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Very Dissapointed player coming from World of Warcraft....

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 11 / 17
Date: September 26, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game is OK, kind of like how supermarket-brand soda drinks are OK compared to Coke or Dr Pepper. Odd analogy, but that's kind of what this game is.

This game is World of Warcraft, minus all the fun stuff that makes that game great. There are battles, monsters and walking around. That's it. The envoroment is like a 3D super mario, you can't walk down hillsides, you can't jump over a fence. If someone is in your way they block you until you can move again.

The battle sequences are pretty, and the effects are neat, but all it makes me want to do is go play World of Warcraft. I like doing the stupid things in WOW like fishing and working on my skills and such. It's fun, and the interaction between people in WOW is on a whole other level.

Read these reviews carefully. Note how many people, even on the positive reviews, make statements like "you can only talk to people in villages" or "it's not fully MMORPG" or "All you do is fight in battles". That is ALL this game is about - fighting in battles. There's no story (it's WEAK), there's no real-time party joining, there's not much at all to this game except battle after battle after battle.

I'm not trying to be biased, but after playing WOW for a few weeks Guild Wars doesn't even compare. If you're looking for a MMORPG but don't want to pay a monthly fee I guess you're stuck with Guild Wars. You might as well go buy Half Life 2 or Call of Duty.

So dissapointed......

Great Game, but could have been even better

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 13
Date: May 05, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I enjoy playing this game. It is addictive let me tell you. The graphics are cool and the music and sound effects are not bad. The problems that I found so far, is that getting any type of decent equipment is very hard to get in towns since they are very expensive. This game could have had NPCs with voice and also could have had more interaction with the environment itself, like being able to swim, just camp out and light a fire and have other online players join in your "world." At times the Guild Wars world like many other Online RPGs including World of Warcraft and Everquest 2, etc., are pretty lonely. However, Guild Wars seems more populated than other online Worlds. However, more NPCs that are not monsters could have been included. Also monsters could have been made to look more individual. It seems that all the RPGs that I have played so far including: Elder Scrolls Morrowing, World of Warcraft, Dungeon Siege, Guild Wars, etc. all have monsters that all look alike. After a while, it seems pretty boring to kill the same type of monster over and over again. Why couldn't there be different looking monsters. Guild Wars does a good job in individualizing characters, but not monsters. I wish that future online RPGs will change, maybe Middle Earth Online, or Dungeons and Dragons online will include some of these features. The one thing that Guild Wars has brought to the online RPG community is low cost (it is actually free), which is what all online RPGs should be like.

Great game for non-RPG fans

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: January 12, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I'm not much of an RPG fan. I got into the genre with PSO (phantasy star online) for the Dreamcast, but I never really played it much. I've also played Ultima Online for PC on a free shard a bit.

Needless to say I didn't expect too much of this game after my past experience with MMORPGs. I expected countless hours of pointless grinding (killing the same monsters to gain character experence and ultimately levels). However in this game you can advance much much faster through completing quests, and using a group to help complete quests faster. Since quests award huge amounts of experience, there is no real drawback through sharing the monster kill experience with a few friends.

I found to be effective both in PVE (player versus environment) and PvP involves alot of focus on strategy. There is still pressure to get that next lvl or get the right armor/weapon, but its much less evident when compared to other MMORPGs. Much of character development involves learning new skills, which give you more options to fight monsters. Where the real strategy comes in both in PVE and PVP is in chosing the 8 skills you will go into battle with. Theres not one PVP match where I had a perfect skill setup.

The game story and mission setup is very good. This gives you just one more reason to fight and kill all those monsters. The game start world is all peaches which is a great way to develope a story. Then all the sudden (as you progress) the world is drastically changed because of monsters known as the Charr. I found the missions actually fun and diverse. You can't solo all of the missions and in any case if you do it takes much longer. This forces you to play them in teams.

Overall this is not your typical RPG. It incorporates many aspects that deviate from MMORPGS, such as quick HP/MP recovery for free, instant travel, no consequences for death, no need to farm a character for hundreds of hrs, no uber items, allows for changing of character setup after development, and more. Some might say this game is actually more a massive-multiplayer-online-action game rather than an MMORPG. I think all of the changes this game offers are good. My ideal game would be a twitch based action massive-multiplayer game with rpg elements (such as char development) but at least this is a step in the right direction.

Unfortunately this game still uses the traditional attack system invloving click on monster, watch HP, use combat ability, heal, repeat, but then you can't have it all.

