Guild Wars provides two main modes of gameplay—a cooperative role-playing component and a competitive player vs. player (PvP) component—both of which are hosted on ArenaNet's servers. The games depict the history of the fictional fantasy world of Tyria, each campaign focusing on events in disjoint sections of the world, but roughly parallel in time. A player creates an avatar to play through the cooperative storyline of a campaign, taking on the role of a hero who must save Tyria from episode-specific antagonists. Players can group with other players and non-player characters, known as henchmen or heroes, to perform missions and quests found throughout the game-world. PvP combat is consensual, team based, and limited to areas designed for such combat. Players are allowed to create characters at maximum level and the best equipment specifically for PvP play, which is unusual for MMORPGs.[1] ArenaNet hosts official Guild Wars tournaments where the most successful players and guilds may compete for the chance to play live at gaming conventions and win prizes up to 100,000 USD.[2][3]
The games in the Guild Wars series were critically well received[4][5][6][7] and won many editor's choice awards, as well as awards such as best value, best massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), and best game.[8]Guild Wars was noted for being one of the few commercially developed games in the MMORPG genre to offer online play without subscription fees,[9] its instanced approach to MMORPG play,[10] and the quality of the graphics and play for computers with low specifications.[11] In December 2007, NCSoft announced that 4.5 million units of games in the Guild Wars series had been sold.[12] The sequel, Guild Wars 2, was announced in March 2007. It will have updated graphics and gameplay mechanics, and will continue the original Guild Wars tradition of no subscription fees.[13] No release date has been announced.
Campaigns
Games in the original Guild Wars sequence were released in episodes known as campaigns. Players must purchase an individual campaign in order to access the game elements specific to that campaign; however, all campaigns are linked in one game world. Each campaign is independent of the others, with its own co-operative storyline, campaign-specific skills, and competitive arenas. Players owning different campaigns may still interact in shared areas, including trading for items specific to the campaigns they have not purchased. Players who own two or more campaigns may transport their characters freely from one campaign to the other.
The first campaign, Guild Wars Prophecies (originally named Guild Wars), was released on April 28, 2005. The Prophecies storyline is situated on the continent of Tyria and revolves around the Flameseeker Prophecy, a prophecy made by an ancient dragon.
Prophecies was followed by Guild Wars Factions on April 28, 2006, released exactly a year after Prophecies. Factions is situated on the small southern continent of Cantha that is separated from Tyria by a vast ocean. The events of the Factions campaign concern the return from death of a corrupted bodyguard named Shiro Tagachi. Factions features a global persistent war between rival nations, and the notion of guild alliances (see guilds below).
The third campaign, Guild Wars Nightfall, was released on October 27, 2006. Nightfall features the arid continent of Elona, joined to southern Tyria across a vast desert. Nightfall introduced heroes, advanced computer-controlled units that can be micro-managed by players, including the ability to customize their skill layout and equipment.
Scrapping their initial plans for a fourth campaign, ArenaNet have released an expansion pack, Guild Wars: Eye of the North, to the previous three campaigns on August 31, 2007.[14][15] Not being a full campaign, this expansion requires one of the other released campaigns, and is only accessible by player characters at level 10 and above. Eye of the North therefore does not feature new professions or tutorial material, but contains new content for existing characters: new dungeons, a number of new skills, armor, and heroes. It is also intended to be a bridge to the sequel to the Guild Wars series, Guild Wars 2. As a promotion for their online store and Eye of the North, ArenaNet released a "bonus mission pack" to online purchasers;[16] containing playable recreations of four incidents in the history of Tyria, Cantha and Elona which each expand the backstory for one of four major NPC characters.[17]
A new player must create a Guild Wars account using a unique e-mail address and an access key received from the purchase of the game box or through the online store. Once created, additional keys may be added to the account; these keys can belong to additional campaigns that are linked to the account, or certain purchasable features (such as additional character slots) bought from the online store. Once a key is added to an account it cannot be removed and accounts cannot be merged.
