I can’t play Guild Wars
I tried to play Guild Wars. It's just so unpolished, clunky, and full of rookie interface mistakes that I can't even take it seriously. The moment-to-moment feel is so off-putting that I can't stand it for more then 5 minutes before I quit in frustration. I wanted to like it so much, because it's based on the "right" concepts of fairness rather than being rpg-heavy and caring about time invested way more than ability.
Here's a quick list of its crimes:
I can't leave the game running and on screen while I click on things on my second monitor. I have to minimize the game access anything on my second monitor.
I can't figure out how to turn off click-to-move. Even when "click to move" is off, I left click on an NPC or Monster or loot on the ground and my character runs towards it. I never want to move unless I move myself.
When I hold the right mouse button down and move the mouse, the camera and character move as expected. When I hold the LEFT mouse button down and move the mouse, nothing happens. I should be able to move the camera WIHOUT moving the character with this method. It's very painful to be missing this feature. In World of Warcraft I do this constantly and can't even fathom that this similar game doesn't allow this very basic feature.
Left clicking on a monster attacks that monster. I want left click to select things and never interact with them. Right-clicking should interact with them.
The "unit frames" (HUD graphics at top of the screen when you select a unit) look absurdly bad. Also, when you have a unit targeted, its name appears over him in text. This text looks like a joke or placeholder. Should be in a nice-looking small popup window with a decent font.
The green exclamation points over the heads of quest-givers are too hard to see. Should be more bold.
Art style of humans in this game bothers me. Almost all my options to make a male character look homosexual. Way too many options are for characters that look slight, slender, and dainty.
The mini-map spins around as I turn. This is totally disorienting to me and I want it to stay still.
The game has no jump fucntion. Not that it's really needed for gameplay, but it contributes to the overal clunky experience of Guild Wars when you can't climb up a little lip, two inches high.
There are weird invisible walls all over the place in levels. Makes it feel very restricted, but is at least consistent with the overal clunky Guild Wars feel.
When you rotate the camera quickly with the mouse, then let go, the camera takes a brief moment to smoothly come to a stop. I want it to move instnatly. This is very subtle, but bothers me every time I move the camera.
Guild Wars was my most anticipated game of the year(!), but the simple act of moving the character around and attacking is so unpolished that I can't even have fun with this game. :(
Now all the Guild Wars fans can get mad at me.
--Sirlin
November 20th, 2005 at 12:10 pm
Hey Sirlin,
I played GW for the first few months it was out, and I was a ’starter’ in one of the top 20 competitive guilds. My MMO experience basically equated to Runescape, so I didn’t have experience with how smooth WoW must feel. It took me a while to get used to the clunkiness of it, but I have to say that once you got past that stuff and got used to it, the competition was incredible. I guess you’ve already hit on this point, that you couldn’t get past the clunky side of it, but I guess I was able to let it go because I had so much fun competing on it.
On a side note- I quit GW a little while ago DAYS before I got to your site and read your articles. The reason I quit was because I was arguing with my guild leader about changing our strategies to something similar to the Koreans (Koreans OWN that game). I basically got told that my suggested tactics were “cheap” and “not fun” by my all-knowing guild leader, and he told me if I wanted to ‘play to win’ (exact words) why didn’t I just cheat.
Unfortunately the argument got cut short and I couldn’t defend myself adequately, because I hadn’t ever thought about it. I knew there was something flawed with his argument though, and I was thrilled to finally figure it out after reading your stuff. I quit because I was never gonna get to the highest level with my guild, and I didn’t want to invest the time working my way up in another or starting my own. Anyways, I guess this is all just a big late thanks for your articles. And GW competition > WoW competition. Thats what a dutch guy told me.
November 20th, 2005 at 2:43 pm
Too bad Guild Wars (and World of Warcraft) don’t emphasize 1on1 competition. Then you wouldn’t need to form a guild or convince other people of their flawed strategies. I much prefer games where you don’t have to rely on anyone else. Oh well.
–Sirlin
November 20th, 2005 at 7:32 pm
I know what you mean, I too being the individualistic type of gamer who, if I AM on a team, prefer to carry them and dictate where we go. However, there is something really cool in a teamwork-oriented game when you see your coordinated efforts come into fruition. The first time i played with a good team, they were doing coordinated countdown attacks (really cool to me at the time) and I don’t know if I’ve ever marvelled at how cool a game was as much as I did then. Teams and guilds have their downsides, but I think for me it was more rewarding when all the efforts of all the team members came together than any solo game I’ve played.
November 20th, 2005 at 8:26 pm
About not jumping (and it making sense or not for purposes of gameplay) that’s one of the first things that stuck out to me with Metal Gear Solid for ps1 (he can do all this maneuvering using all the buttons, but can’t even jump on top of that box?) but that’s probably just too much time spent with Mario games on my part. btw Congratulations on your official book release- I figured you were really busy lately so could you please reply to my email when you can?
November 21st, 2005 at 2:19 pm
I recall reading an article on 1v1 PVP being a “possible” addition come expansion time. For the life of me though, I can’t see HOW Guild Wars will be able to pull it off. Team play is too central an ideology to the game. As hermy demonstrated, the team play aspect is Guild Wars’ greatest strength and its greatest weakness.
Regarding the interface problems: 100% correct on the foolishness of left-click being the movement AND action button. Misclicks that MOVE your character when you don’t want him/her to are annoying, and even utilizing the targeting hotkeys only alleviate this slightly.
You’re also right about the arbitrary “walls” that you can’t circumvent with a jump button. Way to go Sirlin–care to give the design team a piece of your mind so that all of us Guild Wars players can enjoy a better game?
November 21st, 2005 at 5:26 pm
Sirlin, have you considered starting Mario Kart DS? It’s still fairly new, so the battlegrounds are still rather balanced, and it would be an interesting change from reading about all the fighting games you discuss.
November 22nd, 2005 at 8:48 am
From the ‘I can’t play Guild Wars’ blog:
â€When I hold the right mouse button down and move the mouse, the camera and character move as expected. When I hold the LEFT mouse button down and move the mouse, nothing happens. I should be able to move the camera WIHOUT moving the character with this method. It’s very painful to be missing this feature. In World of Warcraft I do this constantly and can’t even fathom that this similar game doesn’t allow this very basic feature.
Left clicking on a monster attacks that monster. I want left click to select things and never interact with them. Right-clicking should interact with them.â€
From the comment section of the ‘PvP in World of Warcraft, yet again’ blog:
“In WoW you can hold the left mouse button to rotate the camera without rotating your character. In GW you can’t. GW had all this fucked up click-to-move that was default on and I couldn’t even figure out how to turn off…Right click someone and there’s no options or anything.”
___________________
I would like some clarification in regards to the functionality of the camera system in World of Warcraft (WoW) in comparison to Guild Wars (GW). I would also like to (hopefully) remedy a ‘qualm’ that Sirlin had with target selection/character navigation in Guild Wars.
Personally, I have not played World of Warcraft (WoW) or any other games that make use of the camera features that Guild Wars is said to be lacking, so I cannot relate to WoW-specific examples, however I have played Guild Wars (GW). So, from the above quotes, here is what I know…
In WoW, the LEFT mouse button is used for:
* (when held down) Rotating the camera WITHOUT moving the character
* Selecting things but NOT interacting with them
In WoW, the RIGHT mouse button is used for:
* Interacting with things (which seems to exclude movement navigation such as clicking a Monster or NPC to walk up to it)
* Presenting ‘options’ when right-clicking on someone
I have also discerned from watching various game play footage from WoW that movement and general character navigation/rotation seems to be solely covered by the keyboard (either by the directional arrows or the ‘W, S, A and D’ key configuration), where as selection and interaction with the selected target, as well as camera control, is the function of the left and right mouse buttons.
