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Solid game - encourages teaming & PVP, not powerleveling

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 450 / 468
Date: April 29, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Guild Wars is a very solid MMORPG that strongly encourages team play. The graphics are top-notch (if not up to the cartoon levels of World of Warcraft), the play addicting, and it's well-balanced. With no monthly fee, it's one of the best bargains in the MMORPG world. I take off a star and a half for the forced team aspect as well as the focus on pure fighting versus creating a world, but add 1 back for the value proposition so give this 4 and half stars, or a 4/5 fun/overall split.

This is a tough game to master with no outright 'uber' classes. Players choose 2 of 6 fairly standard basic professions (1 tank, 1 mezzer, 1 healer/defender, 2 nukers, 1 mezzer/nuker) with the second profession lacking one of the strongest attributes of the primary (including which armor you can wear and runes you can use). As you level, besides gaining hit points you do two things - specialize in the various basic class attributes and gain access to the real key: skills. You're limited to a certain number of active skills while in combat, so strategy and careful character building take precedence over getting to level 20. Experience to buy skills can be gained through basic PvE, missions, or PvP. Using a small set of skills wisely along with picking and choosing your attribute development is far more important than getting all the 75 skills available to each profession. This is definitely not a game that is easy to blindly powerlevel.

Cleverly designed, this sidesteps a lot of the problems surrounding the genre. Rather than deal with constant kill stealing, maps and missions are instanced, and you don't have to spend a whole slug of time traveling between regions. (Once you've been to a locale, boom, it's yours.) Recovery time is minimal as is non-combat time. You don't need to spend time harvesting mats and begging a friend to make your next weapon. Instead, kill things, complete missions, and you can bring mats straight to the NPC crafter to make a custom weapon (that can only be equipped by you, likely eliminating much of the secondary market for gear in this game.)

My reservations are four fold but minor. First, the way to truly advance in this game is through missions - and the only way to accomplish many missions is in a balanced team. Thus, you're basically forced to group despite the nominal ability to solo. This really means you have to figure out proper character development early - rather tough with your first few characters until you find a good guild, and frankly, sometimes many of us feel like playing solo. Second, the lack of any real crafting system here means you fight...and fight...and fight. CoH has done well with a similar model (without the PvP aspect) and it's worked well - not to mention the biggest headaches in most MMORPGs are the messes created with a bad item creation system - but if you enjoy socializing more than fighting (the typical harvester/crafter) this isn't the game for you. Third, the game really revolves around PvP much more than PvE for the above reasons - so if you're looking for a game without conflict, this isn't it. Finally, while the focus on instanced events does prevent many of the problems found in most other MMORPGs, it also reduces the multiplayer aspect except in non-instanced locales like towns. The net effect of all of these is to slightly dilute the 'world' aspect, and for those looking for total immersion this may not be a perfect match.

Still, this is a great game and deserves 4 1/2 stars, and if you're looking for an alternative to the hordes of WoW that strongly encourages teaming this should be at the top of your list. One final note: this actually runs quite well even on my soon-to-be discarded Athlon 1100 and is geared towards doing well on slightly older systems - and even 56k modems! - unlike most new games. Big plus.

Engaging Team-Based Play

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 272 / 285
Date: May 13, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Guild Wars has been touted as being revolutionary in several ways. For those that haven't read the game overview, these can be summarized as follows:

1. Doesn't require immense amounts of time to be really 'fun.'
2. Little or no time spent doing repetitive tasks and travel.
3. Competitive guild-based play, with custom guilds.
4. No monthly fees and dynamic content change/addition.

The last point is of great interest to many people (myself included) in that this is the first MMORPG to be completely free of fees. However, everyone knows expansions are planned, so this is only 'kind-of sort-of' true.

Though you don't do repetitive tasks like gathering food or resources, to find anything remotely useful you do have to kill enemies over and over again. Additionally, the travel waypoints are sometimes very spread out, so you are still going to do a lot of walking. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, however (more on that later).

The level cap is 20, and it's true that this doesn't make it very hard to become as powerful as you'll ever get. In PVP only mode, you start at 20, so you spend no time at all building up a character. However, this doesn't mean you can become level 20 overnight- it does take quite a while, and the quests are challenging enough that you will likely need (human) help.

That said, this game is definitely built for guild-based play. The designers say that solo play is optional, but truth be told it probably isn't. Now that the main features have been addressed, a general overview of the game is in order.

The only 'MM' part of the game is towns. While in towns you can see other players in the same district, form your party, trade items, start quests, and configure your skills (a maximum of 8 can be used at one time). You can also take along henchmen if you want to fill out a party or go solo.

