What Aspects of Guildwars were better than other games?

1. Getting the money for your guild is jack easy that I couldn't even pin the word "farm" next to it.
2. Unlock packs eliminate the "farm" needed to unlock skills.
3. In terms of actual play, it's one of the most in-depth and strategic games out there. But it lacks the support that other devs have from a broad and wide history of successful and popular games.

had guildwars been named Warcraft: Eternal Warfare (along with a number of cosmetic changes to reflect the name), it would be the most popular game ever created.

the game was "new", both as a franchise as well as a series. it needs to attract/grow its own player base without drawing from those in an established franchise. unfortunately, it generally attracted the wrong crowd. at least, not the crowd that the original developers were intended.

GW eventually bent to its players' pressures. instead of being an excellent pvp game with proper support, most of its resources got diverted into making it another pve grinder.

unfortunately, that puts the game in a bad position. it's got the best underlining framework for pvp in the RPG genre, but lacks proper support to facilitate it. it tries very hard to be a pve grinder, but doesn't have the proper framework to support it. as such, it does decently well, but never extremely well, in any category.

Are we just listing the things we like in GW vs other games or actually debating GW's overall worth?

Personally I find the graphix in GW are very nice though there are better out there.

The varying levels of difficulty are wide enough to keep most people happy, though other games are harder or easier in some aspects.

PvP in GuildWars was handled often and well for my 2cents. They never let it get overly stale or boring in 3+ years(mind most of the PvP I do is AB, the fact that so many still play in all the other PvP options stands for thier satisfactory gameplay)

The range of End-Game content is just wide enough to keep people trying new things, be it grinding titles/gold/items or creating new chars to test out all 10 profs and every combo of secondary profession.


While some of these aspects have been done better in other games few have brought ALL of them together in such a well designed game.

This is because half the modes are PvX, not true PvP. Granted there are some player killing elements in them, but they have more of a PvE intelligence behind them. Stand here, cap this, kill these npc's, control your heroes to do this... How is this Player vs Player to its fullest extent? The only truly organized PvP in this game is TA/HA/GvG. These formats are some of the best formats for structured PvP play there is out now.
Actually I have played other games that had competitive PvP and the structuring, framework, balancing, player skill, etc. behind the drive for their PvP I found very lacking to what Guildwars initially offered. Sadly it has now fallen by the wayside of good/mediocre PvP games with nothing really making it shine and create the draw it once had.
Really so you're telling me that there's never been player interest or player ran PvP games/mini tournaments/rawr cup/now the guru gvg challenge ever in this game? Do you even play PvP at all?
comes from personal playtime, not advertising slogans because trust me, ANET gives 2 shit's less about PvP in this game anymore.
No I didn't and many of the PvP players felt this way, but sadly Anet has caused a good majority of them to re-think their belief in the game with the choices they have made.

- Originally - Unique Fair 'pay once, play forever' business model, where you pay only for large chunks of content, full game releases, and without them selling ingame advantages for extra $. (this unfortunately changed a bit later with them selling unlocks for noobs and BMP BS infinite item generation for $$)

- One interconnected world - no splitting to separate servers - you can meet and play with anyone who plays GW! I believe this feature is totally unique and I love it.

- Best organized PvP I've seen in an online rpg, also supereasily accessible - PvP characters and the fact you DON'T NEED to have 500+ skills unlocked to be competetive, you *need* 8, then it's all about your and your team's skill.

- The whole idea of balance based on limiting attribute points to 200 and skills to 8, with a huge selection of skills to create a bazillion of build combinations.

- Graphics and art design which really stands out + a powerful engine so the game runs smoothly even on weak machines.

- 5 cents is such a small sum if it would be deducted from your bank account every time you did a mission you wouldn't even notice. That's not the point. If it's PvP game then money grind has no part of PvP process. For some strange reason people seem to be so happy that they don't have to grind to play PvP. More logical starting point would be that players are equal and power creeps only through explicit grinding process (ie. random small chance of finding a powerful weapon).

