Ruined My Life

Guild Wars: Breaking Away the MMORPG Subscription Fee

In mid and late 2004 the buzz started building around a MMORPG that promised to bring MMORPG game play and elements to players without a monthly subscription fee. Lofty goals and claims for a starter company, however some of these starters were lead programmers and designers from the brain trust known as Blizzard. This ambitious title is none other then Guild Wars by ArenaNet.

The beautiful graphics of Guild Wars, plenty of Blooming and Blurring to go around!

Guild Wars was billed to be a MMORPG that featured all the consistent updates and content additions as “traditional MMORPGs” all while managing to keep a more casual approach to MMORPGs without the cost of a monthly fee. Did ArenaNet deliver on their promise of making Guild Wars play and feel like a subscription based MMORPG? Depending on the elements you’d like to look at, the idea of Guild Wars being a subscriptionless MMOPRG can vary greatly.

The PvE combat in Guild Wars is very similar to Diablo, which can be a very good or bad thing; depending on if you like a grind or more hack and slash. Perhaps the worse part of the PvE combat in Guild Wars is the feeling of a barren and despair environment that completely lacks any kind of person to person interaction. Sure the game is “Massively Multiplayer” but the only time you see those elusive other players is when you enter either a town or a “staging zone.” When you’re out battle those baddies, it’s you and your group, no one else. If one of your group members can’t deliver you a resurrection be prepared to respawn at the “cemetery” with -15% in all stats. Sure every group that ventures out gets their own “instanced” zone, but this makes it impossible to receive aid from friendly travelers or even friends.

Beware brave Warrior! The Charr will eat your Face!

In actuality, the only time that one may feel that he or she is in a “changing” world is when it comes time to head back to town or participate in some good ol’ fashion PvP Combat. Once you arrive in these populated zones you’re immediately hit by the good old fashioned drivel and immaturity of b.net kiddies. Maybe this is a broad stereotypical description, but it’s a truthful one that can be reaffirmed by the player base. Perhaps the game not requiring a credit card to play brings in the kids. Fear not, there is a ignore list that can remove this unsavory element from the game experience.

In Guild Wars the “MMORPG” immersion factor just isn’t present like it is in the other games. Sure you can socialize in the “city districts” but once you are out in the fray, you’re all alone, unless you grouped with other players. A good comparison of the “city districts and staging areas” in Guild Wars would be in comparing them to a social meet up and server browser. When you choose to enter a mission or a PvP Arena it’s like you are joining a server.

Guild Wars as a game is a very solid hack and slash RPG in the vein of Diablo, however calling it a “MMORPG” is a bit of an over exaggeration. Instead of viewing Guild Wars as a MMORPG I prefer to look at it like Diablo but with an interactive staging element that takes the place of Battle.net.

Read Part 1: World of Warcraft and it’s Miss at PvP Combat

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