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Our Individual Battles

By Cody “Micajah” Bye

Aside from World of Warcraft, no other MMOG titles have come near the worldwide success of Guild Wars, the free-to-play (but not to buy) title from Arena.net. By making a flexible game, one that both Western and Eastern audiences could enjoy, Guild Wars found itself pulled into a head-to-head grudge match with its competitor World of Warcraft. Despite boasting numbers that would have been record-breaking in years past, Guild Wars has never been able to meet the numbers that WoW has posted, yet they still hold onto a very positive chunk of the online marketplace.

In my trek to review as many MMOGs as I can in these next few months, Guild Wars struck me as a game that desperately needed a review. Prompted by my desire to see a completed article about Arena.net’s game, I fished through my library of CDs and found an old copy of the game that I had purchased years ago. Thankfully, it still ran smoothly – but there was one snag.

When a gamer first installs Guild Wars, they’re prompted to create an account for the game, which requires submission of a valid email address. Unfortunately, the email address I had submitted was my old college account, and I no longer had access to it. Thankfully, the community support that’s provided by NCsoft was thorough and complete, with the CSRs providing quick, single day service. They even corrected my own mistake that I had made when initially prompting them for assistance!

Before I continue any further into this article, I must make a single note; I am not reviewing all of the Guild Wars expansions packs in this particular review. Crafting a solid review out of a single title is hard enough, but delving into every expansion at once would be a nightmare. However, be on the lookout for a review of each of the Guild Wars expansion packs as we continue to progress through the multitude of MMOGs that exist. Now you may continue through the article with my blessings.

A Blend of Cultures

Logging into the account was a breeze after my initial error, and I soon found myself at the familiar character creation screen. Although created with both the Eastern and Western audience in mind, Guild Wars is not lacking in the character customization department. With six classes to choose from – and then another sub-profession to pick later in the game – players should have no desire to find new classes to play. Indeed, playing through each combo is a journey in-and-of itself. The classes you can select are Warrior, Ranger, Monk, Mesmer, Necromancer, and Elementalist; and each has its own particular focus. While the Rangers excel at ranged combat, the Monk can heal his fallen comrades and the Necromancer can resurrect dead enemies to fight for him.

By blending these classes, you can make your own particular combo-character. For instance, I was always a huge fan of the Shadow Knight in Everquest. So I created a Warrior/Necromancer that sports yellow and blue and wields a monumental hammer (in honor of my Ten Ton Hammer brethren). With PvP such a huge factor in Guild Wars (you can create PvP-only characters based off your roleplaying avatars), class balance is essential and Arena.net has gone to great lengths to insure characters do not break the bounds of their powers.

As far as physical appearance goes, there’s actually an adequate assortment of faces, colors, and hairstyles to choose from, on top of character scale and other options. Your overall appearance will be designated by the class you choose: Necromancers are thin and rangy, Warriors are thick and burly, etc. After that, most of your customization will occur through your weapons and armor that you find later in the game.

After playing through numerous Korean games as of late, it’s a fair assumption that ArenaNet wanted to appeal to both Eastern and Western cultures when they created Guild Wars. Changing a character’s appearance based on their class is one of the trademark touches of the Korean MMOs, and not something you often find in Western titles of the same venue. Even the art styling of the character models borders on that “anime” sort of Asian styling that goes hand in hand with almost any game that plops onto Western shores. Thankfully, ArenaNet didn’t skimp on the options available to players, and there were still a more than adequate number of faces, traits, and styles to choose from.

Being ‘Competitive’ Rather Than ‘Massive’

When Guild Wars was first released, the folks at ArenaNet pushed the notion that the game was not a “massively multiplayer online roleplaying game” (MMORPG) but a “competitive online roleplaying game” (CORPG). ArenaNet didn’t want gamers to feel the Guild Wars trapped them in a world of persistency where they were forced to live and play by certain quest-and-grind rules.