It's a team thing

[Occhidiangela]

I ask this question fully aware that each of us at RB has a wide range of things that tickle us pink.

But is Guild Wars for the RB crowd?

No monthly fee. If you look at the RB CIV and MOO and GAL CIV boards, the spirit of competition is very much alive.

If you look at the Diablo and Diablo II experiences, the team theme is very much in our blood.

If you look at our general silliness, now and again, that is good too.

I have been doing a little research into Guild Wars. I am torn between wanting to take the plunge

No Monthly Fee

And sticking with what looks like a reasonably solid experience building in World of Warcraft on the Lounge. . . of course, the monthly fee bit has not hit, it's a beta frenzy. We all know how those are, eh?

What's the opinion on Guild Wars among the madmen and women of Variant Land?

Occhi

[Zed-F]

Also look at our experience with GalCiv. There was a lot of competition there, in the form of the metaverse scoring. As a general rule, that competition was one we ignored completely. Some animosity was engendered as a result. We play by our own rules, which don't always translate well to others' expectations. Sometimes we can influence the community, ala Civ3. Sometimes, we cannot, ala GalCiv.

Going on the basis of Diablo, Civ, and MOO, I think, in general, we in the RB crowd enjoy competing against the game, far more than competing against other players who don't understand our philosophy. Even when we gather for a more formal competition such as the Epics, care has always been taken to at least attempt to emphasize competition against ourselves and de-emphasize competition amongst ourselves.

I can't speak to the experience of the WoW folks on the board. I don't know much about Guild Wars, or if Guild Wars will allow the kind of experience we as a group tend to prefer. I just wanted to point out what I think we would need in order for us to build a strong and lasting presence there.

If we are going to be a factor in influencing the shape of the GuildWars community, we will have to get in on the ground floor, or somewhat close to it. That, I think, was a key element of our success with the Civ SG community, and of our lack thereof in GalCiv community. We got where we did in the Civ SG community by boldly going where no-one had gone before. By the time we got to GalCiv, that opportunity no longer existed.

[Sirian]

I have a slightly different take on GalCiv. We were not understood by many there, but we were making friends in some quarters. The problem is that the game didn't have enough legs for many of us. I gave it six months, and that's all I had in me. I outgrew the game. Civ3 got over a year from me before that happened, but I moved on from it, too.

GalCiv simply did not have a sturdy enough design to allow for meaningful Epics-style tournament play. The moment we started down that road, fatal flaws in the AI revealed themselves, and that was the end of that.

I agree that grandfathering in with Civ3 from its infancy helped, but truly, where there is good gaming to be found in sufficient quantity, there is opportunity to build a community.


The question the becomes, is this game worthy? I can't answer that without trying it.

Occhi, perhaps offer more details for those of us not in the know?


- Sirian

[Occhidiangela]

1. Release in the fall. Release Dates never slip, eh? :rolleyes:

With grains of salt, The Game: I see it as an attempt to fuse the best features of Starcraft and Diablo, enabled via a 90Kb streaming methodology that mitigates the problems of the dreaded Lag Monster, particularly in re the video grind issues. Hope that last bit is successful.

Guild Wars is a competitive online role-playing game. Players engage in cooperative group combat, in single player adventures, or in large head-to-head guild battles. Mission-based game set in a fantasy world that offers full, integrated support for guilds. Because the team that is developing Guild Wars has had experience creating successful online game series such as Warcraft, StarCraft and Diablo, the members are familiar with the complex issues surrounding online games, and are creating a game that's both easy to learn and compelling to play long term, and yet doesn’t require players to spend hundreds of hours slogging through the preparation just to get to the fun bits. <== Yes, they really said that! Hey, No One Has Ever Made That Claim Before, eh? :laugh:

Snork. Glass half full or half empty, not all of the games cited are RB fodder. While I love Starcraft, it has its limits. Diablo encouraged variant play . . . almost accidentally, by its design. I don't think any of the folks were very involved with WC III, which has a heck of a lot of customizable fun in it.

