Guild Wars weekend

[Bolty]

I was bored.

Perhaps it's a combination of a bunch of things. Starting at level 15 instead of 1. Not seeing any coherent plot. Being unable to solo, really (henchmen don't cut it). Being thrown into the game with little guidance.

Anyway, I was bored. There, I said it again. :)

I didn't get to see much of the game, because all the groups I joined basically sucked except for one (when I was with Kandrathe). I even had one group demand that I give them all my drops. WTF? There were some weird people on. So unless you have a good group of friends/guildmates to play with, expect crappy play.

It's clear that PvP is the primary draw of the game, yes. The idea behind having 150 skills per player is that in the group battles, there will be a near infinite number of combinations of skills and tactics, and that's where all the emphasis of the game will be. Consider a group 8 vs 8 fight...yikes, that's a lot of combinations.

By having guild ranking systems and so on, people will get drawn to the game and sucked in to the effort to keep their guilds on top and "owning" a server. But if you're looking for a Diablo-esque experience, it's clear that Guild Wars isn't it. It's hard to believe there'd be an action RPG with LESS plot and atmosphere than Diablo, but I think we've found it. :) The missions and areas are clearly there just to get you item'ed and geared up for the eventual PvP fighting. Not that I have a problem with PvP - I'm actually somewhat tolerating the PvP in WoW, after all, and that's not even consentual like in GW - it's just that I want a little more...

And I just don't like the lack of solo play. I like that in WoW or Diablo, I can get on and play for an hour by myself whenever I please. You can't do it in Guild Wars.

Standard disclaimer: I'm saying this from just 6 hours of gameplay. Then again, since they're not having a real stress test, that's all I'm going to get. At least with WoW, us non-beta Lurkers will likely have a few weeks to toy with it and come to a decision...and I do hope to see TONS of Lurkers in the WoW stress test.

But what *I* feel about Guild Wars or WoW doesn't matter, because I'm not going to be running content for these games...what matters is what you guys like. And what I'm thinking of is longevity. Will Guild Wars still be interesting six months after release?

-Bolty

[LochnarITB]

At least with WoW, us non-beta Lurkers will likely have a few weeks to toy with it and come to a decision...and I do hope to see TONS of Lurkers in the WoW stress test.
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Is there anyone here who has had extensive play with WoW that also put maximum time into GW, both PvM and PvP? Would comparing the two be apples to oranges or would it be worth doing a comparison? I was not one of the fortunate who tested WoW (even though I have too much time on my hands and would make an excellent tester with a viewpoint that is usually different than the masses). If there is ever an open beta, I will surely give it a go but, until then, I have no way to know how I will react to the WoW experience.

[vor_lord]

Does anyone have experience with Roger Wilco, either gaming or other applications?  Is it worth an extra $10 and settling for my second choice item?  Inquiring minds want to know.
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I don't have any experience with Roger Wilco, but Teamspeak works great, is free, and runs on windows or linux (if that matters to you).

So consider whether or not you want to pay for Roger Wilco after having looked at teamspeak.

[Lissa]

I'll have to agree with some of the comments that have been made.

To me, Guild Wars is Diablo/Diablo 2, but without what made Diablo fun. And in truth, and Sirian nailed it on the RBD forums, GW is not a MMORPG, it is escentially Diablo/Diablo 2 with the channels being Graphical instead of the way they are on Bnet.

Overall, the game seems tedious to me and the AI on the henchman is lacking (especially the Monk, boy does she suck...don't know how many times she let me die to heal the other Henchman and then when dead, would heal everyone up first before she even bothered with Ressing me).

While I like the death penalty, the deteriment is too much. Death should not lead you to dying multiple time because you cannot get rid of the penalty easily (it takes forever to get rid of the penalty, I died near the start of the bloodstone mission and finally got out of death penalty when we got to the bloodstone).

Crafting is also horrible. You require large quanties of items that rarely drop or are rarely salvaged (cloth and hides especially, these are "common" quality items, yet drop rather infrequently...my Ranger/Monk was 18 before she was able to get half of her armor upgraded, the chest, gloves, and mask). Then to add insult to injury on the rarely dropped/salvaged items, buying them from the NPC suplier is insane (960 gold for 10 hides... :blink: ).

