Guild Wars - A niche market.

Hi guys and gals!

I know this is a little overdue, but I'm reviewing the first Guild Wars. I'm only doing the first one because I don't have extensive experience with the expansions; and they maintain the general game design of the first.

I'd first like to point out that I am a hardcore MMO player, as opposed to the casual 4-6 hours per week type.

The basic premise of Guild Wars is about removing massive grind (PvE) and replacing it with a wide variety of PvP. Although they did keep some PvE in the game, its limited at best; the PvP is not involving enough to warrant playing for 6-8 hours daily. Thus this is not a game for hardcore players. However, due to the lack of a monthly fee, its a very viable option as a "second" game you can play when taking a break from a primary MMO.

On that note, the most enjoyable concept of the game is the skill/PvP system. Each character chooses a primary and secondary class. With the main focus of the stats orientated for the primary, yet gaining the skills of the secondary. Each class has roughly 100 skills, making for a total of 200 skills for each character. These skills must be either purchased from an NPC or stolen from a monster using specific skills/items. The exciting part is that you can only ever bring 8 skills into a PvP match (PvP games are instanced), and you are always warring with a guild or party or random collection of people. Thus coordination, teamwork, and quick wit become very important aspects of the game.

The stat system is unique in that it adds specific bonuses to various aspects of your damage or character abilities; such as an "increase fire damage" stat for a Elementalist. The nice part is that these stats can be modified almost daily, to reduce one, or add to another. This is required as your "build" or "strategy" of skills you bring into battle may change, and thus you may want to increase lightning damage instead of fire damage.

As you can see, the coordination of highly skilled guilds will dominate the GvG scene. And there is many tournaments/rankings in this area to encourage such competition. Also, the PvP comes in a wide variety, from a variation of capture the flag, kill all the other team, various "castle siege" styles. And even surviving onslaughts of NPC's; with I'm sure many more varieties offered in the expansions. They really focused on PvP and made sure it was enjoyable.

The PvE aspect of the game is almost entirely instanced, as you start doing basic "instances" of quests with 4-6 party members. You can hire NPC's if you wish to do it solo, but the party members are generally easy to find. It is in the PvE that you find much of your rare gear and you can "steal" monster's skills. In addition to the instanced PvE, there is an actual "world" also, where you can explore, find monsters, and find gear. It is quite large and has many hidden bosses (big arse dragons), however its not very populated by anything but open space and monsters. And with a level cap, it takes at most 1-2 weeks to reach it through conventional grinding.

I think the game is done brilliantly well, with the only exception being limited PvE, and thus a lack of hardcore players. But with the current business model of zero monthly fees, you just purchase the game, it offers some competitive entertainment for the casual and hardcore player alike. If you like for PvP, this game is your holy grail.

Rating:
9/10

Advice for casual gamer:
PLAY

Advice for hardcore gamer:
keep it as an option

-RF