry 8 skills at any one time, you really have to learn how to use the skills you've accumulated wisely: which ones work best for the mission you're about to undertake; which ones work best with the other skills you have; which ones work best with the skills being used by other players in your team (for both PvP as well as PvE).

(4) This final point goes along with my previous one: there is no level treadmilling (a BIG plus in my book). For a good description of what I mean, check out the following link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_treadmill

For me Guild Wars is a competive and skill-based MMO. Easy game to starts for beginners but when you become better it is really complex. A game with a nice storyline and cool armor and weapon skins but also a lot of arena's that require different playing style keeping the game fresh. A game with alot of skill combinations en different team builds but none of the builds are much too strong.

-Free of charge
-All the choice in the world to do whatever you please (farm, pvp, team up, play alone, get freaky armor, get freaky weapons, trade stuff)
-Balanced and high quality PvP (imo)
-Skill > build
-Never finished playing
-As time consuming as you like it to be
-8 skills, always an exciting puzzle to make a build that goes somewhere
-Team game

If only they had stuck with the ideology. Factions encroached upon it, and Nightfall obliterated it.

To those saying there is no grind in Guild Wars, I can tell you that there is MASSIVE grind, should you choose it (prime example of this is Fame and Rank).

Yeah, but only and only if you CHOOSE to.

Which overheats some brains as they decide that when 90% of things are attainable in grindless way, they should have same access to optionals too, and try to convince optionals are needed . Prime examples being GWO clique dubbed as "Perfect Crystaline for Everyone Party"

What is Guild Wars?

It's like the best friggin game ever made!! Besides that its a casual players MMO without the true MMO experience to drive casual players away from it with just enough "grind" for "hardcore" players.

But apparently not enough grind since they all post in forums how the game sucks with every update.

In your own words, "...should you chose it)

I have 5 fame and 0 rank. I don't feel a need to grind it to enjoy PvP. I have all the same equipment as someone with 10,000 fame and or a Tiger emote.

It's our life

I almost started a thread the other day on exactly this topic. My thread title was going to be "what makes Guild Wars 'Guild Wars'?" I have to say, I like the way the OP introduced the topic. I worked up the following list of potential uniquely Guild Wars Characteristics:

A. No monthly fee
B. Easily attainable max level
C. Level Cap of 20.
D. Creative Skill "builds" - many skills to choose from, but can only use a handful at a time.
E. Level playing field armor and weapons in both PVE and PVP - A player who invests more time has has "better looking," but not "more effective" gear.
F. Optional Grinding - Players who want to spend hours maxing titles or getting unique-looking gear can.
G. Fully Instanced World.
H. Instant Travel to visited outposts.
I. One Playable Race.
J. The core 6 classes.
K. The existing 10 classes (at a minimum)
L. Dual Class design.
M. The current characters you play.
N. Minimum bandwidth required to play.

Then I asked myself, which of the above list would I say needed to be in GW2 for me to still consider the game "Guild Wars."

After some thought, I came down to the following:

D. Creative Skill "builds" - many skills to choose from, but can only use a handful at a time.
E. Level playing field armor and weapons in PVP ONLY - A player who invests more time has has "better looking," but not "more effective" gear.
J. The core 6 classes.
L. Dual Class design.

To me, the essense of Guildwars is the 8 skill build, dual classed, core 6 classes with exquisitely balance PVP. Everything else (yes - even the one time purchase price) is up for grabs.

My ideal version of a GW 2 game might go something like this. PVP continues to be UBER characters that even the most casual player can create with ease so the skill factor - not the time invested grinding - is the key to victory.

In PVE, however, we change quite a bit. The level cap is raised significantly (50 seems about right). There are many aspects of your character that you can constantly improve: Wealth, Trade Crafts, armor, weapons, mounts, attributes, etc. Selective zones are opened up to larger and multiple groups of players. However, whenever you engage in PVP combat (in a PVP setting or PVE), your character is temporarily raised to the max level along with your armor and weapons. This ensures that you can invest as much time as you like making your character stronger and better (and not just acquiring vanity gear / titles), but that this investment doesn't result in an imbalanced PVP game.

This, to me, would be the ultimate GW game.

this isn't really the answer asked, but I gotta say 'Guild Wars' is a misnomer.

The thing that hooked me from the start about GW was, there ain't any dungeons! I get to see daylight! Also that the skills and game make sense, where i never understood NWN or baldur's gate etc. My brother hated them games but he got GW a week after me! Its pure simple and fun

In my case, finishing Prophecies meant = no real life, whereas I didn't seem to have quite the problem with Factions or Nightfall. So in my case, I got my life back with the other two games.

Everyone's pretty much covered it - game doesn't have to own you, stunning visual quality, 6 core classes (mesmers FTW), skill based, max level is decent and reasonable to reach (please never level 60, okay? I'll be happy with 20 forever), instanced world (no server bounderies), and most importantly, flexibility. I can grind or farm or whatever, or I can just play the game (and still usually come up with enough money to get all the goodies I like).

It's soccer. Monks are goalies. It is so obvious.

Aside from the soccer-style PvP/PvE, Guild Wars is just a time killer until Hellgate London comes out.

I think the skill system as-implemented was done poorly. Skill slots are a good idea, but weren't used to their full potential. A tenth of any skills have any use, etc.

