GW Still King?

I might want to add that FoW/UW and other Prophecies areas are over 3 years old. Not much has changed in these areas, whereas outside of them everything has changed. Heroes(!), PvE-skills, new skills alltogether, 4 new professions...of course these areas are easy now.

But you could not have done this 2-3 years ago!

Now try to complete the Domain of Anguish (only 1,5 years old). You won't get very far with this setup.

True, Anet could have invested time in reviving the old Elite Areas, but they chose not to. I can live with that, I am able to find my own challenges. And I know they are working on another great game, which I will cross over to in time.

Don't forget about Sab's 3 Necro's, makes everything much, much easier.

Cookie cutter builds are just as bad as Ursan. Even before Ursan was added, it was just a case of having to take a particular build or you wouldn't be accepted in groups. Not really much that can be done about that, in a game like this.

And one of the things I've always liked about Guild Wars, is the fact I can play it by myself. I enjoy playing it with a few friends I have in real life, instead of meeting random people online, and very few other online RPG's allow for that. I don't think it's something that should be, or needs to be changed.

I still prefer GW to WoW.

I am not a hater, I usually play WoW for roughly 1 month and then I am done with it and cannot stand it anymore. It is just that it is nothing more but EverQuest on steroids. I never liked this system, I prefer Ultima Online.

I am not playing GW much at the moment, but for playing one-two hours every other day it is perfect. I would not pay 15 bucks for that like in WoW.

And somehow I always come back to GW, despite them trying so hard to totally screw up the game. Erm I meant improve the game. I am in sheer horror that they will really implement some of their "most brilliant" GW1 ideas into GW2! ARGH!

- This is a good example of strange argumentation that I don't understand. You say that GW is a fantastic game BUT then add five conditionals. When your comparison pool of games includes only games that have to be online, free-to-play, RPG, must include persistent areas, released 2005+... sure GW is the best game since there's no competition.

Same reason why "free to play" is weird kind of argument for quality of good game. For some people like me it's a prerequisite: I would never even consider paying on monthly basis for any game. For others it might be slight drawback similar to dated graphics on otherwise good game. But it's not a positive quality for any game. No one buys a game just because it doesn't have monthly fee.

- This is the "beating dad" complex. "Well I guess this shittiness has to be tolerated for there's nothing that can be done about it". No. There's plenty of games which *actually* resolve around player skill and not grinding.

- Seriously? Can you name some games that can't be played alone?! Even Counter-Strike is a team game, yet you can play it without paying much attention to where your teammates are going in public servers. Oh sorry... it's not online RPG, the cesspool genre where it's rare that game doesn't suck too hard?

Ursan is far more broken. Maybe you don't understand, but 1 player should never, EVER be able to complete h/h elite area. FoW is still an elite area.

PvE-Skills... I used 2. Heroes are worse than human, even with the auto-pilot builds I used. And I had only 1 of those new professions, ritualist, but I could change the N/Rt to N/Mo.

Because everyone has r10 sunspear and r8 luxon/kurzick. Right.

But you didn't need to grind your ass on a stupid title to grind for higher level of stupid title in order to grind another title and grind that title higher, too, then finally go to DoA/UW/FoW. Don't you see how this fails? Back then you had to use your brainz. Now it's:

1. Spam your ursan skills.
2. Spam your ursan skills.
3. Spam your ursan skills.
4. Spam your ursan skills.
5. Spam your ursan skills.
6. Spam your ursan skills.
7. Heal/spam prot.
8. Spam heal/prot.

Woah. Complexity never ends.

Funny. Diablo 2 - alone, NwN - alone, WoW parts - alone, AoC - lol alone?, CS alone with bots, Starcraft - alone.

BORKEN ASS GOD DAMN HARD AREA LOL 55125215 MONSTERS DEALING 421841 DMG PER HIT AND HEALING FOR 412412!

Diablo 2 is not an RPG. It's hardly a cRPG. NwN is RPG.

Because character progression, random hit and damage calculation exists even in Warhammer 40k (strategy PC game), Quake Wars, Enemy Territory, Battlefield 2, Call of Duty, all Star Wars games including strategies and TPPs, Chronicles of Riddick and hell more games. RPG is usually either an advanced plot, on which people focus instead of slaying tons of monsters or a game where you can roleplay your character.