An account is initially set to a specific region depending on the version of the game purchased; Europe, America, Korea, Taiwan or Japan. Players from Europe, America and Korea may freely move between the three regions. Regardless of the account's home region, players in all regions can meet and form parties in international districts (instances of in-game outposts).
A new account has four character slots; each additional full campaign added to the account adds two further character slots. Extra character slots may be purchased from the online store.
Gameplay
The game world of Tyria is presented as a number of instanced zones accessible through staging areas known as towns. These staging areas are fully navigable 3D maps where the player avatars may interact with each other or with NPCs that provide services such as merchanting or storage. From a town, players can enter instanced gaming areas either by crossing the border of the town or by initiating a storyline mission. Each instance is allocated freshly for the adventuring party that enters it. As the characters progress in the story or explore the game world, they gain access to additional towns. Players can transport their characters instantly between towns using the game-world's map.
Player characters in Guild Wars are controlled from an over-head third person perspective in a 3D game environment (but with only two degrees of freedom: characters cannot move vertically; first person perspective is available, but usually too cumbersome to play). For every new character, the player can choose to create a role-playing character that begins in low level areas, or a PvP-only character at maximum level and the best equipment. Both modes encourage teaming up with other players or AI controlled NPCs known as henchmen.
Player characters have a fixed primary profession, determined at creation time, which dictates their appearance, certain primary attributes, and the kinds of armor available to them. The warrior profession, for example, has access to the primary Strength attribute that increases their effectiveness with martial weapons, and is able to wear heavy armor providing the highest protection of all professions. Elementalists, on the other hand, wear weaker armor, but can use their primary Energy Storage attribute to have a much greater energy pool than other professions. Player characters can also choose a variable secondary profession that gives them access to all the skills and secondary attributes of that profession. A Warrior/Elementalist (abbreviated in-game as W/E), therefore, is a warrior who may use spells in combat, similar to the Spellsword archetype from RPGs.
All player characters have a maximum character level of 20 that is reached fairly early on in the co-operative story. Armor and weapons also have fixed maximum stats and a fixed variety of modifiers, and these items at the highest stats are easily attainable. Most of the gameplay is balanced around a party of eight level 20 players sporting items with maximum stats. The choice of armor and weapons determine the character's health points. Unlike most RPGs, Guild Wars has no healing potions; instead, the party's health is managed by a number of healing skills in every class. In addition, a character regenerates health if he or she sustains or deals no damage for a certain period. The primary profession and attributes determine the character's energy, which also regenerates (at a fixed profession-dependent rate).
Players may customize their character appearance from a fixed palette of face and hair models, skin color, height of the avatar, and by their choice of armor. All armor and weapons in the game can be dyed to further differentiate the characters. Finally, characters may display their guild affiliation and, optionally, a title they have earned for in-game achievements. The most prestigious titles often require significant investment of time and often in-game money.
ArenaNet originally intended[citation needed] that co-operative characters would continue to competitive content as the end-game for a player. The co-operative and competitive modes of the game were therefore closely linked, sharing nearly all gameplay mechanics. The few differences that exist are limited to a collection of PvE-only skills that are not balanced for competitive use. However two communities of gamers have formed around each game type: those who play Guild Wars strictly as a co-operative RPG and those who play it as a competitive PvP game;[citation needed] updates to the game after the release of Prophecies allowed this division to continue further.[citation needed]
Combat
A player selects eight skills (special abilities) from their two professions. Each skill has a governing attribute that determines its effectiveness; these attributes are assigned using a number of attribute points similar to the point-purchase system of D&D. Most skills have an energy cost that is forfeited at the beginning, and an activation delay during which the character is stationary and unresponsive. All offensive skills are either targeted at an enemy, or centered on the self; Guild Wars does not allow targeting a location or an area. Weapon attacks are performed automatically at a fixed rate and the player can freely choose when to start or stop such attacks. Players may also select allied targets for beneficial skills such as healing spells or enchantments.
