On April 28, 2005, a new type of MMO was born. Guild Wars managed to balance two very different types of MMO players, the Role-Players and the PvP players. Over the course of the next four years, the game continued to hold its title as the MMO for everyone, providing episodic content that connected with MMO players across the globe. Known for co-op instanced gameplay and its innovative pay for the game, play for free business model, Guild Wars has today sold over six million units, and remains a classic in the MMORPG genre.
While the premise of the story was simple, it was the nature of the additional campaigns that added depth to Guild Wars. Prophesies, the original campain, introduced players to Ascalon and pit them against the invading forces of the Charr, forcing them to struggle against ultimate destruction in a world devistated by the Searing.
Factions opened up the continent of Cantha for players a year later, a world rich in Asian-inspired lore and themes, and pitted them against the murderous Shiro Tagashi and his mad desires for domination over the Canthan Empire. In the third campain, Nightfall, players travelled to arid Elona, and joined the ranks of the Sunspears in order to help prevent the opening of rifts into a hellish dimension from whence only death and destruction could come. When the latest expansion, Eyes of the North, released in August of 2007 players received new content for each of the three campaigns and learned that this would be the conclusion of the original Guild Wars tale.
Guild Wars has been consistently known for conquering the challenge of giving players a rich single-player story in an online game. It was the first online game to give us a strong instanced type of gameplay that provides the players with story progression as they move through the story missions. This sort of storytelling mechanic has influenced many successors to the MMO crown, including games like Dungeons and Dragons Online and Lord of the Rings Online, and will continue to make its mark on the industry for years to come.
We got the opportunity to get in touch with ArenaNet's Curtis Johnson, who has been a Designer on Guild Wars since the beginning. He was kind enough to answer some of our questions about this immensely popular game and what this fourth anniversary will hold for the Guild Wars community.
What separates Guild Wars from the MMO pack?
I think Guild Wars brings a solo RPG feeling to the online world, and does so with a business model that is non-threatening. We really tried to break out of the mainstream in graphics, gameplay, and player choice, and I think we accomplished that. Each campaign has a story that the character can follow, alone or in groups, from one end of the continent to the other. At the same time, we still kept much of the community, competition, and free roaming exploration of a global online game.
What is it that keeps people playing after four years?
I think what keeps people playing is a combination of things. Some continue to play new characters, exploring the hundreds of combinations in the Guild Wars dual profession system, tweaking their skill selections to make a character that really feels like their own. That sense of ownership can mean a lot. Others are still perfecting their first character, exploring unusual corners of the world and getting that “just right” look, or filling out their Hall of Monuments in anticipation of Guild Wars 2. There’s also a lot of great competition going on in monthly Hero and Guild versus Guild tournaments, and a community to hang out with, watch the action in Observer mode, and chat it up in some of the social hubs. Finally, it doesn’t hurt that after all this time, the graphics still look amazing. I really feel our artists and technical wizards knocked it out of the park and made Guild Wars a fantastic place to hang out. There’s just no downside to players sticking around or coming back to visit.
What impact has the game had on the industry?
Probably the biggest impact is that we’ve proved a company can put out a great online roleplaying experience without a monthly fee. Also, Guild Wars has shown there is a demand for competition-level play in the fantasy genre, and that an online exploration game can have an over-arching story that moves at the player’s speed. We’ve been able to put our own spin on things, to surprise the player every once in a while and say it’s okay to take an old idea and do it in a new way.
With all the expansions and additional content added to the game over the years, how does the team deal with the gap between legacy players and new ones?
We knew from the beginning that we wanted to create a game where players could bring their friends in, even years after they started playing. By having one world, there’s no danger of being separated from new friends or new players by server boundaries. We kept the level limit to a point where it doesn’t take long to master the basic game, while at the same time providing more adventures for long-term players to master and customize their play. We’ve added features like Observer mode so everyone can see how the best players in the world play, learn from them, and eventually compete with them. More recently, we’ve added aids like the Fire Imp companion to help new players get started and catch up even quicker.
