nickdawgy

So I just got a call from Gamestop telling me it'd be in tomorrow. I completely forgot I'd reserved it. Of course that was only to get the free stuff

Not sure if I'll be getting it or not, haven't seen any reviews, and a friend said the beta was crap. A free MMORPG sounds cool, though.

fumanstan

I haven't looked at Guild Wars much, but from what i've heard it may be "free" but you also have to pay for new content, which is pretty much going to be necessary if you really want to get into the game. It's a pass for me, since i don't even play enough World of Warcraft

flashburn

I wouldn't really consider it to be an MMORPG. The only thing that is 'massive' about it is when you are in a city, everything besides that is instanced for yourself, your group, or for 30-40 PVP events.

innocentfreak

I preordered it but will be cancelling. I found the beta boring. I just couldn't get into the game

karnblack

I've been playing since the first beta event, and I picked up my copy today along with my fiancée's. She got to play all night since we were at her place and my computer was over at mine.

Groucho

I have been following this game for a couple years. Loved the first E34E beta, preordered not long after.

Since then, they've made the game progressively worse (for me, anyway). I decided that I'm still having fun with World of Warcraft, so I cancelled my preorder. Still, if the WoW battlegrounds suck, I might give this a try.

timewaster

I've heard others say the same thing.
what did they do to make it worse?

Groucho

There's a lot of small things, but the biggest kicker for me was the skill acquisition system.

There are several skills that cannot be purchased from a vendor, and must be found in-game. Previously, these were found via random boss drops. Now, you have to wait for a boss to use the skill you want, target it, and "capture" it. Very clumsy, and impossible to do for support characters who are healing/buffing their party and not watching the boss.

Other changes I didn't like were the new clumsy interface, and the fact that you anybody install the game and roll up a level 20 character (the maximum level for the game). Also, things seemed to get buggier and buggier with each progressive beta weekend.

karnblack

I think starting out with a level 20 character was only for the beta. Everyone now starts out at level 0.

Ginwen

I'll get it to play with one friend who is too cheap to play a game with a monthly fee. I'm still enjoying WoW, but for $40 I might as well check Guild Wars out (I played in one of the Betas--thought it was ok but not great).

nickdawgy

How are the reviews?

innocentfreak

Well I jumped in since I had preordered it. So far not too bad, and it is better than I remembered in beta. Several things already annoy me though, but that was expected. Yes I am a picky gamer.

1. Skills. You can only have 8 skills active at any time and you can only switch them in cities. For rangers to keep your pet you have to keep the charm animal skill, so you are already down a skill since that does nothing once you have a pet., though it would be nice if once you charmed it switched to attack or someother pet command. It would be like having a mana skill which gives you the ability to learn magic and then requiring you to have it selected if you want to use magic also even though it is a passive skill. Probably not the best analogy but it is late. Or maybe a better one, require a warrior to have parry, dodge, or block on the skill bar if he wants to be able to do that in combat. I should only need charm pet when I want to capture a new pet. Why does it seem that hunters/rangers always get penalized? At least you don't have to waste a bag slot with a quiver and a bag for food.

2. Invisible walls. This was in beta and I didn't think it would change, but if you don't want me to go there put up a fence. There is nothing more frustrating then trying to get somewhere only to run into walls you can't see.

3. Directions. On the minimap you show the marker telling me what general direction to go, but with invisible walls this is sometimes quite frustrating. Please also show me on the full map so I can figure out a route.

4. Minimap. Friendlies are green and enemies are red. Can we please make the important NPC's such as quest givers, collectors and anyone else I need to talk to a different color. Thanks for showing me where Farmer Bob is but he can't do anything for me and won't even talk to me.

5. Collector quests. Make them quests so you can keep track of who they go to and how many I need of whatever item. Also when offering the item to me let me see the stats when I come to get it, not just when you told me what I needed.

6. Offer all quests to single players. There are three quests so far that require you to group, and I see people asking to group just so they can do this quest. Some of you may not see that as an issue, but as soon as they finish the quest they ungroup and seperate. Offer meeting stones or something similar to what WoW does so it is quick and easy to find someone else who is looking for the same quest, instead of spamming chat.

7. Chat. It would be nice if you could stay on the general channel of the city of your choosing while in the instance, but make it an option. Instead of nothing, I shouldn't have to just sit in the city to chat and see if someone is selling anything.

8. Loot. There needs to be more merchants. I am always full and end up having to dump things since I am halfway through a quest. It would also be nice if you had a salvage bag that only head salvaged materials or any other goods for creating things so that they didn't take up precious inventory space.

9. Weapons. it would be nice if they added a ranged slot so I don't have to stow my bow giving up yet another inventory slot. Also when it comes to weapons can we have the graphic please be a little closer to the description. Today I found a short sword which I equipped due to its stats. I then found a longsword with the same stats but I prefer the look of the long sword or at least the one I found earlier. I switch weapons only to find my new long sword is exactly the same as the short sword as far as looks.

10. Salvage and Identify. The two money sinks I have found are salvage and identify, both which should either be able to be learned as a skill instead of taking up inventory slots or be able to go to a NPC and pay per item. Maybe salvage will get better but I miss the ability to know or have a general idea on what something will become when I try to salvage it.

Oh well that is my brief review after 2 hours of play. There is probably more I left out, but so far the game is not bad. I have not felt the desire to quit yet, but will see how well it holds up this weekend.

