Guild Wars

Guild Wars Prophecies
Developer(s)	ArenaNet
Publisher(s)	NCsoft
Designer(s)	Mike O'Brien
Platform(s)	Windows
Release	April 28, 2005
Genre(s)	CORPG
Mode(s)	Multiplayer

Guild Wars, also known as Guild Wars Prophecies, is a Competitive/Cooperative Online Role-Playing Game (CORPG) created by ArenaNet, a subsidiary of the South Korean game publisher NCsoft. The game is the first in a series of stand alone games set in the Guild Wars universe, followed by Guild Wars Factions and Guild Wars Nightfall. Guild Wars is one of only a few commercially produced and distributed online role-playing games to offer play without subscription fee.

Guild Wars shares some features with massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG), however it was termed a CORPG by its developers to emphasise the differences in its approach to online role-play compared to many of its contemporaries. Guild Wars has features such as a low level cap, instanced game worlds, NPC henchmen to assist players and instant travel which combine to support casual online RPG game play. The game is also designed for competitive play, where characters may be created at the highest level specifically for Player vs Player (PvP) games. Also, skills are regularly modified to ensure balance and variety in gameplay. Guild Wars tournaments are regularly arranged offering prize money to the winning teams.

Game Mechanics

File:Skill Combo.PNG

This modified screenshot illustrates that certain skills can be chained together for added effect.

These sections describe game play for Guild Wars Prophecies. Subsequent campaigns have made modifications to some of these mechanics and these changes are noted on the page for the campaign where the change was made.

Basics

Conceptually, the abilities the player has available to use in-game, skills, are very important through both the RPG and competitive parts of the game. A player selects a limited number of skills prior to entering a battle and needs to be careful while using those skills during a battle. An adept competitive player needs knowledge of all the game's skills and how they interwork to be most effective. Guild Wars' emphasis on skill selection and implementation of skill use has similarities with many collectible card games.

To begin play a player must create a character for either of the two play styles which Guild Wars supports: Player versus player (PvP) or Player versus environment (PvE). A player gives new characters a profession, a fixed physical appearance and a unique, unchangeable name when they are created.

Professions

A Guild Wars character is composed of a primary and secondary profession. The primary profession determines the appearance, armour, lead skill set of the character and provides a specialized attribute line. For example, the elementalist receives the Energy Storage attribute line to boost their energy reserves and improve skills associated with Energy Storage. The secondary profession allows access to skills and non-specialized attributes only and may be changed during the PvE storyline and in the Temple of Balthazar for PvP characters.

File:Gw classes.jpg

The six Guild Wars classes from Prophecies, in alphabetical order from left to right.

There are six character classes available in Prophecies:

• Elementalist - Classic elemental spell casting class that uses fire, air, earth and water magic for damage, defense and slowing down opponents.
• Mesmer - Manipulates opponents' actions against them, causing damage in addition to stealing and reducing their energy and speed.
• Monk - Heals, protects and revives party members and allies, along with damaging opponents using smiting spells.
• Necromancer - Casts curses on their opponents, exploits corpses for health and damage along with raising an army of undead minions, and can sacrifices health for damage and healing over time benefits.
• Ranger - The masters of bows, pets and Nature Rituals; they can tame animal companions to aid them in battle, use expertise to lessen the cost of skills and traps to destroy enemy patrols.
• Warrior - Melee fighter who uses strength and tactics to engage enemies in close combat, and generally has the highest armor rating.

Skills

The player may select up to eight skills from their available pool of skills to use when they prepare for a battle. Elite skills are skills which may be considered better than average or have strong synergy with other skills. The player may only equip one elite skill when they make their skill selection. Skills are set prior to entering a PvP or PvE zone and may not be changed while in a zone.

Initially the pool of skills available to a character and the player is limited and more skills are made available through game play. There are several different methods to acquire skills:

• Purchase from skill trainers using skill points and gold earned during PvE-based play.
• Capture from a boss monster using a Signet of Capture during PvE-based play.
• Quests can be obtained during PvE-based play which give skills as a reward.
• Trade in faction points earned during PvP combat to a Priest of Balthazar.
• Purchase of the PvP edition of Guild Wars from the online store.