You hardly can roleplay if you have (Diablo 2 and Dungeon Siege) limited amount of character choices. I mean, there is a very high chance that 5 people standing next to each other look almost same except for armor. How to roleplay that? Oo

You shouldn't have to use player-made handicaps to make a game fun. The game should be fun as it is, in all cases, because it is a game.

The idea that parts of the game as they come will not be fun unless you as a player do something first should be a huge warning sign of bad design.

Guild Wars definitely falls short in that regard. Its PvE was never the best on the market, not even close - and with the decline of PvP support and emphasis, Guild Wars has nothing to set it above anything else.

Like it matters? You have got to be kidding. R8 Sunspear is easy enough to get, making TntF! plenty imba; and SY! is imba at r0. You use these skills, and you don't realize this?

At least you finally admit it.

Advanced plot is a bit subjective, huh? It's like saying a racing game can't be called a racing game if the cars aren't going over a certain speed. Besides, I thought D2 had a fine plot, and I don't see why I can't role play my Barb. Besides, Doom has an "advanced plot" and you can even role play your character if you're mental enough.

The fact that it's subscription free is the only reason you are coming back to GW.

If it required subs, i can't think of 1 good reason why another MMO out there wouldn't be a better choice.

FoW is part of learning curve. Before HM it was step between normal PvE and Elite PvE. Something you would do after conquering SF and likes, before you are ready for UW. As such it needs to be easy enough to allow decent-ish team to progress and hard enough to punish obvious stupidity.

You cannot have "zomg easymode" and "zomg waytoohardqq" without any inbetween steps. Side effect that minor elite stuff is comfortably H+H able by imbagon with 6 similary imba builds in tow is hardly wrong if it was designed to be easy-ish to begin with.

My friends play in the WOWscape server(privater server for WOW). But it doesn't appeal to me. I guess it just proves that even if there is a no monthly subscription for WOW I still would play GW. But if GW would have monthly subscription, then I wouldn't play both

GW is the king of free online games, but for the overall genre, no.

WoW still holds that crown. As much as people hate the game, the simple fact remains that profit made is the important factor. WoW has sold the most copies, WoW has the most active subscribers, therefore WoW wins.

Argue among yourselves all you want, but you facts will always beat you.

Diablo 2 or Doom have advanced plot? Good God, you have watched too many C class Hollywood movies.

Diablo 2: Zomg the hero was corrupted and Diablo 2 tries to free his brothers!! Kill him and his legions of evil lol!! Same with the add-on.
Doom: You are a marine, you go and kill a bunch of monsters then kill the biggest monster in the game.

I admit, D2 has some great videos and it could be a great movie, but would be something like LotR (fights vs 512516 monsters) + Uwe Boll as the director (crap in every other way), but it's plot is... Well, nobody even cares about it. Sure, you can roleplay in it. But same as you can roleplay using 2 stick figures and talking to yourself.

Why do I think that SY at r0 doesn't exist?

I said ,,HARDLY''. It means that in an alternative universe, where Diablo 2 is like twice shorter, the plot would be advanced. But the rest of the game would be boring and too short.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hack_and_slash

Here you go, enjoy lecture. Read especially the part about boring and mindless killing. Describes both Diablo 2 (where it's not that boring, it's actually damn fun) and Guild Wars (where it is boring).

Played there, my friend too. We both were god damn bored, because ANY private server with rates higher than x1 gets boring faster. Try trial. I played over 3 times longer on it than on private server, my friend plays WoW now instead of GW (he used to play gw). DON'T base your opinions on beta/demo/trial. It's like with... I dunno, Fury. It was a great game during beta, then the retail was out... And you probably know the rest of the story.

When on Wind Rider, one has a few minutes to spare...

So... what part of that makes it not an RPG? You still fail at proving that, despite referencing a wiki article which clearly states:

Note the bolded part. Case in point, RPG. Sub-genre or not, they are all RPGs. You really love arguing whether you're wrong or not, don't you?

Also, I was wrong about r0 kurzick/luxon, so sue me. Doesn't change my point, which is what you should've addressed. Oh wait, unless you couldn't address it...

