Guild Wars SuperShort Review with about 3MB worth of screens

[schild]

Yea, so the gallery stuff isn't in place. Fucking deal with the rediculous image download, I had the quality cranked up to high on the jpeg saving in photoshop.

Ok. So in the otherthread I slipped into fanboi nonsense mode. I apologize. I'm going to do a long writeup that is the complete inverse of Haemish's Dear MMOG letter tonight.

Anyway, without further ado - Guild Wars. What is it? Pretty MMO Style Diablo. I don't know how else to say this. Click on an enemy it autoattacks. You have 8 skills to use during battle. When you make a toon you get a primary and secondary class, MUCH like CoH where you get skills from both schools but your secondary school is slightly weakened. Loot is exactly like diablo. You even hold down Alt to see everything on screen. To cycle through enemies you hit delete. Did I mention it's Diablo? Ok, here are the screenies.


























Did I mention the boobies?

[Alrindel]

You're a pretty princess.

[schild]

I picked her because of the translucency effects.




























Ok. It was the boobies and hair.

[Soukyan]

You know, it looks an awful lot like they used the same engine that was used in Lineage 2. Or they did the same as Lineage 2 and used the Unreal engine to build that, but the graphics have some striking similarities. That is a good thing. Guild Wars looks damn pretty. Now I have to wait 8 hours to get home before I can even play. Damnit!

[HaemishM]

Is it wrong that I want to touch schild's boobies?

Very, very pretty. I've never played Diablo so this might actually seem novel to me.

[Alluvian]

From the sound of it, it is like CoH, but even a bit more shallow?

Maybe a list of reasons why you like it better than CoH?  Or do you?
Is it the FREE thing or the PVP thing?

If it is just because you love diablo I might just pass.  Diablo was fun for a few hours and then it got old FAST.  At least for me.  Obviously it was super popular.

How many servers are there?  Everyone in one world or heavy instancing?

Just some questions off the top of my head.  Probably to be answered in your review when you get it up.

[Riggswolfe]

Supposedly the entire game world outside of the major city is instanced Alluvian.

I don't know, see my post on the other thread. I found the world to be barren and ugly, with graphics that I was highly disappointed in. Character models were ok, but I felt like I was playing in some kind of wasteland.

I may try it again, but my reaction has been substantially different from Schild's. Part of that may be my aversion to PvP, part of it is just nagging suspicions I have, like they're gonna find no subscription fee to be hard to maintain.

[Sloth]

The game is too slow paced to be like Diablo. A game where you click to attack instead of targeting then hitting 'A' doesn't really make a game like Diablo, neither does randomized loot. Diablo is really an action game with hotkeys for potions and mana and swarms of monsters.

GW reminds me much more of L2 than Diablo.

[Riggswolfe]

If it's like L2 that'd explain my immediate "bleh" feeling. It just wasn't what I was hoping for.

[daveNYC]

I did a couple minutes of play in single mode.  Its OK, but the world reminded me of KOTOR.  The artificial constraints on movement that are created by the use of hills you can't climb and what not.  I am somewhat impressed (in a sad way) with the amount of effort put into making the female characters pixelicisous.

[Nebu]

I downloaded this last night and screwed around for an hour or so and had about the same feeling as Schild... All the shallowness of Diablo with an even slower pace.  Some of the scenery was interesting to look at, but I never really got over my initial "meh Diablo" reaction to feel immersed.

Looks like I'm going back to Skyway City.

[Riggswolfe]

I loved KoToR but understand the frustration with constraints on movement. I also didn't figure out a way to jump, which after SWG is a warning flag for me. I hate nothing more than being thwarted by ankle-high barriers.

[daveNYC]

Just to clarify, I'm not ripping on KOTOR, it's just that the limitations on movement that I saw in the game would piss me off if they were used in a MMOG.

Perhaps GW's movement is simply suffering in comparison to CoH's.

