Guild Wars, also known as Guild Wars Prophecies, is a Competitive/Cooperative Online Role-Playing Game (CORPG) created by ArenaNet, a subsidiary of the South Korean game publisher NCsoft.
| Guild Wars | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | ArenaNet |
| Publisher(s) | NCsoft |
| Designer(s) | Mike O'Brien |
| Platform(s) | Windows |
| Release | April 28, 2005 |
| Genre(s) | CORPG and MMORPG |
| Mode(s) | Multiplayer |
Overview
While Guild Wars is considered by many to be an MMORPG it differs in its approach compared to many of its contemporaries. In particular it provides a number of features which support casual online RPG gameplay; a low level cap, instanced game worlds outside of town areas, instant travel and subscription fee free play after purchase of the game. Guild Wars is carefully maintained by the developers to support competitive play in addition to providing an RPG environment and balancing skills and professions. To emphasize these core differences from most MMORPGs the developers have termed the game a Competitive/Cooperative Online Role-Playing Game (CORPG).
Conceptually, skills (the abilities the player has available to use in game) are very important through both the RPG and competitive parts of the game. A player selects a limited number of skills (up to a maximum of eight) prior to entering a battle and needs to be careful while using those skills during a battle. An adept competitive player needs knowledge of all the game's skills and how they interwork to be most effective. Guild Wars' emphasis on skill selection and implementation of skill use has similarities with many collectible card games.
Game Mechanics
Basics
When a new Guild Wars account is created, the new player has four characters to create. A player can choose to create a character (or characters) for either of the two play styles which Guild Wars supports: Player versus player (PvP) or Player versus environment (PvE). The game mechanics for each side are the same but the play style is different for each. A player gives new characters a unique, unchangable name when they are created. The name must have two parts which might be a first and last name, or a title and a name.
Professions
A Guild Wars character is composed of a primary and secondary profession. The primary profession determines the appearance, armour, lead skill set of the character and provides a specialized attribute line. For example, the elementalist receives the Energy Storage attribute line to boost his spell casting capabilites and increase his energy reserves. The secondary profession allows access to skills and non-specialized attributes only and may be changed during the PvE storyline.
There are six character classes available in Prophecies:
- Elementalist - Classic elemental spell casting class that uses fire, air, earth or water magic for damage and defense.
- Mesmer - Manipulates opponents' actions against them and causes damage and confusion through illusions.
- Monk - Heals and protects their allies and also smites their opponents with holy damage.
- Necromancer - Casts curses on their opponents, utilises corpses of the dead and sacrifices their own health for damage.
- Ranger - Ranged attacker utilizing bow, pets and traps. A ranger can summon spirits that affect large areas of the battlefield.
- Warrior - Armored melee fighter using a weapon, strength and tactics to fight in the front line.
Skills
The player may select up to eight skills from their available pool of skills to use when they play the game. Skills are either standard or elite. Elite skills are skills which are considered to be better than average. The player may only equip one elite skill when they make their skill selection.
Initially the pool of skills available to a character and the player is limited and more skills are made available through game play. There are several different methods to acquire skills:
- Purchase from skill trainers using skill points and gold earned during PvE based play
- Capture from a monster using a Signet of Capture during PvE based play
- Quests can be obtained during PvE based play which give skills as a reward
- Trade in faction points earned during PvP combat to a Priest of Balthazar
- Skill unlock packs can also be purchased for real-world money in the official Guild Wars shop
When a skill is first acquired, through the methods described above, it is unlocked for the account of the player, making it available to all PvP characters made on the account.
The effectiveness of the skills used is based on the attribute line of the skill. To improve the effectiveness of skills the player distributes a limited number of attribute points to these attribute lines. There are at maximum 200 points available to distribute. PvP characters start with all 200, but PvE characters must gain them through leveling and quests. Attributes lines can be increased from 0 to 12, at the increasing cost of 1 to 20 attribute points. Runes are available which can be used to increase the attribute lines of the primary profession.
Skill Types
- Attack: An enhanced melee or ranged attack.
- Spell: A skill that results in a one-time effect, such as damage, healing, Energy loss or gain.
