How did Guild Wars match up to YOUR expectations?

Firstly let us settle a few definitions first:
1) MMO = Massively Multi-player Online
2) RPG = Role Playing Game
If you are in agreement on my definitions, then I fail to see how either of these terms do not apply to GW.
Of course if you want to get really technical, we should scrap the term RPG when refering to computer games at all because "real" RPG is really reserved for the table top, late at night, with all your secret friends who enjoy playing dress-up.

However let us imagine for just one moment that RPG is not reserved for the most secret of secret meetings. In the gaming industry RPG is a "type" or "format" of game. Games are typically classified as RPG, FPS, or RTS (though occassionally recently the classification of "arcade" and "classic" have occassionally been popping up). Action/Adventure/Fantasy is genre, not type or classification. Most games receive both genre and type definitions.
Now I'm fairly sure that we can agree that GW is neither "arcade" or "classic". GW isn't really RTS either (though info on GW:F seems to suggest we will be seeing some of that soon), which leaves RPG and FPS. Certainly GW has some similarities to FPS but, when push comes to shove, it isn't FPS, leaving only RPG and it fits most of the criteria for that catagory. Remember here we are talking about electronic games, not CCG, not table-top RPG, not board games.

On account of your accusation that GW is not MMO I would like to point out that simply because GW does not follow the same structure as WoW and EQ2, etc, does not make it any less MMO than any of these games. GW has players, from all around the world, logging on and playing together, it is not simply a multiplayer game that you can hook up to a LAN hub. Does this on fit the definition of MMO? I honestly fail to see how you can suggest otherwise.

I debate the idea that GW was designed to be solely, or even primarily, a PvP game. From the reading I have done, GW was designed to take the PvP out of RPG, while still offering it as a mode of play. I don't not think for a minute that GW was designed as a PvE solely or primarily either. In fact, with all the reading I've done on GW:F recently, I am convinced that GW was designed to be a multi-format game, a one-stop-show for gamers who, like myself, enjoy all types of games (RPG, FPS & RTS).

Immersion is not contributed (solely) to realism. Realism can play a very large part in the feeling of immersion, but the real pulling power of the game is much more emphemeral than that. The addition of pre-searing in GW was a master piece. If you want to witness this pulling power, the immersionn that players have experienced, take yourself to Ascalon City and just sit and watch and listen as all the new players comment on how ugly Ascalon has become, whether they can go back, and how much they hate this new map. Pre-searing was intended to, and succeeded in, giving players a sense of belonging and then a sense of loss. This is immersion. You don't need an in-game S.O or family. You don't need to even pretend you are a part of the world to have experienced some form of immersion. Only players who rush though the game, never taking the time to view the cut-scenes or the scenery around them will miss having such an experience. Rurik may have been as annoying as all hell but most people I've talked to had some sort of "feelings" about the things that he did. Some players side with Rurik about leaving Ascalon, others don't (even though we don't really have a choice in the matter). Some say it was good he died, because now he can join Althea, others are simply glad that he is gone. To "feel" anything at all for the characters (even annoyance) shows some level of immersion, that we are thinking about them actually being a person even though we know they are onnly an image on the computer screen.
I agree that if you want a true immersion exeperience, to the point where you feel like it is YOU who is wandering through the lush green forest, then you need a single player RPG like Morrowind or the soon-to-be-released Oblivion.

Finally, my comparison to Morrowind was not done on the basis of both games being RPG, it was done because Morrowind is the MOST enjoyable game I have ever played, regardless of genre or classification. In my comparision I have tried to take into account that both games were designed with a very different idea in mind. For example, you might note that I have not been overly harsh in the storyline department. If I had been comparing it as another single-player RPG to TES3 then, I'm sorry to say it, GW would have performed very poorly.

The PvP crowd can say all they want, about how GW is centred around PvP, has PvP roots, blah blah... but the fact remain, it is advertised on a leading online retailer (no doubt a good portion of the GW population must have gotten it there) as a MMORPG.

I'm sorry, but I will be perfectly happy to have Anet rid the guts of GW of underlying PvP elements and actually improve on its PvE elements, then to make it a glorified counterstrike where there is no incentive to do anything except to farm.

Admit it or not, PvP is really crippling PvE. Everybody knows that.

