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Guild Wars |
CG rating |
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Developer: NCsoft, Producer: ArenaNet System requirements: CPU 2 GHz, 512 MB RAM, 3D Video Card with 128 MB, DirectX 9.0c compatible Game: Guild Wars Genre: MMOG |
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Guild Wars
| Posted by Assassin on 25-Jun-2005 05:27 |
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One year ago, during E3 2004, I had the pleasure of testing Guild Wars for a couple of days, an online multiplayer game created by Arena.net, which was founded by ex-Blizzard members. Although still in Alpha stage, I was impressed both by the graphics and the fundamental principles of the game alike, which represent an innovation in the online gaming genre from many points of view. Just as the producers describe it on the official website, Guild Wars is a CORPG (Competitive Online Role Playing Game), which still borrows some specific MMORPG features, but don’t think that this is just like World of Warcraft of EverQuest 2.
One resemblance between the above mentioned titles and Guild Wars is the ability to support simultaneously hundreds of thousands of players, but the main difference here is that Guild Wars is made up entirely of two types of instances. Cities act as meeting locations for the players. Each city is divided into districts, which can accommodate a maximum of 150 players. If this number is topped, a new district will be created and vice-versa. As you can see, the limited number of players in an area negates the “massively” characteristic, which is specific to other MMORPG’s, making the cities act like instances. On the other hand, you can meet your friends by joining the same district, and if they are on a different server - North America, Asia (South Korea) or Europe - you can choose one of the international districts.
The second type of instances are the areas outside the cities, which are actually multiple mirrors of the same level, which can accommodate a total of 8 players. These instances generally contain the same NPC’s and monster displacement (mobs). There are certain exceptions though in which an instance can maintain a permanent or temporary persistence. A temporary persistence kicks in when a player doesn’t leave the instance, since the mobs don’t respawn and the various triggers can only be activated once. The persistence becomes permanent when a player kills a mob boss, as part of a quest, at which point the respective boss will not respawn next time when the player will enter the same instance. However, if the same player enters the instance with a friend who hasn’t yet completed the quest, the mob boss will reappear. In other words, the permanent persistence depends on the progress made by each individual player.
This progress can be attained either in PvE (player vs. environment) or PvP (player vs. player) game modes. Unlike other online titles, Guild Wars immediately grants access to the PvP mode, with some default character templates being offered by the producers. However, those of you who prefer to personally create their character, using all the options available, will have to complete the PvE mode first. As the player advances through the game, he will unlock new skills and items which can then be used to create a PvP character. Right now, Arena.net oscillates between two tendencies, by offering periodic updates. On one hand, the players interested only in PvP argue that Guild Wars is a predominantly PvP game, stated on the main website as well, which means that they should have access to all the skills and items right from the start, with the difference in value being made by combining these skills and teaming up with other players. On the other hand, those who don’t want to see the PvE importance diminished state that the access to different options should be earned not inherited, just like in real life. The bottom line is that those who invest more time in Guild Wars will have extended possibilities in PvP, fact which contradicts the producer’s goals, of occasional players having equal chances with hardcore players in PvP.
I believe that the only way to eliminate this conflict is to introduce a system by which PvP players would be granted access to the skills and items currently available only to PvE players, instead of just adding more templates. However, both skill and rune obtaining modes should be balanced regarding the effort/reward ratio. The producers have already announced a Reward system, which will be introduced in the near future, and I hope that this will not mean the end of PvP players playing PvE as well, because it would mean that it would be very difficult to find team member for completing the quests received towards the end of the game.
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