If you read more about Diablo, you'd notice that it's not RPG, but action RPG, which is often considered more of an Action-Adventure than an RPG. Read few more links on this page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_role-playing_game

So in RPG's you have one or more avatars, attributes in numeric value (so instead of bars like in GW or Diablo, there are only numbers like XX/YY).

Oh, and in GW your character hardly evolves during the game - after like 1/2 of the game (Factions 1/4, Nightfall 1/3, Gwen... at the start) you can have any skill, elite skill and weapon in the game. Only the oldest and the best game, Prophecies, has SOME kind of evolving of the character. You are level 20 after like 3/4 or 4/5 of the game, so that's quite far. Most of the elite skills were very late in the game, too. Same goes with good armor and weapons. But then each add-on was making the game worse.

Ask any true fan of RPGs or Hack'n'slashes and he'll tell you what's the difference between RPG and HnS. It's just that both fangroups hate when someone thinks their game is the other genre.

That on r7 sunspear and r1 kurzick those skills are not THAT good? 3 seconds of one thing, barely 25% reduction of the other and not even 1/3 of upkeep. If I had like r6-8 and 2 seconds longer SY, I would admit. But I have very little choice as a paragon (in pve) - attack using adrenaline attacks, so you can't cast SY, or just auto-attack all the time to power SY. Oh, and I have barely any hex-removal, only one character with one. Recharge 12. So pretty much if hero casts it on wrong person, my team is screwed. In Ursan, you have no counters, as only your monks maybe target of potentially dangerous hexes. In h/h, you are usually the target as the person with lowest armor (AR gives you a team full of tanks).



And let's not get crazy, because in theory EVERY game on my shelves or hard drive are RPGs. In Hitman you get upgrades, in Rayman you get more health (DUNGEONS!!11), in Crysis you get more weapon upgrades, in Gears of War you advance in rank, in Psi-Ops you get more powers, in Rune more health and energy, more weapons in Assasin's Creed and more health. In every game you get something during the game. That makes the game NOT BORING. Because you have a reason to go on, play more and finish the plot. So in theory every game is an RPG...

Guild Wars lost it for me. I played for the fun of playing with others and exploring new content, as well as for a time to save vast fortunes to buy various skins in the game, be they armor or weapon. Played on and off for almost three years.

Every time a new expansion came out there were new areas to explore, new missions to try, and new skills to acquire. That always prompted a surge of play for at least a month. Originally longer, as I had many characters to get through all the new content, but, with the release of titles, I only focused on one character and therefore only one got through new content. There's no more new content of this sort coming and it didnt come often enough when it was coming.

Play with others diminished drastically once heroes got released simply because there was no more need to group with anyone to get anything done, compounded by consumables. Most experienced players play alone or with a friend or two along with heroes and a large part social aspect of the game nearly vanished.

Inscriptions wrecked a large part of the high end trading market and caused a number of the players I played with to leave the game as that was their fun. I had eventually gotten away from trading and high end collecting since I finally got weary of the fact that everything was just a skin anyway.

Ursan and consumables made PvE silly easy, but select other skills can do it as well. Thing is, unlike some suggestions in this thread, making it harder for yourself isnt a solution. The game should be properly balanced so you dont have to handicap yourself just to enjoy playing.

The level cap eventually made the PvE game boring, since at a certain point there simply is not anything to do. Enter titles, which didnt help matters any since they all amount simply to busy work.

Dont get me wrong, I love the game. There's just so much you can do with it for the way it was designed that you eventually tire of it. It was never meant to be a sustained PvE game, hence most of the additions to the original model I listed above. Its just none of them did any actual good imho.

Attributes in numeric value is a defining factor? The bars you see are simply visual representations of numeric values. You're kidding yourself if you think that is sooo much different to warrant even mentioning.

My point is, which is also enhanced by your own wiki source, that an "action RPG" is still an "RPG." Confirm/Deny? Seriously, how can you argue that when the term includes the acronym? Are you really that thick?

Yes, they are. Period. If you don't think so, why use them? Or is it just: "Oh, well they're better than all the other skills the Imbago... I mean Paragon has, but they ain't no Ursan!" Well, can't argue with that logic! Keep abusi... mean using it. No, you're not being hypocritical.