A breath of fresh air in the MMORPG world.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: May 29, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I have been playing MMORPGs since the days of the old text based MUDDs and to date this has been the best I've come across. I'll break it down into the good and the bad.

The good:

Instanced based adventuring, now when you enter the adventure areas outside of the cites you don't have to worry about any other players causing trouble. No more kill stealing or getting killed by a PVPer that can't seem to wrap their head around the fact that some people don't play PvP (Player vs. Player.) If you are in a team your team comes into the mission or adventure area with you.

No monthly fees,fantastic graphics, smooth gameplay, and an easy learning curve, need I say more.

The Bad:

Some minor bugs that are barely noticeable. This is the smoothest MMORPG launches I have ever seen.

In conclusion this game is a blast to play. The art book and headset that come with the collector's edition make it worth purchasing it over the standard retail version.

I'm not a gamer, but I play one in guild wars!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: August 11, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I got this game a few weeks ago, at the request of my boyfriend, who is hooked and thought I'd like it. Not to be stereotypical, but I'm a female full-time professional and part-time student; not a gamer who can rattle off experience points necessary for spells and stay up all night staring at the computer.

That said, this game works really well for me. Since there are always people of all skill levels playing, I can join a party and gain experience with people who aren't at the highest level. I can play every so often and jump back in where I left off, and nobody's getting too far ahead of me. (My boyfriend even made a new character that he only uses when he jumps into quests with me.) The graphics are awesome, and the fighting takes strategy, not just fast button pushing and dodging the bad guys. It's an easy game to jump into and catch onto.

I will straighten out a couple of things though: first of all, one reviewer said it runs well on older computers. Maybe it's better than some games, but I meet the minimum requirements for RAM and video card, and my game runs much more slowly than it does for others. That gets VERY frustrating while on a team quest and entering a different part of the world. By the time my computer has loaded the world, my team seems to be ridiculously far ahead of me. This can be combatted, I learned, by warning teammates that I have a slow computer and telling them to wait before moving on. Luckily, monsters don't come after you unless you approach them first.

Second, yes, the game does lag. My boyfriend has noticed it on his significantly faster computer as well. At worst for him, it's a minor annoyance. At worst for me, towns tend to make my character's movement very choppy and sometimes I'll run in circles for a minute.

Nothing that prevents me from playing, though. :)

It's not quite Diablo

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: August 24, 2005
Author: Amazon User

If you are looking for an RPG where you can level up in a vast, linear expanse, find legendary items and powerups, and after hours of hard leveling, single-handedly save the universe, don't buy Guild Wars.
If you are looking for a game where you can create and battle your character through a vast, beautifully detailed world, and then use that character to fight other players in different variations of team on team battles, using a complex but rewarding duel system, this is the game you're looking for.
In Guild Wars, the emphasis is not on the RPG questing part of the game, but in the Duels. Oh sure, you will benefit from completing the RPG. In fact, until you complete the RPG with at least one character, you'll pretty much have to use the preset, standard builds for your PvP battles, with only a few skills and abilities. However, if you have the patience to beat the game with every character, you will eventually unlock all of the skills that that character class (or sub-class) has to offer, and create your own custom PvP builds, as well as communicate with friends and create a custom PvP team, with each character supporting and relying on others.
Here's how you'll play Guild Wars. You pick a main class out of a pool of six different professions. Then, eventually you pick a sub-class out of the same pool of six (exept it's five, because you can't pick your original again). The differences between main class and the subclass are this: Each class has a 4 different attributes (think of strength, dexterity, speed, and magic). But instead of having strength, dex. etc., these are skills based. For example, and Elementalist has Fire, Wind/Electricity, Water/Ice, and Energy Storage. Now for every class 1 of these attributes is only available if that is your main class. For an Elementalist, this is Energy Storage. A Warrior's is Strength, a Mesmer's is Fast Casting, a Necromancer's is Soul Reaping, and so on. Additionally, your character's appearance is only affected by your main class. When you eventually choose your sub-class, you have access to the three attributes that sub-class masters, but not the special attribute.
After picking your main class you begin questing (and eventually choose a secondary class). Quests earn you XP, items, advancement in the game, (rarely) money, but the main drawpoint is the skills. When you unlock a skill not only can your RPG character use it, but so can any PvP characters you make that are of the profession to use that skill. RPG characters can play PvP or PvE, but if you create a PvP player it starts out at lvl 20 (the maximum level) with all it's attribute points, and cannot play PvE.
So, although the RPG is still fun to play the first time around, you're basically playing to unlock skills and allow you to be a great PvP character, the real draw of the game. However, the RPG element of the game is still beautifully detailed, and fun, although very difficult in later parts of the game if you don't have a party of other humans with you. You see, you only meet people in the towns of the game. Think of Diablo. Instead of having servers for every game, you begin in a giant town (seperated into several 'districts', or geographically based servers). This town could have many people in it, other players as well as NPC merchants and quest-givers. As soon as you leave that town, however, if you haven't formed a party, you're in your own seperate server. You're there alone, with NPCs, no kill-stealing, no item-snatching, nothing. There will only be people in your world if you party with them before entering it.

