The Guild Wars "Vision"

Before I start, I don't want this to degenerate into another "Working is good"/"grinding is bad" thread, there are plenty of other threads going on if you want to have that debate. I’ll also apologise for the text wall, just read the bold bit if you want.

The question I want to pose to you is, "What do you think Guild Wars is and what do you think sets it apart from other games Online RPG’s on the market?"

I've been wrestling with this question pretty much since the release of GW:EN, because the game is no longer what I thought it was. If someone had asked me this 6 months ago, I would have pointed them to the oft misquoted skill > time comment that Mike O'Brien made during the release announcement. "Skill>time" is somewhat of a corruption of what he actually said:
I don’t think the vision was ever 100% realised due to such things as Req 7/8 items, unconditional weapons, DP removal items and the like. Despite this, I would still cite the quote as what made an apt description of what Guild Wars special, because Arenanet always seemed to be moving in the direction of ironing these hiccups out, taking such steps as removing "legacy" items (eg 15% Flame spitters) that provided advantages to rich players or adding green weapons to make upgrades more accessible to poor ones.

I used to recommend Guild Wars highly say things like "the good thing about Guild Wars is it is an RPG that you can play for a week and be as good as someone that’s played for a year, because it’s all about the player rather than the character." The steps Arenanet have taken recently with the many timesink based PVE skills (Factions, nightfall and gwen) seem to be in direct opposition to this, and I can no longer say state it as truth. Instead I’m left wondering “Why am I playing GW rather than some of the other games on the market?” I could say “it’s a MMO with no monthly fee’s, no need to share instances and no need to spend days killing bunnies or skinning wolves for leather”, but that could describe a hundred other games. I could say “it got great graphics and presentation,” which I think does, but that’s a very subjective qualification. “Its fun,” but aren’t all the games fun by definition?

Don't take this as whinge thread, its not. It said right on the box that game play would be “subject to change,” its their game and they can do what they want it, believe me I've had my money's worth. They'll lose some players and they'll probably gain even more players, and I imagine many, if not most, don't even notice the difference. Despite all the changes, I still think Guild Wars is a very good MMO and I don't think there's one better out there right now, I just can no longer put my finger on why I like it, and I’m curious as to whether anyone else can articulate what it is that makes the game special.

GW is not a MMO, it is a 3D IRC client with some mini games. That is it.

Funny a friend and I were talking about this. How the game has gone a complete different direction than when it was first put out. I remember back when I first got it, and the only reason I made a RP Character was to get it to level 20 so I could have some flashy skinned sword instead of the PVP ones. It really seemed like it used to be a PvP based game with some PVE stuff to take it easy with and to provide a story. Then Factions game and kind of merged the two, then nightfall just said screw it, lets go PVE.

That said, I still love the game, but it undenyable that it has changed since the begining and that the "vision" has changed as well.

To me, Guild Wars have always had a large community since Prophecies. Many players pursuing their own goals in ways they think is fun. Which is why they included both PvP and PvE together.

Since then, they have constantly juggled between appeasing the interests of one group or the other... and while one group seems to be pleased with the update, the other seems to be annoyed. And constanty back and forth, back and forth, each progressive resolutions only seem to displease a group that were just pleased a while ago... and since people seem to remember what they don't like more than what they do. It seemed like Anet was deliberately trying to wreck a beautiful game, when in reality they're just trying to satisfy different interests.

With each progressive campaigns, they have constantly (and barely) managed to please the entire community to some degree. But expansions operate differently, they're designed to target a specific group of players because of their "additional" content. So instead of starting from scratch like we always did, we are suddenly given a path to continue forward... except no one has ever ventured this far, and the road is very different than before. The target audience moves forward, loving the new additions, while players who were unfamiliar with these new additions are quite upset.

The mistake in GW:EN is that certain parts of these new additions extend back to roads behind us. Touching as far back as Prophecies, utterly changing a huge part of the entire game. Now it would seem that the selected target audience that would enjoy what's in GW:EN are the only audience that would enjoy all the campaigns. Players outside of this target group are much displeased. I'm fortunate enough to be part of the target group still... but I can't expect other players to play like me.