Overall, I'm going to stick with WoW as Guild Wars is not fun in my mind.

[Lissa]

Is there anyone here who has had extensive play with WoW that also put maximum time into GW, both PvM and PvP?  Would comparing the two be apples to oranges or would it be worth doing a comparison?  I was not one of the fortunate who tested WoW (even though I have too much time on my hands and would make an excellent tester with a viewpoint that is usually different than the masses).  If there is ever an open beta, I will surely give it a go but, until then, I have no way to know how I will react to the WoW experience.
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Guild Wars and WoW are too seperate animals. As much as Arena wants to say GW is a MMORPG, it's not, it's a Diablo/Diablo 2 clone (and believe me, as far as clones go, I find Sacred more enjoyable than GW).

Also, PvP in WoW is totally different. In GW, the maximum number of people that can fight is 16 (8 from either side). In WoW, their is no theoretical maximum (I say theoretical because there will reach a point where either the server will choke or most people's computers will).

As to PvM, best way to sum up GW in WoW terms is you start in Northshire Abbey and run through a couple little quests and as you run along you end up in Stormwind. Once you get to Stormwind, you see a bunch of people and you can decide to gather together and run through a portal outside of town that takes to an instance (in effect). While in said instance, you fight with your group and eventually either return to Stormwind or go to some other location like Goldshire (which again has a couple of portals that lead into other instances). And you travel around the world this way, never really being able to do anything on the side. You also only get a chance to meet people while you are in those towns or in your party, but unlike WoW, in GW you are stuck with your bad party until you get to another way point or everyone dies pretty much (WoW you can get out of these bad situations by a variety of means).

So, to make a long story short, the two games are not similar in anyway. One is a true MMORPG (WoW) and the other is a Diablo clone with graphical channels instead of plain text channels (GW).

[Treesh]

(especially the Monk, boy does she suck...don't know how many times she let me die to heal the other Henchman and then when dead, would heal everyone up first before she even bothered with Ressing me).[right][snapback]58864[/snapback][/right]

Hah! Glad to know I didn't have the only monk henchman who hated me. I swear she would have stabbed me in the back if she could have. Her AI (well, when I had a male monk henchman it was the same story, but I usually had a female one with my most played character) really needs to be reworked, especially when you're in a party with a necro and she keeps trying to heal those damned bone minions constantly. It would have been nice if you could tell her to just ignore let the raised critters die and not waste all of her mana on them. The bone minions are nice to have around, but the dumb henchmen never has any mana when it's time to fight again because she's wasted it on them during the walk from one place to another. Very aggravating.

While I like the death penalty, the deteriment is too much.  Death should not lead you to dying multiple time because you cannot get rid of the penalty easily (it takes forever to get rid of the penalty, I died near the start of the bloodstone mission and finally got out of death penalty when we got to the bloodstone).

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It gets even worse when you use some of the skills that increase that penalty. After I found out which ones did that, I never used them again. 5% (or more) for every time you use a skill?! Ridiculous.

[SoulEdge]

Guild Wars and WoW are too seperate animals.  As much as Arena wants to say GW is a MMORPG, it's not, it's a Diablo/Diablo 2 clone (and believe me, as far as clones go, I find Sacred more enjoyable than GW).

Actually, Arena says this in the FAQ:

Is Guild Wars an MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game)?

Guild Wars has some similarities to existing MMORPGs, but it also has some key differences.

Like existing MMOs, Guild Wars is played entirely online in a secure hosted environment. Thousands of players inhabit the same virtual world. Players can meet new friends in gathering places like towns and outposts where they form parties and go questing with them. Unlike many MMOs, when players form a party and embark upon a quest in Guild Wars, they get their own private copy of the area where the quest takes place. This design eliminates some of the frustrating gameplay elements commonly associated with MMOs, such as spawn camping, kill stealing, and lines to complete a quest.

Guild Wars takes place in a large virtual world made up of many different zones, and players can walk from one end of the world to the other. But Guild Wars eliminates much of the tedium of traveling through the world. Players can instantly return to any safe area (town or outpost) that they've previously visited just by clicking on it in the world overview map.

