13th January 2005, 11:38 PM
Milla Jovovich? Of Resident Evil? Why would you say that? I don't think I would... it's just a render of a necromancer...
There is some repetition, but it is so much less than everything else I've seen in the genre... the main aspect of repetition is getting stuff for armors (crafting materials) and you can get a good amount of that just in normal explorations. Remember, since there is no monthly fee they don't have to have massive amounts of extraneous content to try to keep you playing five million hours a month. So no hours of walking from place to place just to get to somewhere you've been five hundred times. No massive level cap that requires huge amounts of grind to reach. And one result of that? Not much of the standard "it gets fun at point X" or "just a few more levels/hours" stuff that normal MMORPGs have. Yes, it has some, but then again at least in the tests it also allows you to create level 20 characters (very doubtfully will be in final) and PvP-only L20 characters (will likely be in final). Also, if you just play the missions and nothing else by the time you are most of the way through you will have reached level 20 before you're through all the missions. You'll also have reached the major towns and enough skill trainers to have a decently competitive skill set... you may not have all the best skills but you'll have a competitive set. One thing contributing to that is the fact that the best skills, Expert Skills, are restricted -- no one can ever have more than one of them in their activated skill set. Like a collectible card game you can be competitive because everyone, even the best, are restricted to just eight skills and only one elite one.
So... like a single player RPG, it has a mission progression with a set of missions that you can do by yourself (and NPC allies) or with other players. This is quite unlike a MMORPG -- they may have some instanced dungeons, but not what is really a campaign... Arena.net doesn't call it a MMORPG and for good reason. It's too different from them to be one -- I mean, ever heard of a MMORPG where every area where you fight anything is instanced? :) Or with the main story being told in a series of seperate (instanced) missions?
It's enough like MMORPGs that people who play them can understand some of the basics, but different enough that on Guild Wars forums you constantly get people saying things like "how do they have no monthly fees?" and "we want to go in the adventure zones in a massively multiplayer setting, not instanced", etc...
But really the only way to tell if you'd like it is to play it. If you like RPGs I bet you would.
Oh yeah, and if someone buys the game and plays it and then gets bored and doesn't want to do more repetitive trips to some area to get crafting materials for better armor, they simply stop playing. No penalties, no decisions like 'do I want to stop paying the monthly fee'... yes, it will have expansions, but they've promised lots of content (not just a few new areas, but new classes, possibly other races, lots of areas, missions, skills, etc...) in the expansions and given how well they've held up with their promises so far I believe them.
Quote:The game still doesn't interest me. No MMO's do, really. The problem is repetition. You do the same stuff over and over again because it's addictive. I find that very wasteful, especially when I can be playing various other games instead. I have so many games that I need to finish...
There is some repetition, but it is so much less than everything else I've seen in the genre... the main aspect of repetition is getting stuff for armors (crafting materials) and you can get a good amount of that just in normal explorations. Remember, since there is no monthly fee they don't have to have massive amounts of extraneous content to try to keep you playing five million hours a month. So no hours of walking from place to place just to get to somewhere you've been five hundred times. No massive level cap that requires huge amounts of grind to reach. And one result of that? Not much of the standard "it gets fun at point X" or "just a few more levels/hours" stuff that normal MMORPGs have. Yes, it has some, but then again at least in the tests it also allows you to create level 20 characters (very doubtfully will be in final) and PvP-only L20 characters (will likely be in final). Also, if you just play the missions and nothing else by the time you are most of the way through you will have reached level 20 before you're through all the missions. You'll also have reached the major towns and enough skill trainers to have a decently competitive skill set... you may not have all the best skills but you'll have a competitive set. One thing contributing to that is the fact that the best skills, Expert Skills, are restricted -- no one can ever have more than one of them in their activated skill set. Like a collectible card game you can be competitive because everyone, even the best, are restricted to just eight skills and only one elite one.
So... like a single player RPG, it has a mission progression with a set of missions that you can do by yourself (and NPC allies) or with other players. This is quite unlike a MMORPG -- they may have some instanced dungeons, but not what is really a campaign... Arena.net doesn't call it a MMORPG and for good reason. It's too different from them to be one -- I mean, ever heard of a MMORPG where every area where you fight anything is instanced? :) Or with the main story being told in a series of seperate (instanced) missions?
It's enough like MMORPGs that people who play them can understand some of the basics, but different enough that on Guild Wars forums you constantly get people saying things like "how do they have no monthly fees?" and "we want to go in the adventure zones in a massively multiplayer setting, not instanced", etc...
But really the only way to tell if you'd like it is to play it. If you like RPGs I bet you would.
Oh yeah, and if someone buys the game and plays it and then gets bored and doesn't want to do more repetitive trips to some area to get crafting materials for better armor, they simply stop playing. No penalties, no decisions like 'do I want to stop paying the monthly fee'... yes, it will have expansions, but they've promised lots of content (not just a few new areas, but new classes, possibly other races, lots of areas, missions, skills, etc...) in the expansions and given how well they've held up with their promises so far I believe them.
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