Guild Wars.

[Silvanas_starlight]

For those of us who some of the issues of HZ are becoming a bit tedious check this out.

http://www.guildwars.com/faq/default.html

And it is FREE to play online. You buy the game and no online subscriptions to have to deal with account/billing errors like some games.

Looks interesting. I might try it. Seems worth a try.
Seems like an actual game too, as it has chapters , maybe it even has a plot/ending! *gasp*

LOL :)

[Tantalyr]

Hmm, just read through the FAQ's and other areas of the site . . .

PvP. No crafting. No thanks.

That's just me, though.

[Silvanas_starlight]

Hmm, just read through the FAQ's and other areas of the site . . .

PvP. No crafting. No thanks.

That's just me, though.

I enjoy crafting as well, but I also like a real storyline/plot ;)
I guess its a matter of losing one enjoyment to gain another lol

[C`gan]

My sister keeps wanting me to try Guild Wars. After all, I kind of followed her into Horizons. It's just that it doesn't appeal to me, being craft heavy that I am.

[Jaraiden]

The graphics look nice, really do.

The PvP interests me, if it has meaning, like aterritorial conquest theme (if I remember correctly it does). And properly implemented to minimize griefing.

The major drawback is the "chapter" system where other classes, skills, and areas are added via paid expansions. Implies there will be (or must be) more balancing as newer classes and skills are added. And to group with others . . . . well need to be on same sets of expansions.

Am taking a wait and see on it, see how the first expansion goes.

[Zarcharien]

I pre-ordered it a few months ago. Personally, I think it will be a really great game and I would recommend anyone who maybe interested in ittake an in-depth look at it. Of course it has its good sides and it bad sides, and surely is not for everyone, but overall I think it will be a good game, especially from what I have seen in beta so far.

[Silvanas_starlight]

I pre-ordered it a few months ago. Personally, I think it will be a really great game and I would recommend anyone who maybe interested in ittake an in-depth look at it. Of course it has its good sides and it bad sides, and surely is not for everyone, but overall I think it will be a good game, especially from what I have seen in beta so far.

Awesome it's cool hearing from someone who has played it.
I will be getting it as soon as it comes out.

[Draca Moraven]

Zarcharien said, he think it will be a good game. Actually it sounds like he has NOT played it [:P]

[Zarcharien]

Lvl 20 Warrior/Monk (main/test char). True, I have only played in several of theweekend betas with very limited time to commit, butpersonally from what I have experiencedI liked the graphics, combat,skill based system and the missions/quests. I don't care much for pvp, but I think they have implemented it in a way that keeps those who like to pvp and those who like pve totally seperate from each other and happy for the most part. However, I did try out the grouped arena based pvp, and I gotta admit I had a blast!

What I truely do not like is instancing, in any game. I don't like the fact that I click on certain areas on my map and canbe instantly teleported there or seeing a loading screen everytime I enter into a new area. Not to mention, who is going to be able to see our guild hall besides our guild?

Like I said, I see some good and some bad in the game just like all others. At this point I enjoy my home of Istaria to much to ever consider leaving! But I think Guild Wars will make a great secondary game, atleastfor me. Just my 2 coppers on it [:P]

[Silvanas_starlight]

Zarcharien said, he think it will be a good game. Actually it sounds like he has NOT played it [img]/Web//emoticons/emotion-4.gif[/img]

Considering he has a test character YES he has played it.

[Draca Moraven]

I found a quite interesting beta report here:
http://nils.jeppe.de/Review/642/guil...w-event-review

And I chose not to buy it, even not as secondary...
--------------------------------------------------

Guild Wars Preview Event Review Posted Sunday, October 31, 2004 by Nils Jeppe

I played a lot of Guild Wars this weekend. For those of you who don?t know: Guildwars is an online PvP game (?Deathmatch?) by the Diablo 1 creators, now no longer associated with Blizzard. Guild Wars is ?online only?, there is no way to play the game without an Internet connection.

The game is set in a typical fantasy world. Story and background are secondary though. The main purpose of the game is to engage in endless Player-vs-Player battles. There is a cooperative mode, that consists of mission areas, and of so called ?exploration areas?. The main purpose for these is to supply the game with ressources and item drops.

Once you log in you immediately notice the similarities to Diablo in the character system. It?s not a copy of Diablo, but you can definitely feel the influence of that game everywhere.

That said, Guild Wars has some good and some bad properties. The best of them is immediately noticeable: The absolutely fantastic graphics. This game looks so good, I spent many hours simply exploring the world, trying to take the best screenshots possible. I have added a few images to my photo album ? you?ll see what I mean. They are all ingame screenshots, taken at highest detail level and 4x AA turned on. At these settings, the game is even almost playable on my machine.

