So recently I have been following the progress of Guild Wars 2. I am and probably always will be a big fan of MMO games and Guild Wars was the game that I first experienced rpg gameplay online. This was partly due to the fact I was too young to fund myself playing World of Warcraft but also because I didn’t believe in the philosophy behind ‘pay to play’ games.
Over the years I have gained quite a collection of MMO games. First as I said being guild wars, then World of Warcraft, then Age of Conan, then World of Warcraft, then Warhammer Online, then World of Warcraft (seeing a pattern yet?) and more recently APB which is rather different (See yesterdays post). So over the years I believe I have seen what works and what doesn’t in these types of games and I have to say so far Guild Wars 2 is shaping up to be some fine work!
I had a little think over the server structuring in the games that I have played and researching into the architecture used in the mmo’s I have played thus far. I was pondering over how NCSoft believe that they can successfully run a free to play MMO again, especially because this time they claim a ‘Persistent world’. Now that could mean any number of things but from what I have been reading they say that it will be in a similar way to the existing outpost system in Guild Wars 1, except on a larger scale with outside action zones included.
This leads me to believe that instead of the traditional mmo style ‘Pick a Server’ when you create a character will be replaced by instancing of zones. I have not seen this been used before but I am slightly optimistic about it. If the structure is how I believe then it will mean the end of having to ‘re-roll’ on another server just to play with friends and this is a huge benefit. However there is a flipside to this coin and that is that sometimes, some servers will be empty, which worries me. With a game that is so focused on non-grouped outside play joining into an empty zone only to find no-one else is around to join or assist you will be a rather lonely, and for some, frustrating experience.
But this is mostly speculation on my part. The use of Public quest system worked well in Warhammer Online: I enjoyed it very much, but only when there was enough people playing. When I first played it, it was at launch and the game was bustling with people who were working together to take down large creatures and to gain that certain number of kills in an area. I left the game because I got bored with the grind, which is a problem I face with many mmo’s, and left it for a few months. I came back to Warhammer Online last year and it was rather barren, public questing was empty and fruitless. I’m sure I heard that since then servers have been merged and that the emptiness problem was solved, but it has left me with a worry that some time after launch Guild Wars 2 may face the same problems.
But still I follow the progress intently as this is only one feature of the game that concerns me. Recent videos from Gamescom 2010 have shown how fluid and engaging combat seems: it certainly excites me to see fighting look more like Fable and Zelda than a simple stand still and hit with sword then repeat we see in traditional mmo’s. Good luck to the NCSoft team in developing this game, I like many thousands more eagerly await the release.
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