2. Not sure if any RB folk are in the Beta, I am guessing no one in the Alpha, unless Roland might have been lucky.

From their site:

Monthly worldwide events will replace a traditional beta test. We have been conducting an alpha test for nearly three years and have received and incorporated excellent feedback from our testers. Now we are starting our beta period and are opening Guild Wars to the world. During the World Preview Event game players from around the world will be invited to play Guild Wars and enjoy exciting cooperative quests, challenging competitive play and robust guild support. Subsequent monthly beta events will allow players who purchased the pre-order product to return to join the Guild Wars beta, which will take place during the first weekend of each month.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm. How wonderful. But maybe they do that to filter out the insincere sorts who screwed up the "Beta" in WC III and helped incite the lawsuit against Foxbat's buddies at BNETD.

3. Instancing and what appears to be a more than moderate "anti grief" set up built into the design. (Mr Strain claims so, we all know how hard that is to forge successfully! However, I infer from the discussion that "private" games will be possible. I could be wrong.

4. Custom made for "Arena style" challenges, deliberate team on team episodes. We may well be able to do RB only games, team on team, and go into variant land. Could try underpowered raids on instances. Lots of room to explore, I think. <== This is where I see potential for RB games.

5. Not sure if we would want to get into Ladder competition, for which this is clearly designed as a feature. I am going to guess that non ladder competition will be supported. I could be wrong on that.

6. There is no SP version. That may be a minus.

7. Alleged high speed bug fixing. Harrumph, don't they all say that? Streaming tech yet to be proven the hard way: after release.

8. Min Specs (please, do not hurt yourselves laughing)

Windows XP/2000/ME/98
800 MHz Pentium III or equivalent
256 MB RAM
ATI Radeon 8500 or GeForce 3 or 4 MX with 32MB of video memory
500 MB hard drive space
Internet connection
DirectX 8.0

Recommended System Specs:

Windows XP/2000/ME/98
Pentium III 1GHz or equivalent
512 MB RAM
ATI Radeon 9000 or GeForce 4 Ti Series with 64MB of video memory
500 MB free hard drive space
Internet connection

My gaming machine would need a new video card, my four year old card is OK for now, but this would require a modest upgrade. Not sure how you all are set up for equipment and connections.

9. Player level limitations: This might be a crucial, nay THE crucial feature for the RB folks. Classes seem to have pre defined limits, but then, they aint seen the RB crazies at work yet! hehehehe Also once topped out, skills can be grown and expanded, as best I can figure out.

10. From what I see on the site, there are a limited number of skills per class, each class has limitations on "look" to allow for easy recognition of class type when entering an Arena fight, though skins are apparently myriad.

11. Skills versus stat points are what appear to be level rewards, as well as a "skill gem" that is a quest reward for many instances. The claim is made that playing skill versus item and stat madness will be key for team v team combat, we shall see, that is something that is damned hard to deliver on. Min Max, anyone?

12. Built explicitly for team play, in that complementary skills are an expected necessity for successful team adventuring and playing. THAT is where I think the RB appeal will arrive, although what I have no sense of is how limiting that requirement would be.

EDIT: Whoops, from a few of their FAQ . . .

Will the game be released on a different OS (Macintosh, Linux, etc.), or on other video game consoles?

Guild Wars is being developed on and will initially be released for the PC. We are aware that there is an interest in having the game available on other operating systems or other platforms, and we will continue to evaluate these possibilities as we get closer to release.

Grrrrrrrrrr.

Will I be able to play Guild Wars on a dial-up modem?

Yes you will. We are well aware that many users do not have broadband access, and we want the largest possible number of gamers to be able to join our game without being held back by technical issues like their Internet connection. We have designed Guild Wars to function excellently on a dial-up connection and our alpha testers and confirm they have no problems with their connection, even testing from other continents. In addition, during our E3 for Everyone Demo Event many thousands of players successfully played using a dial-up modem.

This I last bit gotta see! Has Jeff Strain really broken the code?????


I may pre order the game, don't know, have not gotten home yet and discussed the next six months of life with the Missus. We have some life decisions to make that are significant in scope.

I may not have to choose, I have already committed to WoW and will play it with my son, however, Tina already has laid down the law that his time in that game will have finite limitations, and I agree wholeheartedly with her. I, on the other hand . . . hehehehehe, may be able to play another game, depending on how work and transition go, at the usual RB times and places.

