Guild Wars is everything DDO should have been

[Felon]

Please, tell me more. What's the gameplay like? Is it a true MMO, or is the multiplayer optional? How does the MMO element factor in if you can play solo all the time?

 

[Evilhalfling]

The cities and outposts are like chatrooms, but every combat area is like an instance, you only see NPCs and the people you brought with you.
After the early game the default party size is 8, if you go solo or "hench" a quest you fill out the other seven spots with up to 3 heroes and/or up to 7 henchmen. The henchmen are preset, but heroes can be assigned skill sets, equipment and Attack/Defend or Coward strategy.

levels are capped at 20, after that you fight/grind/purchase for the smallest of advantages, or based on your fav appearence for armor, or a new title.
in eye of the north many titles allow you to put up statues in your personal hall of records.

The big advantages over WoW are no spawning point camping, instant travel to any town or outpost you have visited, and the ability to completely rebuild your character (keeping only your primary class). Also quests rarely become either too hard or too easy, the campaign story is good but liner with only a few choice points.

The disads are character power stops increasing, which may lead to the boredom of some of the posters above. It is also harder to sell things to other players, and your PC must be human.

 

[Jasperak]

That's cool. I found another MMORPG a while ago (called Mabinogi, I think) that didn't charge a monthly fee and didn't even charge you to download the game, but just about anything else you could do in it that was fun required money. It was fun at first, then I got frustrated with it.

I'm trying to save money right now so I can't really afford to spend too much on computer games, and a monthly fee for one is right out, but I liked WoW when I played (dropped it mostly because I didn't feel like the fee was worth it - felt like I couldn't play anything but WoW since I was paying for it by the month), so I'm eager to find another MMORPG that's as entertaining as WoW without the fee.

Do you know if it's possible to buy a used copy of the game? Like, does the game come with a one-time-use-only code to activate your campaign, or whatever they call it?

They say that you cannot transfer your access code so no you cannot get it used. Probably because they seem to make the most of the money from selling the game in stores and online.

I don't know about WOW but GW beats out DDO without a doubt. GW has an up front buy-in but after that it is free until they bring the servers down.

 

[DarkKestral]

The disads are character power stops increasing, which may lead to the boredom of some of the posters above. It is also harder to sell things to other players, and your PC must be human.

Character power is not strictly a numerical thing in GW, though. It's often more a matter of variety. Almost every class has a ton of skills; 150-300 per class is not uncommon. Yet you're only allowed 8 at a time, and only one of those can be an "elite" skill, which are more powerful. So quite a bit of that power comes in the form of obtaining new skills, which let you adapt to a wider variety of situations, and also to choose your specific playstyle; 2 rangers, even with the same secondary, can play wildly differently simply by their choice in skills.

However, yes, the "raw numbers" quickly stop increasing. But that's an intentional design decision, and meant to facilitate the balanced PvP the game has, and in a way, encourages experimentation, as the build system and easy switching lets you really play around with the skills.

As far as requiring everybody to be human, Guild Wars 2 will allow players to play non-human races, so it will only apply to the current Guild Wars.

 

[Felon]

So, what are classes like? Do they adhere to the DPS/tank/support roles that have grown obligatory to MMO's?

 

[DarkKestral]

So, what are classes like? Do they adhere to the DPS/tank/support roles that have grown obligatory to MMO's?

Yes, no, somewhat, and it really depends on what you mean.

See, the thing is, since every player gets a primary class and a secondary class, it's possible to have every skill in the game known, but you're limited only to those skills available to you that you get from your specific classes. As a result, most classes have a fairly broad mix of DPS, tank, and support skills, so sometimes, with the right skill combos, it's possible to have "tank" or DPS classes that mostly play a support role, and also DPS and support characters that tank.

