this game is NOT just about PvP ...

I quoted something to indicate that from the official FAQ. It's on page one.

I agree 100%. A game cannot be all things to all people. If the developers try, they'll just end up displeasing many players. GW is the only mainstream PvP focused game I'm aware of and I think this type of game has its place. Most game companies try to create games with as broad appeal as possible, watering down the game's concept. This may be a good marketing decision, but I, as a gamer, don't like this marketing/game-design approach.

The PvE part is decent, but it's designed to be played through once or twice, more like a single-player RPG than a MMO. It doesn't have much to do after you play through the game except farm, unlock things for PvP, or play through the same game with another player. If GW was focused mainly on PvE, it would be much more like WoW or other games. Instead it's a new type of game, different from any other online RPG, yet people complain about this and want it to be more like traditional MMOs: higher level caps, mounts, races, "uber" items, etc. If these changes were made, the people who play GW because of what GW actually is, instead of playing it because they can't afford WoW would be unhappy.

I really think that GW should be marketed more heavily as a *competitive* game, instead of as another MMO with no monthly fees. That's not what GW is, but that's the impression that I think many people get, myself included when I first bought the game.

I realize that this all comes off as "elitist", but there are so many other MMOs out there. This game is unique and I'd like for it to stay that way. GW PvE is designed to be played through a few times and then for players to move on to PvP. Anet has tried to give things for PvE only players to do: green items, PvE tombs, Sorrow's Furnace, 15k armor, Fissure Armor, etc. The fact remains, though, that PvP is the central design focus of the game system itself. PvE was designed to fit into the PvP-centric philosophy rather than the other way around like most MMOs. Low level caps, not over-powered items with maximum bonuses, focus on balance, monsters using character skills, etc all illustrate this.

This game will never attract more FPS fans then RPG`ers, its fantasy game that has all the spells, swords, fantasy creatures, character development etc that a RPG would have in it and it attracts those type of people (mainly), you can see your self what the majority like by just counting all the full districts in all the places on the PvE map then the PvP islands, PvE will have 20+ times the people playing in them in total, that tells you what people use in this game.

People probably play more PvP in this game compared to other MMORPG`s, but still the overwhelming majority actually spend more time playing PvE.

And if another "free" instanced RPG comes out with amazing PvE material I guarantee you will see a large chunk of Guild Wars PvE player base move over to that, unless they make far better PvE in coming chapters.

Quoted for being WRONG.

Why do all people equal PvE with grind? I don't get it. Really, I don't. I play both PvE and PvP. I love both aspects of the game. I never got the feeling that one aspect is favored above the other. The only true statement would be that GW has CERTAINLY the best PvP mode of all fantasy games in the world while it's not the only great PvE game out there. It doesn't change the fact that GW is GREAT in PvE, too. I prefer GW to other RPGs because your success depends on your skill and not your character. That's the case in both PvE and PVP.

well lets just agree that this game is both? PvP and PvE oriented??

I love to play both aspects of the game, thats the only reason why I love this game more then other games, just because it has the 2 main sides in 1 game.

I've never played an MMO (I don't count runescape in it, damn I wasted 6 months on this game, really wasted), I played games like CoD, battlefield,...

GuildWars is just GuildWars and I will always love it

There is certainly such a thing as a wrong opinion. Anyone who argues that playing P:S in the way described above is not wrong is an idiot.

ps Planescape: Torment is a role-playing game. Neverwinter Nights is a role-playing game.

Guild Wars is not a role-playing game, despite the fact that the genre of similar games have received that moniker.

It's really quite easy. They start out thinking "this game is all about PvP, so PvE is just a tutorial". Then they get themselves run/powerleveled/twinked through the game in two weeks, tops, by their guildies. The only thing they ever do in PvE after that is farm. Farm, farm, farm, farm, farm, farm, farm. And farm. Then they farm a bit more.

So for them, the PvE *is* grind. They've by dint of considerable effort purposely MADE IT a grind.


