Guild Wars Hits 1 Million Players

[bapenguin]

Gamecloud (http://www.gamecloud.com/article.php?article_id=1601) is reporting that Guild Wars has hit 1 Million players in the US and Europe.

Congrats to NC Soft and Arena NET!
<badjoke>I guess they have ascended into the elite MMORPG ranks.</badjoke>

[TheBigL]

They deserve it.

[KarmaGhost]

Cool beans. And I still haven't ascended yet.

[Genital Eclipse]

woo woo! (woo!)

[DrDocker]

I bought 350 thousand copies myself

[The Iron Weasel]

Nice, that means there will definatly be expantions, with the level cap raised!

[Magnanimous Gnome]

So can someone who's played this give me a quick summary on whether or not this game is worth the money? Is it fun? Most of the MMOs that I've tried are dragged down by the fact that the majority of the people playing them are idiots. Does this game share that same fate?

[Kelegacy]

See, a game without monthly fees CAN be successful. Congrats! This game succeeding is huge for the MMORPG genre.

[agentgray]

So can someone who's played this give me a quick summary on whether or not this game is worth the money? Is it fun? Most of the MMOs that I've tried are dragged down by the fact that the majority of the people playing them are idiots. Does this game share that same fate?
Yes, there are idiots, but that's why we have a guild. Actually, I've had some really GOOD luck with PUGs lately.

[NoName]

Hitting "1 million players" is sort of ambigous. Does that mean they have 1 million "active" players? Or more likely, does that mean they've sold 1 million copies...

[Rirath]

So can someone who's played this give me a quick summary on whether or not this game is worth the money? Is it fun? Most of the MMOs that I've tried are dragged down by the fact that the majority of the people playing them are idiots. Does this game share that same fate?

Yes it's fun, of course.
Yes the majority of people are idiots, of course.

I turn off all text in the game but team. Guild spamming and buy/sell spamming is just plain constant inside the towns. There's no real communication at all, though if you're lucky your group will talk during missions. If not, it becomes a case of follow the leader to the goal... assuming they can even do that.

I've logged about 80 hours over two chars and love it, it's more of an action RPG with central online play than an MMO, and again, it's not a true MMO at all.

[thecrazyd]

I believe they are saying 1 mil units sold. In that case, I am an active member, even though I only played a week.

This game is not fun. But that is just me. I found it was overly repetitive and that the world was insanely static. Everytime you leave a city, you fight the same damned enemies. You never see anyone else in the world unless they are on your team. Plus, the grind is annoying, and all the missions are the same. Then again, that is true for any MMO.

[StoneGut]

Hitting "1 million players" is sort of ambigous. Does that mean they have 1 million "active" players? Or more likely, does that mean they've sold 1 million copies...

Either way ... that's a bunch of money in the bank for Area-Net and NCSoft.
Way to go guys!

[Ernst_Jager]

This game is not fun. But that is just me. I found it was overly repetitive and that the world was insanely static................. Plus, the grind is annoying, and all the missions are the same. Then again, that is true for any MMO.

Sounds almost EXACTLY like City of Heroes to me.

[Stormwatcher]

GW is well worth the money, because you only pay for it once :)

[Talanvor]

I like GW, but one thing pisses me off and makes me consider returning to CoH. I really dislike that you cannot solo effectively, well at least I can't (Ranger/Elementalist).

Damn henchies. I want to find the person who programmed the healer's AI and throttle them. Why does she always run right into the middle of the mob group?

[Murmillo]

I like GW, but one thing pisses me off and makes me consider returning to CoH. I really dislike that you cannot solo effectively, well at least I can't (Ranger/Elementalist).

Damn henchies. I want to find the person who programmed the healer's AI and throttle them. Why does she always run right into the middle of the mob group?
She has "healing touch." A great self healing spell for ones self and nearby casters, BAD BAD VERY BAD spell to use on Warriors in the middle of a battle.

[Demo_Boy]

Guild Wars deserves this success.
grats to them.

[Taco]

See, a game without monthly fees CAN be successful. Congrats! This game succeeding is huge for the MMORPG genre.

It's a great game, but no. It doesn't provide what monthly fee games provide. I know I keep on saying it, but if people who like MMRPG's go in expecting WOW or EQ or whatever they may be disappointed. It's closer to a 3d Diablo in a MUCH more immersive world.

Anyways congrats on the team. They took a good idea and aced the execution.

[Heretic Machine]

Should I say that Guild Wars is not an MMO, or should I leave it for someone else?

[KarmaGhost]

How 'bout "don't play GW expecting WoW and don't play WoW expecting GW." They provide completely different experiences. It's like comparing Quake III to Deus Ex.

[kickmybum]

I thought Quake III was final game in the Deus Ex trilogy.

[TheKeck]

How 'bout "don't play GW expecting WoW and don't play WoW expecting GW." They provide completely different experiences. It's like comparing Quake III to Deus Ex.

Yeah, but the people you respond to were responding to the idea that GW proves that non-fee MMO's can work. They are saying exactly what you're saying, they're totally different things.

[AvA]

It all depends on your Guild (hence the name) to me.
Once my guild had like 80 active members out of 100 and playing was real fun: quests, GvG, Tomb and so on...

Now every time I log-on there are 3 or 4 of us playing... It's just like "Hi guys", and then "Bye" when I leave. Not my definition of fun!

Solo-playing tend to be really boring and most of the time it's really hard to put together a single good party (as long as you're not a healer).
I'm glad there are no monthly fees: by now I would have stopped paying!

[Derella]

Even without a monthly fee, I only played it for about 2 weeks tops. It just lacked... something.

