Re: Guild Wars recommendations?

Thus spake "Jeremy Reaban" <trancejeremy@xxxxxxxxx>, Sat, 29 Apr 2006
01:54:55 -0500, Anno Domini:


"Paul in Toronto" <swampyfern@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:tmD4g.2506$1V4.192824@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
<snip>
I've heard that Guild Wars, besides having a really good PvP component,
also has close to 100 hours of single player (and cooperative) action RPG
story to play through. Is it any good?

I dunno. It's not bad. But it's not great, either.

First off, IMHO, it's closer to something like Gauntlet than an RPG.
Characters have a class and level, but all the stats and such are pretty
much interchangeable (and in fact, you can re-arrange your characters skills
and abilities on the fly, or at least in a town any time you want). In fact,
in a way, it's almost like a collectible card game (like Magic the
Gathering), because you can only pick 8 skills you can use at any one time.
So you have to build your character's skills sort of like a deck.

Secondly, while there are numerous quests and such in the non PvP mode (or
PvE), the story really really sucks. Not only is it boring, it sort of
rambles all over the place. The begining areas (once you get past the
tutorial area) are incredibly dull. One is a wasteland, the other is a snowy
mountain area. After that it gets much better for a while, then starts
sucking again near the end.

Thirdly, the vast majority of people on the game are idiots and/or children.
Expect to constantly see people calling each other "gay" or "retarded" or
some variation, as well as people constantly begging for gold or items. And
I was actually shocked how much racism there was.

That's not to say there aren't some nice, coherent, well mannered people.
But they are a rarity at best. Makes usenet look like a wonderland of
maturity...

Important points you conveniently omitted:

- It's a free for online play price model - you can't beat that, even though
this game can be played like D2 & the entire thing soloed (not that it's
much like D2 at all)
- you can use henchmen to play the entire PvE game without ever having to
group with the asshats (you only really have to see them in town & even then
you can go international where you'll be lucky to see a person or two &
they're generally trying to get away from the asshats as well :)
- Guilds are great to be a part of even if you don't do GvG or any PvP (like
me). They give you a solid base of decent ppl to play with if you can get
into a good one - completely transforms the game.
- the 8 skill limit is a ground-up design feature & works exceedingly well
imo. It encourages & sometimes forces you to re-think strategies if you fail
a mission, rather than having a 100 spells at hand of which you'll only use
a dozen regularly (like in most rpgs); it's actually a drawcard for the
gameplay if you ask me.
- the story is no simpler of worse than a few of the games the OP mentioned,
though it can be a bit all over the place IF you don't play the storyline
missions in order & get rushed around (obviously).
- the amount of content, visuals, environment is one of THE best out there
of any crpg I've played (including Oblivion which suffers from too many
bells n whistles for decent performance imo)
- this game is THE most stable, well designed, developed & QAed online rpg
I've ever played - I still haven't had a single crash I can attribute to it
in almost a year of gameplay.

Having said all that, there's also the PvP side of things which some would
say is actually the thing it was designed for & it focuses on. Me, I don't
see it that way at over 140hours on my main char & 99.99% PvE & I still have
the last 2 main areas & a half dozen storyline missions out of 30 to
complete :)

--
Nostromo
.

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