Guild Wars vision was a game that unifies players of all sorts of interests, but the lesson here is that sometimes, some people are just not meant to get along.

I've never really been able to say why I like GW. It plays like a singleplayer game for me, yet I'm horribly hooked to MMOs. I think possibly it's because I came across the development of it after quitting 3 years of UO. I've constantly been searching for a "new UO" to hook me, and all other MMOs seem to be clones of each other with different skins (WoW, EQ2 etc - love 'em all and still play WoW but... not the same )

GW however, not being a true MMO, just seems to fit nicely into that little hole for when I don't want to be out there, either spending hours finding a group for some silly instance or slogging it out on my own, aggroing one monster at a time, using all my skills which every other paladin has exactly the same.

I love the fact I can pick up some henchies/heroes (rarely PUG) and just get out there and do it. Fashion a build to suit me, not "you're a ranger, you WILL have these skills and if you don't like half of them... well you're gonna die ifyou don't use them", I just pick 8 that fit me and go. Not carefully aggroing 1 mob at a time, but actually running into a patrol (sometimes even 2 or 3!) and coming out victorious. I don't know which is more fun, barely winning or completely owning them but it's all good. I like the fact I can contribute well to a team whenever I do join up with real players even though I regularly take long breaks. I can still help out my guildmates even though I haven't played in 3 months, because I have a level 20 character, and the only stuff I've missed out on is collecting cool-skinned items.

I agree the vision has changed. There is certainly more grinding than there used to be, I think this first changed with Factions when they stopped giving skills as quest rewards in order to let people choose their builds more effectively. Nice idea but now I have to grind skill points and cash instead. I think they'd have done better to make skills quest rewards still, but offer 2 or 3 and you choose the one you want, then at a later date you can go buy the remaining skills anyway, for those who like the complete set, or think they made a bad choice.

It's kept me around on and off for 28 months and counting so far, since the final BWE, so its clearly done something right. The only other games to do that were UO (3 years) and Sacred (2 years). WoW is only on about 6 months and Horizons Online will probably do the same if my char ever gets back up (long story - playing for 1.5 years though), and I think tbh GW will keep me til it goes down... by which time I'll be on GW2

Guild Wars started off as, 'if you want to do X, you can go about it this way, or this way, or that way.'...slowly it's changed so that access to particular content requires a particular playstyle.
I think they got hung up on trying to achieve a certain goal with new mechanics and forgot how to design these mechanics to be open ended in how the content can be obtained.

Slowly dying are the days of getting runs to zones, getting the new armour or weapons skins through collectors, crafting the newly added materials by collecting other materials and going to a material crafter, using skill points to power new skills, ect.

"If you don't like something change it; if you can't change it, change the way you think about it."

-- Mary Engelbreit

Here is a thread I started 6 months ago - http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10128441

It asked the question, "What exactly IS Guild Wars?"

Surprisingly there were not many responses that had anything to do with the whole skill>grind thing. When people did mention grind, it was more in reference to the insane equipment grind in other games. When people mentioned skill, it was in reference to a players skill being more important than their characters "skills." I think all those things still hold true with Guild Wars.

Even with GW:EN, the only "equipment grind" is still entirely cosmetic. There is a "skill grind," but the fact remains - player skill>character skills. You can do everything in GW:EN with normal (non-PvE-only) skills, as long as you are "good enough." These elements are still what I, and from the looks of it many others, feel is the essence of Guild Wars.

Even still, that quote by O'Brien holds true. The PvE-only skills are good, and in many cases better than normal skills, but they aren't extremely overpowered to the point where a normal skill won't be near as effective in the hands of a skilled player. So, skill is still better than time played. Someone grinding for a more powerful "Pain Inverter" will still be less effective than another who is simply a better player with normal skills.