Looking back over the progression of the game, do you consider the story complete, or is there more in store for Ascalon?
I’m very proud of the stories we put together. While I do think we’ve come full circle on a lot of the stories and characters, I think in a fantasy world there’s always the question of “What happens next?” One of the fun things we were able to do in the Guild Wars: Eye of the North® expansion was revisit existing areas with new dangers and open up dungeons and other adventures. There’s always another story to tell and we’re definitely going to pick up some of those stories in Guild Wars 2, as well as build on themes that were already there but never developed. We purposely left a gap and a lot to the imagination to give players room for adventures in between, because it is a fantasy game and it’s as much a world in the players mind as it is in ours.
Was there ever a moment during the last four years that stood out as a pivotal point in the community’s adolescence?
There was a point in the first year when the dev team realized pretty quickly we couldn’t win at Guild vs. Guild anymore! But more specifically, I think every time we released a new set of skills or story, the community evolved. Every time we held a seasonal event, the community rallied and picked up a new fondness for the Guild Wars world and its characters, whether it’s the young girl Gwen, the Mad King Thorn, or the ever-impressive henchman Koss. I think players really got into the game at the point where seeing an in-game character progress, re-appear, or get new recognition became as much an attraction as achieving the next level. In fact, that may have happened even before launch with the characters players met in beta events.
We’ve heard talk of a sequel. How do you plan to transition your fan base to a new game?
I think we can say Guild Wars 2 will have many things we wanted to do in Guild Wars, but done better. I think it’s also valid to say that since Guild Wars 2 will continue the tradition of no monthly fee, there is no downside to our fan base playing both Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 together. In that way, it is very much an extension of the Guild Wars universe and doesn’t require the player to leave Guild Wars. On top of all that, we have the Hall of Monuments in Guild Wars, which is designed to allow players to carry the prestige of some of their Guild Wars achievements over to Guild Wars 2.
Lore-wise, how does the team plan on evolving the story in Guild Wars 2?
We’re placing Guild Wars 2 two hundred and fifty years after the events of Guild Wars, picking up the progress of the world and the cultures from there. There are hints and patterns all over the original game that we’ll be pulling lore from, some of which haven’t been developed before. With more playable races that each have their own regional concerns in addition to the overall story, we’ll learn a lot more about cultures that were mostly at the edges of the first game’s story. I think discovering those connections will be an exciting bonus for the Guild Wars veterans. We're also hoping to involve the player a lot more in the day-to-day story of the persistent world in Guild Wars 2.
How do you plan on celebrating the anniversary at the ArenaNet offices?
We’ll probably play some Guild Wars 2. ;)
How is the community celebrating the day? Are there any special in-game events?
We have loads of in-game events going on for our four-year anniversary. The Shing Jea Boardwalk will re-open, where players can test their luck in the Boardwalk games. The Dragon Arena and Rollerbeetle Races will be open. Birthday Cupcakes will drop from monsters in explorable areas. Starting on April 28, characters turning four years old will receive new miniatures from the fourth year birthday series. Characters turning four will receive these presents on their creation date.
Apart from the in-game events, the Fourth Anniversary Update introduces exciting new features for players. One of the coolest of these is Zaishen Challenge Quests, which let players complete certain challenges each day, such as replaying a storyline mission or winning battles in different types of PvP. The quests offered will change each day.
And, in celebration of our fourth anniversary, we’re giving players a free storage pane so they’ll have more inventory space for items that all characters on a single account can access. Not only that, players will be able to buy more storage panes for additional account-wide inventory space.
We’re also giving players the ability to access different pets after they have already charmed them. Players can do this by heading over to the Zaishen Menagerie outpost. Access to this area is completely free. There are several ways to unlock different evolutions and levels of pets, such as having members of the Zaishen Order train your pets in exchange for Balthazar Faction. We’ll also give players the additional option of unlocking all standard pets by purchasing the Pet Unlock Pack.
We’ve saved some surprises for the anniversary, so check the website for more details.