Guild Wars has been likened to collectible card games such as Magic: the Gathering because of the way skills are used in gameplay.[18] A player must choose a limited number of skills from the pool of available skills prior to entering battles, similar to assembling decks of Magic the Gathering cards. The collection of chosen skills and attribute points is often referred to as a "build". Players may consider a specific strategy for the area they are entering, or use a general skill-set up which utilizes synergies between groups of skills. When a team is formed, the strengths and weaknesses of player professions is also taken into account, allowing players to specialize into particular tasks and allows more complex skill combinations.
The co-operative parts of Guild Wars use several standard tropes of the MMORPG genre. Players explore the game-world, kill monsters, perform quests, and complete missions to earn rewards and advance the story. Rewards include experience points, skill points, skills, gold, faction, and items for the player character. Some of these rewards advance not only the particular character but also unlock features of the game account-wide.
In each campaign the player is involved in a linear story which they interact with by performing a series of primary quests and missions. Quests are given to a player by NPCs via text dialog. As quests are completed new areas, new quests and missions are opened for the player's character to access. Missions are used for major events in the storyline, such as significant battles against the main antagonist. Both quests and missions can feature in-game cut scenes which advance the story and provide context to the actions which follow. Cut scenes are in the third-person, often featuring the party leader's character, and may reveal elements of the story to the player which their character would normally not be aware of, such as revealing the actions of the antagonist. Players are given the option of skipping the cut scenes if all party members agree upon it.
Competitive gameplay
Player versus Player (PvP) combat in Guild Wars is consensual and team-based. Such combat is restricted to special PvP areas, the majority of which are located on the core area known as The Battle Isles. Individual campaigns also have certain campaign-specific PvP arenas. Players may participate in PvP combat with either their role-playing characters or with characters created specifically for PvP. Characters are rewarded with experience points for victories in competitive battle and the player account also acquires faction points redeemable for in-game rewards[19]. In addition to this victory may also award points which contribute towards completion of character or account based titles.
The following are the competitive modes in Guild Wars:
Random Arena
Four-on-four matches with teams randomly composed from those waiting to enter combat. There are many different arenas with different victory conditions: deathmatch and kill-count.
Team Arena
Four-on-four matches with player-managed teams. These matches are played in the same areas as the Random Arena with a few exceptions.
Heroes' Ascent
A continuous tournament where players form teams of eight to battle in a sequence of arenas, culminating in the Hall of Heroes whose results are broadcast to all online players in addition to rewarding the victors with high-end loot. Arenas in the Heroes' Ascent tournament include deathmatch, altar-control, and capture-the-relic victory conditions. Victories in the Heroes' Ascent award players with fame points that can be used to determine the rank of the player.
Guild Battles
File:Guild Wars Guild Lord (screenshot).jpgThe Guild Lord is a well-guarded NPC that must be defeated to win a Guild Battle Two guilds meet in guild halls and stage a tactical battle with the aim of killing the opposing Guild Lord, a well-protected NPC. Victory in guild battles affects the rank of the guild in the global Guild versus Guild (GvG) ladder.
Alliance Battles
Guild Wars Factions introduced an arena where twelve players aligned with one of the opposing Kurzick and Luxon factions team up to fight an opposing team to gain new territory for their faction. The twelve player team is comprised of three teams with four human players each. The three teams are selected randomly from the teams waiting on each side when the match begins. Alliance Battles grant alliance faction and affect the border between the two factions in the Factions-specific continent of Cantha. The location of the border affects the map in which the battles take place by adding a bias to favor the faction losing the war.
Competitive Missions
Factions also introduced a pair of competitive arenas, named Fort Aspenwood and The Jade Quarry, where randomly assembled teams of players from the opposing nations enact particular events in the Kurzick/Luxon war. Victories in these missions have no global effect, but do grant the players with alliance faction.