EDIT: I'd like to add - initially I think they wanted to target a range of gamers, not just the 'casual,' but the 'hardcore' as well. They started small, by having 15k and FoW armor as the 'hardcore' gamer's goal (talking PvE, since PvP is what you make of it). Each expansion, it seemed they wanted to expand on both fronts. Look at Factions - their second creation. They went for the casual players with the quickest road to level 20 of any campaign, then went for the hardcore with the Elite and Challenge missions. Each step had both types of players in mind.

First of all: No fees.

Secondary: A quickley spawned pvp character can perfectly compete with a totally pimped out rpg character. There may be a lot of grind for those who want it, but it doesn't mean jack when it comes to competitive gameplay.

I think GW got a lot of polish and content over the years.

Yet the original idea changed a lot, too. Into a direction that I do not like.


Today you get rewarded for playing ONE main char only, and punished for investing more time in secondary chars. The title system and the faction ranks plus the super-silly HoM are to blame for this. Grind is also not really "optional" anymore, you are excluded from skills, equipment and armor. Thankfully the first ranks are usually easy to obtain and the power scaling very flat.


Now, what do I like about GW - The 7 good reasons to play GW:

1. LANDSCAPE/ENVIRONMENT/GRAPHICS: What a vivid and nice world to behold and explore. Bad thing that GWEN has such beautiful areas but only so few of them, I am an Explorer according to the Bartle-Test.
What amazes me is often the strong contrast between the nice sceneries and some incredibly fugly player weapons and armors. The excellent art team seems to be taxed too hard, many of their idea are still in the ideas/design stage and get displayed in what I would call an unfinished state. The lack of new creature models or armor models and too many too similar reskins often make me sigh.


2. SKILL SYSTEM: I like the 8 skill system and making builds in GW. I fear for GW2, for a MMO with bigger instances I doubt that the 8 skills out of a gazillion model will really work.


3. LOW GRIND, NO ENDLESS EVERQUEST STYLE LEVELQUESTING AND ITEM BASED GAMEPLAY:
I got tired of this after the x-th reincarnation of EverQuest, and WoW is not different. I really like that I do not have to level from 1-100 and all weapons I found so far are crap with each new expansion.
Some people hate that, but they should play WoW or other games, I am glad that GW is not about levelling and item greed/hunt that gives you a more or less serious edge in gameplay. Too bad the game shifted more and more towards not so optional grind.


4. INSIGNIA/INSCRIPTIONS: Best idea ever. The new way to do headgear (+1 to the attribute of the rune) should have been like this from the very beginning.
This makes "green weapons" quite superfluous, especially as ANet often gives them silly stats and garish colors. Now if they would introduce Inscriptions to all campaigns, that would be nice and consistent.


5. HEROES: Love/Hate relationship here. I like to play with them and equip them, and they are better than my guild full of players that are so "casual" that it is no longer funny. Did Shards of Orr yesterday with them and it was so much easier with Heroes and Henchies that I really got angry.
But they also make GW a solo game. A good thing one the one hand, a bad thing on the other.


6. MISSIONS: I really liked the concept and how they are tied into the storyline.
The way GW:EN does them goes more into the direction of a general MMORPG. GW2 will be like that, with "bigger" instances where you can meet people, which will change the face of GW and social interaction and gameplay dramatically.


7. FEE-FREE: I could afford to pay, but I simply like the fact that I do not have to pay a fee.



As you can see, I am not a PvPer. "Small Maps Combat" and PvP in general were never things I was interested in overly much.

Guess ANet's bosses were surprised, too, that there were many more players that did not turn towards PvP after killing the Lich.

