How well did Anet do in GW all things considered

As the title says, how well did Arenanet do? What are the things they did right and you would like to see copied in other games? What are fair criticisms of what they did wrong?


Let me start this thread out with some positives:

Limited skill bars
I think that because you can only carry 8 skills at a time really made this game. There is no scrolling through multiple skill bars and I think that was for the better.

Core Classes
While the core classes aren't perfect, for the most part Anet did a fairly good job on them. I like the fact monks have protection skills and aren't red bar go up only. I like the fact that warriors play different depending on the type of weapon they are carrying. I like the fact that els can play support roles and aren't damage only (water el player here). Memsers are pretty cool too. I think that the classes more or less aren't limited to one playstyle only is a great feature.

Warriors as DPS
Tanking is bad, espcially in pvp, so I never want to see another dedicated tanking class in MMOs again... the guys with the 4 foot long swords and huge axes shouldn't be doing minimal damage compared to the guy with the 2-inch pocket knife.

Heroes/Henchmen
I'm not sure this was the best way to make the game soloable and there are a lot of drawbacks to the system, however heroes and henchmen do allow you to play without the randomness of pugs. The fact that you can control the builds and skills of up to 3 other characters in your party isn't to be underestimated. In some form or another I'd really like to see this in other games.

Looks
Admit it, GW looked pretty good for its time and has aged fairly well. Presearing, shing jea, and the shiverpeaks are all really beautiful places.

Female Els
Rawr.

No monthly Fee
Another thing that has drawbacks, but not having a monthly fee makes it a lot easier to come back to this game.

Gwen-chan
Undeniably cute. I hope Gwen and Gwen-chan come back for the sequel somehow (time travel or an identical descendant with the same name).

Strong Start
There would have never been two follow-up chapters and an expansion if there wasn't a lot of potential and fun in the original game... people wouldn't have come back to bought more. Thus the core gameplay works well enough.

Low level cap
I think that along with the no monthly fees and limited skill bars this made the game. You didn't have to grind through 100 levels. I'll admit proph was pretty slow but Factions and NF cleared that up. I like the fact that character growth after 20 is mostly about finding the right build and tailoring it to your situation.

No monthly Fee!
'nuff said!

The limited skill bars, low emphasis on leveling, and discouraging pure tanking (though this changed as the game aged) were positives that they definitely should consider when making Guild Wars 2. I will have to disagree with you about the core classes though. The monk is the only real essential class out of the six in a party. You can get by without any of the other five, but not a monk. And it's not just that you can get by with one, later on you have to have two or in some instances three on your team. They should look into making the class less of a must have in the future, maybe by giving other classes better survivability.

(edit) Please note that I'm referring to PvE, not PvP. I know that's completely different.

I think they did a lot of good with this game. While I enjoy Factions NF and EoTN, nothing beats Pre.

I think Presearing Ascalon and the rest of Prophicies are what arena net did a hell of a great job on.

And this too!

While I think Anet took a wrong turn at Factions and another at NF, and a third at EotN that doesn't distract much from the fact that Anet has done a lot of risky things in GW that turned out to be a good thing. Prior to GW I honestly can't think of an MMO that lacked a dedicated tanking class. This is what got me to make a Warrior in the first place. Knowing that I wasn't going to get pushed into swinging at a dragons crotch for 30 minutes really inspired me to play a Warrior. The lack of a screen filled with 80 skills is indeed another risky move, as nearly every MMO out there gave characters a slew of abilities and most would fall into the disuse. *looks at his shamans sentry totem skill* My only real dislike in GW is that very few titles actually require any skill, and generally are just about time wasted and money spent. Anet caved and time and money sinks were added in to hush the little crybabies. People act as if Anet owes them anything when they payed 40$ or so for a game that has likely given them more entertainment than a typical 60$ game that you would beat in 6 hours, play multiplayer for a couple days, then shrug it off.

Positives:
* No mana and health potions
* Concept of all classes, especially Rits
* No monthly fees
* Lore and Cutscenes
* Sorrow's Furnace, FoW, UW
* Updates
* Heroes (later timestage of the game)
* Ability to change builds and redistribute attribute points in towns to adept to certain areas
* Maptravel
* Animations


Negatives
* Balance (SR, non-core classes)
* No randomization of foes when entering an area
* Heroes
* DoA
* Pop-ups in desert
* Fendi Nin

Probably more that I'm forgetting right now.