Of course, except that the features I mentioned earlier (character progression, loot, dungeons, and random hit and damage calculations) must all be present in order to be considered an RPG (though dungeons are optional). Other features include quests, plot, etc. Do any of those games have all these features? Does Diablo or Guild Wars? There's you're answer.

Is someone who loads powerfull skills and uses powerfull build hypocrite too?
Some of few builds that do not suck completelly?
Maybe someone who uses PvX ones?
Maybe everyone who is not spamming power attacks, orsions and flares?

In my day, we had to play on dial-up -- lag everywhere! While wearin' a hat made o' cement, ya 'ear!

/win thread.

QFT

Edit: If you don't like GW anymore. Then please stop bitching about how much you hate the game. Please only post constructively.

Because paragon's have so many ways of being useful in PvE. Defensive Anthem, Stunning Strike... and... um... Eeee... Imbagon.
Plus, it's one build. Ursan is one skill better than Imbagon. And 6 ursans are better than 6 imbagons. Oh, and I think that since I'm a hypocrite, I'm going to start playing the old school - Mesmer/Necro minion master/illusion/domination/blood magic or Ranger/Elem with fire storm and glyph + point blank shot + pet. That'll be awesome!

And if you REALLY want to know the difference between Diablo 2 and an RPG game - ask around the net. Go to ANY HnS/RPG forum and people will tell you the difference. Very simple:
- RPG - main focus on roleplaying and dialogs.
- HnS - SLASH THE HELL OUT OF ANYTHING!! TONS AND TONS OF IMBA MONSTERS THAT 1 PERSON CAN KILL! Sometimes more than one, but yeah.

Don't see the difference? Guess that's why you don't see GW is getting worse and worse.

Yeah, most of them have quests and a complicated plot. Few examples for quests (because almost all games have plot, except for Tetris and pingpong):

Crysis - Clear the village, then find hostage and secure the position.
Assassin's Creed - All investigations are quests. All. One is kill a target, other is find/protect the informer, and some are pickpocket missions.
Rune - Well, that's a pure hack and slash, so the main point is to go and kill everything on the way. One quest - avenge your tribe.
Hitman - Each mission has few quests, then you escape/mission ends in older games.
Gears of War - every few minutes you finish a quest and end one too. They are linear, but so are quests in Diablo 2 - you can't finish Act 3 quests before you end Act 1. I mean you can with cheats and if you finish the last quest in the act... but that's like cheating anyway.
Psi-Ops - same, for example, plant a bomb, solve a puzzle.
Rayman 3 - hm, first few quests can be like, looking for your arms (lol, the game's great, rly), then stopping the main foe, then taking your friend to few doctors, defeating bosses (IN THEIR DUNGEONS!!!)

Even in sport and race games you have quests. No? xd

There is also something about different systems that RPGs use (and some cRPGs, since you don't see the difference), like dices. In Diablo 2 the only thing you care about is how much health you got and how big damage you deal. Everything else is (except for PvP, where you need to think a bit) not important.

Eh. And since HnS = RPG, then I guess that a tractor = car? But car = new lamborgini. See the difference? No? Then go back to your tractor, I mean car.

If you don't like your country anymore, please emigrate somewhere else.

Compter RPGs in general depend on dice rolls. Action games rely on twitch.

Diablo is a merge between the two. It's a hack'n'slash with strong RPG elements. While at pure mechanical level the outcome is dice based, actual combat is twitch based.

WoW or LotR are pure RPGs. Every action is determined by dice roll. While for some actions position matters, it's just an extra condition.

Gears of War is an FPS. Point-and-shoot. There's tactical and strategic elements, and each level has some form of a quest/mission/story structure. While not as elaborate, it's the same model as one used by Wolfenstein 3D.

All FPS today have assimilated some minor RPG elements. COD, Gears, and all others. But ultimately, they are still FPS.

There's a hybrid genre within *Shock series. System Shock popularized a strongly story-driven, RPG based FPS hybrid. Within this niche genre, all three elements are represented equally strong. As such, the *Shock series doesn't fit into any (Deus Ex is also an example). They can all be played in diverse way, and while point-and-shoot is always present, without exception the choice of encounters is very diverse.


