The Collegian

Issue date: 5/20/05 Section: No Limits

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Massively Multiplayer Role Playing Games (MMORPG for those in the know) have been around as long as the Internet, starting with text-based MUD's, then evolving with games such as "Ultima Online" and "Everquest." "Ultima Online" and "Everquest" were incredibly innovative and brought the genre to the forefront, but in the following years MMORPGs remained stagnant, clinging to the same tired formula of their predecessors-until now.

"Guild Wars," developed by fledgling developer ArenaNet, eschews many of MMORPGs' annoying concepts and replaces them with an innovative system that breathes new life into the stale genre.

One of the first things people will notice, and undoubtedly like, about the game is that, unlike other MMORPGs, there is no monthly fee. Also different from most MMORPG's is the fact that every player is on one world, so no matter what, people will be able to play with their friends. One of the trademarks of an MMORPG is the ability to interact with others in the game world, both in towns and outside, but "Guild Wars" dumps this. Every time people leave town they will get their own, private instance (basically a copy) of the game world. People can meet other players in town and group up with them to venture out and quest or fight monsters. While the world loses a sense of immersion because of this feature, ArenaNet has insured that their game can avoid a host of common problems. Since the world is private, it means that there will be no monopoly on monsters or quests that drop rare items or grant powerful skills. It also allows people to avoid the jerks who always inhabit these types of games.

Innovation is good and all, but it means nothing if the game sucks. Thankfully, "Guild Wars" is incredibly fun to play. ArenaNet took the basic, auto-attacking combat of other MMORPGs and infused it with the skill-based combat of dungeon crawlers such as Diablo. In fact, many of ArenaNet's employees are former Blizzard employees and worked on games such as "Diablo," "WarCraft" and "World of WarCraft," so the game has a familiar feel to it. Combat consists of targeting an enemy and either using a skill from your skill bar or auto-attacking. Unlike other MMORPGs that don't put a limit on how many skills you can have at once, "Guild Wars" forces you to choose just eight skills each time you venture out of a town. While this may seem limiting, it really helps the balance of the game, since no one player can be perfect. It also opens up a lot of strategy, forcing players to change their tactics on the fly when confronted with enemies who can negate some of their chosen skills. Another large part of the strategy in the game is simply choosing what skills to bring along before a mission. There are five classes in the game with over 180 skills each, meaning there are a lot of skills from which to choose.

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