Rather than labeling Guild Wars an MMORPG, we prefer to call it a CORPG (Competitive Online Role-Playing Game). Guild Wars was designed from the ground up to create the best possible competitive role-playing experience. Success in Guild Wars is always the result of player skill, not time spent playing or the size of one's guild. As characters progress, they acquire a diverse set of skills and items, enabling them to use new strategies in combat. Players can do battle in open arenas or compete in guild-on-guild warfare or the international tournament. But engaging in combat is always the player's choice; there is no player-killing in cooperative areas of the world.

Finally, unlike existing MMOs, all characters in Guild Wars inhabit the same virtual world -- they are not divided onto different servers or shards -- so players can always team up with or compete against any other player in the world.

And you travel around the world this way, never really being able to do anything on the side. You also only get a chance to meet people while you are in those towns or in your party, but unlike WoW, in GW you are stuck with your bad party until you get to another way point or everyone dies pretty much (WoW you can get out of these bad situations by a variety of means).

There are explorable areas outside the towns, which is very much like other MMORPG I have played, in that one can get from one town to another by traveling on foot instead of using the instant portal, of course those areas have monsters, skill trainers, smaller towns, etc.

Also, one can quit a mission anytime by instantly teleport to any town activated using the map. So one can freely explore solo or with some henchmen in those explorable areas until guild members are online and ready to do a mission together, then instantly teleport to the mission staging area using the map. So there actually is a mean to getting out of bad situations.


Personally I have enjoyed the world preview event, I didn't try anything PvP, more of a PvE person. I either solo the explorable areas (sometimes with henchmen), do the mission with henchmen when no guild members were available, and party up with guild members to do mission together when they were available. The last being the most fun. :lol:

Having a party of like-minded players greatly enhanced the experience.

[Lissa]

Actually, Arena says this in the FAQ:
There are explorable areas outside the towns, which is very much like other MMORPG I have played, in that one can get from one town to another by traveling on foot instead of using the instant portal, of course those areas have monsters, skill trainers, smaller towns, etc.

Also, one can quit a mission anytime by instantly teleport to any town activated using the map. So one can freely explore solo or with some henchmen in those explorable areas until guild members are online and ready to do a mission together, then instantly teleport to the mission staging area using the map. So there actually is a mean to getting out of bad situations.
Personally I have enjoyed the world preview event, I didn't try anything PvP, more of a PvE person. I either solo the explorable areas (sometimes with henchmen), do the mission with henchmen when no guild members were available, and party up with guild members to do mission together when they were available. The last being the most fun.  :lol:

Having a party of like-minded players greatly enhanced the experience.
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Actually, the explorable areas are not like other MMORPGs. When you go into an explorable area in a MMORPG, you can run into anyone while doing so. In the case of GW, if you go into an explorable area, the only people you get to talk to are the people in your party. This is a big difference between GW and a traditional MMORPG, this makes GW more like Diablo/Diablo 2 than a MMORPG.

Like I noted, GW is a Diablo/Diablo 2 clone and it really isn't like a MMORPG.

[Wyrm]

I rather like the fact that each team gets it's own area. Granted, it's not as much of a community environment, but it does offer those of us who really don't like taking on overpowered monsters only to have someone run in at the last moment and take the kill/items a chance to play in a pseudo-mmo envorionment. The only thing I don't like about it is that you can't invite people into a mission unless they join with you in a portal area (whereas in D2 you could just give someone the name/pass and they could join you mid-stirke).

[Lissa]

Actually, the explorable areas are not like other MMORPGs.  When you go into an explorable area in a MMORPG, you can run into anyone while doing so.  In the case of GW, if you go into an explorable area, the only people you get to talk to are the people in your party.  This is a big difference between GW and a traditional MMORPG, this makes GW more like Diablo/Diablo 2 than a MMORPG.

Like I noted, GW is a Diablo/Diablo 2 clone and it really isn't like a MMORPG.
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Wrong post to reply to.

