April 2005
- [DESIGN] : Where to find information about mud design ? Lethal Thanatos
- [DESIGN] : Where to find information about mud design ? Jaycen Rigger
- DESIGN: Mini-VW contenst (Was DESIGN: The game with a thousand faces) Mike Rozak
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. Christopher Bunting
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. Michael Barton
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. Christopher Bunting
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. Hiddukel
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. David Wilson
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. Christopher Bunting
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. Christopher Bunting
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. Hiddukel
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. Christopher Bunting
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. Chad Ziccardi
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. Hiddukel
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. Richard Lindsey
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. Daniel O'Neal
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. Brian
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. Chad Ziccardi
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. Christopher Bunting
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. Christopher Bunting
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. Chad Simmons
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. Michael Barton
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. Chad Ziccardi
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. Michael Barton
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. Christopher Bunting
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. Christopher Bunting
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. Hiddukel
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. Christopher Bunting
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. Christopher Bunting
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. Hiddukel
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. Christopher Bunting
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. Chad Simmons
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. Christopher Bunting
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. Christopher Bunting
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. Chad Ziccardi
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. Davion Kalhen
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. Bobby Bailey
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. Davion Kalhen
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. David Wilson
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. mrpotatohead@urbanfallout.net
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. Chad Simmons
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. Christopher Bunting
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. Chad Simmons
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. Hiddukel
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. Chad Simmons
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. Hiddukel
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. Chad Simmons
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. Richard Lindsey
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. Richard Lindsey
- Advanced Topic - Doing it differently. Daniel O'Neal
- DESIGN: Mini-VW contenst Mike Rozak
- DESIGN: More thoughts on the player pyramid Mike Rozak
- Procedural content Mike Rozak
- DESIGN: MMO Survey for College Class Bret Lederle
- Imagery from text J C Lawrence
- Imagery from text J C Lawrence
- Skotos Seeks Guest Voices Shannon Appelcline
- Twisted.reality Paul Miller
- Twisted.reality Peter Harkins
- Twisted.reality Jp Calderone
- Twisted.reality Eli Stevens (WG.c)
- Marketing Resources? Michael Hartman
- Marketing Resources? Elia Morling
- Marketing Resources? Pandora
- Marketing Resources? Christopher Allen
- Marketing Resources? Greg B
- Marketing Resources? Ren Reynolds
- Marketing Resources? Tom Hunter
- Marketing Resources? Michael Hartman
- Marketing Resources? Mike Rozak
- Marketing Resources? Jason Smith
- Marketing Resources? Mike Rozak
- Marketing Resources? Tom Hunter
- Marketing Resources? Mike Rozak
- Marketing Resources? Michael Hartman
- Marketing Resources? Michael Sellers
- Marketing Resources? Mike Rozak
- Marketing Resources? Michael Sellers
- Marketing Resources? Tom Hunter
- Marketing Resources? Tom Hunter
- Marketing Resources? Koster, Raph
- Marketing Resources? Mike Rozak
- Marketing Resources? Koster, Raph
- Marketing Resources? Tom Hunter
- Marketing Resources? Tom Hunter
- Marketing Resources? Johan J Ingles-le Nobel
- NEWS: And so it begins. (officially sanctioned in-game sales) David Wright
- DESIGN: The game with a thousand faces Mike Rozak
- DESIGN: The game with a thousand faces Jaycen Rigger
- DESIGN: The game with a thousand faces Mike Rozak
- DESIGN: The game with a thousand faces ceo
- Sony is getting into the virtual goods auctions Morris Cox
- SOC: Characters as Avatars Jaycen Rigger
- SOC: Characters as Avatars eric@enkanica.com
- DGN : Atomistic Creation Jaycen Rigger
- DGN : Atomistic Creation Thomas Tomiczek
- DGN : Atomistic Creation Jaycen Rigger
- DGN : Atomistic Creation cruise
- DGN : Atomistic Creation Ghilardi Filippo
- DGN : Atomistic Creation Kirinyaga
- DGN : Atomistic Creation Julian Leyh
- DESIGN: MMO Interviews for College Class Game Researcher
- Atomistic Creation cruise
- Concerning "Groups" Jeff Gaskill
- Concerning "Groups" Sean Kelly
- Concerning "Groups" Jeff Gaskill
- Guild Wars ? Louis d'Ambra
- Guild Wars ? cruise
- Guild Wars ? Colin Fuller
- Guild Wars ? Max Battcher
- Guild Wars ? Don McGlumphy III
- Guild Wars ? Sean Howard
- Guild Wars ? Mordengaard
- Guild Wars ? Mike Oxford
- Guild Wars ? Max Battcher
Louis d'Ambra wrote:
> Guild Wars, aka the "free" MMO, will get out soon. Does anyone
> already played it ? Any comments or impressions yet ? Is the
> combat system really good and most skillful than most of the MMO's
> out there ?
I've been playing it in bits and pieces since one of the early betas
(the free to anyone World Preview Event).
It's very impressive from a technological standpoint. The game was
very much developed for the "casual" gamer. It is very easy to
quickly jump into the game, find you friends, and play together.
Most of that is due to the technology. Ultimately the experience is
built to feel closer to a LAN game in a battle network than a
typical MMO.
- "Shard-less" approach: Instead of multiple servers with copies
of the game world, the game follows a "hub and spokes" approach
with "lobbies" connecting instanced areas and missions. Most of
the game is instanced. Therefore, the game isn't a hugely
persistent world, which isn't to say that there isn't persistence,
but in many cases dynamic and low server overhead were prefered
over persistent.
- On the fly patch system: This has long been a pet peeve of mine
in dealing with graphical MMORPGs, and what first drew me to Guild
Wars (I'm not a big fan of the Fantasy genre). The developers
spend so much time writing good software and then use something
like RTPatch to update it. Often users are forced to download a
100+ MB patch which touches a several GB tree (and can take
upwards of a half an hour). Guild Wars updates only the assets
needed immediately and streams the rest of the downloads into the
background. The launcher only updates the client exe and assets
for the login "area". Level loads update the assets for that
level if necessary.
As for the combat system, it is an interesting departure. It is
much more akin to a Customizable Card Game (CCG) approach than the
classic D&D approach. You can "collect" hundreds of skills in the
game (all of which work with any level character), but can only
"equip" 8 of them. There is a lot of skill and strategy in choosing
your 8 skills for a mission or battle. Another interesting thing is
that each skill has a specific set of animations (particular glyphs
and lighting, mostly) that all characters use when using that skill
(including computer controlled non-human enemies), so really skilled
players would come to recognize particular skills and know how to
counter them.
--
--Max Battcher--
http://www.worldmaker.net/
The WorldMaker.Network: Now more Caffeinated! - Guild Wars ? Corey Crawford
- Guild Wars ? Jason Downs