Guild Wars (GW) is an interesting blend of the new and the old, insofar as it borrows much from other massively multi-player, on-line, role-playing games (MMORPGs) and welds it to new mechanisms. GW's biggest hook is arguably that it requires no subscription fee to play. The developers intend to make their money through the purchase of the original game plus whatever they charge for additional content packs. Given that all the other MMORPGs I've tried can quickly end up costing as much as half a dozen other games over the course of a year, that's a pretty big deal.
To be honest from the outset there's really no "finishing" an MMORPG, but I've logged enough hours with GW that I'm confident in reviewing it. I thought it might be the MMORPG for me for a number of reasons, not the least of which being its business model. Pre-release play revealed interesting innovations in several categories, beautiful graphics, and an all around good time. The question to be addressed today is whether the release version holds up under scrutiny.
Wow! Is this really an MMORPG?! I remember being impressed with Dark Age of Camelot (DAoC), the only other MMORPG with which I've spent sufficient time to provide a worthwhile review, despite its graphics being sub-par compared to first-person shooter (FPS) games of its era. Though GW won't be mistaken for Quake IV any time soon, it's the best looking MMORPG I've seen. The modeling is great, the textures are nicely detailed, the shaders and effects are beautiful, and on and on and on. The lush fields of pre-scar Ascalon are as breathtaking as the awful devastation of post-sear Ascalon.
Arguably even more impressive, however, is that the game renders it all with ease. I could run it at 1600 x 1200 x 32 bpp with 4x antialiasing and 8x anisotropic filtering, even with a last-generation video card. I don't know how the developers managed to make it run so well and look so good, but they surely got the job done. In short, I don't find anything substantive to complain about with the visuals in GW. I love the artistic style, and the execution (technical and otherwise) is fabulous.
The only gripe I can think to raise is that none of the characters have articulated facial features; i.e., their mouths remain closed while speaking. This wouldn't be such a big deal if so many of the game's cut-scenes didn't provide close-ups, but as it stands the dramatic effect is lessened considerably. It reminds the player that he's watching an animated toy with a voice track, rather than listening to a person. It's not a big deal in the grand scheme, though; I'm just getting spoiled by other games (grin).
The audio holds pace nicely with the visuals. The sound effects are well done, the audio effects are all as they should be, and the music is surprisingly beautiful. If I ever find this game's soundtrack available on CD, I will buy it. The only thing I can find fault with in the game's audio is that some of the voice acting is less than convincing. Some of the dialogue comes off as silly and stilted, particularly when the game is trying too hard to be dramatic. Still, this isn't a big deal; none of it is bad enough to ruin the experience. Suffice it to say that the game's audio is good enough, and that's what counts.
The interface is both simple and functional. I can easily track my gaming pals, the chat windows let me communicate efficiently, the action bar (or whatever you want to call it) makes it trivial for me to use the various skills I've chosen, and so forth. I think the game could be improved with more shortcuts, easier ways to talk about items in the game, more options for key bindings, etc., but it's pretty darned functional as it is. The developers were clearly aiming at the simplistic mechanics of Diablo, and they succeeded admirably well for an MMORPG.
I can remember starting DAoC and being completely lost. And even after I "got it", the interface still seemed needlessly baroque. It often felt more like some kind of visual IRC client than a game, at least in terms of its interface. In contrast, GW is a very simple game to pick up and play, which makes it pretty unique among MMORPGs. Yes, I do agree that more power-user features would be welcome, but that would also raise the level of complexity. Given the choice, I'll take a simple game over a complicated chat client anyday.
Ok, let me get the big complaint off my chest: parties should be maintained across instanced areas! I don't know what the designers were thinking, but it's almost like they set out to create an MMORPG that's downright hostile to groups. Every time I instant-travel somewhere, I run the risk of ending up in an area different from the rest of my party. True, it's easy enough to use the drop-down selector to regroup with my friends, but I shouldn't have to do this in the first place! MMORPG games place a high premium on grouping, so constantly breaking up groups is a major stupidity.
Aside from that complaint, everything else works pretty well. I will confess to a love/hate relationship with the eight-slot limit on the action bar, but I must grudgingly admit that it forces the player to choose wisely. For those who haven't played the game, GW is unlike other MMORPGs in that it forces the player to cull a maximum of eight skills from the hundred-plus a character will possess at higher levels. The action bar can be edited only while in town, so those choices will make or break the game play experience elsewhere. Choose the right abilities and you'll do well; choose poorly and you'll be getting wasted. Those eight slots are very precious.
