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Role Playing (Games)

Guild Wars Still In The Thick of Battle 46

Posted by Zonk from the ding dept.
1up.com has an interview with community relations manager Gaile Gray. They discuss changes since the launch, and how the company has acted to keep the player-base happy in a title with no fee to keep them grounded. From the article: "August's event showed us that increasing the rewards for PVP play was both necessary and wise. The feedback we received before the event provided us with a lot of guidance on what players wanted most. We reacted with a substantial boost to faction points and with special rewards for PVP accomplishments...and the players loved it. We're going to keep watching the gameplay progression and reward systems to ensure that both PVP players and cooperative players are adequately rewarded."
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Guild Wars Still In The Thick of Battle More

Guild Wars Still In The Thick of Battle

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  • Good so far. We'll see. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Somatic ( 888514 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @08:50PM (#13726498) Journal
    I was fascinated when I first heard how well Guild Wars was doing. They seemed to have broken the MMOG pricing model wide open; this is not the first article that marked their success.

    It still hasn't been tested by their expansion model, though. For the game to survive long term, they need to sell those expansions, and they need to keep doing it for years.

    I'm skeptical whether that will work or not, but we'll see. I'm rooting for them, and not because I play the game (I don't), and not because I think this model is any better than the subscription model (I'm on the fence about that). I'm rooting them because I love MMOGs, live them, and anything that shakes up the MMOG paradigm is a good thing. The market has begun to stagnate as it moves closer and closer to Hollywood budgets.

    This pricing model has the potential to allow more newcomers in the field, if it works. Not everyone is a MMOG nut like me, tossing out dollars for subscriptions without even thinking about it. I think a large part of the market is still scared of subscriptions. If this pricing model reaches those people, the whole industry benefits.

    If the allmighty dollar is going to dominate this market just like it does everything else, anything that attracts more allmighty dollars is a good thing-- there's a higher chance some of it will reach a good developer.

    We'll see.

    • GW -- reasons for long-term success (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Morgaine ( 4316 ) on Thursday October 06, 2005 @08:09AM (#13728772)
      I'm skeptical whether that will work or not, but we'll see. I'm rooting for them, and not because I play the game (I don't)

      Try it briefly, and you'll see why they are extremely likely to succeed. There are five key reasons why I think it's almost guaranteed, by design:

      • They are creating an ever-growing CAPTIVE audience, unlike any other MMOG-type game. The audience is captive because of the lack of monthly subscription costs. After all, once you've purchased the extremely cheap game pack (just 18 UK pounds from play.com), why would you delete it? You're captive for good (in principle), even if you don't play it, as you'll still have GW announcements on your mental radar. In marketting terms, that's a goldmine.

      • They have utterly eradicated all the horrors that plague more conventional MMOGs, like kill stealing, camping, camp stealing, xp grinding, LFG waiting, getting mobs trained on you, and many others. This makes people who have experienced those problems before appreciate GW for eternity.

      • They are unique in providing a game which supports the solo gamer totally brilliantly (the henchmen concept is terrific), and the casual gamer as well (no LFG timesink because of henchies, and a trillion short but rewarding quests to do). Yet somehow, ie. through the sheer brilliance of the design, they've managed to make it equally excellent for team players, and for the non-casual hardcore. It's hard not to be impressed.

      • The design of the game is such that there is a MINISCULE loading on servers. (It's almost tempting to call it a P2P game mediated through a central transport proxy.) As a result, their server requirements must be massively less than for any conventional MMOG, which means that their no-subscription business model isn't sucked dry by huge platform hardware, admin, and support costs. This approach is wonderfully scalable both from a technical and a business perspective. (I work in platform scaling, so I know a scalable design when I see it.)

      • And finally, the hardcore element. It's probably fair to say that Guild Wars is one of the hardest online games in existence if you want it to be, but very easy if you don't. In other words, if you decide to fully assimilate and understand the hundreds of skills of your primary and secondary profession and how they interact with and how they counter those of your opponents then the game is extremely challanging.

