Guild Wars

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but somehow I doubt we’ll be striking fear in the hearts of our foes by calling our group the Fuzzy Bunnies.

Not that the particular group I joined for a taste of player vs. player (PvP) combat in the massively multiplayer online game Guild Wars would be taking names even if we’d given ourselves bad-ass monikers such as The Lotus Assassins or The Servants of the Plague. The bitter truth is: we sucked. And I sucked just as bad as the rest, which is never good for your self-image as a gamer when you’re usually more than capable when it comes to other genres.

Online gaming, however, is a different animal. You’re thrown in with complete strangers, yet somehow you’re supposed to form a party and cooperate well enough to take down the nastiest critters. True, it’s still probably best to play online with the buddies you have in real life, particularly if you’re just starting to discover this whole MMO craze, but hey, where’s the sense of adventure in that?

Which is why up to now, even though I’ve been playing the commercial version of Guild Wars, one of the fondest memories I have of this gorgeous online game is the UK Guild Wars Beta Weekend Event I joined back in March. No, I’m not based in the UK — I’m a Filipino gaming journalist who resides in the Philippines, who’s now penning a game review for US-based PopMatters. But since I’m part of an international trade site for video game writers, I was invited to join the UK beta event. Isn’t the Internet wonderful?

That’s one of the great things about Guild Wars. Other MMO publishers talk about the international community they foster, but usually in those games players are confined to country-specific servers. And though it has an Asian district, American district, and so on for those who want to make sure they can understand what the other players are saying, Guild Wars allows you to jump right in and mingle with people from different countries.

My experience with the Fuzzy Bunnies, however, shows that even if you can understand what the other is saying, sometimes what we have here is a failure to communicate. I didn’t choose the name Fuzzy Bunnies, but I wouldn’t have cared if we’d called ourselves the Care Bears if we’d won just one match. We already knew we were doomed when the conversations revolved around the lines of:

“Okay, who’s going to call out which enemies to attack?”

“I’ll call.”

“The Monk should call.”

“I am a Monk.”

“We were doomed anyway because we only had one Monk.”

Needless to say, the key to success in online gaming is cooperation. I really appreciate that about MMOs, because it’s useful to remember in life, virtual or otherwise, that we have to practice our social skills. The stereotype is that gamers are antisocial, but anyone who plays MMOs knows you have to communicate, collaborate, take calculated risks, learn diplomacy, and hone your leadership skills.

I’m not just saying this to have an excuse to play games. I enjoy games for what they are. Some games are great works of art, but that doesn’t have to be the case with every title we play. Still, what I want people to realize is that gaming is having a growing impact on other aspects of society. It’s no wonder that Harvard Business Press has even published the book Got Game: How the Gamer Generation is Reshaping Business Forever, which shows how video games teach people real world business skills. After all, MMOs are spawning thriving online communities that have their own social classes, virtual economy, code of ethics, and shared history.

This isn’t to say that everything is all right with the MMO world, which is why I’m thankful that Guild Wars is not, strictly speaking, an MMO. It’s like the developers took the best parts of MMOs and combined these with aspects of traditional role-playing games. Some might complain that Guild Wars is a compromise, but I like it, even though the game does have some shortcomings. For one, the monsters are just too aggressive. They keep swarming you, and heaven help me if they aren’t relentless in pursuing you when you just want to avoid them.

What Guild Wars does right, however, is to confine the MMO aspect of the game to the cities or towns — pocket areas where you can communicate, barter, and otherwise interact with other players. Once you step outside the city, however, you and whoever is part of your party will get your own private copy of the game world. You won’t be interacting with other players in the wilderness, so it’s you versus the environment. I’m talking here of course about the main role-playing campaign of Guild Wars, as you have a different character for the PvP mode that I played with the Fuzzy Bunnies.

Since these are all instanced encounters, you’re not competing with other players for kills and resources. You also won’t have to suffer from breaches of online etiquette such as griefing (getting verbally abused or otherwise harassed by players who have nothing better to do with their time) or kill stealing (when other players rush in to finish off a monster you’d already gravely wounded). You know who you are.

Guild Wars also emphasizes quests rather than mindless hacking and slashing. The game encourages you to take this story-centric route to leveling up because you get more experience points for completing missions. Yeah, I know, World of Warcraft has an excellent quest system, but it also retains some of the quirks of MMOs. Oh, and did I mention that Guild Wars requires no monthly fee?

So yes, I’m enjoying Guild Wars so far, and you could even say I miss my hapless fellow Fuzzy Bunnies. Now, if you’ll excuse me, Ascalon is calling.