And anyone who played PS:T the way Siliconwafer describes, is so wrong it transcends the scale of mere good & wrong and enter the territory of crimes against nature. It should be criminal. It should be and punished by being forced to eat celery and listen to Justin Timberlake on repeat.

I agree.

And just in case no one has mentioned this:

PvE is cooperative competition. That is, you are finding groups that best suit your needs to defeat a particular mission. Whether this is fun to you or not, depends on YOU. No can tell me its better or worse than PvP, because in the end, it's my choice, not yours.

Um tell what what the differnce is about NWN role playing game and guilds wars (forget the pvp islands) ??

Because all that is difference is the system, they both have charter devlopment, magic items, fantasy setting and quests with gold rewards/Xp rewards etc.

If PvP didnt exsit in this game and it wasnt online everyone would call it a RPG, just because its instanced and has PvP dosnt mean this all changes.

I agree with Kakumei and Numa about skipping cutscenes in a roleplaying game.

I heard that people skip cutscenes and text in Final Fantasy games... Whats that about? Whats the point of playing an RPG if you're just going to do that?

Now I see why the video store is full of light porn movies and crappy comedies, I guess.

While the cutscenes in Guild Wars are terrible (most of them), I get somewhat offended if people don't watch them their first play through.

This may be drifting off topic, but the horse that everone else is beating is starting to twitch of Rigor Mortis. Its begining to smell, too.

Oh well, the struggle continues. Who will conquer the Guild Wars Special Olympics? The PvE Farmers, The PvE cassual players, The PvP Farmers, or the PvP cassual players?

Here's a nice little Guild Wars timeline:

Pre-Searing ------> Ascalon ------> Shiverpeaks ------> Kryta ------> Maguuma Jungle ------> Crystal Desert ------> Shiverpeaks ------> Fire Island Chain ------> Farming or PvP


Clearly this game is intented for PvP, as I am quite sure Anet didn't design it for farming. Once you have finished all those areas (quests and missions), there is nothing left to do but farm. Which is why there is PvP. PvE is simply a warm up to strategies and such so that when you start PvPing, you have a greater knowledge of builds and counters.

Talon: And how long did that take you?

Hehe about a minute. Does it show? I hope my marvellous artistry doesn't seem shoddy. But seriously, that's pretty much how it goes in PvE. I'll show you the way I was going to write it:

Pre-Searing ------> Ascalon ------> Shiverpeaks ------> Kryta ------> Maguuma Jungle ------> Crystal Desert ------> Shiverpeaks ------> Fire Island Chain ------> Shiverpeaks ------> Kryta ------> Crystal Desert ------> Shiverpeaks ------> Kryta ------> Crystal Desert ------> Shiverpeaks ------> Kryta ------> Crystal Desert

No. Guild Wars has ZERO character development. Leveling up and raising numbers is not character development. There's no role-playing. There's no choice.

Guild Wars is a great game. I love it. I've logged in 1200+ hours on both PvE and PvP, easily more than twice the time I've ever spent on any other single game. But to call it a true role-playing game is foolish.

If you want to roleplay, go get on IRC. Go find a MUD. Go play D&D. That's roleplaying.

None of these have anything to do with roleplaying.

WRONG

pvp is an option only for those who wish to do it.

pvp players complain that PVE is the worst possible way to learn pvp.

that comes from top pvp players and shoots that down completely by your own pvp side.

if pvp were the end game they would have skipped 80% of the work done in PVE and simply had training halls to begin with.

pvp is a few isolated sandboxes in a very big playground.

THE MAIN OPTION YOU LEFT OFF YOUT LITTLE TIMELINE IS THE MAIN ONE.

*FINISH GAME, PUT ON SHELF UNTIL NEXT SPECIAL EVENT OR THE NEXT CHAPTER.

REPEAT AS WANTED.*

In this game PvP is the main event while PvE is the sideshows. PvE in this game isn't very deep unfortunately.

This game is PvP and PvE, BOTH exist in this game it's not one or the other.
To get the "full" game experience you do both but how you play is up to you.