The instant travel also deserves some discussion. Similar to the portals in Diablo II, GW lets the player travel instantly to any city he's already visited. This essentially slays the awful dragon of running between cities (as is the case with so many other MMORPGs), and for this reason alone I love it! The only caveat, of course, is that it does diminish the world's sense of scale. There's a tricky balancing act here, and I'm not honestly sure where the proper answer lies. What I can say is that while I do love the ability to get back to a town instantly, it does make the world seem a lot smaller and a lot less believable.
But enough about complaints! The mechanics of GW are great in plenty of ways. Perhaps best of all, in my book at least, is that the leveling "grind" isn't a grind at all! DAoC was absolutely painful to play at times, because it was always more of the same: (1) pull monster, (2) beat on monster, (3) wait to recover health/mana. Lather, rinse, repeat. The down time alone drove me nuts. In contrast, GW is far better paced. Because health/mana recover so much more quickly outside of combat, the player never has to sit around waiting to recover health and mana. Every point is precious in combat, but post-combat recovery simply isn't an issue; it makes the leveling process far more enjoyable. The pacing is simply flawless.
I should also note that the dual-tiered "quest" system is worthwhile. Whereas other MMORPGs have quests, GW has quests and... well... I guess I'll call them "missions" for lack of a better term. The basic quests in GW are the same as you'll find in other games; so and so wants you to go kill some number of fuzzles, while another wants you to collect some thingamabob from a bad place, etc. The missions, however, are more like something ripped out of a single-player game. They're specific to the various places they begin, and their content is essentially fixed, so you might expect them to be dull. But their variety is such a breath of fresh air that they're a blast.
For example, my favorite quest involved traveling through a particular area, accomplishing some of the more typical objectives at the outset, but then later finding and using catapults to soften up enemy positions before a final assault. Ultimately, the quest ends with a huge, last-stand sort of battle, which was just the right capstone to a fine little mini-adventure. I realize other MMORPGs have "raids" and dungeons that feature such mini-adventures, but they're usually inaccessible to the lower-level characters. In contrast, GW gets this absolutely right, insofar as it gives players neat little missions far more quickly. They're a lot of fun to play, particularly with a group of friends.
Big kudos are also deserved for the nicely flexible class/profession system. Most MMORPGs give the player options as to how his character will develop, but the options themselves are written in stone once the character's class/profession/whatever-you-want-to-call-it is chosen. GW breaks this mold by letting the character add a secondary class to the primary class, for a total of thirty different possibilities. Each character's basic attributes advance according to his primary class, but he will also have access to secondary class skills and will receive attribute points (as he levels) to improve his skills along different trees appropriate to each class. It's an ingenious system and allows some very interesting combinations.
Take my favorite character, for example. He is a necromancer/elementalist, which makes him pretty versatile. His secondary profession gives him access to powerful area of effect spells, direct damage spells, etc., while his primary profession lets him summon minions, cast devastatingly powerful health-stealing spells, curse, and generally mess up someone's day. I find he can soften up enemies with his elemenalist skills, then distract them with minions while stealing their health as needed. It's a pretty potent combination. He can't hang in a straight-up fight all that long, but his health-draining spells do a whopping amount of damage in a short time, and he's a lot of fun to play because of it; i.e., he can deliver killing blows with aplomb.
Speaking of flexibility, I absolutely love the system for buying back attribute points. The ability to buy back points accrues over time, which makes it quite painless to re-spec a character. In contrast to DAoC, where a re-spec was possible only once in a character's lifetime (at least when I was still playing), GW is much more forgiving. Other MMORPGs could take a note from GW in this regard, as it's incredibly frustrating to get stuck with the results of bad decisions or an accidental click at the wrong moment. If anything, the system in GW might be too forgiving, insofar as it makes it possible to redefine a character completely without much effort. Given a choice, I would rather games err on the side of flexibility, but I suspect there's a better, happier medium out there somewhere waiting to be found.
The story is surprisingly gripping for an MMORPG game. Most such games don't reach out and grab me like GW does. Perhaps it's the manifest drama of the whole searing-of -the-land thing, but the story lends a sense of urgency to the game. Somehow my mind doesn't classify it as generic and forgettable fantasy drivel (as happened with Dungeon Siege), and that's a good thing. The world clearly has a detailed back story, and the player is made to feel like a significant part of an important history. That's about as good as it gets for video games, so I have no substantive complaints with the story of GW. My only gripe is that "The Char" is a stupid name for the bad guys (grin).
Here's where GW's focus becomes apparent. The game world is big, to be sure, but it's not completely overwhelming as is the case with many MMORPGs. I had a pretty good grasp of the world and its size within my first twenty hours of playing the game. This is due, in part, to the game's fast pace, but it's also due to the more limited scope of GW. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's more that GW has a different focus than other MMORPGs, namely, on the player versus player (PvP) contests. The real centerpiece of GW is neither dungeons nor raids, but rather grouped, PvP combat.