        It's mind-bogglingly complex to be fully aware of the professions of those you are fighting and what skills they are using, to counter them appropriately, while at the same time managing your energy reserve, and looking out for your team. This is nothing like a straight turns-based MMOG like EQ, where once you engage combat, the outcome is largely decided as long as you don't do something dumb. GW is fast and furious --- no tank taunt to trivialize the gaming in PvE, and effective foe AI so that the healer always gets it first, just like human players do.

        If you've absorbed the above, you'll realize that PvP in Guild Wars is either fantastically brilliant (if you like PvP) or appallingly dreadful (if you're a PvE-only fan), because GW's PvP is trully player-skill-based: ie. the best man/woman wins, regardless of equipment. This is why the Koreans own GW's PvP space --- they work hard to understand the game, and it's their human skill/experience as players that makes them use the in-game skills so devastatingly. (America comes a beleagered and very battered second, and the chewed up and splattered remains of Europe a very distant third.)

      In summary, Guild Wars can't fail, not by rights anyway. It will fail only if not enough people hear about it, or if its totally excellent developers leave the company. (No, I don't work there, I'm just an appreciative player, completed it on main.) :-))
      • If you've absorbed the above, you'll realize that PvP in Guild Wars is either fantastically brilliant (if you like PvP) or appallingly dreadful (if you're a PvE-only fan), because GW's PvP is trully player-skill-based: ie. the best man/woman wins, regardless of equipment. This is why the Koreans own GW's PvP space --- they work hard to understand the game, and it's their human skill/experience as players that makes them use the in-game skills so devastatingly. (America comes a beleaguered and very battered
      • Well said. Small disgression: Korean teams only feared by those who don't know any better. I honestly believe the top tier American teams are equal to the top tier Korean teams, and that there's more good American teams than good Korean teams. However, for whatever reason, Korean noobs beat American noobs: I suspect because a Korean team's members are all sitting in an internet cafe together with an easy line of communication. Oddly enough, euro-teams do tend to suck. There are good European players
      • This is why the Koreans own GW's PvP space --- they work hard to understand the game, and it's their human skill/experience as players that makes them use the in-game skills so devastatingly. (America comes a beleagered and very battered second, and the chewed up and splattered remains of Europe a very distant third.)

        While I agree with most of what you said, I have to disagree with the small excerpt above. If you check the Guild Wars ladder http://ladder.guildwars.com/ [guildwars.com] you'll see that Korea, if anything,

        • The instanced maps do hurt the community aspect of the game somewhat- you eliminate griefers, kill-stealers, and PKers, but you also eliminate a good deal of tension and happenstance. It can be hard to find the community in-game.

          I agree with this. Instancing is something I don't like a lot in my games. Although without instancing guild wars would not work the same at all. I would be interested to see someone make competative game like guildwars but not relient on instancing.

  • Oooo... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by WWWWolf ( 2428 ) <wwwwolf@iki.fi> on Thursday October 06, 2005 @06:19AM (#13728391) Homepage

    Can you imagine it? People are still playing a game that was released a whole six months ago? Unprecedented! Completely unheard of! Truly, a landmark in history of Internet gaming! [bat.org]

    I don't have objections to Guild Wars or such, just happy that they're building a strong community. Yet, I find it a bit odd that in general, nowadays, some people might consider it weird to play a game that was released more than 2 months ago. Are we really heading to "throwaway entertainment" culture in video games too, or what?

    Do call me back when Guild War reaches five-year limit though, like Neverwinter Nights will in next summer, still at the moment as lively as ever =)

  • MMORPG? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Phantasmo ( 586700 ) on Thursday October 06, 2005 @10:05AM (#13729540)
    I've been playing Guild Wars since May and I love every aspect of it.

    However, I'm disappointed that we've gone from calling it a CORPG to an MMORPG. People buy this game expecting "WoW for Free!" when they should be thinking "Diablo Done Right."

    If you're looking for a fun, skill-based, multiplayer RPG then Guild Wars is the best you'll find. If you're looking for something that you can play every single day/night, find an active guild that plays a lot of PvP.

    Oh yeah, and get your free trial [ati.com]. Don't worry about entering a serial number.
  • As well as the fact that there is no Monthly fee. I am what you call the casual gamer. Play couple times a month for a couple hours. And its still fun to play with friends that play 3 -4 times a week.

    But for some more free fun check out the url under my user name.

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