Tonight i picked up Guild Wars..

[tramz]

While i have never been big on the whole PvP thing (let alone GvG - Guild vs Guild), i have been in the mood to try out a new mmo, and this one has some intriguing elements (such as the ability to round out an adventuring party with npc's if you choose not to group). I have a friend or two that plays and has already offered me guild membership,

Comments

[tramz]

Here's my rundown of the game in my experience so far (all 2 days of it):

There are 6 classes: Mesmer (enchanter), Elementalist(wizard/invoker), Necromancer, Ranger, Warrior, and Monk (cleric). You pick a primary and a secondary which can be any combination. For example, i play a Mesmer/Elementalist.

The game is largely skill based. Each class has 3 or more specializations and over 150 skills per character. You can have 8 at a time readied, so when you pick up alot of skills you can formulate your own strategy as to how to play. I've heard this aspect of the game compared to Magic: The Gathering, and i suppose there is some truth to that.

Guild Wars doesn't really behave like the mmo's and muds we know. Towns act very similar to general lobbies where you pick up people to play with, such as in battlenet. When you and/or your group zone out, even if you are entering a wilderness area, you are essentially entering a mission. The whole area is you and who you brought with you and no one else.

Other than that, gameplay is similar to wow in that while you can grind if you like, questing plays a central role. You have a quest log that you bring up with the L key, very much like WoW. You go to areas, see mobs that have quests (with the familiar ! over their head) and you can grab them. Quests can give you anything from gold, experience, and items to new skills.

Another way that this game differs from a standard mmo (i tend to think of it like a single player rpg with a pvp mode attached on, like an rpg version of Half-Life or something) is that if you don't want to do the storyline aspect, you can create an instant high level character and jump right into pvp.

All in all i like the game. My biggest complaint is that there are only 20 levels and that is just not enough for me. It seems as if you can breeze through it in a few weeks at most. I have had the game since tuesday and i am level 8 of 20. Also, when one of your group changes zones, your whole group automatically changes with them. It's kind of annoying. You also only get 4 character slots. I guess between EQ, WoW and CoH i got spoiled with 8; but i suppose it could be worse - like certain SoE games that only give you 2 slots.

Some other things i consider negatives are:

- High immaturity factor. When in towns, you can't go 5 seconds without hearing someone saying everything is "gay" or passing out other unwanted commentary. Luckily you can turn off any chat channel you like, including local chat (which amounts to the "say" channel) and emotes.

- You can only change skills in town. I guess this is to prevent people from bypassing all attempts to create strategy by changing skills on the fly (especially in pvp)

- Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, at least in these early stages, i've felt a bit penned in. The game stops you from going off any edge, so it does feel a bit contained. There also is no jump function in this game. I find this annoying.

On the plus side:

- Gameplay is alot of fun that doesn't drain your time the way some games do. You can play for a few minutes or all day. It fits any time constraint.

- The sound is great. It is very 'corngold epic'. Much in the way the original Star Wars movie themes that had corngold feel.

- The graphics are fantastic. I can't rave enough about the quality of the graphics. The game world is just beautiful.

- Lack of a monthly fee makes this kind of a no brainer. It's alot of fun, even if you don't go the pvp route and only get a few weeks out of it. That's still more than most people get out of most games anyway.

- Supposedly there is an expansion pack in the works. The dev team had hoped to get expansions out every 6 months. That would be the next of October, so we'll see. While releasing that quickly was a major complaint with EverQuest, who knows. Arenanet (the dev) might do it right. And NCSoft (publisher) has a good track record. I am most eager to see if this expansion introduces new levels and new classes. The game can use more of both. Of course if it does include more classes, i hope they give us more character slots to go with it. Or at least give the option of buying more character slots for a few dollars.