The History behind Guild Wars is very healthy. Both NCsoft and ArenaNet are well experienced groups for NCsoft they have the Lineage series and City of Heroes, both game won many awards so its most likely Guild Wars will be successful. As for ArenaNet most of them are the people who are involved in titles such as StarCraft, Diablo, War Craft series and the Battle.net.
At the start you’ll have to choose between a Roleplaying Character or a PvP Chracter. Then eventually a choice of 6 Professions: Warrior, Ranger, Monk, Elementalist, Mesmer, and Necromancer. You can choose Male or Female with lots of variety in looks, hair style, hair color and the height of the character. For Roleplaying Characters you will have access to cooperative and competitive missions in the game. While PvP are obviously for Player Vs Player use only. Your character can have 2 professions.
The Character Models are impressive also the enemy models they are in high detailed quality. The game has a very low System requirements and it’s a good thing even on the lowest quality it still better than most of MMOG available locally.
I’ll give a full Thumbs up for the Terrain. You have that feeling that you are really on a journey terrain is never flat. They spent a lot of time making the Terrain its very noticeable. You’ll pass by Remains of Castles, a Desert, mountains, beaches, Jungle….etc.
The sound effects on Guild Wars is good. Even your foot steps varies on what you are terrain you are on. The sounds of Magic skills clashing on the monsters aren’t all the same each have their unique sound. And while in Role Play mode there are voice acting during Cinematics.
Like Most MMOG nowadays they offer PvP and your character will be fixed at level 20 (maximum level) and you can choose skills and weapons and you are ready to fight. Of Course you are not given the option to choose all the skills and weapons in the game. You need to play with a role playing character to unlock these items. The game also have a GvG mode which can only take place with your RolePlaying Character. You can buy a huge castle called a Guild Hall, customize your own guild cape. In GvG you fight against other guilds and the game will announce the rank of your guild and everyone online will be able to see it.
The most different feature of the game it that they declared that the game will have no Monthly Fees which is a Bold Move for a MMOG. MMOG mostly require payments for you to play but Guild Wars is different. For a mission or a Quest you will require a Party to join you. You can either get Other Players or just get Henchmen to tag along with you. Once you enter the mission area you will only see NPCs and your party which is a good thing which means items that are dropped by the Enemy only belong to your party alone.
The bad thing I would say is that you can’t Craft your own weapons. And the restriction of 4 characters per account is not enough for me. And the chatting system is quiet hard because everything is focused in one window what if you guild mates messaged you and you’re in a town for sure you will miss the message it scrolls very fast. I’m hoping that they will add a special popup window especially for guild messages
The gameplay is fullly loaded with many quest and missions. And you can decide who do you want in your party. And you cannot proceed to the next map area if you haven’t finish the mission. The world map is huge and there are parts in the map that you don’t need to explore but you want more quest you can venture there.
Warriors are experts in Melee Weapons. No other profession can beat Warriors in terms of charging up to the enemy. With a strong body built and large weapons only made for hacking monsters. They are reliable in missions.
Monks are good in healing and protection prayers. They main job is to keep everyone in the team alive. They can also inflict damage to enemies through magic. A very important profession but cannot survive on its own.
Mesmers are masters in Spells of illusion and control. They can cost lots of damage with their skills. Since they can control enemy skills and energy, cast Hexes on the enemy is also a good skill for example slowing down a raging minotaur.
Necromancers in the other hand are masters of the dark arts. With these powers they can reanimate the dead to a fighting companion. And these dark arts can be used to absorb energies from the foes till they die. Lots of curses and hexes to play with they are truly evil.
Elementalist are masters of the elements as the name implies. They can control Air, Water, Earth, and Fire. They can cast these elements to cost damage to the enemy or use these elements for protection purposes. They have good skills and they are cost lots of pain to a group of people with some skills.
Rangers have a unique ability to have animal companions. They also have healing powers but they are not as effective has the Monks. With their skills on long range items they are good for attacking in far distances.
Locally the game is about 3,650 Php. Which is a thousand more than the original price stated by NCsoft. So some local gamers will feel that the pricing is a little bit too high. But just think about it with no Monthly fees and just think about how much you already spent on games like Ragnarok and those other MMOG that also requires a monthly fee.
Overall, the game is quite interesting and addicting. Ncsoft and ArenaNet really did a good job on the game it deserves to get an award this year. The game is almost flawless but acceptable. Many missions, loads of side quest, a large world to explore in and many types of weapons too look for. The game is worth playing and is something not worth missing.
Review by Gizmic