*All* RPG games however are video-game versions of DnD model. While some elements (xp, level, skill, dice, armor, strength, ....) are ubiquitous to computer games of all types today, they were formally defined for pen-and-paper DnD games.

Since the number crunching model was so suitable for computers, SSI was first to offer 1-to-1 conversion of those games to computers. MUDs did the same online games. As technology advanced, these concepts were distilled into a broad range of RPG-like games, including all of today's MMORPGs.


The keyword for today is "blending". As we move into increasingly larger productions, blending of genres and styles is the key to future. X-Box Live had great success, WoW had another.

The near future will soon bring "X-Box live" for entire game market. Where each player transitions between games, between playstyles, where achievements are shared and where social networking plays huge role.

This will be the next paradigm shift in online gaming. Until then, it's all just EQ and Diablo legacy, and nothing more, no matter how it's called.

There is a difference between having to leave your country because you hate it. And not posting on a forum anymore because you don't like the game.

The difference is, I don't have to listen to everyone that hates their country. But on this forum, I have to try and wade through everyones moronic posts about why they hate GW; just so I can find a post that is constructive and not the usual whiny post.

Agree, although the point is that some people don't see the difference between TRUE RPG's and hack'n'slashes.

And that the main point of the thread is ,,GW is still a King?''. And the answer is, no matter if we look at it as HnS, RPG or just Online-only game, no, it's not a king. For a year it was, then WoW was at least as good, but after Factions and Nightfall it became worse. Yeah, add-ons make sometimes the game worse if people MUST have them to do something other people can. They don't buy, they can't play with other players. And they have harder time.


Sorry, I love to chew gum and give wise answers. But I have only gum left, used all answers. I gave many reasons, why GWEN made GW much, much worse. And I don't HATE this game. I wouldn't log on at least every day to a game I hate. It's just like an old car - you bought a new engine, but it turns out that car is slower, fuel to it costs a lot more and there are better ways to move around.

They all grow boring over time that's nothing new, and the only reason GW is a draw to come back to is because it has "no monthly fee". But, it's still the same boring game once it becomes boring. Nothing really to do unless you want to play the grind wars game of it. Once the story and all the missions and quests are done it's like any other offline rpg like a Diablo 2 or Neverwinter Nights except NWN's has over 3000 other stories and adventures you can play and GW dies at four (prop, fac, nf and gwen). That's the one I find myself playing most lately. I recently purchased the "Titan Quest Gold" edition for $10 and I'm playing through that, for those that are loot RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOs Titan Quest is definitely the game for you I find myself having to go back to town to sell stuff almost after every battle definitely get your moneys worth in loot to play around with though it suffers from the same problem GW suffers from not enough loot storage space.

Oh and as far as "King" goes as always WOW is the King and has been for several years now. It has sold more copies (10 million and growing) AND has a substantial subscriber population paying an additional $15 a MONTH on top of those sales. I doubt any game will ever topple WOW from those types of figures Blizzard has proven what people want and who the real KING of MMORPG is.

Hm, dunno why I missed this piece of junk. So wait, you don't like people that got bored with GW because it's bad since EotN, yet you admit you are bored too? So, like, you hate yourself for being bored with the game?

Wow, you should go see a doctor. A leg doctor, too late for a head doctor.

I can, so I did

EVE Online : You need to care far too much about depth to play this with any success. Also, one of the grindiest games in the world

WoW : Cartoon animation, flawed pvp, griefing and again grind


There are plenty of others out there, like Matrix Online, Flyff and Starwars Galaxies. Would you seriously choose all of those over Guild Wars?

Personally, I can't stand pointless grind. Guild Wars grind is mostly optional, it isn't seriously required to progress the story, it's there to provide a method of public masturbation for those with insecurities about the size of their e-peen.

Lmao, That made me LOL IRL! Nice!


Guildwars has some nice things but the game is seriously lacking in too many areas to even compete with anything else. I'v had more fun playing d2 lod lately. I agree that if GW had a monthly fee it wouldn't have survived the first year.

