Jeff (Esoteric) // Wednesday, February 23rd, 2005
// Printable version 
Guild Wars preview
An online RPG that dares to be different...
Guild Wars is being developed by ArenaNet, a subsidiary of NCsoft. Rather than have a continuous beta ArenaNet hold Beta weekends, where pre-ordered players and invited friends are allowed to test the game. This weekend was one such event and I was lucky enough to be invited along.
The weekend's event was different from the others. How? Well, if you began a level 1 character, the Kingdom of Ascalon was where you would be born and this was a brand spanking new area. Ascalon is a vast nursery for new players and it was not a small map by any means. If you want to see a glimpse of the new area and didn't play the beta have a look at this
short movie. The other new feature were a tweaked UI which allowed customization and scaling features.
Character creation
Currently there are six different character types and these are Warrior, Ranger, Monk, Necromancer, Mesmer and Elementalist. When I started I picked the Elementalist, though I was interested in the Mesmer but the text under the character stated it was too complex for a beginner.
Each class type had its own race of people assigned and they looked typical for the role. For example, the Warrior looked like a menacing Roman, the Monks looked like shaolin priests with bandages and the Necromancer looked menacing in an elongated slightly hunchback way. The Elementalists were tall and thin, which is how I expected them to look.
I was able to change hair type, colour, face and scale the characters height. Nothing out of the ordinary for an RPG. There were no statistics to initially input into your character so there were no thoughts of "have I just gimped my character for life."
Adventures in Ascalon
Once I created my character I was off into Ascalon City. It was obvious as to where to go because the first NPC in front of me had a nice bright exclamation mark above his head. He asked me if I was interested in joining the army. I agreed and and moved on to the next NPC who gave me my trainer Quest and I joined up. Normally I would think twice about such a commitment as joining the army but he offered 100 experience.
I had a wonderful stroll around the town and got my general bearings with the system before I entered no-mans land. By wandering around the town I found a high spot and looked out over the water to see a bridge and a few buildings and I honestly thought it was very pretty.
I ventured on and found my first trainer and a little girl called Gwen prancing about. To learn more skills I was asked to kill a particular mob and bring back its scales. They weren't far so I soon had my loot and my new skills. The little girl had lost her flute so I found that for her and also gave her a flower, if you buy the game don't do this I warn you, as she then spends the rest of her time trying to follow you around.
Rain of fire
After this quest a couple of branches opened up. The first I decided was to have a bash at finding the next trainer. In the starting zone I found myself often stopping and marvelling at the pure beauty of the game, I particularly liked a group of trees near Gwen and my first trainer.
After wandering around the various towns on the way I met my next trainer. I was asked to use new skills offered to me in order to defeat various streams of mobs. I was only a low level but I was given a new spell called rain of fire and I used this on the mobs and chuckled as they were destroyed row after row. This was important to me because I didn't feel inadequate, I felt powerful.
Power more power
When you level up in the game you do gain points to spend in your various skills, however this is not permanent. There is a system by which you can take your points out and put them where you want to. Though to be able to do this you need to earn minimal experience per point to be able to switch them. I like this system as I have played various games where once chosen it's set in stone. When playing I switched my fire points to air and so forth.
I had great fun wandering around and completing various quests but I won't detail my entire adventure. So let's focus on the other attributes of the game. This game is fairly unique in the RPG world as it uses streaming technology in order to download and zone into new areas. This meant that when I started my download for the beta within 5 minutes I was playing. Everytime I zoned into a new area it added another 30 seconds while it downloaded the necessary files which were only required once. This will depend on your connection speed.
Features of a different kind
There are two other very unique features to this game. Number one is if you are short on players you can pick up a henchman or an entire group of them. These are NPC's which you are able to add to your group in order aid to you in your adventures. Just go to town and pick up a henchman, so no "we need another healer, I need 10 minutes to search for one or we have to quit".
The second feature: when you zone into the main areas you and your party are the only ones there. The area is unique to you, therefore no kill stealing or menacing high players flexing their muscles at the mobs you are trying to bash. I managed to group a couple of times and it was every easy to be sociable in the towns, so in my opinion this worked well.
The help system was quite good, a little message popped up when it was needed. For example, my wand had an auto attack mode and after I got my new skills whilst attacking a mob or two, a pop-up appeared and faded away. It informed me that I could now use my flares. While obvious the system is timely and non-obtrusive.