You can leave town one of two ways- by walking through a portal or by starting a mission. The missions address the main quest and often take you to major cities, thus saving you the trouble of walking. They also reward you with experience and skill points. Quests are separate from these, and reward you with experience, skills, and items. In general, the mission and quest design is well done, but you will find the occasional glitch- some of which can force you to repeat one. When in a quest area, a pointer will show where the next objective is.

PVP can be done at arenas, and there's a level cap for each to prevent overly unfair competition. You get experience and (if you play enough) fame for winning matches. This is always a team-based mode, and teams are selected either at random or by party assignment. In RP mode, however, it's quite possible to get far superior equipment than your competition, and thus have a massive edge in combat. A winning team will continue to play matches, and the game doesn't seem very good at auto-balancing the parties.

While exploring the wilds, you'll encounter many and varied monsters, which range in classes and difficulty. Most come in groups, and usually are too dangerous or numerous to solo. This is where my first complaint shows up. Frankly, the henchman AI is beyond pathetic, which is why playing with other people is generally advisable (on occasion, however, I've found human players that are worse in that regard than the henchmen. Such is life). If you're in a party, you'll divide the gold, experience, and spoils. This applies to henchmen party members as well.

Exploration is really the meat of the game. I've done PVP, but it gets old pretty fast- especially if you keep ending up in a poorly balanced team, which seems to happen alarmingly often. You also get no loot for winning, and nobody really cares about fame. The wilderness areas are very well done, with excellent graphics and accompanying music. The world is massive, and the monsters are hard enough that you have to think about what skills you take- and what your fellow party members are taking. Unlike many other RPGs, a bunch of offensive-oriented people each doing their own thing will likely meet a very quick demise. Guild Wars really forces you to coordinate (especially with healing others and focusing to take down hard enemies) and punishes you if you fail to do so. I personally find this a welcome change in direction.

If you should happen to die, you can either wait for a party member to revive you, or (if everyone's dead) you'll respawn at an altar. Sometimes these are placed in very awkward places, which does need to be addressed. You don't lose items, but suffer a 'death penalty' that reduces your health and energy up to 60% (15% per death). You can work this off by gaining experience, killing boss monsters, or completing mission objectives. Going to a town negates the penalty, and this is highly advisable if you get to 60%. Nevertheless, sometimes you really can't go back to town, because leaving an area causes all monsters to repopulate. This can lead parties to conduct suicide raids, in which the sole objective is to kill at least one more monster blocking the way to that quest goal. At times it can be rather frustrating- especially with the more difficult quests. Since the max level is 20 and many monsters are higher, even if you're an experienced player you will likely die scores of times doing quests and missions.

As for character customization, you have a choice of skills in which to invest points (a max of 200, which each successively level costing more), and you can design guild capes and dye items various colors. This, aside from the standard appearance choices at character generation and of course equipment, is about all that makes you unique. If you decide you want to change your skills, you can acquire 'refund points' by gaining experience. These let you reallocate skill points. There are six classes to pick from, and you can have one 'sub-class' that gives you access to some skills from another. This is a permanent choice, so it's best to choose wisely.

The classes in general are quite well balanced, but there is a 'paper rock scissors' arrangement there. That is, Rangers dominate Elementalists, Warriors dominate Rangers, Necromancers dominate Warriors, etc. If you know what you're fighting, there are skills designed to counter every other class, but some are necessarily better than others. Usually you'll learn what to pick the hard way. Fortunately, there's unlimited refund points available, and you can quite quickly rebuild your character if you decide to just junk it all.

In sum, Guild Wars isn't an easy game. This is especially true if you're not a team player and don't like to make friends online. The bottom line is, this isn't a game for everyone. I personally like the party-based exploration and missions, but I know some others that despise it. If you haven't played in the beta and aren't sure which sort of player you are, I'd advise you to get the game and find out. Since there isn't a monthly fee, it won't hurt too badly to try, and- if you decide to quit- you won't feel like you're losing something you paid for by ditching your characters.

100 hrs of play review

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 24 / 25
Date: July 09, 2005
Author: Amazon User

ok, so you can guess from the title of my review that i have enough experience playing this game to say what i think of it and be acurate about it.

I'll just get right into it and tell you strengths, weaknesses, and comparisons (i have a wealth of knowledge from other MMORPGs)

1. This is not like any other MMO on the market. plain and simple. I've played Ultima Online, Anarchy Online, EQ, EQ2, Asheron's Call 2, Shadowbane, Star Wars Galaxies, Final Fantasy XI, and Matrix Online. Believe me when i say this, none of the those games is anything like Guild Wars. The only thing that makes them the same is the fact that you level up a character to a predefined top level.

