The story is one typical of most role-playing games and is explained a bit further in the manual. You are a human from the kingdom of Ascalon, in the land of Tyria that leads a pretty quiet life despite constant squabbles with the other two human kingdoms. This is where the very informative tutorial places you, in your home city before all hell breaks loose. This hell is brought on by a siege from a race of beasts known as the Charr. The humans neglected to pay attention to the Charr while fighting amongst themselves. This sudden onslaught that nearly destroys the entire kingdom proves very useful in making the humans see past their differences to fight together to rid their lands of the Charr invasion. Your job in all of this is to assist your king and prince with whatever missions they may need help in. The story is deeply engrossing as it takes you all across the lands of Tyria, from barren wastelands to snowy mountains to steamy jungles.

ArenaNet made every attempt possible to incorporate as much public input into the game as well by having open betas for those who preordered the game. Staff then frequented GW message forums to see what still needed to be tweaked. All of this thought and consideration was deeply appreciated by the gaming community and is evident to those that played through any of the betas who are now playing the retail version--which before I go on further must state--has no monthly fees!

...is that guy naked down there?

Gameplay: 9
Guild Wars is very easy for newcomers of the genre to dive right into. The interface is very intuitive and there is a low learning curve in learning how to use it. Anything in the interface can either be clicked using the mouse, or has a corresponding hotkey to bring up the different screens. Character creation is pretty basic, first making you decide between 6 different classes for your primary class, and then later making you choose one of the remaining 5 as a secondary class. After choosing your visually distinctive primary class, you can then choose between gender, body size, skin color, hair color, etc. Armor can be dyed as you go along in the game and either purchase or find dyes, which come in a variety of colors and can also be mixed for even further customization. You can create up to 4 characters, and decide if you want to have them start from scratch. You have both PvP (Player-vs-Player) and PvE (Player-vs-Environment) available to you, or you can decide to make a character PvP only--which starts them at the maxed level with good equipment and a range of skills for both classes.

Battling it out!

Each class has a total of 150 skills that can be bought or discovered, yet you can only take 8 skills with you on quests or missions. This is where the strategy really comes into play, because different circumstances may require radically different types of skills. It also depends on what specific attributes of your classes you decide to specialize in that can make some skills incredibly powerful and others too weak to bother with. Deciding which primary class you make also plays a role here. Each class has an attribute that is only available to those who chose it as a primary class, so if you have two classes in mind, look at those exclusive attributes to decide which one should be your primary. Attribute points are limited so they must be distributed wisely, although you do get a certain amount of refund points if you decide that that build isn’t quite to your liking.

Quests and missions are numerous and varied, and offer you the choice of either going solo with AI henchmen, or allowing you to party with other players. A quest log keeps track of all the quests you have accepted, and once highlighted will make a green arrow appear on your onscreen map indicating which way you have to go to get to your destination. This thankfully eliminates long hours of wandering aimlessly around. There are invisible walls you may encounter though. Since your feet are firmly grounded as well, it may take awhile to get where you’re trying to go. This is somewhat helped out by the mouse, since clicking on a place you want to go to often makes your character navigate itself around the walls.

Guild Wars eliminates many other frustrating elements of typical MMOs. Those people who only like stat-raising and level grinding need not apply. The level cap of GW is currently set at 20 and was specifically set at that to reduce the grind time with hopes that by doing that the game is based more on your actual ability to play, rather than just how many hours you have put into the game. That should be refreshing to anyone who doesn’t have 40 hours a week to devote just to gaming. Also, all quests and missions take place in instanced environments, which means it’s just you and your party out there, so you don’t have to worry about higher levels coming to kill either you or your experience points. Gold is split evenly between teammates, and if you die on a mission you still keep everything in your possession. Items are also randomly assigned when they are dropped, which can be both a pain and a blessing at the same time. Crafting in this game is accomplished by salvaging items and taking them to an NPC, which will make you either new weapons or armor, for a price of course.

I like where this is going.

There is only one server in this game as well, so meeting up with your friends or guildmates is as easy to coordinate as it is to actually meet up. Travel to different cities/meeting areas is as easy as opening up your map and clicking on it, once you find the city of course. You are then randomly placed in a district, but that can also be changed by clicking on a drop-down menu. Patches are also directly streamed into the game, although some require you to exit the game and load it up again (it’s always your choice when to exit the game, though).

