Reading Games

Guild Wars
NCsoft
10 out of 10

“Wow,” you say. “That is a pretty hefty rating to call something perfect.”

By my way of looking at something, perfection is if it makes me happy and I can enjoy the hell out of it. In this case, you have no idea how perfect this game is after so many frustrating tries with other MMORPG games.

Oh, for those of you not familiar with those letters, it means: (M)assive (M)ultiplayer (O)nline (R)ole (P)laying (G)ame. While this is not to be confused with something like the games you say the kids playing in the back room of Denny’s, it does follow a similar structure in that you have certain probability factors that allow you better or worse hits, etc.

But that is truly academic. The fact is that unlike Ever quest or other similar games, this game is easy to play, easy to succeed and looks fantastic. And did I mention that it will run on an 800Mhz processor with an 8 year ld graphics card? Yeah, it will and what’s more, the designed it that way.

You heard me. Somebody built a game that wasn’t centered on technology that you have to travel forward to the 23rd century to be able to run! And even at these low levels, it still looks fantastic. Go figure. That’s reason number 1 for the perfect rating.

Reason 2 has to do with character development and game play. This is another area where they shine like a mothe… er… like a really bright flashlight. Where to begin?

Character Development-
You get a decent amount of leeway in setting up your character but it’s pretty standard. Once you get in the game, however, you can level easily, get spells from your teachers… for free and can even pick up vials of dye from merchants and dead enemies to change the color of your clothes and weapons. You can even mix the colors to get other colors.

The game is basically Quest driven instead of having to kill 50,000,000 spiders so that you can reach level 2. Granted you do get points for sailing around and hacking things up, but if it’s combined with a quest, then you get a lot more. I played for 4 hours and got to level 4. I could have gone higher but I was having too much fun just wandering around.

Game Play-
This is a cool world with a lot of creatures running around in it. They offer many challenges in such things like grouping to attack you (bandits) or ignoring you completely ignoring you (stone elementals) unless you actually whack them on the head with something.

One of the truly cool features that makes this game much faster paced and so much easier to play is the simple fact that if you need to get somewhere across the known map (what you have explored) and there is a town there, you can click on the town and travel there without having to press and hold the dam forward key while trying to avoid random fights with things along the way.

This is especially useful in a quest were you want to take the (blank) item to (blank) Mage and get your reward.

All in all you can quest and enjoy this game and not have to invest tons of time to get anywhere. But do you want to know the very best part of all:

THERE IS NO CHARGE FOR PLAYING THE GAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You buy the software and that is it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am in love…

I know I'm dead on the surface But I'm screaming underneath

I have guild wars too. It is a nice game. I guess I can't ask for much more, though there are always things that I can find wrong with it.

One of which is that it isn't a roleplaying game by any means. And since you never see anyone outside cities unless you are partied with them, it seems more like "cooperative objective" than "roleplaying questing." I guess it would have been expecting perfection to want it to have this quality too, but I guess I can't complain.

It has one of the most addictive attributes of a game, for me. It has the ability to build your character however you wish. It has this particular feature in which if you are clever enough, you can arrange combos with your skills and induce lots of damage to your enemies.

By the way, kyle do you know about the IWAY strategy? It's quite clever. You build a warrior/ranger with beast mastery. Then, you create a party in pvp of ONLY these warrior/rangers with a pet. So with 4 vs 4, we're talking 4 warriors and 4 pets (aggressive melee strategy). Each warrior takes a ressurection signet and the "I Will Avenge You" skill (which gives life and energy bonuses for each fallen ally or pet). Whenever you are hurt, you cast IWAY, and based on the number of dead pets or allies, you will be that much harder to kill.

I'm building one myself.

"If I die of a heart attack eating bacon, I'll be a happy man." -My father

I haven't gotten far enough in the game to explore the alternate mode of gameplay but I definately will. The problem I have with that is that you have to arange times to do battle, from what I understand, and I tend to be rather erratic in my game time availablity.

As for the lack of people outside the towns, after playing Evequest where you had to wait in line for a certain creature to respawn or some such thing, the lack of competition is a god send. I go to the towns to talk to people and with the instantanious transport, it's easy to do.

What is your character name? I am Zero One Zero, an Elementalist with Monk secondary training.

I know I'm dead on the surface But I'm screaming underneath

Well my username depends on which character I'm currently playing. But next time I'm on, I'll try to add you.

The level limit is 20, but you still gain experience. For everytime thereafter that you would normally gain a level, you get a skill point, allowing you to add another skill that you don't have. It may not seem like a big deal now, because you have lots of points, but you will soon dwindle down to zero. You might want to avoid buying skills unless they will benefit you. You can always get them later. Free advice. :)

How far along are you? The plot of the game gets pretty strange. The only thing I can compare it to would be a movie in which there are no main characters. It is this revolution around you, the main character in your journeys.

Anyway, once you beat the game, you'll want to start capturing elite skills. Those are nice. You can only have one elite skill at a time in your skill inventory, but they are typically much better than average spells. There are tons of them. If you capture them with your character, you unlock it, allowing you to use it in player vs player duals. You may not use them all, but if you're like me, you want to have any advantage at your disposal.

"If I die of a heart attack eating bacon, I'll be a happy man." -My father

This post was edited by Hawkeye on Oct 21, 2005.

I'm at level 5 now and have been running around the Catacombs and slaying thieves and worm things. About half the time I follow the quests and the other I just solo, finding things to beat up on. It's fun just amassing wealth although there doens't seem to be a lot to spend it on at this point in the game.

I know I'm dead on the surface But I'm screaming underneath