2. If you want to compare it to another game or two, try EQ or EQ2. Medieval in nature with warriors, mages, necromancers, rangers.... but that's as far as it goes. EQ is the standard in this game genre and Guild Wars does not compare. Guild Wars does not have 6+ years of the developers adding story line changes/additions. This is not to say that the GW's story sucks. It's awesome. There are a few shallow points and sometimes you'll say to yourself, "what was the point of doing that quest? what did it acomplish other than to earn me some xp (and maybe a useless sellable item or two or three)?" sometimes the changes in the world are subtle in nature and when i say that, i mean it. There are few statues of the gods scattered around the entire world. Something i hadn't noticed at first but then later realized what had happened was that a statue of the god of war, Balthazar, was glowing a blue flame after i had completed many of the quests contained within the region. i have a habit of taking screenshots while i play cause i find things that i really like to look at. i took a picture of that statue initually when i first saw it and it was not glowing at all. i had to go back through my screenshots to make sure i wasn't just thinking it was different. so yeah.... it might not seem like much, but it may be something that may prove to be worth while later on down the road(ie. a major game wide quest to make all the statues glow by doing various tasks within a zone/region).

3. Strengths- first and foremost is the fact that you can move from place to place all over the world just by opening the world map, clicking on the place you'd like to go and then wam bam thank you ma'am, you are there. that is of course, you've been to the place already. that's the only requirement for being able to do all the jumping around. you just have to step into the place and it's put on your world map so that you can jump to it later. it's invaluable come quest time when you don't feel like going back the way you came.

another strong point is the quest system. some people would complain that they made it way too easy. it's too easy if you're the kind of person that likes to spend countless hours trying to find a paticular person or place or thing somewhere in the world. not me. the quest system will give you an arrow on your compass/map in the upper corner of your screen. it's not specific as far as what pathes to take. that you have to figure out on your own. but if you look at the world map, you can see a green star where you are to head for the quest. also, when you get close, you'll get that same green star on the compass/map in the corner so you know you're getting close.

the rune/weapon upgrade system. i love this in the fact that you specifically have to find the different runes and weapon upgrades to unlock them. for those of you that are thinking, "oh crap, now i will have to spend tons of hours trying to find one paticular rune for my character." not to worry. they can be bought from other players and also, a new addition added after the release of the game (meaning it won't be talked about in the instruction manual) is rune traders. you can buy any rune available in the game as long as you have the money. here's the catch. when you create a PvP character those runes aren't unlocked for you in the char. creation section. this is the point of unlocking runes/weapon upgrades. so you can eventually create a PvP character that is customized to your liking with the runes/weapon upgrades of your choosing. it may take a while, and believe me, i'm not even close to having them all unlocked.

the skill system is another strength but can also be a weakness at some points. this is another area of unlocking you'll do. this is more class specific though. you play through an adventure character (as apposed to a PvP char.) and unlock skills along the way by doing quests and/or buying skills from the Skill NPCs in different cities. there is a new way that's just recently been implemented and that's fighting in the arenas and earning faction points. you use the faction points to unlock skills/runes/weapon upgrades but it's not cheap. it'll take alot of fighting to get the amount of points you need to unlock certain skills/runes/weapon upgrades.

4. Weaknesses- for starters, as i said earlier, the story. there isn't alot to it. this is a new game though. the story that's there will surely be added to along the way with new expansions and patch updates. there is already a plan to have two new major zones added to the game some time this summer.

the quests are a little lacking at this point also. there isn't a ton of them, like many other games, but they are there. new ones are added almost every two weeks in the weekly game patches. when i say there isn't a ton that doesn't mean there isn't any. it's just that, some places only two or three quests while other places have about ten to fifteen. some are a little weak in content also. they pose almost no challenge even to someone that has just reached that region/zone. for whatever reason, the devs decided not to add a crap load of quests like most MMOs that are released right off the shelf.

last but not least is the varience in weapons. many of the ones you pick up look the same as one you may have picked up earlier in the game, but it's got higher stats to it. some people don't mind this, but i do. i like to find new items that have a different look than any others out there. when i find a gold unique item, i want it to look different than anyone elses. right now, the weapon models are rather lacking in some departments. staves are kind of bland whereas swords and hammers later in the game are awesome looking. armor is somewhat in the same department as this. they all look nice but when you get to a new city where you can upgrade to a better set, they are exactly the same. that is of course if you choose the same type as the one you are wearing. each armor is class and sex specific, so a male ranger's armor is going to look different than a female ranger's armor even if it's the exact same type.

i know at times in my review it almost sounds like i hate this game. i don't. i love it. it can be improved on and i'm sure it will. i've seen games that rise and fall very quickly (shadowbane and asherons call 2) but this will not be one of them. not having to pay a monthly fee is the biggest reason for this opinion. when you don't have to pay for something constantly, you're more willing to play.

