Guild Wars 2

Guild Wars 1 wasn’t an MMO it was a single player rpg with co-op options. You could not see people in an open world unless you partied them. Ill give you an example, Borderlands 2 you can play through alone or with people it was up to you that is what Guild Wars 1 was.

Guild Wars 2 is an MMO stop trying to Compare the two together.

Please. Stop.

I’m on my knees here. I really rage a little inside when i hear Guild Wars and MMO in the same sentence.

In gw1 the “open world” was the towns. Everything else was basically dungeon’s. How is that different from other mmo’s? Most of the people hang in the city or are secluded in an instance.

We’re not going to rest on our laurels now. We started this company to innovate and bring players new experiences. Guild Wars 2 is the perfect game for Guild Wars players, but it’s not just the same game repeated again. We took this opportunity to question everything, and we have some exciting answers for you today.
The first thing you should know about Guild Wars 2 is that, this time around, there’s no question that it’s an MMORPG. It’s an enormous, persistent, living, social world, filled with a wide variety of combat and non-combat activities. There’s so much depth here that you’re never going to run out of new things to discover.
So if you love MMORPGs, you should check out Guild Wars 2. But if you hate traditional MMORPGs, then you should really check out Guild Wars 2. Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun; and of course, it doesn’t have a monthly fee.

Need anything else to read?

What ArenaNet had with GW was a UNIQUE game, thats part of what made it so popular.

Now they have dumped that uniqueness and followed a traditional, used before, pretty standard MMO model, there’s nothing in GW2 that’s not been done before, ArenaNet have just looked around at the MMO games and taken bits from them.

And sadly produced a pretty standard game.(Not groundbreaking like it should have been)

While you’re right that GW1 was not an MMO, your description of what it was is lacking. ArenaNet referred to Guild Wars 1 as a “cooperative online roleplaying game,” or CORPG. It was always meant for people to group up and play the game together, and until the introduction of heroes in Nightfall it was pretty difficult for a regular player to solo. Henchmen were never a very good option.

If anything, Guild Wars 2 is more solo oriented than GW1 was. I played every personal story quest solo.

The comparison between 1 and 2 is important not from a gameplay perspective, but from a design perspective. People are comparing them because the design philosophy that made GW1 work (no grind for high-level items that gave you a statistical advantage) was supposed to be present in GW2, and now it isn’t anymore.

SiNoS.2147:

In gw1 the “open world” was the towns. Everything else was basically dungeon’s. How is that different from other mmo’s? Most of the people hang in the city or are secluded in an instance.

The difference is you could do those dungeons with no one but yourself and some moutain dew and doritos.

Genesis.5169:

SiNoS.2147:

In gw1 the “open world” was the towns. Everything else was basically dungeon’s. How is that different from other mmo’s? Most of the people hang in the city or are secluded in an instance.

The difference is you could do those dungeons with no one but yourself and some moutain dew and doritos.

Players suck. Not my fault my henchies were better than 90% of the player base. Frankly i rather have there hench’s back.

Ganzo.5079:

We’re not going to rest on our laurels now. We started this company to innovate and bring players new experiences. Guild Wars 2 is the perfect game for Guild Wars players, but it’s not just the same game repeated again. We took this opportunity to question everything, and we have some exciting answers for you today.
The first thing you should know about Guild Wars 2 is that, this time around, there’s no question that it’s an MMORPG. It’s an enormous, persistent, living, social world, filled with a wide variety of combat and non-combat activities. There’s so much depth here that you’re never going to run out of new things to discover.
So if you love MMORPGs, you should check out Guild Wars 2. But if you hate traditional MMORPGs, then you should really check out Guild Wars 2. Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun; and of course, it doesn’t have a monthly fee.

Need anything else to read?

Nice one. Anet really is the one that set the bar for “comparing the two together”. There are many who did not read the box before buying the product and now are making their presence known on the forums. Sadly, Anet seems to be listening to them.

GW1 is an MMO, it just wasn’t a WoW-clone. Sorry, you’re wrong.