When a skill is first acquired, through the methods described above, it is unlocked for the account of the player, making it available to all PvP characters made on the account.

The effectiveness of the skills used is based on the attribute line of the skill. To improve the effectiveness of skills the player distributes a limited number of attribute points to these attribute lines. There are at maximum 200 points available to distribute. PvP characters start with all 200, but PvE characters must gain them through leveling and quests. Attributes lines can be increased from 0 to 12, at the increasing cost of 1 to 20 attribute points. Runes are available which can be used to increase the attribute lines of the primary profession to a maximum attribute level of 16.

Skill Types

All skills are of a base type of Skill. However, most skills are further specialised into the following categories;

• Attack: An enhanced melee or ranged attack.
• Spell: A skill that results in a one-time effect, such as damage, location specific damage over time, healing, energy loss or gain.
• Enchantment Spell: A spell that causes a positive effect for a period of time on the player or players(e.g., faster movement, increased armor, increased energy).
• Hex Spell: A spell that causes a negative effect for a period of time (e.g., movement/attack speed reduction, health or energy degeneration).
• Signet: A skill that costs no Energy to use but takes time to activate and often to recharge.
• Preparation: A skill that enhances the player's attacks over a period of time. A player may only have one preparation active at a time. Primarily used by Rangers.
• Trap: Creates a trap that is generally triggered when an opponent walks over it (offensive trap) or automatically buffs party members within range (defensive traps). Primarily used by Rangers.
• Shout: An area of effect skill which requires either energy or adrenaline that benefits you and nearby allies, or hinders nearby enemies.
• Stance: A posture that will benefit the character for a period of time. A character may only have one stance active at a time.
• Glyph: A skill that enhances the next spell you cast. Primarily used by Elementalists.
• Nature Ritual: Creates a spirit that emits an environmental enchantment affecting allies and foes alike. Primarily used by Rangers.
• Well: A spell requiring an unexploited corpse that can affect either enemies or allies within range for a period of time. Primarily used by Necromancers.
• Ward: A spell that creates a temporary area around the caster that benefits allies or hinders enemies. Primarily used by Elementalists.

Game Specifics

Equipment

There is a lot of equipment available to players.

• Armor is available in suits specialised for a primary profession. There are different functionalities available on different armors, such as higher armor against particular damage types, extra energy or reduced condition or hex duration.
• Runes are non-stackable items which are put on armor to improve primary attribute lines usually at cost of health. There are runes available that can increase health and provide some damage reduction.
• There are many different types of weapons. They can be used by any class, however, for the weapon to be most effective the player must allocate enough attribute points to meet the attribute requirements of the weapon. There are two-handed weapons, such as bows and hammers, and single-handed weapons, such as swords and wands which may be wielded with an off-hand, such as a shield. A weapon can have modifiers applied to it, such as bow strings or staff wrappings, which improve or modify the weapon's damage or give benefit to the wielder. Some weapons and off-hands are dropped exclusively by certain bosses. These particular items show their names in green and usually mentions the boss that drops the item (e.g. Drago's Flatbow). These are known as "unique" items and players will often "farm" bosses in the hopes of acquiring them.

Builds

A particular combination of skills, attributes and sometimes armour and weapons is known as a build. Some builds are more effective at particular tasks than others, and so are more common than others. A build may be at an individual player level, or include all of the roles in a team to utilise skill interactions across multiple players.

Guilds

As the name of the game suggests, guilds are a part of the game play. After a guild is created the leader can purchase a cape and design it for the whole guild. They may also purchase a Guild Hall, a private place where only guild members or invited guests can enter. Within the Guild Hall, NPCs can be purchased for convenience, for example, a storage agent, dye trader or a materials trader can be lingering in the Guild Hall. Even though a player is not required to join a guild it does add valuable gameplay through camaraderie. Often, joining a guild is a good way to get help from more experienced players.

There are five ranks in a guild, including Leader, Officer, member, guest, and alliance member (from greatest to least), each rank having its own abilities pertaining to the guild. A Leader can kick any member or officer from the guild, change the cape/flag of the guild, promote any member to officer, and demote any officer to member. An Officer may invite or kick any member from the guild, and promote any member to officer. An officer can also invite guests, who are allowed to visit your guild hall but are still allowed to keep membership in their own guild. Guest status is only temporary. The fifth rank of guild membership is being an alliance member, which is achieved by sharing an alliance with a guild. Alliance members have the same privileges as guests, except alliance members can speak with alliance guilds through the alliance chat channel.