[Riggswolfe]

And WoW's as well. I don't know, the feel of the game just wasn't...exciting to me. Even the spells were kinda boring. I might give it another go, especially later when it's in beta and is further along. Right now I just wasn't impressed.

And I understand, you'll accept limitations in a single player game that you won't in a MMORPG. Most people are the same way. That said, most MMORPGs have some impassable terrain. Certain mountains in WoW. Anything ankle high in SWG....

The problem with the impassable terrain in this game was that I was in a little valley. No exploration really, just sorta herded along a single path.

[Foix]

While an hour or two of play time has convinced me of the viability of instanced combat zones, it hasn't sold me on the game, at least as presented in this version. If you take Diablo and remove the need to click frequently in order to kill the stuff that's flying at you, you have Guild Wars. While it does have the 'EQ 1.5' click-to-autoattack-and-throw-in-the-occasional-special-move-every-now-and-again functionality, that really isn't anything to write home about. And the lure of no monthly fee seems to exist solely because it is unlikely anyone would pay a monthly fee for this.

On the plus side, it's pretty; the combat mages might be more interesting (I played a warrior monk); PvP could potentially be worthwhile; it's only an early build.

(Yes, this was pretty much an /AOL post.)

[schild]

I'd agree with the Lineage 2 comments IF IT FELT ANYTHING LIKE LINEAGE 2. This feels about the same speed as diablo. The spells are all beautiful, different, and useful. And I don't feel like responding to the detractors.

[Morfiend]

Sweet, I loved Diablo 2. If this is like it, I will be happy. I think the reason I enjoyed D2 more than most, is that I had 2 roommates and 3 other RL friends who all played a lot. Honestly, I dont think I ever played the single player mode in D2. That I could see as being very horrible.

I will download this when I get home.

[Alluvian]

I downloaded this last night and screwed around for an hour or so and had about the same feeling as Schild... All the shallowness of Diablo with an even slower pace.  Some of the scenery was interesting to look at, but I never really got over my initial "meh Diablo" reaction to feel immersed.

Looks like I'm going back to Skyway City.

You are agreeing with the wrong person then.  Schild is the one talking about how it is awesomeness incarnate and such  ;)

Everyone else are the people saying variations of "Meh".

[schild]

I loved Diablo 1 & 2. This is an early beta client with a lot of things missing. If the ex-diablo people keep on this path it will be an incredible evolution of those games. That makes me happy. Because it's free every month, the shallowness makes me happy. I can play City of Heroes til I'm blue in the face, get bored, and hop into Guildwars.

[Shockeye]

Movement restrictions annoyed me as well. If I want to run up a hill, damnit let me run up that hill!

[Nebu]

You are agreeing with the wrong person then.  Schild is the one talking about how it is awesomeness incarnate and such  ;)

Everyone else are the people saying variations of "Meh".

I'm guilty of sloppy prose.  What I was agreeing with was Schild's assertion that the game was reminiscent of Diablo.  When I first started playing the game I said: Diablo, the MMOG.  Guild wars will be a nice game for those times when you want to kill stuff for an hour here or there. Time usually ascribed to FPS's. It will have a place in the genre for sure... especially with no subscription fee.

The meh part was more my personal reaction to the shallowness of gameplay.  Granted, this is an early beta version so I can give a little room there.  I'm just disappointed that mmog's seem to be moving more in the direction of shallow fun rather than immersive depth.  No, I don't want treadmills and the typical mmog crap, but I do enjoy games with a fairly complex economical and social heirarchy.

I think I'll have to keep my eye on the niche market...

[Glamdring]

Sweet, I loved Diablo 2. If this is like it, I will be happy. I think the reason I enjoyed D2 more than most, is that I had 2 roommates and 3 other RL friends who all played a lot. Honestly, I dont think I ever played the single player mode in D2. That I could see as being very horrible.

I will download this when I get home.

Beat me to it.  D2 type gaming and consoles actually play more to my working man lifestyle than the typical mmog these days.