Einlanzer.1627:

GW1 is an MMO, it just wasn’t a WoW-clone. Sorry, you’re wrong.

Yeah even the people at Anet disagree with you they called it a CoRPG themselves. But keep talking it amuses me.

What, exactly, about the ratio of instanced to open zones in the game, do you feel invalidates any and all comparison between the two games?

Genesis.5169:

Guild Wars 1 wasn’t an MMO it was a single player rpg with co-op options.

Guild wars is (not was, it’s still operating) an MMO:

- Online play, hosted.
- Persistent world.
- Thousands of concurrent players.

That’s an MMO. Those are the baseline qualities that define an MMO. Guild Wars possesses those qualties. Ergo, Guild Wars is an MMO. If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, etc. It also qualifies as an MMOG.

It can even be called an MMORPG, and has been categorized as such as the past. While it’s true that it was marketed as a “Competitive Online Role-Playing Game”, it still possesses the majority of the defining tropes and trappings of the MMORPG subgenre. Thus, it’s more of a divergent model than a whole different genre of game.

All of this is even acknowledged on the website (emphasis mine):

“Guild Wars has some similarities to existing MMORPGs, but it also has some key differences. Like existing MMOs, Guild Wars is played entirely online in a secure hosted environment. Thousands of players inhabit the same virtual world. Players can meet new friends in gathering places like towns and outposts where they form parties and go questing with them.”

So, face it. It’s an MMO.

But even if it were of some completely unrelated genre, subgenre, and model, that does not mean that its underlying design philosophy and approach is automatically inapplicable to Guild Wars 2. So the assertion that, “Guild Wars is not an MMO” is not only false or, at best, is splitting hairs, it’s substantively meaningless.

MMORPG is not a model. It is a genre. Furthermore, it’s a genre that suffers from the looming profile of one particular model. Despite the disproportionate market share that conventional model commands, it is not the only model, has not ever been the only model, and, hopefully, will not continue to be so grossly over-emphasized in the future.

There have actually been MMOPRGs that have much more in common with GW1 than with GW2. If the former is an entirely different entity, how is that even possible? Answer: it’s not. They all fall within the MMO genre.

Edit to add:
And also, MMO is pretty much all NCSoft does.

It was an MMO, and any pretending otherwise is splitting hairs or drinking the marketing kool-aid.

Just because it wasn’t the same genre (a highly debatable topic at best) doesn’t mean that the core provision for having fun (a vast array of skills and freedom of skill bar) can’t be replicated.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guild_Wars

Guild Wars is a CORPG, or Competitive/Cooperative Online Role Playing Game developed for Windows by ArenaNet and published by NCsoft. The first campaign of Guild Wars, Guild Wars Prophecies was released on April 28, 2005. The different genre was chosen (as opposed to the classic “Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) RPG”) due to the perceived differences between the game and other, more traditional MMOs: the focus on Player versus Player (PvP) rather than Player versus Environment (PvE) play made it almost a unique case at the time, players received their own instanced copy of explorable zones and parties were limited to 8 players each, a tiny number compared to the massive caps of other games, which often allowed for up to 64 players in a single party (and unlimited players in non-instanced zones, which were the norm).

Now that the that’s settled and all if not most conversations have been crushed we can continue on with other debates anything more?

What bearing does the ratio of instanced to open zones have on any of the arguments that are currently taking place?

Wow lots of negativity with GW2 following the same MMORPG pattern. Other then the game is full of bugs that ANet has to stop neglecting, this game doesn’t feel like another MMORPG. I have a warrior and casually play, it didn’t take much effort to get to level 50 and I did that by just randomly running around exploring the maps, as opposed to the “traditional” camp the same monster spawning location for hours on end.

If anything is grinding, it is crafting, but your not stuck in one area and have to run all over the map to gather stuff and that is where the dynamic events change things up and I often got “lost” and did something totally different.

Like I said, other then this game having too many bugs, it does feel unique from other MMO’s that just suck players life away.

NOTE: I have a level 80 elementalist, but being the class is so glitchey and bugged, it is currently a mule until ANet fixes them.

