I’ve been playing a new MMORPG (Massive-Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) game called Guild Wars. Now, before you demand I fly the dork flag, let me explain a couple of things.

First, I have seen/heard of many other MMORPGs and have never partaken. I have a very hard time paying $50 for the privilege to pay $15/month, thus, I have passed on the plethora of priors. Guild Wars is free after the initial game purchase of $50. They plan to sell the additional expansion paks to have a constant source of income to maintain the servers. I’m fine with that, because I can expand if I want, and only if I want.

Second, this game is engineered from the ground up to be team-centric. Not having played any of the others and only seeing a few of them played, I’m sure that many folks would argue that Everquest is very team based. That’s fine, but please refer to the First section above for the reason that Everquest is out of the running. Team play is critical for me because I get really bored really quickly with single player only games.

Finally, the combinations of player types and mission skills are almost infinite. What do I mean by this? Well, You can have a single player type (Elementalist, Mesmer, Monk, Necromance, Ranger, Warrior), or a dual type, which is 6² combinations, or 36 different options of player type alone. That gives you access to a set of powers for the classes you pick. Then, when going into battle, you can only choose a max of 8 powers to have “equipped” at any given time. You can change those powers prior to leaving for a quest, but once on the quest, you are bound by the pre-selected powers.

Basically, this means that two people with the exact same player types, and the exact same pool of powers to choose from, can pick their 8 powers in ways so vastly different that they are two wholly different characters. Two people might be warrior monks, but if one chooses powers good for healing and regeneration, the other could choose powers that make him/her a more attack-centric player.

This, of course, brings us back to the team idea. Clearly, communication is very important prior to leaving for the mission in order to maximize the overall effectiveness of the team as a whole.

From what I’ve heard from other MMORPG players, this aspect is new and different. Turns out, this is one of the aspects that I find most appealing.

Anyway, I joined a guild with a bunch of guys that my buddy Mark knows from another MMORPG, City of Heroes. If you ever get online in Guild Wars, add Mister Wizard to your Friends list, and we’ll meet up and teach those enemies a lesson.

[sigh]

Raising dork flag…..slowly…..

-Chris