When i first began playing round beginning release of factions i was actually rather new to any kind of online gaming .. infact GW is my first tru ONLINE gaming community. though playing Rpgs ive been doin since D & D was still played on tables with a group of friends and a DM lol. I was quickly absorbed into the world of GW for several reasons.. one of the main ones being the idea of casual play... and skill over time. Then NF hit the press and the idea of Heroes and new pve titles that would give u special pve only skills ...that in reality only equald grind. So the community complains then they give us dbl trpl reward weekends for Lb and Ss which equals time > skill ... most of which [LB] was mainly to be able to do DoA and be able to join a group... cos like HA u couldnt have a low rank and be able to enjoy an elite area.. unlike Urgoz and The Deep u just gathered ur 12 set their skill bar and didnt have to worry bout if they could do xx mounts of dmg due to a title , no it was skill > time .. i use this example cos i feel its a good one that represents exactly what the author of this thread was speakin of in essence. At one pt and time even during factions it was skill rewarded over time invested... though time invested titles/grind was always geared for more of the hardcore players. Otherwise gw still rewarded u for just casually playing. the rich environments , balanced play, ability to like stated jump right in and in a week be right on par with most others in a game[ maybe not a week but not far off from that], and be part of an extrememly great community not to mention free to play.

I try to balance myself between pve and pvp and on pvp side id have to say its a mix of both ...casually u will enjoy a more competitive atmosphere and u MAY obtain something but if u stick time to it and heighten ur skill level and ability to play ur rewarded nicely for ur efforts. [ why Ha is only arena with emotes] cos even flavor of the week/month builds need skill as well as the time to get what they are trying to acheive while farming pts or holding halls. Sorry to make this long wrappin up ... all and all though i feel Gw hasnt strayed much from their concept ive gone from hardcore play to casual back to hc and occasional [not casual] lol...and it doesnt seem like i ve had to grind much harder unless i wanted to join some elitest group ... but hey thats what guilds and friends are for .

In a way, the hall of monuments promotes more pvp since it makes you want to have only one role playing character.

I have more then enough room for some quick and disposable pvp toons since i deleted everything exept my monk.

MMO Games I have played: Runescape (admit it people, you tried it once and got addicted to it), Ragnarok Online, ROSE Online, World of Warcraft, EVE Online (Demo), Lineage 2 (Demo), Auto Assault (Demo), City of Heroes (Demo), Guild Wars, plus a whole bunch I can't remember.

MMO Games I still play: Guild Wars

This is still the game for me. However, recent features have taken away quite a few of the aspects of this game that I enjoyed the most. Nevertheless, I also respect the reasons behind those descisions (ie: Heroes were probably in response to the "I want better henchies" argument).

Still, this game has now digressed into far too much grinding for the average joe (or jill) with a family and job, or the 8 yr old brat who want to try something new. Things that the community loved 2 years ago have disappeared entirely, but having said that new things are coming through that others enjoy.

Personal Opinion: I'm here to stay (and I'll probably buy GW2 and subsequent campaigns/expansions), but I'm disappointed in the descisions made by Anet (namely the inclusions of heroes and titles...removal of team play and inserting of grind into a non-grind game...*shudder*).

Quoted for the [email protected] truth, at least the MMO part. Hard to gloat about it being free-to-play when it's not even an MMO, and when have you ever seen a subscription fee for an online RPG, anyways?

/shrug

I think it was more the "I can't find anyone to do this damn mission because of how big the game is" argument.

Good article and very well put. After GWEN release my 2 "real life" friends asked how it was. They were still miffed about faction requirement for skills from factions. You see they work hard for a living and enjoy doing something fun on the weekends something they can just jump into.

However I encouraged them to not invest in GW anymore because ANET has lost its vision. Whereas the game was once something you can just get into now its a time investment. Something real people don't have.

Now we play counterstrike. I still play GW but I don't know for how much longer.

dota, counterstrike. pickup and play, a rpg by definition will be based on time spent so anet was really shooting themself in the foot

Their original take on the game has changed to due to the demands of the customers. This is what I feel is happening.

Not only that but some of their experiments have flopped or grown out of control and are going back to the drawing board with GW2.

I think it's more a case of Anet seeing how successful that"other" game is and how so many people willingly pay a monthly fee just to grind away, that they think "hey, people must like grinding, maybe if we added grinding we'd sell more games".

Still, grinding isn't mandatory at all. You can still leave your heroes at home,wear only Droks armor and collectable weapons and look for a mission in wich someone wants help, or you can go to RA for some quick pvp.

If people are demanding you to be "People know me" to even let you into their party, then thats a matter of elitist prickhood, not bad game design.