- It appealed to my casual PvP sense, grinding one skill at a time and feeling good about day's work. But are you going to tell someone who has just bought the game and wants to compete in PvP "Sorry dude, your skills are locked and you gotta buy skill unlock pack. After that you can go to GuildWiki and copy builds while grinding at least 6 ranks of Hero title doing spiritway to be accepted to xenophobic PvP elite." What a joke.

- How many games have you played? Any strategy game gets me thinking more than this one. Oops, can't say strategy game must be f2p MMO. Saying so reveals the whole problem. A game that must at the same time appeal to fantasy crowd, I-don't-pay-bills crowd, PvP crowd - you get Guild Wars.

- Warcraft became popular because it was a good game, not because its name was Warcraft. Quality of a game is a kind of thing that can't be measured directly. When Blizzard released Frozen Throne, it didn't have any imbalanced units that immediately ruined games for everyone. When ANET released Nightfall, suddenly the whole HA was flooded with "kill every enemy in the area" -Dervishes. When Blizzard releases patches, those patches balance skills. When ANET releases patches, those patches destroy skills. How many examples do we need?

You could say that at least they fix things. Yup, but then they fix again because the fix 1 didn't work. This reminds me of monkeys that can write Shakespeare given enough time for trial and error.

That is a horrible idea. The best system is one which removes as many such random and grind based elements as possible. Money is no actual barrier to pvp especially now that you can just buy a pvp version of the game and start with skills unlocked. This is the sort of approach that should have been taken right away and it came too late.

Is this a joke? Anyway, you can buy a pvp version of the game and play right off now as I said for 20 bucks and play. Unlocking skills is not a difficult process. To get a characters ready to play is a simple process that with little effort gets you to a position where you are on par with everyone else expect for your skill. Which is the point.

Even if it could be easier its still MUCH MUCH easier than saying. Sorry man, you have to grind up to max level, get equipment and also all the skills and then you can pvp. Having an autonomous PvP creation process makes it much easier to access pvp than having to do so through pve leveling and removes the unequal gear aspect which should not be there anyway.

Nobody is denying that the game was mismanaged with the release of expansions. That is what most PvPers complain about. The point is that the groundwork and structure was there for a great game which was fumbled through mismanagement.

The level cap that was reachable within a few hours of play was by far the best thing in the 3 games. Its a pity they destroyed the concept with later updates.

-No Fee

-Combat blows away every other MMO.( WoW, Lineage, Domo, ROSE, AO they are all so slow, projected, unengaging, derivative & gear based )

-Non Gear based(I should say, not AS gear-based since runes etc make a diff)

-Graphics were better than all others(at the time, although it's still better than most)

-took out the travel grind

-removed the "ok now go spend 30 minutes hunting for the next place you have to go to complete the quest"

I like and play WoW but I am pretty sure a lot of its original appeal comes from the fact that its from Blizzard and is name Warcraft.

As to what GW did best =

Level/Item/Armor Caps.

FoW

GvG

Prophecies non-linear access.

Non Gear based.... I'm not sure thats such a good thing. Ruins the whole point of PvE.

PvE should have never been balanced with limitations as to everything in the game is the same, with the exception of the skin. Leave that to PvP.


On a side note, WoW > GW.
95% of GW players would stop playing if GW charged $15 monthly.

Put it in a different prespective since you put the word "if" there, 95% of GW players > WoW in terms of monthly currently.

Sorry to the OP I didn't list out the aspects on my previous post in this thread, here they are:-

-GW being monthly fee free.

-Great art direction.

-PvP is non gear based.

-PvE is more focus with mission concept.

-Max gear is obtainable easily and vanity is optional.

I really don't know why people say that PVP in GW is the best there is. I think it is too limited. You know where the enemy is coming from - how many there is going to be - what the maps look like, etc. In my viewpoint this if very limited.

I played Dark Ages of Camelot quite a bit when it was more popular and I think the PvP in that blows away GW. You could have hundreds of players from three different realms (each realm having 10 or so types of characters) all batteling at the same time. You never knew where the next fight was coming from - how many opponents you would face - or the make up of said force. Also what happened in PvP affected alot of the things that occurred in your own realm on the PvE side. Alot more exciting to me than this small scale, small map fighting.

