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Guild Wars Review Continued

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Of course, if you’re the sort that likes to play games in the middle of the night while everyone is asleep, and are having trouble getting a party together there are hired henchmen that can be recruited by the gates to most towns and outposts.  These are all computer-controlled characters that can join one’s party and help fight off the hordes of monsters in the wilderness.  The job classes these will consist of are a healer, a fighter, a ranger, and a mage.  What is particularly nice about these henchmen is that they are surprisingly smart.  If most of your party gets wiped out in a battle the one who survives will have the good sense to resurrect the healer first, who will then raise everyone else.  What was most impressive while I was playing, though, is just how well the fighter can hold his own even while being swarmed.  In one fight everyone but him got killed, and the fighter was stuck fighting a number of enemies at once and he did an amazing job of whittling down their health while backing off to heal himself.  It was very impressive.  The only real complaint I have with the henchmen is that the healer has a tendency to get a tad over zealous in battle, causing her to die quickly.  Players really need to baby sit her during fights.

Regardless of whether one decides to form a party with some friends, or by snapping up some henchmen, it will quickly become apparent that Guild Wars is all about quests.  This is one game where grinding isn’t a worthwhile way to gain experience points, and rise through the levels.  This will be very good for those who don't have a lot of time to play, as they can hope on for 30 minutes, have some fun, and be on their way afterward.Each town and outpost has quite a few NPCs hanging around with quests for players to do that will award a healthy sum of experience points, as well as sometimes throwing in other goodies like gold, weapons / armor, or teaching a new skill.  While making one’s way through a quest, and beating down hordes of enemies, it’s easy to notice that your character’s experience point gauge isn’t filling up very fast.  However, after completing a quest, and returning to the 

 

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NPC who assigned it so to collect a reward, that bar fills up real quick once you get your experience points.  It’s a welcome way of driving Guild Wars’ character progression, since it feels like players constantly have a purpose as they make their way through the game, as opposed to other more grind-oriented titles where players pretty much go under the idea of, “Let’s stand in this one spot for a couple of hours and whack stuff!”

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A lot of this sense of purpose comes from the fact that the game’s story is actually well done.  While the basic theme of Guild Wars is that of humans fighting off an invading horde of man-beasts, there is a lot of underlying political intrigue to be discovered as well.  There are a number of different human factions that haven’t always been on the best of terms in the game, and even now under threat of invasion it’s hard for some of these groups’ leaders to trust one another.  Seeing how this all unfolds, as well as many of the other more personal stories of different towns’ residents, keeps the game interesting, and prevents it from feeling like a race to level 20.

And yes, the game's level cap is currently set at level 20.  For those who like meatier RPGs this may be a bit of a turn off.  However, there is quite a bit of PvP play to be had in Guild Wars, as guilds can clash in the various arenas of the game world, thus significantly extending the life of the game.  The competition is fierce between the various player guilds to keep their rank on the up-and-up, and there is also a lot of competition between regions to claim top spot, as guilds from Europe, North America, and Korea battle for bragging rights in PvP play.  The good thing about the PvP aspects in the game, though, is that players don't have to partake in it if they don't want to.  If you love PvP, then by all means, hop onboard, but if you hate it, that's fine too, just enjoy the quests.  Hopefully we'll see the level cap go up eventually so to give players who are not interested in PvP something to do once they hit 20, but we'll just have to wait and see on that.

There are a few of facets of Guild Wars that could use some work, though.  Firstly there are the selectable jobs in the game.  While it’s neat that the game allows players to have sub-classes like in Final Fantasy XI, thus making a more well-rounded character, the classes available in the game are a little too geared towards magic users.  The only truly melee classes are the fighter, and to a lesser extent the ranger.  Everyone else will play a magic casting role.  While the monk can make for a decent melee fighter under the right circumstances in the game, chances are players will wind up focusing on healing and buffing with this class.  Another problem facing the game is the way players can instantly have a maxed-out level 20 character if they go with a PvP-only build during character selection.  While in theory this looks like a good idea, since it allows people to quickly create a new healer, tank, or whatever for PvP, the problem comes in that players don’t get a chance to properly learn all of the nuances of the character class, ensuring that they are extremely effective for this mode of play.  These instant level 20 PvP characters may be helpful in eliminating the 20 levels of grunt work that would usually be needed to max-out a character, but there is a lot to learn over that time so that a player can be the best they can be in PvP without having to learn on the spot, potentially jeopardizing their guild’s rank in the process.  About the only other problem facing the game at the moment is that there just aren’t enough interesting items to be found in the game.  There are a few rare pieces of armor and weapons that look pretty neat, but there just isn’t much in the way of a glam-factor with this stuff in Guild Wars.  Thankfully this can be taken care of with more updates from the folks at ArenaNet.

One other area that deserves some attention in Guild Wars is the music, which was masterfully handled by Jeremy Soule.  For anyone who is familiar with his work, the tunes in this game are very much on par with previous efforts from the composer (that's a good thing).  The music in the game is a mix of the menacing, the subtle, and everything in between.  The way the soundtrack enhances the overall experience of the game is great, rising and falling at the right moments, and, most importantly, fits the various environments like a glove.

How Guild Wars tackles the whole concept of the MMORPG is quite novel.  Being able to meet up with a bunch of people in town, then hop into an instanced adventure is most welcome.  However, what really makes the game work so well is the pacing of the combat, coupled with a story that one actually wants to experience.  On top of this, PvP takes a very strong role in Guild Wars, but still manages to remain a facet that is there if you want it, but easily avoided for those who don’t dig that sort of thing.  All of this neatly wrapped in some very pretty visuals, and snappy tunes makes Guild Wars well worth checking out…and the fact that there aren’t any monthly fees doesn’t hurt either.

Mr. Nash

(June 5, 2005)

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