- Enchantment Spell: A spell that causes a positive effect for a period of time (e.g., speed, increased armor, increased Energy).
- Hex Spell: A spell that causes a negative effect for a period of time (e.g., movement/attack speed reduction, Health or Energy degeneration).
- Signet: A skill that costs no Energy to use but takes time to activate and often to recharge.
- Preparation: A skill that enhances your attacks for the next few seconds.
- Trap: Creates a trap that you set and leave for your enemy to trigger.
- Shout: A motivational phrase that benefits you and nearby allies, or hinders nearby enemies.
- Stance : A posture that provides an advantage in battle, either by protecting against attacks or improving your offensive abilities (one stance at a time).
- Glyph: A skill that enhances the next spell you cast.
- Nature Ritual: Creates a spirit that emits an environmental enchantment affecting allies and foes alike.
Note : there are skills that fit in none of these categories. They are simply labeled "Skill".
Equipment
There is a lot of equipment available to players.
- Armor is available in suits specialised for a primary profession. There are different functionalities available on different armors, such as higher armor against particular damage types, extra energy or reduced condition or hex duration.
- Runes are non-stackable items which are put on armor to improve primary attribute lines usually at cost of health. There are runes available that can increase health and provide some damage reduction.
- There are many different types of weapons. They can be used by any class however for the weapon to be most effective the player must allocate enough attribute points to meet the attribute requirements of the weapon. There are two handed weapons, such as bows and hammers, and single handed weapons, such as swords and wands which may be wielded with an off-hand, like a shield. A weapon can have modifiers applied to it, such as bow strings or staff wrappings, which improve or modify the weapons damage or give benefit to the wielder.
Builds
A particular combination of skills, attributes and sometimes armour and weapons is known as a build. Some builds are more effective at particular tasks than others, and so are more common than others. A build may be at an individual player level, or include all of the roles in a team to utilise skill interactions across multiple players.
Guilds
As the name of the game suggests, guilds are a part of the game play. After a guild is created the leader can purchase a cape and design it for the whole guild. They may also purchase a Guild Hall, a private place where only guild members can enter. Within the Guild Hall NPC players can be purchased for convenience, for example, a storage agent, dye trader or a materials trader can be lingering in the Guild Hall. Even though a player is not required to join a guild it does add valuable gameplay through comradery. Often, joining a guild is a good way to get help from more experienced players.
There are four ranks in a guild, Leader, officer, member and guests(from greatest to least). Each rank having its own abilities retaining to the guild. A Leader can kick any member or officer from the guild, change the cape/flag of the guild, promote any member to officer, and demote any officer to member. An Officer may kick any member from the guild, and promote any member to officer. An officer can also invite guests, who are allowed to visit your guild hall but are still allowed to keep membership in their own guild. Guest status is only temporary.
PvE Specifics
A PvE character is created to play through the story-driven, PvE part of the Guild Wars game. A PvE character is level 1 when it is first created with no skills or secondary profession. Experience is required to level the character, and once the maximum level, 20, has been reached experience is still gained, although skill points are awarded instead of levels. Experience can be gained by:
- Performing NPC quests
- Completing the story-driven cooperative missions
- Killing monsters
The maximum level is 20 so the time it takes to reach the maximum level is short relative to many contemporary online RPG games. Much of the game play is designed for level 20 players.
There are no specific servers which players join, outside of selecting their region at account creation. Instead the world is broken into a number of smaller instances which the players can move around in. Towns have a number of instances which can hold up to 100 player characters each. It is in the towns that players form parties to perform quests or missions. A party can consist of one to eight members, depending on ___location, which can be other player characters or AI driven NPC henchmen. When the party leaves the town an instance of the game world is created for the party.
The game world is split into different zones. Whenever the party travels between these zones, all enemies and NPCs respawn. Most enemies use only skills available to the players, but some have specialized monster skills granting them abilities players cannot emulate. Enemies also do not have a maximum level cap, so are frequently seen with levels greater than 20. Boss enemies are named and surrounded by an aura indicating their class, for instance a boss using warrior skills has a yellow aura. Players can use Signets of Capture on boss monsters to acquire skills. This is the only way elite skills can be acquired by PvE characters.
