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Role Playing (Games)

'Conquest Mode' In Guild Wars Expansion 27

Posted by Zonk from the gonna-buy-me-a-condo dept.
Rich Powers writes "Gamespy interviews NCSoft's Jeff Strain about the new meta game players can expect when Guild Wars: Factions arrives in Q2 2006. Like other MMORPGs (notably World of Warcraft), the new expansion will allow players to fight over territories and even conquer them. But now they can form alliances with other guilds and, as Strain indicates, even take over the world. The article also mentions the advent of a FPS-like player-vs-player mode where opposing teams attack the enemy's supply lines. Hopefully the trend of player-driven content will continue across the genre."
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'Conquest Mode' In Guild Wars Expansion More

'Conquest Mode' In Guild Wars Expansion

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  • From TFA: (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Kazzahdrane ( 882423 ) on Friday January 13, 2006 @11:37AM (#14464286)
    By participating in "alliance missions" and "faction battles," players can take control of cities and towns and actually move the two nations' control zones.

    The last time I played it, WoW had nothing like this (and AFAIK still doesn't). This is more akin to the factions in DAoC, from what I understand. It certainly sounds interesting, and I really wish I'd picked up Guild Wars last year instead of WoW - this one looks like it's heading in a direction I'm much more into.
    • You can pay for Guildwars in just a couple months by canceling your WoW subscription. No subscription fees for GW.

      No reason for regret, except you've then 'lost' all the time you spent grinding in WoW -- but, as I see it, that time's lost already (as I am personally painfully aware).
      • I quit WoW months ago :) Very happily free! However, I have a couple of friends who rave about how good GW is and if it keeps me amused for a few weeks I can just stop playing for a while and come back when I like....plus this new expansion sounds great. *sigh* I'm gonna buy GW, I just know it...
        • Me too, on both counts. Especially since the expansion is a stand-alone. But, the nice thing about GW is that grinding is not as necessary... so I won't feel forced to stay up to 2 AM on a weeknight just to get something meaningless accomplished.
          • Ya, with Guild Wars it's saying up until 2am in the morning because you're on a roll beating the missions, or in a kick ass PvP party that's good good to drop. Of course neither of these is boring grind and they both involve actually having fun in the game.

        • But, the nice thing about GW is that grinding is not as necessary... so I won't feel forced to stay up to 2 AM on a weeknight just to get something meaningless accomplished.

          I love guildwars but I must say that you may still find something similar happening...just not because of grinding. Some of the higher level quests are pretty near impossible to beat with henchmen and really hard to find other high level players to go on the mission with you. Most of the time I can find people to join me or just gra

          • I've actually had the good fortune of beating all but the very last mission solely with henchmen. It takes time and strategy but it can be done. The last mission can probably be done with henchmen quite easily, if you take the time to move without agroing multiple groups. I've only personnally stayed up really late because I've been on a roll. Of course I doubt anything will top FFXI and staying up until 5am working with my LS at the time to get through the Promy missions. God the day after sucked.
            • I find it hard to believe you beat all the titan quests with henchmen. You beat Last Day Dawns with 3 lvl 6 henchmen against a ton of lvl 28 monsters? If so, I bow in your presence. :)

              Also, there's a few others toward the end like Final Assault where it's pretty hard to beat without splitting up. If you've got a trick to make henchmen split up, I'd love to learn it. Maybe you can beat them all without splitting up but I haven't figured it out yet. I imagine some professions might be better at going solo t

              • Unfortuantely I did not beat the titan quests with the henchmen. I was talking about the missions that are launched from the outposts. I beat the first titan mission with just the henchmen; however, I needed the help of players for the rest of them.

    • Re:From TFA: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by CashCarSTAR ( 548853 )
      You don't have to have the original GW in order to play Factions. Factions is a stand-alone game on its own, and includes the original 6 classes as well. (Not all of the skills, but enough of them to make them playable, as well as the new Factions skills for them, 25 a piece).

      I actually was kinda blah on the expansion, I really expected a quick knock-off like most expansions are. But from all the information, as well as seeing some of the new skills, ArenaNet really have their act together and Guild Wars pr
      • You're right of course, but I'm the sort of person that really enjoys story and stuff so I'd want to play GW too. But then I have a few months left to do so before the expansion...
    • The only territory you can gain/control is in the Alterac Valley (40 vs 40) and Arathi Basin (15 vs. 15) battlegrounds. In AV you can capture graveyards, destroy enemy towers, and move your front line closer to their home base. In AB you have to control as many of the 5 resource nodes as you can, and the first to gather 2000 resources wins.

      Neither makes any changes to the rest of the game, aside from earning a bit of honor, factional reputation, and maybe an item or two. None of the towns or graveyards o
  • From everything I've tried, nothing still seems to come close to the all out war you can have for territory in Eve, and the raw quantity of player driven content. These factions, etc, are all supported by Eve, and have for well over a year.
    • The UK edition of PC Gamer is virtually an Eve Online propaganda tool and some of the stories coming out of Eve are positively Machiavellian but everytime I think of going back I have flashbacks to my time spent mining asteroids. Much like my recollections of Neocron are all about sewers.

      Guild Wars OTOH is a blast and because there are no subs I can just dip into as and when I feel like it and not worry that I'm wasting a subscriptions if I'm not logging 8 hours a night.

      • I have flashbacks to my time spent mining asteroids.

        I got bored mining very quickly. But there is plenty of stuff to do in Eve besides mining. I built a combat ship and started doing missions, got a shuttle and did some exploring, and I'm about to buy an industrial ship to do some trading. I haven't mined in some time (probably will do some more at some point, but it's pretty damn boring).