GW far exceded my expectations, i was hoping for a game like other mmorpgs where its all storyline with lots and lots of lvls and items types and lots of different mods for weapons, but i was quickly excepting of low lvl cap and lack of variety for weapons and mods (that is what i didnt really like about diablo 2, us people who didnt use any hacks like map hack and bots didnt have access to alot of the good uniques and runewords) but what keeps me hooked on GW is the arena style pvp, that was BRILLIANT ANET

So I guess the final verdict is you either like counterstrike or you don't like GW, am I right to say so?

This is my first online game. It has surpassed my expectations. I have played this game for nearly 1000 hours now. That is about 900 more than any other game I have EVER played. I have some video games that I bought and played once. I have some that I bought and never even played. I get bored with games so easy. For me to have 1000 hours on a game really means something.

The bad thing about Guild Wars is that as long as it is alive, I will never have a life.

Original paragraph
Guild Wars is a new kind of MMORPG experience. It eliminates the less exciting aspects of world-map play by using a mission-based design, while keeping the features that make online role-players great. Make new allies in towns or outposts, form a party, and then go tackle a quest together. Your party always has its own unique copy of the quest map -- so camping, kill-stealing, and long lines to complete quests are all things of the past. As you play your quest, you have unprecedented levels of freedom: Your magic can build bridges and open up new pathways, or it can burn down forests and villages. Best of all, you'll never meet new players that you can't play with or compete against, because their characters are on a different Server than yours. In Guild Wars, all characters live in one seamless world.

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Were my expectations upto scratch? Very much not upto scratch id say.
Whenever I saw a review of guildwars, I saw it compared to WoW, or other such mmorpg games of the past. It cant be compared to them.

I agree with the below wholeheartidly, except for the loving part cause I dont do pvp:
Grimm



What makes a mmorpg the masive part is that you can go off and do your own thing and encounter others doing the same whilst you do it, its the basic prinicple. It is why you pay subscriptions, you have to pay for the huge servers that run the worlds in which everyone plays on the same world.
Guildwars however, takes an older approach, that of instances. Which in effect are mini 'few-player' games between a few friends. to quote the original advert
Eh? Thing of the past? Its a attribute of the modern computer based rpgs that such unfortunate events are possible.

Guildwars takes an approach closer to old *gasp* none subscription diablo series, in that each "game" instance is just a group max of 8 people in a individual run setting.
Think how diablo worked. You'd get a B.net lobby (town) with names along europe1-20 where you might meet people and start a game, with 1-8 players. That is closer to guildwars than everquest where you log onto your server with a couple thousand other players and have a free run of it, randomly meeting them in combat areas and making parties togther mid encounter.
With guildwars there is no need for some huge big server that could have 50+ people fighting a dragon, or a whole guild togther killing giants.
Instances are a cheap ass way to implement a so called 'mmo' game. I would be extremely dissatisifed if they considered charging a fee for a game that was entirly instance based. (unless they gave significant content increases per month, not guildwars "updates" of tiny changes in gui or 'balance')


In fact, to quote guildwars.com Q&a page, Gw's by their own definition isnt a mmorpg.
Now that defintion fits better.
Its primiarly an online competitive pvp game.

It has more indepth avatar creation options than counter strike(if that is sufficent to call it rpg).
However, if compared to, an example of a good online-rpg neverwinter nights, bugger all in the way of character customisation options. Class Skills and nothing else. Each warrior is virtually the same as the next based off at most 7 numbers, 8 skills and then items.
Items of which there is a tiny selection of useable armours and the core items themselfs have tiny variation in numbers, then there are no consumable items such as potions or scrolls(unless you count those pathetic double xp scrolls, which I heartily dont).
No strength,dex,constitution values. A lot of the same character is all you see, you can probably guess within a hundred or two how many hp's a character has when you see them in town.

I played and enjoyed the single player story line, but guildwars longevity is in the pvp alone. You wont get people playing the pve side of things for months on end unless they are looking to get stuff for pvp, it is pretty much unrewarding, not challenging, and ultimately not entertaining.