Graphics: 9
The graphics in GW are gorgeous. The water effects are breathtaking and the locations are lush and diverse. Surprisingly though, even when the graphics are turned down a bit for older PCs, the game still looks amazing. There can be some lag that occurs in the game, but I’ve only experienced that a couple of time and usually occurs when there are a lot of people and creatures on the screen.

What's in your wallet!?

The overall design of GW seemed to take less of a fantasy approach and more of a realistic one. Many creatures are based on actual animals, and the only race available to players is the human one. Technologically-speaking, it seems as if GW would be taking place in the medieval era, but with magic and fantastical creatures around. Each character class and gender have their own uniquely designed (for the most part) set of emotes available. These are done fluidly and are often very entertaining to watch. It’s quite possible that a spontaneous dancing event will break out in town, which looks very impressive.

A potential drawback to the game occurs with the cutscenes. These are all played out using the in-game engine, so characters don’t move their lips and the edges can seem a bit rough.

Sound: 8
The score to this game is absolutely beautiful, and those that shelled out the extra cash for the collector’s edition received a copy of the soundtrack with it. Jeremy Soule is the composer, and the music can totally immerse you with your surroundings. It can get a tad repetitive though, especially if you are spending hours in one particular area.

Sound effects are very appropriate, and different skills/spells often make different sounds as well as having different visual signatures. This can be pivotal to certain classes like Mesmers that depend on anticipating an enemy’s actions to be effective and deadly. Spoken dialog that occurs in the game does so in the cutscenes only, which I found a little disappointing. Your character will only speak if they are the leader of the party, which can also make it hard for you to connect with them. The voice acting is pretty good though, and is pretty convincing, there just should be more of it…

Cameo appearance by Josie and the pussycats.

Multiplayer: 9
Ah, at last we come to the other half of Guild Wars: PvP. This is an entirely different side to the game from the PvE elements of it, and is a very refreshing change whenever you feel you are getting a little burned out on the PvE side of things. PvP will actually probably feel most familiar to fans of shooters, since the various missions boil down to capture the flag missions, king of the hill missions, etc. It’s here that both continents and guilds compete for fame and glory. Battles can only be described as fast and furious, and are recommended to those that have at least become comfortable with the game. Otherwise, it’ll be over for your team in a flash. Picking and choosing between skills is the most crucial at this point in the game, and careful strategies should be layed out beforehand. This is probably best accomplished by using TeamSpeak, which the game does support.

Challenged to battle.

Once your guild wins enough battles it will be rewarded with its very own Guild Hall, a meeting place that is for guild members only. It’s also the cheap way to get one, with the other way requiring lots of cash to purchase a signet. You also get to choose which place you would like your Guild Hall in as well, as there are several available. Guilds are also ranked based on their performance in a battle ladder and will also give your character a certain level of fame. This also affects all of the characters you may create on your account, since all of them will be automatically placed in the same guild. So hopefully everyone playing the game in your house is happy with the guild you choose.

Replay Value: 8
While you may not jump for joy at the prospect of doing every single quest over again for another character, GW definitely makes the main missions short and varied enough that it’s not incredibly taxing. Since character classes play out so differently as well, it’s very often an entirely different experience. And with the promise of expansions releasing every 6 months or so, the future of Guild Wars definitely looks promising.

PvP also gives players a reason to come back for more, as you’ll always be tweaking your character to get the most power out of them, whether it’s healing or hitting.

Conclusion: 9/10
I said it before but I’ll say it again, not having monthly fees is awesome! That way I don’t feel compelled to have to play it as much as possible to get my money’s worth. The money I did spend on it was well spent and definitely worth it. Will every gamer enjoy it? Probably not, but Guild Wars has a wide appeal that both MMO newbies and vets alike can enjoy. With a few modifications to the game, it could easily become the best MMO out on the market. Very highly recommended and hope to see you in Tyria!

An example of the beautiful environments.

"Don't you think that helmet is a little primitive?"

Not fair! I suffer from batrachophobia.

Further Reading:
Guild Wars Official Site- http://guildwars.com/
Lots of information on skills, creatures, etc- http://gwonline.net/

Pros:

• No monthly fees!
• Will run on both newer and older PCs
• Streaming patches
• PvP Content

Cons:

• Invisible walls
• Little spoken dialogue