Genesis.5169:

I’m on my knees here. I really rage a little inside when i hear Guild Wars and MMO in the same sentence.

You rage about semantics? Man you must go nuts every time someone uses “effect” incorrectly. I don’t understand how people can care so much about something that effects them so little for a single moment

Yeah. I did that on purpose

MMO or not is just a genre label. Whether GW1 is or is not a true MMO is just a matter of semantics and shouldn’t make any difference.

The thing is, the elements people are comparing from the two games aren’t things that are necessary to make a MMO.

“GW1 didn’t have gear grind.”

“But GW1 wasn’t a MMO!”

Well… it was. But that aside, just because you’re making a MMO doesn’t mean you need gear grind. So that’s a stupid counter argument. It’s not even an argument; it’s just a deflection. So keep that in mind the next time you start blubbering about it. The only core necessity of a MMO is to enable a very large amount of people to do something together, online, at the same time, together. That’s it. Everything after that is optional.

Genesis.5169:

Now that the that’s settled and all if not most conversations have been crushed we can continue on with other debates anything more?

Uh… the quote you just cited verified that it’s an MMO. Less “traditional” but still an MMO.

While you’re on Wiki, look up MMO and note the description of what qualifies as such. Also, not the breadth of the genre. Also, while you’re at it, look up the list of MMORPGs. Note that both ANet games are listed there.

Again, because it was apparently missed the first time:

- Hosted, online play.
- Persistent world.
- Thousands of concurrent users.

That’s an MMO. Both Guild Wars games are MMOs. Additionally:

- The distributor, NCSoft, markets essentially nothing but MMOs.
- The Guild Wars website acknowledges that the game is an MMO (note quote in previous post).
– The industry defines it as an MMO, and the website quotes game reviews referring to it as such.

The marketing spin of one company does not get to redefine what an MMO is, even if it were attempting to do so, which it really wasn’t. The marketing spin was an attempt to distance the title from subgenre convention, not the whole genre.

I’m sorry, your argument is… not even an argument. It’s based on fallacy and vapor.

Crater.1625:

What bearing does the ratio of instanced to open zones have on any of the arguments that are currently taking place?

Hmm, I would think it has a lot of bearing. Doesn’t the “MM” of MMO mean “massively multiplayer?” I was under the impression that meant open-zones, not instanced ones. How is it massively-multiplayer without that? Is that wrong?

Edit note: I wrote “massively-online” instead of “massively-multiplayer” at first draft, sorry for the confusion.

Also, “persistent” means the things you change in the world stay changed after you log off. If you logged out of GW1, the zone you just cleared would be full again instantly. If you restore a contested waypoint in GW2, it stays clear until another dynamic event triggers something to challenge it.

Obsidian.1328:

Hmm, I would think it has a lot of bearing. Doesn’t the “MM” of MMO mean “massively online?” I was under the impression that meant open-zones, not instanced ones. How is it massively-online without that? Is that wrong?

It’s not wrong, it’s just irrelevant. There’s no connection between “open or instanced zones” and “does it make sense to enforce a gear treadmill?”.

GW1 was a beautiful MMO with some very cool mechanics

GW1 is a great MMO.

Ganzo.5079:

We’re not going to rest on our laurels now. We started this company to innovate and bring players new experiences. Guild Wars 2 is the perfect game for Guild Wars players, but it’s not just the same game repeated again. We took this opportunity to question everything, and we have some exciting answers for you today.
The first thing you should know about Guild Wars 2 is that, this time around, there’s no question that it’s an MMORPG. It’s an enormous, persistent, living, social world, filled with a wide variety of combat and non-combat activities. There’s so much depth here that you’re never going to run out of new things to discover.
So if you love MMORPGs, you should check out Guild Wars 2. But if you hate traditional MMORPGs, then you should really check out Guild Wars 2. Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun; and of course, it doesn’t have a monthly fee.

Need anything else to read?

Makes me wonder.

Obsidian.1328:

Doesn’t the “MM” of MMO mean “massively online?” I was under the impression that meant open-zones, not instanced ones. How is it massively-online without that? Is that wrong?

