A Mesmer. (Guild Wars)

[Dainger]

  Just wanted to give a report to the illusionist community on Guild Wars.

 

  I decided to pick it up last weekend as i still can't seem to find the motivation to grind out my final 5 levels w/ my illusionist.  If anyone else feels somewhat similair it's my opinion that Guild Wars is a fun tangent while awaiting some future LU #? fix for the class.

 

  It's an interesting game.  Personally i have never been into any kind of PVP type games and essentially GW has been built towards a PVP style, but i've been having a great time w/ thier PVE content.

 

  I currently don't really recognize GW as an MMO as i'd have described one.  Yes, sure there are people running around hawking their wares in every city zone, but most of the game i've played solo.  In this game i really believe any class can solo, this is because of the "Henchmen" system GW has set up.

 

  Basically you're allowed to take any non full group and make it a full group w/ NPC character's called Henchmen that run on predesigned Guild Wars scripts.  So for instance, i'm allowed 6 players in my groups and currently i've been playing w/ myself and 5 Henchmen.  As a general rule the Hencmen are obviously not going to be as efficient or as intelligent as a full fledged group of 6 PC characters.  So throughout most of the content it's probably easier to do it w/ real players rather than henchmen, but the point is that if you can't seem to find that last healer for your 5/6 man group than grab a healer henchmen to fill the role.  Even though it can be somewhat slippery w/ a full henchmen group, a smart player can go through almost all of the content (i believe -- i'm 17/20 right now).  It's just nice that i have the option if i want to.

 

  In my opinion the perfect way to describe GW if one plays it in the fashion that i have played, is that it's kinda like Dungeon Siege built as a MMO, w/ a Magic the Gathering (the card game) twist thrown into it amongst other subtleties.

 

  The comparison for "Magic the Gathering" comes from the fact that a player is only allowed 8 spell/ability slots, but has approx 150'ish spells/abilities to choose from.  On top of this - there is an abilitiy allocation system in place as well.  Allowing you to have a certain amount of "ability points" per level with which you can redistribute continually into your proffesions attributes to tweak how powerful or weak certain spell lines will be.

 

  Each class has 4 attributes, each class has the option of taking a secondary class of which the primary class gains 3 more attributes (the 4'th attribute is reserved for primary's only)

 

  I play a Mesmer/Monk (Mesmer = Enchanter, Monk = Cleric), so before each mission or each time i go adventuring i have been doing quite a bit of spell/attribute reaaranging before heading into the field (you can only reaarange spells/skills in a city - not in an adventure zone).  Assuming the coming content is going to be somewhat easily finished, i'll reaarange my attribute points so that i become quite a DPS machine, and i'll leave most of my monk spells at home perhaps bringing along something for a spot heal, or a resurrect, or added armor.  If the content i'm facing proves to be very challenging - too challenging for my Healer henchmen to keep up - i'll make sure i rearrange my attribute points so that my heals become much more effective and bring several different monk skills leaving alot of my DPS back in the city.

 

  The point is, all of this rearranging of skills/attributes reminds me of "building a deck" when i was a youngster foolin aroung w/ Magic the Gathering (i.e. before MMO's).  I assume it will feel even more this way if i ever attempt some PVP - as each class has it's strength and it's weakness and each class is highly flexible in their playstyle.  Meaning that one class can seem indestructible built one certain way - yet as soon as a player analyzes that classes build, that player can now adapt his own class to counter the indestructible class in each way, taking away it's strengths and exploiting it's weaknesses.

 

  Anyways i've had fun the last week or so, and due to the no subscription fee for GW i already feel like i've recieved my money's worth.