Just love this game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 21 / 21
Date: November 19, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I got dragged into playing this game for the word preview event and absolutey love it. I ran right out an bought the presale package so I could play the beta events too. This game is a lot of fun. It has storylines, missions, pvp in two different arena type games, and even some armor weapon crafting. The basis, of course, is competing with a rated guild and engaging in a capture the flag type combat with other guilds, where teamwork is emphasized. However, if you feel like guild stuff isn't your thing you can go out adverturing solo. And for those who KNOW that going out alone might get you killed but you still don't like working with others, you can HIRE OUT, healers, rangers, warriors, elementalists, etc, to give you a hand in the field!! And finally, if you think you'll miss out on the pvp by not having a guild, you can go solo in a random entry arena where you are pitted against another random, and possibly uncoordinated, team.

I love this game and can't wait till the next beta event. The graphics are pretty decent and surprisingly enough, I can actually run it on my 5 year old computer with no problems and a cable modem connection. I can almost never do this with the latest rpg games. I wouldn't suggest this game to anyone running on much less than that, though. People with dialup connections tend to spawn so late in the pvp arenas that they're dead as soon as they appear. Overall though, I highly suggest this game. It allows to you to enjoy the game and allows character progression even if you don't have 7 hours a day to play, which you sometimes need with other mmorpgs.

Awesome game.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 20 / 20
Date: August 29, 2006
Author: Amazon User

First things first - this game is not for everybody. It's not your traditional MMORPG, in fact, it's officially a CORPG (Cooperative Online Role Playing Game). If you're looking for a game for farming and grinding, look elsewhere. You can reach the maximum level(20) in 2-3 days of hard playing, and the most powerful weapons and armor can be earned in a few hours of farming.

PvE:

The main reason GW is not a true MMO is because it's instanced - that is, outside of the cities, your party will have the world to yourselves. This is both annoying and rewarding. You cannot meet random people out in the world, which, I'll admit, I miss at times. At the same time, however, there are no annoying people disturbing you, and there are no people telling you to "back off, this is my farming spot," ect.

The instance feature also allows GW to have an overarching storyline, which is suprisingly good. Though it is a traditional sort of fantasy story (good vs. evil, light vs. dark ect), GW adds freshness to it with fairly unusual/original races and characters such as Charr, or Tengu, and interesting plot twists.

Though the world is instanced, that doesn't mean you must play it alone. You can form a party of players, opt to bring a party of AI henchmen, or make a combination of both. Throughout the missions and quests, you'll be reliant on your party to defeat your foes and keep your team alive. As the name of the game implies, guilds are an important factor in the game. Guild members often help each other out in missions or quests, trade or donate items, or simply give advice.

As I said earlier, grinding and leveling are not big features of this game. After a while, you will find that you've finished the storyline, and have all the highest level equipment. So, are you finished?

No way. For starters there are also "bonus" objectives to each mission, many people spend time going back to finish up the ones they haven't done or weren't able to complete at the time. There are tons of "Elite" skills to unlock, which require you to defeat a certain boss to obtain. There are also a goodly number of Titles for you to earn. For example, there's the Tyrian Grandmaster Cartographer title, for exploring 100% of the Tyrian continent, a feat that can take weeks or even months to accomplish. There are also difficult dungeons such as the Underworld or the Fissure of Woe that will require a coordinated team to complete. And of course, you could make a new character (you start with 4 character slots, extra slots cost $10 each), and play the game over again, with a completely different character type.

PvP:

Guild Wars gives you the option of creating a PvP-only character. These characters are the maximum level, have the best equipment availible to them, and all the skills that you've unlocked at their disposal. This means that a "good player" is not one that's spent countless hours farming for his godly armor and weapons, but rather one that knows the game well, knows his character, and works well with his or her team.

In other games, you may have 20 or more skills for your use. In Guild Wars, while you may choose from a myriad of skills to put in your 8-slot bar, once you leave town or enter the arena, you can't change your bar around. So, people devise skillsets, or "builds" whose skills compliment eachother, some of which are so brilliant that they become common knowledge and thousands of other people begin to use them. Guild Wars' system also gives you flexibility - you can be a Smiting monk one game and a Healing monk the next.

