Guild Wars...

[Cyrocloud]

The title might be misleading, but I was wondering if any one has any experience with it and weather is worth the 30 bucks or whatever.  My friends been buggin me to get it so I was kinda curious what peoples general oppinion of it was.

[Peaboo]

I would say yes, definately worth it. Take the best parts of WoW, and get rid of many of the bad parts.

The areas are instanced, which means there's no ganking while you're just trying to finish a quest. Online play is free, no monthly downloads. The game is always updating so there's no downtime- it will update each time you log on. You don't have to "walk" everywhere as you can open the map and instantly teleport to where you need to be.

And, if you're a character optimizer, out of the many skills, you can have 8 of them "active" and available in your tool bar, but you can save the configuation of whatever skills you have and make other choices. It costs nothing to redesign your character choices. (Except for class. You're stuck with what you select until later levels.)

[X-Codes]

I would say yes, definately worth it. Take the best parts of WoW, and get rid of many of the bad parts.

The areas are instanced, which means there's no ganking while you're just trying to finish a quest. Online play is free, no monthly downloads. The game is always updating so there's no downtime- it will update each time you log on. You don't have to "walk" everywhere as you can open the map and instantly teleport to where you need to be.

And, if you're a character optimizer, out of the many skills, you can have 8 of them "active" and available in your tool bar, but you can save the configuation of whatever skills you have and make other choices. It costs nothing to redesign your character choices. (Except for class. You're stuck with what you select until later levels.)

This statement is mostly true, but misleading.  If you assume that WoW is made up of 10 good parts and 10 bad parts, you could find about 4 similarly good parts and 2 similarly bad parts in Guild Wars, and that's the entire game.

Seriously, I see Guild Wars as being part grind, part uninspired PvP.  The only upside is that you get to play online with a bunch of people without a monthly fee attached, and for casual gaming that's fine, but that's really all there is to it.  The vast array of skills and classes actually counts against it in my eyes because unlocking it all is the Wikictionary Definition of "Tedious Grindfest."

[PhaedrusXY]

A friend of mine from another online MMORPG (Dark Age of Camelot) used to try and get me to play that. He raved about it. He was heavily into PvP, and didn't really care for alot of the other things in most other MMORPGs, so that probably explains why he liked it so much.

[Prime32]

I haven't played much of GW, but I didn't like what I played - it's too restrictive compared to WoW.

I mean, you can't even jump! In WoW, I always climbed as far up into the mountains as I could.

[Peaboo]

From what I understand, that's changing with GW2.

But- jumping isn't the end all be all of games. Indeed, seeing someone hop around all over the place gets annoying.

[clarkcd]

I mean, you can't even jump! In WoW, I always climbed as far up into the mountains as I could.

I see this all the time and it boggles my mind.  What is so cool about jumping?  Does it get you anything that you couldn't get without a jump button?

I've played close to 3000 hours of GW (all the way from Beta) and I never found it too restricting, or at least no more restricting than playing Neverwinter Nights, Knights of the Old Republic or Baldur's Gate.

As for grinding... you only need to grind to get the "elite" skins.  For those that don't know a skin is just the way a weapon looks and doesn't affect it's abilities at all.  Anyone can have the best items by playing through the game at a normal pace and doing most/all of the quests.  Sure if you dash through the game, only doing the main quests, you won't have much money but then you're missing the majority of the game.  Now with three different continents to explore and additional content that has been added to the main continent there is a LOT to see and do.

End the end GW is a fun game that allows you to play online with or without friends for just the cost of the game.  NO MONTHLY FEE.  That is why GW will always have my business while games like WoW, D&DO and CoH/CoV will never be purchased by me.

[X-Codes]

As for grinding... you only need to grind to get the "elite" skins.  For those that don't know a skin is just the way a weapon looks and doesn't affect it's abilities at all.  Anyone can have the best items by playing through the game at a normal pace and doing most/all of the quests.  Sure if you dash through the game, only doing the main quests, you won't have much money but then you're missing the majority of the game.  Now with three different continents to explore and additional content that has been added to the main continent there is a LOT to see and do.