Given that it's ANet's first foray into this kind of thing, I feel that it went extremely well. Hopefully they'll learn a bit more how to keep it stabalized with GW2.

I run without monks almost all the time :\
N/Rt healers anyone? Or Rt primaries in a spiritspam team?
OT: Lol @ M'Aiq The Liar. Elderscrolls ftw


Anyways, I think GW has done very well in catering to all kinds of gamers. I think Anet has made the game at least enjoyable no matter if you are a casual or a hardcore PvPer, something that isn't normally found in a game

Read much? This is out of the core classes. No Rt there.


I really think they did a lot of things right. I love the complication of PvP. There are so many things you can use to your advantage. Interrupts, energy denial, exhaustion, bodyblocking, the way criting works, being able to dodge...they all just added to an amazing experience.

Limited skill bars, no GCD and no skills with inordinately long cooldowns made the combat feel fast and interesting.

Max gear available to everyone easily, a level cap that you could reach easily and no consumable items eliminated the grind and made the game about fun instead.

If we ignore the little missteps taken (pve skills, consumables) the game they did almost everything better than the next best game.

Limited skill bar (thinking man's game)
Heroes
Graphics
H/H
Secondary Professions
No monthly fee
99.9% server up time
Weekly events
Annual Parties
Low level cap

just to name a few....

+4 years and I'm still playing.

I'd say they did pretty well.

3+ years, great game.
Anet did some mistakes, but i total, this game is very VERy nicely done
+I agree on all the above posetives<3

hf

DoA is good.
There are popups in many more places then desert.
Spawns (rofl) there are. a few sets of ways and the PC chooses one

I know, but somehow the ones in the desert annoy me.
With randomization I mean different groups (with different profs appropriate for that type of foe) in different places each time you enter.

GW is a really superb game overall, and like most quality products, seems largely accidental. A lot of the things done wrong appear to be from the devs not being quite sure what they intended the game to be. That doesn't change the fact that the general concept of the game is far more unique and interesting than a lot of the MMOs on the market.

Pros:
Low level cap and equipment requirements.
Skillbar and attribute design rather than d2-ish speccing.
Competitive organized PvP.
Map Travel.
Emphasis on skillbar design rather than character levels/eq.

Cons:
Unlocking creates massive barrier to entry.
Far too many skills added to the game.
New classes that added nothing and caused glaring imbalances.
Questionable dev response to balance feedback.
CR.

Nearing 4 years of play, ~6000 hrs of play time. They did a very good job overall.

I still log on everyday for about an hour, some days, upwards of 5 or 6 hours. I liked Diablo 2 and Dungeon Siege a lot and thought that they were good games. This game, IMO, ran circles around both of them. DS2 came out and in many ways resembled Diablo 2, it's main competitor at that time. I had already played D2, so goodbye DS2. I hope GW2 does not replicate a certain competitor. Comments, here and on other forums, will tell me if I will buy GW2.

They did the following right in my eyes

1. They have no monthly fee
2. They have added content since I started (although most will say not enough)
3. I have played steady for 3 years with no complaints (although I had a little bio-shock addiction for a little while)
4. They have set a mark for the competition that honestly will be hard to reach for most startups
5. They can keep it going on a skeleton staff (hats off to you)
6. They are competing with Blizzard and hold there own
7. They have numerous fan websites devoted to them (like what I am on right now)
8. They take action to resolve issues quickly
9. With the limited staff they still visit sites and chat etc... (although not as much as before)
10. They have 95% of us drooling over a new game that none of us have a clue on when it actually will be released and have basically given us a napkin sketch of info on it.

H/H are bad. They either should have designed mobs so 1 person can clear their way through the story only have to group up for missions, or made the time between missions more then just grinding your way through a fixed path from point A to point B. Either way, NPC teammates have no place in a MMO.


I also hate the way maps were designed, where you caged in by invisible walls and such. This is mainly due to the world being instanced, which is also bad, but they could have made the maps much more open.