Hopefully GW2 incorporates this massive scale battle type. Maybe players then will get the feeling that what they do in pvp actually matters to their side (realm or whatever).

I don't understand why people say "GW should be like generic mmo X".

GW was DIFFERENT. Which is a large part of why I bought it.
- low level cap, no grind for hp or mana
- non-gear based, yippee!
- arena style pvp (not to say I don't like others only that many games implement it poorly, imho)
- 8 skill bar

Aspect of Kormir.

That is all.

Everything.

You realize that when you install any of those korean grinders and/or traditional mmorpgs. GW is made of win, it's just old and people have played through it a million times.
GW2 pls!

The best part of GW for me is that there is no pressure to "play because you have invested money in it" ...

Other than that great PvP, descent storyline for PvE, good graphics ...

The big question is though - how many people would even play WoW?
It's not that the playerbase wouldn't play GW with a fee, it's that the GW playerbase wouldn't play ANY game with a fee!

• No monthly fee. It's actually pretty important cause I don't feel to play more to get more gameplay for my money.
• There's no microtransactions and selling broken stuff for real money.
• No need to gring armor, level and stuff. (title grind is totally optional).
• Heroes and Henchmen!!!!!! I love those guys. They let me play alone when I don't feel like playing with real people, if I know that I may need to go in the middle of the quest and they make it really easy to fill couple of missing slots in a guild group.
• Ability to play for half an hour and have fun. I can login, play few RA matches, chat with guildies for a bit or just finish some quest before going to sleep.
• Map travel is perfect idea, no more boring running from town to town. ^^
• Ability to toy with build and change it without any restrictions.
• Instanced nature of GW works like a charm for me.
• "Save build" button ^^

Time will change people, though GW did rope people with no MMO background into online rpg game, in time some will seek something new and fresh, $15/month MMOs are one of those, I personally looking forward to WAR since it is based on a well known universe, but leaving for a new game does not mean GW is bad game.

- It's free!

to be honest I refused to buy any othre MMO game that had monthly subscribtions, i got WOW as a gift but returned it unopened when I read on the packaged it had xtra subscription fees. In free i mean that u don't have to pay addition fees other than the price of the game to play it, which is considerably not cheap when the game is released.

I think this must be a plus for the game developpers, because at the end of the day, i ended up buying 3 distinguished accounts all with collector's edition and with the eotn, + extra slots + pre-release + guild wars merchandise from the site so i can play with my brother and my cousin! so who's the winner at then end?

Oh and i even bought an extra millenium edition for a friend on his birthday!

Really hope GW2 will not have monthly subscribtion fees, should it, i do not think i will buy it!

Anet ==> A++++

Let's see. The main reasons why I bought GW as opposed to anything else MMO-style:

- I was able to; at the time I started with GW I didn't have a credit card, so it was my best option by default
- No compunction towards playing regularly; if you're not paying per-month, it doesn't matter if you only have time to log on once every week, you can do that

...and really, that's pretty much it. There are some interesting features GW has - the somewhat more strategically-minded play system which works pretty well for PvP - but I don't really have a lot of "sacred cows" from the game. There are things I'd like to see done, sure...

Well certainly PvP. As far as an MMO/fantasy setting its among the best.

The skill system. I had played M:tG some years back and I loved the idea that you could run an MMO under a similar concept. The idea was brilliant, but the execution maybe less so. Many skills ended up being redundant, many more unused, still others unbalanced, so that in the end the number of viable skills you looked at were quite a lot less than the number of skills total. You also cant utilize your secondary profession quite as much as I'd like to. Still, its such a great system.

The idea for releasing chapters of content. I liked this versus having a monthly fee. Works out the same in the long run, mind you. Thing for me is that new content was not released fast enough for PvE. Then there were the issues of game balance that began to creep in with the release of its first chapter, Factions, and then of course Nightfall. Idea good. Execution maybe less so.

