This game is totally kickbut. I mean it provides a very decent story line, and the way the series is set up is really ingenuis. Every game is an individual game, but each version you buy earns you access to more lands and characters as well as character slots. Not to mention the nice free Online play. This game provides a decent story line on a game that will run on just about any old computer. Definitely worth looking in to. Not to mention that the award and title system is outstanding.

Learning Curve: Takes a while

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you shood try it sher is not best but it fun ull love the people online some are really funny pvps good hard thow inles you play radom arena
is still pridy hard pves fun! starte fighing aginst the charr and then u get kick out of asklon and u go on a toldy diffrent qust then thay leed at first but naw theres a new acspchen were u go back and fight the charr and see were it leads and theres gws to comeing out it its a good game sorry for speeling

Learning Curve: Takes a second

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you shood try it sher is not best but it fun ull love the people online some are really funny pvps good hard thow inles you play radom arena
is still pridy hard pves fun! starte fighing aginst the charr and then u get kick out of asklon and u go on a toldy diffrent qust then thay leed at first but naw theres a new acspchen were u go back and fight the charr and see were it leads and theres gws to comeing out it its a good game sorry for speeling

Learning Curve: Takes a second

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Guild Wars was actually the very first MMORPG I ever purchased. When I first purchased this game it was really to avoid having to pay to play for any RPG which is admittedly a big draw for me. As I began to play it more I found that I thoroughly enjoyed the PvP random arenas and found that the PvP was rich and varied in the assortment of skills that are unlockable and upgrades that can be purchased for the armor and weapons. However when I ventured into the actual roleplay campaign I recognized the drawback (for me at least) of this game. While the game is very beautiful with stunning visuals and a great array of skills and professions at your disposal, you will come to find that unless you are adventuring with a group, there will be no one else playing there with you because GW is not persistent as are some MMOs but is instanced. This does have its advantages but the ability to truly explore an immersive fantasy world is lost here. If you want to enjoy a deep and strategically complex PvP system than GW is the game for you, and if you want a good RP experience then you will definetly enjoy it, but if you are looking for a very social, persistent MMO (ala WOW) then look somewhere else. Don't get me wrong GW is a great game and I applaud NCSoft's no subscription model and I admittedly play the PvP like it is no one's business, it is definetly worth a try for the PvP alone (hey it actually worth buying the game for the PvP!). All in all I would say that GW is one of my favorite games (with its own drawbacks of course) and I will be there when GW2 comes out.

Learning Curve: Takes a while

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I am just getting on the MMORPG bandwagon. I was looking for an MMORPG the was free to play and I found Guild Wars. I am really enjoying it and would highly reccomend it. Then again, except for The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar, this has been the only other MMORPG I have tried. I like LotR Online a little better because of the crafting that is non existant in Guild Wars. But, still a great game!

Learning Curve: Takes a second

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Loved this game! Got it on beta release and still playing it. Excellent game for an MMO and its free monthly. Just buy the game then play online with no fees.

Learning Curve: Takes a while

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Guild Wars was just released in April 2005 and you can check it out at http://www.guildwars.com. What more can I say than it's a great game and one of my favorites from here on. I rank it as one of the best MMOs I have ever played, and yes I have played a lot of them.

Impression: First thing that caught my eye on Guild Wars was the No Monthly Fee feature. And I must say it is very nice for a MMO to take a change like that. It would be great to see more in the future.

Secondly, you can choose to create a RPG character which goes through missions and quests and sees the wonder world of an MMORPG, or you can create a pure PVP character. Personally I suggest making an RPG character first, finish the game, and then make yourself a PVP one. I love the intelligence of making the PVP and RPG characters related in such that to make a good PVP character you must first unlock weapons and skills from your RPG character.

Lastly, I would say the huge demand of partying characters. They made the game easy at first but it progresses to something difficult. Not difficult in a sense of 'too hard'. But difficult in a way that makes the game even more enjoyable. There are 'henchmen', which are AIs that you can add and use to do quests and missions, but after you get to level 10 you'll figure out that it's 10 times more fun to party with real humans; might I add easier as well depending on your team mates of course. Once you get to the final missions you'll need lots of team work and patience.

