Guild Wars is an exciting, original concept that works amazingly with no monthly fee.
I started playing Guild Wars at the advice of a few close friends. Not knowing what to expect, I installed the game on my brand new laptop with the up most excitement.
Over a year later I am still playing this amazing idea for an MMO. And while it has its setbacks, it has constantly challenged the concept of what an MMO could be, especially one without a monthly fee.
Guild Wars is unlike any other MMO out there. Instead of persistent and open worlds where grinding is the key, Guild Wars throws you into a mission based environment, more similar to Diablo's multi-player then a typical MMO. Fast paced combat is what this game is about, often pitting you and your team of three to seven other players against unseeingly endless hordes of enemies in your parties private version of the world's areas. Having these instances means you never have to worry about other players stealing again. Everyone who is in range when an enemy dies, has the chance of an item being dropped and assigned to them for a period of time. Money is also dropped and evenly distributed from among the group, so the game makes sure that everyone will get a fair cut, even if you are just staying back and healing.
Starting out in the huge world of Tyria is quite easy. You start by picking one of six classes (more if you have the expansions). You have your typical classes such as Warrior, Mage (better known as Elementalist), Necromancer, Ranger and Monk, and one non typical class called the Mesmer, who is a sort of anti-other class, that uses hexes and spells to lower spell casting, melee damage, and the skills of its enemies against them.
After selecting your character, you are sent through a series of easy starting quest in a beautiful area in some of the best MMO graphics to date. The quest, albeit easy, serve as a great learning tool for the lengthy game you are about to face.
As time progresses, you will be able to pick a secondary class from any of the other five classes available. While some classes work much better to compliment one another (such as Warrior and Monk for heavy damage and self healing) each class combination will give you the chance to make hundreds of possible combinations for skills..
Speaking of skills, Guild Wars uses a unique idea of how it balances gameplay. Instead of the usual use of hundreds of skills that you can carry with you, you only pick eight while you are in a town or outpost before you enter an instanced zone. These eight skills can be chosen from any combination of unlocked skills between your primary and secondary professions, and serve as a template for hours of thinking on an unlimited number of combinations. Each class also gets a primary bonus that helps compliment the skills that fall under their skill trees, so it makes it important to think about your layout before you enter battle.
Unlike other games, this games level cap also stands at twenty. Making sure to take away the feeling of having to grind but also giving you a sense of completion when you reach the mark.
The world of Guild Wars is massive, and promises hundreds of hours of game play to even the most casual of gamers. Along the game you will be taken down the course of the story line that makes up the world, and while it at times is a little corny with some poor voice acting and writing, has a lot of depth to it that will give the most avid lore fans a lot to read and research.... If lengthy story lines and massive amounts of player versus monster combat isn't your thing, don't cast this game out of your wish list just yet. Guild Wars offers you a choice at the character creation screen to make a character who is already level twenty, with max armor and a set of simple skills. With this character you can enter readily into the world of heavy Guild Wars pvp. What stands out Guild Wars pvp over recent other titles pvp, is that Guild Wars is based on both the choices you make and the skills you bring. No longer will you be destroyed simply by someone in elite armor as everyone will be wearing comparable items. One drawback to this, is the pvp can be a little frustrating to get into for brand new players. With the game containing so many skills, items and weapons, it can be a little daunting to completely understand everything shooting over your head while you are trying to learn your own skills in your bar. As you rack up your kills you earn fame, which can be used to purchase more skills and weapon mods.
There is also an interesting area called Heroes Ascent, which pits different regions of the world in heavy 8v8 team combat. The teams compete through a series of matches until reaching the final map, here up to four teams will battle for a prestigious, although short lived victory which is broadcast around the world to everyone playing. Once the team has won, they will automatically start at the last level and attempt to hold their honor for as long as possible.
The one con of this game, is although the world is huge and there is tons to explore and will keep you busy for quite a while, there really is no end game content. Once you have beaten all the areas, gathered all the equipment and done what there is to do, there really isn't much more, and you can find yourself burnt out of it very quickly. Luckily there are two other great additions to this game, Guild Wars Factions and Guild Wars Nightfall which add heavily to the amount of content and will keep you busy for a long time, even after you have finished this original installment.
Guild Wars is an amazing game I would recommend to hard core gamers and casual gamers alike. I would also recommend it to both people who like hard core pvp and those who like a much more story based pve setting.
Arena Net, although a new company, has done an amazing job showing the world what you could do with a non monthly fee game. They took a chance on this series, and it payed off heavily with over three million subscribers to all three current chapters. They also have worked hard showing they care about their player base, doing constant updates, additions, bug fixes and PR at no additional cost. They have shown that they can compete with the big companies, offering events every holiday and many special events every weekend for everyone to get involved with. They have done a model job at showing what a gaming company should be like, and if they continue this level of commitment to their games, will continue to produce high quality and highly addictive games well into the future.