Guild Wars

Screenshots:

Concept Art:

click to view all 6 concept art

Background:
Guild Wars takes the best elements of today's massively multiplayer online games and combines them with a new mission-based design that eliminates the tedium of those games. You can meet new friends in towns or outposts, form a party, and then go tackle a quest together. Your party always has its own unique copy of the quest map, so camping, kill-stealing, and long lines to complete quests are all things of the past. Within a quest you have unprecedented freedom and power to manipulate the world around you: your magic can build bridges and open up new pathways, or it can burn down forests and tear the ground asunder.

Gameplay:
Gameplay starts with the creation of a highly-customizable character. After choosing a gender, the player chooses a primary and secondary class from Warrior, Ranger, Monk, Necromancer, Mesmer, and Elementalist. Warriors are the typical gurus of melee combat, Rangers are agile archers from the wilderness, Monks use prayer to protect and heal companions, Necromancers are masters of black magic, Mesmers use "denial magic" to manipulate enemies and the environment, and Elementalists draw magical power from the elements. Hair style, hair color, face, skin color, and body scale can also be customized, and during the course of the game, dyes can be acquired which allow players to paint clothes and armor, enabling color coordination within player groups, or guilds. There is a pool of about 400 skills available, with each profession having a characteristic subset. The way these skills are implemented in combat is one aspect of Guild Wars that makes it so unique.

Skill-based combat in Guild Wars is reminiscent of Magic: the Gathering. Skills are earned throughout the game by completing various quests or acquiring skill gems dropped by monsters. Before entering into a duel or embarking on a mission, players must choose eight skills from their skill bank, and only these eight skills will be available during subsequent combat. This system forces players to contemplate strategy before entering battle, and also gives less-experienced players a chance of defeating veteran players in duels. This adds ample complexity to battle, and allows each profession to be played in a number of ways, depending on which skill subsets are utilized