Intro: Once you launch the game it comes up pretty fast, no boring intros of the game logos and junk like that. It checks for updates and then automatically sends you to a log on screen. Personally I think that's wonderful. Unlike sitting and waiting for a minute of logos every time you load the game up. Simplicity at its best. If I have to wait a minute on logos alone, that is when I start getting bored. You basically just want to play the game, so move on; we don't need to see logos everytime our game crashes. :P

Getting Going: Starting out was very easy. Creating a character is very simple and easy to understand; they give you a description of each profession to pick from. Once you get in game they have a help guide, which you don't have to listen to if you don't want to. They put you in a "noob world" that after you leave you can't go back to. So in this setting it's very easy to get used to the game. The NPCs are very well made. Best NPCs I've ever seen in a MMO. They tell you what to do and where to go. I have yet to see any lost newbies running around screaming for answers on what to do next; which is a plus for us all. ^_^

Fun: The game pulls you in. They have funny commands which are unquie to each profession and gender. A couple of friends and I stood next to the henchmen and were playing the instrument commands for at least an hour, lol. Some other people we didn't know came up in joined in after a while.

The game is very entertaining, I can play it for hours without being bored. You form a party with other players in the towns and then head out and do quests or missions. During missions you see cinemas with the players in your party in them interacting. To see that I was amazed. The quests and missions are the beginning of the game tend to be easy, but once you get further down the line they become harder and require that team work. Because they gave the game that difficultly it added more fun to the game. Who wants a game that doesn't progress in difficultly? I like a game with challenge! You can find fun in the game, you do feel excited once a quest/mission begins or you take on a boss, you do stress (For Example: You run into a huge mob of monsters that take out half of your party and you rush to kill them off before you're entire party dies or rush to ressurect them, etc.)

So what could I possibly do to make the game more fun? That is a difficult question. By adding more. I don't want to ever run out of missions and would perfer not to make the final level your character can achieve 20. :( I'd seperate the levels a little so that you get levels faster but don't get as many attribute points, skill points, and hp/mp. Everyone feels happy when they get a level. Or I'd add another story for the people who finish all the missions, maybe add different stories for levels 1-20, 21-40, 41-60, etc. One thing I would play with in trying to find a solution is having all the people in the fields. During the game you only see other people playing in towns; that is where you form your parties. But once you go out in the fields you only see the people in your party there. I feel an MMO isn't an MMO without interacting with other players in the fields. People desire the concept of fighting for things such as the bosses. I feel it adds a higher challenge to the game. However I would leave missions to you and your party alone. I guess not having players in the fields is a good idea, it helps in many ways, that's why it would be a difficult solution to add the multiplayer environment without effecting some of those things. And further on what I said about adding more: I would add more skills, more professions, more items, more armors (Have all the armors be different; if you go ingame you see the same armors repeatively, they have about 4 different ones for each profession and just add more armor to them in progessed towns to have the better armor for your level. I disagree with this.), more dyes, and etc. There's nothing wrong with having lots of things ingame. I encourage games to have unquieness. The more unquie each player is from one another the more real the game feels. What's so wonderful about people all looking the same? Is that the way it is when you walk down the street?

Visuals: Visuals are wonderful.
The grounds impressed me the most. Most MMO show plain grounds that all look the same and the roads look perfect. Well roads aren't perfect in Guild Wars and I love it. It's one of the first things I noticed when I did my first quest outside the town. The roads have bumps and rocks, and turns, and look sketchy. They look like paths. The texture use in the game is stunning. During your missions you have the cimenas as I said before. With the players in your party inacting in the cinemas, so it's not just the same cinema for every person who views it. In one mission you see thousands of charr(a monster) chasing you and you have to make it through the gate before they get to you. And in another mission you see a bunch of charr out in the distance, and you know you wouldn't be able to take all them on at once, so you use a catapult and kill a bit at a time. Hehe that's fun. There are areas you go that will give your character certain effects. Such as the waters. If you step in a tar pit your walking speed is decreased by 30%. Or if you step in pretty looking water you regenerate hp faster. Or the swamp with the dragons water will poison you. The visual environment effects your character more ways than I've seen in an MMO before.

