Guild Wars

There was a time when gamers gawked at the prospect of paying a monthly fee for a single game, but now the concept of a subscription-free MMORPG seems almost as crazy.

There was a time when gamers gawked at the prospect of paying a monthly fee for a single game, but now the concept of a subscription-free MMORPG seems almost as crazy. However, Guild Wars developer ArenaNet has said that it aims to make money through the sale of content expansion packs. It’s a smart move considering that most gamers are unlikely to spend the time and money on more than one MMORPG, but only time will tell whether or not this will work.

And time is something that Guild Wars won’t steal away from you – at least not too much. Everything about the game is designed so that you don’t need to devote the hours, days and even months of playtime to get somewhere – from the straightforward controls and interface to the relatively low level cap and single-click travel. Even logging out and shutting down the game is almost instant.

If all you’re after is a quick fix of PvP, Guild Wars lets you create a fully leveled PvP-only character for tournament play. No more grinding to get to a PvP-ready level, though you won’t be able to use this character in the normal game. Of course, there is some benefit to leveling up yourself; certain skills, for instance, only become available for use in PvP after you have unlocked them in the normal game.

Character creation can be daunting but the depth of customisation belies what is essentially a simple system. There are six classes (called professions) in the game, which comprise the usual assortment of healers, fighters and magic users. The twist in Guild Wars is that you actually get to choose two of these to create your character resulting in 30 unique character combinations.

If you’ve played any type of RPG, you’ll be at home with the attribute point system. Conveniently, as you gain experience you also gain refund points that allow you to reallocate attribute points. This means you don’t have to worry about making a poor decision when building up your character.

The visuals in Guild Wars are amazing, made even more so by the relatively low system requirements. Subtleties such as shadows cast by branches swaying in the breeze give the environments a realistic feel, and the detailed character models are as likely to influence your choice of professions as are the statistics.

There is a trade off however. Movement around the environment is somewhat restrictive. You are unable to jump, or fall for that matter, and your character also has an aversion to deep water. Even the slightest ledges in the game have an unseen fence that prevents you from falling or otherwise jumping down.

This can become frustrating at times, especially if the seemingly straightforward path between you and your destination suddenly turns out to be blocked by an invisible wall. With these impenetrable barriers around, you’ll also find it’s easy to get stuck between a rock and an invisible place. While it’s not a huge chore to get free, it doesn’t help the frustration factor.

One of the key features of Guild Wars is the lack of server segregation. Although you are automatically assigned to a server based on your location, you can easily switch to another from a dropdown menu. Essentially this means you’re never short of other players to group with, which actually leads to the greatest irony in the game: Finding a group is actually quite difficult.

Towns are the only place in the game where you will encounter other players outside of your own group. When you venture out into the game world, a unique instance is created for your group, even if that group is only you. Though this does stop camping and kill stealing, it does mean that when you get to a town, it’s usually crowded. With so many players, and so much noise in the general chat, it can be quite difficult to find suitable players to quest with. Fortunately, if you are in need of some extra firepower for a particular mission but you can’t round up some human allies, you can hire NPC henchmen to complete the task.

Hopefully an easier way to group will make its way into a patch in the near future. The game has been frequently updated since release which is an encouraging sign of the developer responding to player feedback.

The lack of investment in both time and money that is required to play Guild Wars is both a plus and a minus. It’s not going to replace EQ or WoW, but then again it isn’t designed to. It’ll sit happily beside your current MMORPG of choice as a fun ‘second’ game and if you’ve yet to be exposed to the world of MMO gaming, this is a great initiation. There are still a few rough edges but with regular updates and future (paid for) content chapters in the works, it looks like ArenaNet has a real winner on its hands.