As for what they did right... the limited skills and dual profession system is what made guild wars successful.

Well, because of Guild Wars I can't get into any other MMOs. Plus it's the only game I've played for more then 2000+ hrs.

3 years and still playing and finding things to do.

4+ years and despite all my best efforts, i've always come back to Guild Wars.

It was my first proper dip into online gaming. Other MMOs scared me with monthly subscription fees (which really mattered to me because i wasn't sure if i would actually rack up enough hours to make it seem worth it) and GW didn't.

I think the great thing is that, because Guild Wars was originally designed from the PvP side first, the overall ballance and equalness of all players appealed to the casual gamer a la moi.

It was the first time i would be able to get something done in a game within an hour. Because of schooling and sports commitments, i didn't have much time for pwning n00bs. I loved RA for that reason.

Because i've been so in love with this game, i've really just ridden the Guild Wars train and accepted it as what it has turned out to be, even the advent of heroes. I even made lengths to obtain wireless broadband in my old boardingschool just so i can plaaay.

It's a beautiful game. Maybe Anet should realise that such a beautiful game that they spent so much time and creativity doesn't deserve the embarassing maintanence it's experiencing.

I believe I would be remiss to not reply in this thread. It took almost three years for me to even fully consider playing a different game than Guild Wars, and that was mostly due to there not being additional campaigns/expansions being added in. Still, even while not playing 'hardcore' for the past year I've checked the forums, wikis and other sites near daily to stay informed because of interest. I also still log in and play periodically - the thing that can't be done with subscription games.

Anyway, I've been thinking it for the past year and have even mentioned it in a couple posts that one truly doesn't appreciate how well ANet ran GW all through it's primary focus lifetime compared to some companies that can be experienced out there. From Gaile's near weekly visits in LA to chat with players, comparably fast fixes and updates, major content additions every six months with other things inbetween, streaming updates for essentially zero downtime... This little company spawned a game that became quite popular very quickly in the face of a giant, WoW, and didn't back down.

Outside of the campaigns they continually added things into the game that were/are by and large very popular and pretty darn neat even if they didn't seem like a big thing at the time; heroes, guild hall npc, observer mode, templates!, observe from live party member while dead, green weapon skins, official wiki & attachment to F10, titles!, HoH, minipets, treasure chests in NF, etc. They quickly realized that hundreds of thousands of players were playing the thing as mainly a pve game and started adjusting accordingly. They ran the game and added to the game in a way that people on the outside would say you don't get or have with a "f2p" game. And, they did it all with barely ever shutting down the servers. The p2p suppose-to-be-major game I've played for the past year and some is nowhere near as timely and efficient as ANet... and their struggles show in player numbers.

I will agree that there are certain things missing from GW that don't need to be mentioned once again. However, these things are mainly additions to the game and less about changes with how it's played. They're also things that ANet always knew about and did desire to add in. I believe that if the course had stayed on it's track we would have seen more of them included. ANet appears to have certain standards for their work though, and to do things the best way we are where we are now, waiting for GW2.

Some of my favorite things of GW... 'cheerios' (h/h), templates, mission format, skills and usage to include secondary profession, armor & weapon skins (so many just rock), solo-ability - farming, holiday events, cartography and skill capping...

my least favorite things aren't a problem with what is there but what isn't. Some of that is supposedly being addressed with GW2 so we shall see.

these are some of my thoughts and opinions

gw has really been unique to me, compared to the other mmo's
and i've tried dozens and donzens, they all seem to be a clone of WoW, major grinding here and there

this is the kind of game that seems sophisticated in a way

I've only been playing gw for 2 1/2ish years & I've always come back to it no matter what. I tried perfect world but theres too much grind. WoW bored me to death. Runes of magic was fun but I just didn't get into it.
GW just prevents me from playing any other mmos. It sets so many high standards, it's incredible. Its always been the type of game that I can jump in play whenever I wanted & however I wanted to.

No matter how many flaws it has, I think it's one of the greatest games I've played. I *hope* GW2 is the same.

I thought Arenanet did a good job. Things I did not like was...

