Why haven't more game development houses taken the Guild Wars model?

[Krakn3Dfx]

After Guild Wars came out and I tried it, I kept hoping more developers would take on the same model, release the game, no monthly fee, a scaled down MMO experience where you only see large grouping of other players in cities, and then release attractive expansions for $40-$50 each 6-8 months. When I look at all the MMOs failing so miserably, and the Guild Wars guys still maintaining a profit that allows for a sequel, I wonder why we don't see more games like this.

 

[Beev]

Maybe it isn't doing quite as well as you think it is

It doesn't appeal to anyone I know personally. At all. And I know I will never play it. It's obviously doing well enough to not die off, but I really doubt it's faring as godly as you're letting on

 

[Krakn3Dfx]

Originally posted by: Beev
Maybe it isn't doing quite as well as you think it is

It doesn't appeal to anyone I know personally. At all. And I know I will never play it. It's obviously doing well enough to not die off, but I really doubt it's faring as godly as you're letting on

"In February 2008, NCSoft announced that 5 million units of games in the Guild Wars series had been sold."

5 million, that seems alright.

Also, right before XMas it was in Amazon's top 10 PC sellers for a few days when they had it on sale.

I know at least half a dozen people who play it regularly and own all the new content expansions.

 

[cirrhosis]

Guild Wars has never been an MMO. Second, the whole Korean-esque game style doesn't appeal to everyone.

Speaking of my own experience, I don't know of a single person who plays Guild Wars. I dabbled in it briefly but found it fairly one-dimensional and it didn't have the depth that I had found in other games. Paying 40 - 50 bucks per expansion doesn't attract me either (longtime EVE player here). IMO, once you've played one Korean/Chinese "MMO", you've played them all.

 

[shortylickens]

Guild Wars is an MMO. Not charging money has nothing to do with the type of game it is. Neither does the specific number of people playing in a game.
Deal with it.


Along the lines of money, the reason nobody wants to make another one is that Guild Wars doesnt pull in 100 million dollars a month like most other MMO's.
Once Blizzard saw how well Everquest and others were doing, and they realized how many people they had signing in to Battle.Net each month, they knew paid monthly games were the way to go.
Now everyone is trying to follow that model.
Programmers and publishers hate busting their butts for a year or more only to sell 1 million copies of a game and thats it. They dont want one fat lump of money and then have to start a new project all over again.
So far as profit is concerned, Guild Wars is more like a single-player game. The only difference is people keep playing it for years because its an MMO. That keeps the interest up and keeps people buying new copies and expansion packs.

 

[SlitheryDee]

I dunno, but GW is the only MMO-esque game I ever got into. PvP was seriously wicked in that game. IMO it would have done decently well even if it were subscription supported. Problem is, after spending that much time playing it and finally burning out, I don't think I'll ever want to play a similar game again. Doesn't matter if it's free or not, I'm tired of grinding for gold, XP, items, skills, or anything else.

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: shortylickens
Guild Wars is an MMO.

Most people will argue that it's a Lobby Game, not an MMO. The only place you interact with more than a handful of individuals at a time are the towns/cities. Essentially the towns/cities are meeting places to chat, trade and otherwise solicit groups - the same type of thing the Battle.net lobby does for Diablo, except prettier.

The actual core game play content of Guild Wars is nothing more than a co-op multiplayer hack'n'slash, just like Diablo. There's nothing "Massively Multiplayer" about it.

 

[AstroManLuca]

In the end it's just another GRINDAN GAEM, so it doesn't really appeal to me. I prefer shootan, sneakan, role playan, and stratagizan gaems.

 

[9mak9]

It's very successful and popular, its just that they haven't added new content in a long time. That is why I haven't played in awhile.

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: AstroManLuca
In the end it's just another GRINDAN GAEM, so it doesn't really appeal to me. I prefer shootan, sneakan, role playan, and stratagizan gaems.

lol wut?