*PvP=Player vs Player
*PvE=Player vs Enviornment I.E Monsters and NPCs

A fun online game, not MMORPG

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: December 02, 2005
Author: Amazon User

When I first played Guild Wars I was absolutely extatic about it. I played one day for over eight hours. This was a few months ago and I have now since finished the game with one character and am currently on my 7th character. I wrote a review back then stating that Guild Wars was the best game ever and badmouthed people who played WOW. However, after the large update and countless trips to that new area the game absolutely bored me to death. In any case here are the pros and cons of Guild Wars:

The single greatest aspect most would contend is the fact that online gameplay is free. This brings many to the table who had not experienced an online RPG (myself included) and other owners of MMORPG's who were tired of paying to keep these companies servers running. The most obvious question is how do the guilds work? Well, basically a guild can be formed and you can give it your own unique name as well as a cape both with fairly small fees. To the best of my knowledge you can have as many people as you want in your guild. Likewise you are allowed to purchase a guild hall where members of the guild can meet and from there do multiplayer called guild vs. guild or player vs. player.

Guild Wars has stunning visuals in my opinion; given of course you have at least a fairly contemporary graphics card and the memory to back it up with. You are allowed four characters per account and of course the ability to creat the look and class of your player. The classes in this game are warrior, monk, necromancer, ranger, elementalist, and mesmer. Weapons and armor are greatly varied with armor sets ranging anywhere from 1500 gold to over 1 million gold. Another plus is that the makers of GW plan on bringing out Guild Wars: Chapter 2 in the middle of 2006 which is purported to contain a whole new class of character from which to chose and a new map. This is will be a full expansion pack, so those who are getting bored with the current game won't have to wait too long.

Now the weapons will be discussed in detail. There are five different weapon types according to their value; these are white, blue, purple, green, and gold. These are listed in least to greatest value respectively. Certain gold weapons and focus items can go for millions of gold. Just to let you get an idea of how much that is--most players in guild wars have less than 10,000 gold in their accounts. Each class has only a few types of weapons that can be used ideally. Each type of weapon also has a maximum damage it can deal on a foe. Warriors can wield two general types of weapons that deal blunt damage or slashing damage. Blunt damage weapons are two handed and swords/sickles/axes are one handed. Rangers always use bows. The other four classes all use either a one handed magic rod or wand or a two handed staff. Any two handed weapon in Guild Wars can be upgraded. Weapons essentially are the driving force of the virtual economy of Guild Wars and at the same time one of the greatest downfalls in it.

The folllowing negative parts of Guild Wars are seen through my eyes, but I played the game for some 625 hours over the course of four months. so the gripes I feel are very warranted. The first real problem I see is not the game itself, but the infrastructure and community is the number of children and supremely immature people playing the game. People will cuss you out because you didn't offer them the price they were looking for on a weapon or offhand item or others can get angry just because of the lack of teamwork. Most of the time these squabbles end in one person attempting to use as many four letter words as possible. I was actually called a f**ktard by someone. Fights over teamwork go on a lot because to beat the game you have to know how to work together very well. In fact, I would say at least half of the people that play Guild Wars have no idea how to work as a group. However, if you desire to play the game solo sometimes you are better off playing with the henchmen. They do attack what you attack as long as you call out your target. Playing with henchmen lends to the idea that it could just as easily have been turned into a completely offline game. Anyhow, this is most likely the greatest factor in my stopping playing the game.

Another gargantuan downside to GW is the virtual market which is 99% people driven. Obviously those at Anet were going for this. Unfortunately, prices are driven up just because a certain weapon is rare and is not entirely based on the quality of the weapon. This creates great tension between those who claim to know how much a weapon is and those who are going off of what they believe to be the correct price. The real question is where do these values come from? Is there an Alan Greenspan within Guild wars who changes the prices from day to day? My suggested solution to this is to have a true value weapons shop so there would be no debate. Along with this, some people end up paying real money to buy these "rare" weapons or items on websites.