If the pvp mattered to the campaign world, if it was part of an on going online campaign like DaoC, if it was story based pvp such as the prolog mission where 2 groups fight each other for a task. Yes, I'd be interested. But the present ooc pvp just for pvps sake, ala counterstrike for me is a relative bore.
Guilds, whilst I can see the interest factor for those in the guild frankly dont mean anything to the campaign world. No one would care if any guild vanished, it doesnt effect the game world. Average player doesnt ever see or even care to see any one guild property even if it were destroyed by another guild(is such a thing possible even?).

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Was guildwars worth the money spent on it? Yes.

It is a beautiful game, a very big game at that, fun running through the story once, maybe twice. Then it becomes something to put on the shelf unless you want ooc based pvp. Erm.. or unless the "soon to be" wife moans at me to play it with her.
I like my rpg's for long term immersion, socialising, character deveolpment and story.




And lastly.
Lady Lozza
I sincerely advise you to look at the online custom made player servers of Neverwinter nights. Its the cloest you get to a purist role player game on a pc. Nothing comes close to this, has everything you could want including a DM client(program that allows dungeon masters to play alongside players and dynamically make quests/events on the fly). Whatever you do though, dont run the single player game, Neverwinter nights was built with intent of the player base using the toolset to make their own campaign worlds, not play the poorly implemented example module.
The server I play on, ive been on for 3 years now, its a mini society in a persistant world enviroment, there is no such immersion in gw's, gw's is all ooc.

Look at what Arenanet calls this type of game (a type of game which it invented with GW): a "competitive online role-playing game". Look at the following quote from the official GW website:

"Rather than labeling Guild Wars an MMORPG, we prefer to call it a CORPG (Competitive Online Role-Playing Game). Guild Wars was designed from the ground up to create the best possible competitive role-playing experience."

Notice the use of the word "competitive". I don't think they're talking about who can farm to get the most money or most uber items.

ArenaNet has also said how the original intent was for players to go through the RPG part in order to learn the game basics and unlock things and then take their characters into PvP, implying that PvP was the ultimate goal. This explains why the PvE part is fairly shallow compared to other online RPGs. They are adding more RP content after seeing that many people mainly play the RP part.

To me, it's fairly obvious that this was designed primarily as a PvP game/system. Fortunately,the cooperative part is quite good also. But negative points that you mentioned, like all monsters being of a specific class, are part of that design. This helps players to get used to fighting against various classes using their skills. The level 20 cap and the 8-slot skillbar point to its design as a PvP game system. I think these things work well in the cooperative RP part, but they're *crucially* important for the PvP part.

This shouldn't be interpreted as "PvP snobbery", as I enjoy the PvE part also and have finished the story thus far with 3 characters and unlocked all my skills through the RP part. I'm simply stating the the game and its deep and versatile combat/skill system was designed primarily with PvP in mind. A story-based RPG was then designed around this outstanding PvP game system. I think to ignore either is silly, as you're missing half the game.

My point in bringing up PvP at all was that your post seemed to completely ignore it and its important place in the design of the game. To me, games like WoW were designed first as a cooperative roleplaying game, with all the typical "RPG" elements: leveling up, finding cool magic items, becoming more and more powerful, and inhabiting an immersive world. GW was designed first as a competitive game and its RPG part cut back or eliminated many of the boring and unfun properties of most MMORPGs.

And I realize that there are lots of players on GW and that it is online. The fact is, however, that it is not a traditional MMORPG. Many terms are poorly chosen, in my opinion, and MMORPG is one of them.

GW is arguably an RPG in the sense that other electronic games are "RPG"s, but the majority aren't really. Morrowind is a true RPG in the sense that you can actually play a role and feel immersed in the world and make decisions about what your character does that actually have an impact. In MW, you can kill innocents or not, steal or not, etc, based on what you think your character would do. In the RP part of GW, you can do quests, missions, farm, explore, etc. You can't deviate from the completely linear storyline nor can you roleplay other than through interaction with other players.

Oh, and if you like Morrowind, I'd recommend The Elder Scrolls 2 : Daggerfall, the game that came before it. I think it's better in many ways (obviously not graphically). If you can look past the very dated technology, graphics, etc, it's quite an enjoyable game to this day.

Its not even a MMO they said it was a CORPG (competitive online role playing game)

Ive seen that description and to a point it follows that. Of course that was not what I was expecting, that came out long after I had already played. It was now only what I was expecting(which was a lot) but a whole lot better.

