Guild Wars Preview Event

I know most of you don't want to hear me rattle on about yet another MMORPG. But, this one seems to be very different.

http://www.guildwars.com

I took advantage of the 2 days free session this weekend, and I have been playing it more or less non-stop. I can sum it up in one word. Action.

I thought Guild Wars was primarily a stab at PvP MMORPG. But having steeped myself in their Co-operative quests most of the weekend I can truly say, that the PvP aspects of the game have rarely caught my attention.

GW is basically a bit like Dungeon Siege only multiplayer. This may put some people off. But, I would say give it a try. It's action, all out action, but it has some exquisite quests. They are linear in that your character has to do the first quest to open up the second one. Each quest takes place amongst the world, but is instanced for the party embarking upon it. If you can't make 6 players, then you can take generic AI henchmen (bots basically) of the 5 types (ranger, warrior, monk, elementalist, necro, mesmer).The game is highly detailed. Although its not all shiny like EQ2, however, the world itself is very well modelled, very recognisable all over. It loads bit by bit, in a unique attempt to only download the content you need, so after your initial download of the game files, some quests are loaded on demand during a loading screen, most of these seem to be like 300k so on broadband the wait is very bearable.

The first three quests that I've done many times on my four different characters, were very impressive indeed. The first one being a jaunt through a nasty path between cities, where you meet a confessor at a sort of ruins, and have to endure the onslaught from different directions, with many waves, alternating and combining against you and your team. Bosses included. Then you have to take the news to another chief in another city, coveted by another boss. Once the quest is complete, you get a quite lengthy cutscene, with lots of story, and of you and your team (in the cutscene) being initiated into the order of knights.

The second quest was embarked upon, and you had to retrieve a sacred artifact and return it to a particular village. However, after fighting your way to the artifact, you had to cleanse all your party in a particular font before gaining possession of the artifact. Once cleansed, you go back to the temple where it is stored, and the artifact (which was a glowing eye on top of a pyramid) is then transported by you and your party (literally being hovered over your party's head, with lighting forks of connection attaching the glowing artifact to you and yours). Very well implemented. Never seen anything like that in a MMORPG before. More fighting but with the artifact in tow, and deposit it to the village at the end, another cutscene, with bucketloads of story included.

The third quest, leading on from the cutscene of the second, was a rather nasty affair with lots of beefed up enemies in small tunelled ravines, and massive canyons only traversed by vine bridges that you have to 'grow' by collecting seeds from special vine plants to make the bridges. Cutscene for the first bridge growth, Jack and the Beanstalk style. Plenty of bosses and side exploration quests to perform, whilst on your general journey. The map/radar can be drawn upon to explain directions to the party. Plus you can click and highlight certain points on the map and make the map peep to the rest of the team. Invaluable tools for keeping the party focussed. Basically these quests play out like single player quests, lots of story, lots of complexity and all for a co-op party of 6 and under. Very impressive.

Loot is assigned by the game, no problems there, the game combat mechanism allows for targetting and firing at an enemy, plus alternate targetting and say healing of an ally, once heal stops, auto target and fire back at enemy. Works really well as a bowgirl who heals (ranger/monk combination). Each character has two roles, primary and secondary, skill points are spent between the two. What is novel is that the skills, or specials are bought with money. The first skill you buy, costs 1 gold coin, the next 2 and so on, so the order in which you buy them determines their overall cost. Different trainers sell different skills (for your professions).

Also buffs are handled slightly different, your mana (or energy) regenerates at a given rate, the more buffs you hold onto party members the slower the regen. So you can more or less hold three buffs all the time, if you are near the characters, still having an acceptable rate of regen. If you need more, then drop the buffs for a while, take them up when you can. Equipment and weapons seem to play a more minor role in the game, you can still be effective with your starting kit, only looted stuff later on will make you much better. Most loot seems to be of regular damage, and you can customise it at weaponsmiths, and you seem to be able to crystalise certain skills/spells so you can use them even if its not your profession. Obviously over two days, I can't really comment on the crafting side to the game. Since Skills are related to loot, loot is really important. Every nugget gained, can afford you another skill in the long run. So even tat loot is good loot.

The preview sets you all at level 15 to start with, so perhaps the stuff you can play with is way over the top compared to the retail release, but from what I've seen its something to work towards, and you can certainly get a good feel for the classes.

I honestly had trouble finding downsides to the game. The only ones I can mention are that you can only have 8 skills in operation during a quest, and you have to set these before embarking. And if some of your fickle team decides to abandon you mid quest, you are going to have a hell of a time trying to complete it. Travelling on the world map involves opening spawn points really, and once open (usually through a quest or exploration map) then you can virtually travel there again for free. So third quest leaves you in the middle of nowhere, you can log, come back hours later and log to city, travel to quest site and begin again with another group. All seems very set up for casual players.

Because of the delivery of the game, the whole place seems instanced, everywhere. Even cities have like 30 instances, called districts, so not only do you need to know where your mates are you need to know the district number - think PSO lobbies. Each external place from the city, is also instanced for a party. Even if you're solo, or with just henchmen. Some are exploration, some quest based, some PvP arenas. You chose where you go and what you do. I've spent most of my time in the co-op quest areas though, lots of excitement.

The PvP that I have done, was ok to start off with, some sort of confrontation to deal as a warm up, then into a closed arena for a battle with another party (whilst online they raised the PvP party limit to 8 ). I didn't care for it much, lots of 'we were owned', 'joo sux' etc. Still was good to see PvP so organised, reminded me of Quake 3 in a way. You can even play on the servers when there is a patch pending, several times I had the server has been updated please log out at the next appropriate time. I mean their delivery system of content is just top notch. It all comes down very small bits, as and when you need it. Works brilliantly. The only time you notice it badly is when all party members enter an instance of a quest, and some come in a few moments slower than others because they're still downloading it. But once down and on the go the quest is a self contained peice of story with goals and rewards. And they seem to be able to conjure up quite complex and unique instanced quests - knocks Lost Dungeons of Norrath into a cocked hat.

So, overall, GW is worth the effort, if you like casual action based MMORPG. Probably not going to suit everyone, especially hardened EQ fans I'd guess. But bugger me, they've got a sparkle to the mix here. Since the game will be a purchase the box only, no subscription fee, I can't see it failing in its release. It's just whether they can keep on adding content based on retail box purchases.