Please note that the Alliance option is found in Guild Wars Factions and a player who only has Prophecies will not be able to create or join one as a guild leader, however, if he/she is in a guild whose guild leader has Factions, the guild is still able to join or form an alliance.

PvE Specifics

A PvE character is created to play through the story-driven, PvE part of the Guild Wars game. A PvE character is level 1 when it is first created with no skills or secondary profession. Experience is required to level the character, and once the maximum level, 20, has been reached, experience is still accumulated, although skill points are awarded instead of levels. Experience can be gained by:

• Performing NPC quests
• Completing the story-driven cooperative missions
• Killing monsters

Since the maximum level in Guild Wars is 20, the time it takes to reach the maximum level is short relative to many contemporary online RPG games. Much of the gameplay is designed for level 20 players.

There are no specific servers which players join, outside of selecting their region at account creation. Instead the world is broken into a number of smaller instances which the players can move around in. Towns have a number of instances which can hold up to 100 player characters each. It is in the towns that players form parties to perform quests or missions. A party can consist of one to eight members, depending on location, which can be other player characters or AI driven NPC henchmen. When the party leaves the town an instance of the game world is created for the party.

The game world is split into different zones. Whenever the party travels between these zones, all enemies and NPCs respawn. Most enemies use only skills available to the players, but some have specialized monster skills granting them abilities players cannot emulate. Enemies also do not have a maximum level cap, so are frequently seen with levels greater than 20. Boss enemies are named and surrounded by an aura indicating their profession, for instance, a boss using warrior skills has a yellow aura. Players can use Signets of Capture on boss monsters to acquire skills. This is the only way elite skills can be acquired by PvE characters.

PvP Specifics

A PvP character is created at the maximum level with access to all of the skills, runes, and upgrades which have been unlocked on the account. If the player has no skills currently unlocked they may use a pre-built character to head straight into combat.

There are a number of different types of PvP available to players

• Random Arena is a 4 versus 4 players combat. Combatants for both teams are selected randomly from a pool of waiting players. Team Arena is 4 versus 4 players like Random Arena, but teams may be built by the players prior to combat.

• In Guild vs. Guild (GvG) combat guild teams, consisting of 8 players, battle each other for ranking on the world-wide Guild Wars ladder. This form of PvP combat offers the most strategic combat in the game, requiring good teamwork, communication and build planning. Ladder ranking is used to determine which guilds go to organized tournaments, and there are in-game or monetary rewards for the top ranked guilds in a ladder season.

• Alliance Battles are a Guild Wars Factions-only type of PvP battle that involves three teams of four from each of the two groups, the Luxons and the Kurzicks, who fight to capture control points in a large map. The first group to 500 points or the first group able to control all 7 control points for a period of time is victorious. By competing in Alliance Battles you gain Faction from the side you fought for. This Faction can be redeemed for yourself or on behalf of your alliance.

• Finally, Heroes' Ascent implements a concept called World at War, in which teams of 6 from different regions fight through several PvP arenas up to the last area called the Hall of Heroes. The regions fight for "The Favor of the Gods" . Wins are displayed in the chat box to declare who has "Favor". Holding favor unlocks access to some high level PvE content and allows avatars of gods to be summoned in PvE instances, which offer blessings for a small fee.

An observer mode is available which allows players to watch recent Hall of Heroes matches. Guild vs. Guild and other Heroes' Ascent battles can also be viewed. Battles in the Hall of Heroes are "displayed" every six minutes with a fifteen minute delay (as to not allow exploitation). Other Observer Mode battles require a rank 1-100 guild in the match in order to be viewed.

Campaigns

Unlike many contemporary online games players can get access to the Guild Wars servers without a monthly fee. The developers have instead opted for an episodic structure which involves regular releases of campaigns at the rate of about two every year. Unlike expansion packs, these campaigns are stand-alone games that may be played individually or combined with other campaigns. Players may thus pick and choose the campaigns they wish to participate in.