[Lissa]

I rather like the fact that each team gets it's own area.  Granted, it's not as much of a community environment, but it does offer those of us who really don't like taking on overpowered monsters only to have someone run in at the last moment and take the kill/items a chance to play in a pseudo-mmo envorionment.  The only thing I don't like about it is that you can't invite people into a mission unless they join with you in a portal area (whereas in D2 you could just give someone the name/pass and they could join you mid-stirke).
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That's the thing though now, with WoW, it's whoever hit the mob first that will ultimately end up with the loot (unless they die during the fight). If you hit a mob and start doing damage to it and someone runs in and kills it, you get the loot rights since you hit it first. There are also other methods for dealing with exactly what you describe (person that does most damage or person that does consistent damage against the mob that hit it first).

[SoulEdge]

Actually, the explorable areas are not like other MMORPGs. When you go into an explorable area in a MMORPG, you can run into anyone while doing so. In the case of GW, if you go into an explorable area, the only people you get to talk to are the people in your party. This is a big difference between GW and a traditional MMORPG, this makes GW more like Diablo/Diablo 2 than a MMORPG.

Ah yes indeed, my bad.

Don't get me wrong, I agree that GW is not MMORPG, ArenaNet calls it CORPG, so I am not surprised it's not like a traditional MMORPG. :)

[Ruvanal]

Is there anyone here who has had extensive play with WoW that also put maximum time into GW, both PvM and PvP?  Would comparing the two be apples to oranges or would it be worth doing a comparison?  I was not one of the fortunate who tested WoW (even though I have too much time on my hands and would make an excellent tester with a viewpoint that is usually different than the masses).  If there is ever an open beta, I will surely give it a go but, until then, I have no way to know how I will react to the WoW experience.
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The stress test of WoW (effectively Open Beta) has already started. Currently you can only get the client from Fileplanet if you are registered there or from Blizzard if you were in the closed beta. The client and account registration is supposed to be open to all in one week if you do not desire to register at Fileplanet.

The closed beta accounts will only be able to access the three servers that were in previous use. To access one of the stress test servers that are set up for the open beta, you will need to go through the account registration at Fileplanet.

So here is your chance to go and compare what some of us like Bolty and Lissa are referring to in terms of differences. I am rather of similar opinions to many of the points that Bolty, Lissa and Roland already raised about the Guild Wars game.

[Thecla]

I did enjoy playing GW, both in the E3 demo and the recent open event, but I have doubts, like you and Lissa and others, about the game. Probably it will shine in PvP, not my personal interest, and it may well be a crossover game that will attract many people from different RPG/RTS/FPS backgrounds, perhaps more so than people that like pure RPGs, or action RPGs like Diablo. But the PvE elements did feel to me a little bit Dungeon Siegeish, not that I want to insult GW by comparing it with that abomination of a game.

I could certainly see buying and playing GW, but based on my limited experience in the WoW stress test, I found WoW a much more interesing game, even given a certain antipathy to MMOPGs (which GW definitely is not).

p.s. You can effectively solo in GW by hiring henchman -- a good feature -- and I have no idea why Lissa and a few others complain about the Monk henchmen. They were simply awesome, and better than at least 90% of the human healers out there, for sure including myself if I was ever masochistic enough to play a healer.

[SoulEdge]

Just want to echo that I also found the henchmen to be alright, I solo some missions with just warrior and monk henchmen (I was Ele/Necro), so at least for the first few missions, solo with henchmen is definately possible. YMMV.

I have not tried WoW, even if I did, I am not going to compare since they are different. I wonder why people are calling GW MMORPG when the creator didn't mean so?

I enjoyed GW, the PvE aspect of it, I didn't bother to try the PvP, not really my cup of tea. Some may play GW for the PvP aspect, but as long as the PvE aspect of GW is of the quality I have seen, I am happy and will enjoy it, especially with a group of like-minded players. Sorry that some of you seemed not to have played the game with a good team, cause it makes so much difference!

I would pre-order GW if they have it in Europe, I am not going to pre-order it from US stores, online or what not, just personal stance and I really like to save on the delivery cost. :P

Will give WoW a try if given the chance, I have no problem playing a few games simultaneously, as long as they are fun to me, and I have the time and money.

[TPJ]

I don't have any experience with Roger Wilco, but Teamspeak works great, is free, and runs on windows or linux (if that matters to you).

So consider whether or not you want to pay for Roger Wilco after having looked at teamspeak.
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Yep. TeamSpeak was The Basin's voice chat software of choice. We tried it and Ventrilo. But since Ventrilo (the version you host yourself) only allows for 8 simultaneous connections, we went with TeamSpeak.