Massively-Multiplayer Online. Many MMOs use a mix of both open world and instances, Guild Wars included.

Also, “persistent” means the things you change in the world stay changed after you log off.

Persistent means persistent: the environment persists after you exit. Guild Wars has a persistent environment:

“Thousands of players inhabit the same virtual world. Players can meet new friends in gathering places like towns and outposts where they form parties and go questing with them.”

But, again, as Crater has pointed out, this nitpicking of semantics is ultimately irrelevant. Use whatever label you like, it doesn’t change the underlying dynamics of the argument, regardless of how sincerely the OP may wish it did.

Ignore the CoRPG comment. Its fine. It doesn’t exist.

Genesis.5169:

Ignore the CoRPG comment. Its fine. It doesn’t exist.

It hasn’t been ignored. I addressed it before you even posted it, and addressed it again after you posted it.

The quote you cherry-picked out of an article, because you thought it supported your argument… actually counters your argument. The industry, the distributor, game journalists, every other wiki article on the matter, and even the website for the title itself considers it an MMO.

But please, continue to assert that the game isn’t an MMO because a company’s marketing department made up a different label for it. And please continue to pretend that it means anything to anyone actually interested in game design for persistent online virtual environments.

Genesis.5169:

Ignore the CoRPG comment. Its fine. It doesn’t exist.

Here, I’ll make it easy: Yes, I agree with you. Guild Wars 1 was a Competitive Online RPG and not a Massively Multiplayer Online RPG.

Now explain how that ends or adds to any argument other than “Is Guild Wars 1 an MMORPG?”

Hydrophidian.4319:

Obsidian.1328:

Doesn’t the “MM” of MMO mean “massively online?” I was under the impression that meant open-zones, not instanced ones. How is it massively-online without that? Is that wrong?

Massively-Multiplayer Online. Many MMOs use a mix of both open world and instances, Guild Wars included.

Also, “persistent” means the things you change in the world stay changed after you log off.

Persistent means persistent: the environment persists after you exit. Guild Wars has a persistent environment:

“Thousands of players inhabit the same virtual world. Players can meet new friends in gathering places like towns and outposts where they form parties and go questing with them.”

But, again, as Crater has pointed out, this nitpicking of semantics is ultimately irrelevant. Use whatever label you like, it doesn’t change the underlying dynamics of the argument, regardless of how sincerely the OP may wish it did.

Lol, “…the environment persists” silliness. No, it means the environment persists with any changes made to it regardless of whether or not you are online. Persistent doesn’t mean constant.

And those thousands of players don’t inhabit the same world at the same time. That’s the whole point. Yeah, GW2 has overflow servers, but that’s only because of performance issues. GW1’s world is specifically the opposite.

And yeah, almost all use a mix of both, it’s what is the predominant one that matters. GW1 towns were the only part that were persistent. Calling that “massively” is like putting a drop of tequila in a glass of margarita mix and calling it a margarita.

A quote from the GW1 wikia:
A competitive online role-playing game (CORPG) differs from the standard massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) in that they are less focused on the massive group experience. All outside areas are instanced, meaning that a player and his group are the only ones there, so that every player gets his or her own unique version of the game’s story…

GW1 towns were the only part that were persistent. Calling that “massively” is like putting a drop of tequila in a glass of margarita mix and calling it a margarita.

Have you read anything in previous posts?

I’ll bold it this time. From the game’s website:

“Thousands of players inhabit the same virtual world.”

Did you get that? Here’s another…

“Players can meet new friends in gathering places like towns and outposts where they form parties and go questing with them.”

Also from the game’s website…

“Guild Wars takes the best elements of today’s massively multiplayer online games and combines them with a new mission-based design that eliminates some of the more tedious aspects of those games.”

A quote from the GW1 wikia:

Yes it’s been quoted before and answered before. It distinguishes the game from the conventions of the MMORPG subgenre. Not from an MMO. MMO and MMORPG are not synonymous. The latter is a subgrenre of the former.

