This page was last modified 2007-09-21 16:56:30 by Puchu.Net user Choco. (Show history)

Guild Wars is a series of excellent online games that is free of monthly charges.

Go to: [ Game Mechanics and Controls | Good | Bad | Notes ]

Developer	Arena.Net
Web site	http://www.guildwars.com
Platform	Microsoft Windows. Game runs on a wide range of graphics hardware, with impressive visual effects on common hardware. Storage requirement increases over time, as new content is streamed to your computer.
Cost	$49.99 per chapter in the United States. You can also download client from official web site, and purchase the game chapters online. In Asian countries it is also possible to pay by the time you spend playing.
ESRB Rating	TEEN. With suggestive themes, use of alcohol, and violence.

This is one of the best games I've played in a long time. There are many things to do, and PvP battles are exciting to play. I also used it as a instant messenging client, because I am able to meet up and chat with old friends from college, while working together to accomplish missions or quests.

Guild Wars gives a player options to play in any style he or she likes. People doesn't have to play PvP or PvE, if they are not interested. There is also a lack of focus on leveling up, as the maximum level cap is 20, a level that is fairly easy to reach. As a character stops receiving XP for fighting for weak enemies, players are encouraged to make progress naturally into the next area which introduces the next skill sets to learn and analyze.

Maximum damage items are armor parts are easy to acquire. Gold is also easy to earn just by playing through missions and quests. The rarity of equipment in this game is often due to appearance, as their statistics often can be duplicated with more common items that can be exchanged with collector items (easy to get). This puts most players at a level playing field when they compete. With the latest release, modifications to armor and weapons are further enhanced such that you can create your own configuration that suits your style by combining inscriptions and upgrades together.

The Mesmer profession is especially unique when compared to other RPG or fantasy games, because they possess skills that can often be used to their maximum potential only when specific conditions are met. These conditions often require actions taken by your enemies, so many times it involves how to pressure your opponents into doing what you want them to do. While this profession may overwhelm new players, I highly recommend trying them out as you become more familiar with the game, as it offers a truly different experience.

This game represent great entertainment value, highly recommended.

Game Mechanics and Controls

• For each of the chapters, a large tutorial area is available to help people learn game mechanics.
• Game skills require significant amount of time to understand how they interact. While playing, new skills become available to players gradually, so they can figure out the strength and weaknesses of skills at their own pace. The complexity of skill interaction gives extra depth to the gameplay, especially when playing against other players.

Excellent Ideas

• There is no pressure to play continuously to get your money's worth; there is no monthly fee. As you are not hemorrhaging money when you take a break, it is okay to take a long vacation, feed your baby, or play other games.
• Periodic special events, often tied into holidays, that changes game play by offering additional content, location and contests.
• Accessible around the world, if you have network connection. I've played from Japan with people in the United States and Singapore simultaneously.
• This game runs on all kinds of hardware well. Visually Guild Wars has a very distinct art style that is very different from most games made outside of Asia. The character models have fewer rough features, the buildings have amazing amount of detail.
• Most objects have a surreal glow effect on them. This, in addition to intentionally adding over-exposure effects to certain scene transitions creates a fantastic effect that adds a level of realism.
• Maps often include artificial volumetric lighting effects, that I happen to like. A lot.
• Guild Wars allows people to rejoin their friends if they are disconnected from server within a time limit. This function works very well, as connection hiccup can interrupt games.
• Hard mode, where all monsters are now more powerful than players have been introduced. Under this mode it is difficult to use just one build for all missions and explorable areas. Players have to come up with new strategies in order to collect improved rewards associated with hard mode.
• Titles and journals that keeps track of accomplishments in-game. Some titles also have bonus effects that help players in more difficult missions.
• A large number of PvE-only skills have been added to the game to help players fight difficult monsters in new expansion and hard mode. These skills are not used in tournaments and they tend to be more effective against monsters. Often the skills are tied to rankings in a particular title track, thus allowing the skills to be used without heavy investment of attribute points.

Annoyance

• The game should facilitate a way to auction or trade items without direct player interaction. This way rare item prices will be kept in check, there will be more items for everyone to purchase, and it can even promote a new game play element for people who want to be merchants.
• There should be a way to leave short messages to players who are not logged on. This can include a challenge-response mechanism so that players will only be able to receive messages from their friends.
• On objects such as grass/flower/hair, the transparent portions often have a tint, showing edges of polygon. This happens to both nVidia and ATI hardware, and is visually distracting for an otherwise outstanding graphics engine.
• Some titles are character- rather than account-based. This means that a lot of work is required to earn the same title for multiple characters. This kind of grind is not good, in my opinion.

Other Notes

• There is an excellent GuildWiki that collects vast amount of information related to GuildWars. Arena.Net also has its own Guild Wars Wiki that can be invoked in game.
• The game streams data to your machine when you require new data not downloaded before. This is followed by decompressing that downloaded data. All of this can be done ahead of time by running gw.exe with the command line -image option, and decrease the potential wait as you enter a new, unexplored area.

Additional Screen Shots

Crystal Desert Harvest Temple Nightfall login screen Ascalon