This concept carries over to the 8 player teams as well. The availability of the PvP character and the ease of changing your PvE/RP character's role means that you don't have 8 independant characters that randomly attack enemies, you have a team where each player has a specific role, and you coordinate your every move. Voice communication is a must for almost every team.

The result of this system is the most coopertive, coordinated, complex, and rewarding PvP I've ever experienced. Teams look for weaknesses in the other team's build, and exploit them. They split their team into two groups, attack, counterattack, and feint, and use maneuvers to give themselves the advantage. Often, the coordination and teamwork of a team is the most important factor in a game, teams that looked certain to lose have been known to pull off ingenious tactics that earn them the win. High ranked guilds and players are well known, and there's an Observer mode (affectionately dubbed "Guild Wars TV") where players can view top-ranked guilds' matches. Tactics and builds are hotly debated in forums and ingame, for the initiated and the newbie alike.

Overall, this is the best game I've bought in my life.

Just Didn't Connect with Me

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 61 / 92
Date: May 24, 2005
Author: Amazon User

(Word of caution: I explained all the acronyms and on-ling game lingo I used in my review, in case those who are reading don't know the vocabulary. If you're an experienced player, just read past it ... I didn't do it to annoy you. :) )

Just about all of the features of Guild Wars really got me excited to play, especially the minimap arrows pointing where you should go to finish quests and teleporting here and there (rather than yachting or flying). I bought it the night before launch and anxiously awaited the floodgates opening at midnight.

Unfortunately, I was disappointed, though clearly not all will be. I am primarily a PvE (Player versus Environment) and sometimes enjoying soloing, not having to group with other players. Just like in real life, in my virtual life, I need some alone time. However, soloing in Guild Wars is oddly depressing.

Since the outdoors areas are instanced, meaning only you and your group (or only you if there is no group), no one is out there but you in the abyss. As much as I hate shouted arguments in Everquest or World of Warcraft, and dealing with immature players who would run up to me, take their computer clothes off and dance around in an attempt to either be suggestive (weird) or annoying (more likely), I actually started missing it. Not the pseudo-cyber underpants, mind you, but the feel of real life.

In real life, things are always happening. In battle, out of battle, creating crafted items, trading, or whatever you're doing, people are around. Getting on your nerves, providing help, or just /flexing because they learned how to do it an hour before, other players add to the rich landscape of the game environment.

In Guild Wars, soloing, single player action felt artificial to me. After 5 or 6 levels, I felt I was just doing the same thing over and over again:

1. Click the quest in the log, and watch the arrow light up on minimap.
2. Teleport to town nearest quest target.
3. Run around eerily silent landscape (Evidently, only bad guys live outside.) And kill until I finished quest.
4. Turn in, lather, rinse, repeat.

I love getting lost in video games, but this one truly feel like I was wasting my time.

This is not a slam review by any means. I don't love PvP (Player versus Player) action. I also don't hate it. I don't love group play, but I don't hate that either. Some people love this game and will actually be *angry* to hear that someone doesn't. I guess I can understand that - you get passionate about what you like. I just don't like Guild Wars at all. It was just no fun for me.

Gameplay was disappointing. You learn a ton of skills right away, but you can only ever use 8 or so, and you can only use the ones you picked in town before you left for the quest. What's the point in learning hundreds of skills if you can only use 8? Why have 26 letters in the alphabet if you can only make up to 8-letter words. They say it's an innovation, but I think it's lame. I've heard developers say "It's like an electronic take on Magic: The Gathering." I think that was supposed to entice me.

How about future add-ons to the product? When they become available, players who buy them could have 8 skills completely foreign and unavailable to you. Sure developers guarantee that you'll still be competitive, but eh, who knows?

All of my fighting felt like a flurry of button presses. My character was casting this, hitting for that, and ugh it was just a mess. Don't get me wrong, the graphics are fantastic, but I felt like I was slipping and swirling all over coated by fancy graphics, but I never really felt like I could make sense of it all. Lots of sparkles, very esoteric. Pretty, but weirdly unnecessary.

Basically, I love being able to play solo or with friends, waving to people as I run by them on the road, receiving a surprise buff spell (a temporary statistical skill increase) from a stranger, or chatting in an impromptu session about what we miss from the old days of computers as we all stood at the docks leveling our fishing skills.

People make the game fun, because people are what it's all about. In Guild Wars, you see people in town or in battle. Otherwise it's a constant reminder that you're playing on your computer all by yourself, and I don't need a game to remind me of that.

Fun and Interesting Genre-defying Game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 28 / 33
Date: December 16, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Guild Wars is a game that will very likely defy your expectations, for better or worse.

