Great MMORPG with no monthly fee but it's just not for me.
I don't want to bash the game because it's not exactly what I was into, it's still a great solid game. I kind of wanted a game where you can level up to 70 and show off to everyone in a town. Where you can roam around a world and meet other players fighting and just join in and beat the living hell out of the monsters. Get all these different types of equipment that separate you from the rest.
But instead, there is a level 20 cap limit. It actually takes a while to reach this but once you hit it then XP is mostly used to get points for buying skills. Which is a great way to keep players going in PvE, since skills in Guild Wars is a huge part. They range wide for each class and the thing that makes Guild Wars great, are the amazing combos you can do with them. Get a party of 8 people and start switching around different builds of classes such as monks or rangers. You may not be able to show off with your level but when someone sees the amount of carnage you can do on a group of helpless monsters than they will have second thoughts on what kind of player you are.
Or maybe instead of beating the crap out of monsters, you can wipe out other real live players in the PvP portion. This is where Guild Wars gets really original and focuses on. You can have entire parties of players or guilds face others and battle out in different modes. It's really cool but then that's where I see a small problem.
You can either create a PvP player right off the bat that starts at level 20 (you need to be level 20, to start PvP) or build a PvE (player vs environment) character and build him up to level 20. Like I said before, one of the main important things about GW are the skills and when you start a PvP character, that's one thing you don't have much of. You can eventually buy skills when you start winning battles but it's not a good way to start the game since you won't have a clue on what's going on. Even if you did know, it's a whole lot better to pump up a PvE character to level 20. That way you can get several skills and builds together to your liking and test them out, including elite skills which can help you greatly in PvP.
The problem is, PvE kind of gets in the way eventually. There are tons and tons of side quests and doing them all would really take a while. It eventually gets boring if you just keep doing side quests, so you really only end up doing the primary missions in the PvE (which means you skip half the content of PvE). The primary missions are where you can get parties easily (of real people, not computer controlled henchmen), and the game picks up from there but then you really are just aiming to finish the primary missions, then going back to pick up really good skills or XP to buy more skills. The PvE is basically a way to build up your PvP character. In the end, if you end up playing the game for a long time, you'll really be playing mostly PvP (you'll probably go to PvE from time to time).
The thing about this is that some people might have trouble tugging through the PvE once they really get half way through it. Some might just give up before they hit ascension ("finished" the PvE) and just try PvP.
One aspect that didn't sound bad at first but later I wished GW didn't have is how the PvE and the PvP are done. Once you leave a town, its just you, your party, some NPC's and the enemies. No other players can meet you while outside the town. I actually wanted to meet other people in the world, I think it would have helped a lot; being able to get other people to help you with side quests more easily and making PvE a lot more interesting.
Also, PvP is pretty much separated from PvE. You go into a different part of the world to start it and then it becomes a match. It's not integrated into the PvE, which in the end, I think it was something I was looking for.
The guild system in GW, is really well done but yet again, its aimed for PvP. So you can pretty much have a bunch of players that play together in PvP and aim to be the best. It works really well and the capes or other ways of personalizing your guild works great too.
Another great thing about PvP, is how you can watch matches, inside the game. You easily open up this window and then it'll have the most popular players and guild battling it out against each other. You can watch from aside and talk to the other spectators as the game goes on. There's also a ranking system with the guilds and all of it works really well.
The graphics are really well done and what I like about them is that you don't need a super computer to run this game. You can lower the settings and a modest computer should be able to run the game at a descent frame rate. The environments look nice and the characters have really great detail. The skill effects are wide in visual effects, although don't expect to be absolutely shocked by some of the visuals in the skills. The sound is also on par and no sound bugs exist throughout the game.
The anti-hack system is really well done and how the game updates it self, or how the maps load quickly adds a really nice touch to the value of the game. Not only that but there are no monthly fees to this game, which is one of the reasons why I got it and it really helps the value of the game.
Overall, GW is PvP based. The PvE is really nice at first but it will get in the way a bit if you play more and more. In the end, its really about the PvP and the PvE is just there to help your character and guild out, meet new people and do some of the hard sidequests at the end of the game with your friends. The skills are really great and how you can have different builds and mix two classes together is a great addition to the game. It's just not what I really wanted in the end. You can't become level 60 or 100 and do all these crazy things in the PvE; the game is mostly a PvP game in the end.