Who's playing GuildWars?

Cafe Society
1

Besides me? I picked it up tonight and found it pretty good. Something to play for the odd times that I’m bored with City of Heroes.

For those not playing at this time: it’s sort of like Morrowind with elements from Neverwinter Nights, Diablo II, and City of Heroes. You have the traditional keyboard controls but you can also use a point & click on the terrain or the minimap.

Teaming isn’t necessary because you can easily pick up henchmen. Yes, henchmen, as in more than one at a time. In addition to NPC people, Rangers can ask a friendly animal to fight along side them, much like the Druid in Diablo II. Necromancers can animate dead and gain energy from those who die nearby. Monks heal, Warriors bash things, Elementalists and Mesmers cast spells.

Combat is a bit unusual. It’s partly a click-fest and partly button pressing in the style of City of Heroes. Click on an enemy target and your character goes into “default attack until the thing is dead” mode; while targeted you can press the number keys in the top row to execute spells, which have different recharge times.

2

Oh, yeah, appearently there is some sort of crafting in it but I haven’t played long enough to do much with that. I’ve turned some salvaged armor into a bit of leather and that’s it.

3

I’m thinking about buying the game. Would it be a worthwhile investment?

4

I think so. All these elements from different games make for an interesting combination. You have the keyboard command interface and huge map from Morrowind, the character interaction from Neverwinter Nights, henchmen from Diablo II, the point & click combat common to all three games, and the combat from City of Heroes.

You can have many quests open at the same time, like Morrowind; quest-givers (and NPCs who just have something to say) are marked with an exclamation point, like Diablo II.

The graphics are really good. Walk on a dirt road and your character will leave footprints. Pools of water reflects whatever is above; not just your character but if you’re in combat you also see the reflection of your opponent(s), spells, arrows in flight, swinging weapons, etc.

5

It seems interesting. Some folks from the World of Warcraft community commented that they felt the game was more skill-based player vs player combat as opposed to gear-based player vs player combat.

World of Warcraft’s PvP is fun, but generally it boils down to a game of rock-paper scissors (some classes having huge advantages over another class) and whoever has the better sword/trinket/stat-enhancing widget. Since the introduction of Honor System, World of Warcraft has become even more of a gankfest. Not that I have a problem with that, but sometimes I yearn for more pitched battles.

6

I’d like to start a SDMB* guild if enough Dopers are interested.

*Special Dynamic Marchers’ Brigade?

7

I just won $500 and I’m going to be buying myself a new laptop, so of course I’m going to be getting either Guild Wars or World of Warcraft to play on it. I’m leaning towards GW because there is no monthly fee, but I was wondering if there is anyone here who has played both and how they would compare the two. If I end up getting GW I would definately be up for joining a SDMB guild.

Super Duper Mage Battilion?

8

I’ve been playing a good bit of it- well, until yesterday’s “let’s add more memory to the computer and break the entire system” fiasco.

A friend of mine is one of the lead artists/producers on it, and so I originally bought it out of solidarity. It’s… um… kind of good. I suppose. It IS freakin’ gorgeous, though.

There are a few major annoyances, though.

The main one for me is that there’s no Z axis in the game- at all. A ledge of rock a foot high will completely block you. You can’t swim (water is only wadeable). You can’t jump (except as an emote). I’ve died a few times so far, just from this fact- I thought I’d be able to run away, but a slight slope brought me to a standstill long enough for the baddies to kill me.

The quests have you running all over the place- and, while the map will indicate where a quest objective is, you usually have no clue where the person who gave you the quest was after you finish the quest- so you wind up wandering all over the place trying to find that one guy again so you can get your reward.

There are only twenty levels, so difficulty ramps very quickly. When my warrior/elementalist was level 4, a lone level 5 grawl kicked my ass repeatedly, while other level five creatures fell easily to my hammer.

Some things can only be found, not purchased- why is it, for example, I can’t buy dyes in the merchants? Why can’t I find or purchase armor- I can only get it from collectors?

The game actually encourages you to pick names like “Dread Death Bunny”. I prefer a bit of RP in my Gaming.