[Bishop]

Congrats to NCSoft for putting out a free online game of this quailty and managing to sell 1 million copies. They haven't even started selling the game in other parts of the world, like China, Korea and Taiwan yet, those sales are only for North America and Europe. I love this game!

[falak]

Damn henchies.Hey, you leave those henchies alone! They've got me through some difficult times. :p

[Chagrinful]

They better fucking well raise the level cap in expansions! It's not worth it to get all those stupid skills if your not going to PVP which some ppl don't like to do, they'll have to defiantely raise the level cap to get ppl back into it.

Also I highly doubt it's 1 million active users, GW is over, its been over since around mid August didn't you get the memo?

All things aside, congrats to those guys for showing the industry that it DOES WORK :D hopefully this will be a sign of better w/e the fuck you call this game to come.

[score]

Congrats to NCSoft.

I've just acended and love this game. I've had so many hours of fun out of it.

[bapenguin]

Yeah, but the people you respond to were responding to the idea that GW proves that non-fee MMO's can work. They are saying exactly what you're saying, they're totally different things.

But the game IS a MMO and IS free. It's just not the same style as WoW or Everquest. It's closer to a City of Heroes style game.

[Taco]

If GW is a MMO, so is Diablo. Other than graphics the only difference is that the "chat rooms" in GW are cities. If that's the case then I guess it's an opinion thing.

Not that it really matters, since it is a damn fine game, but it is misleading.

[bapenguin]

If GW is a MMO, so is Diablo. Other than graphics the only difference is that the "chat rooms" in GW are cities. If that's the case then I guess it's an opinion thing.

Not that it really matters, since it is a damn fine game, but it is misleading.

Just because it has instanced missions doesn't mean it's not an MMO. It's very similar to City of Heroes. Plus, the towns there is tons of player interaction, including a player based economy. Everyone is on one big ass server playing at the same time. What makes it NOT an MMO? The fact everyone isn't running around FIGHTING at the same time? Again..it's just not a TRADITIONAL MMORPG.

[Taco]

Haven't played City of Heroes, but if it's similar to GW and they are charging you monthly it's a rip off. And if I had purchased it based on the glowing reviews from people here I'd be disappointed.

[Taco]

And yes, the fact that once you leave a city you are playing in a "dead" world does tend to remove it from precisely what I consider a MMRPG and what I expect to find when a MMRPG is recommended to me. UO was, Diablo wasn't.

[Chris_D]

The henchies perform surprisingly well I find. To me they seem to perform better than at least 30% of players out there :p.

And yes it is definitely 1 million copies sold. Also the game is out (and seemly quite popular) in Korea! Damn those korean guilds..

I'd say the moron population is at least as high in GW as in any other game (lack of monthly fee has its downsides) but there is fairly strong moderation on those who are actively trying to ruin the game for everyone, and you will meet people in random groups who are cool that you will group with again.

[Chris_D]

Personally I still prefer the instanced quest concept. I find the idea of queuing up behind a 100 other players to get my quest from an npc, or having to camp a spawn point for a particular drop abhorrent, and this takes me more out of the world than a sparsely populated zoned instance ever would.

Even games like WOW and SWG are using more and more instances anyway.

[bapenguin]

The henchies perform surprisingly well I find. To me they seem to perform better than at least 30% of players out there :p.

And yes it is definitely 1 million copies sold. Also the game is out (and seemly quite popular) in Korea! Damn those korean guilds..

I'd say the moron population is at least as high in GW as in any other game (lack of monthly fee has its downsides) but there is fairly strong moderation on those who are actively trying to ruin the game for everyone, and you will meet people in random groups who are cool that you will group with again.

I believe thse numbers don't count Korea either. It only mentions US and Europe.

[Mason]

Congrats to NCSoft for putting out a free online game of this quailty and managing to sell 1 million copies. They haven't even started selling the game in other parts of the world, like China, Korea and Taiwan yet, those sales are only for North America and Europe. I love this game!

Huh? GW lacks Koreans like the Gulf lacks hurricanes.

[Mason]

If GW is a MMO, so is Diablo. Other than graphics the only difference is that the "chat rooms" in GW are cities. If that's the case then I guess it's an opinion thing.

Not that it really matters, since it is a damn fine game, but it is misleading.

Every single MMO is instanced, though. WoW has like 50 static instances of the same world, with dynamic instances for dungeons and battlegrounds. CoH has static instances of the fairly content-free outer world (which can split dynamically if they get overpopulated, and you can navigate between sub-instances), and all missions are dynamic instances. GW has static instances (in a dynamic number, that you can navigate between) for all towns, and dynamic instances for missions or between towns.

So...the main difference is you can navigate between GW's static instances? For that we can't call it a MMO? Seems pretty hair-splitting.

And I've never gotten the whole "the towns are just Diablo lobbies!" argument. Yeah, you can pick teams in some areas. You can also get quests and turn in quests, buy/sell/trade items, talk to NPCs, purchase skills, fiddle with equipment and storage, all in a fully 3d world that you run around in. Kind of sounds like a stereotypical RPG town to me, I don't remember doing much of that in Diablo's game browser. What does Camp Tarujo have that Ascalon City doesn't?

You can define MMO however you like and call GW whatever you like, but you have to back it up better than that.

[Rirath]

MMO = (largely) persistant world

GW has no persistent world, a few items vendors don't count. Simple as that.
Don't know why people have to defend this otherwise great multiplayer action RPG as an MMO. There's better debates to be had than genre, though I guess it shows they hid it well enough to fool many people. Something to be proud of.

The availability of chat with anyone in the game is pretty convincing, much less the upcoming spectator mode for PVP, but it's just trying to squeeze it into the wrong category.

[Stormwatcher]

Whatever the label you guys prefer, it is a hell of a good game.