Guild Wars Prophecies

Infobox VG| title = Guild Wars Prophecies


developer = ArenaNet
publisher = NCsoft
designer = Mike O'Brien
series = Guild Wars series
engine =
released = April 28, 2005
genre = MMORPG
modes = Multiplayer
ratings = ESRB: Teen (13+)
PEGI: 12+
Australia: M (15+)
platforms = Windows
media = CD (2) or Download (purchase of CD key online)
requirements = Intel Pentium III 800 MHz CPU, 256MB RAM, 2GB Hard disk space, 32MB Radeon 8500 or GeForce 3 Series GPU, internet connection, Windows 98/ME/2000/XP
homepage = [http://www.guildwars.com guildwars.com]
followed by = Guild Wars Factions and Guild Wars NightFall

"Guild Wars Prophecies" (April 2005), officially known as simply "Guild Wars", is the first "campaign" of the "Guild Wars" series of MMORPGs, developed by the Seattle-based ArenaNet game developer studio, a subsidiary of South Korean game publisher NCSoft. "Prophecies" introduced players to the world of "Guild Wars", known as "Tyria", and premiered several elements that are now known as "core" components of the "Guild Wars" games.

Like all "Guild Wars" campaigns, "Prophecies" contains a co-operative role-playing portion and a competitive Player versus Player (PvP) portion. Co-operative characters may be used in the competitive portion, or new PvP-specific characters may be created at maximum level and all skills unlocked to the accounts.

Gameplay

Professions

"Guild Wars Prophecies" introduced the six "core professions" of the game. These are:

; Warrior : A melee weapon-wielding character with a high armor level specializing in melee attacks. Unlike many MMOs where melee classes are often used as "tanks", the Warrior's specialty is offense, due to their primary attribute increasing the effectiveness of their attacks, with well-designed builds giving them the highest overall DPS in the game. Their energy management relies on "adrenal skills" which are skills that are charged up by attacking foes, rather than requiring energy to use. [ftp://ftp.guildwars.com/downloads/gwp-manual.pdf] ; Ranger : A bow-wielding character of high resilience specializing in ranged attacks, utility, and disruption. Also able to be accompanied by a pet.; Monk : A spellcasting profession specializing in defensive and healing arts. A key element to the monk lies in their Protection Prayers line, which eliminates the need for a typical MMO "tank." This allows high damage classes such as the Warrior and Dervish to properly unleash their full potential while they are backed by such Monks. [ftp://ftp.guildwars.com/downloads/gwp-manual.pdf] ; Elementalist : A spellcasting profession specializing in the four elements (Air, Earth, Fire, Water). Depending on the specialization and choosing of a particular element, this class may be offensive, defensive, or a combination of both.; Necromancer : A spellcasting profession specializing in corpse exploitation, hexes, life stealing, and summoning undead minions.; Mesmer : A spellcasting profession specializing in energy manipulation, illusion and trickery to punish adversaries for performing (or in some cases not performing) certain actions.All four of the campaign-specific non-core professions (Dervish, Assassin, etc.) can travel to Tyria via their port city, however these professions cannot be created in Tyria.

Co-operative missions

The main component of the co-operative story in "Prophecies" is told through a sequence of 25 storyline missions. Each mission consists of certain objectives that have to be fulfilled by a team of four to eight player characters and player-managed NPCs. The missions take place in a variety of settings: from the desolation of burned "Ascalon" to the snowy peaks of the "Shiverpeak Mountains", the lush forests of the "Maguuma Jungle", the unforgiving "Crystal Desert", and finally the hellish "Ring of Fire islands". See the plot below.

Player versus Player

"Prophecies" introduced the core competitive modes of "Guild Wars": the "Random Arenas" with randomly assigned teams, the "Team Arenas" for four-on-four team combat, a global continuously running tournament arena for teams of 8 called "Heroes' Ascent", and the ranked strategic "Guild Battles" mode. Initially the arenas were situated in the co-operative world, but they were subsequently removed to the separate "Battle Isles" designed solely for PvP combat, which is accessible from every campaign in the "Guild Wars" sequence. See "Guild Wars" for more information on these forms of PvP.