Hero Battles
Players with Guild Wars Nightfall or Guild Wars: Eye of the North can access an arena where two players, each controlling three NPC heroes, compete to gain control of strategic points. As the player can control their heroes these battles incorporate an aspect of real-time strategy games. Hero Battles also have a ladder, similar to Guild Battles.
Guild and Hero Battles have a continuously running automated tournament system.[20] Players or guilds elect to participate in the tournament by buying in-game tokens using their PvP faction points. The participants are divided randomly into groups of 32 that participate daily in up to five Swiss rounds held on a fixed schedule. Participants who are unable to field a full team automatically forfeit their round. The top eight candidates at the end of every month continue on to a single-elimination tournament, and the final victors earn a number of real and in-game rewards. Players who do not participate in the automated tournament are allowed to place bets on the results of these tournaments for a number of in-game rewards.
Many competitive matches may be observed by players by means of an observer mode.[19] Important PvP matches such as matches in the Hall of Heroes or between highly rated guilds may be observed (after a delay of fifteen minutes) by others in order to see the tactics used by successful teams and attempt to learn or counter them. Guilds may additionally observe their own Guild Battles for a fixed period of time.[21]
Guilds
As the name suggests, guilds are a core element of Guild Wars, manifesting not only as social units but also being closely linked with the game mechanics. Though a player is not required to join a guild, it adds value to the gaming time and increases camaraderie. Often, joining a guild is a good way to get help from more experienced players as the in-game guild interface allows communication between guild members.
The guild leader who creates the guild can furnish it with a cape and a guild hall; the latter may also be upgraded with merchant and storage NPCs. The leader can recruit new players to the guild, and can also promote a number of them to guild officers, who can then continue with recruitment and further promotion of officers. Guild officers can dismiss players from the guild, but only the leader retains the power to dismiss officers and disband the guild. Guilds have a membership limit of 100 members.
Up to ten guilds may ally together to form an alliance. Members of an alliance may communicate over a shared chat channel, and visit the guild halls of the other guilds of the alliance.[22] Each alliance has a leader guild that initiates the alliance, the leader of which guild is also the alliance leader, who may admit or dismiss guilds from the alliance. Each guild is, in fact, initially an alliance of one. The ability to form alliances is restricted to guilds whose leaders own the Factions campaign, where the concept of alliances was introduced. Each alliance must be devoted to either the Kurzicks or the Luxons, two in-game factions locked in perpetual conflict. Players can accumulate faction or reputation with either the Kurzicks or the Luxons, which can either be "donated" to the alliance or redeemed for certain in-game rewards. The alliances with the highest amount of donated faction are given control of certain in-game outposts in the Canthan continent; controlling an outpost gives the alliance members access to restricted areas of the outposts, containing, among other things, merchants who sell at a discount. The best alliance-controllable outposts are the Kurzick and Luxon capital cities, each of which contains a restricted entrance to an elite co-operative mission.
In addition to membership in guilds, a player may be a guest of any number of other guilds. Guest privileges are limited to visiting the guild hall and participating in guild or alliance battles. An accepted invitation expires after eight hours.
Technical features
Development
Guild Wars is the first game created by developer ArenaNet. Senior developers from Blizzard Entertainment, some involved in the early development of World of Warcraft,[23] left to create ArenaNet to develop a game which took risks with game design and business model.[24]
Guild Wars development was first announced in April 2003.[25]Guild Wars Prophecies, initially marketed simply as Guild Wars, was released in April 2005.[26]Sorrow's Furnace added further playable content to Prophecies in September 2005.[27]Guild Wars Factions was released exactly a year after Prophecies in April 2006 followed six months later by Guild Wars Nightfall in October 2006. A fourth campaign, Utopia, was in development, but after reviewing feedback from fans and the sort of changes they wanted to make[28], ArenaNet elected to focus on an expansion pack, Guild Wars: Eye of the North, released in late August 2007,[29] and Guild Wars 2.
