Guild Wars 1 is making me look forward to Guild Wars 2… but probably not for the reasons you’d expect
One thing I’ll say in Guild Wars’ favor — it’s one of the easiest MMOs to hop in and out, time-wise. There’s no lengthy login process, and when you’re in, the instant world travel gets you where you want to go without a lot of the downtime.
I’m about 3/4ths of the way through the Nightfall campaign in GW, although I’m starting to feel my enthusiasm damper a bit. I was hoping to blow through the campaigns a lot faster than I’ve been able to, and it’s only now that I am starting to get a feel for how much time it’s going to take to really get those Hall of Monument numbers up there.
This isn’t to say I’m giving up on Guild Wars, but that for every good thing I’m finding, there’s a downside as well. The missions are pretty challenging and varied, and I love that strategy is actually required instead of charging in, mana a-blazing. But on the flip side, I don’t like how it feels like my character isn’t really growing — I know there are skills to gain and expensive armor sets to forge, but more or less, she is what she is, and I don’t have much more to look forward to with her development.
So ultimately, I’m finding that my GW sessions are really making me pine for Guild Wars 2, especially after having played it. I want to feel like my character has room to grow, I want to see more people in the open world, and I really dig the idea of the world events.
I think it’s still gonna be a long wait.
- Posted in: Guild Wars
And yet…Guild Wars is the ONLY game I have ever done endgame for. All of that growth in the other MMO’s leads to the inevitable rush, rush to get to max…
Here I am, at max, and still having things to do and grow in GW. Just, it is achievement based instead of another ding and a level, which could be another level away from max.
For example, I still have to get all my heroes. I still need to outfit the heroes. I need titles to grow my HoM. I need various armors. I need to complete challenge missions to get new armor for my heroes. Then there are the daily Zaishen missions to gain mission coins to buy a special pack to grow my inventory.
Basically, you need numbers and dings to make you feel like you are progressing. Forget those numbers and learn to enjoy the game itself.
This is why I am always so glad I started MMOs with SWG. It wasn’t until a friend took me to WoW that I had to put up with a purely vertical progression. It’s fine in the most basic sense but vertical progression breaks the virtual world and breaks multi-player. Sure, I love the dings and the special effects too, but you keep getting the actual ding and special effect in GW too; it never stops. The only thing that stops is the number over your head because — in my opinion — having those 20 levels (or at least *showing* them to us) was GW’s biggest mistake and the reason for a lot of confusion when the vertical progression crowd came over to try the game. It’s gaining new normal and elite skills combined with applying your knowledge of how those skills work along with the gear you’ve acquired and modified that makes your character more powerful. And there’s something very satisfying about knowing you had some direct input on your character’s power versus being awarded the exact same stuff every other player of your class has been and jumping through identical hoops to all end up the same.
The HoM sucked me in too, and I’m still enjoying it. I started with Factions, and am on the last mission after a month or so of playtime. To be blunt, I think that if you’re having issues with developmental stagnation you need to rethink what “development” means in the game.
GW is the friendliest game EVER for letting you try new stuff. I’ve been running a Minion Bomber ritualist, and having a blast with it. But I shift and try out different builds, and it plays like a completely different character. The ritualist may be one of the best at that, but I think any class can give you a dramatically different play experience with minimal effort. You character may not be “growing” much in the classic MMO sense, but saying “she is what she is” isn’t really accurate.
I will agree about the time investment on the HoM, though. It’s been like a brick wall, especially where some of the titles are concerned. I think it’s important to take a hard look at what you can get, and be realistic about that. I’m still content with slow, steady progress, although I will detour into specific easy-to-get ones as the opportunity presents itself (hello Black Moa and your two points!
i still can’t find the allure of guild wars 1; the only expansion i didn’t get was Eye of the North.. just feels like an old game and i guess knowing the next version of the game is coming out makes me feel that character progression is a bit useless (b/c you’ll make a new character in a whole new system eventually). Glad you’re having fun with it tho
“Forget those numbers and learn to enjoy the game itself.”
Exactly. It’s always bothered me that these games tend to be more for the ding than the play. I appreciate GW for having a core design that is more about play and experimentation than a pellet-laden treadmill.
It’s certainly different from many other games, and won’t appeal to everyone, but it’s great for me.
GW is a different mind set, you don’t really have stats that grow and your health/energy/attribute points/level max out pretty early. Instead you have the strategy involved in selecting 8 skills from your primary and secondary class. I like this system a lot, it gives quite a bit of variety if you want.
In other games, every max level character of class X has the same skills, and a few basic rotations. In GW, you can try really different approaches… you can take your mesmer out as a water elementalist to try something new, give your assassin a scythe and a bunch of dervish skills, etc.
Typical games have you grow your char abilities through gear acquisition, and I don’t mind a little bit of that. But honestly that is a hamster wheel, at best you can argue some games camouflage it better than others.
Problem is it sounds like GW is all about lateral advancement, and a lot of people don’t like that. Most people are goal oriented, and experimentation is in pursuit of that. Once they find a setup that works and they enjoy, the amount of fun in the game is chasing those meaningful goals. Getting more stuff they wont really need or use wont help.
I also think it’s not quite an accurate representation to say your character “is what she is” 3/4 of the way through Nightfall. The final four missions are something of a game-changer (this is the case for the final missions of each of the campaigns) that may require your character to reach for new strategies and possibly new skills to arrange her skillbar around.
I’ve been playing my Elementalist for five years now and she is nowhere near the character she was when she first dinged 20. Getting Panic changed the way she played in a team considerably. Ditto Discord, Searing Heat, Obsidian Flesh, etc. Capturing skills is not mere collection, but opens up entirely new ways to play and, yes, become noticeably more powerful situationally-speaking.
Yes, it’s mostly lateral progression, but I would argue that it’s not *only* for the purpose of adding variety. I think of it more like a slowly creeping progression curve, instead of adding tons of XP that needs to be gained at the higher levels of other games before leveling.