Thats right Jim teleportation
There's one more feature worth mentioning and that is the instant travel system. Once you have explored and found a new town where people gather you are able to bring your map up and teleport instantly back to where you had come from or travel deeper to where you have been. It took the pain out of the long journeys and this didn't seem out of place.
My petty grumble corner
I have one grumble with the game. There are invisible zone walls everywhere. I'm not talking about hitting the edge of the map and wanting to go further, I'm talking about wanting to detour off the road to splash in the lake and hit the next village.
Immersion into the gaming environment was slightly tainted by these obstructions and I hope they are there because it's the beta. Another worry is how often chapters will be released and at what cost. I would hope that by the final release these details would be roughly sketched out so players have some idea.
The end
This game is possibly one of the most beautiful RPGs I have played. If you read fantasy books this is how you would picture the books to translate to visuals. It has a fairytale aura about it and if you focus you are able to see fine detail. I enjoyed playing Guild Wars and look forward to see how it develops further. Guild Wars is set for release on the 28th of April 2005.
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Content
Guild Wars Dated
Oh well, this ain't a big thingy.
I've played every beta except the most recent one and E3, and it seems like it's just getting better!
---- Edit ----
About the second post:
One is just able to follow a specific road really... sure, u can do a few detours, but these ain't bigger than like 50 meters or so... there's always a road to stick to!
But that wasn't really my point... i just meant that there are things that u in fact should be able to walk through that's just blocked by an invisible wall or something!
Many games do just this though, and it ain't really that big deal.
----Edited by user 28/02-2005 19:09
The main selling point about this game is that it rely's on player skill and tactics to succeed. The graphics are beautiful but the gameplay far out wieghs them. With the games emphasis on having fun, not preparing for it, and probably the best PvP gameplay on any RPG this is an incredible game.
Also I don't see how you can complain about not being able to detour off the road, when the entire guildwars world (insanely vast) is explorable...
If your an RPG fan you will love this game to death! You NEED to get this game...
-Shinra-
p.s. That Gwen girl stops following you if you click on her, and if you give her everything she talks about she gives you a vital quest item...
EDIT: Ok Ventura (#3) your right, but he didn't "cater" for the vets at all... anyway I agree with what you said. Cesaro's(#4)... Your either related to the author, or some kind of noob to the internet generally. Making personal insults based on 1 thread is just ridiculous, and anyone who isn't an idiot can see you clearly are one...
p.s. Its not an MMORPG, it's a CMOPRG, which is a statement made by the creators of the game ...sort yourself out young man.
----Edited by user 26/02-2005 14:03
Apart from that, you have some very good points. I agree that the PvP part is what has to sell this game!
----Edited by user 25/02-2005 18:47
Download manager
Boomtown.net
Ps. Good Game, Good Review of ascalon, and good luck to anyone playing Beta Events (future) and those who are considering purchasing this game when it comes out..hopfully there wont be a bunch of obsessed jerks playing like Shinra5000mega who apparently has no life outside of games.
And the world is huge. That was worth mentioning. Even if one is only a starting player, they should have been able to grasp the immenseness of the world through the world map, which although foggy where a player has not yet been, because when it reveals the area you have visited, which is huge in and of itself, it is compartively so small.
The only annoying part I found was the fact that monsters always seem to span in the same places.
Thats really one of the best Online RPG i´ve ever played! (it was just the open beta, but it was very very beautivul!!) Graphiks, Sounds, Gameplay.. all that features are great!
I hope it will be in stores as soon as possible!!
bye ! :D
LOVE the nested layers of rock,paper,scissors between classes, elements, etc. A lot of good strategy involved.
The current plans according to ArenaNet are for "chapters" to be
released every 6-9 months at a cost comparable to other games.
Each chapter will supposedly be on much the same scale as the
initial release in relation to amount of new content.
Thanks to Tarrant Rahl of GWOnline for the mails
-Is it like diablo where there is only 1 sprite per person thing (mesmer,necro, ect.) except you can change hair?
-Dose it use that really bad map that appears on the screen (in the middle of the screen) like in diablo?
-How is the player versus player combat?
-How is the big group fighting and training in the game?
-How is it that you use skill instead of your levels to win a fight? (I just keep hearing this but i just cant really picture it happening)
-IMPORTANT- Do you think City of Heros (with City of Villans) is better than Guild Wars?
That would be great if you guys can reply :), im kinda worried about which rpg to buy (city of heros w/ villans or guild wars).
Thanks-
Broken
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OH common some1 reply ... i really wana know this...
----Edited by user 13/03-2005 17:50
-No
-Good
-Fun
-Easy
-Guild Wars is way better
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