Guild Wars Is up and Running.

[Thecla]

Initial impressions, guys?  Think we should have a beta forum for it when the time comes and evaluate it vs. WoW?

Well, after only a few hours playing the alpha, you should completely disregard anything I say, but here are a few random comments anyway. ;-P

As far as genre goes, Guild Wars is definitely not a MMORPG -- it's more like multiplayer Diablo with in-game towns and staging areas instead of a chat lobby. As far as I can tell, all the actual combat is instanced i.e. in private games (I think this is true of PvP too, though I haven't tried that at all). You can play in solo areas or take part in multiplayer missions. But GW is different from Diablo in that it's mission-oriented, instead of being driven by character building and an overall progression thorugh a story line. You get to take 8 skills into any mission, so it seems that a larger choice of skills is the main advantage of character development (don't know how significant building up equipment is in the game though). Playing solo areas seem like it will be pretty dry with the de-emphasis of character building, so I suspect the game will stand or fall on the multiplayer part. The missions in the alpha require a fixed number of players in a party (usually 4), which encourages grouping, but it's also a bit inflexible. So far I played with some ok people in parties (the minority) and people who would be (and probably are) right at home in public b.net (the majority). You obviously need well-balanced parties to succeed.

Combat is typical MMORPG auto-attack, pressing number keys to use skills as you see fit (not really my favorite I must say). The skills use mana and are on a timer (the main restriction, I think -- it reminds me a little of sacred). Health and mana recover quickly, so the game is designed for a welcome fast pace, but no potions (AFAIK) and the heal spell makes you very vulnerable (though you do have healing buffs from party members), so if you get in trouble in combat you can die very easily. I made a ranger/mesmer character (with the idea of archer+passive support curses), but so far I have to say the mesmer spells have been pretty useless. Also, maybe I just haven't figured out to use some of the skills, but I bought one called "throw dirt" that's supposed to blind monsters when they're in melee (my ranger cant stand too much melee, so I though this would be a good escape tactic when I attracted too much aggro), only to be chased all across a map by supposedly blind monsters.

Graphics are very good, and pretty system friendly, something like Dungeon Siege (yuck!). But, unlike the abomination-that-was-DS, GW is designed for multi-player from the ground up, and clearly has a lot of content in the missions, which are intended to have some variety and challenge to them beyond the standard "kill x and fetch y".

I don't know at this point if you should have a beta forum for GW (I guess that will depend in part on how much interest it attracts), but I do think it's worth keeping an eye on.