Gaile and the Dev's has stressed this point. They have stated it is a balancing act and work to keep both sides but there BOTH part of the game. Gaile even stated it in her chat w/ the monk strike when she stopped in TK1 about working on both PvE AND PvP.

Look at factions, there expanding game play to be "competive" PvE that is NOT Pvp. There are missions on how well you "perform" the missions counts towards attempt at control with no direct competition in the mission.

It was (by design from the way I see things) to go through both modes. Do PvE vist then move to Pvp. On 2nd characters you can run, short cut through the game to get special unlocks you wanted latter and not do the entire game again. Latter they added Faction Points so you can stay just in PvP. And adding the Battle Isle's goes to address the issue of PvE vs PvP how to play so you can practice if you come from the PvE side.

What I find funny is that This is "Pve and PvP was add" on or the reverse is that both sides of the coin still play meaning anet has done a great job at keeping players w/ different playing styles. Just because the mission system did not show up towards the end doesn't not mean it was "thrown" in a the last minute. The core game was the jobs and the skill balances so pvp would make sense to show 1st for balancing skills and item quickly. Only following chapters on how they do game play will change this arugment I'm afraid to say.

BTW - Factions started development when GW went gold, and C3 started dev Nov (see interviews on front page).

What I find is this, if you want to Pve only, you can, if you want to Pvp you can, the game was designed to do BOTH. Not just one and the other was "thrown" in.

lets think for a second about why we are on this forum..
because we enjoy the game
some of us only pve or pvp
others mix about with both
point is we all play it and its a good game

lets leave it there, shall we?

i have always said that i favor live and let live as long as they dont try to kick sand in my face.

While I agree in general, I disagree in detail... I find I play my necro differently than my my paladin, because I perceive their personalities differently. That's role-playing, albeit on a small scale.

However, I'd agree that computer rpg's aren't really role-playing (with the possible exception of PS:T, which at least comes darn close). It's really something of a misnomer to call fantasy combat simulators like NWN or GW "rpg's".

Then again, most pen-and-paper sessions I've played have had very little role-playing in them either, and were basically fantasy combat simulators too.

Because so many PvE players are so trained to grind that they make it a grind. GW PvE is not grind if you play it the way it was designed. People are so convinced that virtual rewards are the game that they think having as much money or the "best" items is the goal of the game. GW is designed to *not* be about money and items, but people can't help but play it like it is.

Finally someone who actually knows what role-playing actually means.

90% of the video/computer games out there called RPGS have little or no role-playing at all.

Sorry about the double post my browser was acting weird. :/

Actually, your reading comprehension must be nil. Role-Playing would be going through the story. Despite your short attention span and obvious illiteracy, a story IS present in Guild Wars. Your character plays an important role. Wow, a role. That your character plays. And according to you, that isn't role-playing?

You're comparing what players do AFTER they finish the game, to them actually playing through the game. Let me ask you a question... what role-playing game is out there where once you beat it, there's still a giant open world where you have endless possibilities? MMO's don't count because Guild Wars isn't an MMO. I really want to see your list.

So, while you may not think my "word games" work, then neither do yours, because I literally just substituted "role-playing" for "competitive" in your argument. If mine doesn't work, then neither does yours, and you admit to being an idiot.

Again, nice try.

For the sake of fairness, the Elder Scrolls series (Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind and Oblivion) have open ended explorable worlds after you beat the game. but that doesn't change the fact that GW isn't an RPG. If anything, most MMORPG's aren't true RPG, because your not really taking a role in a story, your just going on raids and moving from dungeon to dungeon leveling up. Guild Wars PvE is heavily story driven, and once the story ends, places like UW and FoW and all the good farming spots open up to give non PvPers something to do.

