Guild Wars

After playing this game for three days, I have to say don't bother trying it.  I am an avid MMORPG player and will try most games of this ilk.  Guild Wars has attempted to break the genre by having no monthly fee, opting instead to have expansion packs that they will sell.  The only problem with that model is the game isn't that much fun.  I am apt to re-try it again someday, but until they deal with the following issues, I am not going back:

  • Mysterious disconnects where you lose the last 20-30 minutes of play (including items and experience).  This is unacceptable in an online game and will kill player loyalty faster than almost anything else.
  • Combat is too simplistic and generalized.  Three of any monsters level 3-5 can be beated by a level 6, but four of them completely kill you way too fast.  No clear understanding of how hard monsters are at particular levels.
  • Level 20 Cap is way too low.
  • Crafting system way too primitive.  (You deal with crafters and give them some items you found plus money and he gives you the same armor/weapons that everyone is using).
  • The beginner area is a lot of fun, but after level five or six when you transition to the 'adult' area, it is too hard and not clear what you should be doing.  No good story that I could feel part of.
  • Quests are primitive (FedEx, Kill X of something are most of the quests).  Rarely do you find quests that are not of this ilk.
  • It feels like the focus is to build super characters that *must* fight in groups then do PvP.  Too PvP focused IMHO.
  • Pack and bank space is way too limited. (40 max for a character, and 25 storage that is shared by all characters on an acct.)  Storage isn't available until you leave the beginner area.
  • No way to 'mule' cash across characters. 
  • Everything aggros, so it is too hard to create a huge train (30-40 monsters) if you are trying to run from area to area.
  • No way to log out outside a town.  If you log out anywhere, you log back in at a local town.  This is especially bad if I ran 20 minutes to get to a quest then get disconnected.  Frustration shouldn't be part of gameplay.

That's about it.  Avoid it for now.  Play WoW if you want a good game in the genre.

Comments:

I had heard it was all "instanced" for PC groups. IE there are places where you meet up with people (non battle) then form a group and go into an instanced zone for battle (ie no zones where everyone is fighting different things) which really kinda threw me off.

Cyanbane (Posted Monday, May 02, 2005 )

I rather enjoy the game. I just got it, and have only made it through the beginning area. Haven't even left there yet. Thus, I've put a total of about 2 hours into it over a 2 day period. I'm sort of hoping now that these things you mention don't happen to me. Were they mostly in the beta? Or did you pay to buy the game, and then find out that there were issues?

jeremy (Posted Tuesday, May 24, 2005 )

In reguards to that first comment, that IS the way it works. You meet up with other players/guild members in towns, and when you leave the town, it creates an "Instance" of a new area. That way, there aren't any actual people IN the areas that you go to for quests except the people in your party (max of 8). I think that's kind of cool, but I also think it would be really cool to see tons of people running around killing things.

jeremy (again) (Posted Tuesday, May 24, 2005 )

Most of your gripes about Guild Wars have either been dealt with or are just you not used to a different type of game (as in a non-Diablo II game where you have to powerlevel to be l33t).

I use Guild Wars for roleplay purposes almost exclusively, and it's great. The quality of roleplay we often get is awesome.

Dealing with your gripes:

1) That's been fixed several weeks ago.
2) I've encountered this once in Snake Dance as an elementalist. I could tank three Griffons easily, but the fourth one would kill me. Perhaps you should change your aggro strategy?
3) Instead of powerlevelling, trying looking at the game in a different light. The level twenty limit has plenty of benefits as well as drawbacks. And I think they'll increase this in future expansions as they add whole new maps. There is a lot more to Tyria than what is revealed in the game as it is.
4) I agree, but I live with it. Once you get past Ascension, however, there are three different models are armour at three different prices. The nicer looking the armour, the more it costs. Vanity comes at a price. XP
5) It's called "Pre-searing" and "post-searing." The Searing is like a cataclysm caused by the Charr. Figuring what to do after you do the Searing was pretty easy for me. Just look at your quest log, it gives you waypoints. And there is a good story. Play through the game a bit and the plot is unveiled bit by bit. The best part is that you aren't left with a definite conclusion when you beat the game. I'm sure it'll be revealed later on, but I prefer to be able to figure it out on my own.
6) Redundancy is a slight issue, but as a roleplayer I don't quite mind this. The missions (not quests) in the game are often fairly varied, but not always.
7) PvP is an integral part of the game. It was designed mostly around guilds competing to become the best. However, if you're not interested in PvP, you can roleplay. If you don't do either, then I agree that it's no different from Diablo II.
8) Lack of space has NEVER been a problem for me. I have crafting materials in one bag, rare crafting materials in storage, and I sell what I don't use, including items, runes, and the like. Storage isn't available in the beginner area because that'd be too unbalanced. The Searing is partly PvP, and therefore must be balanced, otherwise it'd cause more problems than that would solve.
9) That's been fixed. You can put gold in storage, as you have been able to do for a while. Max of 250 platinum in the storage, and 100 platinum on a character.
10) I'm not quite sure what you're trying to do here. Too hard to get 30-40 monsters to chase you because they all aggro? I'd think aggro helps this. Meh.
11) You can log out outside of a town, but you log back in at the town you last visited. The disconnect bug has been fixed, so the frustration element in being disconnected during a mission is virtually gone, except when you get stuck with a party of morons, but that's not the game's fault. If you do crash, that's your computer's fault at this point.

I like Guild Wars because of the no monthly fees, but also because of the graphics, as lame as that sounds. I wouldn't play World of Warcraft if it was free because the graphics are too cartooney.

Whether you like the game with its current fixes or not is up to your personal opinion, but I'd hope that's been changed since last you tried it. If you still have it, I'd recommend giving it one more shot.

Lemming Edmund (Posted Wednesday, June 22, 2005 )


 



 
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