Oh and, “lol”.

Keerist.

We weren’t discussing the rpg part of mmo, leave it off if you want.

Thousands of players do inhabit the same virtual world, you’re right. But not at the same time. It’s a thousand copies of the same world for each player, not 1 world they are all in. And that, even though you may think it a minor detail, is actually the thing that makes it massively. If you don’t get that part then the argument is moot.

Call it an MO if you like, but it’s not an MMO.

I’m still waiting for Genesis to address Gonzo’s quote and refute it.

I mean I’m here to read a good debate/arguement but I still don’t see any arguement against it. If youre just gonna reply against select posts then I’m sorry but your arguement is weak.

Here you go again in case you want to actually take a jab at it. Its a quote originally from Gonzos post.

“We’re not going to rest on our laurels now. We started this company to innovate and bring players new experiences. Guild Wars 2 is the perfect game for Guild Wars players, but it’s not just the same game repeated again. We took this opportunity to question everything, and we have some exciting answers for you today.
The first thing you should know about Guild Wars 2 is that, this time around, there’s no question that it’s an MMORPG. It’s an enormous, persistent, living, social world, filled with a wide variety of combat and non-combat activities. There’s so much depth here that you’re never going to run out of new things to discover.
So if you love MMORPGs, you should check out Guild Wars 2. But if you hate traditional MMORPGs, then you should really check out Guild Wars 2. Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun; and of course, it doesn’t have a monthly fee.”

So obviously people have reason to compare gw1 and gw2 because of what is said here by the developer.

Your turn. Ball is in your court.

The fact that GW1 used instances for exploration has no correlation to any arguments about core game mechanics. Saying it’s not a MMO, so it doesn’t count, is a non-argument used by people who are desperately trying to come up with any possible way to deflect a completely valid argument that completely tears their own beliefs to shreds, and then buries them.

It would be like someone pointing out “all these cars have terrible gas mileage,” and someone mentioning, “But this truck has great gas mileage. Why can’t they imitate this?” And the bad gas mileage supporter replying, “Yeah, but that’s a truck!” It doesn’t matter at all. Both run on the same thing. It’s just a deflection, to avoid addressing a valid point, because you know you’re completely wrong, and you don’t want to own up to it.

/shrugs

Hey I’m just going by the standard definition of an mmo, how the game industry defines mmo’s, how many, many players define mmo’s, and how game sites describe mmo’s.

An mmo isn’t this broad category or games that includes anything people can play on the internet with someone else. It has certain characteristics. I guarantee if you asked a gw1 dev about it they would say, “no, not really.” Why not really and not a flat out no? Because it can seem like one in some ways, and it’s unique—there’s not much to compare it to.

Frankly I’m surprised there’s so much defense for it, it’s obvious to most people.

It really rages me when people don’t know english and debate words, like my grind vs farm post in the other thread.

As per wiki : Guild Wars is an episodic series of online 3D fantasy role-playing games developed by ArenaNet and published by NCsoft. Because it deviated from traditional MMORPG norms in a number of areas, like instancing all the gameplay areas, and that it focused more on player vs. player (PvP) than most online RPGs, it was marketed as competitive online role-playing game.¹ It provides two main modes of gameplay—a cooperative role-playing component and a competitive PvP component—both of which are hosted on ArenaNet’s servers. Three stand-alone episodes and one expansion pack were released in the series from April 2005 to August 2007.

As per wiki : Massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a genre of role-playing video games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world.

Stop thinking WoW == the only type of MMO. By your standards, Cities XL wasn’t an MMO (before it closed it’s servers since it really blew at being an MMO) because it wasn’t WoW. I assume those persistant air plane MMOs also aren’t MMOs because you don’t have a knight and a horse, but an air plane.

Please, seriously, stop arguing words and saying “I must fit this square peg into this round hole!” It’s annoying.

GW1 wanted to give people an alternative to the MMOs they were already playing. Then, as they said, to their own surprise people started playing it as an MMO, literally putting thousands of hours into it.