The way I look at it is this is that GW was intended on being a more competive PvP game but that has changed.GW has sold over a million copies to those who aren't really PvPers mostly rpgers if it wasn't for PvE they wouldn't have sold that many copies.The majority of the player base in GW is PvE not PvP this all being said the Devs will have to give more content for those in PvE or lose sales in up coming chapters unless they create a single player/ multi player of the game.That is of course moddable so you can have sereral mods for it on a server .If this was truely a PvP focused game why introduce 15K armor?

Nice straw man and ad-hominem attacks (do you know what that means?). I said nothing about a story; I said GW is not a role-playing game. Mario Bros. has a story and you play a role also. So Mario Bros. must be an RPG! Same with Doom. It has a story, and you play the role of Doom Guy. Actually, almost all games are RPGs except for games like Tetris.

I'm doing no such thing. Oh,and the Elder Scrolls series fits that criteria.

And you can shove your stupid personal attacks up your ass.

This quote pretty much sums up (and confirms) what you said:

O'Brien explains, "The original intent of Guild Wars was that people who built up role-playing characters and played through all the content would eventually want to start using those characters in PVP. We've [now] seen that many players want to continue to focus exclusively on role-playing content."

What I don't get is that there are many PvE-focused MMOs out there, yet so many PvE only people choose to play a game whose game mechanics was designed primarily around PvP. Then they complain that the level cap is too low, the story is too short,there are no horses to ride, there no jobs like baker, plumber, etc and that there are no truly "uber' items. Well, duh; it's not that type of game.

I would love to see them focus on PvP in order to please the people who like the game for what it is, a *competitive* role-playing game instead of trying to please the people who think of the game as a poor, but free alternative to WoW.

I remember reading somewhere that GW was intended to be BOTH a PvE game with PvP elements. Both were equally important, but the focus was on playing the PvE portion of the game prior to PvP. However, the option for PvP lovers was to be able to create PvP only characters using preset builds.

Pharaphrased quote from what I remember: The original intent of this game was to have gamers play through the PvE portion of the game, then enjoy some PvP while waiting for the next chapter to come out.

That all changed when the PvPers began crying about not being able to create a unique character because skills and mods had to be unlocked in order to use them on custom PvP only builds. Hence the so-called UAS (Unlock All Skills) debacle, and the following change that brought about the earning of Faction in PvP arenas. Only after this did the game shift more towards favoring PvP only players as opposed to PvEers.

For anyone to believe that GW is (or ever was primarily for) PvP has obviously forgotten that Pre-Searing is THE tutorial for the game. Out of the entire area, PvP comprised one three minute portion of the tutorial. After entering Post-Searing, there are a whole two PvP arenas in the entire Ascalon and North Shiverpeaks areas. In order to reach the bulk of the PvP arenas, one must travel fully one third of the way through the game to get to Lion's Arch.

Finally, where else does one do PvP in GW? PvP is held strictly to a handful of arenas that only make up a small portion of the explorable world. Everywhere else, one is relegated to solo adventuring, or (as the devs intended this game to be), meet up with other on-line players to form a party to complete quests, missions, and explore - something that harkens back to the very beginnings of the CRPG with Wizardry and Forgotten Realms. Only this time, other people help you form your party as opposed to you simply creating six characters to explore a dungeon.

Can't get too much more PvE than that, I think.

Hanok Odbrook
Real Millennium Group Guild
Truth * Knowledge * Peace

Except that would suck royally. When I turn on the game, I go out with my completed character and just roam and explore. I look for things I havent seen before, or go in areas I didnt dare go in before. I dont worry about items, or gold. They're just happy little things that happen when I'm out.

I'm an explorer. When I play PVE I do it because I like doing it. Fighting monsters or enemies, exploring dangerous areas, finding routes I didnt know about. That's my PVE.

PVP to me is pointless. There's no reward for it, or atleast no good reward. Its just a bunch of people, fighting each other for no reason. Atleast in HoH there's a good reason. But GvG, or the other smaller arenas, there's no point. Its just fighting for fighting's sake. And I'm sorry, but if there's no purpose for it, then why bother doing it?

Yeah, this kind of thing generally degenerates to attacks and flaming, which it now has. Closed.