[MUD-Dev] Guild Wars ?

[Corey Crawford]

Louis d'Ambra wrote:

> Guild Wars, aka the "free" MMO, will get out soon. Does anyone
> already played it ? Any comments or impressions yet ? Is the
> combat system really good and most skillful than most of the MMO's
> out there ?

I've read the other comments on Guild Wars and thought I should
chime-in. If you haven't played since a couple Beta Weekends ago,
the feel of the game has changed. For starters, the interface is
much improved.

Second, Guild Wars *is* a PvP game.. any solo playing you do is to
improve your character(s) for PvP. Right out of the box you can
create a level 20 (max level) PvP character, but you are restricted
to certain templates (class mixes with only specific spells/skills
available). In order to build other templates you must progress with
a RP character, starting at level 1.

The purpose of the RP character is to a) build a character by
questing for levels and various skills available to your arch-types,
b) to learn *how* to play your character, and c) to learn the lore
of the game (which is actually pretty interesting).

While the PvP arenas are certainly not "world" enough for most
people to call the game a MMORPG, the single player portions of the
game are most certainly "world". Yes, a lot of quests are instanced
just for your character (or group), but so are the vast majority of
quests in CoH. There is also a huge story involved where your
character starts out Pre-Searing and at a certain point you can take
a quest that brings you to Post-Searing (where the majority of the
game takes place). Pre-Searing is basically the tutorial, but you
learn how everything was setup and after the Searing you can visit
the old towns you once knew as a newbie to see only see a few burnt
timbers. Since the game is pretty linear with quests (must do quest
a before b) I could see why people would not consider this a
"world", though you can wonder around the non-quest maps anytime you
want and encounter other people wandering as well.

The game does flow a more like Diablo, but the key here is the
combat system. As someone else mentioned, it plays very much like
Magic the Gathering or any other card game that requires you to
build a deck and have some kind of strategy. Ideally, you will
create builds that compliment your team (a group of all
monk/warriors might do ok at first, but once they encounter a group
with a couple of mesmers to block their spells will fail every
time).

Anyways, I just wanted to make sure that everyone knew that first
and foremost this is a PvP game that is done very well. Everything
is very well balanced against everything else, everything can be
countered with a little bit of planning. Guild vs Guild combat is
the main attraction, with 4v4 and 6v6 arenas mainly being used to
learn how to use your (and your teams) skills effectively in PvP
combat.

That said, I am enjoying the quests and the story arcs of the
"world" quests. And just like with a CCG, every time I get a new
skill I can either include it into the skills I use and change my
"deck" between missions to find a build that works best for the
mission. Strategy may not matter as much in the non-PvP areas, but
you will die every time in the arena if you have none.

--
  Corey Crawford
  ccrawford at seventh.net
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