I like it, as long as we all realize the pve part has to live within the contraints of the pvp part (level cap, small variety in weapons/armour that people actually use) then it's all good. For what it is it does it very well and for the 'hard-core' pve person (including myself I might add) then there is always the Elder Scrolls series/Kotor ect.


I think that the pvp/pve balance is about as good as it can get, it's us who muck it up

IMHO their descriptionn is apt, however until it catches on in the publishing and distribution circles GW will be classified as a MMORPG, however inaccurate the term may be.

Read the above quote from Anet and my own post carefully.
At the moment PvP is, I'm afraid to say it, basically first personal shooter. You need tactics, but then so does any good FPS team.
Lvl caps are important in ALL games, no matter what people think. Without a lvl cap there is no challenge. In fact I do believe that Anet have stated that they wanted to take out everything that was NOT fun about most classic online RPG. Since it is an online game lvl caps are even more important. It is not fun for a lvl20 character to have their butt kicked by a lvl60 character. On the other had I experience no enjoyment what so ever in owning lvl6 charr with a lvl20 character. There is no challenge and no sense of achievement. Playing with and against other characters, other real people is fun: enter co-op and PvP. Anet has stated that they intended to release more chapters of GW over time, so perhaps you might have inkling of where I'm coming from when I state that PvP and co-op are two concepts which, IMHO, were never meant to be separate. The name Guiild Wars alone suggest a very grand scale idea, yet we only have a maximum of 8 players in a team. With chapter 2 we will have the possibilties of alliances, is it all that hard to believe that this was in the works almost right from the beginning of the project? Do you really think that players would put in the hours in PvE simply to get unlocks and go and burn the hours at PvP. Speaking of which, have you ever wondered about HoH? Why favour is important. If it were a PvP game then favour would mean nothing, unless it too was a hint at is to come?
Now perhaps I'm reading a little too much between the lines here but it is my belief that PvP in GW was merely the pre-curser to what (it appears) is going to be starting in chapter 2: RTS by FPS (PvP) all wrapped up in a psudo-RPG package.
IMHO PvP as it stands was NEVER solely, nor primarily the goal of the game. The goal was to have a "competitive online rpg" <- Anet's own words.

I honestly can't remember stating that I had never played PvP, nor that I hated it. I actually rather enjoy it. I certainly wouldn't go so far as to say that it is an outstanding system, but it is good. However, like I mentioned previously, without favour, without GWWC PvP, GvG means NOTHING.

My post didn't mention it because it was irrelevant in my discussion of how enjoyable I found the game. PvP is a map, that is all. It relies so heavily on the players that surround you that some people will NEVER find it enjoyable. Players, sooner or later, try their hand at the RPG part of the game, mostly the people who hate it are not native RPG players, those who are lament, and compare it - as I have done (without the lamenting, of course) - to a more traditional RPG game which they found enjoyable.

Agreed, Anet's term is much more descriptive and a better representation of the nature of the game.

I would argue the point that Morrowind is a "true" RPG. However in terms of electronic games it is as close as you get.

Yes I rather enjoyed DF, it was the reason I chose to buy #3 in the series. However the graphics of #3 came at a time when the graphics of #2 was common-place. For any computer game fanatic Morrowind took our breaths away and, cliff racers aside, will always have a special place in my gaming heaven.

In many ways the evolution that appears to be happening in GW may very well (eventually) make it a game which is far more realistic representation of an "RPG" than what is currently classified as an RPG. Afterall, we can't all be the hero.

PvE: worse than expected. The storyline was mediocre, but considering I've read most every thing Tolkien wrote about Middle Earth and the seven Narnia books by C.W. Lewis, Anet had a lot to live up to.

PvP: Better than expected. At first I only bought GW for PvE. But the PvP is the exciting part GW. I only do quests which give me skills. cI like like playing in all arenas. I haven;'t done much GvG, but the logistics of getting 8 people to practice everyday is hard. I wish GW had a 4v4 championship.

Governing Structure (Anet): neutral. Over the summer Anet kept nerfing everything which pissedme off. I quit playing. I took about 3 months off. PvP is what brought me back. And the SF adjustments made the economy stable. I got sick and tired of monk runes costing 70k each. That was stupid. But now the prices are managable.