No, the only thing in the game that isn't a grindfest are the main quest and the PvP.  Every last quest (not including tutorial quests) outside of those are kill X monsters, loot X items from monsters, or go to another location.

[Prime32]

I mean, you can't even jump! In WoW, I always climbed as far up into the mountains as I could.

I see this all the time and it boggles my mind.  What is so cool about jumping?  Does it get you anything that you couldn't get without a jump button?

You cannot go over cliffs in Guild Wars, IIRC.

[clarkcd]

No, the only thing in the game that isn't a grindfest are the main quest and the PvP.  Every last quest (not including tutorial quests) outside of those are kill X monsters, loot X items from monsters, or go to another location.

I guess I don't see how that's different from most/all RPGs.  In almost every RPG I've ever played (especially MMORPGs) there are many, many kill x monsters, loot x items, go here and talk to person x quests.  They're the backbone of those games.  While I said I will never purchase a MMORPG that requires a monthly fee I have played a few others like Everquest and City of Heroes during free trials as well as the free MMORPG Requiem.  In all three there is lots of the same so I wouldn't say that GW is unique in it's level of these types of quests.

Perhaps I use the term grind differently than you do.  When I say grind I mean kill the same boss/mob/whatever repeatedly to farm gold/items/experience so you can continue on with the game/get the phat loot.

You cannot go over cliffs in Guild Wars, IIRC.

That's true but what does it really get you to go over cliffs in WoW that you miss out on in GW?

----------

As an aside the things that GW does as good or better than most RPGs is its complete removal of kill stealing, treasure stealing, spawn point farming, player killing (unless you go PvP) and a reliance on real live people to enjoy the game with.

[Prime32]

You cannot go over cliffs in Guild Wars, IIRC.

That's true but what does it really get you to go over cliffs in WoW that you miss out on in GW?

BASE jumping is quite popular in WoW... How far a drop can your character survive? Heck, you could even jump out of an airship if your destination was en-route.

As an aside the things that GW does as good or better than most RPGs is its complete removal of kill stealing, treasure stealing, spawn point farming, player killing (unless you go PvP) and a reliance on real live people to enjoy the game with.

But that's all the fun of a massively multiplayer game!

[CountArioch]

You cannot go over cliffs in Guild Wars, IIRC.

That's true but what does it really get you to go over cliffs in WoW that you miss out on in GW?

BASE jumping is quite popular in WoW... How far a drop can your character survive? Heck, you could even jump out of an airship if your destination was en-route.

Infinite, assuming a mage with a big enough supply of light feathers.

[X-Codes]

Yes, all MMO's use that for their quests.  I'm just saying that it's no better than WoW.

Also, there are downsides to instanced zones, too.  It requires a lot more server power to keep the instances running and theres a good chance you could be running around forever looking for someone to do the side-missions with you in town because everyone doing every side-mission is also going to be in town trying to find a group instead of being relatively close to the objective.

[Kai]

You can always take henchmen to complete quests if you can't find other people to help, but the OP mentioned that his friends wanted him to play, so why would they not help him with the quests?\

Most of the game's info is stored on your computer so there's not really all that much problem with the server, I've only found serious lag when there are in game events and those don't come all that often.



Personally I like the game. It held my interest for all of the beta and 2 plus years after that. I haven't been that active lately as GW2 looms on the distant horizon, but any time I want to play, my account is there just as I left it with all of my stuff. I don't feel bad about wasting a subscription fee when I don't want to play... *shrug* I'd say give it a try if all of your friends are playing it. Which, come to think of it, if they are they could probably get you a free trial to test it out...

[Cyrocloud]

Well I got the game and it caught my attention at first, but I also got FFT war of lions (I think i've clocked at least 8 hours each day since I got it.) at the same time so I haven't been playing much Guild wars but it does seem like a good game thanks.

The only complaint I have of it so far is that the only players besides my friends I talk to are extortionist bastards, but I guess they're also the ones who'll go out of their way to talk.