We shall see.

[Hawkmoon]

I checked out the Guild Wars page, and that story, Occhi, and I'd certainly be willing to give it a try - though I may have to upgrade the video card on the PC. Too bad that it's initially only coming out for the PC; but at least we have both platforms, so I don't have to feel left out.

I'm less worried about how the RBDers would "fit in" to the community than I am about the gameplay/replayability/variant possibilities. If Arena delivers on its promises, then it looks pretty darn good - I really like the idea that cooperation will be required in order to progress in the game. That will play into our team game mentality quite nicely (I just hope we can come up with a team variant as fun as the Legion of Greiz).

BTW, any news on your estimated arrival date back in the States?

Cheers,
Hawkmoon

[Occhidiangela]

1. Looks like multi class is possible after a certain level.
2. Yes, team play looks very much in vogue.

3. Rumor is that I return in Oktober, dependent on the progress of the War.

Yes, it is still officially "a war." The iron raindrops that fell on An Najaf a week and a half ago certainly attest to that!

This "thing" is referred to as "Operation Iraqi Freedom, Phase IV" or as I call it "Phase Forever!" The "mission accomplished" sound byte sorta dealt with Phase I and II, or so.

Phase IV is "Stability Operations." Nebulous term. You will note that Operation Enduring Freedom, what is going on in Afghanistan, is still in progress . . .

If anyone gets the bright idea to engage in Sudan with US forces, that will of course be named

"OPeration two hands and two ears in the tar baby"

Don't throw me in THAT briar patch, no no no no no!!!!!!!!!!!! (And I mean it, unlike Brer Rabbit)

Occhi

[Roland]

You can always cancel them. I've done that with Planetside about 3 times now, but I always come back. You don't have to pay NOT to play. Your characters, if it's done right, will remain regardless. None of this "30 days" BS. You pay, they stay. Once and for all, until YOU delete them. At least, that's how Planetside (and I'd imagine EQ, as well) is. IIRC, even Ultima Online had the same setup, so I'd imagine Blizzard will too. It'd be suicidal not to.

My suggestion is to at least TRY the game. The OTHER nice thing about MMOs is that they all give you a free month of play from the get-go. If you try it, and decide you don't like it, you didn't spend any more for the MMO than you would have on any other game. It's what I'm doing with DAoC at the moment. I like it, but I'm not sure if I'm ready to pay for it. I just cancelled my PS subscription in anticipation of paying for DAoC, but also because I didn't want to continue paying for a game I haven't played in over 2 months.

If there's even a spark of interest in the game, don't even bother worrying about the monthly fee. Buy the game, and give it that one month of free trial. After that, and during that time, you can figure out whether it's worth paying $13 a month or whatever. And if it is, don't look at it like $XXX per year. Look at it how it REALLY is: $XX per month. Continued paying is NOT a requirement of enjoyment from the game. You can pay to play, and stop paying when you need a break. It's that easy.

As to Guild Wars (since I seemed to have missed the mark on the original topic), I'm in, I think. I'm DEFINITELY in for WoW (although how LONG I stay in remains to be seen; I'll probably do the PS / DAoC thing - pay for a month or two, and as interest wanes, cancel my subscription until I feel the itch again). I have purposefully avoided reading up on DAoC, and some of WoW, so that my experiences won't be marred by other people. So far, I'm enjoying DAoC, which tells me that when an MMORPG is set up right (controls FIRST, gameplay SECOND), it's definitely my cup of tea. Everquest soured my MMORPG experiences with HORRIBLE controls and totally unhelpful players, but DAoC has certainly proved that I can very much enjoy a good MMORPG. Planetside, of course, is what got me hooked on MMOs in the first place, but that's a different story (where else can a level 1 Newb party up with a maximum level Pro and fight SIDE-BY-SIDE in the same areas? And, what's more, fight at EQUAL EFFECTIVENESS, barring lack of skill?).

All in all, I'm psyched about this fall / winter. A lot of good games coming out, and plenty that I will be picking up right from the getgo.