PvP Specifics
A PvP character is created at the maximum level with access to all of the skills, runes, and upgrades which have been unlocked on the account. If the player has no skills currently unlocked they may use a pre-built character to head straight into combat.
There are a number of different types of PvP available to players
Random Arena is a 4 versus 4 players combat. Combatants for both team are selected randomly from a pool of waiting players. Team Arena is 4 versus 4 players like Random Arena, but teams may be built by the players prior to combat.
In Guild vs. Guild (GvG) combat guild teams, consisting of 8 players, battle each other for ranking on the world-wide Guild Wars ladder. This form of PvP combat offers the most strategic combat in the game, requiring good teamwork, communication and build planning. Ladder ranking is used to determine which guilds go to organized tournaments, and there are in-game or monetary rewards for the top ranked guilds in a ladder season.
Finally Hero's Ascent implements a concept called World at War, in which teams from different regions fight through several PvP arenas up to the last area called the Hall of Heroes. The regions fight for "The Favor of the Gods" . Wins are displayed in the chat box to declare who has "Favor". Holding favor unlocks access to some high level PvE content and allows avatars of gods to be summoned in PvE instances which offer blessings for a small fee.
An observer mode is available which allows players to watch recent Hall of Heroes and tournament battles. Guild vs. Guild and other Heroes Ascent battles can also be viewed. Battles in the Hall of Heroes are "displayed" every six minutes with a fifteen minute delay(as to not allow exploits). Other Observer Mode battles have to have a rank 1-100 guild in the match inorder to be viewed.
Campaigns
Unlike many contemporary online games players can get access to the Guild Wars servers without a monthly fee. The developers have instead opted for an episodic structure which involves regular releases of campaigns at the rate of about two every year. Unlike "expansion packs", these campaigns are stand-alone games that may be played individually or combined with other campaigns. Players may thus pick and choose the campaigns they wish to participate in.
Two campaigns have been released: the original, Guild Wars Prophecies, followed by Guild Wars Factions. The third campaign, Guild Wars Nightfall, is currently in development, with a world preview scheduled from September 22-24, 2006, and worldwide release on October 27.
In addition to the campaign-specific content, there is an amount of core content shared between all campaigns. This core content includes;
- Core professions: the professions of the Prophecies campaign with around 50% of their skills designated as "core skills".
- The Battle Isles - a PvP-specific map area that contains the major PvP arenas, the guild halls for guild versus guild matches, and a PvP training area.
- Fissure of Woe and Underworld - elite PvE areas which are available to players if their region has the Favor of the Gods and their character has completed the relevant rite of passage.
Players who do not purchase a specific campaign will not get access to the PvE portion of that campaign, nor be able to use the skills and professions specific to that campaign. They may still interact with other players who have purchased that campaign, including trading with them for items specific to the campaigns they haven't purchased.
Story
Ascalon is at war, fighting the Charr invading from the North. The fight is not going well but the Great Northern Wall protects Ascalon from the worst of the threat. However, the Charr find a way past the wall, and increase their attacks. It is in this setting the player begins a new character and completes initial training quests.
The Wall is unable to protect Ascalon forever. The Charr are able to use a powerful ritual which calls fire and crystal meteors from the sky, known as "The Searing", destroying the Wall and turning Ascalon into a wasteland.
In 'post-Searing' Ascalon, Prince Rurik and his father King Adelbern, the leaders of Ascalon, fight a losing battle against continued assaults from the Charr. As the players fight through the wasteland helping where they can, they find the legendary horn Stormcaller, which is said to hold immense power against invaders of Ascalon. Rurik is able to use Stormcaller to weaken the invading Charr and push them out of the capital, Rin. Rurik and Adelbern argue about the next move. Adelbern wants to fight off the Charr but Rurik, after seeing Rin's devastation, wants the people of Ascalon to flee to the safety of Kryta. For this traitorous sentiment the King exiles his son from Ascalon.
Rurik and his supporters leave Ascalon behind and travel to Kryta through the Northern Shiverpeak mountains. This is not an easy journey as they are impeded by the Stone Summit Dwarves who try to stop their passage. The Deldrimor Dwarves aid Rurik and the refugees through the mountains. The passage comes at a price as Rurik dies at the hands of the Stone Summit trying to ensure the safety of the refugees. The party must continue on to Kryta without him.