        The thing I like about Eve is the social component. Even when I'm jumping around waiting forever to travel between syst

      • I haven't mined in probably the past year.

  • Taking over the world (Score:3, Interesting)

    by FirienFirien ( 857374 ) on Friday January 13, 2006 @01:29PM (#14465426) Homepage
    Oh, please don't let one group take over the entire world. In many games where players rule areas, you get one major group who holds the [holdings], and either you're in that bloated group or you're unable to take them on. The fun is in the battles for takeover, and having a power group with a large income essentially overbalances the battle so that competitors have to resort to odd timings and sneak attacks rather than the fun of pitched battles. In Lineage 1, the servers became stagnant when a large alliance of Korean players controlled the land and transferred the holdings between two pawn factions so that all battles were at stupid o'clock for the european and american players.

    Even in games where the landholdings are small, alliances form and the bloated conglomerate reigns. Granted, the alliances get to have their fun in the initial battles, but for anyone who comes later the odds are often overwhelmingly against them, with the alliances shifting their resistance force without much problem to where needed to hold that land.

    There needs to be some kind of balance - the more holdings you own the worse the corruption (as in the Civilisation series), so that after a number of holdings it becomes inefficient to attack a new area unless an old one is relinquished. That way the large groups will move to more prosperous areas (leaving a low value area behind), requiring momentum in play to maintain value. The low value area, presumably taken by a smaller group, will become more prosperous over time again (less corruption for a smaller group); while as usual this idea is probably exploitable in various ways, at least it gives the game more action, less stagnation, and will draw a heck of a lot more holding power. Games are a lot more interesting if there's a pressure to stay on the form you had.

    One drawback here is that smaller players - a handful of hours per week rather than massive chunks of time spent in game - will become a target when any land held is more prosperous, and it'd be tiresome to be attacked over and over just as land becomes useful - but at least it's a start, and should keep the game interesting for a lot longer.

    Disclaimer: I am not a GW player, and don't know the game mechanics. And kinda got carried away a little with the idea. But I've seen enough stagnant powermongers to put me off for a bit, so something more dynamic and interesting like this would be novel enough to give a fair bit more pull.
    • It won't be one group, as in guild, taking over the world. You will be able to align yourself with two factions that are at war with each other and do missions to further that factions goal -- eliminating the other faction. I imagine it will take a coordinated effort among many, many, guilds to conquer the world. Even if they do, ArenaNet will reset the "world" after a specific amount of time.

      For example, in the current chapter, guilds, or even pick up groups, can fight in a certain arena against other grou
    • Shadowbane has offered GvG warfare and player-run city sieges for a long time now, and you can see how that game has turned out.

      I think it's a bad idea to allow a group the option to conquer a virtual world, because in most cases any group motivated enough to do so are not likely to be the "benevolent ruler" types. And that's not good for anyone else playing the game, who then become impediments in the way of the ruler's "keeping" the world. It starts the vicious cycle of "clawing your way to the top and

    • I personally don't think this is how the "Alliance" system works. If I had to hazard a guess, based on the article, there are two different things, "factions" and "alliances." There are only 2 factions, and as many alliances as players choose to build. Any Alliance can capture a territory or city or whatever, but they don't hold it for themselves, but instead the faction they have chosen to support. Such a system would mean that if one faction DID take over the world and hold it against everything, any
  • Territory was supposed to be one of FFXI's big selling points--fight bad guys and take over areas for your nation--but it never seemed to me that anyone was paying very close attention to it.

    On an unrelated note: I don't think I would like GW. It seems like it would be much the same play experience as Diablo 2, only in 3D and with an in-game lobby.
    • Well, if you liked Diablo 2 for the gauntlet-ish hordes of monsters and slinging spells/arrows all over the place while dodging stuff, then you probably wouldn't like Guild Wars anyway. Its a whole lot nicer than all the other lame 'MMO' games, but it still feels borderline tedious due to its pacing. Its more akin to Neverwinter Nights, except a lot prettier, and with a lot more skills (feats, whatever).

      I haven't played it since the ATI free 10 hour trial thing, but its not bad. I probably would have bou
      • I _hated_ D2, mostly because I was always strapped for cash and items. I never even considered playing it online because of the seemingly very limited number of viable character builds. Well, that and all the cheaters/hackers. Is it so hard to make a game where ANY build is useful? I mean, I'd like to see an MMO where people don't try as hard as they can to get their damage per second as high as possible--I don't want to plan my character's _items_ and _equipment_ levels in advance. Hell, my character shoul
    • On an unrelated note: I don't think I would like GW. It seems like it would be much the same play experience as Diablo 2, only in 3D and with an in-game lobby.
      I tend to agree, immersion is my primary goal in MMORPGs (and RPGs), and WOW for all its completely static world and formularised goals, had a lot of effort in the quality of the experience and polish. I would love to see an MMORPG with that much polish and a truly dynamic world. In fact, I'll wait.
    • GW is indeed similar to diablo-type games, though the "twitch" is gone, and where it was, there is strategy.

      even the best players in the world can be defeated by a player who was prepared. Even the most powerful builds can be rendered useless by a few strategic skills chosen at the start of a match.

      the only thing GW *doesn't* have is the addictiveness of World of Warcraft. But, it doesn't need it. The company doesn't have to get you to renew on a monthly basis, so they don't have to restrict access to stu
      • "the only thing GW *doesn't* have is the addictiveness of World of Warcraft"

        It also doesn't have the ability to jump over even a slight bump in the game world. Or to slide down a steep incline. The contrived pathing in the game drove me nuts. I can see a spot two feet away from me, but I have to wander around this path to get there because there is a two foot drop to that spot.
        I'm sure most people don't care about that, but as a player who loves exploring and clambering all around the landscape it was irrit

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