Now, from my personal experience, this is what I know about GW…
In GW, the LEFT mouse button is used for:
* (By default) ‘Clicking to move’ (or navigate). In other words, moving the character to a position selected by clicking the left mouse button (if an obstacle is in the path of the selected position, the character will attempt to navigate around the obstacle)
* (By default) ‘Holding down to move’. In other words, the character will endlessly follow the mouse cursor until you release the left mouse button, and the camera will (rather awkwardly) try to adjust to remain behind your character (note: when holding the left mouse button down to move while simultaneously holding the right mouse button down and moving the mouse, both the camera and character rotate to face in the direction of the cursor)
* (By default) Selecting a target, at which point your character will automatically move to it
In GW, the RIGHT mouse button is used for:
* (when held down) Rotating the camera around the character
* (when fully zoomed into your character using the mouse scroll wheel, giving you a ‘first person’ perspective, in addition holding down the right mouse button) Rotating the camera to face whatever your character is facing
Some additional GW information
Note that the control scheme/functionality can be customized to an extent via the ‘control set up’ found within the options menu. Movement is not restricted to the mouse; the keyboard (directional arrows, ‘W, S, A and D’, etc) can be used/configured for movement and general character navigation/rotation. Character movement/navigation in the form of clicking and/or holding down the LEFT mouse button, can be disabled by turning ON an option which disables “click to moveâ€, or as it is known in game as, ‘disable mouse walking’.
Also, while giving some additional info, and as I previously mentioned, to (hopefully) remedy a ‘qualm’ that Sirlin had with the targeting system; I quote:
“Left clicking on a monster attacks that monster. I want left click to select things and never interact with them.”
When you click on a character (other then your own), NPC, Monster, loot, etc, using the LEFT mouse button, the default action in GW will cause your character to ‘do it’, which is in-game terminology for preforming the most ‘logical’ action. E.g. if you left click on a Monster, you will attack it; if you left click on an item (loot) you will pick it up. To separate the ‘do it’ function that is (by default) tied in with the selection of a target/object using the LEFT mouse button, you must turn ON ‘Double-click to Do It’ in the ‘control set up’. Doing so will allow you to select any target/object using a SINGLE LEFT mouse button click. From there, if you wish to ‘interact’ with the target/object and ‘Do It’ either double-click the LEFT mouse button, or by default, simply press the space bar on keyboard..
From what I know of how WoW works, turning ON ‘disable mouse walking’ and ‘Double-click to Do it’ will provide a control functionality quite similar to WoW, however I could be wrong.
Either way, now that we have that covered, again to quote Sirlin:
“[In Guild Wars] When I hold the LEFT mouse button down and move the mouse, nothing happens. I should be able to move the camera WIHOUT moving the character with this method.â€
Sirlin continues to say:
“It’s very painful to be missing this feature [in Guild Wars]. In World of Warcraft I do this constantly and can’t even fathom that this similar game doesn’t allow this very basic feature.â€
As I understand it, when playing Guild Wars, Sirlin would like to hold down the LEFT mouse button to rotate the camera around the character (WITHOUT causing the character to move), and click the LEFT mouse button on a target to select it, but do nothing else. Also, Sirlin would like to interact with characters, NPC’s, Monsters, loot, etc, by clicking the RIGHT mouse button.
Fortunately, after turning ON the ‘disable mouse walking’ and ‘Double-click to Do it’ options, the LEFT mouse button can be used to select targets WITHOUT causing the character to move. Unfortunately, the left and right mouse buttons cannot be configured to perform different functions, so you have to use the LEFT mouse button to select/interact with a target, and the right mouse button to rotate the camera.
What I do not understand is the reasoning behind wanting to “move the camera WIHOUT moving the character†using the LEFT mouse button, when the RIGHT mouse button already performs this function. Perhaps this is due to my rather nonexistent experience with World of Warcraft - who knows?. If anybody (including Sirlin :D ) would care to enlighten me as to what these reasons are, and the logic behind it, please feel free to do so.
Cheers,
Griffith
November 22nd, 2005 at 7:41 pm
I apoligize, because this has nothing to do with this post. But, I just read Sirlin’s “Playing to Win” article. http://sirlin.net/Features/feature_PlayToWinPart1.htm
Sirlin - you are the most intelligent person I know. I tip my hat to you.
November 22nd, 2005 at 9:50 pm
Honestly now, don’t let it get to his head. Next thing, he’ll have us all believing that Guild Wars needs a low strong x67 feature.
November 25th, 2005 at 11:02 am
I’m kinda confused here. Sirlin, did you believe that the game design itself was bad? Or do you think that the game wasn’t polished enough? Or somewhere in between?
Dawolffman
November 25th, 2005 at 8:47 pm
“Sirlin, did you believe that the game design itself was bad?” -Dawolffman
He is saying that the design of the game’s interface is so bad and unintuitive that it distracts from the rest of the game.
November 29th, 2005 at 2:11 am
I definitely agree that clicking the mouse to move and interact with things sucks.
However, you don’t have to use the mouse to do it (in fact it is *highly* recommended you don’t use the mouse to select enemy targets, ever).
Shifting important functions like movement, enemy target selection, and skill selection to keyboard while leaving mouse to camera control, sending allies quick messsages via control-click, allied lifebar clicking, and maintained enchantment canceling makes things 5x easier, plus it allows for better performance in high stress situations (PvP) than fiddling around with the mouse for everything, even if the mouse interaction could be configured to however you want it to be.
November 29th, 2005 at 2:40 pm
G-Ball is absolutely right. Mouse targeting is effectively never used in PvP, which is the only worthwhile part of Guild Wars.
Take a look at Tab, T and C at some point Sirlin. They basically become your mouse. It’s much easier to Tab up to that mesmer than hunting him down on screen and clicking, and it’s easier to tap C then manually point at that annoying warrior pounding on you.
November 30th, 2005 at 10:31 pm
This article and the references at the end reminded me of this blog post:
http://www.scottberkun.com/essays/essay46.htm
November 30th, 2005 at 10:33 pm
I miss UO .
Especially in the beginning, when it was fairly quick to reach the 700 skill point gap. It wasn’t as much as a grind as modern MMORPGs, especially since in UO you could have a Macro do the grinding for you as you slept.
Also, it had rewards for PVP, and didn’t have a lot of stupid restrictions. It was real fun joining up with a PK guild, and going to dungeons and seeing how many people you could gank. The real fun is when you run into a rival PK guild and you have to fight it out. This kind of unscripted, spontaneous fighting in one large persistent world is what real “guild wars” should be about.
Also the fact that you lose everything on your person when you died really added to the rewards of victory and sting of defeat.
I’m not saying that games need to be that severe, but there is hardly any incentive for PVP in modern MMORPGs at all.
I could say I also enjoyed it at low levels. First playing UO was a real adventure knowing that if you leave town, you could be murdered and robbed by the bandits in the wild. It was probably the most immersed I have ever been in an RPG world. I really felt the town was a safe haven, and the outside world was truly dangerous.
December 6th, 2005 at 6:59 pm
Sure, I’ll check it out again. I know you wouldn’t use the mouse to target anything in a real pvp situation, but that really isn’t the point. The main complaints have to do with the way the camera moves. It lacks a function that I constantly use in World of Warcraft, and it lacks it for no real reason.
I just get sad everytime I try to move around in Guild Wars for even 30 seconds. :(
Dawolfman: I’m critizing the UI look and feel, not the actual game design (though the focus on group vs group rather than 1on1 makes it not for me).
