Guild Wars Comments by Keza MacDonald

I bought the collector's edition of Factions a while back for £15 but I only played it once. I was too sucked into WoW then, but maybe now it's worth another try.

Ah guild wars.....fond memories

I tried "Nightfall" as replacment after I stopped playing WoW but it didn't deliver for me.
I went back to WoW and never looked back.

Worst thing to me was that you can't jump off something in that game at all. Every little stone is a barricade and you have to run around it. Totally destroyed that game for me.
Also all the damn PVP spam (Team X did something) in the cities sucked.

I still enjoy Guild Wars.

I do prefer the origional though more than Factions and Nightfall. Out of the 3 I think Factions is the poorest, I do really like Nightfall though.

Only downside is actually getting into teams for some of the missions. Even when in a crowded area it can still be difficult and mainly they want healers. Another downside is the amount of people about in all 3 campaigns, it is gradually dwindling. So far I have done a fair bit of Eye of the North with just Henchman. Must admit loving it though as I really like that type of setting.

Another thing is though lately I have been playing LOTRO so GW has been just sitting on my hard disc unused. I do go back to it in short bursts though, its really good to just do a few quests casually and slay some stuff.

What's still surprising, even 3 years after release, is how incredibly beautiful the game is. In his Eurogamer reviews, Jim Rossignol has criticized the Guild Wars environments for being "film sets", because of their lack of interactivity. That may be true, but amazingly beautiful film sets they are. In Guild Wars, I love to clear a zone of all its enemies (which don't respawn unless you re-enter the zone), and then simply walk around it with the HUD completely off, looking at all the environments and the architecture in the game.

i really liked it but never got into it. i did a fair few hours on ffxi but never really got into that either. would like to try WoW but not sure if i'll get into that either!

Like Keza says this is just a great game for dipping in and out of every now and again. It really does not require a huge commitment of time to enjoy.

I'd say Guild Wars still has the best PvP system in any MMORPG out at the moment. Can't wait for GW2!

over 4500+ hrs played - amazing value-for-money here, folks.
fantastic for casual players (a tip for new buyers - start the campaigns "backwards", so you can rely on the heroes (customizable AI companions from GW: Nightfall) through the other two campaigns)

great pvp system (although ANet could've done more to preserve the game's e-sport appeal over the years).

highly recommended!

Well that was a lot better than the AoC review. Good summary.

Guild Wars is a great 'back burner' game, you can dip in and out when the mood takes you without having to worry about subs. Pretty much done all I want to now though, I look forward to the sequel.

It does have a lot of brilliant ideas and innovations. The value for money I got from it in terms of hours/played to ££ is tremendous.

Saying that, it's not a fulltime mmo. PVE is the poor relation and gets boring, pvp is great but requires a lot of organisation to make achieve anything significant.

Still loving it - bought this before wow came out over three ago when both launched (i think?) and i'm not playing wow any more. I guess that's down to the better story lines, absolutely beautiful graphics (prophecies holds up well even today) and the fact that i paid once so i can play for free.

I don't know why people complain about the lack of jump or swim (some of my RL friends use that same feeble excuse to why they don't like the games). TBh i'd rather take a game that is stable, fun, lag-free, has a huge population and as mentioned before has strong storylines, huge lands to explore and amazing looking graphics.

Also dipping in and out without any wasted subs doesn't leave a bitter taste in your mouth and doesn't leave any resentment like some of the paid for games do. And the time i spend with the game(s) has all been fun, unlike other games where i feel like i've been forced to play just to justify that i've paid a month to play for it.

Really looking forward to GW2! Wonder when we'll start to see some screenshots? :)

Became bored with it sadly, but still, played well over 2000 hours over all chapters.
Damn well worth my money. Hope GW2 will suck me back in.

Guildwars was great for a time, although i began to loose interest towards the end, due to the strategy of just chucking more monsters at you rather than making the fighting and use of skills more intelligent to win.

fun memories though for £20 quid you cant really go wrong

I still love playing it after 2,500 hours in. But you shouldn't play this game for the story. Prophecies was ok, Nightfall somewhat less and the story of Factions was cringeworthy. I'd love MMORPG's to be story driven but the quality should improve a bit.

Pvp is awesome though, there is so much freedom how to play it and to test your builds versus other players. It is best comparable I think to the Magic: The Gathering cardgame. You can have lots of skills, but only 8 of them can be taken with you. So you have to choose 8 that combine really well.

I've played WoW for several weeks and after that I really missed the jumping ability in GW as well and the Auction House and the interesting races. I hope they'll take the best bits of WoW and put them in GW 2, but even now GW 1 is the best online game for me by a huge margin :-)

"I don't know why people complain about the lack of jump or swim (some of my RL friends use that same feeble excuse to why they don't like the games). TBh i'd rather take a game that is stable, fun, lag-free, has a huge population and as mentioned before has strong storylines, huge lands to explore and amazing looking graphics."

What, you gotta choose between those or a jump feature? I really doubt they take an equal amount of resources to develop...

I've been playing Guild Wars off and on since release date, and considering I've spend £20 on 200 hours worth of play with JUST ONE ALT the only game I've had better value for money on has been Halo 2 (and we played the MP almost every night for a year - funnily enough until we got a second PC that let me play GW with the missus)

Yes GW is a great casual MMO. It isnt really that difficult to find people to team up with (even in prophecies) as the newbie areas always seems to be full of new low level chars. With the hero and henchman system you can fully solo all 3 games + the expansion if you want. Another alternative to large groups (and in my experience, more fun) is just a small party of 2 with the numbers made up with player controlled heros.

I tired on 3 separate occasions to get into Guild Wars but I always found it extremely boring after an hour or so.

I'm a long time MMO player so maybe I was too spoilt by the features in subscription MMOs to enjoy it.

Each to their own I guess.

dingo, that was my exact reason for not playing it, I hate, absolutely hate how the characters move in guild wars. I see a hill, but I can't move anywhere besides the designated road. that really took the immersion out of it for me. that was the experience I got from the first release, not sure if that is change at all with the expansion packs.

Maybe it's a "You can jump in WoW, so WHY THE FUCK can't I jump in this?" kind of thing.

I've never played WoW or any other MMO for that matter, and it's never occurred to me at any point that a jump button would add anything whatsoever to the game.

Guild Wars is okay, but I prefer my MMOs open-world instead of heavily instanced.

I'd certainly say Guild Wars has the best PvP I've played, it's the only one I've tried more than once. Being able to jump straight in helps.

"Guild Wars' extremely low level cap (20) has proven to be a stroke of design genius." I stopped reading here. I played gw for almost 3 years, then I went to WoW and never came back.