 

[zerocool84]

GW is the only online RPG I got into cus no monthly payment and seeind as it's not a true MMO, I don't have to worry about getting left behind in the world as I don't play that often.

 

[Malladine]

what's the goal when you play GW?

 

[drebo]

Guildwars was kind of fun for a little while. In the end, it just wasn't all that great.

For me, I prefer the MMO experience where you have a persistent state world and you randomly run across other people in the wild. Instanced PvP like Guildwars has is garbage compared to what Ultima Online was back in the day. Also, I'm sick of level-based games.

To me, Pre-UO:R Ultima Online is still the holy grail of MMOs. It was a sandbox, and it was fun as hell. Seriously, I'd pay $20/mo if Mythic brought online a pre-UO:R server for UO.

 

[SlitheryDee]

Originally posted by: Malladine
what's the goal when you play GW?

Initially it's to beat the single player campaign with a few character combinations to see what you like best and pick up items and skills. At some point during that you'll probably be exposed to PvP combat which is the game's real strong point. The single player campaigns are full of quests and missions which can't be completed without help from other players, so you get a healthy dose of cooperative teamwork and probably get picked up by a guild at some point during it. Once you're in a guild you'll do all the general guild stuff: help other players complete quests and missions, get help with quests and missions, and compete in various Guild vs. Guild events, like the Hall of Heroes or other battles which affect your guild ranking. There are also areas where you can compete in small 4v4 skirmishes with random pickup groups or with groups of your making to test builds or character class combinations. When an expansion comes out, it generally comes with an entirely new world, new character classes, and a new campaign to complete. A pretty cool aspect of this is when you get a new character in an expansion, you can reach a point in the campaign that allows you to take that character to the other worlds from other expansions or the original game.

Really the best thing in Guild Wars is PvP though. PvP matches are not slow, cumbersome affairs in GW. I've spent hours just playing 4v4 pick up matches for no reason other than it's a blast to stay alive and win by sheer finger dexterity and attention to skill recharge rates, health, etc. Of course it's kind of daunting to realize that the dynamics change a lot from the 4v4 pick up matches to the larger 8v8 Guild matches, where good communication and timing on the part of the other team will often mean that overwhelming force will be brought against your team one at a time or all at once. It's great fun until you finally reach the point where it's not anymore. For me that took about 1000 hours of play time.

 

[Dumac]

Guild wars is not an MMO.

But you are right that there are very few games that mimic the experience. I think the GW creators were pretty smart in their model, and it seems to have done well.

The closest game I can think of is Diablo, but the PvP experience doesn't match up at all.

 

[ibex333]

Originally posted by: Krakn3Dfx
After Guild Wars came out and I tried it, I kept hoping more developers would take on the same model, release the game, no monthly fee, a scaled down MMO experience where you only see large grouping of other players in cities, and then release attractive expansions for $40-$50 each 6-8 months. When I look at all the MMOs failing so miserably, and the Guild Wars guys still maintaining a profit that allows for a sequel, I wonder why we don't see more games like this.

NCSoft is not making as much profit on GW as you might think. I will admit that I spent several years playing GW from the day it was released, but eventually it lost it's appeal.
See, GW's biggest strengths are also it's weaknesses.

Some cases in point:

1)No need to grind for weapons and armor unless you want to.

Good? Well... Not so good. When GW came out, just about every item had value to it. Even purples were worth quite a bit, especially with rare skins. Heck, even BLUES were worth something! This gave many players the incentive to keep playing with a goal of obtaining an item with a cool skin or rare stats. Unfortunately, after a while, for whatever reason, EVERYTHING became just about worthless aside from ultra rare skins which are mostly obtainable through HoH/HA or whatever it's called now.
It's nice not to have to grind for stuff, but at the same time, when there's nothing to aim for, why keep playing?

2)The original "Prophecies" quests were "ok", but it all went downhill from there. Factions was a complete disaster, with Nightfall and EoTN not being much better. Quests are extremely boring, lame, uninspired and repetitive. I had absolutely no desire to do them when I was playing whatsoever. The only time I really enjoyed PVE was when I finished the "Propheies" campaign. After, that, it just wasn't the same.