Story

Player characters begin the game in the fictional idyllic kingdom of "Ascalon", which serves as the tutorial content for new characters. The setting is friendly, with few aggressive monsters and a number of easily completed quests. New characters are introduced to the main protagonists of the multi-campaign "Guild Wars" story: the monk Mhenlo, the warrior Devona, the mage Cynn, the ranger Aidan, and the necromancer Eve. Player characters also interact with Prince Rurik (voiced by Robin Atkin Downes), the heir apparent of the kingdom. After completing a number of initial quests and selecting a primary and a secondary profession, the character is then inducted into the "Ascalon Vanguard", an elite force led by the prince himself who are fighting the armies of the Charr beasts who are planning an invasion of Ascalon. During the final quest in this tutorial world, the Charr complete a ritual to unleash a rain of fire and stone upon the world, breaching Ascalon's defensive "Great Wall", and reducing most of its cities to ruins. This in-game event, referred to as "the Searing", transports the characters into a post-apocalyptic world of constant strife, with no way of returning to the pre-Searing areas. The mechanic employed in the Searing is often cited by ArenaNet as a primary benefit of the instanced design of "Guild Wars", which allows world-changing and time-advancing stories to be told individually to player characters instead of requiring the game-world to be static and timeless.Fact|date=October 2007

In the post-Searing world, the initial portion of the non-tutorial plot sees the protagonists and player characters try to recover their footing against the Charr in the ruined kingdom of Ascalon. In a climactic event, Prince Rurik realizes the battle is lost, and beseeches the king to give the kingdom up and escape alive to the neighboring human kingdom of "Kryta". The stalwart King Adelbern—his father—sees no merit in Rurik's plea, and banishes the prince for daring to suggest abandoning his country. A few refugees, including the protagonists and player characters, follow the now-exiled Rurik to Kryta; during the trip, Rurik is trapped and slain by the "Stone Summit" dwarves, a xenophobic faction who seek to control the passes through the "Shiverpeak Mountains" and are waging war against the other human-allied "Deldrimor Dwarves".

The protagonists arrive in Kryta leaderless and attempt to set up a refugee settlement. Soon, they become involved in the war brimming between the "White Mantle" who govern Kryta and an army of undead who are laying waste to the Krytan countryside. During a sequence of missions, the players help the Mantle hold back the undead, for which they are rewarded by being allowed to participate in a "Choosing" ceremony. During the ceremony, it is revealed that the Mantle are actually murderers who worship obscure evil beings known as the "Mursaat" and use the souls of the slain "Chosen" villagers to power arcane magical devices. The protagonists quickly decide to put an end to the Mantle. This plot twist also introduces the leader of the undead and the main antagonist of the story, the "Lich Lord", who in life was the vizier Khilbron of the destroyed divine kingdom of "Orr". Unbeknowst to the protagonists, Khilbron is enacting an ancient prophecy, the "Flameseeker Prophecy" (from which the campaign derives its name), wherein the prophesied one obtains control of a race of demonic beings called the "titans" and becomes the ruler of Tyria. He is stymied by the Mursaat, who have sealed the portal between the titans and Tyria located in the volcano in the "Ring of Fire" islands. As both the players and Khilbron find themselves opposing the Mantle and their overlords, Khilbron appears to the players in a human form and conspires to use them as his pawns against the Mantle and the Mursaat.