If GW was a paid for game and wow was free I would still play GW. In fact I would still play GW even if wow paid you to play. Thats how bad wow is. Oh and wow does NOT have 10 million paid for accounts.

Well just because GW has sold less copies than WoW doesn´t mean it´s worse.
Let´s all remember that almost everything posted here is one person´s OPINION.
I think that GW is better than WoW. Grinding for no reason at all? No thanks.

I love AoC, great game, and will probably semi-drop GW for it.

But GW is still the best damn game out there. So innovative, and has a massive amount of friendly features that no other games have out there.

I hope GW2 doesn't stray too far from the current model, at least feature-wise. The interface is so simple, yet allows you to do complex things to coordinate or communicate with other folk. Target calling? Trading? Partying? Customizable Interface? Easily used chat chanels? Less traditional armor/wep system? IMO those are all great features of GW that I hope they don't abandon. The idea of henchies was also great.

GW is still the only multiplayer online game worth playing, IMO. I guess that makes it king of that particular roost.

Fee based MMO's are really a different beast entirely, and a crappy one at that. Show me a game with a fee that isn't designed around its fee and we'll talk. I for one don't enjoy games that are principally designed to waste as much of my time as possible.

I've recently become very addicted with WARCRAFT III. DOTA is soo addicting... But Guild Wars is like any other MMO. You get bordom struts and you play other games until you arn't bored with GW anymore.

I'm not sure what it is about Warcraft. Maybe that in DOTA after ten kills zero deaths (very hard to do) the game interface plays the voice file HOLY SHIIIIIT! in a very taunting way to the other team.

But players seem to love that design. They demand to have more of that timewasting even in GW.

Fee Based MMOs succesfully maintain illusion that their timewasting mechanics are cool. Most of playerbase was succesfully convinced that good mmo must have 50+ Levels which take at least 3 month to level for very active player and then all the thing that accompany this kind of design.

WoW: was too grindy, played it quite a bit
Lineage 2: Played trial, was merely ok
RO: haven't heard much about that
AoC: played it, not a fan
GW: still playing after 3 years, and when I say "playing" I mean playing a lot! This game still provides for me, honestly I don't why you automatically say people would play other games if it wasn't f2p. $15 a month is a joke to me and I am willing to spend that money if a game that isn't grind based/gank based came along that was decent enough. If GW was to hire more competent employees to balance the game and they would add more small content once in a while I would willingly throw $15 a month to anet.

I was hoping you guys would come to understand it by now but seriously... Abedeus is trolling you guys so far under the bridge it's not even funny. If he's not trolling than that just makes it even more pathetic because he's serious. Oh and if GW had a monthly fee I'd still pay/play because generally when you give a game company more money they make the game better. Cryptic and NCsoft are good examples of this. And considering Anet and Cryptic both work/ed (cryptic is now working on a successor to City of Heroes, it's called Champion Online I think) for NCsoft, I'm pretty sure that the game would be much larger and enjoyable if it did actually have a regular fee. We're lucky we get anything from Anet anymore considering all the whiny little teenagers that plague the forums.

On another note, this thread is depressing. I'm going to go play GW and enjoy myself. Oh, one more thing... Abedeus, it's easier to leave a video game than a country... You know... Just in case you didn't already know...

Uhm, actually, if something was sold in better amount, it is better. Same as why someone smart will get higher grades than a stupid person and same why person with high IQ is more intelligent than person with lower IQ at almost same age.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_of_Warcraft

O rly?

Because trying to discuss = trolling and calling everyone a troll after 1-2 posts = mature discussion. And Matrix: Revolutions was a good sequel and a movie. And J. K. Rowling is an unknown author of books about voodoo.

If you dislike GW, why do you post here?

Eh. Already said - because I hope, that A.Net will realize their mistakes and fix them.

AND AGAIN - I NEVER SAID, I DISLIKE GW. God... why do I bother to read your posts, if you don't bother to read mine?

You haven't said it, but it's implied in almost every one of your posts here in this thread. And I wouldn't go so far as to say you're discussing much, it seems like you're just shooting down anyone that enjoys GW, and condemning them if they would pay2play it. And if you want Anet to realize their mistakes it would be far more efficient to compile a list of complaints and form some sort of petition.