 

Pros:

• Henchmen system
• be in a full group all the time if you want/need.  Can't find a healer to join your group of RL players? or need a tank? what about a DPS? grab a henchmen and fill those last spots.
• Attribute Point system
• Given full opportunity to be able to test and retest different "builds" or distributions of your points.  This allows for several different playstyes for each primary class/secondary class mix. 
• There is a slight negative effect to retracting allocated points but it's so minimal it's not worth discussing.
• Allowed only 8 spell slots
• The player is once again put to the test and given the freedom of choice.  Throughout most of this game the player has to make quite a few choices that will impact his playstyle deeply.  Personally i like the choice given to the player attitude, and the 8 spell slots makes you choose, and it can be tough to decide.
• No monthly subscription Fee
• Each time you adventure, a fresh instance is created for you and your groups enjoyment
• This means no Kill Stealing, and no PVP "ganking"
• This also means that other players are only ever encountered within the city-type zones
• Groups are only able to be formed while in a city-type zone.  So as you play guild wars and you're looking for a group -- you shout the LFG thing for a few minutes.....if no responses than you grab yourself 5 henchmen and head out to your own instance of the adventure zone you wish.  If you do find a group; you join them and wait for the group to be complete - if a 5'th or 6'th player can not be found than grab 2 more henchmen and head on out.
• No long LFG times - accompanied by your own fresh instance of the adventure zone.  (no contested mobs either)
• Travel is very easy
• You are able to insta-warp between any city zone that you have previously discovered.
• Initially your aware of one city, as you travel from that city you may discover a new city.  Now that you have made the trip to that city successfully one time, Guild Wars assumes you could do it again - and now if you ever wish to travel there, open your world map and click travel on your desired city type zone and you'll automatically zone there.

Cons:

• No system set up for selling wares, besides /auctioning
• no offline selling either....if you want to participate in the market - welcome to Gfaydark.
• Seems like when i have grouped - i've had the unfortunate luck of grouping w/ a bunch of kids.
• Most likely due to the game being geared around PVP it's much more chalk full of the kinds of players that generally disturb me.
• I've grouped w/ only a few people that seemed respectable --- yet as i said before i've not grouped horribly often in this game.
• No abilitiy to choose a different race
• I wouldn't even call what GW has different Races.....it's more like different versions of humans.  If you're gonna be a warrior your a big strong "barbarian" human, if you like to play a ranger your a lithe mountainy looking human, if you'd like to play a necromancer than you're a kinda skinny human w/ scars and most of them are pale.
• you can customize your appearance slighly within each class you choose so there is some differentiation -- but there's not as much variety as found in EQ2
• 20 level max currently
• if you play hard you can achieve level 20 in approx 2 weeks.
• but there's a flipside to this -- at charactcer creation you're able to choose to make a "RP" char or a "PVP" char.  When you make a "PVP" char - you are only allowed to use the skills/abilities/weapons/runes that you have unlocked on your account.  The way you unlock any item for your entire account is by having a RP char find/earn that item in the PVE game.
• I plan on leveling at least one more char to 20, and i plan on making it a char that i would like to use as a different secondary to my mesmer.
• I'm leveling Mesmer/Monk currently -- but i've read that there are some particularly good PVP strategies if you have a Mesmer built w/ a different subclass.  So say i wanted to have an elementalist secondary for my PVP role, or some other class - than it would be most efficient for me to level up an elementalist aquiring all of the elementalist skills i could find.  Than at some time if i'd like to build a PVP Mesmer/Elementalist -- i will be able to use all of the skills from both classes.
• Also there are things called "Elite" skills/spells.  These are spells that can not be purchased or found or quested for throughout GW.  The only way to aquire them is by engaging in combat w/ a Boss MoB of your class type and using a "capture spell" type ability on the MoB when it uses the Elite skill you wish to capture.  There are quite a few Elite skills for each class - and i understand it can be time consuming to get them all.  So in otherwords once your 20 there are still quite a few things you can do to increase your characters power.......i'm not sure if there are Raid MoBs though - i somewhat doubt it.

