Instead, Guild
Wars featured to playable options: a PvP-Only
server that focused on the competitive aspect of the game, and the
Roleplaying server that fostered those individuals concerned with the
PvE portions of Guild
Wars. However, any characters on the roleplaying
servers would share all of their abilities and rewards with the
characters on the PvP server, thus making the roleplaying game little
more than a run towards PvP-centric items.

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Guild Wars has a
great roleplaying environment, but with instanced zones, players can
become lonely.

At least, that’s what that portion of the game
could’ve been. However, ArenaNet did create a fully-fleshed
out MMORPG, whether they chose to or not. Many of my close companions
in games like Everquest
and Dark Age of Camelot
found Guild Wars to
be
the perfect distraction from the constant grind of their former games.
Guild Wars was
a game that they could play without another player if
they so desired, and allowed them the freedom to do what they want
without having to answer to the cries of their guild mates.

On a stroke of innovation, the developers behind style="font-style: italic;">Guild Wars
made every single location in their game instanced. Any time you leave
the major cities, you’re entering a world that’s
all your own, unless you choose to bring others along with you.
Especially in the early parts of the game, you’ll feel like
you’re playing a single player RPG along the lines of the
Elder Scrolls
or Gothic
games rather than a MMOG.

The character that I made (Nordvig was his name) was a
roleplaying character, founded simply to play through the story-telling
campaigns in Guild Wars. Although almost every section of the initial
game is instanced, you still feel like you’re a part of a
living breathing world rather than a mere sandbox for you and your
friends to play in. The instances lend a bit more weight to the
storytelling aspect of the game, as you can play through these areas
without being distracted by anyone with a name like
“Azzmunkee Eekeek” or “Diririzt
Douden”. But the chance for player to player interaction is
always viable by merely journeying to a “hub”
location.

Traveling in Guild
Wars was made fairly simple, with the
option to “Travel” (or teleport) to any hub
location that you’ve already visited. This is incredibly
helpful in completing early quests, because most of the quest givers
are in, or near, these centralized hubs. This option, combined with a
fairly rapid leveling ladder, made the first few levels of style="font-style: italic;">Guild Wars a
breeze to complete, and I was soon out of my
“training” area and into the full-blown world of
Guild Wars.

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Traveling is fairly
simple in Guild Wars; once you've visited a "hub" you can instantly
travel there whenever you need to.

Lending a Hand

Unlike many MMORPGs, Guild
Wars really wanted to take the
emphasis off of the need to group. Released a few months after the
inception of World of
Warcraft, the developers that constructed style="font-style: italic;">Guild
Wars were still running on the post-EQ notion that groups
and huge
raiding guilds were the feared enemies of MMORPGs and camping spawns
was the common way to get any type of fashionable loot. Wanting to
break that trend, ArenaNet built the game entirely on instanced zones.

For those of you unfamiliar with MMOG terminology, an instance
is simply a “unique zone” that the computer creates
whenever a player enters an area that is not a central hub for transit
or the game’s economy. While this can make the game feel
lonely to some, it also offers players a release from the constant
badgering of other player characters that are in the same zone. If
you’re like me, you’ve encountered numerous zone
“shouters” that take pleasure in broadcasting their
voice for all to hear as often as possible. They’ll use any
means necessary to make their voice heard, but the instanced zone
destroys that precedent. You can now enter your instance and roleplay
in relative peace and quiet.

Instanced zones also eliminate spawn camping. When you enter
an instance, everything spawns anew for your avatar. There
won’t be any need to wait in the middle of a zone, trying to
find a creature that spawns once every week. No, you’ll
simply find your spawns exactly where they’re supposed to be
without any of the run-around.