This is *not* a replacement for World of Warcraft or other MMORPGs, but is better described as a hybrid between games like Diablo and games like WoW.

As you've probably heard, the only place in this game where you'll randomly run into other people is in the towns, cities, and outposts; never in areas where you fight monsters will you run into another person, unless you entered the area with them in your party. This aspect has its pros and cons: there's no ganking, no camping, and the maps can afford to be alterable and scripted, yet it makes the world feel noticably lonely, especially if you've come from WoW, EQ2, or something like that.

Here are some of the pros and cons of this game, as I see it:

Pros
+ Really fun and involving skill system, with a ton of skills to choose from, even very early in the game, yet you can only bring 8 skills with you at a time. This makes the game feel a lot like Magic: The Gathering, and you'll probably spend a lot of time tinkering around with different builds.

+ Character appearance customization is quite rich, and it's hard to create a bad looking character. You'll rarely run into another player who looks just like you.

+ The ability to jump immediately from town to town saves a whole lot of time.

+ The graphics and the world look totally beautiful, and the game runs very well on almost any computer.

+ There's no server separation, so you can always play with whomever you want to.

+ Very good support for guilds, including guild halls that you can purchase.

+ Fun PvP gameplay that you can begin participating in very early in the game. PvP games start up very fast (between 30 seconds and a minute!), and are also over very fast, so they're great for a quick fix.

+ No monthly fees. This is nice, but you quickly begin to see why they don't have to charge you monthly: little to no content updating, all non-city zones are instanced, no real sense of community (no official forums), no in-game support. This game isn't really an MMO, so why *should* they charge you?

+ The game isn't focused on level grinding or item farming. The endgame is *heavily* focused on PvP. At least half of the game's content is reserved for players who've reached the max level of 20. Leveling happens slower in WoW, however, but not by much.

+ Beautiful music, but it repeats very quickly.

Cons
- The look of the interface doesn't match the feel of the game or the genre.

- Many of the game's quirks just don't feel intuitive. You have to figure a lot out on your own. Hard to get an overall feel for your character's stats (there's no stat summary page). A lot of details of your character are hidden from you.

- Weapons and armor look very cool, but generally are only very marginally better than other weapons and armor. No real motivation to get better gear. Graphics for items are frequently recycled.

- Repetitive PvE landscapes, repetitive PvE battles, anticlimactic boss fights.

- The game lacks "character:" your hero never speaks or makes any sounds. Significant portions of the storyline don't make sense. Silly voice acting during cut scenes. Quests lack a sense of purpose or cohesion.

- Hard to find what you're looking for in towns at first, other than by running around everywhere hovering your mouse over everything you see.

- No way of seeing what level other players are except by clicking on them. No way to tell what level your guildmates are except by asking them. No way to tell what quests members of your party are on. Overall, it's hard to get a lot of information that you probably want.

- Poor trading system. No real crafting system.

- Only 4 characters per account.

- Many of the game's players seem to have no idea how to play a game like this, at least until you get past the first few beginning areas.

- The game doesn't have a "world" feel to it like real MMOs do.

BOTTOM LINE: play this game if you're looking for an engaging, fast-paced, extremely customizable multiplayer RPG experience. You'll have a lot of fun trying out different PvP tactics, especially once you've unlocked all of the abilities for your 2 classes. You'll never feel like you "have" to play, since they aren't any monthly fees, but you'll probably still end up playing a lot, because the game is genuinely fun.

Don't get this game if what you really want is an excellent MMO. This isn't it. Get WoW instead.

A Highly Promising Game (With No Monthly Fee)

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 18 / 18
Date: November 01, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Having played the original Everquest long ago and dabbled in free trial versions of other massively multiplayer online games such as Lineage II, I have become somewhat disenchanted with MMOs. I dislike the general concept of paying a monthly fee to play a game that often involves long hours of tedium, and lately I have little time/money to spare for games in general. But from October 29th to 31st there was an open world preview event for Guild Wars, and I decided to give it a try.

Guild Wars was developed by a team of former Blizzard employees, and they have managed to inject some strategy into the typical role-playing fantasy setting. However, some role-playing elements have been sacrificed in exchange for reducing online tedium. You may not enjoy Guild Wars if you absolutely love the role-playing element. That being said, the game in its current stage of build is amazingly fun.

Players start with the option to create characters with a primary and secondary profession. These profession choices determine the skills/spells you can acquire, and you can only take eight skills into a mission/battle. This by itself creates a new level of strategy for the player, as certain skills combo well together. You can also decide to emphasize skills that make you able to solo, or you can choose more support skills for your party. And having good support people in a group is essential in Guild Wars.

