Guild Wars – PC – Preview 2


E3 2004 Previews
“Our
belief is if you have 10 minutes before dinner, you should be able to get into a
game and have 10 minutes of fun,” said Jeff Strain of the ArenaNet Guild Wars
team. 

Strain
was in the NCsoft booth promoting one of the next massively multiplayer online
role-playing games for the Texas MMP publisher at E3 in Los Angeles Friday. 

Guild
Wars takes place in a time after a once-proud kingdom has fallen. It is a time
when new warriors are challenging to lead bands of like-minded individuals to
the promised land. But challenges await along the way.  


ArenaNet, developers of the game, have taken a good long look at MMPs and have
determined that what is out at the moment does not truly satisfy what players
want. To accomplish that, they are taking some new directions with Guild Wars.
For example, there will be no monthly fee for the game. Gamers can purchase the
product and play on the servers free. When the next chapter comes out, players
can purchase that as well, but the game will not require that gamers purchase
successive expansions to enjoy the game.  

“Guild
Wars is also pushing on removing the grind in MMOs,” Strain said. “We are
charting new territory. This is a unique combination of game elements.” 

When a
player undertakes a mission, he or she will be able to select the skills they
wish to take into the mission. It is about how you use that skill that matters
the most. Consider the skills akin to cards from the Magic: The Gathering. Each
card (or skill in this instance) gives certain skills that players can
incorporate. How does one train up a skill? 

“You
don’t,” said Strain, “you find them.” 

This is
a game that is about tactical combat. There is no player crafting and mobs will
drop items that it may be wearing. Each mission in the game has a staging area,
so getting into a party for accomplishing a mission will be easy. Instanced
missions have persistent affects. If you have a mission and kill mobs or
destroyed elements within the game, should you not finish and return to that
area, the environment will be as you left it. 

While
there is no crafting, the game does allow a player to change the color of the
armor that character is wearing through dyeing. Again this is straightforward
and easy to do, and preliminary reports indicate that the robust economy scene
is being driven by players looking for dye.  

The
game also features PvP, whether at the one-on-one area or of up to 24-versus-24.
When the game ships, there will be 7-8 regions as well as a good variety of
missions. If a player dies during a mission or in combat (there is a full-time
tournament), there is no experience-point loss. Instead there is an in-mission
penalty on attributes, but once you leave the mission, you are bounced back to
full skill. 

As for
server stability, the folks who have built this game were responsible for the
Battle.net system for Blizzard.  

Guild
Wars features strong graphics and a solid idea that will benefit the casual
player and challenge the hardcore gamer as well.

   


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Previews