1. Trying to balance a million+1 skills is time wasting and frustrating. Needed less skills from the start.

2. Anti farm codes and constantly nerfing every class was ridiculous. We need less of this in GW2!

The only bad things in my opinion are:
-Heros: Imo they ruined the game my encouraging solo play and made Titles meaningless.
- Consistent "Instances": Everytime you enter UW or FoW, etc its the same exact thing. I would like to have seen random spawns, random setup, AI thinking a little more.
- The Economy and Golds: These days golds and items you get from normal play are worthless and the only things that buy/sell are the 4-5 high end weapons and Asian Minis. I would like maybe another thing to spend money on that just a stupid 5inch pet that walks behindyou.
- Uselessness Of Skills/ Guildwiki/Guru: So each class gets a billion skills, but only ever uses 10% of them and only 4-5 elite skills. Then ever single person is expected to run some generic pvxwiki build and is shut down for any glimmer of creativity.
- Not Enough Emphasis on Guilds: Every MMO has guilds/clans/w/e but only one is called Guild Wars. You think there would be a little more emphasis on Guilds than simply one aspect of Pvp barely anyone has ever experienced
I want to see some sort of Guild interaction in PvE areas...maybe 2 Guilds in a single instance working together or fighting to get to the end first. Something more that just 1 pvp thing.
- No Truly Challenging Area: I remeber old guildwars 2005-2006 when people would try UW and fail miserable but it was fun trying to do it. Soon after though gimmick builds made every area in Guild Wars a joke.
I want an area that is so challenging and randomized that it is impossible for pugs to just SC through it. When EoTN came out i was hoping for dungeon like that but now every dungeon in the game can be run in HM with no more that 3 people.
- "Invinci" Monks: I mean come on. I was fine with 55monks ruling the game 2005-2006. But after 4+ years of the game being out, 55/600/W/e monks still rule a large majority of elite PvE. Sure they arnt as prominent in UW anymore, but almost every dungeon can be 600'd.
- Drops/Farming: I wished Guild Wars would change the way drops work. I want it so when your in a party with real people you get more drops than solo. I also want it so that the only worthwhile drops come from challenging places that require 8 coordinated human players.
- Armor/Rarest Armor: I wish the "best" armor in the game wasnt simply a gold sink. I want there to be an armor that proves you have destroyed this game. Lets say High end chests at like DoA, UW, Fow, etc drop Collector items that connot be traded. Then it takes something like 15 DoA items, 15 UW items, 15 FoW items to get the Chest piece of armor or something. Then when i see someone with the "best" armor i know they didnt just ebay it or get lucky or w/e.
- Equalize Proffesions: Kinda stupid seeing the same Trinity setup or classes being used not as they are intended such as SF solo sins.
I want anet to make it so every proffesion has an imperative role in each High end pve area. Lets say that for DoA you really have to have certain shouts from a Paragon. Or some spirits from a rit are in high demand because of their usefullness in an area.

That or i want some High end pve area that requires you have 6 different proffesions in your party or something. Its just annoying to see the same proffesions abused and the same proffesions gathereing dust.

-Rank System: If you did HA in early guildwars this was fine but the fact is it is near impossible to get far in HA without r7+. I want a margionalized bracket. lets say r0-3, r4-7, etc. Just to make PvP more appealing to PvE players.


That being said i still find Guild Wars to be a phenomenal game and everytime i say im quitting i always end up coming back just because its so good.

Guild Wars was a free mmoish game where one could dress up their avatar, farm phat loots and pwn noobs. Without a monthly sub!! Success!

It just so happened that said game turned out to be hella great! And then....

The question isnt how good was Guild Wars. Its what the hell happened!? Or maybe, "who" the hell happened!?

The biggest flaw in their model(for us) is that without a legit competitor for their sub-less customers there isnt much of a quality yard stick. If certain people at Blizzard tanked the WoW subs there would be changes made. At Anet you fail upwards or laterally lol.

Its been a tale of the False Positive,imo. Or maybe a recognition of the fact there were no competitors for their share of the sub-free market and a "take what we give you" culture arose. idk

For anyone thats been playing since Prophesies you have to have wondered at some point, was it a fluke? Did these guys/gals even know why people loved their game?? Lol this goes for pve and pvp, its like they sat down and said "Ok team, what is it that our customers love about our product, now, how can we take a dump on all those qualities"

Oh yeah, an expansion every 6 months, lol.