Kryta is the ___domain of a relatively new religious group called the White Mantle. After completing some tasks for the Mantle the players become trusted members of the group and are requested to find and escort the magical "Chosen" so the Mantle can instruct them. While the White Mantle are escorting the "Chosen" through the Maguuma Jungle they are intercepted by a rebel group known as the Shining Blade. The White Mantle escorts are killed and the "Chosen" are abducted by the Shining Blade.
The party pursues the Shining Blade deeper into the Jungle. After catching up to them, Evennia, the leader of the Shining Blade, reveals the real purpose of the "Chosen" - to be a sacrifice. The players witness this truth for themselves. Betrayed, the players attack and kill Justicar Habilion, a prominent member of the White Mantle.
With the assistance of the players the Shining Blade pick up their activities against the White Mantle taking the powerful Scepter of Orr from them. Taking this Scepter to Vizier Khilbron, a knowledgable magician helping the Shining Blade, it is discovered that the Shining Blade have been betrayed and are being routed by the stronger White Mantle. The players flee with the Vizier to the Crystal Desert.
The Vizier suggests that the players complete Ascension, believing that it will make the players strong enough to fight the White Mantle's "unseen gods". Once ascended the players approach the dragon prophet, Glint. Glint reveals her knowledge of the "Flameseeker Prophecies" which the players are fullfilling. She sends the players to the Southern Shiverpeaks to face the White Mantle and rescue what remains of the now broken Shining Blade.
The players find that the Southern Shiverpeaks are overrun with White Mantle and their "unseen gods" - the Mursaat. Both races of Dwarves are struggling with this incursion. The Deldrimor Dwarves assist the player in rescuing the remains of the Shining Blade - but at the same time the Stone Summit Dwarves have taken the Deldrimor capital, Thunderhead Keep. The players help take back the keep and hold it against the Mursaat and White Mantle invaders. The Vizier appears and tells the players they need to travel to the Ring of Fire Islands to activate a powerful weapon which will destroy the Mursaat.
The players fight through the Mursaat into their fortress and free the seals on the Door of Komalie, which they believe will give access to the weapon. Instead players are betrayed when they discover that the Vizier is a Lich using the players to get the Scepter and free terrible creatures known as Titans both of which he wants to use to wrest control over Tyria. The players confront and defeat the Lich, closing the doors they had previously opened.
The Lich is defeated but the Titans still roam Tyria. Glint instructs the players to defend each of the regions of Tyria against the Titan attacks, and finally eliminate the source of the Titan assaults.
Sorrow's Furnace
The player returns to the Southern Shiverpeaks to assist the Deldrimor Dwarves against the Stone Summit Dwarves. The players enter Sorrow's Furnace on rescue and reconnaisance missions before entering the Furnace a final time to destroy the Stone Summit's Iron Forgeman. This is also where most of the unique items drop in the Prophecies Campaign.
See also
Critical response
Guild Wars has been well received by critics and players alike. In 2005, it won several prestigious awards including IGN's Best PC RPG[1] and Gamespy's MMORPG of the Year[2] awards. In 2006 Computer Games Magazine listed Guild Wars as #4 in their Best Game collection, giving it in addition the Best MMO Debut and Best Technology awards.[citation needed] Guild Wars has been listed in every major Editors' Choice category in both print and online publications. In June 2006 ArenaNet announced that they had sold 2 million copies of Guild Wars and Guild Wars Factions.[3]
Published criticism of Guild Wars has centered around the following key elements. First, that the number and placement of creatures encountered in the PvE world can be overwhelming, especially since the party size and number of skills are both limited to eight. There is also a related problem of repetitiveness, as noted by IGN: "As fun as combat is, and as pretty as it looks, plowing your way through low-level mobs can and will get tiresome, since they don't give much (if any) experience points and will be dropping items that are virtually useless to you."[4]
Secondly, several reviews have cited the lack of a sophisticated in-game trading system such as auction houses as exist in other MMORPGs, so the only way for players to sell items is to advertise on a trade channel that is shared by all players in the same map (but may be muted by individual players). A related problem is the difficulty of forming parties as the level of a player is only displayed on the player avatars. The common way to form groups is to advertise in the local chat channel. The combination of grouping and spam messages can overwhelm all other communication. Reviews such as the one by IGN have commented that itemization in the game lacks variety because the only way to distinguish suits of armor is by dying them different colors.[4]
Thirdly, both players and published reviews have commented on the unnatural coupling of cooperative and competitive matches, which require very different playing styles. At the games release, PvP characters were required to "unlock" their skills and items by playing through the cooperative game, even though a PvP player may have no interest in cooperative gaming. This issue, however, has been addressed by ArenaNet, firstly by introducing Balthazar Faction in June 2005 which enabled unlocking through playing PvP[5] and further in August 2006 by making skill unlocks for the individual professions of the Prophecies campaign available in the game's online store. Unlocks for the professions of the Factions campaign are said to follow after the release of the next campaign in October 2006[6].