The first step of Khilbron's plan involves the players journeying to the "Crystal Desert" to partake in the ritual of "Ascension" (as foretold in the prophecy). Ascension consists of a sequence of missions with various victory conditions that simulate the player versus player mode of the "Guild Wars" game, with NPCs instead of other players. One mission, for instance, requires the players to annihilate a number of other "teams" of NPCs in a simulation of deathmatch; another has them hold an altar against a siege, which is one of the victory conditions in the "Hall of Heroes" PvP game. The final ascension mission requires the player character to defeat its exact double, forcing players to choose their skills wisely and be mindful of their counter skills. These ascension missions are an obvious tutorial for the competitive "Heroes' Ascent" arena, which initially was accessible immediately after ascending. (This arena was later moved off the continent of Tyria in a prelude to the "Factions" release that consolidated all core PvP arenas in a separate location called the "Battle Isles".)

After ascension, the players have an audience with the ancient dragon Glint, the author of the Flameseeker Prophecy. She aids them in a sequence of missions against the Mantle and the Mursaat, leading eventually to the volcano where the titans are sealed. Still beguiled by Khilbron, the players storm the Mursaat stronghold built around the volcano and release the seals on the door to the titans. Khilbron then reveals himself as the evil "Lich Lord", takes command of the titans, and proceeds to attack the Tyrian capital cities. The players must defeat him in the final mission of the campaign before his titan army succeeds.

"Sorrow's Furnace"

Released half a year after the campaign, the free "Sorrow's Furnace" expansion returned players to the Shiverpeak mountains, specifically to the caverns underneath it. There, they participate in a sequence of quests with the final goal of defeating the "Iron forgeman", an immense automaton used by the Stone Summit dwarves to drive their war effort. Sorrow's Furnace introduced "unique items" to "Guild Wars": these are items of set stats dropped by bosses. This model was repeated and expanded in the following "Factions", "Nightfall" and "" releases.

"Gods' Realms"

"Prophecies" also introduced two high-end dungeons that have been present in every subsequent "Guild Wars" release: the "Fissure of Woe" and the "Underworld". These areas are accessible by the avatars of the in-game gods (for a small fee), and contains some of the most prestigious weapons and armor in the game series. It is, therefore, one of the most intensively farmed areas of the game.Fact|date=October 2007

Critical response

"Guild Wars Prophecies" has been well received by critics and players alike. In 2005, it won several prestigious awards including IGN's "Best PC RPG" [cite web
url=http://bestof.ign.com/2005/pc/7.html
title=The Best of 2005|work=RPG|publisher=IGN|date=December 2005
accessdate=2006-08-24] and GameSpy's "MMORPG of the Year" [cite web
url=http://goty.gamespy.com/2005/pc/index14.html
title=2005 Game of the Year|publisher=GameSpy
accessdate=2006-08-24] awards. In 2006 Computer Games Magazine listed "Prophecies" as #4 in their "Best Game" collection, giving it in addition the "Best MMO Debut" and "Best Technology" awards.Fact|date=February 2007 "Guild Wars" has been listed in every major "Editors' Choice" category in both print and online publications. As of August 2007; "Prophecies" and the two subsequent campaigns "Guild Wars Factions" and "Guild Wars Nightfall" have together sold more than 5 million copies. [cite web
url=http://www.gamespot.com/news/6163168.html
title=Guild Wars hits 3 million mark|publisher=GameSpot
accessdate=2006-12-28] While the lack of active subscriptions renders an exact comparison impossible, these new sale numbers would put the "Guild Wars" series as the second most popular MMORPG after World of Warcraft

Published criticism of "Prophecies" has centered around the following key elements. First, that the number and placement of creatures encountered in the PvE world can be overwhelming, especially since the party size and number of skills are both limited to eight.cite web
title = "Guild Wars"
publisher = IGN
author = Tom McNamara
url = http://pc.ign.com/articles/612/612079p1.html
date = 2005-05-11
accessdate = 2006-08-10] There is also a related problem of repetitiveness, as noted by IGN: "As fun as combat is, and as pretty as it looks, plowing your way through low-level mobs can and will get tiresome, since they don't give much (if any) experience points and will be dropping items that are virtually useless to you." This problem is lessened however by the fact that a player can freely and instantly teleport into any cities in the game their character has previously visited.