A terribly large controversy within the community of this game is the level cap, which is placed at level 20. Some will say this allows for more interesting multiplayer and you don't have to spend years building up your character just to fight in the arenas. The counter-argument is that once you have reached level 20 (which isn't very difficult) you have nothing left to achieve other than gaining new skills. I'm not even going to go into the "powerleveling" argument, because that's all a matter of opinion if you would rather be rewarded for countless hours you have spent playing this game or essentially gain nothing past level 20. Since there is a level cap, certain areas of the game are nearly impossible or completely impossible to reach without the use of a warrior with many defensive and speed skills (referred to as a runner).

Lastly here are some smaller things that bother me about the game: The game is not very interactive for a supposed MMORPG. Essentially you have eight slots in which you can put your various skills and you can change your weapons and armor. A true MMORPG allows you to be in the same place as any other player anywhere on the map, not just in cities. The landscape is downright annoying at times. You cannot walk up mountains or even larger hills, so some parts resemble more of a labyrinth. Overall gameplay can get tedious especially after playing as much as I have. In conclusion, is Guild Wars worth buying? In short-yes, but only if you really want to play an online rpg for free. I must warn you it is very addictive for a while and will keep you from sleep and people. There are other role-playing games out there that I believe are superior to Guild Wars. Guild Wars is revolutionary, but flawed. Overall I give Guild Wars a 7 out of 10.

Guild Wars Is An MMO

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: November 05, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I still dont understand why a lot of people dont consider GUild Wars An MMO. MMORPG means an MAssivly Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. NOw Guild Wars is all of those things. Guild Wars is, in my opinion the best MMO out there. I know some disagree with me. But, I'm sure we would have our differences as well. The kind of Character you can play in guild Wars is endless. Whether you are a life draining Necromancer/Mesmer, a Monk/Assassin or one of the countless other builds that there are in the game. The game (With both expansions) has over 200 skills for easch class of warrior and 3 races. Now, the only thing I would change about guild wars is that you have to be human...no choices on that one. The other races are just different types of humns. They really need to integrate more of the fantasy race model if they are going to keep the fan base going. Otherwise an awesome game and you cant beat the price.

Spectacular, Innovative game..

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: April 29, 2007
Author: Amazon User

....... that doesn't alienate traditional MMO fans.

GWs has won more awards than any other game as far as I know and it deserves EVERY one of them.

GW has so many facets that it's easy to understand why it's the #2-* selling and #1 rated game against the Brittney Spears of MMOs, WoW.

While WoW was the game that brought a huge influx of gamers to MMOs, GWs is the game that brought a huge influx of intelligent players to MMOs.

You won't find Ned Flanders wishing you a 'happy day' here. You won't find the crappy music-score that has become the norm in MMOs. You also won't be plagued by griefers, beggars, nor Asian pharmers SPAMMing all the channels. Almost the entire game is instanced.

If you play the game completely solo I as do, you need NEVER be bothered with ANY of the annoyances that are standard in MMOs.

The toons in the game are by FAR the most detailed and really gorgeous. I'm a girl-gamer and I'm sick of really butt-ugly short-haired toons. Not a problem with GW. Almost ALL the HUGE array of female toons are drop-dead gorgeous. And with really nice looking LONG hair options. And oh yeah, GWs also offers a lot of really sexy-looking gear for their girl players.

The graphics WERE the best in the business prior to the release of Lord of the Rings Online. There are NO silly cartoon characters here. There is NO Disney-scape here. If you prefer more childish cartoon graphics you may not be able to appreciate how beautiful GW is.

The epic storyline and instanced crusades are supremely compelling especially because of the way they are implimented. I solo the entire game yet I feel uniquely important to the very excellent and evident storyline.

This is a multi-award winning game that charges NO subscription and it's one of only two MMOs currently in release that I would pay-to-play.

*Guild Wars is most likely the #1 seller of all MMOs to LEGIT players since pharming doesn't have a market in GW.

Guild Wars

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 9
Date: August 06, 2005
Author: Amazon User

My children, grandchildren and I have played this game in both single and multi - player modes and find it to be great fun. It is difficult enough to be challenging without being impossible to play. We get together with my son in the Air Force, one of his Air Force friends where ever he is stationed and my son and daughter-in-law in another town and my grandchildren and myself all in the comfort of our own homes and have fun completing quests together.

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