Maybe I should just keep my mouth shut at this point, since I admittedly have little experience with GW. I tried twice to play, and quit twice in frustration.
–Sirlin
December 8th, 2005 at 5:29 am
So Sirlin is capable of letting go a GOOD game because some little faults on interface? i’m i thought Sirlin thinks starcraft is good, wich has an HORRIBLE interface a the game is a MICRO/MACRO game mor than stratgy game (even i heard it’s a strategy game) and worst oh my god, he plays WOW.
I personally didn’t play GW because i don’t play MMORPGS i can’t play a game just to play and not trying to win (somethng imposible to acomplish on MMORPGs)
And much less when patience, is more important than mental or motorized skills
December 8th, 2005 at 6:34 am
I think it’s more because you’re used to WoW as opposed to the fact that GW’s interface sucks. I got acclimated to GW’s interface rather quickly. However, it took me a couple weeks to get the hang of WoW’s interface after I started playing that, and I recall complaining to my friends of WoW’s crappy interface. I don’t think either one is better; they’re just different. Keep it up and you’ll get used to it, I’m sure.
For what it’s worth, I usually have the left mouse button clicked constantly when I’m moving. It sort of activates a “strafe-only” mode that’s useful for moving your character if you’re not inclined to move the camera. If you want to adjust the camera, take your finger off the left mouse button and use the a and d keys. You can use the Z or X key I think to do a complete about-face.
December 9th, 2005 at 8:03 am
While I don’t see a complete answer to your desire to move the camera without moving the player the ‘Z’ key will face the camera at your front rather than at your back. This can be done independent of your movement state, and I also find it sufficient.
December 11th, 2005 at 10:53 pm
i am fairly certain that starcraft micro and macro encompass the “strategy” of the game, both on the large and small scale. Watch a korean Starcraft VOD, and this is really apparent.
December 20th, 2005 at 2:37 pm
I have been playing Guild Wars for months now, so I’m very used to the UI.
I just started playing World of Warcraft the other day, and to be honest, the UI turned me off initially. I attributed it to the teething problems that any newb has when learning controls to a new game. For instance, as you noted, LEFT clicking an enemy in GW will attack it, whereas RIGHT CLICKING an enemy in WoW does the same thing. I continually found myself LEFT clicking to attack in WoW. I feel that the LEFT clicking to perform an action is more intuitive than RIGHT clicking, because after all in a normal Windows environment, you use the LEFT mouse button to interact with icons and such in your desktop folders, and RIGHT clicking in Windows just brings up options.
What I have found difficult in WoW is the lack of a button that will display enemy or player names, without resorting to a toggle. I use the CTRL and ALT keys a lot in GW. The CTRL key will display all enemies onscreen and the ALT key will display all players and NPCs. The ALT key is particularly useful in towns when I’m trying to find guildmates easily.
I haven’t figured out how to remove the chat window in WoW, or at least minimise it so that it only displays one or two lines of chat. I find the chat window intrusive, and in GW I generally open it only when I think I have missed something and need to display previous lines of text.
As griffith said, the RIGHT mouse button rotates the camera around the character without the character moving. I don’t see a problem with that, except that you’re not used to using the RIGHT button for GW rather than the LEFT in WoW.
I have no problems with the exclamation points in GW or in WoW. They’re easy to see for me.
I love the character design in GW. I like that the men (and women) aren’t unattractive. Why do they look “homosexual”? The Warriors are burly and brawny, as should be for what their role is. Warriors use their physical strength a lot, so of course they have lots of muscles. Mesmers, are admittedly the ugliest profession in terms of character design as a whole (I could not for the life of me create a female Mesmer whose appearance I was happy with), but when you consider the Mesmer’s role in the game, it’s really not out of character for them to be depicted as they are. Mesmers are spellcasters and manipulators of magic. Monks, again, healing class — therefore they aren’t huge uber-warrior types, and shouldn’t really look like Warriors anyway. Elementalists — spellcasters, therefore why should they look like they work out 24/7? Rangers — I could argue for a bit more brawn for this class, perhaps. Necromancers — well, Necros are spellcasters as well. They do tend to be all goth-looking, which I guess is fine.
The only male character I have is an Elementalist, and I like his appearance. I certainly wouldn’t want him, or even a male Warrior looking like Duke Nukem. That’s my personal preference, though.
What does “looking homosexual” even mean, anyway? There are plenty of men and women who are queer, but don’t look like it. Indeed, I’ve been told that I didn’t look like I belonged in a lesbian bar because I didn’t look like a stereotype.
Conversely, I am having a hard time getting into the world of WoW, because all the characters are so cartoony and goofy-looking.
The mini-map in the upper right corner functions more like a compass. Press U to pull up a map that doesn’t move, and which also shows the path you have taken in the area.
As James said, I think perhaps much of your irritation with Guild Wars comes from not being used to the UI.
Cheers.
December 30th, 2005 at 3:31 am
I played Guild Wars competitively for a while, and it was really amazingly fun. The reason I quit is because despite ArenaNet’s claims, the game is not “grind free”, and actually requires a substantial time investment. Well, you can just jump right into pvp with a template character, but not if you actually want to be competitive.
Now, I think they have improved things quite a bit since I stopped playing in terms of grind required, so it may be worth your time to give it another try, if you can get past your qualms with the interface. It’s definitely the most incredible multiplayer rpg I’ve ever played, in terms of game design and strategy.
January 1st, 2006 at 10:49 am
I think it’s unfortunate that you can’t get into Guild Wars; it is the best RGP PvP ever designed.
While on one level i can relate, i went through the same period of frustration when i was first introduced to the game, i’m a long time WoW player myself. On the other hand, after having played Guild Wars for a few months, i say with the utmost confidence that the UI does not inhibit play. Is it the best, most effective, and good looking UI on the market? No. Is it so clunky that the gameplay suffers? Also, no.
The clunkiness you describe, to me, is the same awkwardness experienced every time you learn a new set of controls that is almost, but not quite, like a game you already know.
-Kyx
September 28th, 2006 at 9:02 pm
These complaints about Guild Wars are really short sighted and show little depth of participation in the actual game, particularly the PvP. It’s truly revolutionary in terms of RPG PvP content, something that multiple other games including Warcraft are looking to copy.
You clearly didn’t invest enough time to make a competent judgement about the product.
September 29th, 2006 at 5:17 am
“You clearly didn’t invest enough time to make a competent judgement about the product. “
If #24 was written by someone in the business of selling games, his attitude is a dangerous one to take. I am under no obligation to invest more time than I’m willing to invest to make a competent judgment about a product someone is trying to sell to me. Several weeks was enough of an investment for me. If you can’t win me over by then, that doesn’t make me the one lacking in competence. It also doesn’t put me in the minority, unless there are more GW players than WoW players. It might take me out of your target market, which isn’t anyone’s fault, but #24 doesn’t seem to realize that.
September 29th, 2006 at 4:37 pm
Brinstar, now hold on there about the camera commands. The right mouse button most certainly DOES move the character. Do this:
Hold down the W key to run forward.
Hold down the right mouse button while running.
Now move the mouse left during all that.
Does your character change the path of his movement? YES.
I want one mouse button that acts like the Guild Wars button and another that does NOT change the path of my character. This lets me look to the side without changing the direction I’m running. Again, a very basic feature that is still missing in Guild Wars.
What’s interesting is that I can bind a button to my keyboard that does exactly what I’m asking, but the game won’t let me bind the left or right mouse button to that feature. Ha.
I did turn on “double click to do it” and that’s definitely an improvement. At least I can single click on something and select it…like the way computers have worked for 20 years, lol. Strange that this isn’t default.