[Riggswolfe]

Like I said, I'll give it another try. I want to see if maybe it picks up later. One problem I have is that you're a level 15 character in this alpha, period. That means I don't get to see how leveling works, or any other parts of the game than this probably mid-early stuff.

I looked over my characters equipment and such, it seemed ok. I don't know. As I'm not a fan of PvP, this game needs something else to draw me. I may, may pick it up if it holds to the no subscription thing, but my gut tells me my days will be filled with CoH (for shallow but fun combat) and WoW (for an immersive world).

I'm still going to give it another try, simply because Diablo took a bit to get addicting. Maybe this one will too.

[Signe]

Is it wrong that I want to touch schild's boobies?

Very, very pretty. I've never played Diablo so this might actually seem novel to me.

No, it's ok.  Sometimes I want to touch him, too.  Hard.  With a closed fist.  Over and over again.  In my mind he makes a cute squishy sound.
He know's I love him, though.  I just have a hard time expressing sentimental feelings because I'm so shy.

Anyway, this does look pretty and I, too, enjoyed both Diablos quite a lot.  You all know me... I'll give it a go.   Why? Because I always do.

[Pug]

It's hard to tell how "shallow" Guild Wars will be because leveling is disabled in this pre-beta demo. Right now all you can do is gain a few new skills and equipment. Just take a look at the list of skills that are available and you'll start get the feeling that there is a lot more to the game than what you can see in the first few hours of play.

Combat doesn't seem anything like Diablo to me. The starting skills are a bit mundane but the more advanced skills are an awful lot like Magic: The Gathering cards. You have things like AoE heals that will heal anything near you including enemies, AoE damage that hurts anything in its radius including friends, spells that force your victom to alter their play by making them take damage when dealing melee or spell casting, and then of course the game is built for group play meaning that a successful group with have a variety of skills and spells that work well together.

I did manage to do a bit of PvE and I have to say that the AI is pretty good. Better than I had expected.

If "shallow" gameplay means that it doesn't take 45 minutes to get to where you can finally play and playing doesn't include camping a spawn to hear some moronic fucker broadcast DING! then I'm all for shallow gameplay.

I could completely understand people who are looking for that uber game of catassing PvE not liking the idea of not spending dozens of hours grinding to DING! I mean... where's the forced downtime? Where's the overcrowded world filled with killstealing teenagers that only want to interrupt your meaningless grinding?

[Nebu]

It's hard to tell how "shallow" Guild Wars will be because leveling is disabled in this pre-beta demo. Right now all you can do is gain a few new skills and equipment. Just take a look at the list of skills that are available and you'll start get the feeling that there is a lot more to the game than what you can see in the first few hours of play.

I agree, that's why I stated that it's very early in beta and I'm willing to give it a little latitude.  The graphics look nice, the mob AI seems like it's off to a good start and the initial quests seemed pretty good.  I just hope to hell they get rid of the "cattle in the chute" feel it has now.  I never liked Diablo or Diablo 2 even though I own both titles. For me there just wasn't much to hold my interest.  

If "shallow" gameplay means that it doesn't take 45 minutes to get to where you can finally play and playing doesn't include camping a spawn to hear some moronic fucker broadcast DING! then I'm all for shallow gameplay.

I could completely understand people who are looking for that uber game of catassing PvE not liking the idea of not spending dozens of hours grinding to DING! I mean... where's the forced downtime? Where's the overcrowded world filled with killstealing teenagers that only want to interrupt your meaningless grinding?

No, by shallow I mean that the trend in MMOG's seems to be moving in the direction of a glorified "Duck Hunt" only without the light gun.  You log on, whack a few foozles, and log off.  In the meantime, you have some mindless "fun" while walking the noticible (or less obvious) treadmill.  The new games seem to focus on giving you prettier foozles to whack, a few more animations of how you whack them, and compressed worlds so you can begin the whack-fest as soon as possible.   I see it more as the genre moving into a checkers-type game than a chess type.  Sure, both are fun but they are fun in different ways.  Fun is subjective... that's why the market is so diverse.  Shit, maybe I just played too many Avalon Hill games in my youth.