3)I tried getting into PVP, but that was a waste of time, because no good guild will ever take a newb player, and shitty guilds always stay shitty. Getting into a random PvP team is an exercise in frustration, and that's putting it VERY lightly. Overall, I think the PvP system is a complete disaster, unless you are a teen with no life and a bunch of devoted friends ready to log in any time you need them to.

4)Minipets... Unless you are a 7 year old asian girl, I don't see what the appeal is. Seriously. GET A LIFE. I don't know how else to put it if it doesn't get through. :disgust:

5)Eventually Anet realized that making all items and most crafting materials worthless was an epic fail, so they introduced these ridiculous "titles" to give players an incentive to grind. but that made the game even worse... It's an insult to my intelligence to grind for months, even years for a few words of text under my feet.


Guild Wars was always a less polished, somewhat mediocre game compared to other, better MMO's, but it had some sort of a very unique appeal about it when it launched... This appeal somehow got completely lost somewhere between the 3 expansions that came out. Interestingly enough, the appeal is still there, in a lesser form in Pre-Searing. It somehow got "preserved" in it's original form. I don't know what it is exactly, but it's there and I can feel it. Maybe it's that pre-searing is not "tainted" by hoardes of asian bots.. Maybe it's the lack of titles, a lower amount of minipets or the fact that rare items are still worth a lot there.... I DONT KNOW!!!

Unfortunately, there's only so much you can do in pre searing, so I stopped playing GW for good, and I doubt I will be coming back unless there will be some revolutionary changes in the future. For now, I rather play EVE. Now.. If I only had those $15..

 

[Drift3r]

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Originally posted by: shortylickens
Guild Wars is an MMO.

Most people will argue that it's a Lobby Game, not an MMO. The only place you interact with more than a handful of individuals at a time are the towns/cities. Essentially the towns/cities are meeting places to chat, trade and otherwise solicit groups - the same type of thing the Battle.net lobby does for Diablo, except prettier.

The actual core game play content of Guild Wars is nothing more than a co-op multiplayer hack'n'slash, just like Diablo. There's nothing "Massively Multiplayer" about it.

+1 Also do not forget the instanced zones which reset every time you leave them or reform a party. The world in GW is not persistent which is another criteria for a MMO.

 

[Ichigo]

Originally posted by: ibex333

Originally posted by: Krakn3Dfx
After Guild Wars came out and I tried it, I kept hoping more developers would take on the same model, release the game, no monthly fee, a scaled down MMO experience where you only see large grouping of other players in cities, and then release attractive expansions for $40-$50 each 6-8 months. When I look at all the MMOs failing so miserably, and the Guild Wars guys still maintaining a profit that allows for a sequel, I wonder why we don't see more games like this.

NCSoft is not making as much profit on GW as you might think. I will admit that I spent several years playing GW from the day it was released, but eventually it lost it's appeal.
See, GW's biggest strengths are also it's weaknesses.

Some cases in point:

1)No need to grind for weapons and armor unless you want to.

Good? Well... Not so good. When GW came out, just about every item had value to it. Even purples were worth quite a bit, especially with rare skins. Heck, even BLUES were worth something! This gave many players the incentive to keep playing with a goal of obtaining an item with a cool skin or rare stats. Unfortunately, after a while, for whatever reason, EVERYTHING became just about worthless aside from ultra rare skins which are mostly obtainable through HoH/HA or whatever it's called now.
It's nice not to have to grind for stuff, but at the same time, when there's nothing to aim for, why keep playing?

2)The original "Prophecies" quests were "ok", but it all went downhill from there. Factions was a complete disaster, with Nightfall and EoTN not being much better. Quests are extremely boring, lame, uninspired and repetitive. I had absolutely no desire to do them when I was playing whatsoever. The only time I really enjoyed PVE was when I finished the "Propheies" campaign. After, that, it just wasn't the same.