In addition to published reviews, there are a number of standard player complaints that are voiced in the various Guild Wars-related fansites. One common complaint is about the continual modifications to skills and items in the game. While ArenaNet claims that these changes are motivated by a desire to fix unbalanced or incorrect behavior, players often see this as nerfing popular combinations. Players also complain that these modifications are often done with no warning, or not done promptly after a fault is discovered. However, it should be noted that many players also accept such changes favourably, as they are perceived as a way to keep gameplay fresh, their complaints then being that such updates are not nearly frequent enough.
Editions
As well as the standard edition, there are many other editions of Guild Wars available on the market. All of them contain the basic Account Creation Code and Manuscript Book, as well as other added features listed below,
- Pre-order Edition
- The Pre-order edition was a disc available for purchase as a stand alone short duration access, or obtained by pre-ordering the full version of the game. The key allowed the player to access the Guild Wars beta testing. Added to a full account the key gives the player access to a unique weapon or offhand customised for their account.
- Collector's Edition
- The Collector's Edition was available for purchase at the games official release.
- The Collector's Edition comes with a Guild Wars branded Logitech headset, a free 3-month trial for Teamspeak's "SpeakEasy" service, the soundtrack by Jeremy Soule on an audio CD, The Art of Guild Wars Book 1 and Divine Aura, a glowing light around the hands of a character when they use an emote.
- Special Edition
- The Special Edition is available now. It contains a Skill Pack code which allows 7 regular skills, 1 elite skill, and 2 runes to be unlocked for the account from a Priest of Balthazar.
- The Special Edition also contains a special music-code to access in-game music from DirectSong.com, the Official Guild Wars Soundtrack CD, The Art of Guild Wars Book 2 and a map of Tyria.
- Game of the Year Edition
- The Game of the Year Edition contains the full version of Guild Wars Prophecies, and was released one year after the game's initial release. It contains an access key which unlocks seven exclusive weapons and accessories, each geared towards one of the six core professions. Each weapon has maximum damage stats according to its type, and each character created can get a customized copy of the weapons.
Account Information
Before playing Guild Wars, the player needs to create an account. This does not appear to be an ArenaNet account. In doing so, they permanently tie the Access Key that came in the box to that particular account. Some Access Keys have special features - such as the Divine Aura.
Account Management
Guild Wars allows the user to manage their account information from within the game. The user can edit their email address (and thus their account name), their password, their mailing address, and their territory. A user's territory can be changed only four times. Plans to change this have been discussed and will quite possibly be implented sometime soon.
Notes
- ^ "The Best of 2005". RPG. IGN. December 2005. Retrieved 2006-08-24.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ "2005 Game of the Year". Gamespy. Retrieved 2006-08-24.
- ^ Trevor Patrick (2006-06-19). "Two Million Guild Wars Sold". Computer Games Magazine.
- ^ a b Tom McNamara (2005-05-11). ""Guild Wars"". IGN. Retrieved 2006-08-10.
- ^ ArenaNet (2005-06-29). ""Update: Wednesday, June 29"". ArenaNet.
- ^ Gaile Gray (2006-09-08). ""News for PvP Players"". guildwarsguru.com. Retrieved 2006-09-12.
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