The thing that I like about mmog's is the complexity of social interactions and the conflicts and cooperation that they can foster.  Is there something wrong with wanting a game that will make me think?  A game of player roles in an online "society" where there is an in tact economy, dynamic player conflicts, and ramifications for ones actions.  I want to play a game that's hard.  Not hard in the "catass my toon to victory", I mean that fucking up has consequence and good play has rewards.  A game where social structure matters beyond "who belongs to the biggest guild".  Maybe what I want is impossible.  Hell, creating a decent online economy alone seems near impossible.   If someone is going to get my money for some online entertainment, I at least want to get the type of entertainment that I consider fun.

[Numtini]

I played a little last night and I like the game. It is what it is. If it cost money to play, I'd feel a lot differently. But for a little hack and slash? To take my mind off of whatever real MMPORPG I'm playing? It seems like fun.

[Jacob0883]

http://www.guildwars.com/faq/default.html

"Will there be a monthly fee for Guild Wars?

No, there will not be a monthly subscription fee of any kind, anywhere."

I got this off of the FAQ.  Turns out it also tells you why it plays and feels like Diablo.

[Pug]

The thing that I like about mmog's is the complexity of social interactions and the conflicts and cooperation that they can foster. Is there something wrong with wanting a game that will make me think? A game of player roles in an online "society" where there is an in tact economy, dynamic player conflicts, and ramifications for ones actions. I want to play a game that's hard. Not hard in the "catass my toon to victory", I mean that fucking up has consequence and good play has rewards. A game where social structure matters beyond "who belongs to the biggest guild". Maybe what I want is impossible. Hell, creating a decent online economy alone seems near impossible. If someone is going to get my money for some online entertainment, I at least want to get the type of entertainment that I consider fun.

I think I understand what you're saying. Guild Wars is missing random encounters and social darwinism that can be found in most open PvP MMOLGs. You don't have to interact with other players to exist.

Compare Guild Wars to a PvE MMO and it's got everything you could ask for and then some. Compare Guild Wars to a PvP MMO and Guild Wars seems to be missing the darwinistic society that is exclusive to open PvP MMOs.

Does the ability to exist outside of conflict make it impossible for Guild Wars to ever have a real society? There was a player spamming chat and it made me wonder what other players could do to punish him. Sure, you can exclude him from cooperative PvE and PvP missions and refuse to trade with them but is that really enough? It's the same problem that PvP MMOs that use safe zones and PvE MMOs have.

I'm a big fan of open PvP as long as there is accountability. So far accountability has come down to making it impossible to PvP until you grind for long periods of time so that you can't just reroll to escape your reputation. This leaves new players in a bad spot and makes the first X weeks of the game miserable. I'm no longer willing to grind even if it means eventually being able to take part in an open PvP society (which is what L2 is for).

I don't feel as if Guild Wars is missing anything when going up against quasi-PvP games like Dark Age of Camelot but it is definately missing the open PvP feeling of society that you'd get in AC DT. I'm not sure that Guild Wars can ever hope to capture the feeling of an open PvP society for the same reasons that DAoC cannot. You either have consentual PvP or you don't. There's not really any way to mix the two without losing something.

I do *think* that Guild Wars will be stiff competition for PvE and quasi-PvP MMOs after the rest of the game's features are enabled. Considering how few open PvP games there are and how I hate to grind, Guild Wars still looks very good to me. It's not perfect but I like it a lot more than the current offerings. That and there's no commitment to monthly fees so I can play it and something else if I feel like it.

[Alluvian]

Well, I have played the game for a few hours, and ugh.  Lineage 2 PvE was seriously more fun than this.  Sure I have more buttons to press, but I have to wander around these fucking BORING maps for ages to find anything to fight.  And once I do find something the encounter is rather dull and horribly marred by the fucked up pathing.  This is an alpha issue I assume though so I will withhold final judgement.