Three campaigns have been released: the original, Guild Wars Prophecies, followed by Guild Wars Factions, and the third campaign, Guild Wars Nightfall.

Each campaign has a new PvE campaign, new professions and new skills for existing professions in addition to a number of core skills which are available in all campaigns, shared elite PvE areas and the PvP arenas. A player who chooses not to purchase a campaign may still interact with those who have, which includes trading with them for items specific to the campaigns they haven't purchased.

Account Information

A new player must create a Guild Wars account using a unique email and the key received from the purchase of Guild Wars. A key which has been added to an account cannot be removed. Accounts cannot be merged together. Other keys may be added to the account which will enable access to additional content such as new campaigns and special features associated with a key. If the player wants to purchase from the online store the account must be bound to a PlayNC account, which locks the currency and email address of the account and requires further personal information to activate.

An account is initially set to a specific game region depending on the version of the game purchased; Europe, America, Korea, Taiwan or Japan. Players from Europe and America may change territories up to four times.

A new account has four character slots, each additional campaign added to the account adds two additional character slots. Further slots may be purchased from the Guild Wars store.

Story

It is 1070AE (after Exodus) and Ascalon is at war, fighting a double battle against both the human kingdoms of the Krytans and the Orrians in the Guild Wars, and the Charr invading from the North. The fight is not going well, but the Great Northern Wall always protects Ascalon from the worst of the threat. However, the Charr find a way past the wall, and increase their attacks. It is in this setting the player begins a new character and completes initial training quests.

However, the Wall is unable to protect Ascalon forever. The Charr are able to use a powerful ritual which calls fire and crystal meteors from the sky, known as "The Searing", destroying the Wall and turning Ascalon into a wasteland.

Two years later, Prince Rurik and his father King Adelbern, the leaders of Ascalon, fight a losing battle against continued assaults from the Charr. As the players fight through the wasteland helping where they can, they find the legendary horn Stormcaller, which is said to hold immense power against invaders of Ascalon. Rurik is able to use the Stormcaller to weaken the invading Charr and push them out of the capital, Rin. Rurik and Adelbern argue about the next move. Adelbern wants to fight off the Charr but Rurik, after seeing Rin's devastation, wants the people of Ascalon to flee across the Shiverpeaks to the safety of Kryta. For this traitorous sentiment the King exiles his son from Ascalon.

Rurik and his supporters leave Ascalon behind and travel to Kryta through the Northern Shiverpeak mountains. This is not an easy journey, as they are impeded by the Stone Summit Dwarves who try to stop their passage. The Deldrimor Dwarves aid Rurik and the refugees through the mountains. The passage comes at a price as Rurik dies at the hands of the Stone Summit while trying to ensure the safety of the refugees. The party must continue on to Kryta without him.

Kryta is the domain of a relatively new religious group called the White Mantle. The White Mantle are an organisation who were formed by Saul D'Alessio to fight the Charr, who, after destroying Ascalon, headed to Kryta and Orr to destroy the two remaining kingdoms. After the Mantle defeated the Charr, they went on a counter offensive through the Shiverpeaks, but Saul, like Rurik, died a martyr in the icy mountain range. After completing some tasks for the Mantle the players become trusted members of the group and are requested to find and escort the magical "Chosen" so the Mantle can instruct them at the temple of the Unseen in the South Kryta province. While the White Mantle are escorting the "Chosen" through the Maguuma Jungle they are intercepted by a rebel group known as the Shining Blade. The White Mantle escorts are killed and the "Chosen" are abducted by the Shining Blade.

The party pursues the Shining Blade deeper into the Jungle. After catching up to them, Evennia, the leader of the Shining Blade, reveals the real purpose of the "Chosen" - to be a sacrifice. The players witness this truth for themselves. Betrayed, the players attack and kill Justicar Hablion, a prominent member of the White Mantle.