Why can’t I right click on a player to get some options? Inspect? Invite to party? Whisper? Duel? (Why wasn’t the game designed for 1on1?) Ignore? Something?
I’m also a little confused why the lifebar of a selected character looks like placeholder art from an alpha test. It’s a red rectangle with square corners. I guess it has a gradient on it, but…maybe check out something halfway decent like default World of Warcraft interface or better yet, the Gypsy mod for unit frames in WoW.
Again, I’m not complaining about the actual game design (apart from lack of 1on1), but I have to wonder why the UI is so lacking here. I vote with my dollar and if they’ve had this long to do something about it and haven’t, well…time’s up.
Maybe there is a GW mod that just sets everything to WoW functions and implements prettier UI?
Incidentally, any programmers out there interested in making a game a lot like GW that would have a great UI and also support 1on1?
–Sirlin
September 30th, 2006 at 4:25 pm
I’d have to agree with Sirlin when it comes to Guild Wars (Gw). If you scroll up a bit in the comments for this blog post you will find my miniature novel where I try to figure out the control issues Sirlin described in the original blog post, and also make some suggestions about how to get around the issues Sirlin was encountering to the degree Gw lets you.
After actually spending some time playing World of Warcraft (WoW) and after a short adjustment period, I came to a full understanding of what Sirlin was saying. It is also not hard to tell that Gw and WoW are a world apart, and while I still have some minor grievances with World of Warcraft, for what Blizzard have set out to do with the game, it clearly deserves the acclaim it has received and will continue to do so until ’someone’ (hint hint, Sirlin) actually steps up and creates a better game, or at least a game equal to the quality of WoW but with a different focus (ie. less focus on killing monsters with teams, more focus on killing players without teams :) ). That’s a tall order, I’m sure, but we can’t have Blizzard hogging the spot light forever.
Oh and I’ll answer those questions for you Sirlin, since I (sadly) know far too much about Guild Wars, and all the Guild Wars fans seem to be mad at you. Hehe.
___________________
Sirlin:
“Maybe there is a GW mod that just sets everything to WoW functions and implements prettier UI?”
___________________
Unfortunately there is not, and you are restricted to making UI modifications through what Guild Wars offers in the in-game options menu, which unsurprisingly, is severely limited in what you can do (at least in comparison to the WoW API and any other games with semi decent UI mod-ability…and yes, I just made up a word - it does the job).
That said, there could very well be someone out there who is cleaver enough to get past these restrictions, but that’s not much use to us since anybody who did manage to modify the Gw UI in a way that was not intended by the developers would likely have ArenaNet coming down on them hard and fast to put an end to such endeavours (however justified and useful they may be) should he/she ever expose such efforts.
___________________
Sirlin:
“Incidentally, any programmers out there interested in making a game a lot like GW that would have a great UI and also support 1on1?”
___________________
Apparently, according to members of the competitive Guild Wars PvP community who are disgruntled with the direction Guild Wars has gone in and are jumping ship en masse, someone has come out with something similar to what you describe (although I’m not sure if it has an emphasis on 1vs1, but from what I’ve read, it seems it is at least supported).
The game is called ‘Fury’, and is said to make use of a lot what worked in Guild Wars. Fury is apparently made by an Australian development team called ‘Auran’. It has not been released yet, but if you want to check out more about it, you can do so here:
www.unleashthefury.com
The somewhat amusing name of the website aside, personally I’m a bit dubious whether or not a (seemingly) unknown company can come out of no where and compete with the big hitters thare are up there with Blizzard and ArenaNet, but hey, if they manage to pull it off and come out with a high quality game, hats off to them.
And while on the topic of Guild Wars, interestingly enough, ArenaNet recently came out with another update about their version of sealed play, with an article explaining the general rules, and a place where you can download the cards that you use for the game. I’m pretty sure that you (Sirlin) won’t be terribly interested in anything more about Guild Wars sealed play, but I thought I’d throw this out there anyway for anyone who is interested (and I’ve learnt my lesson, no more tricky formatting with URLs and Wordpress comments):
You can read the rules and whatnot here:
http://www.guildwars.com/competitive/sealedplay/
…and you can download the cards here:
http://www.guildwars.com/competitive/sealedplay/cardsdownload.php
From what I’ve seen of the Gw cards the game doesn’t look all that impressive or entertaining (funny that, it sounds just like Guild Wars ;) ). I’m personally much more interested in seeing what you (Sirlin) and Thomas Grove (and anyone else involved that I may be missing) come up with in your Street Fighter card game.
Regards,
Griffith
October 1st, 2006 at 1:40 am
Griffith,
Wow, someone agreed with me. I’m not too popular on this Guild Wars thing, but I finally got through to someone.
I actually know about the Guild Wars sealed deck thing. I have zero interest in Magic: The Gathering sealed deck (I only like constructed), so the same applies here, pretty much. I want to play the real full game where I have full access to all cards and so does everyone else (fairly close to the regular Guild Wars).
I’m also aware of Fury and it looks great. I think it has huge potential. Btw, I think it is definitely possible for an unknown company to make a great game. This kind of goes back to my big Warcraft article: someone with high skill can overcome a lack of time spent and still do well. Serious Sam came out of nowhere, as did Far Cry if I have my facts right. Fury might be great.
That said, I’d still like to create a competitive game that lasts many years. I have the design and even a fair amount of the art talent lined up, but I always fail with programmers.
My card game is still being worked on, btw. I actually have two paying jobs now(!) and a couple other projects, this stuff takes time. That card game *will* come out, even if it’s the death of me though.
I hate not having an edit button in this comment submission field. I tried forever to get WordPress’s EditorMonkey thing to work, and never could.
–Sirlin
October 8th, 2006 at 10:39 pm
Yo dude, just because youre retarded doesnt mean the controls are clunky.
Try gettiing a better video card or motherboard or something.
OR just keep on paying to gaying and stay in your WoW world.
Seriously did you even play this game for real?? You must have a real shitty computer if you cant play guild wars.
And btw- options= click box for disable mouse click.
And its not a minimap its a freaking compass what u expect it to do?? Minimap is opened with the U button. You can customize ALL the controls that you seem to have a disability with.
Im glad you dont play guild wars. Youre retarded!
October 9th, 2006 at 1:26 am
I started playing GW during the last BWE, and have continued playing since its release. I read through your objections to GW, Sirlin, but I have a different take on them.
I agree with you that there are some little annoyances that detract from gameplay. I wish that clicking on a monster didnt attack it. I wish you could climb two inch bumps. I wish that there werent any invisible walls. For me, I ended up just using alternative methods. I select things exclusively through buttons ‘c’, ‘t’, tab, and caps lock. (closest target, priority target, next target, previous target, respectively) Now, you might say, ‘I dont want to learn new methods, GW should feel and play just like every other MMO Ive played before’… but thats like saying ‘this new street fighter feels different than all the others… Id rather go find a different game instead of becoming better at this one’.
However, I think that the primary problem that you are experiencing is that you misinterpret what kind of game GW is. GW is not a PvE game. The only reason PvE exists in GW is because theres money to be made there. The content and execution of the PvE section of the game, I will agree, are not the best. If you want to compare GW PvE to, say, WoW, then, yeah, you got me. WoW PvE is better. But none of that matters at all.
GW is a PvP game. I dont know if you ever stuck with the game to even try the pvp? Probably not, based on your comments. The level of PvP in GW far surpasses the PvP in any game that I have ever played before, strategically, tactically, mentally. This is coming from an (ex-SC, ex-CS, ex-WC3 player). The whole concept of the game; victory with skill, not time played, supports this. The reason it is so easy to get maxed unlocks, maxed gear, ‘perfect’ characters is because the spirit of the game is competition, which supports equality to all players, and victory granted to whoever played the best. The reason why there are only 8 players per team, 8 skills per character, is because the spirit of the game is competition. Choosing what to do with those 64 total skills is a strategic monstrosity. Once in game, there are innumerable tactics that can be employed using those skills.
