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"Guild Wars" redirects here. For other uses, see Guild Wars (disambiguation).
Guild Wars


Developer(s) ArenaNet
Publisher(s) NCsoft
Designer(s) Mike O'Brien
Patrick Wyatt
Jeff Strain
Platform(s) Windows
Release date April 28, 2005 (Prophecies)
April 28, 2006 (Factions)
October 27, 2006 (Nightfall)
August 31, 2007 (Eye of the North)
Genre(s) MMORPG
Mode(s) Multiplayer
Rating(s) ESRB: T
PEGI: 12+
OFLC: M
Guild Wars is an episodic series of multiplayer online role-playing games created by ArenaNet, a Seattle game development studio and a subsidiary of the South Korean game publisher NCsoft. Three stand-alone episodes and one expansion pack were released in the series from April 2005 to August 2007. All Guild Wars games run on the Microsoft Windows platform.

Guild Wars provides two main modes of gameplay—a cooperative role-playing component and a competitive player vs. player (PvP) component—both of which are hosted on ArenaNet's servers. The games depict the history of the fictional fantasy world of Tyria, each campaign focusing on events in disjoint sections of the world, but roughly parallel in time. A player creates an avatar to play through the cooperative storyline of a campaign, taking on the role of a hero who must save Tyria from episode-specific antagonists. Players can group with other players and non-player characters, known as henchmen or heroes, to perform missions and quests found throughout the game-world. PvP combat is consensual, team based, and limited to areas designed for such combat. Players are allowed to create characters at maximum level and the best equipment specifically for PvP play, which is unusual for MMORPGs.[1] ArenaNet hosts official Guild Wars tournaments where the most successful players and guilds may compete for the chance to play live at gaming conventions and win prizes up to 100,000 USD.[2][3]

The games in the Guild Wars series were critically well received[4][5][6][7] and won many editor's choice awards, as well as awards such as best value, best massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), and best game.[8] Guild Wars was noted for being one of the few commercially developed games in the MMORPG genre to offer online play without subscription fees,[9] its instanced approach to MMORPG play,[10] and the quality of the graphics and play for computers with low specifications.[11] In December 2007, NCSoft announced that 4.5 million units of games in the Guild Wars series had been sold.[12] The sequel, Guild Wars 2, was announced in March 2007. It will have updated graphics and gameplay mechanics, and will continue the original Guild Wars tradition of no subscription fees.[13] No release date has been announced.

Games in the original Guild Wars sequence were released in episodes known as campaigns. Players must purchase an individual campaign in order to access the game elements specific to that campaign; however, all campaigns are linked in one game world. Each campaign is independent of the others, with its own co-operative storyline, campaign-specific skills, and competitive arenas. Players owning different campaigns may still interact in shared areas, including trading for items specific to the campaigns they have not purchased. Players who own two or more campaigns may transport their characters freely from one campaign to the other.

The first campaign, Guild Wars Prophecies (originally named Guild Wars), was released on April 28, 2005. The Prophecies storyline is situated on the continent of Tyria and revolves around the Flameseeker Prophecy, a prophecy made by an ancient dragon.

Prophecies was followed by Guild Wars Factions on April 28, 2006, released exactly a year after Prophecies. Factions is situated on the small southern continent of Cantha that is separated from Tyria by a vast ocean. The events of the Factions campaign concern the return from death of a corrupted bodyguard named Shiro Tagachi. Factions features a global persistent war between rival nations, and the notion of guild alliances (see guilds below).

The third campaign, Guild Wars Nightfall, was released on October 27, 2006. Nightfall features the arid continent of Elona, joined to southern Tyria across a vast desert. Nightfall introduced heroes, advanced computer-controlled units that can be micro-managed by players, including the ability to customize their skill layout and equipment.

Scrapping their initial plans for a fourth campaign, ArenaNet have released an expansion pack, Guild Wars: Eye of the North, to the previous three campaigns on August 31, 2007.[14][15] Not being a full campaign, this expansion requires one of the other released campaigns, and is only accessible by player characters at level 10 and above. Eye of the North therefore does not feature new professions or tutorial material, but contains new content for existing characters: new dungeons, a number of new skills, armor, and heroes. It is also intended to be a bridge to the sequel to the Guild Wars series, Guild Wars 2. As a promotion for their online store and Eye of the North, ArenaNet released a "bonus mission pack" to online purchasers;[16] containing playable recreations of four incidents in the history of Tyria, Cantha and Elona which each expand the backstory for one of four major NPC characters.[17]


[edit] Accounts

The Guild Wars character selection screen for a single account.A new player must create a Guild Wars account using a unique e-mail address and an access key received from the purchase of the game box or through the online store. Once created, additional keys may be added to the account; these keys can belong to additional campaigns that are linked to the account, or certain purchasable features (such as additional character slots) bought from the online store. Once a key is added to an account it cannot be removed and accounts cannot be merged.