Intelligence: Yes the game is playing against me well. In fact sometimes it's kicking my ass. The monsters are all aggro, you can't just walk passed them to get to where your quest is. Only on the noob island are there a couple non-aggro monsters. I think that's wonderful, you have to work and kill everything down your path to get to where you have to go. If you try running passed them you're only mobbing them all together to be killed. Most of the monsters won't just let you run away either. If you hit that one it will chase you until someone dies. The monsters can also use the same skills the players can. Different monsters can use different skills. There are monsters that can be categorized as clerics, mages, archers, warriors, and necromancers. They have the monsters in groups as well. There are groups that patrol the areas and others that block the roads. And in those groups you have different types of monsters. You can have a healer, and a couple damage dealers, or etc. So if you're trying to kill the damage dealers first you're getting no where. You have to get that healer first. In some areas theres more than one healer in the monsters group. That's where it starts getting tricky. You and your party members need to focus all on that one healer and produce enough damage quickly enough to take it out before the other one can heal it. There are monsters that sit and wait to snipe you. The monsters seem to get more intelligent as the missions and the progress of your character go on.

Immersion: Well all I can say is a couple hours flys by like there's no tomorrow. Once you stop playing you're shocked at what time it is. You basically do a quest or mission until it's complete; if you stop in the middle of it you lose the work you just did. Missions and quests don't take that long at the beginning, but once you go on it can take a hour or more to complete one. You don't want to stop during a mission or quest, all you're focused on is completing it. I think the only thing that stops me from playing once I start is, food, sleep, and having to go somewhere. There is diffinately an addiction to the game.

Cameras: Cameras are wonderful. You can make them as you feel comfortable. That's the beauty of an MMO. You can zoom in and zoom out, and change the perspective in any way you wish. Shouldn't bother anyone since there is so much freedom of it.

Controls: The controls are pretty much the same to any other MMO so it's very simple and easy to understand if you've played them before. And even if you've never played one before, it's simple and easy to learn; there's a guide that will help you with all that at the beginning of the game. One thing that was iffy was the fact that the skills we're located on the number keys. Most MMO's I've played have had them on the F keys. So at first it was different to get used to. But now I see it as a whole lot easier. Because I can use the keypad to cast my spells and have the option of running using my left hand, although you can use both hands plus the mouse to run(your choice).

Ideas: There are a couple major differences in Guild Wars from other MMOs. One would be having no monthly fee; just paying for the game itself. Another would be being able to choose a RPG character or a PVP character. I've never seen those ever done in a MMO before and I love the ideas. Plus the idea of having the fields for only your party members and only having the town areas with all the people playing. The reduces the amount of lag ingame, where it counts the most might I add. Those are great ideas. Plus the fact that this game has lots of skills to choose from. A lot more than I've ever seen in a MMO. I feel Guild Wars is more like the MMO I want to make, sometime in my lifetime, than any other that I've played before.

Memory: After turning the game off I want to play more, just not that second. You must have breaks. Sure it's a great game and I enjoy playing it, but you can't play a game 24-7. 50 words of the high-point of the game wouldn't be enough to tell its greatness. I would probably just mention to that person that it has no monthly fee, that you're able to choose a RPG or PVP character, and you're able to find parties easily. Because finding parties easily is what makes it so much fun. Less time doing that and more time working on a quest or mission.

Learning Curve: Takes a second

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Guild Wars, for a Free-2-Play MMORPG, it is a really great game. The Expansion packs that they have been releasing everything 6-9 months are a nice way to make sure it is f2p as well as adding new content.

The fighting in GW is your standard point and click. You have 8 skill slots for skills and can change your stats anytime you like. The graphics are spectacular w/ the post processing effects turned on.

The flaws of the game are really simple yet affect the game alot. It gets repetitive to say the least. The missions are pretty linear and after beating it you probably wont play it again unless to get the bonus or grind for items. The Instance system is great but could have been better. If someone happens to leave or get disconnected from the game, you wont be able to fill the spot up again.

The PvP is superb. The dev's are always trying to keep the game balanced. Although you can't really be that competitive if you are a casual gamer, the group this game was originally catered to.

There have been quite afew events for the game, from seasonal events to guild tournaments.

All in all if you're looking for a Free MMORPG then you should give this a try.
Learning Curve: Takes a while

Learning Curve: Takes a while

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At first I really enjoyed the game but then, I thought to myself how many times can I take a character through the story, and I figured my experience would be a little different if I played a different profession.

Well, I was wrong when you first play the story it's great but after more than once, I could not endure doing the story again.

It has very good graphics the PVP is fun, but thats really not enough.

Learning Curve: Instant!

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As many have said, Guild Wars is great the first time through. Subsequent playthroughs are a bit more tedious. If you find a good group of people to play the game with though, whether it be PvP, or PvE, the game really shines.

Learning Curve: Takes a while

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