At the time I was comparing it to WoW for the game I was going to play. Monthly fee was not a factor for me, as I would have paid monthly for the perfect game. Absolutely could not stand the graphics for WoW, so I went with GW for that reason as well as the build concept. I suppose at the time then GW's graphics were a factor, but I wouldnt say they did it better than most other games. Just some. For me, GW's graphics are a little too realistic and western, and not quite fantastical enough, if that makes any sense. Now the concept art, on the other hand...

Now that I've played GW for almost three years, the best things about Guild Wars are pretty subtle.

1) No monthly fees or hidden fees. I've investigated tons of MMO games, and ANet has stood alone on this one. Most games campaign with their fake "free for life" ads, but then as soon as you visit the page, there's always a section for cash-for-items. In other words, if you're willing to pay, then you can basically break the game as much as you want. Even worse, those games are notorious for little to no policing, so bots to basically rule the game. An even darker rumor is that if you're a paying customer then GMs tend to look the other way against any "rule breaking" that you might be doing.
For GW to have an equivalent, they would have to make Ursan Blessing a pay-to-play skill which cost $5 for 30 days of unlimited usage.

2) The ability to play with your friends anywhere. Unlike most MMOs, GW allows you to pretty much hook up with any or all of your friends, even if they were thousands of miles away, via the International District or otherwise. You don't have to worry about which "server" your friend is on--everybody can meet up with anybody. I wish more games were like this.

3) Excellent graphics for a game of its time.

=====

I think that the things that made the game iconic are essentially hated by a majority of the gamer market. I had several dozen real-life friends that played this game and eventually quit and never came back. I can say that unlike the GWG forums, people that actually hate the game enough to quit just quit very quietly. They don't post on the forums saying how much they hate the game or how ANet ruined the game. They just leave.

Most of the biggest complaints are the things that made the game iconic.

For PvE play, I'd say that at least 10% of the people that "try out Guild Wars" leave after a few months because they hit level 20 and find out that they can't get "more powerful". The mass public likes the idea of leveling to some insane number. And even the newest games, like Age of Conan, feature incredible level-grind to support it.

The other thing that PvEers wanted but didn't get is the ability to have powerful solo ability with any profession. While heroes came eventually, it's too little, too late. Also, just because you can hire underlings to fill in gaps in your party isn't the same, especially since they steal your loot in this game. People want solo content, and from what I can tell, they want a game that has 50% solo, 50% raid/party content.

Finally, this is just my opinion, but I think that under the covers, when you really look at Guild Wars closely, there's a lot of problems with the game engine itself. I really don't want this to turn into a rant topic, but I really think that when a Superior Rune is worth less than a Minor Rune, then that clearly states you have a problem with your magic system.

pretty much my favourite reasons i was loking for an online game a proper one that requires some skill not like runesca[e which i was fed up of. I found this new game coming out and read about it. Guild halls and capes and stuff seemed quite a cool feature

Free to play, of course.

The skill mechanics, though riled at in the forums, are actually amazing. I love the fact that, as a ranger, I can ruin someone's world instantly with a D-shot.

The action graphics. I love the way it's so fast-paced with the melee characters' movements, and the motions actually reflect the skills you use. None of the cartoony stand-in-place, swing sword or cast. None of seeing the same motion used for every skill.


I sometimes do a Scooby Doo face when I see that a Sup Rune is less, but it reflects the trends of the game and the players' wants. A Superior Vigor rune will, of course, be rare and wanted, while a Superior Protection rune, unless you are a 55, won't be wanted for its penalty. I do think they got that part right, basing prices on supply and demand, without letting it get out of control. Now, if they had an auction house....

I don't have much time to write a lot, so I'll just put one thing that really stands out for me. The interface and control and how much customization there is to it.

I love being able to go full screen and window mode without having to restart the game for it to take effect. I like that I can assign SO many keys to so many options and choices including hero skills. I love being able to adjust the sizes, placement and even getting rid of "Stuff" on the screen so my interface can best suit my needs.

I also love how the control of my character and camera is so easy. I find far too many games to be clunky with there movements control and camera movement control. I've never had that issue in GW. It allows for a better combat system in which I can actually strafe to avoid being hit and if need be, hide behind a giant rock to avoid arrows.