Compare this to other games. In almost every other MMO game, victory is swiftly awarded to the player with the better gear. Take D2. I could be the best player in the world, but I would lose in about 3 seconds to an 8 year old girl with 1337 barbarian gear that happens to have better gear than I do and successfully clicks on me. Similar things happen in WoW, Lineage, NWN, etc.
I realize this has turned into an unorganized rant, so Ill try to end with a summary of what Ive been trying to say:
1) GW is primarily a PvP game. It is one of the best PvP games on the planet, atm.
2) Being a PvP game, and seeing as how most of the original complaints at the top of the page are related to PvE, I cannot help but feel they are moot and meaningless.
3) Most of the issues are solvable through just editing the interface. I changed mine radically until I liked it, and remapped my entire keyboard to things that were more comfortable for me.
October 9th, 2006 at 3:17 am
Neo, and everyone:
We don’t need to say one single more word about how Guild Wars “gets it” when it comes to fairness and competition. No one in this thread–including me–is debating that. Now that we all agree there, we can move on.
Here are two questions that seem to be getting confused:
1) Are my objections to the UI easily solvable by just setting the game options how I want?
2) Do my objections matter in the first place?
On question 1, “no” they have not yet been solved (but at least double-click to “do it” addressed a few things). Don’t gloss over them as if they have been. You might argue that they don’t need to be, but is a different question entirely. Anyway, I never did find a way to bind the “rotate camera but not character” to a mouse button. And the default UI graphics for energy bars are still something that look placeholder, not like something from a game that’s two years mature plus another year of closed testing.
Another question I had above: “Why can’t I right click on a player to get some options? Inspect? Invite to party? Whisper? Duel? (Why wasn’t the game designed for 1on1?) Ignore? Something?” Horseman of War suggests that I get a new motherboard and video card, as perhaps this will enable the player options menu I’m looking for, ha.
Anyway, do my points need to be answered? Well, Neo claims that becuase the game is pvp, they don’t need to be. Again, no one is debating that the game is primarily pvp, but the pve game is a pretty good place to, say, test the camera functionality and the UI for interacting with enemies. If there is a reason to say my objections don’t matter, “because it’s pvp” is not the reason. I know it’s a pvp game. I still want a reasonable UI.
All I can say is that I vote with my dollar and I’m not going to vote for a game that can’t get the basics right, in my opinion, even if it did a great job of solving the deeper issues. While you might disagree on whether or not they got the basics right, that is why you are voting one way with your dollar and I am voting another.
I don’t want to make it out that I’m against Guild Wars players. We’re on the same team here: the team of people who understand competitive gaming.
I will reiterate that I’d rather be part of the solution than the problem. I would like to make a very similar game with different UI, different art style, and that also provides for 1on1. I will make it as a mod if I must, whatever. The thing that prevents me from doing it isn’t lack of artists or even lack of money so much, but lack of good programmers who I have contact with, who would be interested/available, and who I can trust.
Perhaps the game Fury obsoletes my would-be effort, though.
–Sirlin
November 16th, 2006 at 3:36 am
Good post. Check out my site for Guild Wars Cheats, Dupes, Exploits and Hacks http://www.exploitsrus.org/gw.html
For Guild Wars Cheats, Dupes, Exploits, and Hacks, click here.
January 8th, 2007 at 8:37 pm
I think ArenaNet is considering incorporating 1on1 PvP into the game as they’ve recently announced that they are looking at restructuring the PvP aspects of GW. Anyway, GW is one of the few games that I grow more and more to dislike as I spend more time playing it.
I’ve played GW for about 5 months until I got totally bored of it (since I mostly play PvE and its scope is pretty narrow, just not in me to play PvP with strangers on my team since most of the community take losing too seriously). I got to agree with you, Sirlin, that the game is rather unpolished though I feel it had alot of potential. However, on the topic of game controls which is definitely something that differs from one game to another, something I don’t entirely agree with you on. But I guess a 3D game ought to at least provide more options with the camera, which ANet obviously doesn’t realise yet. There’s also no option to remove the directional hints that lead you to every single quest destination. Of course, having such visual hints are always good for casual gamers (or those stucked), but such a mechanism should have an option to turn off to improve the gaming experience for those who want to find their own way.
GW, to me, feels like a game thats been built halfway from day 1; or at least, not much thought being put into (what software development methodology does ANet use anyway?):
- UI seems to been be built without much thought; even when a new in-game feature is released, alot of possible improvements are obvious. I don’t claim to be a usability expert but some of the flaws with the UI are dead obvious (colums of data that you can’t sort or filter properly).
- Alot of the interface works only “one way”; most of them can’t be tuned to at least half the extent of what WoW offers and GW is a 3D game we’re talking about.
- With additional releases (chapters), the game is getting messed on what is an expanded feature and what’s really a chapter-specific feature. The chapters are marketed as standalone games, however, item drops for character-specific campaigns appear for later chapters but not previous ones.
- Many more issues on its PvE aspects which I find too intensive to touch on… But, even if GW was intended for PvP, does it make sense to restrict PvE gameplay by PvP rules? I think this is exactly what’s going on with the PvE aspects of GW. I think they should really make PvP a sealed play of whatever skills offered in PvE to help with balancing PvP and enabling more possibilities in the PvE end. GW being PvP focused has already caused major impact on the variety of items in the game, that is already one part that makes the PvE portion of the game less interesting for many.
So what’s the good thing about GW for me:
- Nice pace of action (nothing more than that honestly).
Nevertheless, I’ve not entirely given up hope on GW yet (not yet so to say). GW is a game built on fine concepts; and since it’s still such an unpolished game, I feel it can only improve (I don’t suppose it can get any worse for its own good). Although I found WoW a game that required too much commitment to continue playing, I didn’t have any real complaints about it; it was a very well-presented game (GW fanboys complain about the cartoony characters, but when has Warcraft series ever been about real-looking characters?). Diablo 2 was an exceptional game which I felt the developers had poured alot of thought into; although I don’t play it anymore, my feel for the game before and after playing it (for 3+ years) remains the same (which is, fantastic!). The biggest GW saving grace is probably no monthly subscription for an acceptable game. Chapter 4 will be ANet’s last chance to impress me, I have alot of qualms about the ability their developers as well as those that are responsible for conceptualizing the game. Their product is analogous to a website with nice look and feel but terrible information architecture, mediocre content and usability that stray too far from normal standards.
Lastly, Sirlin, just wanted to say that I found your articles very interesting and enlightening.
Off-topic:
In GW fansites, such honest opinions are usually rebutted with flames. Comparisons to WoW in GW fansites often lead to a post saying either, “GW and WoW are different, GW does not require monthly subscription” or “GW is not MMORPG, it is a CORPG”; what a joke. Most GW fanboys are just retarded, period.
January 14th, 2007 at 4:10 am
GW isn’t an mmo. It’s more like MTG, the pve is… bad. I really enjoy the PvP though, it has alot more strategic depth than WoW, or any other mmo style combat system really.
What really irks me about guild wars is the way its opened doors for games like PSU to have subscription fees. If guild wars is just a free mmo (which, omg its not), then games like PSU (Aka diablo type games with graphical chat rooms) can be considered mmos… and charge subscriptions.
