Guild Wars weekend

[Roland]

Well, just ended.  Was a good weekend overall.  Skill system is ok, though it'd be nice to have more than just 8 of your skills available during missions (not that you'd need them if you actually knew what you were doing, but still).

Ended pretty nice for me, took down Hablion right as it ended (with the help of Drasca, of course).

I think I might get it if I can ever get a job (and thus, money).
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The 8 skills doesn't bother me in the least. I like having to make tactical decisions, even if it leaves me a little short-handed mid-game. So long as I can overcome that through skillful playing, and not have to rely 100% on guesswork of what skills I'll need, I think the system will be fine.

What I find troublesome is the thought of having 150+ skills per character. Not only is that a HUGE burden to the developers to produce, test, balance, etc., but also to the player! What's more, with that large a pool of skills, there's bound to be a LARGE (well over hald) percentage of skills that are just flat-out unfavorable - in other words, more D2-esque playstyling. Changing skills depending on the mission will be much the same as D2, except more tactical since you can't change mid-mission, but overall I see it being more of the same - cookie cutter builds, through and through. THAT is what disturbs me.

At least with Dark Age of Camelot, despite the abundancy of cookie cutter builds, there are so many pathway combinations to choose from that actually ARE viable, even if they're not 100% godly, that you don't have 100% cookie cutter builds. Paladins, for example, are a very cookie cutter class in DAoC. However, it's also quite easy to make other flavors of Paladins, without giving in to the steamroll of the masses - Paladins are one of my favorite classes in that game, and I regularly tried out multiple pathway choices with several different Paladins - and that barely scratched the surface.

As I've said all along, I just don't see the draw. There were some things I felt were "neat", particularly the mission-based instancing and the limited skillset per mission, but other than pretty graphics (nothing mind-blowing, and actually kinda drab after awhile, but not ugly by any means) and good sound (musically, anyway - sound effects are about par; nothing worth getting excited over), the game just doesn't grab me. I'll still buy it the day it comes out (already pre-ordered, and all), if only because I like to try lots of new games, and because I want to support the developers. But I just don't see the charm of the game that so many people seem to have emanating from their very pores.

Keep in mind, however, I played a grand combined total of maybe 4 - 6 hours all weekend, so I experienced only ONE mission (with Lochnar), and only a handful of skills / characters. So don't take my word as sage advice - it's far from it. I haven't experienced the game NEARLY enough to make any judgement calls on it, other than what I already have made - WoW looks to appeal to me MUCH more than Guild Wars, but I'll still end up getting both on sale day.

I like the idea behind the choosing of skills, I like the idea of mission-based combat, and I love the dual-class system, but there's just not enough meat to the gameplay to suck me in for even a full gaming session (i.e. 4+ hours of non-stop gaming that leaves me hungry for more when I finally leave). I played Morrowind and was lost for weeks. Likewise to Battlefield, Planetside, Dark Age of Camelot, and countless other games. Guild Wars just doesn't do it for me yet.

We'll see what the future holds. Because I pre-ordered, I get into all the weekend beta tests, so I'll be sure to test in the future. And, I have a one-shot beta slot for a single weekend available to give to a friend, so if anyone is truly interested, drop a post under this one, and I'll choose someone to receive it.