Guild Wars - worth playing ?

[spentmotiff]

Originally Posted by Elidrin

Some people don't actually play a game just for PvP. PvP in WoW is decent, but the polish the game has is what makes it so attractive to me. Guild Wars might have "challenging" pvp, but the gameplay was terrible.

See, I'm digging the quests and the storyline in GW much more than I did in WoW. The Missions in GW beat the hell out of the Instances in WoW, hands down imo.

Each to his own, I guess.

[ajiatus]

I would say that GuildWars scripted missions can be very good. It takes advantage of the fact that it is a personal instance and makes you feel part of the story, more like a single player RPG. At the same time, some of the missions have interesting waves/combinations of enemies and/or scripted events.

Guildwars has its share of problems but I would say PvE or PvP isn't one of them. The real problem with Guildwars is the community. Because it is FULLY instanced, you find the greatest collection of asshats ever found in any MMORPG, one that makes WoW pale by comparison. It was GW that first made me understand the real problems with instancing, it shatters communities and makes everyone anonymous and not responsible for his/her actions. The devs seem to have taken note, and one of the things in GW2 is supposed to be a bit more permanency and less instancing.

About GuildWars PvP, it's excellent -- it's not ganking PvP, it's more like a team sport, and it's well done and well balanced. About customization, it's excellent, think decks of cards for Magic the Gathering, that's how skills work in GW, then multiply that by the number of people on a team for even more variety given the synergies.

Yes, I really hate GW's community, it's really the main thing that keeps me away from it....

[tranceMiNuS]

Any suggestions on classes to check out/classes to stay away from? The wiki seems to give just general descriptions of each.

[decairn]

I play GW as a solo game for PVE and just gang up the computer henchmen and heroes. It's easy to drop in do some stuff and logout without the hassle of traditional MMO where you might need to spend a while grouping up. And there's no monthly fee. Once you're up to level 20 there isn't anything you cant do either so content is essentially not locked out from you.

The rewards system is unique, both on skills and titles.

A well thought out game in all but not for everyone.

[Digo]

Pretty good thread on SA about basic guild war classes and some common builds:

Guild Wars Megathread XI: Now with less dev support and more PR blunders - The Something Awful Forums

[Zehn - Vhex]

Pick it up, play it for a week, quit.

Same thing I suggested for DAoC, DDO, LOTR, Shadowbane, FFxi, Lineage, L2, EQ2, and well...pretty much every MMO but Vanguard.

[Saban]

Vanguard.


k.

[tikkus]

I hear Guild Wars is finally turning the corner.

[...]

It's one of the very few MMO's I have played constantly. My life's been too busy to play eye of the north (and half of nightfall either), but I really enjoy it.

The missions are the coolest use of instancing I've seen in an mmo. It's like a WoW dungeon in that it's for your group, finitely long, and has scripted encounters, but it takes the form of a highly mobile action scene than a dungeon crawl. Guildwars usually leans in the direction of mass encounters. there's almost no single monster fights.

The multi-classing and ability to change secondary lets you customize your character in ways I haven't seen in another mmo I've played (FF11 prolly wins, but I haven't played that )

Some of the UI/control options are outstanding and astoundingly haven't been copied in another mass market mmo that i've played. The mini map (like the one in WoW) can be pinged like WoW, but you can also draw on it with your cursor, and your whole party can see what you draw. so if there's a fork ahead, you just draw a line where to go. if you want to tell your party not to go near the lava, you draw a line across it. if you want to draw a dong you can draw a dong. It leads to really easy coordination in a game that's often too fast for typing. and it leads to more dongs.

There's a target-focusing system that's simple and effective. if you hit control while using any power on a foe, it says to the group "i'm dragonwing slashing the Generic_Foe" and a little clicky box appears next to your name in the group bar. anyone clicking that targets your foe. If you hold control while clicking your health it tells the party your health "I'm at 10% health!" or you can call your mana the same way if you're running out. you can ctrl+click to anounce debuffs on you or your foe.

Give it a try, try on a trial if you can. You may like it, you'll most likely hate it though if you're looking for an EQ/WoW clone. if you want a diablo-esque hack and slash game (that doesn't mudflate too terribly much) then it's worth checking out.

[Elsebet]

Been craving some pvp healing so I just reinstalled it myself. I have a level 4 Monk/Mesmer named Elsebet. I'm working on learning again how to play, I should be on some tonight after 7pm EST if anyone wants to run around. I didn't buy any of the expansions yet, so I have only a pure vanilla account at the moment.