I love the game for what it is now.... if all they did was update the graphics, I would still be a happy camper.

what I love about this game

1. visually impressive- excellent artististic 'non-cartoony' world (even though a bit outdated graphics)

2. skill based rather than time based gameplay- (easy to obtain highest level- easy to obtain skills..etc..making real life a possibility)

3. Diverse character build options- (10 clasess, secondary professions, many skills to choose from)

4. Inexpensive ( you dont 'need' the new chapters and there is no monthly fee)



If i could improve on this game I would make the following changes

1. Make pve more interesting- (more interactive enviroments, larger maps with more things to do, sub-storyline threads...more pve items/character..etc...in my opinion they should take a sucessful pve only rpg and emulate some of the enticing things about them)

2. graphics...(gears of war graphics with guild wars theme...awesome..the artists of a-net are already very talented...give them more power)

Cant see what the fuss is all about with Hellgate! The press seem to like it, but not heard many people talking about it...

Guild Wars is an online game by ArenaNet, a developer founded by a group of people crucial to some of Blizzard Entertainment's past games and services such as Diablo, Warcraft, Starcraft, and Battle.net.

So Wikipedia says anyway.

Football godammit!

The first thing i looked before i bought GW was if it has PK... and i was so happy it didn’t have PK, cuz i was bullied a lot in other MMO games... now finally i can do my thing without having to worry about who is over my shoulder.

Kudos to Anet for making such a great game.

I enjoy how tactical you have to be in Guild Wars and the recent Nightfall expansion. With so many limits such as lvl20 cap, 8 skills, and the primary attributes for each class the game forces you to take up builds for various situations instead of buying (insert best armor) and (insert best weapon) and beating on the wall until you can advance.

You just have to go to its fansites to hear people talking about it. The fuss is this is the closest we'll ever get to a REAL Diablo 3 - the development team includes Bill Roper and the Schaufererer brothers.

Diablo is to Hellgate as Starcraft is to Guildwars - Blizzard refugees who want to make games that aren't World of Warcraft.

I was watching GW way before the E3 for Everyone event, and I can say for pretty sure peoples weren't talking about it as much as they are here right now, freaking out over future campaigns and such.

Hellgate will be very big. All those people who want a modern RPG with phat lewts and levels, and single-character groups, without a monthly fee will play it. All of the weakpoints that GW has for the people who like that kind of system.

Foozball work?

Now I've gone from seeing my monk playing soccer, football, and now playing foozball (specifically at the table in my office).

So Guild Wars = people with wacky senses of humor like me?

I think the dual professions, countless skill combinations and 'skill synergy' is what makes Guild Wars. You can customize your playstyle to however you wish.

To me, Guild Wars is community. My Guild, my friends, my group - they all are the embodiment of Guild Wars for me. I can jump in, have fun, hang out, level up, hunt Charr, farm, and then leave.

That is what a game should be about. Thanks ANet.

What's Guild Wars? It's different with each campaign, really. Prophecies was all about the experience, both XP and the actual "Guild Wars" experience. Leveling through the whole game was something that was really cool and gave a nice sense of accomplishment. Also beating the game for the first time was just as satisfying.

I don't think you get this experience much anymore with the later campaigns, which really bums me out.

As a whole, everything has already been said: It's a decently balanced game with a fun-for-a-bit PvE mode and a pretty deep PvP side of gameplay (even though it's a very intimidating environment).

I think the "you can accomplish anything no matter the time frame" thing is pretty conditional. I usually have to set aside a big chunk of time to do a mission. But if you're just aiming to level up when you're not twenty, then...I guess killing a few monsters does something.

Many of the posts included no monthly fee, but for me that has nothing to do with it. This game has to be about its content not its payment options. If the content were bad it would be a pile of poop that happened to have no monthly fee.

To me the core of guildwars is that it is a competative mmo which emphasizes skill selection and strategy as a means of success more so than loot like many other games. I see it as a proper rpg version Magic the Gathering. It also happens to have a PvE side which can be mildly entertaining but which on its own is nothing to write home about.

A good point. I reckon that the no-fee structure is just the icing on the cake to get lots and lost of people into buying it, the actual content makes up the most of what Guildwars is. In saying that, even if GuildWars was on a monthly fee basis, their content would be even greater.

What he said.

I come from Magic: the Gathering, so I'll just point there as well.

My friend who introduced me to the game, a former MTG playtesting partner, basically got me interested because of he was able to describe the game to me in terms of magic. As such I was excited to give it a try even though I'd given up on keeping up with magic seriously a few years prior. Anyway, it has lived up to that feel in many ways for me. What I never really expected, having never played an mmo before, was the social aspect. I have to say it was pretty wild loading into ascalon for the first time with people running around all over the place chatting and emoting and whatnot. Anyway, any others - other than those who have come forward already - get into the game because of the magic parallels and see it as a sort of video game reinvention of magic?

I'm hoping for Guild Wars 2 to be much bigger, have a higher level cap, and have non instanced zones... does it make it like other mmos out there? yes.. is that bad? no... why? because it would still have all the instances for the missions ect, and the guild wars style is beautiful the different armors ect are all very cool compared to most other online rpgs where it's just the bland "leather shirt" or whatever. Guild Wars is great.. and the bigger they make it the greater it'll be. That's my opinion.

This is an interesting point and surely drives home the variety embodied in Guild Wars. My first fantasy game was Dark Castle (mac 1985). Since then I've played all the bioware/black isle games, diablos, Morrowind, Oblivion, some of the early Might and Magics, countless games I've forgotten and Guild Wars is my favorite. I say favorite because I've spent more enjoyable time on it then any of the others. I've got 13 characters (many more then any other game I've played) and enjoy them all. I play PVE 99% of the time. I like it for most of the reasons previously stated. I love being able to play a little and drop it for a while (though I rarely do). I love the fact that you can play it in so many ways. Even the many ways I don't play. Frankly I'd be happy if they'd just make more expansions for 5 more years. One of my favorite parts of Guild Wars I haven't heard much about id the Art Design. Its awesome and the main reason I buy the CE editions. Congrats to Daniel Dociu on a much deserved award.

It is repeatative gameplay.