With the assistance of the players the Shining Blade pick up their activities against the White Mantle by taking the powerful Scepter of Orr from them. Taking this Scepter to Vizier Khilbron, the previous advisor of King Reza of Orr and the only known survivor of the "Cataclysm", a mysterious event that destroyed his kingdom in 1071AE. He is also a knowledgable magician helping the Shining Blade (possibly because he was still bitter about the Krytans from the events during the Guild Wars), it is discovered that the Shining Blade have been betrayed and are being routed by the stronger White Mantle. The players flee with the Vizier to the Crystal Desert after the Shining Blade's base is destroyed by the White Mantle.

The Vizier suggests that the players complete Ascension, believing that it will make the players strong enough to fight the White Mantle's "unseen gods". After completing 3 trials, aided by the ghost of Warmarshal Turai, once leader of the Kournans, the players step into the mesa at Augury Rock and battle the evil inside of them (or their "Doppelganger" - a foe identical to the player). Once ascended the players approach the dragon prophet, Glint. Glint reveals her knowledge of the "Flameseeker Prophecies" which the players are fullfilling. She sends the players to the Southern Shiverpeaks to face the White Mantle and rescue what remains of the now broken Shining Blade.

The players find that the Southern Shiverpeaks are overrun with White Mantle and their "unseen gods" - the Mursaat. Both races of Dwarves are struggling with this incursion. The Deldrimor Dwarves assist the player in "infusing" their armour to be strong enough to resist the Mursaat's Spectral Agony. Rescuing the remains of the Shining Blade - but at the same time the Stone Summit Dwarves have taken the Deldrimor capital, Thunderhead Keep. The players help take back the keep and hold it against the Mursaat and White Mantle invaders, killing Confessor Dorian (Saul's successor) in the process. The Vizier appears and tells the players they need to travel to the Ring of Fire Islands to unleash a powerful race of creatures which will destroy the Mursaat.

The players fight through the Mursaat into their fortress and free the seals on the Door of Komalie, which they believe will give access to their new allies on the other side of the door with the power to destroy the Mursaat. Instead, players are betrayed when they discover that the Vizier is a Lich using the players to get the Scepter and free terrible creatures known as Titans, both of which he wants to use to wrest control over Tyria. The players confront and defeat the Lich, through his unwilling minion, the undead Prince Rurik, closing the doors they had previously opened.

The Lich is defeated but the Titans still roam Tyria. Glint instructs the players to defend each of the regions of Tyria against the Titan attacks, and finally eliminate the source of the Titan assaults.

Sorrow's Furnace

The player returns to the Southern Shiverpeaks to assist the Deldrimor Dwarves against the Stone Summit Dwarves. The players enter Sorrow's Furnace on rescue and reconnaisance missions before entering the Furnace a final time to destroy the Stone Summit's Iron Forgeman. Sorrow's Furnace is also a major area to "farm" for "greens" (See "Equipment")

Fissure of Woe and the Underworld

Many players find it exciting to fight or make money in two separate worlds, created by the gods of Tyria. These places are also where players can find the rare Ectoplasm, a material that has replaced currency for large transactions, as the amount of cash allowed to be traded is limited at 100,000 gold. These two worlds, "FoW" and "UW" are only accesible for a fee of 1,000 gold when the area the player is in has the favor of the gods from Heroes' Ascent.

See also

• List of Guild Wars characters

Critical response

Guild Wars has been well received by critics and players alike. In 2005, it won several prestigious awards including IGN's Best PC RPG and GameSpy's MMORPG of the Year awards. In 2006 Computer Games Magazine listed Guild Wars as #4 in their Best Game collection, giving it in addition the Best MMO Debut and Best Technology awards. Guild Wars has been listed in every major Editors' Choice category in both print and online publications. In June 2006 ArenaNet announced that they had sold 2 million copies of Guild Wars and Guild Wars Factions.

Published criticism of Guild Wars has centered around the following key elements. First, that the number and placement of creatures encountered in the PvE world can be overwhelming, especially since the party size and number of skills are both limited to eight. There is also a related problem of repetitiveness, as noted by IGN: "As fun as combat is, and as pretty as it looks, plowing your way through low-level mobs can and will get tiresome, since they don't give much (if any) experience points and will be dropping items that are virtually useless to you." This problem is lessened however by the fact that you can freely and instantly teleport into all the cities in the game.