An account is initially set to a specific region depending on the version of the game purchased; Europe, America, Korea, Taiwan or Japan. Players from Europe, America and Korea may freely move between the three regions. Regardless of the account's home region, players in all regions can meet and form parties in international districts (instances of in-game outposts).

A new account has four character slots; each additional full campaign added to the account adds two further character slots. Extra character slots may be purchased from the online store.


[edit] Gameplay
The game world of Tyria is presented as a number of instanced zones accessible through staging areas known as towns. These staging areas are fully navigable 3D maps where the player avatars may interact with each other or with NPCs that provide services such as merchanting or storage. From a town, players can enter instanced gaming areas either by crossing the border of the town or by initiating a storyline mission. Each instance is allocated freshly for the adventuring party that enters it. As the characters progress in the story or explore the game world, they gain access to additional towns. Players can transport their characters instantly between towns using the game-world's map.

Player characters in Guild Wars are controlled from an over-head third person perspective in a 3D game environment (but with only two degrees of freedom: characters cannot move vertically; first person perspective is available, but usually too cumbersome to play). For every new character, the player can choose to create a role-playing character that begins in low level areas, or a PvP-only character at maximum level and the best equipment. Both modes encourage teaming up with other players or AI controlled NPCs known as henchmen.


The six core professions.Player characters have a fixed primary profession, determined at creation time, which dictates their appearance, certain primary attributes, and the kinds of armor available to them. The warrior profession, for example, has access to the primary Strength attribute that increases their effectiveness with martial weapons, and is able to wear heavy armor providing the highest protection of all professions. Elementalists, on the other hand, wear weaker armor, but can use their primary Energy Storage attribute to have a much greater energy pool than other professions. Player characters can also choose a variable secondary profession that gives them access to all the skills and secondary attributes of that profession. A Warrior/Elementalist (abbreviated in-game as W/E), therefore, is a warrior who may use spells in combat, similar to the Spellsword archetype from RPGs.

All player characters have a maximum character level of 20 that is reached fairly early on in the co-operative story. Armor and weapons also have fixed maximum stats and a fixed variety of modifiers, and these items at the highest stats are easily attainable. Most of the gameplay is balanced around a party of eight level 20 players sporting items with maximum stats. The choice of armor and weapons determine the character's health points. Unlike most RPGs, Guild Wars has no healing potions; instead, the party's health is managed by a number of healing skills in every class. In addition, a character regenerates health if he or she sustains or deals no damage for a certain period. The primary profession and attributes determine the character's energy, which also regenerates (at a fixed profession-dependent rate).

Players may customize their character appearance from a fixed palette of face and hair models, skin color, height of the avatar, and by their choice of armor. All armor and weapons in the game can be dyed to further differentiate the characters. Finally, characters may display their guild affiliation and, optionally, a title they have earned for in-game achievements. The most prestigious titles often require significant investment of time and often in-game money.

ArenaNet originally intended[citation needed] that co-operative characters would continue to competitive content as the end-game for a player. The co-operative and competitive modes of the game were therefore closely linked, sharing nearly all gameplay mechanics. The few differences that exist are limited to a collection of PvE-only skills that are not balanced for competitive use. However two communities of gamers have formed around each game type: those who play Guild Wars strictly as a co-operative RPG and those who play it as a competitive PvP game;[citation needed] updates to the game after the release of Prophecies allowed this division to continue further.[citation needed]


[edit] Combat
A player selects eight skills (special abilities) from their two professions. Each skill has a governing attribute that determines its effectiveness; these attributes are assigned using a number of attribute points similar to the point-purchase system of D&D. Most skills have an energy cost that is forfeited at the beginning, and an activation delay during which the character is stationary and unresponsive. All offensive skills are either targeted at an enemy, or centered on the self; Guild Wars does not allow targeting a location or an area. Weapon attacks are performed automatically at a fixed rate and the player can freely choose when to start or stop such attacks. Players may also select allied targets for beneficial skills such as healing spells or enchantments.

Guild Wars has been likened to collectible card games such as Magic: the Gathering because of the way skills are used in gameplay.[18] A player must choose a limited number of skills from the pool of available skills prior to entering battles, similar to assembling decks of Magic the Gathering cards. The collection of chosen