Guild Wars Preview

NCsoft and ArenaNet recently kicked off their World Preview Event of the PC-title Guild Wars, their highly anticipated MMORPG, in San Francisco and across the globe on Friday, October 29.  NCsoft invited GameZone down for a hands-on preview and a chat with the developers of the game. 

Over a few cocktails and a mean batch of hummus, I spoke to some of the development team and got my paws on the game while players from around the world simultaneously played the latest build online.  PC owners are no strangers to MMORPGs, as an abundance of titles have flooded the genre in recent years.  But there are a few key things that separate Guild Wars from the rest of the pack, and they’re innovative, accessible, and intelligent additions to the genre.   

Like traditional MMORPG RPGs, Guild Wars allows users to create a character (up to four per account) and set them out to adventure in a world full of quests, enemies, and other online players.  There are six classes to choose from, including hearty Warriors, nature-minded Rangers, healing Monks, magical Elementalists, anti-magic Mesmers, and black magic Necromancers.  For the sake of the demonstration, all characters in the World Preview Event start off as 15^th level characters, which is coincidentally the minimum level to dual-class.  Once you scour several options for your character’s appearance (each class has its own set of visages), it’s time to take on the world and forge a destiny.

Like Siegfried and Roy… but with more A$$-kicking…

The world map will feature several destinations, including quests, towns, and the always busy tournaments.  Quests and towns are fairly obvious for RPG vets.  By clicking on the world map on a quest, you enter the quest lobby with other potential adventurers, both real online players and computer controlled NPCs.  Joining a party or inviting people to your own is as simple as a few clicks, and once a party is ready to roll, just hit a certain button and you’re in.  Each quest can be attempted at anytime by anyone in its entirety, so there’s no worrying about walking through a corpse-filled quest just because some high levels decided to clear it out for a few thousand experience points.  Quests can take anywhere from twenty minutes on, with some boss battles even taking a team of developers more than two hours to complete.  Towns are a great place to exchange goods, gather skills, or just hang out in one of the prettiest chat rooms around.  The tournaments are player versus player challenges where teams of competitors battle for fame and the glory of user-created guilds.  During the event, ArenaNet had 4-on-4 quick battles (jump in and play) and 8-on-8 party battles (assemble a team).  These battles are for individual player fame (literally, you win fame points…) and guild supremacy.  It is in these battlegrounds that the unique battle system and strategy of Guild Wars really shines.

Unlike traditional RPGs, Guild Wars focuses on strategy rather than putting long hours into slaving over experience points, getting dexterity points, etc.  Strategy mainly comes in the form of using various skills which are acquired through various means – acquiring them through quests, from people in towns, and yes, spending experience points.  Each class has 75 skills unique to the class, and each character can dual-class (once they reach level 15).  This makes a grand total of 450 skills in the entire game.  Each character has eight slots in which to take skills into quests or tournament battles (skills can’t be exchanged within a tournament match or quest), and when a character dual-classes he has access to up to 150 skills.  It isn’t necessarily how strong the skills are, but how they are used, and this is where the strategy element comes in.  For example, a mesmer can use a skill called ‘Spread Condition’, which inflicts all enemies with a condition, i.e. slow or silence.  A ranger can use ‘Poison Arrow’.  Should a ranger shoot an enemy with a poison arrow, a mesmer teammate can use the spread condition skill to inflict poison damage on all enemies.  Guild Wars focuses largely on team cooperation and knowledge of the game.   

Time for a little sword surgery ...

“On the first day of E3 for Everyone (Guild Wars’ E3 demo that was played across the web), we (a team of developers) were winning just about every match handily.  On the 2nd day, we were getting killed,” said Brant Fitzgerald, Special Effects Artist on Guild Wars.  It was an obvious display of brain over brawn.  Even after one day, players were getting the system, and countering moves in unique and creative ways, and with 450 skills to work with, the strategies aren’t likely to come to a halt.  Do you attack the enemy party’s healers and try and halt the resurrection and healing, or try and isolate and kill the warrior tanks and keep healers from accessing their corpses which can be brought to life? 

But this isn’t the only thing that makes Guild Wars unique.  Possibly the number one reason to get into Guild Wars can be summed up in three words: no monthly subscription.  “We just want our players to have fun,” said Fitzgerald, with a smirk on his face.  It’s a unique idea rare among online MMORPGs.  Guild Wars will also stream information directly to your computer, meaning any new builds will go into effect the next time you load the game.  “If there’s a bug, it can be fixed virtually instantly.  If anyone is cheating, we can fix it right away,” said Producer Jeff Strain.  All you’ll have to do is quit out and reload the game.  And what would Guild Wars be without Guilds?  Guild Wars features user-created guilds that can virtually overflow with members.  Each guild can create a talberd, an insignia or coat of arms that each guild member can wear and be easily identified by.  And if you needed any more proof that Guild Wars is shaping up to be a solid game, you needn’t look any further than the founders of ArenaNet, who are ex-employees of Blizzard, creators of such hits as StarCraft, WarCraft, and Diablo. 

From bassist for Marilyn Manson to Necromancer in Guild Wars.
 

If graphics are your bag, Guild Wars will not disappoint.  The landscapes are all individually created by the development team’s army of artists to create a world that looks amazing and real.  Each skill (yes all 450 of them) has a unique visual effect that sparkles on the screen.  The game is simply beautiful. 

Guild Wars is still in its late Alpha stage, but from what we saw, the game is shaping up to be a fantastic addition to online gaming and should delight MMORPG fans with its unique take on the genre.  The game is carrying a “T” for Teen rating, and is slated for a February 1, 2005 release.