Alex said:
Reading up some more; the PvP in this sounds a bit simplistic and rather boring to my tastes. It really just basicly boils down to ORPG team deathmatch?
ok, maybe I over simplified it a bit. No, it is more involved than deathmatch. What I meant by simple is that you basically don't have all of the bullshit to worry about that you do in typical MMORPGs. Level/skill disparities, loot disparities, unbalanced team count disparities, racial trait disparities, etc. Many people feel that stuff adds depth, but when you REALLY think about it, while that stuff might add some depth, what it really adds is more ways to granularize the player makeup and work to create stnadrd builds and cause the rest to be gimp builds.. does that make any sense? WoW for exmaple. If you want a one on one PvP character, you take a Palladin with the right gear. Why? Because the best Palladin player with the best gear can beat any other classes' best player with the best gear. It's just the way the class has worked out. and WoW and most other MMORPGs are filled with this. They DO add depth in the form of all sorts of loot and character differences, but in the end it trivializes most of the builds and makes just a few certain builds mandatory for PvP.
Guild Wars does this, and seemingly loses some of the depth that WoW or similar games have, but in the end it actually has as much depth, because while it only has so many items or so many classes and whatnot, it essentially works out to be the same number of real items and classes that WoW or other games work themselves down to with perfect builds anyway. Does that make sense.
Now where guild wars shines is in the execution. There is nothing simple about that. It's PvP is just as involved as the BEST MMORPG PvP. Hardly deathmatch in that regards. It is all about tactics, skill sets, team work, characters complementing each other, and NO player is ever gimped for the most aprt. skills are not set in stone, so if one skill setup isn't working for you, you can change it and give another one a try.
basically what guild wars is is the ultimate mmorpg style PvP (at this point). it isn't the largest and grandest, but IMHO it is the most refined and streamlined. it is ORPG PvP that trims away all of the unnecessary fat when it comes to that type of play and just gets down to business. Now of course this does mean that the single player game is a little light.. This IMHO is where the game falls a little bit. You can hit level 20 (the cap) in just a few days of play.. even casual players can probably hit it in less than two weeks. There isn't any loot to whore for so to speak, and no grand world to explore (relatively small comparatively). No, the focus of the game is PvP, which is does amazingly. Does this lack of PvE "effort" cause it no to deserve the 9.2? not really. Look at typical "deathmatch" style games that focus mainly on deathmatch while foregoing any real sort of single player beyond AI deathmatch? They are still rated highly despite their single player offline shortcomings. This is no exception.
So yes you could consider this "ORPG deathmatch" but you really have to think about what that means. it is not quake in a fantasy setting. It is typical MMORPG without most of the "unbalanced" bullshit and most of the problems that plague typical MMORPG PvPs.
I figured it'd be a somewhat more involved affair ala classic UO and it's guild trappings. Player property and all that jazz, perhaps sieges and interesting objectives too like UO: Color Wars or DAoC: Realm vs Realm.
I realize it's free to play, and thus an instanced and not a persistant game, but I don't see why they couldn't work around that to make something a little more...unique and grandiose..
this is AFAIK what they are aiming for. There has been information on siege weaponry for a while now and the probability of adding forts and castles and whatnot. and making PvP fighting bigger. You should read up more on future goals of the team. this is definitely where it is going. But everyone has to start somewhere. Basically the game works in that they will release scheduled pay-to-play expansions (that is all content updates to the game will cost money to buy, but still have no monthly fee). The goal currently is to include things like you are tlaking about in those scheduled content updates.
I don't think I'm too interested in the style it aims for if I'm understanding the game correctly. I'm much happier with that style in a persistant, risk vs reward enviroment ala WoW, and will just get back into that and wait for Battlegrounds.
let me know when those battlegrounds come in, will ya

First, Battlegrounds have no real risk vs. reward if you think about it. What happens on the battleground stays on the battleground. Gone are the days of UO and Diablo where there really was risk vs. reward.. where killing someone meant fat loot. in the sense of risk vs. reward Guild Wars might have MORE than WoW in the sense that there is "favor" in the game (which I don't entirely know what it is) where countries, yes, actual real life countries, gain favor from the gods for staying ahead in won PvP from the other countries. That IMHO is more interesting than anything WoW has going for it at the moment in terms of PvP reward..
I'd love to be wrong, though.
eh.. you just might be.. find the game on sale and spend $40 on it. you won't ever have another fee after that and like I said, youcould just very well be wrong...