3)I tried getting into PVP, but that was a waste of time, because no good guild will ever take a newb player, and shitty guilds always stay shitty. Getting into a random PvP team is an exercise in frustration, and that's putting it VERY lightly. Overall, I think the PvP system is a complete disaster, unless you are a teen with no life and a bunch of devoted friends ready to log in any time you need them to.

4)Minipets... Unless you are a 7 year old asian girl, I don't see what the appeal is. Seriously. GET A LIFE. I don't know how else to put it if it doesn't get through. :disgust:

5)Eventually Anet realized that making all items and most crafting materials worthless was an epic fail, so they introduced these ridiculous "titles" to give players an incentive to grind. but that made the game even worse... It's an insult to my intelligence to grind for months, even years for a few words of text under my feet.


Guild Wars was always a less polished, somewhat mediocre game compared to other, better MMO's, but it had some sort of a very unique appeal about it when it launched... This appeal somehow got completely lost somewhere between the 3 expansions that came out. Interestingly enough, the appeal is still there, in a lesser form in Pre-Searing. It somehow got "preserved" in it's original form. I don't know what it is exactly, but it's there and I can feel it. Maybe it's that pre-searing is not "tainted" by hoardes of asian bots.. Maybe it's the lack of titles, a lower amount of minipets or the fact that rare items are still worth a lot there.... I DONT KNOW!!!

Unfortunately, there's only so much you can do in pre searing, so I stopped playing GW for good, and I doubt I will be coming back unless there will be some revolutionary changes in the future. For now, I rather play EVE. Now.. If I only had those $15..

My feelings on Guild Wars aside, this entire post is so... off.

You're an EVE player telling other people to get a life because they spend time playing a game and enjoy its PvP mechanics/novelty items/etc.? I have nothing against people who play MMO's but "GET A LIFE" is damn ironic coming from you.

Do you think that other people' preferences are inferior to yours? Is your time spent on EVE more valuable than others' on Guild Wars?

Your entire post is asinine.

It's like that XKCD comic with the SUV owner yelling at a Prius owner to "go green next time".

 

[KMFJD]

Movement in GW is what i hated the most about the game, the gfx where very nice though.

 

[ibex333]

Originally posted by: Ichigo

Originally posted by: ibex333

Originally posted by: Krakn3Dfx
After Guild Wars came out and I tried it, I kept hoping more developers would take on the same model, release the game, no monthly fee, a scaled down MMO experience where you only see large grouping of other players in cities, and then release attractive expansions for $40-$50 each 6-8 months. When I look at all the MMOs failing so miserably, and the Guild Wars guys still maintaining a profit that allows for a sequel, I wonder why we don't see more games like this.

NCSoft is not making as much profit on GW as you might think. I will admit that I spent several years playing GW from the day it was released, but eventually it lost it's appeal.
See, GW's biggest strengths are also it's weaknesses.

Some cases in point:

1)No need to grind for weapons and armor unless you want to.

Good? Well... Not so good. When GW came out, just about every item had value to it. Even purples were worth quite a bit, especially with rare skins. Heck, even BLUES were worth something! This gave many players the incentive to keep playing with a goal of obtaining an item with a cool skin or rare stats. Unfortunately, after a while, for whatever reason, EVERYTHING became just about worthless aside from ultra rare skins which are mostly obtainable through HoH/HA or whatever it's called now.
It's nice not to have to grind for stuff, but at the same time, when there's nothing to aim for, why keep playing?

2)The original "Prophecies" quests were "ok", but it all went downhill from there. Factions was a complete disaster, with Nightfall and EoTN not being much better. Quests are extremely boring, lame, uninspired and repetitive. I had absolutely no desire to do them when I was playing whatsoever. The only time I really enjoyed PVE was when I finished the "Propheies" campaign. After, that, it just wasn't the same.