January 18th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
I don’t find the PvE in Guild Wars particulary bad. I’m talking about the story and gameplay progression. The story is constantly developing, and it has you, ‘The Hero’ that takes part in it. PvE is more like a single player adventure game. Perhaps that’s why it is criticized. Often, I prefer to use computer controlled helpers to help me rather than have human players that tend to bail out on me. What’s even worse is that I can’t control human players as well as I can control henchmen/heroes. In essence probably what bothers most is not that PvE in Guild Wars is bad, it’s probably the fact that for a multiplayer(or MMO) game, PvE is bad. Ironically enough, the greatest thrill of PvE is having someone else to share it with.
Confused? Well, so am I.
As for this game not being free. Well, It’s obviously a SIGNIFICANT improvement over SOME companies that decide that, in order to remain competitive, you must buy the expansion. In essence, GW provides one of the most real life money-independent games out there. Speaking from a strictly competitive point of view, you can become competitive within 10 hours of gameplay (provided you already have the experience to play to your best.) Money, in GW is useless at best. Best armor is dead cheap, best weapons are also dead cheap. (collector-upgraded weapons, yes?) Skills? Well there are tournaments out there that restrict usage of skills beloning to certain chapers in order to give everyone a fair chance.
I know, In a previous article, that Sirlin complained about the unfairness of the Battlegrounds in WoW, and suggested as a possible solution to winning there to be awarded nicer looking clothes. In GW, this solution has been implemented to the extreme. So much as it became somewhat of a cult of vanity. I know that because it was a massive uproar when Anet decided to improve AI so it would doge AoE attacks. The massive uproar was caused by the fact that ‘farming’ would become exponentially more difficult, and rendered 2 of the most prolific farming builds near-useless. Now, what those people were farming for were not things that would give them some kind of immense advantage, but things that allowed them to buy nicer-looking armor. A status symbol, if you will.
Finally, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I like GW, I won’t deny it. I’m a ‘fanboy’ yes. I just don’t agree with birdfoot’s opinion that most GW fanboys are retarded. I can say the same thing about [insert random MMO name here]’s fanboys. It’s just that, well, people the most retarded are usually the most vocal, leading to an unfair judgement of a game’s playerbase.
For the record, I am of the opinion that WoW and GW are different, but not because of artificial terms that describe them (although that is, technically, a difference). The difference between an egocentric story arc (GW), or a general unified story arc (WoW). The difference between 8 skills and x skills available at one time, the difference between a standard fantasy setting and a human-centered fantasy setting and so forth. Many would probably dismiss those as inconsequential nuances. I won’t. they’re both great games but I just don’t like one. And that is owned, in no small measure to the fact that you’re finacially linked to it.
March 25th, 2007 at 8:27 pm
i am playing gw for quite some time now. i completely abandoned the PVE part of the game.
Sirlin you are a newbie to guild wars and therefore u looked for 1v1 arena. when i started to play i too asked myself that same question.
1v1 in guild wars is completly stupid and useless. because u didnt play this game enough u still cant understand my statement. all top pvp players in guild wars will agree with me here.
for instance- the monk class is a character that should heal their party their attack capabilitis are very minor comparing to the other classes which makes it stupid in 1v1. but if u do encounter such a class in 1v1 arena u cant defeat it. monk is planned to have skills that can heal an entire party. so if a monk does enter that 1v1 arena and takes healing skills then its frustrating. that monk can heal himself pretty good because he is the only 1 there so healing only himself is easy task. so both players cant kill each other.
mesmers- they shutdown targets without killing them. so the mesmer shut down the player facng him but he cant kill. so they both just stand there 1 is shutdowned but alive and the other just keep shuting down without killing.
1v1 arena renders many proffesions useless and many skills useless. so here is your answer about that.
they have a new arena though since nightfall that is quite close to 1v1. it is you and 3 other bots agains 1 player and 3 other bots. those bots act the same. so the player controling them is the only 1. i am sure u would have loved it.
about the UI - well i cant convince you here. though for me its never a reason to abandon a game. i just take my time to get used to it. if u cant do it than it means u are not patiant enough.
and who cares about the game graphics!? i am playing it on the lowest level of graphics possible to get my fps as up as my machine can. so your character does not fit your opinion BIG DEAL. yet u did play street fighter 1 and there u couldn’t change the looks of the characters and yet u played it.s
stop comparing WOW and GW. they are both good games. WoW and GW are TOTALLY diffrent games the big problem is that they look the same. but its like comparing the old game “Lemmings” To “The incredible machine”.
March 26th, 2007 at 12:54 am
Thelord: If you’re going to come here and say insulting things, at least know what my position was in the first place. I never said “Guild Wars should just put in 1on1, even though their game system wasn’t designed for it and it would make no sense.” Since it was designed around team play from day 1, of course slapping on 1v1 wouldn’t work. No one ever said it would, so there’s not much point making a staw man argument about it.
My actual complaint was that it wasn’t designed to support 1on1 from day 1–but WHY wasn’t it? I still think that both WoW and Guild Wars could have made this early decision and been good at 1v1 AND good at group vs. group. But oh well. Also, I don’t knock the game too much for this, as there are plenty of people who are perfectly happy with a game that has no 1v1. (Though I’m personally not usually into such games.)
Regarding UI, my interaction with a game *is* the controls and UI. If they are wonky and substandard, I have every right to complain and play something else. You should be complaining to the people who make Guild Wars and saying “Why can’t Sirlin and 8 million other people who played WoW get the behavior out of the right and left mouse buttons that they want in Guild Wars? The default camera control in WoW is better than Guild Wars, and even if it weren’t better, it’s what a lot of people are used to. So please fix it to be inclusive to more people rather than elitist by saying ‘you’ll get used to what we think is fun.’”
Anyway, the 1v1s where you also have a party of NPCs with you sound great. Since you only have a paltry 8 moves in Guild Wars, you should have plenty of free dexterity left over to issue commands to those other NPCs…but I bet you can’t.
–Sirlin
March 26th, 2007 at 3:58 am
In fact you can, but the interface for dealing with the NPCs makes the rest of the interface look marvelous. Especially for getting them to move…
I am also fairly sure that 1v1 could be implemented just by introducing appropriate environmental effects and objectives into appropriate new maps. But I don’t think its the kind of thing they are likeley to do.
March 31st, 2007 at 11:57 am
1vs1 doesn’t exist in Guild Wars because of the nature of class/ability systems in RPG’s. Unlike fighting games, where different characters go about the same goal (kill the other guy) in different ways, in RPG’s not every character’s end goal is to accomplish the same thing. Some characters are best for killing, some heal and protect, some shut the enemy down really well, and some do a combination of things. 1v1 matches would have too much pre-game rock-paper-scissors involved due to the variety of character types and abilities that make the genre what it is.
Yes, I understand that you prefer games you can play on your own, but not every game has to be designed around solo play. I don’t think that games designed around playing as a team are bad by design except when the team has to be a ridiculous size like 40 (or even 20) (hint: I hate the raid concept in MMO’s as much as you do).
Still, having SOME kind of solo content certainly wouldn’t hurt the game, even if it’s just casual play at best.
March 31st, 2007 at 12:44 pm
Again, I’m not knocking the design of Guild Wars simply *because* it doesn’t really support 1v1 play. It’s just my preference. But I have to take issue with Anonymous above. We could certainly make a new game in the same vein as Guild Wars that does support terrific 1v1. There is no deep need to split up abilities the way WoW and Guild Wars do, where healing is restricted to certain classes and you lose unless you bring healers. That model works (obviously, as it exists in those popular games), but a different model could also work, one that starts with the notion that 1v1 matters. A game balanced for 1v1 could also certainly have great 5v5 play.