Only real criticism would be when they started to cater to the PvE crowd. Consumables, majority of PvE skills/PvE versions of skills, the poor implementation of hard mode, I enjoy experimenting and making builds and a lot of that was taken away as the game got older. Wait so this skill raises everyone's armor by 100? Hand me the glue.

I'm thoroughly hoping the AI returns in GW2 and catches on in other games. Combat is significantly more enjoyable when you're simply not grinding one on one encounters as you quest to max level. If the endgame is going to focus on cooperative play then the progression to that stage should reflect it as well. I don't care if your game has hundreds, thousands of quests spread over varied environments when the actual gameplay element bores me to death. I'm looking at you WoW.

Completely agree.

Hard Mode:

Very, very poorly designed. Instead of giving enemies good skill bars that have synergy (pre-EotN, at least they gave enemies in EotN decent bars) and decent AI, they just made them higher attributes, health, and armor, and made them attack, run, and cast faster.

PvE-Only Skills:

Should have never been implemented the way they were. I have no idea why ANet decided to go time > skill, but they certainly did with these. I would have rather seen profession specific skills that were linked to an attribute, were more powerful than average skills, but not like they are now.

Consumables:

Should have never been implemented, period. Again, I don't know why ANet went time > skill. For a few platinum, your party gains a bunch of buffs giving you absurd buffs.

So, what ever happened to skillful play? Gone when they introduced PvE-only skills and consumables. PvE is nothing but your party with super powerful buffs and skills fighting enemies with absurd buffs and health/armor/attributes. Not very fun, or skillful.

I disagree with Racthoh but agree with you. Other than HM, ArenaNet did well until EotN. With HM they half-assed it and made the "challenge" based on large numbers of mobs with huge stat boosts, monster skills, and basically made it "War of attrition against uber-zergling rush" mode. EotN was a bit more stylish there in a few spots(I love to hate the charr homelands) but they made the fatal mistake... They started their inevitable descent towards GW2 being a WoW clone. PvE skills let them take the easy way out on the challenge again, by giving players "monster" skills that they had to grind for, and very little content to speak of.

Maybe Anet realized that their high end pve has poor repeatability, and they had to make the game about big numbers (pve skills, consumables...) to keep people from leaving once they completed everything once.

GW would need changes in its mechanics and monsters AI, which will most likely come with GW2.


Back on topic, Anet created a unique game, far from the traditional wow-like mmo, with a real pvp : limited skillbar, limited level, mesmers...

Playing since retail release of Prophecies, ANet has created a game along the way that I like and keep coming back to.

GW is my home in the gaming world.

perma sins
did good for sc and runs but ruin basic concept of tanking in all mmorpgs

Nah, they came up with titles for that. :P

If I had to guess, I'd hope (since it's really one of the few sane reasons) that it was because they were trying to get new players into the game 3 years after release and cons and PvE skills were a way to do exactly what people are always complain about them doing: give newer players a chance to "catch up" to the ones who have been playing since beta.


And PvE in an instanced world. That was a BIG factor in my enjoyment, and is, as far as I know, unique in the MMO universe.


Err. That concept was being slaughered by GW long before permas came about. Permas brought BACK the basic concept of tanking.

The 8 skill slot bar is what made the game, without question.

The low level cap and low grind were the icing on the cake.

And no monthly fees were the candles.

No monthly Fee A++
Easily the #1 item on the list for me that separated GW from other games. This is the item that keeps me coming back for more.

Limited skill bars A+
The #2 item that makes this game great. I was a Magic: The Gathering fan prior to joining Guild Wars, and the "creating builds" aspect of the game was simply awesome for me.

Looks A+
#3 item on my list. This separated GW from other games for me...the ability to get lost in the graphics is a huge plus for the game.

Trading C
The lack of any sort of consolidated trading system (e.g. an auction house) for a game of this size of disappointing. The implementation of inscribable items and green weapons seemed to be a "patch" for this core issue, and a poor one at that.