3)I tried getting into PVP, but that was a waste of time, because no good guild will ever take a newb player, and shitty guilds always stay shitty. Getting into a random PvP team is an exercise in frustration, and that's putting it VERY lightly. Overall, I think the PvP system is a complete disaster, unless you are a teen with no life and a bunch of devoted friends ready to log in any time you need them to.

4)Minipets... Unless you are a 7 year old asian girl, I don't see what the appeal is. Seriously. GET A LIFE. I don't know how else to put it if it doesn't get through. :disgust:

5)Eventually Anet realized that making all items and most crafting materials worthless was an epic fail, so they introduced these ridiculous "titles" to give players an incentive to grind. but that made the game even worse... It's an insult to my intelligence to grind for months, even years for a few words of text under my feet.


Guild Wars was always a less polished, somewhat mediocre game compared to other, better MMO's, but it had some sort of a very unique appeal about it when it launched... This appeal somehow got completely lost somewhere between the 3 expansions that came out. Interestingly enough, the appeal is still there, in a lesser form in Pre-Searing. It somehow got "preserved" in it's original form. I don't know what it is exactly, but it's there and I can feel it. Maybe it's that pre-searing is not "tainted" by hoardes of asian bots.. Maybe it's the lack of titles, a lower amount of minipets or the fact that rare items are still worth a lot there.... I DONT KNOW!!!

Unfortunately, there's only so much you can do in pre searing, so I stopped playing GW for good, and I doubt I will be coming back unless there will be some revolutionary changes in the future. For now, I rather play EVE. Now.. If I only had those $15..

My feelings on Guild Wars aside, this entire post is so... off.

You're an EVE player telling other people to get a life because they spend time playing a game and enjoy its PvP mechanics/novelty items/etc.? I have nothing against people who play MMO's but "GET A LIFE" is damn ironic coming from you.

Do you think that other people' preferences are inferior to yours? Is your time spent on EVE more valuable than others' on Guild Wars?

Your entire post is asinine.

It's like that XKCD comic with the SUV owner yelling at a Prius owner to "go green next time".

Please read CAREFULLY. My "get a life" statement referred to minipets ONLY!

If you took the time to read instead of jumping to conclusions, you'd see that I myself played GW for years, and I never even said it was a bad game. I only complained about it BECOMING worse in the process and I said that it's somewhat mediocre compared to better mmos. If I was telling GW players in general, to get a life, I'd have to get one myself 1st, and I don't have one, so...

 

[JTsyo]

I think GW worked for NSoft since they already had servers for their other games that they could use for GW. It probably isn't as efficient a model if you have to set up and run new servers.
GW was fun when I played but I could never get into the PvP scene. The game was great for more casual players since you could move at your own pace.

 

[Ichigo]

Originally posted by: ibex333

Originally posted by: Ichigo

Originally posted by: ibex333

Originally posted by: Krakn3Dfx
After Guild Wars came out and I tried it, I kept hoping more developers would take on the same model, release the game, no monthly fee, a scaled down MMO experience where you only see large grouping of other players in cities, and then release attractive expansions for $40-$50 each 6-8 months. When I look at all the MMOs failing so miserably, and the Guild Wars guys still maintaining a profit that allows for a sequel, I wonder why we don't see more games like this.

NCSoft is not making as much profit on GW as you might think. I will admit that I spent several years playing GW from the day it was released, but eventually it lost it's appeal.
See, GW's biggest strengths are also it's weaknesses.

Some cases in point:

1)No need to grind for weapons and armor unless you want to.

Good? Well... Not so good. When GW came out, just about every item had value to it. Even purples were worth quite a bit, especially with rare skins. Heck, even BLUES were worth something! This gave many players the incentive to keep playing with a goal of obtaining an item with a cool skin or rare stats. Unfortunately, after a while, for whatever reason, EVERYTHING became just about worthless aside from ultra rare skins which are mostly obtainable through HoH/HA or whatever it's called now.
It's nice not to have to grind for stuff, but at the same time, when there's nothing to aim for, why keep playing?

