Last Update: May 15, 2007

Guild Wars Summary

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Synopsis
One of the first big-name 'Free Play' Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games, Guild Wars was a highly anticipated game due to it's largely attended 'Open Betas.'  After this beta phase, the game came out to high acclaim and even higher reviews.

Gameplay
The game plays like a varied form of World of Warcraft, a game that many deemed a direct competitor.  To be honest, the two games play very differently.  In Guild Wars, when parties leave a town or trading hub, they are sent to their private copy of the map, instead of a shared map like the 'other' games.  This results in more cooperative and less annoying gaming, but it also prevents the massive 60-player parties of World of Warcraft, as the limit is usually 8.  Players choose from a number of primary professions, then have a chance to add onto their powers with a secondary profession, all with their own benefits and weaknesses.  The storyline unfolds over a massive continent with many varied enemies and strategies.

Issues
The most oft-heard complaint is that this, the vanilla, base game, has a level-cap of 20, which seems low in comparison to many other MMO games.  This is really a non-issue, however, as the higher levels take weeks of overall play to even get close to obtaining.  Another problem is that the party sizes are kept to very small numbers, preventing massive raids like those in WoW.

Overall
The game was well worth its price two years ago, and it still retains that value to this day.  It's no-subscription payment idea will help with those who don't want to be sucked into paying monthly to play a game.

Game Information

Publisher: NCSoft
Developer: ArenaNet
US Release Date: Apr 26, 2005
Euro Release Date: Apr 26, 2005
ESRB:
MSRB: $29.99
Available Platforms: ,

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