I’ve got a dedicated TeamSpeak server on my corporate cable line at home. We had upwards of 30 people using it at the same time and everyone enjoyed it immensely. Funny – it was probably the ‘feature’ everyone at the Basin liked most about Guild Wars!

[kandrathe]

...
p.s. You can effectively solo in GW by hiring henchman -- a good feature -- and I have no idea why Lissa and a few others complain about the Monk henchmen. They were simply awesome, and better than at least 90% of the human healers out there, for sure including myself if I was ever masochistic enough to play a healer.
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I know when I was adequate as a healer, I needed to watch the players health status bars constantly, and when a bar dropped I would click on the bar and heal it. I consequently was less aware of where we were in the mission or what we were doing. Strange game where 90% of the hp during a mission are supplied by healing, both on the player and monsters. Monsters without a healing source are toast.

I think you can solo with henchmen, but you need to go much slower and be very careful. They can quickly get involved in a combat with a pack of mosters that will overwhelm them, and once the healer dies the mission is over. One time I was able to salvage my mission because I had remembered to equip resurrection (one shot) as a skill and resurrected the healer, who then was able to revive the other four henchmen.

[Treesh]

I think you can solo with henchmen, but you need to go much slower and be very careful.  They can quickly get involved in a combat with a pack of mosters that will overwhelm them, and once the healer dies the mission is over.  One time I was able to salvage my mission because I had remembered to equip resurrection (one shot) as a skill and resurrected the healer, who then was able to revive the other four henchmen.
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Very rarely would the monk henchmen die on me, but they would never heal those who needed it until after a fight was over. Oh, there was also the monk henchman who loved to group heal constantly and would end up healing the critters I was beating on as well. I fixed that though by using my secondary monk healing skills and never letting my health drop so the monk merc wouldn't cast the AoE heal. I did take my time while playing and never got involved in large fights (except for once, but I was a warrior and it wasn't a problem at all when I got swarmed by 5 critters at once), but apparently my slow style of play just doesn't work with the monk's AI. Every time I really needed the monk henchman, (s)he would just let me die and then refuse to resurrect. They were either out of mana or healing someone else who was barely hurt.

[Scrape]

Here is a c/p of my amazing write-up:

"Guild Wars
http://www.guildwars.com
World Event
October 28, 2004 – October 31, 2004

What is Guild Wars you might be wondering? Even if you're not, I'm going to badly tell you. So, much of this might be inaccurate, but it does not matter much.

Guild Wars is another of the many MMORPG's (massively multiplayer online roleplaying game) out there. Or perhaps not, since from what I experienced, it was only a six player maximum for a mission. (More on this later.)

I believe the company calls it a CORPG (competitive online roleplaying game).

But this one is special. The company (ArenaNet) does not charge you a monthly fee! Oh my.

Guild Wars is set in a medievalish fantasy world with all of the bells and whistles you might expect.

The company just had its second beta test (so to speak) over this past Halloween weekend (October 28 - 31). It is referred to as a World Event (people from all over the world could play). It was free to download the client and play.

Unlike most companies that offer upgrades through downloadable patches, Guild Wars works by streaming the patches. While you are playing (or connecting to the server), all content will automatically be streamed to your computer as well as applied.

So, backtrack to Friday. I download this client and run the program to download the software for the game. (It was roughly 20 MB.)

Lo and behold, there was the character creation screen. Moments later, Scrape the Tortured was created.

The main thing I disliked about the creation process was the naming process. For English speaking users, they require at least two names (such as a first and a last). I doubt this will change, but I hope it soon allows just one name.

But the rest of the character creation process was groovy. You can be either gender as they are equal, except in looks. Currently (and most of what I am talking about just applies to this beta, for things will change) there are six classes, or professions as they are listed on the website. Elementalist, mesmer, monk, necromancer, ranger, and warrior. You have to pick two classes; a main class and a secondary class.

My ideal combination would be a necromancer/elementalist, so I went for a warrior/ranger.

Scrape the Tortured, the female w/r was ready for action.