Well, I'll just start this by saying that no other game of any kind has kept me this ocupied, ever. Technically not my first online game (Diablo, UT), but my first major online game. So, moving right along:

General thoughts:
-PvE: Plenty for me to explore, and enough things for me to find. Heck, I'm still finding spiffy little nooks and craneys all over the place. The missions can be troubling, but usually because of bad overall group structure or bad players. I'm hard pressed to find fault with the developers. I like the story, and I like how things get tied up at the end. Best ever? Maybe not. Passable? More than good enough for me :3
-PvP: I'm a newbling PvP'er, but I'm very satisfied with it. If I get rocked, I know it wasn't because of imbalance. I've NEVER felt cheated while playing against other players, and that's saying something. Closest I ever came to feeling cheated was when Thunderclap was being exploted by Rangers with lightning bows, but even then it was more funny and annoying than frustrating.

Pros:
-No monthly fees. Can't be said enough.
-Excelent overal game balance
-Good variety of weapons to select from
-Easy to obtain "max" armors and weapons
-Almost no lag issues (surprisingly)

Cons:
-Imperfect GvG matchup program
-Poor to midling friendly AI (the healer tries to tank??)
-Not enough character slots
-Players that seem to only want 1 of 3 character types, and my main isn't one of them
-Difficult initial learning curve (getting used to the game takes a while. Almost past the Northern Shiverpeaks)
-The "Worlds at War" option. Have to wait for a window to get into the hardest areas, and there's not much there once you actually get there

My thoughts on A.Net and NCSoft:
-I'm mostly impressed with them and their staff. I've had issues resolved quickly and fairly through their e-mail dialogues, I've seen player suggestions become game add-ons, and I've seen player complaints get attention. Everyone seems to be friendly on their staff. It's really nice seeing their openness.

Long story short, I'll buy the next chapter. Probably the chapter after that, too.

It met or exceeded my expectations.

As an aside, I've been playing games in general and rpg's in particular since the early eighties, and GW is a good one. I find it mildly amusing that people trash a game they've spent a grand total of $40 on, after having gotten several hundred hours worth of excellent gaming out of it, as "boring" and "disappointing".

You tire of games eventually. It's the way of the world. Even MMORPGs aren't any different - people leave WoW because they get bored after a couple of months too.

And while Morrowind *may* have had greater replayability, it was also much smaller and much shorter. I played & loved Morrowind (which actually was not unlike a GW with only one player, I'll leave everyone to consider what that would be like) till I got bored to tears with it, and that took me two months. I've been playing GW since May, and am only now starting to get into the PvP side, after having completed four characters. Morrowinds combat mechanics and balancing was also, as has been pointed out, lacking to the point of being broken, and GW actually has a far better plot.

As for running, people run in GW because they think the game is about pwnorizing. People run because they either want to get an edge in PvP or impress people with their godly wealth. It's not a reflection on the game, it's a reflection on them.

Will I get Oblivion when it is released? Yes, I will.

Will I get the update for GW when it is released? Yes, I will.

Which future cRPG am I most looking forward to? Gothic 3.

Well for me, from the moment GuildWars was released I haven't bought any game any more and the only game I play is GuildWars and maybe will be GuildWars for a long time.

GuildWars is just the type of game I want to play, ...

Every game has it errors, but atleast A.net tries their best to solve these errors

For me, Guild Wars has been very much beyond expectations. My initial reason for playing Guild Wars was that I couldnt afford WoW's monthly fee(Now I can, and I am playing that), and I was excited about the limitless possibilities GW seemed to offer.
It provided me 1000+ hours of very good gameplay experience, and thats worth the money spent and more

I've played DnD games, ES games and such. Their RPing is much better.
I've played WoW. Its quests, world content, depth is much better.

But GW is different. GW is good.

And yea, the gfx and music here kicks ass
<3 Jeremy Soule

I'm going to go beyond Morrowind and say Daggerfall was the better experience of the two. First off I liked the combat engine of Daggerfall better. But, the main thing about Daggerfall I liked over every other rpg and mmorpg I've played is "randomness". Daggerfall provided randomness in spades. Random quest random missions random mobs and for the most part random loot according to level. I looked inside of Morrowind even did some modding on random spawns for dungeons. It's in the game to be so, but, Bethsoft just didn't go quite far enough in making it so. I added numerous monsters to dungeons to spawn by the level of my character, even increased the level because in Morrowind monsters were just too easy to kill, way too easy. I was beating guilds and city guards with a level 5 warrior and a couple of summon monster rings I found off of quest npc's.

