Guild Wars: Competing with MMOG's

from Regina Buenaobra via Guild Wars Wiki (emphasis added)

This first part sets the tone, and I am going to branch this out of the Open Letter Part Deuce.

Originally ANet wanted their game to be seen as a Competitive Online Role-Playing Game (CORPG). Vastly different from the heirs of DikuMud like EverQuest and World of Warcraft, which I would say is squarely a traditional MMORPG. As far as we know, they envisioned the amount of PvE they gave us to lead all the players into the world of Guild Wars PvP. What players actually wanted surprised them. Thankfully ANet marketing has deemed to drop the horribly bourgeoise "CORPG" from what Guild Wars grew into, but is Regina right? Are we being unfair?

According to Regina, an MMOG "has no end" and implicitly has more depth, character development, and storytelling.

First, Regina and any ANet employee reading this. You are seriously cutting yourself short if you believe this.

Guild Wars has no end. I can replay killing the Great Destroyer as many times as I can replay killing Onyxia. Even from Guild Wars Prophecies, you guys added the Realms of the Gods (analagous to WoW's end game), and later Sorrow's Furnace.

As far as storytelling goes, you stomp all over most traditional MMORPG's butts, and IMHO the only similar storytelling I have experienced in an online game was with Lord of the Rings Online.

Now depth... that is tricky. You don't have much crafting, fishing, and whatever else a traditional MMO will add for "depth." You have 1000 skills, which turned out to be a huge double bladed sword, and the reason for UB's reign (IMO). It was too much depth in one spot, but I think you know this since with the pittance of GW2 info we have, you want less skills that are capable of giving "emergent gameplay."

So, what we are left with is persistence. My friend just bought the entire Guild Wars suite. He loves it (he calls it "follow the green arrow and kill things"). But he says it is not lumped in the MMORPG's because of lack of persistence. He says it is more akin to TF2 with RPG elements than WoW.

I call B.S. Standing around in Ironforge looking for a group for a 5-man or whatever and then leaving to go there has about the same gameplay as meeting in an outpost to do the same thing. Sure, in WoW (and others) when you are alone the chance to meet up and play has some benefits, but I don't think this is enough to separate Guild Wars into some obliquely unique genre... which would probably include the dying Fury.

So, I think instead of Regina and the rest of ANet getting the idea that we shouldn't be comparing this game to other MMOG's, I say we should!

I am proud of Guild Wars. I love it for all its flaws, and I think it has the most fun style of any MMORPG, of which I and at least TenTonHammer seem to lump it in that category. I am proud when people on a beta leak forum say that developers are making Warhammer Online play and feel like Guild Wars does in combat. I am proud when people attack other games and feel they should've followed the "Guild Wars model."

Guild Wars has everything I would expect from an MMORPG. Some areas it cannot compete with in a traditional MMO, such as the extreme content depth, but in other areas it destroys traditional MMOs, like being able to jump in and play.

That is the tune I feel ANet needs to say and believe in.

Very very well said!

I really think Anet just needs to keep hold of their roots, because that's what ends good games. Companies go and try to be something they're not and it ruins the game in the process.

I posted this in the other thread but I'll repeat here:

I don't think most gamers are under any illusion that MMOG's are about storyline. Most people, I do believe, refer to an MMOG as the type of interaction involved in the game. It's also the definition used by many sites across the internet and the industry. To claim that Guild Wars is not an MMOG based on storyline is really stretching.

Guild Wars did have something unique in their game style at the start, so they classified themselves as a CORPG. The problem is, there are no competitors when you self-categorize your game. So Guild Wars is literally the best and worst CORPG on the market. Anet knew their game would be in the market of other MMOG's, they rode that coat tail. To simply come back and say "we never intended to compete against other MMOG's" is a really poor marketing comeback as they knew full well they would have to compete with games that were similar to their's. Declaring mightily that your game is a CORPG and when problems pop up declaring just as boldly that you can't compare it to an MMOG (when it's self-proclaimed) and there's no other entries into the category seems more like an excuse then something they might believe.

Wow, I know. I'm being harsh. On the flip side, I can appreciate what Regina is trying to say. The developers stated in interviews that they didn't think the players would actually try to make Guild Wars into a continuous, non-stop game. The "no monthly fee" structure had them believing the player base would see the game as one that you bought, completed, walked away until the next chapter. Maybe that is a better image of what Regina was trying to say (I obviously can't speak for her or assume though) and the wording just came out wrong. But to claim that you aren't an MMOG based on storyline... MMOG is descriptive of the interaction available in a game.

Of course this whole argument could also just be a back-and-forth on what certain words mean and how and what you attach that description to.

They don't have the power to classify it as its own genre. It's an MMO, whether they like it or not, tbh.

If I design a football game, Madden 2009, I can't just say it's an FPS. No, it's a sports game. The industry decides genres, not developers. Every review source calls it an MMO as well, so.

Not harsh at all, i think wise dictation.

I do have to add though, a little late but it's important, Regina's comment is being taken out of context. We are pointing out what she's said but not what it was in response to.

On the wiki people were complaining about missions, quests, character development and story progression and the variety of those things. So Regina was just addressing those complaints... I'm sure if she knew that her paragraph would be taken and that the community would apply it as a general overall statement it would have been worded differently.

I know, I know... way to contradict yourself Inde. I write this whole argument debating what she's said and then in the next post defend and put it in context. I just think it's important to keep in mind that when you are trying to answer a question, to realize that most people only care about the answer and to remain consistent in the representation that you are trying to give of the game.

True. This is out of context... but the whole response makes it seem like Guild Wars, in ANet's eyes, can't or shouldn't be compared to MMO's. Just saying GW is not an MMOG in whatever context is... what I was getting at.

"Guild Wars has everything I'd expect from an MMO"? That's very interesting since I found the exact opposite, and that's a *good* thing.

There's also one core thing you forgot to mention: endgame. Guild Wars has little of it. There's not a whole lot of incentive

But that's not a bad thing. In Guild Wars, you're just expected to pick it up, play the game, then you're done. It's not meant to draw you in and addict you via endgame and the like. While it would be pretty cool for it to have it, I don't know of any RPGs that were considered "lacking" because of it.

This is why I consider GW an "online only RPG." I've found it has so little in common with MMO's of today that I can't even put it on the "MMO" pedestal. This is a good and bad thing: Many people do often get bored of playing traditional MMO's, while others think "zomg mmorpg" and pick up Guild Wars thinking it's a WoW-lite - that is a problem (and fortunately, ANet makes their money off of initial purchases).

So I fully agree with Regina that it's not so great to compare GW to MMORPGs. The latter have carved their own genre. It's best to apply GW in a much more traditional sense.