I started off in some forest-like area. This was the tutorial. It was basically the initial feel of the game and to make my way to Lion's Arch.

While completing the tutorial, I played around with the friends feature. I added Lurker Drasca, for I figured he would be a loser like me and play constantly. I was right. Some of my fellow Lurkers were already in a Lurker Lounge guild, so I joined up with them.

Lion's Arch is a monster-friendly town where you can buy and sell items, learn new skills, and even team up for missions.

Throughout the portion of the game they let us testers access, there were grouping areas. In these grouping areas, this is where you form your group for a mission. Up to six players as I mentioned before for a mission. But in the grouping areas, Lion's Arch, and certain other areas, you can basically have an unlimited amount of players. Also, these areas have districts, which are basically like different servers.

After doing missions with a combination of friends and random people, I ended up getting to level 19 by Sunday. They start you off at level 15, and 20 was the maximum.

Each profession has skills, but you can only have 8 equipped for a mission. You can easily change your skill selection before and after missions, but not during. I like how they did this. It adds a bit of challenge.

One of the things I did not like, as I saw many complain about, is that when you have a summoned creature that dies, you get a death penalty for that mission. You also get death penalties when you yourself die in the mission. Fortunately the death penalties do not last beyond the current mission.

They did have a death counter, which I liked. It was useable by typing /deaths. It only displays your character's death total. This better be included in the character profile.

Ah yes, the character profile. There are four tabs. The first is hero, which is your character's statistics. The second is the inventory. The third is the skills. The fourth is the quest log.

The hero tab is definitely lacking. It does not display your total damage, defense, resistance (if there is any), and so on. This definitely needs improvement.

I even ventured into the Gladiator’s Arena, which they definitely need to modify. I like how they randomly group you with other players, but you should also be able to have selected battles. After one go at it, my team made it to the fifth round.

Another annoying thing was the video scenes. None of them were any good, and they make you wait through and watch them after almost every (if not all) mission. Since you are in a party, you would have to wait for your other members, but there should still be the option to skip these scenes. Perhaps if all of the members hit enter (or some other appropriate key) they can be skipped. Or in the game options, if all of the players have an option set to skip the scenes. Whatever the method, something good has to be done.

This was mentioned elsewhere, but I agree. I do not like the attribute distribution system. I just don’t like how they have it set up.

Ugh, I’ve added to this mess a bunch of times already, but hopefully this will be the last time. Item drops. Yes, that’s right. The moments of anticipation so many players yearn for. This is another unique feature (from my experience in games at least). Items are randomly (although that could be argued) assigned to players in a mission. Trading is similar to that of Diablo II.

As for bugs, I came across a few while playing and reported them using the /bugs feature.

Overall, I had a decent time. I spent a few days geeking it up with my online friends and ignoring my real-life friends.

I am neutral as to getting the game (and even preordering it so I can participate in upcoming betas). I have other things that need deciding first.

I will say, as I just mentioned, it was great cooping with my friends again. If a lot of them are going to get the game, this alone is a good reason for me to get it. They are going to need someone to bother them with bad jokes when they play."

[kandrathe]

Very rarely would the monk henchmen die on me, but they would never heal those who needed it until after a fight was over.  Oh, there was also the monk henchman who loved to group heal constantly and would end up healing the critters I was beating on as well.  I fixed that though by using my secondary monk healing skills and never letting my health drop so the monk merc wouldn't cast the AoE heal.  I did take my time while playing and never got involved in large fights (except for once, but I was a warrior and it wasn't a problem at all when I got swarmed by 5 critters at once), but apparently my slow style of play just doesn't work with the monk's AI.  Every time I really needed the monk henchman, (s)he would just let me die and then refuse to resurrect.  They were either out of mana or healing someone else who was barely hurt.
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Yes. Unfortunately, that is how they work. Partly I suspect because they tag along with the slowest person in the group. If you use the ranger or elementalist henchmen then the healer will stay behind them and out of range of the warriors. In one game, Drasca was AFK for a bit and we pressed forward, only to realize our much needed healer was AWOL. We back tracked to find her chatting nonsense to Drasca. After prodding Drasca, we could resume the mission. Again, I would think the healer should try to stay nearest to the leader to heal at the tip or the spear where the most damage should be occuring.