So, then they realised that their world with 2D maps without crafting and such were limitations that weren’t easily overcome. Add to that the issue of expansions adding more and more territory and there was the idea of GW2. A new game that would build on the good things of the original, while adding things that were missing in the original.

By itself, this sounded great and I, as many, were excited to look forward to that promise.

So some years later GW2 comes out and it barely ressembles the original. It’s not GW2 in the sense of a sequel. But it was a new game with much excitement and even the most hardcore GW1 fan could take a step away from GW1 and just judge GW2 for the game it is.

But even doing that, I have to admit, that this weekend marks the end of my enjoyment of the GW universe. Aside from what GW1 was or wasn’t, GW2 simply isn’t a game I enjoy anymore and that’s a personal decision.

See, it doesn’t matter if GW1 was a full MMO or not. It was a game many people enjoyed and when you don’t end up enjoying GW2 as much as you did the original, the comparisons will happen. Why? Because it also has the name Guild Wars on the box and it is the same company making it with the same philosophy. At least, that’s what they said.

So, what can I say? It didn’t work out for me. Doesn’t mean it’s terrible for everybody. We all have to make our own choice in that. But don’t think it’s odd that people make comparisons, because even though the games are different it was meant to cater to similar groups of people: people who play MMOs.

Genesis.5169:

it was a single player rpg with co-op options

You’ve posted this several times already.

Calling GW1 a “single-player RPG” is, like, 10,000 times more wrong than calling it an MMOG.

Gehenna.3625:

GW1 wanted to give people an alternative to the MMOs they were already playing. Then, as they said, to their own surprise people started playing it as an MMO, literally putting thousands of hours into it.

So, then they realised that their world with 2D maps without crafting and such were limitations that weren’t easily overcome. Add to that the issue of expansions adding more and more territory and there was the idea of GW2. A new game that would build on the good things of the original, while adding things that were missing in the original.

By itself, this sounded great and I, as many, were excited to look forward to that promise.

So some years later GW2 comes out and it barely ressembles the original. It’s not GW2 in the sense of a sequel. But it was a new game with much excitement and even the most hardcore GW1 fan could take a step away from GW1 and just judge GW2 for the game it is.

But even doing that, I have to admit, that this weekend marks the end of my enjoyment of the GW universe. Aside from what GW1 was or wasn’t, GW2 simply isn’t a game I enjoy anymore and that’s a personal decision.

See, it doesn’t matter if GW1 was a full MMO or not. It was a game many people enjoyed and when you don’t end up enjoying GW2 as much as you did the original, the comparisons will happen. Why? Because it also has the name Guild Wars on the box and it is the same company making it with the same philosophy. At least, that’s what they said.

So, what can I say? It didn’t work out for me. Doesn’t mean it’s terrible for everybody. We all have to make our own choice in that. But don’t think it’s odd that people make comparisons, because even though the games are different it was meant to cater to similar groups of people: people who play MMOs.

Exactly this. +1. I agree entirely. This simply is not the game for me. I didn’t want Guild Wars 1 1/2, but if this game had the same core values that Guild Wars had I’d probably still be playing it. They definitely lost their GW fanbase with this game.

@GADefense Not sure what WoW has to do with it, I’ve never played it. Cities XL I had to look up…seems to be an mmo to me at first glance, everyone is in the same world at the same time I think. Airplane games…um depends.

@Gehena As for GW1 I liked parts of it more too, like the arena pvp and skill choice. Heroes were nice too, great for soloing whatever you wanted. Same world ya, but not the same game by any means. Ironically, the lore of GW2 is what gets me down but that’s another story. I will say GW1 is a very unique and engaging game, and it has one of the strongest communities I’ve ever seen.

Genesis.5169:

Guild Wars 2 is an MMO stop trying to Compare the two together.

What? GW1 and GW2 are the same game franchise.

That’s like saying “stop trying to compare MGS2 with MGS3 – they are different games!!!!”

Genesis.5169:

Guild Wars was a single player rpg with co-op options.

So is GW2?

White Knights never cease to make me facepalm….