Guild Wars

Author: Chris Pickering
Published on: 04-08-2005
Views: 35867


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Introduction

An introduction to Guild Wars

The world of MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) gaming can be quite daunting for newcomers. If you’ve never played such a gaming title in the past, you could be forgiven for feeling more than a little overawed. You’re suddenly surrounded by thousands of gamers, all of which seem to know exactly what to do, and precisely what’s going to need to be done to beat the game. So taking into account the cost of the initial purchase, plus the required monthly subscription, most seem happy to continue getting their multiplayer action on their home consoles.

But here comes Guild Wars from NCsoft. Now Guild Wars is quite a different beast from the likes of World of Warcraft or Everquest. While these games rely on monthly subscriptions to cover all kinds of costs, with Guild Wars you never pay anything more than the initial purchase in your local gaming emporium. Again, where the other big hitters in the genre require incredible numbers of hours put in, in order to get to any kind of decent in game level, Guild Wars requires you to display your intelligence and skill. With the in game level cap set at 20, which is reachable in quite speedy time, your own skill is required if your going to ‘beat’ the game.

Guild Wars itself is all about the missions. Through the whole game you’ll usually have a few missions on the go, ranging from the important ones that require completion in order to progress the story, to the tiny little sub-quests that simply give you a few extra coins, and a fancy new weapon. It’s to the games credit that these sub-quests aren’t solely busy work, requiring you to spend hours traversing the game world in order to keep you busy, and earn your character an extra step up the experience ladder. If anything, these quests are quite often more involving than the main storyline.

Missions themselves are very easy indeed to discover. Talking to the majority of the games NPC’s (non player characters) will give you the opportunity to take on a task that they’d love you to complete. While the opening missions show off the basics of Guild Wars gameplay, it isn’t too long before you’re encouraged to team up with another gamer and combine your skills to continue. Finding someone who’s willing to become your in game buddy isn’t too difficult at all. Even if you don’t know anyone already in game, there are numerous players at the in game hubs (the cities, where all players are viewable) that are at the same point as you in game, and are looking for a like minded gamer to team up with. Once you have your small party (maximum party sizes increase as you progress through the game), you can move out of the city and into the wild plains of Guild Wars. Once you’re outside a city’s walls, you won’t see any other players (apart from your companions of course). Here it’s you against the world. There’s no queuing up to defeat a creature that requires being defeated before you can continue the online story here.

Your chosen character is based on one of six chosen Primary Professions. Each profession of course offering its own unique strengths and its own unique drawbacks. Your outward identity, which everyone online will see is governed by your profession choice too. If you decide to set yourself as a great hulking warrior, that’s what everyone else will see. Set yourself as a tiny, feeble looking elementalist, and that’s what you’ll appear as. As you progress through the game you’ll have the choice to give yourself a secondary profession. Making use of this little feature gives you access to a second set of attributes and skills, if lacking the main primary attributes that gives each professions it’s true unique identity. If that wasn’t enough variety for you, each profession also has a set of attributes you can build up with attribute points. Guild Wars allows to actually remove points from an attribute in the future, if you realise you were heading down the ‘wrong path’, and required some other ability heightened to give you the best experience.