Oh and 1 more thing: The music. Best music in any game in my humble opinion.

I'm pretty sure we all understood that he meant the best PvP among MMORPG-type games. Clearly you can say any other MMORPG-type out there has better PvP... Fury was a massive faillure, WoW's PvP has always been a joke and many other games don't even have a PvP aspect. To compare GW to all time kings of PC gaming competitions such as CS, Starcraft and Warcraft is silly.

And why shouldn't we have to unlock items for PvP? At least we don't have to raid dungeons and the items are all balanced.

Warcraft became popular immediately because they had the playerbase to buy in at first. They had x many people who would be interested and would buy the game and play for at least a month. They had people who'd experience the game and then say if it was stupid or not. GuildWars did not. GW built up the player base with the game, and ANET is learning slowly what balance is. Blizzard has knowledge before hand. You're comparing a rather new company to one who has a very notorious record for making balanced games. StarCraft, Warcraft, Diablo. That's previous experience as to how to balance a game. What was ANET's first chance to learn these skills? Oh yea, that's right GuildWars.

let me point out why this is such a horribly bad argument:

If GW charged a $15 monthly fee the the game would have the resources to have:

• A fully explorable map, with WAY more places to go, outposts, cities, zones etc..
• more enemies
• more items & weapons & armor types
• more missions & quests
• more skills
• constant GM supervision

For what I paid, GW blows Wow out of the water. Even if you can't see things like the obviously superior graphics no MMO has as exciting & fun a combat system as GW (cept maybe AoC, but looks like it might be too twitchy)

Sorry man, you can't have one the biggest games of ALL TIME (Warcraft is regularly featured on top ten games of all time lists) become an MMO and say it didn't have a huge influence on it's success.. WoW is a great game, but if no one knew about Warcraft it would have never become as big as it is now..

The existence of interrupts and disruption that affect gameplay on a fraction-of-a-second basis was afaik unheard of in this kind of game.

That mechanic is pretty much the sole reason I've never been able to switch to any other game.

how super casual it is with map travel, easy acess pvp, and computer-controlled mind slaves!

You do know that the people who started ArenaNet and made Guild Wars came from Blizzard and had experience from other rpgs, right? :P

No monthly fees.

good point ^^^^

#Instances
#Heroes/Henchies
#Optional Grind
#A storyline
#PvP Chars...
#non-anime visual
#low level cap

I enjoy almost every aspect of GW, except from some armor art..

Originally, it was a 'that looks interesting' game in the shop - I hadn't heard about it before. What sold me on it originally:
* No monthly fee. The only program I've ever paid monthly fees for has been cedega - that's only $5 per month, and enables *several* games to be played , so it's not for just one game. And it's one where the updates are essential to keep up with the ability to play newer games, so it's been a worthwhile service. Paying 3-4 times that for a single game...not something I've been willing to do - especially if I'm unsure whether I'll have enough time to actually get "my money's worth" of gameplay.
* Screenshots/the box was pretty - I prefer the 'more real/lifelike' style of Guild Wars to the cartoony style used in WoW and many other MMOs.
* The (special edition) box was at 1/2 price at a sale - which meant that I wasn't going to lose much if I didn't like it, or couldn't keep up with it - I liked playing RPGs, and suck at FPS or other games that require 'twitch' responses.
* The ability to play with other people co-operatively. I'm not that interested in PvP - again, more to do with my reflexes not being fast enough than anything else.

What almost made me not buy it:
* I was used to being able to pause the game, think through a situation, plan a response, and then go with it. NWN 1 was really good for letting you queue up a list of actions while paused

What struck me as incredibly cool (some that I hadn't seen elsewhere) when I first tried it:
* Loot was assigned to players - no more arguments/fights/disappointment when everyone wanted the same cool drop! And gold was automatically shared equally. Instead, if someone got a good drop, I was cheering for them - knowing that my turn would come another time.
* Presearing was beautiful - I loved the scenery. I also loved the music.
* Monsters were different - they were not the same "orc/elf" stuff that I'd seen everywhere else. There was some originality, which is not something that seems to happen very often
* Death was non-permanent, and had no long-term effects (Survivor title didn't exist then - but that's still the only long-term effect of death now). I could try something, screw it up completely, and NOT be permanently damaged by it. I didn't even lose gold, XP, or have someone else rob my corpse - nor have to find my corpse to get everything back.
* The instances for explorable areas - I didn't have to compete with other players to get a chance to kill monsters & collect stuff.
* It ran (pretty well too) in cedega - I could play in linux! Which was good, because it was rare that I rebooted out of linux much at the time

