Despite a strong successor, many miss Guild Wars 1 – What made the MMORPG so good?

Guild Wars 2 is one of the most successful and best MMORPGs on the market. Nevertheless, many old players are longing for a “real successor to Guild Wars 1”. The 2005 game did many things differently than the MMORPGs of the time and won the hearts of many gamers. MeinMMO editor Alexander Leitsch reveals what was so good about it.

Guild Wars 1 was never a classic MMORPG. The world was divided into dozens of private instances, the max level was just 20 and the game also took an unusual path for the time when it came to skills and the payment model.

But exactly these decisions turned out to be a stroke of luck. The developer studio ArenaNet was able to build up a base of fans, some of whom are still active in Guild Wars 1 today – 17 years after the release and 13 years after the last expansion.

And which still calls out loud for a “real Guild Wars 2”.

Who is speaking here? Alex entered the world of Guild Wars 1 with the release of Factions in 2006 and has played the game for over 10,000 hours since then. His heart still beats for the game and the rift and the underworld are his home, although he is also close to 10,000 hours of play in Guild Wars 2.

Strict separation of PvE and PvP – With great success

The first difference compared to classic MMORPGs was already waiting when the character was created. You had the choice between an RPG or a PvP character:

• The roleplaying character started at level 1 in one of the campaigns and you could use him in PvE or in PvP. However, in PvP, it only became useful once you reached the max level.
• PvP characters were max level directly, but could not exit PvP lobbies.

These options made it possible for newcomers to start directly in PvP and participate in the various arenas. In general, Guild Wars 1 differed from other titles of the time in terms of PvP. There was no PvP in the open world – partly because there was no open world.

PvP only took place in designated arenas.

What fascinated me the most at the time was that skill was the most important factor in PvP.

Due to the PvP characters, level and equipment did not play a major rolebecause you could unlock all relevant skills in a flash and the maximum equipment was also given.

However, if you wanted to dominate in the Ascension of Heroes or in the guild battles, you had to put together a sensible team combo and train, train, train with it. I myself had PvP training up to five times a week in the heyday.

PvE was only possible as a group, even if it didn’t necessarily consist of players

Anyone who couldn’t do anything with PvP started as a role-playing character. After a short tutorial with the most important basics, it became immediately clear, especially as a veteran of EverQuest or WoW, that Guild Wars 1 was not a classic MMORPG.

Because you only met other players in cities. Every area outside of the cities is fully instanced, like only dungeons are. You could enter these areas with a group of 1 to initially 4 and later up to 8 players. And actually you always needed a group.

Of course, it was the most fun when the empty spaces were filled by other players. Even the simple story quests forced you to interact with others. You ran alone to certain death.

However, if you didn’t find or didn’t want to find any other players, you could fall back on the followers, i.e. NPCs. Later, the heroes were also introduced – NPCs that you could skill and equip yourself. This group system created a very special feeling:

• In Guild Wars 1 you were never alone,
• was one always dependent on healers,
• Tactics and positional play always played a role.

What was also cool about the system was that you never had to wait for mobs thanks to the instantiation. You could just exit and re-enter the area – ideal for grinders. In addition, a hard mode was later introduced for each individual area, which you could optionally activate. This also makes GW1 unique to this day.

Fast at max level, but still plenty to do

If you didn’t feel like a long grind, but wanted to get to the endgame areas quickly, Guild Wars 1 also made it relatively easy for you. The max level was only 20 and could be reached in a few hours in later campaigns. The maximum equipment could also be easily bought from a dealer – again for very little time.

You could even skip the walkways to new cities thanks to so-called rushers. They were paid to just walk from one place to another. If a player in the group enters a city or a new area, the entire group will be teleported there. Yes, in Guild Wars 1 you got paid to just walk to another location while the buyer was AFK.