2)The original "Prophecies" quests were "ok", but it all went downhill from there. Factions was a complete disaster, with Nightfall and EoTN not being much better. Quests are extremely boring, lame, uninspired and repetitive. I had absolutely no desire to do them when I was playing whatsoever. The only time I really enjoyed PVE was when I finished the "Propheies" campaign. After, that, it just wasn't the same.

3)I tried getting into PVP, but that was a waste of time, because no good guild will ever take a newb player, and shitty guilds always stay shitty. Getting into a random PvP team is an exercise in frustration, and that's putting it VERY lightly. Overall, I think the PvP system is a complete disaster, unless you are a teen with no life and a bunch of devoted friends ready to log in any time you need them to.

4)Minipets... Unless you are a 7 year old asian girl, I don't see what the appeal is. Seriously. GET A LIFE. I don't know how else to put it if it doesn't get through. :disgust:

5)Eventually Anet realized that making all items and most crafting materials worthless was an epic fail, so they introduced these ridiculous "titles" to give players an incentive to grind. but that made the game even worse... It's an insult to my intelligence to grind for months, even years for a few words of text under my feet.


Guild Wars was always a less polished, somewhat mediocre game compared to other, better MMO's, but it had some sort of a very unique appeal about it when it launched... This appeal somehow got completely lost somewhere between the 3 expansions that came out. Interestingly enough, the appeal is still there, in a lesser form in Pre-Searing. It somehow got "preserved" in it's original form. I don't know what it is exactly, but it's there and I can feel it. Maybe it's that pre-searing is not "tainted" by hoardes of asian bots.. Maybe it's the lack of titles, a lower amount of minipets or the fact that rare items are still worth a lot there.... I DONT KNOW!!!

Unfortunately, there's only so much you can do in pre searing, so I stopped playing GW for good, and I doubt I will be coming back unless there will be some revolutionary changes in the future. For now, I rather play EVE. Now.. If I only had those $15..

My feelings on Guild Wars aside, this entire post is so... off.

You're an EVE player telling other people to get a life because they spend time playing a game and enjoy its PvP mechanics/novelty items/etc.? I have nothing against people who play MMO's but "GET A LIFE" is damn ironic coming from you.

Do you think that other people' preferences are inferior to yours? Is your time spent on EVE more valuable than others' on Guild Wars?

Your entire post is asinine.

It's like that XKCD comic with the SUV owner yelling at a Prius owner to "go green next time".

Please read CAREFULLY. My "get a life" statement referred to minipets ONLY!

If you took the time to read instead of jumping to conclusions, you'd see that I myself played GW for years, and I never even said it was a bad game. I only complained about it BECOMING worse in the process and I said that it's somewhat mediocre compared to better mmos. If I was telling GW players in general, to get a life, I'd have to get one myself 1st, and I don't have one, so...

"Overall, I think the PvP system is a complete disaster, unless you are a teen with no life and a bunch of devoted friends ready to log in any time you need them to."

I was reading between the lines.

PvP is a big deal in Guild Wars, so I just don't see how it is any more waste of a time than anything else. Minipets are... nice looking. A lot of GW's grinding is for aesthetic touches that make your character unique. It's simply a different philosophy from grinding to get better items statistically to aesthetically.

And I've got nothing against you complaining about GW if you don't like it. Your points just don't make sense. Not to mention you're comparing GW to other MMO's when everyone is screaming it's not an MMO. Almost doesn't seem fair.

 

[ViviTheMage]

I hated that game...it was so bland...free or not.

I do not mind paying monthly for GOOD MMOS.

 

[aka1nas]

I totally forgot that I own Guild Wars. Haven't pulled that out in a few years.

 

[Pelu]

Guild Wars is awesome... but all that awesomeness need one thing... people that can actually do it... not only WoW Copycopiers...

For me I need one thing... a High Def mod for GW... lol

by the way I know what u mean... Guild Wars have the ability to impact some people... for me... my whole life is Before Guild Wars and After Guild Wars...