I’ve been to many a session at Game Developer’s Conference about MMOs, and it’s really clear where the thinking is from MMO designers. There is a deep underlying assumption that forced grouping is good, that 1v1 belongs in another genre, and so no one would even think to care about it. This is too bad because, again, good 1v1 would not at all prevent good group play. It’s just that I don’t think designers are making much of an effort because they don’t see the value.
–Sirlin
March 31st, 2007 at 11:11 pm
Have you heard of Fury? That’s supposed to be pretty much the game you’re describing, although it hasn’t had a beta yet. Here’s it’s website:
www.unleashthefury.com
April 1st, 2007 at 12:14 am
Yeah I have heard of it. It looks really promising.
April 1st, 2007 at 1:02 am
(I’m the Anonymous from above. I’ll call myself Gary to make future discussion easier.)
I believe the thinking amongst RPG designers is that they want their games to have an interesting min/max metagame applied over team builds. Sort of like in fighting games where you select a character based on strengths and weaknesses, except that players can micromanage the details themselves. This requires a large enough ability selection so that teams have to make choices, which would probably result in really unfair matchups in 1v1 play. This might even be the case with Fury, where each character can do anything they want (classless system), but not everything at once (limited ability slots).
But I think you have a point Sirlin - there very well could be a system that works well in both solo and team play. Perhaps a system like Fury would work well 1vs1 if abilities aren’t designed to completely hose players unequipped to beat team. ie, if most abilities are flexible and useful in a variety of situations.
Maybe sometime an RPG designer will go the road of fighting game character selection, where each character is completely set in stone. Each “class” could have a static skillbar that allows them to accomplish the same things as all other classes, but in wildly different ways. This would drastically reduce the team-build strategy and focus the game more on in-game player tactics, but I could see it working very well.
April 1st, 2007 at 9:26 am
sirlin, i agree with you on some things, like the mouse clicking and stuff, but i bet if you were to start playing guild wars before world of warcaft, you would think that WoW would suck and you would be writing this on how bad WoW sucked, i started playing the games at the same time and i think they both have their ups and their downs, neither one of them is worse than the other
April 1st, 2007 at 9:26 am
sirlin, i agree with you on some things, like the mouse clicking and stuff, but i bet if you were to start playing guild wars before world of warcaft, you would think that WoW would suck and you would be writing this on how bad WoW sucked, i started playing the games at the same time and i think they both have their ups and their downs, neither one of them is worse than the other
April 1st, 2007 at 11:47 am
ryan, I highly doubt that. Left clicking to highlight something (in World of Warcraft) is like left-clicking an icon on your desktop (selects it, doesn’t do anything with it). World of Warcraft’s left click reinforces this 20-year old convention. Also, the ability to choose whether you want to rotate camera+character or camera-not-character is strictly better than having only one of those options, as Guild Wars does.
This has been a really tough pill for people to swallow for some reasons. I don’t think it’s very crazy for me to claim that Guild Wars might have a great underlying game but a very lacking UI. If only half the flack I get for saying this were directed at the developers of Guild Wars, it would be a better game than ever.
–Sirlin
April 3rd, 2007 at 6:59 am
So I posted awhile back on this same topic believing that improved camera controls and UI features are not necessary…but I now see that it’s not really the point.
Guild Wars getting it right with PvP (which it did - I wouldn’t have spent 1100+ hours on playing if the high-end GvG wasn’t so awesome) doesn’t influence whether or not UI improvements can be made. A feature such as camera-not-character rotation or left click select may not help much in high-stress PvP situations (where I operated very efficiently without those features) but I can certainly see how having those options would be nice to have in non-PvP situations within Guild Wars. Just moving around in the world in WoW felt better to me than it does in GW - I attribute this to the jumping and the camera-not-character rotation combined with the camera+character rotation.
With the camera-not-character rotation in WoW I played sightseer while I headed in the direction I wanted my character to move in without impeding either my ability to see what I want or my movement. This was particularly nice when moving at higher speed than normal.
For me the ability to jump in a particular direction on command - jumping while moving or jumping on or down platforms, was something that I simply enjoyed doing even if it was mostly pointless (aside from instant-cast spell kiting or running from enemies).
I’d probably be a bit more receptive towards Guild Wars PvE if these features were included. I couldn’t stand it when I last played it (about 10 months ago).
So yeah, agreement.
April 5th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
Sirlin said:
“I’ve been to many a session at Game Developer’s Conference about MMOs, and it’s really clear where the thinking is from MMO designers. There is a deep underlying assumption that forced grouping is good, that 1v1 belongs in another genre, and so no one would even think to care about it. This is too bad because, again, good 1v1 would not at all prevent good group play. It’s just that I don’t think designers are making much of an effort because they don’t see the value.”
____________________________________
Just for the record, I completely agree with everything that Sirlin has said in this initial blog post and the additional comments he made in response to it.
And no, it’s not because I worship Sirlin, I just think he has his head screwed on. I’m not saying that Sirlin is right and everyone else is wrong, but I like the way Sirlin stands for inclusion (ie. why not have grouping AND 1vs1?) and intelligence (ie. don’t go against 20-year old conventions when they’re no good reason to do so, and if you do, give players the option to not have to use your wacky new way of doing things).
____________________________________
Sirlin also said:
“This has been a really tough pill for people to swallow for some reasons. I don’t think it’s very crazy for me to claim that Guild Wars might have a great underlying game but a very lacking UI. If only half the flack I get for saying this were directed at the developers of Guild Wars, it would be a better game than ever.”
____________________________________
The amusing thing about what I quoted from you above is that the Guild Wars developers (ArenaNet) constantly get this sort of “flack” directed at them in one form or another, but they do nothing about it — at least nothing that makes any meaningful improvements to the game. If anyone disagrees on that point, consider this: it’s been close to 2 years since Guild Wars first launched, and issues that people have been pointing out since the closed and public Beta tests (as well as the closed Alpha test) still remain unchanged. Why!?!?!
And now ArenaNet are coming up with Guild Wars 2, which is probably their attempt to fix what I believe to be a very broken game that has been slowly degenerating over time. Don’t get me wrong, Guild Wars does a lot of things right. But unfortunately, what is done right is marred by what is hopelessly lacking, and I just can’t help but look at Guild Wars and think, “these guys are professional game developers, getting paid to do this job… firstly, how can they make such rookie mistakes, and secondly, how can they make no effort to fix them?”
I’m sure people will say to me, “but not everyone can make the perfect game the first time round”, but then I look at games like God of War and I have to disagree. Granted, God of War may be a completely different game, but one thing remains constant — God of War set out to do something, and it did it damn well. I sadly can’t say the same thing about Guild Wars.
Personally, I think the answer to why Guild Wars remains in the state it is lies in their business model. Because they have to spend so many of their resources working on new content to sell (due to the no monthly fee system) so they could actually profit, they have very few resources to allocate towards fixing the existing content (since they can’t get any cash from fixing the existing content… at least from people who’ve already bought the content). But even then, I think that’s a pretty poor excuse. Maybe I’m largely ignorant of the difficulties associated with game design (I’m sure they are many), but if I was part of the ArenaNet team, I’d expect much more from myself and the company/people I work for/with. (Eg. They’ve done about 4 “major” UI changes to the game so far, and every time they seem to glaze over the real issues… no body really cares about what colour the UI is when such obvious and very much needed features are missing.)
But I’ve been following Guild Wars for a long time (not so much because I think it’s a good game, but because it’s interesting to look at from a business perspective), and I think it’s not all as simple as it seems. I personally believe it’s likely that what ArenaNet have done and are doing has been part of their plan all along, something that originally started with a very clever marketing ploy. Either that, or ArenaNet has someone pulling their strings big time to use Guild Wars as a cash cow (I’m looking at you, NcSoft), and they just aren’t allowed to do what is really needed. Now I doubt many people will agree with me, but when you take a few steps back and look at the big picture, I think you’ll see the validity — or at least the potential validity — of my suspicions.