But if you now think that you got to the end of the game so quickly, you are very wrong:

• Playing through the campaigns (four in total) took 5 to 20 hours each.
• In order to unlock all skills – especially with the elite skills – challenges had to be mastered and certain bosses had to be defeated.
• There were a number of elite areas such as the underworld, rift or gate of agony that could only be created with groups of players.
• The endgame was all about fashion and titles. To get the coolest armor skins, you often had to grind for weeks or months. Whoever wanted the famous title “God among mortals” even had to work for years on various challenges.

In addition, there were many small tasks, such as equipping the heroes, collecting miniatures, coloring the armor completely, and so on. In my 10,000 hours of play I’ve never been bored. This was not least due to the big topic of builds.

250 skills per class, dual classes and hero setup

Guild Wars 1’s combat system has always been fairly static. There were no dodge rolls, you didn’t have to aim directly and there wasn’t even a button to jump. But there was a special rule for this: Each player can only take eight active abilities into an area.

Guild Wars 1 offered around 75 skills per class at launch and the option for a second class. As a warrior, I could choose a monk as a second class and thus also use all the abilities of the monk. So I could heal myself as a melee fighter and tank or provide protective spells.

Over time, the classes got more skills – now there are around 250 of them. Each class also has access to all other skills thanks to second class, which makes it incredibly difficult to reduce the number to eight skills.

From this large pool of possibilities, crass theory crafters then developed the best builds – for solo players, but also for groups, the NPCs or PvP teams.

If you wanted, you could spend weeks and months just optimizing the builds. Those who were lazy simply followed the meta, such as the Discord Way with heroes or the fixed spike groups in PvP.

But in no other MMORPG have I ever spent as much time putting together builds and parties as in Guild Wars 1.

No monthly costs

For me, the defining feature of Guild Wars 1 in 2006 was the paid model. Because when I was 13, my mother wouldn’t let me subscribe to WoW. However, Guild Wars 1 only had to be bought once and could be played over and over again – later new extensions were added. It pioneered the Buy2Play model that many games use today.

Incidentally, Guild Wars 1 can still be played today, but the number of players is relatively small and there are no more updates:

However, nostalgia suppresses many problems

As fondly as I remember back then, one often forgets the problems of the game. The story was very thin in many places, many of the 250 skills were useless in absolutely every scenario and you mostly only ran the meta builds, the combat system was too static in many places and long loading times and lags sometimes decided whole PvP matches.

In addition, a large part of the game content consisted of heavy grinding for rare titles or armor or just putting together builds. Those who didn’t enjoy it quickly disappeared from Guild Wars 1.

Despite this, many would like a modern version of the game. A “real Guild Wars 2”, as one or the other veteran emphasizes here on MeinMMO:

• For example, RSH wrote under one article: “GuildWars 1 was awesome back then. The unbelievable number of build versions and playstyles in PvP. Rarely have I searched for something[…]. Even PvE farming was fun, the dungeons were cool. Too bad that Guild Wars 2 had nothing to do with GW1 anymore. […}SelbstPvEFarmenwarspaßigdieDungeonswarencoolSchadedassGuildWars2genaugarnichtsmehrmitGW1zutunhatte
• Yannick Trevy didn’t like the sequel either: “GW1 was also my first online game. I could spend hours doing it without thinking of doing anything else. Unfortunately, I couldn’t do anything with GW2, which made me super sad at the time because I was really looking forward to it.”

The problem: Guild Wars 2 breaks with almost all of these features. The game world is open, there are no heroes or second classes, the variety of builds is reduced and the entire story can be completed solo.

By the way, Guild Wars 2 has just appeared fresh on Steam:

Is Guild Wars 2 a bad game? Definitely not. In pure numbers of players and sales, it is far more successful than its predecessor and appeals more to the general public. But it’s not a successor in terms of game systems and gameplay. And there will very likely never be one.

Did you play Guild Wars 1 at its peak? What made the MMORPG so special for you? What’s your favorite memory? Feel free to write it in the comments.

We have discussed for you here whether it is currently worth getting started in Guild Wars 2: