Guild wars is a Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game created by Seattle based game development studio, ArenaNet. ArenaNet is part of NCsoft corporation and founded by three former members who were formerly from Blizzard Entertainment and played important roles in the development of World of Warcraft. Guild wars is different from many other MMORPGs in the sense that it focuses less on levelling characters and spending time "grinding", having low maximum levels and little or no repetitive tasks necessary for the playing of the game. Instead, the main objective of Guild Wars is the completion of missions in various campaigns, each with different themes, maps and new additions such as skills and classes.
Initially in the first campaign of Guild Wars, Guild Wars Prophecies, there were only six classes, which prompted criticism from skeptics who believed that fewer classes meant unbalanced PvPing. These six classes were: Warrior, Ranger, Mesmer, Monk,
Elementor and Necromancer. The end result, however, was more than balanced... it was almost perfect. Each class had specific roles, strengths and weaknesses which made for challenging PvPing, requiring careful thoughts on builds and skills. This near perfection, however, in my opinion, was ruined by the introduction of four new classes in the release of the second and third campaigns of Guild Wars, Factions and Nightfall. Some of the roles of the new classes overlapped those of the older ones, making some classes even obsolete. This error may be due to the fact that Guild Wars improves itself by relying heavily on player feedback. ArenaNet seems to have realised the problem, however, as they decided not to release another two classes in the fourth and newest campaign, Guild Wars Eye of the North.
A smart move by ArenaNet, was to offer gameplay without a subscription fee, therefore relying on profits only from the sale of the client and the account that comes with it. They believed that paying a fee would make gamers feel obliged to play regularly and get their money's worth, instead of playing for the sake of enjoying. "It is our opinion that the free online gaming model combined with frequent content updates is the optimum online paradigm for interfacing with consumers and creating a significant, enduring gaming franchise." - Jeff Strain, one of the founders of ArenaNet.
Due to shrewd developers, jaw-dropping graphics and constantly engaging gameplay, Guild Wars has definitely been successful, which is obvious, from its release of four campaigns and counting. During the Guild Wars Nightfall PvE Beta testing, half a million gamers spent an average of 8.5 hours testing out the new campaign.
The Home page of Guild Wars can be found here:
http://www.guildwars.com/
A review by USA Today about Guild Wars removing the grinding in games can be found here:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/games/2005-06-08-guildwars-review_x.htm
More detailed information about Guild Wars can be found here :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guild_wars#Development
Be warned, the jaw-dropping, mind-turning, eye-opening graphics may put one hell of a strain to your PC. Guild Wars is definitely, however, worth the space.
On a scale of 1 to 10, I give Guild Wars Prophecies a 10.
This is Railo II, taking over from Railo I, who is at the moment taking a break for studies.
Initially in the first campaign of Guild Wars, Guild Wars Prophecies, there were only six classes, which prompted criticism from skeptics who believed that fewer classes meant unbalanced PvPing. These six classes were: Warrior, Ranger, Mesmer, Monk,
Elementor and Necromancer. The end result, however, was more than balanced... it was almost perfect. Each class had specific roles, strengths and weaknesses which made for challenging PvPing, requiring careful thoughts on builds and skills. This near perfection, however, in my opinion, was ruined by the introduction of four new classes in the release of the second and third campaigns of Guild Wars, Factions and Nightfall. Some of the roles of the new classes overlapped those of the older ones, making some classes even obsolete. This error may be due to the fact that Guild Wars improves itself by relying heavily on player feedback. ArenaNet seems to have realised the problem, however, as they decided not to release another two classes in the fourth and newest campaign, Guild Wars Eye of the North.A smart move by ArenaNet, was to offer gameplay without a subscription fee, therefore relying on profits only from the sale of the client and the account that comes with it. They believed that paying a fee would make gamers feel obliged to play regularly and get their money's worth, instead of playing for the sake of enjoying. "It is our opinion that the free online gaming model combined with frequent content updates is the optimum online paradigm for interfacing with consumers and creating a significant, enduring gaming franchise." - Jeff Strain, one of the founders of ArenaNet.
Due to shrewd developers, jaw-dropping graphics and constantly engaging gameplay, Guild Wars has definitely been successful, which is obvious, from its release of four campaigns and counting. During the Guild Wars Nightfall PvE Beta testing, half a million gamers spent an average of 8.5 hours testing out the new campaign.
The Home page of Guild Wars can be found here:
http://www.guildwars.com/
A review by USA Today about Guild Wars removing the grinding in games can be found here:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/games/2005-06-08-guildwars-review_x.htm
More detailed information about Guild Wars can be found here :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guild_wars#Development
Be warned, the jaw-dropping, mind-turning, eye-opening graphics may put one hell of a strain to your PC. Guild Wars is definitely, however, worth the space.
On a scale of 1 to 10, I give Guild Wars Prophecies a 10.
This is Railo II, taking over from Railo I, who is at the moment taking a break for studies.
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