Secondly, several reviews (such as IGN's) have cited the lack of a sophisticated in-game trading system such as auction houses as exist in other MMORPGs, so the only way for players to sell items is to advertise on a trade channel that is shared by all players in the same map but may be muted by individual players. (This issue has been addressed to some extent with the recent addition of an in-game trading interface). IGN's review comments, additionally, that itemization in the game lacks variety because the only way to distinguish suits of armor is by dying them different colors.

Thirdly, both players and published reviews have commented on the unnatural coupling of cooperative and competitive matches, which require very different playing styles. At the game's release, PvP focused players were required to "unlock" their skills and items by playing through the cooperative game, even though a PvP player may have no interest in cooperative gaming. This issue, however, has been addressed by ArenaNet, firstly by introducing Balthazar Faction in June 2005 which enabled unlocking through playing PvPcite web
title = "Game Update Notes Archive: June 2005"
publisher = NCSoft
author = ArenaNet
url = http://www.guildwars.com/support/gameupdates/updatearchive-2005-06.php
date = 2005-06-30] and further in August 2006 by making skill unlocks for the individual professions of the Prophecies campaign available in the game's online store. Unlocks for the professions of the Factions and Nightfall campaigns are also now available.

= Editions = In addition to the standard edition, there are many other editions of "Guild Wars Prophecies" available on the market. All of them contain the basic Account Creation Code and Manuscript Book, as well as other added features listed below, ;Pre-order Edition : The Pre-order edition was a disc available for purchase as a stand alone short duration access, or obtained by pre-ordering the full version of the game. The key allowed the player to access the Guild Wars beta testing. Added to a full account the key gives the player access to a unique weapon or offhand customized for their account. ;Collector's Edition : The Collector's Edition was available for purchase at the games official release. The Collector's Edition comes with a Guild Wars branded Logitech headset, a free 3-month trial for Teamspeak's "SpeakEasy" service, the soundtrack by Jeremy Soule on an audio CD, "The Art of Guild Wars Book 1" and Divine Aura, a glowing light around the hands of a character when they use an emote. ;Special Edition : The Special Edition contains a (PvP) Skill Pack code which allows 7 regular skills, 1 elite skill, and 2 runes to be unlocked for the account from a Priest of Balthazar. The Special Edition also contains a special music-code to access in-game music from DirectSong.com, the Official Guild Wars Soundtrack CD, "The Art of Guild Wars Book 2" and a map of Tyria. ;Game of the Year Edition : The Game of the Year Edition contains the full version of Guild Wars Prophecies, and was released one year after the game's initial release. It contains an access key which unlocks seven exclusive weapons and accessories, each geared towards one of the six core professions. Each weapon has maximum damage stats according to its type, and each character created can get a customized copy of the weapons. This version was released as the "One Million Edition" in Europe and is also available as an upgrade to any earlier Prophecies editions via the online store. ;PvP Edition : This edition of Guild Wars is available for the three released campaigns, and is only available from the online store. This version has all of the skills and professions available in the respective version unlocked, but does not allow the player access to the PvE campaign and areas. The edition may be purchased as a stand-alone game, or may be added to an existing account.

;Guild Wars Platinum Edition : Guild Wars Platinum Edition is a bundle containing both the Prophecies campaign and the Eye of the North expansion. It was released with Eye of the North on August 31st, 2007.

Many of the earlier editions are marketed simply as "Guild Wars", which is how "Guild Wars Prophecies" was initially known.

References

External links

* [http://www.guildwars.com/ The official "Guild Wars" website]
* [http://wiki.guildwars.com/ The official "Guild Wars" Wiki]
* [http://guildwars.com/community/fansites/ ArenaNet's listing of recognized "Guild Wars" fansites]