What almost lead me to abandon it (I did for about 6 months):
* I hit the "Across the Wall" quest that forces you to team up with someone, thought the rest of the game would be the same, didn't realise that the quest was non-essential (I thought you had to complete all the Presearing quests before it'd let you move to the next area), didn't know that there would be henchies after leaving presearing, and I didn't know anyone...I got too shy to ask for someone to help me with the quest. While I liked having the ability to play with people, I found I couldn't ask people I didn't know to join me!

What keeps me coming back:
* Introduced my husband to GW - we frequently play together. I'm much more of a gamer than he is...but if we haven't played for several days (usually 'cause I've been playing something else for a bit), he starts suggesting that it'd be good to play again...and Guild Wars is the only game he's ever done that with.
* Family & friends in Guild - when they decided to start the guild is when I came back.
* I still think the scenery is beautiful.
* Weekend events.
* Trying out new skill sets for myself (I have the quest for UB, but never completed it - I'm enjoying vanquishing without it for my first time).
* While immediate reactions are required, there's a limited number of reactions - it means that I can keep up and do well without having to have twitch reflexes.
* Being able to change my attribute points to whatever I want (and hence my skill bar) - I was glad that in the 6 month period where I'd walked away initially that ANet had changed from attribute refund points to being able to change them freely
* Still finding new and interesting ways to solve issues...
* I love bombing clumps of enemies with volley+splinter
* It's a bloody good way to release the frustrations from the day, after tons of phone calls, interruptions, changes to what I need to do, etc - I can get home and blow monsters up!
* Still lots of stuff I've never done - I've completed all 3 campaigns and GWEN's mission-quests on one character...but I've got a ton of mapping, vanquishing, & hm missions left, I've only ever completed the FoW - haven't even entered some of the other elite areas, I haven't done most of the dungeons in GWEN, I've still got lots of quests to do, etc.

GW has a lovely mix of short-term goals and long-term play - we can log in and decide that we just want to spend 20 minutes getting a character from one town to another for the first time & do a couple of quests on the way, plan a long day vanquishing from ToA right through to Ascalon, or just about anything in between. Doesn't mean we don't get bored with GW sometime (usually after getting our butts kicked badly) but we rarely leave it for more than a few weeks before coming back (and trying a new tactic against those who trounced us last time).

The easy way to get multiple character you choose to level 20 (low level cap) and equip it with the best possible gear (max weapons and armour). Then being able to jump anywhere you've been before (map travel) to join a friend or for a personal whim. This kind of freedom and being able to join easilly with anyone anywhere is great.

Too bad that PvE grind skills ruined this to a certain extend. Of my 7 PvE characters only one can be considered maxed out these days.

The ability to add ai controlled characters to a team to get a well balanced group anywhere. (henchmen and heroes)

I have to agree with you, you've pretty much sumed up what attracted me to Gw

Like Sophitia above, and Kalendraf:

1. No monthly fee
2. great graphics, without needing a high-end system!
3. great skills - much better than WoW, and most other MMO games where you basically get the same handful of skills over and over again, just at a higher level

Memser!
Rits!

(Jora! Livia! )

The basic professions set up to be fairly unique, and distinct from each other. (Some cross-over on Mes and Nec, though - especially hexes. SS seems more like an elite Mes skill than Necro!)

Prophecies: explorable areas and the ability to access them regardless of level (largely) I love being free to get to LA, and ToA, if I am willing to risk the run myself, or to buy a run from someone. I felt a sense of accomplishment when I took my first Tyrian toon from Old Ascalon to LA, then to ToA and Sanctum Cay by myself, at lvl 12, simply because I was into an exploring mode!