Heroes/Henchmen C-
I've made my position on these quite clear, so I won't go into that here. Great concept, horrible implementation.

Grouping System F
With the expanding GW universe, the ability to group with other players was neglected for the longest time, and was subsequently "patched" with the combined trading interface that we have today. Simply an abyssmal system for such a large playing universe. This concept exacerbates the Heroes/Henchmen issue described above.

Overall, I give Guild Wars a big A-. Incredible framework and concept, just a little rough around the edges.

I think that Anet did a fantastic job. Guild Wars is a fantastic game and I've found very little to complain about. A lot of the things that most people take issue with haven't really seemed to have affected me as much as people who play a lot more than I do. I've not bothered with another computer game since I found Guild Wars.

Add to the Pros section "money mainly used to buy cool-looking, not better, gear", and to the Cons section "little support for player-to-player trade/grouping" and I agree wholeheartedly.

Pro - fancy weapons are only for looks / instances / lots of skills

con - overpowered skills / all factions pvp needs rebalance to make it interesting / AFTER CAST (kill it!)

<*Text Wall Warning*>

To be fair GW was my first MMO. I was ABLE to try it due to no subscription. And I was SO amazed. I have been playing for something like 28 mos. And am still I'm pressed when I login everytime. I have tried a few different MMO's that are free to play,(I refuse to continue paying monthly for a game I already bought) and none of them stood up to Guildwars.

Either the games had terrible graphiics, were broken, or terrible trasnlations(I played Shaiya for awhile got a quest bassically "kill the boars".....it should have been bears.......spent forever trying to find out which type of boar..it had been miss-spelled for quite along time and never fixed..but had gotten map updates, yeash).

Then theres the Attributes in all the other MMO's I have played... "What do you mean I have to start over or pay real money to reset character stats cause my stats won't work well for the class I want to "evolve" into.

And the PKing of newbs in other games so the other person can feel better about their selves when the newbie's are trying to level. The only thing I can say is that in Rising Force if the other factions came by and PKed the newbs or yourself you could call for help and the "elite" players would quickly get there and pound them to heck. It was nice to be part of that. But was very frusterating for low levels.

In all these things GW broke me for others. The versatility of stats and profesion roles in the game. You could explore the class and the skills and not be screwed with not liking the skill and now being stuck with it. Each class has the ability to farm certain areas with certain builds. Face it in MMO's sometimes you feel like you just don't know how to play when your basically starting out cause you don't have money, GW gives all classes some ability for farming if done right. A safe are to play and level in as well as level restricted areas to lear to PvP in without the annoyance of a PK. There isnt any "Ha HA we screwed you" start over breakage of a game. And it does great in bringing in new players.

The Graphics while arguably are not quite life-like are a far cry than most of them out there that are 100% cartoonish. The ability to get a beautiful looking game and varied settings in game and not need a high-end video card to appreciate the looks opened the door to mid-range video cards and even many low-end or intergrated cards. GW tailored to everyone not just the "elite" which is just another selling point I think. How many studios really put forth that kind of effort for "everyone."

More importantly that all these ground breaking or at least novel attempts were done without a Subscription fee. I have such a appreciation and respect for GW and its team for what they accomplished with just that in mind.


I enjoy all the game I prefer Puging amazingly enough, but sometimes soloing with heros is beyond helpful...VQ all the GW campains.....with PUG"s LOL right. So heros/henchies are both good and bad. While they kill PUG's sometimes they are better.

The only thing I can say with 100% certainty is that Con set's are killing the game, no one wants to do Elite areas without them. Makes speed clears of hard areas even quicker...they are supposed to be hard and slow.

What I would have liked to see was an Auction house it was nice to be able to put the item in auction set a price and go level or whatever, not having to spend hours hawking.

These are the major things I see in GW and there are dozens of smaller things that make me love the game..female chars with earrings...characters blinking, your character actually having a moving shadow as you run along the ground . Adding of Sorrows Furnace(I wasn't here for it, but the fact they added it free...great)

In all this game is amazing and will always have my support even if I don't like certain things. You can do FAR worse. They got many things so right

Again GW team I appreciate your efforts.