Another good part about Guildwars is the world. It?s simply fun to walk around and explore. The overhead map is nicely done, and there is always something to find off the main roads; usually, unfortunately, this something consists of more monsters to kill and a few goody chests. Sometimes, however, you are rewarded by some nice graphics element. For example, I found a huge waterfall, and a very gnarly tree that I swear is being marked on my map as a tiny, blue dot ? but I can?t interact with it so I assume that?s a bug.

But Guildwars has also many bad sides. Okay, one isn?t the developers? fault. The servers are filled with idiotic n00bs that flood the chat channels, scream for others to give them money, or simply are being infantile.

However, there are many other things wrong with the game that the developers will have to take care of.

The crafting is absolutely annoying, I know it?s supposed to take people a while to get some better equipment but I feel it may be a little much detail. In a related issue, you can salvange items you find to get a few crafting materials. Okay, but why does my sword turn into granite pieces, for example? This is such a glaring oversight that I assume the developers don?t appreciate logic much.

The biggest problem that I encountered, however, is the PvP mode. Remember that the game is mostly promoted as a PvP game; coop and solo are a bonus.

Well, in PvP the lag was unbearable. Turning the game down to the lowest detail would still result in under 2 fps when the going got tough. I am pretty sure it?s not my connection or my basic system, as I do not seem to have this problem in coop or solo ? parts of which I am able to play pretty well in high detail on my system. I even tried to switch from firewire network to hooking my windoze up to the ?Net directly via PPPoE on real ethernet cat5 copper cable. No improvement.

For a game that is designed to be a PvP, I am seriously disappointed by the low performance.

That said the preview event was quite a bit of fun. It?s a beta, afterall. I?ll be there when and if they organise another public beta event.

If you are considering to buy or even pre-order this game, then I can only recommend you to wait until the finnished product is released and has been reviewed ? until then, feel free to play in free beta events. But do not commit your money on the game until you are sure they worked out all the kinks.

[Zarcharien]

To each their own, and we all must live and learn. Been playing Horizon's since release and have always had a great time in Istaria, yet if I was to have judged Horizons by reviews I never would have played it and missed out on some fun times [:)].

[Silvanas_starlight]

My friend and i got the preorder and have been playing the Event tonight

WE LOVE it!!

An actual storyline, NO LAG, fun.
Nice graphics, fun fights, AN AWESOME looting system (no more ninja looting, it assigns each drop in a fight to members of the groups - but you can trade to each other)
I saw no sign of big egos, people were actually helpful And yes there are some helpful nice people here (snowdonia, klaus, star-fyre, lffayen, etc, but overall most people aren't nice, and helpful? try getting a reply in MP sometimes.)
The quests were interesting and fun, easy to use interface, it actually has crafting too.

And sorry to some, I saw no way to pl so I guess the game will not be appealing to you.

I sure as hell won't be missing having to pay to beta test this pos game anymore. (and I know beta-testing is prerelease, but pre or not we pay to get to tell them how the mobs are invis, how corpses are alive, for dragons to have to beg for ARoP, to listen to people kiss tulgas butt and go on and on about how perfect it is, to have huge patches weekly to take care of all the bugs we report and have a bunch more ignored)

I do like ALOT of aspects of HZ, I love the crafting. Some of the hunting and epic spells are awesome. And I did meet some good people.And if maybe some day all the bugs are fixed or at least the major ones and I can stop feeling like I am paying to test HZ I'll come back.

[Zarcharien]

My friend and i got the preorder and have been playing the Event tonight

WE LOVE it!!

An actual storyline, No lag, FUN.

[:)]

I sure as hell won't be missing having to pay to beta test this pos game anymore.

[:(]

[Tryagain]

you do realize that every few months you must buy their expansion packs to keep up with the content right ? Thats how they are getting around a monthly charge for the game. They do this by putting out expansion packs a few times a year at $30.00 a pop.

So by the time you are done you spent just as much on the game and its expansion packs as you do a regular MMO. However I do not know how much content the game will ship with or if you are actually required to buy the expansion packs to play. But I believe I read somewhere that you actually do have to buy the expansion packs.

These are the changing trends of the MMO industry and new games like Guild wars. of Tulga does not keep up Horizons will soon go the way of the dodo bird.

Interesting concept and we will see how it goes.

[Zarcharien]

To the best of my knowledge, I'm almost certain you do not need to buy the expansion packs unless you want to, of course if someone really likes playing it that muchI'm sure they will buythe expansion and I have no doubt that thecompnay is banking on that aspect because that is how they will make their money.[:)] And, its my understanding that an expansion pack will only be released around every 6 months to a year ( so 1 possibly 2 a year at most), but of course they may do it more often, who knows.

[Tryagain]

you could be right but I heard one every 3 or 4 months. The beta weekends they do now are a testing of new content roll out for release content packs.

But I would imagine you wouldn't have to buy the expansion packs but the way the game is going to be setup you won't have much of a choice unless you are strictly a soloer type.

As said its an interesting experiment.