The preview event allowed players to start out at level 15 and max out at level 20. I was pleased to find that leveling and gaining decent equipment was no longer a pain. I easily made level 20 in the three days that the event ran and actually had fun doing so. This was thanks to a mission-oriented leveling system that encourages groups of six players to team up (alternately, you can hire NPC henchmen). The missions are instanced for your group (meaning no swarms of other players to compete with for objectives, kills, experience, loot), and have mini-narratives that follow a sort of linear plotline. As you complete each mission, a new area is open to you on your overall map.

Ah yes, the map. No more insanely long travel times. You just go to your map, zoom in on the area you want to go to, and click "travel." Areas open up as you complete each mission, and you can travel freely among all the places you have been to.

Large-scale player interaction takes place in the mission-waiting areas and main city (Lion's Arch). Here you find players forming groups or trading/buying/selling, and this reminds you that the game is a massively online multiplayer game. This brings me to player versus player action, which is the highlight.

You could say Guild Wars is all about player versus player, but it's done in a way that emphasizes the fun aspects. PvP takes place in areas like the Gladiator Arena and the Tomb of Primeval Kings, with groups of up to eight players battling several other groups. The objective might be to simply kill the other groups, or it might involve protecting a resurrection shrine (where an NPC monk can resurrect fallen team members periodically). There is no loss of experience or equipment when you die (though within missions there is a temporary health/mana penalty), you can only gain experience and fame.

PvP also brings out the strategic elements of Guild Wars. A well-balanced group that has excellent support combinations, skills, and strategies will do much better than a group where the players do not cooperate. There are no large-scale sieges or battles involving hundreds of players, but in other MMOs those tend to dissolve into freewheeling melees with little cooperation or strategy.

Finally, players can found guilds once they have enough gold (which is not that hard to get). They can then freely invite other players to join up. Being in a guild gives you your own nifty guild symbol/colors to wear, as well as a group of players always ready to form a team for missions or PvP arenas. The game also has a special arena for guilds to compete head-on.

I can already envision Guild Wars being popular outside the traditional MMORPG community, especially given that there is no monthly fee. The Guild Wars developers seem well on their way to creating an immensely entertaining, accessible, and affordable game. Good job guys.

For a more detailed review from an experienced Alpha tester:
http://www.epinions.com/content_142722436740

Related Links:
http://www.guildwars.com/default.html
http://archive.gamespy.com/landing/guildwars/
http://www.photics.com/index.php

Some aspects are very good, others need some work.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 23 / 26
Date: June 01, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The first thing that should be stated forthright about this game is that it shouldn't be classified as a massive multiplayer online (MMO) game. Much of the game takes place in private zones that approximately 8 people can access at a single time. There are towns and outposts that can harbor many more players, but these are merely gathering areas to form groups for your private instanced area; the vast majority of this game takes place in very small groups that do not interact with anybody else. In nearly all other MMO games, you're interacting with a large number of people all the time. I suppose there are perks to having your own private area to share with a few other people, but I found much of the playable areas depressingly lonely since there is little, if any player-player interaction.

The game is divided up into two spheres: Player-Versus-Environment, and Player-Versus-Player, with specialized characters devoted to each. Player-versus-environment characters can explore the world AND engage in player-versus-player combat, but player-versus-player characters are restricted to just that: player-versus-player combat. As you progress through the main storyline and other side-quests with your player-versus-environment characters, the skills and items that you discover will be unlocked for any future player-versus-player character you create. If you haven't unlocked any items and skills and would still like to enjoy player-versus-player combat right off the bat, the game comes with several pre-made characters you can use solely for player-versus-player combat. There are six classes of players: warriors, rangers, monks, mesmers, necromancers, and elementalists. Each character has a primary profession and a secondary profession, allowing for interesting combinations of characters such as a player that is primarily a necromancer, but can swing a sword almost as good as a warrior. Some skill combinations don't really work too well, but the fact that there are a potential of 30 different classes combinations is pretty refreshing. In addition, even if you're the same primary and secondary profession as another character, you most likely have a different set of skills, of which you're only allowed to have 8 equipped at one time). This also aids in helping your character feel truly unique.

The main storyline is very good, and I enjoyed progressing through each quest as more of the main story was revealed. When you play through the main storyline, your character and whoever you're partnering up with, be it other human players or computer controlled "bots", are the focus of the quest, and your actions in the storyline make it seem like you're actually doing super-human deeds instead of some trivial task like delivering a package. It is your character that saves entire cities from certain doom, it is your character that holds off armies of undead as they march towards your location; nothing you do is trivial.