Guild Wars was developed in an environment following the release of EverQuest where many MMORPGs were proposed. As a result ArenaNet positioned Guild Wars in a niche in the online RPG genre, offering online gameplay without a subscription fee. ArenaNet believed that players prefer not to pay subscription fees for every game they play[30] and paying a fee causes players to make a "lifestyle commitment"[24] to a particular game, rather than switching between different games which they considered to be more usual gaming behaviour.[31]Jeff Strain, a founder of ArenaNet, states "It is our opinion that the free online gaming model combined with frequent content updates is the optimum online paradigm for interfacing with consumers and creating a significant, enduring gaming franchise."[32]
ArenaNet has used open beta testing throughout the development of the Guild Wars series. For the first public appearance of Guild Wars Prophecies in April 2004, that occurred in conjunction with E3 2004, people were encouraged to download the client and play an online demo of the game to test its networking capabilities.[33] This was followed by a preview event and several beta test weekend events.[34] Both Factions and Nightfall had similar test weekends prior to their release. Nearly 500,000 players spent an average of 8.5 hours playing the Nightfall PvE content during its second beta test weekend.[35] In addition to the public beta events, ArenaNet uses continuously running closed alpha test servers; alpha testers are either ArenaNet employees or have signed a non-disclosure agreement with NCsoft. Aspects of both Factions and Nightfall were influenced by player feedback.[36] Gameplay for Prophecies was altered after release to introduce changes to skill capture and experience acquisition and add faction to PvP parts of the game.[37] No further playable content—such as quests and missions—is expected to be developed for players who only own the Prophecies, Factions and Nightfall campaigns. Modifications to interfaces, such as the changes prior to the introduction of Eye of the North and skill balances are applied to players of all campaigns.
ArenaNet also continues to develop in-game events coinciding with real-world events for players of all campaigns. These events feature minigames, quests, town decorations, masks and collectible gifts. Smaller events also occur which include weekends where the rate at which certain items drop while out questing is increased or the rewards from PvP play are improved.
Game engine
The game engine for Guild Wars was developed by ArenaNet. Engine components developed for Guild Wars are available to be licensed to other NCsoft companies and have been used in other NCsoft games. However, ArenaNet have said they will not license the game engine technology to non-NCsoft companies.[23]
Content delivery and network architecture
To support their fee-free approach to online gaming the server architecture developed for the game was core to minimizing the bandwidth costs associated with maintaining game servers.[38] Infrastructure design was influenced by the developers' experiences with Battle.net development.[32]
The game client is available for download as a very small file. Each time there is an update to the game the existing client automatically downloads a new version of the client which examines a manifest of files to determine which files have been modified and therefore need to be downloaded to the client machine. This manifest is prioritized, the most important files are downloaded prior to the player being able to start the game, the rest are downloaded in the background while the player is playing. ArenaNet uses this rapid update technology to make changes on demand and close exploits in the system.[32]
ArenaNet also utilizes their update technology to preload content from new Guild Wars campaigns onto existing players' accounts prior to the release of that campaign. The content is only activated after the right key is added to the player's account and the game servers allow the campaign changes to go live[23].
The game is server hosted.[30] Much of the game mechanics are performed or verified by the game servers. The Guild Wars servers are set up in a distributed model. Players are presented with what appears to be a single server but their data is moved to different locations or servers depending on where in the world they are playing and server load at the time.[31]
^Dave Kosak and Miguel Lopez (2005-26-04). ""Guild Wars"". GameSpy. Retrieved 2007-10-08. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
^"Guildwars.com December Press Release".. Note that units sold does not equate to number of players, and, because Guild Wars accounts never expire, there is no notion of "active account" as used by other MMORPG companies.
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