However, generally certain classes are better at certain things than others. A Mesmer primary is rarely suited to tanking, for example, while a Warrior primary generally has good armor and has a lot of skills that make them better at tanking, but are also generally poor spellcasters, and simply cannot be as good of a combat interrupter as a Mesmer is, (debuffs and skill interruption are the Mesmer's specialty, and among PvPers, good Mesmers are considered to be quite dangerous opponents). Monks have few native skills that let them DPS or tank, though with the right secondaries, they can do at least well enough to solo, but they are excellent healer.

That said, it's often possible to be rather effective in a non-traditional role. One build, the 55/105 Monk aka the I-Monk, or Invulnerable Monk, is a Monk/Warrior or Monk/Necromancer who uses Monk skills and their secondary to become essentially invulnerable to damage, in a certain limited fashion. However, despite the name, it essentially has no presence in PvP, as it relies on using easy to dispel enchantments and has low damage, although it can often be an excellent farming build. I personally played a Ranger/Monk as a solo healer through what was at least at the time, widely considered the most difficult mission in the game, with perhaps the worst PuG I've ever seen, and that with half the group size traditionally required and without a second healer, as was considered necessary according to the prevailing wisdom. (I honestly don't suggest it. I was just that tired of being held up waiting for a healer and wanted to move forward in the storyline.) Plus, since all classes are meant to have something to appeal to players of all types, there's often skills in your primary and secondary which can be used in a synergistic fashion to create sometimes stupidly effective techniques. The 55 Monk is one, though there is also the Ranger/Necromancer "touchy Ranger" who uses necromancer abilities as his main attacks, and others. The thing is though, most of these combos are historically rather ineffective at major group-level PvP, which is what most things are balanced around, and when they do become unbalancing, ArenaNet is generally quick to patch the game.

There are two things Guild Wars does to ensure players can't totally usurp traditional class roles: first, they limit armor availability and most armor enhancements to a player's primary class, and secondly, they have certain attributes which give inherent bonuses that are only available to a player with that primary class. This also means that certain skills will tend to be used exclusively by players with that primary, because they are linked to that primary-only attribute. They may not be (Nearly all skills, for example, grow better with an attribute, but some are good enough that players may still use them even if they have a 0 in that attribute, or are designed in such a way that players knowing the limitations of that particular skill can build around it in a way that lets them be effective with that 0.)

 

[Thanee]

Please, tell me more. What's the gameplay like? Is it a true MMO, or is the multiplayer optional? How does the MMO element factor in if you can play solo all the time?

It's a bit like Diablo, just that instead of the chat you have a typical MMO town, where you can buy/sell/trade. There you pick up your henchmen, or group with others, and then enter an instance (in Diablo you would open/join a game at this point).

Bye
Thanee

 

[Thanee]

Do you know if it's possible to buy a used copy of the game? Like, does the game come with a one-time-use-only code to activate your campaign, or whatever they call it?

Sorry, no idea.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Merkuri]

Hmm... Guild Wars sounds interesting, but significantly different from WoW. I tended to solo a lot in WoW, but even though I was soloing it was fun to see people walk by, hear them in the chat, or fight side-by-side with them picking off a particular kind of mob. I don't know what it was about just being able to see other people that made it so entertaining, but it was.

It sounds like Guild Wars only has a small number of regions where you can see people but the "meat" of the game is just you and your party. If I were to solo through those it would probably end up being a very lonely experience.

About how long does it take to do an instance in Guild Wars? One of the reasons I didn't group often or do many instances in WoW was that I tended to play in short bursts. I didn't want to be stuck at the computer because I was in a group and it would be rude to leave in the middle.

 

[Thanee]

It sounds like Guild Wars only has a small number of regions where you can see people but the "meat" of the game is just you and your party.

Exactly.

About how long does it take to do an instance in Guild Wars? One of the reasons I didn't group often or do many instances in WoW was that I tended to play in short bursts. I didn't want to be stuck at the computer because I was in a group and it would be rude to leave in the middle.

Hmm... not entirely sure... 1-2 hours maybe?

Bye
Thanee