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So Guild Wars is a nice game from all the reviews for more casual gamers, the great graphics, the strategic play style and the GvG PvP. I've read a lot of reviews before i bought the game, and here's the conclusion.

Let's start off with the PVE (Player versus Environment Pros. The graphics in pre-searing are a farm type wonderland where you get to start your profession and discover the basic game play, great! After the great battle, you are in the aftermath future and go into the ruins of Ascalon, begin the "real game" and level up to 20 so you can PVP, make money, show off your gear and log out for a month.

So I’ve been playing about 2 months now, made two level 20s Ranger/Monk and Warrior/monk, and mixed around with every class possible in PVP, including the Factions and Nightfall classes. The first parts of the game were pretty interesting; you could enjoy the scenery and use teamwork to battle. The Movement is by click, using the two mouse keys, arrow keys or the W, A, S, D keys.

The storyline is organized in a pattern in which a character follows to unlock different regions, logical and very linear. The gear is well made and has its maximum armor cap with little cost with the players choice to save up for better-LOOKING armor with the same stats, armor can only be crafted, not dropped. Weapons on the other hand drop from monsters and can be enchanted with inscription runes and customized. Items can be salvaged into useful resources to make or trade for (usually) armor, weapons, etc. The Missions are set for you to follow a linear pattern to complete it and with following storyline cinematics that you by choice and by group vote can skip, with bonus objectives to your choice to do them or not. There are many explorable areas used for quests and transitions between missions and towns with great scenery depending on location, you can travel instantly to a pre-visited town by clicking on it, like Missions you can choose to travel with Henchmen or with real people. The Death penalty is put on you if you die and resurrect to make sure you know the consequences.

On the Con side, The MOVEMENT can be somewhat awkward especially if you are trying to cast a spell you have to stop and cast it, if you teleport to a location or your ally/foe using a move the keys do not always reactively respond as it engages you on the enemy and not your moving ability, if you click on a terrain the character does not always avoid obstacles on the way there so you will run into things on the way there stopping your movement, you can glitch walking a lot, showing a character teleporting 1 feet in the direction you are going and has not been fixed in game.

The TERRAIN is very repetitive; you encounter a lot of déjà vu in many areas, and may find yourself running back the way you came from until you look at the map, it is also linear so you cannot travel outside the boundaries, say you want to jump 2 feet to the path right next to you leading to the exit, nope, got to take the loooong way around because that’s the “right” path that you should take not a shortcut, taking in fact how long it takes to travel even with a speed boost.

The STORYLINE is somewhat a dramatic adventure with classical predictive motives and the cinematics have to be watched unless all in the group vote to skip it, taking up some of your precious, precious time.

The GEAR is limited to a few choices, and you have to buy expansions and earn reputation to get the other armor with the option to Dye with a chosen color each armor part, a player can only wear his/her own class armor and not any other class.

The MONSTERS in this game are very repetitive as well and spawn at exactly the same spot where you met them before, the look is usually the same monster with a differently colored skin or increased size.

The ITEMS, weapons, shields, off-hands, useful resources, etc. These are usually creatively made but it is hard to find a player willing to buy/sell the item you want/have. All weapons and shields/off-hands are maxed out, so you will not find a better item than its maximum stat. There is no auction house, but there is a trade channel, where you can sit all day spamming your offer until someone puts you on ignore. Some of the rune inscriptions are too condition specific, there is no broad range cross-boundary enchantments (Ex. +7 Armor if you are under effect of a hex spell, and you probably would not need a hex spell on you anyway).

The MISSIONS are like replaying the same story. There is no diversity, same objective, same monsters, and same reward. It is a layed out path, just like an explorable area that you cannot exit until you complete the mission. If your entire team dies, you fail the mission, making it even more repeatable.

The TRAVELING aspect of this game is nice, you can travel with henchmen until beyond level 10 they become more useless as they come to die quite often. You can travel with real people, which is even more fun because you get to interact with them and combine skills to enhance your and their performance in playing. It is not always easy to get a group depending on what you’re doing. Many people ask higher level players to run them through areas to get to another area using transitions between areas as revive spots, because of its long and survival skill dependent journey when of course the game is based on teamwork it would take hours. Because many areas need to be discovered in order, it can get boring to repeat the same mission/run/quest over and over.

BODY-BLOCKING, a term used when enemies surround you at which point you can’t escape unless you have a teleportation move that gets you out, otherwise it’s kill no matter how good you are, a cheap way of cornering your enemy but protecting your ally, although you can move through other players, making a bad point maybe? Then there is another glitch where you are shown running in the area, getting hit 20 feet away, then after a few seconds, you are back to where you started running from surrounded by mobs, this is a glitch that is and NOT affected by lag and has not been fixed, just explained -_-

Now, for the PVP (Player versus Player)Pros. The PVP playing area is a vast playing field, with many ups and downs that a player can use to his benefit, like molten lava that burns the enemy, or corals that cut the enemy. This is centered as the final stage after PVE you’ve had enough experience and got all the moves, so now you can fight other people. They are split into Random/Team/Hero and Guild versus Guild arenas. It is a great teamwork activity that puts your wits to the test using all 8 chosen strategy moves with your team to defeat the opposing team. You earn points doing this, which can purchase you gear, weapons, moves and runes. You are able to switch secondary professions in PVP, choosing one that suits you best. You can also create your gear with the unlocked items and rune inscriptions/enchantments, making it easy to jump into the game with the gear you need.

PVP Cons, comparing it to other games, it is very team-dependent. It may remind of a normal strategy game, where you pick a move and wait for your turn, except in Guild Wars you can move around in 3D. There are 8 moves on your action bar, and only 1 elite skill can be placed. Unlocking moves and runes can take up a while of time earning faction points. Most of the moves are reliant on a specific condition (Ex. If foe is crippled you strike for +23 damage, If you under effect of hex you gain 3 adrenaline; almost like a trading card game). It is not for extreme gamers, this game will limit your benefits to other players so that only the strategic use of your skills will gain you victory.

COMPARISON- If you are a rehab-gamer looking for a MMO like WOW because it drained your life’s years away, this is not the game for you. It is not anywhere near WOW standards, and I’ve played both games- this game is more linear, enclosed and limited to what you can do, preferred for more casual gamers that are tired of zombie-like committing games. I have no idea why people compared this to shooting games like Counter Strike, its another genre, and Counter strike is more free and action-paced, Guild Wars is a click and wait.

That’s about all I can say about Guild Wars. Nice game, not for extreme players, but a decent MMORPG. Hope this helped!

External Link: http://www.firingsquad.com/guildwarsprosconsblog