I have again been playing Guild Wars with some little buddy’s I like to call ‘Team Quest Hard’ (they don’t like it when I call them that. I say it in my finest movie voice). Some thought about the game have popped into my head recently. I’m not sure if it’s because I don’t play allot any more or because my gaming habits are more diverse than when I started originally but i will try and articulate my thoughts using words of the finest quality.
Guild Was is not an MMO, I only realised this the other day. The best way i can describe it is as a single player game that you can play with as many mates as you want to. That sounds strange but i have played guild wars alone with AI team mates and with full groups of friends and honestly its a great game and either way its lots of fun.
In my opinion guild wars is an anomaly in the gaming world. its a Co-op Role play game with persistent characters, not an MMO, not a single player game, not a traditional single player game as you have a group but its not squad based.
with all this in mine here are three reasons you should love Guild Wars, even all these years later…..
Its epic – I know that sounds like a fan-boy thing to say in every way you can think of i agree with you but its worth saying anyway. Everything about guild wars is EPIC with caps lock turned on, totally.
Look at this picture (left) its epic, every character is epic, the way they are standing is epic. the game is epic! – Okay fan-boy moment over. the game is epic thought, you are the hero, the key to everything and through 4 entire story arch’s you get to be just as important and as you play thought you meet characters, real ones with personality and voices (thank you regular cut scenes) the plot makes you feel, well, epic.
How many MMO’s are there that actually make you feel like this? in LotRO you get to be a little person in the story of larger people and in WoW, well no one i know can tell me the plot to that game in less than a million words (that make little sense) but in guild wars i am he chosen one (depending on campaign) and hand picked by the gods to be the one to change the world (three times at least anyway)
Environment – again, this is a bias and fan driven post but the world crafted in guild wars has a read feel to it, granted I'm thinking ‘epic’ but the game does show you things that make you stop and just look at for a moment.
In Factions we see an urban maze and an eastern land of adventure that we imagine in legends. a little later in the game we see this magical forest that;s filled with strange wonders.
In Nightfall we see a swash buckling land of possibility and the struggles of a nation at war. as the game progresses we see an almost pre-historic desert with huge stones and planes of water with occasionally breaks for oasis’s. we even venture into a plane of torment where its dark and sinister in ways we never before imagined.
The unexpected - the first time i played the game i was forever seeing unforgettable sights and talking to new NPC’s who want to give me quests of push me to the core plot of the game but then when ‘Eye of the North’ came out we met something new. the Asuran race. and the game took a new spin, with portals (star gates, i don’t care what they say, those are star gates) we get to see our would of fantasy take a sci-fi twist in a very subtle manor
Vekk was just one of these new people that we meet. he uses magical energy to power robots and in so many subtle ways the story of the Asuran is woven through him. we know they are an old and xenophobic race, its even hinted that they come from another plane of existence (possibly even aliens).
The point is here that Guild Wars is a twist it has so many strange and wonderful twists and turns that the unexpected in visual aspects, story and character depth is astounding.
One last thing – Guild Wars two will be out relatively soon and with lore as well thought out as it is in this game allot of the lore is going to be subtly built into it. so if you have never played guild wars but want guild wars 2 its worth playing it even just a little bit as a taste of things to come.
so, stop reading and go play it NOW.
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