You can only have four characters. That’s it. Not four per server- four total.

There’s no dynamic weather. Or, heck, there’s not even any time in the game- it’s always high noon, apparently.

That said, I’m kinda having fun with it. I’ve finally (mostly) settled on a character- a Ranger/Monk named Faelan the Crow. Look me up if you get the chance.

9

Yeah, it is fun, isn’t it?

There will definately be optional expansion packs to buy. I wouldn’t be surprised if the first one raises the level cap.

The terrain does remind me of Diablo II, no Z-axis there either other than stairs.

10

Most of my friends have quit World of Warcraft after a few months, myself included. It just wasn’t enough to justify the monthly fees, and I had a lot of trouble really staying with the game. Just not enough motivation to keep playing, I guess.

I’ve got a few friends who are now playing Guild Wars after leaving World of Warcraft. From what I’ve heard, they are finding Guild Wars to be a more enjoyable experience.

11

Not bad. I think Super Duper Magi Brigade–Magus was one of the Three Wise Men.

12

I might have to get it, even if there’s no rogue/thief/assassin class. It looks too pretty to not have. Although I’m sure there will be a fight over the computer when my husband gets Empire Earth II.

13

It’s very pretty.

That’s about the best I can say for it. Nothing particularly horrible about it; I’m just not impressed with it overall, and I kept thinking “World of Warcraft does this better.”

Maybe I’d like it better if I didn’t play all these things as if they were single-player games, what with multiplayer being the whole point of this game, but on the whole it gets a “meh.”

14

Tangential question. Is there no monthly fee for Guild Wars? How does that work? Is it a persistent world like most other MMORPGs or is more along the line of playing Diablo online?

15

More like Diablo 2 Realm Characters, really.

The towns are mmo–if you go into a town, you see/can talk to/hear everyone else online in your region who is also in that town.

The outside areas, though, where you fight monsters/explore, are individually instanced (like a D2 Realm game). If you go into a zone alone, you are the ONLY human player there. If you want to party up, you do so in town and when the leader zones s/he creates the instance for your party, and you will be the ONLY human players there.

I haven’t tried PvP yet, so I don’t know how the arenas work.

This method of doing things means you never have camping/ganking/training/spamming idiots ruining your playing experience. It also means you never meet any of the wonderful folks you also meet accidently while adventuring in other style games.

I haven’t decided yet if I like this way better or not…

16

I came up with a real contender for a Guild name this morning!

CECL: Celestial Evil-Crushing Legion

It’s from NCsoft. The fees from their other games might be covering it, plus they’ll get revenue from the expansion packs.

17

I am very interested in having more details!

How is the PvP in it?

Is it balanced between the classes?

Or is it more team versus team?

Are the combats “quick and dirty” or more “on the long run and strategic”?

18

I’m playing and liking it – it’s basically Diablo III. It looks great – as noted already, ir’s Morrowindesque in its beauty, which is a high standard.

Not the characters, though. Those are way better-looking than Morrowind’s. The Gamespot pull quote for it was entertaining – “Guild Wars, where the men are men and the women are runway models.”

I’m definitely interested in an SDMB guild. Has one been started yet?

19

And contributing a little info…

There is no monthly fee. As I understand it, the online component is intended to increase sales, justifying the cost of running the servers with additional sales revenue. Unlike traditional MMOs, there is no online GM staff or world events, so much lower cost. It’s basically like Battle.Net, Blizzard’s free online multiplayer service for Warcraft III, Starcraft and Diablo II.

You get only 4 character slots for your $40-50, though, so they may be expecting to sell additional copies. I bought something like 5 copies of Diablo II over a couple of years, so they may have something. Apparently, they’lll be releasing expansion packs every 6 to 9 months, which gives them another source of revenue.

The PvP is fast – matches are over very quickly, at least in my limited experience. I don’t know enough to say if it’s balanced between classes. I believe that balance was a key design goal, but there are apparently 150 skills for each class, which leads to a lot of options. I suspect there are a fair number of rock-paper-scissors situations with various classes and skills, but only time will tell.

20

It’s going to take a while. Starting a guild requires 500 gold.