Baron Of Hell

Is guild war better than WOW? From the reviews it sounds like it might be about even. Anybody play both? I probably would have bought WOW by now but the price is still $50 and it doesn't look like one can buy it used because how they handle accounts. Seems like but rape to me with the $15 monthly fee. This is one reason I'm looking into guild wars.

innocentfreak

Imho, the short answer is no, but I am not into the post-searing area yet, or out of noobie zone yet. As far as WoW, the first month is free so figure 35 for the game and 15. for the month. Also Amazon has a 60 day card for 24.99. No monthly fee for Guild Wars but you will have to pay for the new content I would assume 29-35 when they come out.

As far as gameplay, I still prefer WoW but I play both still. In WoW I have met a ton of cool people while questing and have also met my share of jerks. In Guild Wars I haven't met anyone. The reaon I blame is the fact everything but the city is instanced, meaning when you enter the world alone you are alone until you re-enter the city. People complain in WoW you have to stand in line to complete quests due to multiple people working the same quest. In Guild Wars I find myself standing around in a city trying to join to complete quests which require a group. I would much rather be able to fight and do things while trying to get help instead of just standing around. If you are looking for cool gear, so far WoW takes the cake. There is nothing like entering a city to see everyone dressed exactly the same if they are the same class. Again I haven't left the noobie zone, but it seems like this is standard fare. Unlike WoW who has recently added more bars to place actions and skills, Guild Wars limits you to 8 skills, which means when you leave the city make sure you have the skills you need or you won't be able to use them. I am still getting the hang of Guild Wars but if you have specific questions go ahead and ask and I will try to answer them.

Baron Of Hell

Great info.

I hear that in guild wars combat is more based on skill than power, is this true? Is combat better or worst or just different from WoW?

Guild Wars is said to be story driven instead of got to get this new power driven. How is the story in GW?

innocentfreak

It is supposed to be. I can somewhat see that it is strategy based versus just power but I haven't tried PVP yet. From what I remember PVP is where the skills are supposed to shine versus pve. They do try to convey this in PVE because sometimes it is extremely challenging to kill an enemy 4 levels below you. For me I don't care for it. I believe skill should be involved but it should play more a roll in equal levels and not a level 8 versus a level 4 creature.

I think the story is equal to WoW, but then I rarely play games for the story. They both incorporate the story in the quests and neither seems to stick out in my mind, but someone who plays for storylines may feel differently.

A couple other points I thought of after my other post.

In WoW you have to worry about respawns, even in the dungeons enemies respawn. In Guild WArs there seems to be no respawns or they are on a very long timer. As a result in WoW you have the chance to aggro a mob that respawns, but in Guild Wars they have mobs that come from under ground. As a result you may rush in to kill the monster onscreen only to have 4 monsters come from underground. I prefer WoW in this aspect as I would rather get killed by a mob that respawned while I was standing there versus enemies that came from nowhere.

Groucho

You've probably figured this out now that (I assume) you are out of the Newbie Area, but for the big missions, they have Outposts were you put a group together.

Hard to compare this to WoW, really. They're very different games. For the PvP enthusiast, Guild Wars is currently the better choice, but that may change with the next WoW content patch (Battlegrounds).

Baron Of Hell

Just got the game. So far it is ok. Still getting use to things and seeing what I can do. Created two toons, Child of Blood and Lady of Thorns. One a Necro Warrior the other a Warrior Necro. The idea being to create a Death Knight.

Whoever said this was COH crossed with Diablo 2 was right. The only problem is I got burned out on COH but bad parts seems to be gone from this game.

The game looks great and sounds great. The world feels alive unlike COH which feels dead. Combat is fun and I have out smarted some guys using tatics after getting my but handed to me a number of times. Oh the DP is a lot fairer in this game than in COH. Everytime you die your max health goes down but if you go to a town you get it all back. So you don't want to die but if you do you won't waste time making up what you lost.

Haven't tried grouping or PvP yet.

Sildenafil

can someone tell me about the loading time of this game? I hated loading time for everquest, every time you move to a different city or when your character dies and even fisrt time you start the game.

nickdawgy

People still calling them "toons"? People in EQ said that all the time.

Duran

I've played the game for several hours now, and I honestly can't recall how bad the load times are. That would indicate to me that they're fine.

Baron Of Hell

The load times almost do not exist. When you walk into a new area the load in a few seconds. I doubt it could be any faster than what it is now.

nickdawgy

The worst part of the game in my opinion is not being able to do down hills. I mean maybe that is what innocentfreak meant about invisible walls. Whoever implemented this into the game should be fired on the spot. You're trying to get somewhere, and it's right at the bottom of this cliff, and you can't go there, you have to go around.

nickdawgy

Oh and Gamespot gave it a 9.2.

I'd say it's definitely high 8 low 9's. I am really liking it, sans the walls problem.

Baron Of Hell

Still liking it. I got to group last night and had a good time with a nice guy showing me around. The only problem was I manage to break our group somehow when I warped off. There might have been a warning that I missed. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to send him a message to regroup.

So there needs to be a way to group with people not in your area. There should also be follow command to tail your leader. It would also be nice if you could review the missions other people have in your party. Also a option to pull up the nearest mission would be good. A built in teamspeak option would also been nice but my chick toon would sound strange.