- Bruce
July 14th, 2007 at 9:51 am
If I understand correctly, one of your major gripes with the UI is the inability to move while rotating the camera freely, independant of said movement? This is entirely possible, done by clicking the ground to move wherever you want to go, and then rotating the camera by holding down the right mouse button.
In fact, this is one of the 3 main applications of clicking to move in GW, the others being precise movement pathing to eliminate/reduce client/server position desynching, and faster movement for dodging projectiles (faster to run forward than strafe sideways, so click to run ‘forward’ in another direction).
The ‘double click to interact / do it’ has been covered, though I still don’t understand why it isn’t the default setup rather than an obscure option.
As far as 1v1, it’s true that the game design is almost completely unfeasible to have engaging balanced gameplay in that format. The one exception is actually in the premier 8v8 player ‘guild battle’ format; the maps & objectives are large enough that small 1v1 & 2v2 skirmishes occur often, for which players specifically plan for & bring heals & survival skills, snares, etc., and it works because degenerate or gimmicky character builds that would cheese a straight 1v1 format aren’t viable in the larger gametype that promotes flexibility.
But if the main concern is just wanting to avoid the hassle of social networking, time constraints, and scheduling issues inherent to large team (8v8) competition, Arenanet has implemented a new 4v4 gametype pitting 2 players each controlling 3 NPCs (setup exactly like other players) against each other. It actually is hurt by difficult UI for controlling your team (you have to click individual skill uses & movement, no keyboard options available), and the lack of strong 4v4 skill & character balance.
However, it does have its own metagame, and player skill & strategy at the format do tend to determine the winner, and it feels much more like an RTS than the RPG/FPS style of the regular game. There are thousands of players on the hero battle ladder, and probably 50-150+ players participating in each daily automated swiss tournament (every 8 hours).
July 14th, 2007 at 1:17 pm
Bruce, great post.
Gus, the 1v1 (with 3 NPCs per player) sounds good. Too bad it doesn’t have a good UI to control it though.
You’re not off the hook with that camera movement stuff though. I don’t want to click to move ever under any circumstance. Even when you disable click to move in Guild Wars, clicking still makes you move when you click on NPCs or players or whatever. It sounds like your solution to my complaint involves clicking to move.
It’s been like 3 years and there still is no BASIC camera control like there is in World of Warcraft. It worries me why the dev team doesn’t think this is a problem. I bet you some of the other 8 million people who played World of Warcraft would like this stuff too. (Though even if WoW didn’t exist, I would still not want to click to move.)
–Sirlin
July 14th, 2007 at 11:17 pm
“Even when you disable click to move in Guild Wars, clicking still makes you move when you click on NPCs or players or whatever.”
Nope, there is an option to remedy that, which you mentioned earlier:
“I did turn on “double click to do it” and that’s definitely an improvement. At least I can single click on something and select it…like the way computers have worked for 20 years, lol. Strange that this isn’t default.”
I guess I just don’t understand the concern of being able to rotate the camera while moving with WASD(QE). Like all 1st person games and even most 3rd person games I’ve played, WASD moves in relation to the screen, rather than in the direction of the character. To me it would be more confusing if WASD moved your character independently of the camera, yet even still there is a very basic solution to the problem (albeit involving click to move). To be honest, very rarely is it useful in GW, so perhaps its “basic” nature could be debated.
As far as click to move itself, that has been a topic in the GW community. In the earlier days, it seemed to be that the Koreans primarily used click to move (more like RTS), while the Americans played with WASD (more like FPS). However, I think these days most players use a combination of the two schemes, to the point where advanced players are quite adept at fluid movement while controlling the camera.
July 15th, 2007 at 1:10 am
Gus, ugh you got me on “double click to do it.” I forgot about that.
Ok, maybe the “basic” nature of this camera control is debatable. Here’s my side: I want to be able to move my character toward Point X in the level. While he is moving toward Point X, I want to look 90 degrees to the left, to see what the situation is over there, if an enemy is coming toward me or whatever, but I don’t want to slow my movement to Point X. And I don’t want click to move ever, which we’ve already covered. ;)
In World of Warcraft, for example, this comes up in about 100% of all matches in Arathi Basin, as you need to run toward the flag asap, but still check your surroundings as you run. Even in PvE, it feels crippling to lose this “basic” feature.
Another thing I don’t get is that even if I’m totally wrong here (I’m not, ha), I still don’t see why the UI doesn’t have one checkbox that converts all this wonkiness to a more WoW-like interface. My main arguments are that this would be BETTER, but even if it weren’t at all better, it still seems like a pretty important thing to do considering the player base of each game, and that Guild Wars is a fairly natural place to go after playing WoW. I wonder how many other players are missing out on a great game like GW because of the UI. Remember that most of them will just say nothing and not play and you won’t really know why.
I’m also still scratching my head at the lack of right click options on players and the placeholder-looking art on health bars and unit frames. Did any of that ever get addressed?
–Sirlin
July 15th, 2007 at 7:00 am
Your ‘moving toward the flag’ example reminded me that if you select something and then interact with it (double-click or spacebar) such as attacking someone, speaking to an NPC, picking up an item, etc., you will move toward it and can then freely move the camera to check your surroundings.
Otherwise, if you want to be freely moving and check your side, you have to do it FPS style by continuing to strafe toward your destination (only slightly slower) while aiming at what you want to look at. I’m wondering if you didn’t zoom out as far as possible though (highly recommended way to play the game), it’s more like playing Diablo so you already have a pretty fair idea of what is to your sides & behind you.
As far as offering options to make it an easy transition from WoW, probably a good idea. More options rarely hurt.
They’ve implemented some 2-3 reworks of the hud & unit frames you complained about, I imagine it’s better.
July 15th, 2007 at 8:24 am
Ah, I see. While you are “clicking to move” you can rotate the camera without slowing your movement. Anytime my character was running without me pressing run, I wanted to immediately figure why that was and stop it. I see that people who accept click to move (or space bar when something is selected) would, after all, be able to move the camera around though. Now I see how people deal with these controls, but I still find it unsettling when my character auto-moves for any reason. Maybe it’s more effective to play using space bar to auto-run, now that I think of it, but I have this huge gut reaction to it feeling wrong for some reason.
Yes, I do play all these games at the most zoomed out camera possible, but you still need to check your flank. Incidentally, the early WoW alpha and beta allowed your max zoom-out to be about 3 or 4 times as far as the current max. Playing at that level of zoom out was really practical, but it made the game look pretty dumb, lol.
July 28th, 2007 at 11:38 am
Just thought I’d let all you devoted Guild Wars fans (as well as Sirlin) know that the game Fury — a game that’s been discussed previously in this thread — is having a Beta test this weekend, and apparently every other weekend for I don’t know how long.
You can get access to the Beta weekend here:
http://www.unleashthefury.com/beta/signup.php
Haven’t played it myself, but I’m interested in checking it out. I’m not exactly all, “man, this is going to be the BEST game ever”, but if they’ve done what they said they set out to do, this could be a pretty high quality game.
But then, the same was true of Guild Wars. ;)
I just hope for Sirlin’s sake that the Fury dev team have read this post + the comments about the camera options in Gw. =)
- Bruce
July 29th, 2007 at 4:12 am
For Guild Wars Cheats Guild Wars Farming and Guild Wars Guides go to http://www.exploitsrus.com/gw.html