I don't like games that remain the same. GW's remains the same. No matter how many times you go back into a zone, the same mobs are still there, basically in the same place and it just feels like a hack n slash of the same nature over and over and over again. Thus, this is why farming solo is so easy, once you see what monsters are in the zone and where, you can build a template to defeat them over and over and over again and evade those that would give you a hard time, Hydra farming is sooooo easy it's funny. Not good for longevity to me.

I'm not as excited about getting chapter 2 as I was chapter 1, and I was only excited about chapter 1 because I didn't know what was going to be in chapter 1 and of course the advertising is always a little vague. It says on the inside flap I can SOLO the entire game with henchies if I want, yet, I can't go into UW/FOW with them. Says the game IS MY ADVENTURE, doesn't say it's EVERYONES Adventure but MINE. So, I was pretty disappointed when I found I couldn't use henchies in UW/FOW.

Level caps. I'm not much of one that likes a finite number on anything, that restricts the value of the game also in the long term. A game must always provide extended goals in many catagories, not just loading up on some more skills when you only have 8 slots to use them anyway.

Restrictions on weapon/armor stats. Once again I'm not much of one that likes a finite number on weapons/armors because it too restricts the value of the game in the long term.

Ease of aquiring: This is one of the reason the trade system is a laugh and a joke. There are collectors spread out all over the map that provide you with everything you could want in collectors gear from weapons to armor that are essentually equal to anything you can buy, though there are a "handful" of dropped items that are still of some value and worth farming for or buying. Not like most rpgs or mmorpgs though. No one should ever know what the actual best item in the game is, no one should ever know that 15% is the max or 20% if < 50 health. That's a major problem of this game as well, too much is known before you even start. The build your own PVP character just gives too much away.

PVE to PVP: This I like, they give a good reason to PVE your character up for PVP since you can get more different items and weapons and armors to take with you in the PVP arena, whereas if you build a pre-made or custom made you are limited quite a bit. Only 2 weapon sets and 1 armor set. With a PVE for PVP character it's practically unlimited except for your inventory space.
For instance the HOD helm, no pre-made or custom made can have this item (smile) Also with a PVE character in PVP you can change out armors in a flash for certain circumstances another plus for playing a PVE character up to PVP. The value of my time I have put into the game should have importance as well as skill and intelligence and by playing a PVE up to PVP this does reward me for that time and effort, one of the better things about GW's, but, not really enough to hold me to the game overall because of what I have mentioned above.

The Story: While it started out great, it went into to many different directions and back again. Just as I was getting into the Charr war, here I am tossed into a dwarven war, then into a knight and druid war and a then into an undead war and then into dragons lair and then into hell it self and then back to some titans and lo and behold back to the Charr again. lol Too much changing around the story. I lost interest pretty much after N. Shiverpeaks.

I just hope the preview really shows us something spectacular, a couple of new arenas isn't going to go over to big with me though. And these faction wars already sounds like if you're not rank 3+ or in an elite guild you can forget participating because the larger guilds will ally and take it over.

This has been something that has crossed my mind. I wonder what is going to be done to stop the uber groups getting together and taking over the game, however I have good reason to believe that that will not happen because they will stop themselves. I've no doubt that they will not want to share the glory with another big name.

Thank the gods that someone mentioned Neverwinter Nights. Finally, I find someone else in these forums that not only knows the game, but plays it and understands its ultimate strength. I wish more RPG-ish games (I use that term since for some reason people seem to be debating what games can use what terms to describe themselves... does it really matter?) had the same POWERFUL tools that Neverwinter did/does. I just hope NwN2 doesn't mess things up too much.

I think you're right. At first it didn't bother me so much but now I've changed my position. It's like a bunch of ADHD people wrote the storyline. There's no Golden thread. It's like 3 writers sat down and wrote 3 completely different stories, then Anet decided to shoe horn them all together.