Neutral:

• PVP if you like it --- PVE if you don't
• Linear Progressing Storyline
• i'm enjoying the storyline - but to me it definately makes the game feel more like a single player game, as i tend to associate a non-linear world w/ MMO's
• Only 6 classes to choose from
• initially i would have considered this a con, but after playing the game for awhile i've found that there's not really just 6 classes, but quite a few hundred different builds/playing styles capable.  Though i don't consider it a pro because i would like to eventually see 4 or more attributes (1 or more classes) added to the game.
• No server distinction
• at character creation you do not have to choose a server to play on, everyone plays in the same massive world.  How this is accomplished i'm sure is linked to their instancing system
• Larger more massive player community means that it's not a very tight nit community (i.e. getting to know others that you can play w/ can prove to be a challenge).  But on the flipside of this is that if you find out a month from starting the game that one of your long lost friends also plays - you both don't have to worry about being on the same server....you can meet up w/ your friends anywhere any time.

  Anyways, GW is definately a different spin on the MMO stepping stone and i feel it's worth giving a shot.  As far as long term replay value (i.e. EQ1) i feel that EQ2 is most likely still the top combatant, but if you're looking for a slight break or even a small tangent -- GW is a fun game to try out and the twist they gave enchanters (mesmers) is quite enjoyable.

Message Edited by Dainger on 05-12-2005 03:40 PM

[SunT]

Thanks for the summary.

It will save me from buying the game to check it out.

I personally have no interest in this game.  I don't care for PVP and feel it is heavilly in favor of fifteen year old kids who play all day long all summer, then come and reap havock on me when I want to go adventure.  This game seems heavilly directed at the pvp player.

I really like the Henchman concept and would love to see it in EQ2.  Maybe have a limit of one.  It would really help out in this game when playing in offpeak times.

Interesting concept, but I think it will be a flash in the pan for MMO's. 

[God_of_Avalon]

People equate pvp with kids but it takes a LOT more intelligence to win a battle against another group of real people then it does to beat down some random mobs in EQ2.

 

It takes a higher level of intelligence to sucseed in Guild Wars then it does in EQ2.

 

1) it requires you to THINK out a strategy to defend agaist other players

 

2) it requires you to THINK on how to build your char

 

3) it requires you to THINK about how to chain your spells

 

 

[Vurin]

Or you could play 20 hours a day, practice like crazy. And learn by doing... and you can do that with a mininium of thinking and still being immature and a child and using l33t speak.

[SunT]

---

Vurin wrote:
Or you could play 20 hours a day, practice like crazy. And learn by doing... and you can do that with a mininium of thinking and still being immature and a child and using l33t speak.

---

Just like UO.  They had the gear and the time.  Ripped the fun right out of the game.

[Darmash]

It's fun with a group of friends, with a surprisingly interesting tournament system. It's not rocket science, but a good group that works together (from the start like choosing spells, to combining them in fight) can go far, much more than random groups. Through the combining things, it looks much like Magic : the Gathering tactics.

[Erasm]

Im playing guildwars too. And oddly enough, im a mesmer/monk I love torturing the monks They hate mesmers.

 

I got to lvl 20 in 4 days. Maxing your level is just a small step in getting PvP ready, as well as the story line. You are actually made lvl 20 automatically about 3/4 of the way through the missions. If you play it to level up, you will be disappointed.

 

The player base is BY FAR, the most [expletive ninja'd by Faarbot] bunch of kids ever. Mostly because its free so everyone and thier grandkids play. Honestly, this is the only part of the game I dont like. I mean, I like that it's free. I just dont like the people. The level of rudeness and stupidity is amazing. Forunately, henchmen save the day. Its not until VERY late in the game ( final few missions) that henchmen jsut dont cut it. And thats soley a problem with thier mitigation vs. one particular attack type, that players can correct and henchmen cannot.

 

The combat is fast and fun. There is more thought than just run and spam attacks.

 

The PvP is great. Its an arena system. No ganking or PK at all.

 

Its an awesome game, just not one that can occupy you for years. Its like diablo II in many many ways. It jsut got a graphical and strategic update.

 

 

[MsTak]

I've been playing Guild Wars too.  I started with a monk/mezzer combo but just wasn't happy with it so I switched to a warrior/elementist. 

 

The story line is more developed, the game leads you by the hand to the end game.

 

I hear the PVP is pretty good--I haven't played it much at all.

 

It has kept me busy while I wait for Sony to fix *Cough yea right cough* the Illusionist so I could play this one again.