In one sense this is clearly a good thing, insofar as it serves both kinds of players, those who enjoy player versus environment (PvE) and those who enjoy PvP. But make no mistake: this design decision greatly influences the game's content. GW is simply not as "big" as the other MMORPG games out there; i.e., it is not as expansive, it is not as diverse, and it gives up many of the features of other MMORPG games because of its focus. No doubt its focus will thrill many, but I can't help missing the crafting system present in other such games, and I'm sure others will be disappointed that there aren't any options for those who don't like constant combat.
I must also complain that the number of characters allowed is quite limited compared to other games. Whereas other MMORPGs typically let players create multiple characters on each server/realm/shard/whatever, GW limits a player to a grand total of four characters. Die-hards can get past this, of course, by buying additional copies of the game, but it doesn't make the limitation any less irritating. I assume this stems from the whole no-monthly-fee business model, but four is a pretty limiting number even given the lack of a monthly fee.
Having said these things, though, what GW does provide is very good. The environments are diverse, the bestiary is interesting, the items are worthwhile, etc. The game provides a lot of good content, enough that most players are going to have quite a bit of fun navigating through the world. By the time a character hits the level cap, he ought to be well prepared for the games to come, and the gladiatorial combat is as fun as one would expect.
Most impressive of all, at least from the standpoint of one who writes software for a living, is that the game seems so well-optimized. I don't know how they've done it, but GW loads as close to instantly as any software on my system. I double click the icon to play, and I'm at the login screen before most games have even shown me their initial splash screen! Better still, content updates and new areas are downloaded on the fly without any obvious performance hit. I am stunned, amazed, and in awe of GW as a piece of software; I hope other developers will take note and follow suit. If a game as big as GW can do what it does as quickly as it does it, then there is precisely zero excuse for the minute-plus load times I regularly observe in other games.
Finally, as I've already mentioned several times, GW eschews the traditional MMORPG business model completely. In this sense, it is the MMORPG for the rest of us. Subscription fees play a big role in my purchase decisions, and I have to say there have been plenty of MMORPGs I haven't even tried because I knew I wouldn't want to cough up the money each month. GW is completely painless in this regard, because you can play for as long as you like once you've bought the game. Most MMORPGs give you a month's worth of credit for purchasing the boxed game, but GW gives you unlimited play. Over a year's time, you might spend $150 or more on subscription fees for other games, to say nothing of the cost of the initial purchase, so GW is an incredible value as MMORPGs go.
Since GW is inherently a multi-player game, everything I've said thus far concerns its multi-player aspect. The additional things I'll mention here are those that deal specifically with the networking aspects, which seem quite solid overall. Aside from some initial launch-day woes, GW is one of the more solid MMORPGs I've seen. Connecting is fast and reliable, and lag has rarely been a problem for me. When a lag spike does hit the results can be pretty bad, but I haven't seen all that many of them. I have seen some player warping, and I have seen some cases in which monsters weren't actually where their avatars were being rendered, but on the whole the game is solid.
It's hard for me to write, because there's so much to love about the game, but GW just isn't the MMORPG for me. It has an elegance and a simplicity that is possible only because the game is so sharply focused; its pacing is perfect, its mechanics are generally wonderful, and its lack of a subscription fee is a powerful motivator. But while I love it for all those reasons (and others), there is simply too much that I miss. I miss the ability to forge weapons. I miss the ability to make potions. I miss the ability to craft armor. In short, I thought I could get past the lack of a crafting system, but I can't. The game is all combat all the time, and that gets old.
It's not like GW promises and then doesn't deliver. Quite the contrary, its very name suggests the game will ultimately revolve around guilds fighting guilds, and that's exactly what it delivers! Everything it does, it does very well (save for the exceptions already noted). The problem is that I'm looking for an MMORPG that gives me a world to inhabit; one that has the "mundane" (e.g., crafting) alongside the heroic. GW has a lot going for it, and I think it will be a great choice for those looking for MMORPG-lite. But if you're like me, and you're looking for a persistent on-line world in which to live, well, GW isn't going to fill that bill.
In the final analysis, GW is fun to play and very economically priced. If you're the sort who has never played another MMORPG, then GW is a great buy; it will expose you to the basics without beating you over the head with a monthly fee. Or if you're the sort who has played other MMORPGs and wants something simpler and/or cheaper, then GW is also a great buy. Heck, it's at least good buy for anyone looking for fantasy-themed on-line fun; I just don't think it's deep enough for the hard core RPG aficionado. The short version is that it's not my cup of tea, but it just might be yours.
01/31/2006