The way they do skills, needing to kill a boss mob in the solo or coop regions to get a random gem that has NO chance of being something you want is awful.  The pve SUCKS and now you have to camp boss mobs or engage in pokemon trading to even get your own skills?  Ugh.  I spent 4 hours wandering in the damn solo zone bored to tears and didn't see a single boss mob.  And now it sounds like I will have to kill lots of boss mobs to get skills.  Um... no.  Maybe they are more common in the coop regions.

I will try the coop thing and the pvp thing if I get time, but the pvp will require large amounts of dicking around with the shitty pve.  And the solo zones at least suck monumental amounts of ass.

Again, it is just pre alpha, and a lot of my annoyances were buggy type problems.  Where aoe spells would not hit targets right next to other targets but hit ones that are in no way within the area of effect.  Or how the carrion things flip their tails and fire ARROWS at me.  I assume this is temporary art.

The skillsets I have looked at look like they should be a lot of fun in pvp.  That means that the game will probably have a fun endgame, but I can't imagine wanting to level up through the current crap that is the pve.

Do you get experience for winning in pvp?  If you can level just in pvp then I could see that being a fun playstyle.

I will try and test out some pvp tonight, but I may not be able to.  A friend is flying in and then I am off on a road trip to north carolina to meet up with some long distance friends.

The game needs a lot of polish.  It has a lot of pvp promise in my eyes, but the pve is a long way from fun at this stage for me.

[HaemishM]

You can also buy the skill gems as well, but you have to pay a little gold to train them using the skill points that you get as you level.

There is no reward or penalty for PVP that I found, whether it was cooperative or competitive PVP. Some of the cooperative missions are PVE only (which does drop loot) and some are PVP.

I will give my impressions in a front-page article tonight.

[Pug]

I think that starting players out in the solo area without a guide was a mistake. The solo area is one of the most ugly and sparsely populated areas in the game. Even the starter quest is lame. They picked a terrible area to use as a first impression to new players.

You can sell the gems you don't want to the gem trader in town and then use the money you get to buy the gems you want. The PvE coop gives more loot and exp than dicking around in the solo area... although if you figure out where the 2 boss mobs spawn near the city entrance then you can just keep rushing out, kill them, and sell off their gems to make a lot of money fast. I made 600 gold in about 30 minutes by killing boss mobs and selling the gems to the gem trader. You can buy most gems for between 20 and 75 gold.

You do have to dink around in PvE an awful lot in order to get good equipment that will give you an edge in PvP. The better stuff starts dropping on the third PvE mission (you have to do the first two in order to open up the third). But then again the game isn't being designed to be played in 3 or 4 days any more than your typical MMO is (not that I believe GW is a MMO).

When I first started playing Guild Wars I jumped straight into the PvP arena (random group PvP area) without ever doing any of the PvE. I only had my crappy starter skills and starter items. I didn't do well, but I got a chance to see how the battles went and learned a lot by the way people would kill me and still had fun.

Like Haemish said, you don't get any reward for participating in PvP, yet... well... other than having fun... but I guess MMO players don't really play games to have fun, do they.

[Krakrok]

60 more screen shots from Guild Wars ->

http://64.156.213.61/

[Slayerik]

I found the game to be instantly fun. I was able to group up and run some PvE missions within 5 minutes of logging in. The second mission with the trebuchets was cool but that was as far as i got. The current players seemed mature, and both my PvE pickup groups worked well together. Tomorrow night ill do some skill work then try PvP.

Alluvian, my experience with GW was the exact opposite of what you described. It was monumentally easy to either form or find a group...The PvE was fast paced and I was fighting Boss mobs every 5-10 minutes. I understand that opinions vary, but I'd try some of the main parts of the game before totally bashing it. Co-op was immediately fun and rewarding. For an Alpha it is quite stable...which to me is a great sign and I will buy this game at release.

[ajax34i]

Love the sky.  It's never blue.

Love the vivid colors, they give the game a canvas-like look.  Like a painting.

Her head is too big.