But once the main storyline is over, all you're left with is player-versus-player combat, which I personally did not enjoy. There are many strong strategies that people have already figured out for player-versus-player combat, so some battles are more luck than skill. Whenever I played in the player-versus-player arenas, I got the feeling that I was just playing some glorified first person shooter like Unreal Tournament, but with swords and spells. You can go back and try to unlock more items and spells, but this gets very boring and tedious quickly. I tried to play through the main storyline with a different type of character, but didn't find it as enjoyable or engaging as the first run through.

However the main thing makes this game unbearable isn't so much the game mechanics as it is the people who play Guild Wars. There is no community, and you will never see the same person more than one time. Also, in a game that requires a lot of team play and coordination, there is an overabundance of people who simply don't care for tactics and are bound to get your character killed with their carelessness.

The best part of Guild Wars is the fact that there is no monthly fee, and the steaming content that updates as you play. I'm sure ArenaNet will be able to do some interesting things with their streaming content system, but there really wasn't enough substance in the game to keep me hooked for long after I finished the main quest. The player-versus-player combat did not appeal to me, however if you believe that you'll like it, you'll most likely enjoy Guild Wars. If you're going to try this game, I strongly recommend you do so with a group of people that you already know, as there is no player community to speak of.

Not Just For Boys!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 20 / 22
Date: December 11, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I have found that many of the computer games available are mostly running around killing things. The adolescent male fantasy is heightened by blood and body parts flying all over the screen. The mechanics of these games typically depend on super quick hand-eye coordination and hours of free time, which only adolescent males tend to have (of course there is that group of males who remain in this category despite their age in years). Guild Wars is not one of these games.

The interface is easy to figure out, even without years of gaming experience. The characters are fun to develop and easily controlled through use of the keyboard. There are no "hot buttons" that are a must to learn in order to be successful in combat. The combat is not turn-based but it also does not hinge on who has the fastest fingers (I am a two-finger typist). The game mechanics are quite simple to figure out even if you are not a role-playing game expert. The character professions are self-explanatory.

The thing I love most about this game, is that it is something that girls can play and enjoy. I love the quests and missions and the storyline. There is more to do than kill everything in sight. Strategy is just as important as muscle. You are able to play "smart" and still succeed, where in other games it is all about how good of a killing machine you are. Another aspect that I enjoy is that there is no gore splashing all over my screen. Enemies die and disappear without being disemboweled and beheaded right before your eyes.

You have the option of colleting materials and weapons that can be sold or traded in towns. There is a psuedo-economy that makes this very interesting. Item prices fluctuate with the market. Which means you can sometimes get a great bargain if your timing is right! What girl doesn't love a sale?! Plus, you can make gold by selling things you have collected to other characters. You get to haggle which adds to the experience. This aspect of the game is much like "Settler's of Catan". There is also the ability to chat with fellow players. This social option makes playing interesting and enjoyable.

Guild Wars was originally given to my fiancé as a gift but I got hooked on it and had to buy my own copy. Being able to play with other people is great. Now we can play a game together that we both enjoy. I have to admit that I used to be a "gaming widow" at times. He would get wrapped up in a game wouldn't surface for hours. Now we can game together!

Of course, as with anything there are down sides. This game has its problems. For one, there are a lot of immature players online who will get on your nerves. Luckily, you don't have to deal with them if you don't want to. Just leave the town and you are in your own playing world. You can play with henchmen when you need to have extra members in your party.

Another problem is that you max out at level 20. This is frustrating since there are monsters that are level 20+ that you will encounter regularly in the later part of the game. They do massive amounts of damage and have ridiculous armor classes. Being killed so easily and not being able to do much damage is seriously frustrating.

Also, there are players who will "run" low level players to areas so that they can get the best armor. This is highly unfair, since better armor is one of the keys to success, especially when playing in the PvP arena. Overall, however, the cons are outweighed by the pros.

Of course, as with all games that are marketed mainly for adolescent males, the female characters are scantily dressed. However, they are not as bad as some games. The monks actually are fully clothed. The one female player pet peeve that I have is that there is only one female henchman and she is the healer (and later a protector). Talk about stereotyping!! I am hoping that the company will notice this and update the henchmen with more female players.

Guild Wars is a game that girls can play and enjoy. It isn't just for muscle minded shooting players (typically male). I love this game for its non-gamer mechanics and friendly interface. The quests and missions give it a story line and purpose beyond running around killing monsters. I would recommend this game to players who like RPG games and those players who have never thought that RPG games were for them. It has a nice balance of skill and strategy play, plus a story line. Guild Wars is a lot of fun to play and I hope that you will get as much enjoyment from it as I have.

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