Secondly, several reviews have cited the lack of a sophisticated in-game trading system such as auction houses as exist in other MMORPGs, so the only way for players to sell items is to advertise on a trade channel that is shared by all players in the same map (but may be muted by individual players). A related problem is the difficulty of forming parties as the level of a player is only displayed on the player avatars. The common way to form groups is to advertise in the local chat channel. The combination of grouping and spam messages can overwhelm all other communication. Reviews such as the one by IGN have commented that itemization in the game lacks variety because the only way to distinguish suits of armor is by dying them different colors.

Thirdly, both players and published reviews have commented on the unnatural coupling of cooperative and competitive matches, which require very different playing styles. At the games release, PvP focused players were required to "unlock" their skills and items by playing through the cooperative game, even though a PvP player may have no interest in cooperative gaming. This issue, however, has been addressed by ArenaNet, firstly by introducing Balthazar Faction in June 2005 which enabled unlocking through playing PvP and further in August 2006 by making skill unlocks for the individual professions of the Prophecies campaign available in the game's online store. Unlocks for the professions of the Factions campaign are available now. In addition to published reviews, there are a number of standard player complaints that are voiced in the various Guild Wars-related fansites. One common complaint is about the continual modifications to skills and items in the game. While ArenaNet claims that these changes are motivated by a desire to fix unbalanced or incorrect behavior, players often see this as nerfing popular combinations. Players also complain that these modifications are often done with no warning, or not done promptly after a fault is discovered. However, it should be noted that many players also accept such changes favourably, as they are perceived as a way to keep gameplay fresh, their complaints then being that such updates are not nearly frequent enough.

Editions

As well as the standard edition, there are many other editions of Guild Wars available on the market. All of them contain the basic Account Creation Code and Manuscript Book, as well as other added features listed below,

Pre-order Edition

The Pre-order edition was a disc available for purchase as a stand alone short duration access, or obtained by pre-ordering the full version of the game. The key allowed the player to access the Guild Wars beta testing. Added to a full account the key gives the player access to a unique weapon or offhand customised for their account.

Collector's Edition

The Collector's Edition was available for purchase at the games official release.

The Collector's Edition comes with a Guild Wars branded Logitech headset, a free 3-month trial for Teamspeak's "SpeakEasy" service, the soundtrack by Jeremy Soule on an audio CD, The Art of Guild Wars Book 1 and Divine Aura, a glowing light around the hands of a character when they use an emote.

Special Edition

The Special Edition contains a Skill Pack code which allows 7 regular skills, 1 elite skill, and 2 runes to be unlocked for the account from a Priest of Balthazar.

The Special Edition also contains a special music-code to access in-game music from DirectSong.com, the Official Guild Wars Soundtrack CD, The Art of Guild Wars Book 2 and a map of Tyria.

Game of the Year Edition

The Game of the Year Edition contains the full version of Guild Wars Prophecies, and was released one year after the game's initial release. It contains an access key which unlocks seven exclusive weapons and accessories, each geared towards one of the six core professions. Each weapon has maximum damage stats according to its type, and each character created can get a customized copy of the weapons.

PvP Edition

This edition of Guild Wars is available for the three released campaigns, and is only available from the online store. This version has all of the skills and professions available in the respective version unlocked, but does not allow the player access to the PvE campaign and areas. The edition may be purchased as a stand-alone game, or may be added to an existing account.

Special events

Guild Wars initially had only a few special events, beginning with Halloween in 2005. This and similar holiday events feature quests, special items, and/or missions. Several cities are usually modified to reflect the holiday (spooky sky and monster NPCs for Halloween, snow and candy canes for Christmas themed Wintersday).

Thus far, the following holiday special events have taken place:

• Halloween 2005 and 2006 (with the appearance of Mad King Thorn, special headgear, and items including Holiday specific Ales and tranfiguration potions)
• Wintersday (with quests, candy cane weapons, and items)

In addition, in mid 2006 there began to be regular weekend events, such as double-drop (or even triple-drop) rates for different items (green items, dye, etc.), double faction, double duration of experience scrolls and other bonuses.

External links

• The official Guild Wars website
• The official Guild Wars ladder
• Official list of Guild Wars fansites
• GuildWars-Nightfall.com fansite and community
• GuildWiki, a Guild Wars wiki