This post is picture intensive
The Guild Wars Halloween Party
Computer games have come a long ways from the days where you hooked up a funny looking gadget to your TV set and played a black and white game resembling a cross between tennis and ping-pong. Games now involve complicated quests, long, dangerous journeys through vast lands and characters who are actually part of the story instead of just being set decoration. Of course there are simpler things like Bust-a-Move and Tetris, but even these are colorful and intricate, often with spiffy musical scores so that even when the game concept itself is fairly simple, the presentation is anything but.
Enter Guild Wars. This is a multi-player, role-playing adventure game and it is designed to be played on-line. You (alone or cooperatively with friends) choose a character - gender, appearance, hair color and build are all up to you with many variations to choose from. You also choose the type of role your character will fulfill (warrior, necromancer, mesmer, monk, ranger or elementalist) and you fulfill that role, acquiring skills and (often) spells to help you out along the way. You may also acquire a secondary role function which broadens your skill and spell base.
Essentially, the world of Tyria has suffered from a huge and hugely debilitating attack and much of it lies in ruin. Your job is to help set things to rights and perhaps discover where the attack came from and why Tyria was so targeted.
The feel is medieval; castles are made of stone, swords and trebuchets are used, as is magic. The artwork is nothing short of sensational. You can count the leaves on the trees and people and animals (and monsters - you knew there were monsters, didn’t you?) move in a smooth and realistic fashion.
This is all background. What I wanted to talk about is the decision of the game-makers to give the players (and there are over a million of them world-wide) a treat for Halloween. Myria and I observed this in a city called Lion’s Arch which lies on the coast. It’s a good sized city with enormous stone lions here and there throughout. There is a huge and beautiful fountain in the city center, lovely old-style ships at dock in the harbor and even a lighthouse, rotating its beacon for the safety of the ships.
On Halloween, all of this changed :)
Luna Sinister
Decorated Lion
Ghost Ship
Cauldron
An amusing aside to this is that if you elect to go on a mission out of Lion’s Arch you can choose members of the King’s Guard to accompany you and fight with you.
Moonwolf, King’s Guard and Playful Wolf Abbey
The site of the Candy-corn King’s Guard following you around and engaging in battle is incredibly goofy and entertaining :)
There is also a new music theme in Lion’s Arch with a dark and threatening edge to it.
All of this leads up to Halloween itself (the changes took place about two days prior) and the arrival of Mad King Thorn.
Mad King Thorn
This took place every three hours on Halloween - a nice way to handle it so that everyone in the world-wide community of Guild Wars players would have an opportunity to have their own encounter with the Mad King.
What’s so impressive about all this is that it shows that Arenanet (the creators of the game) is interested in their consumers beyond just getting them to spend the money for the game in the first place. None of this was done on the cheap and considerable time and effort went into creating the Halloween scenarios - a presumably temporary thing. This is totally new in on-line gaming and Arenanet has raised the bar considerably.
And I haven’t had this much fun on Halloween since I was 12!
No trackbacks yet.
the pics are outstanding!
i’m forever thinking ‘me too’ when you write about games- then i go and do something really fun and exciting like clean the shower- it sounds like you had a lively halloween without having to drag about in the weather-
stay happy-
Barb - It was a lot of fun - especially, I suppose, because I’d never seen anything like it before. And I admit to being curious about what’s in store for future holidays…
Glad you had such a lot of fun at Halloween. That game sounds fun and very addictive. I’m a Myst fan myself and that found that pretty compelling. I want to try the latest game, but know I’ll get addicted and spend hours on the computer. I like Doom 3 too, but always get knocked out by a common zombie.
Thanks for the tip about knitting backwards and congrats on keeping up such an attractive blog for the past two years.
Anne - We have played all the Myst games too. You’re term is exactly right - they are compelling - and we are looking forward to seeing what the last one’s like.
We play Guild Wars for a little while - but not a long stretch - most days. Well, except for trying to get to Lion’s Arch for Halloween. We slogged for about 8 hours to get there on time :)
Oh my goodness, how fun! Now I’m tempted to get a copy and start playing. I did a run with Runescape a while back (yeah, yeah...it was free and my boys liked watching me fish and chop down trees) and liked the concept quite a bit. Cause you know I need to spend *more* time online ;-)
Kathy - It is a lot of fun. Although this is not my usual preference in gaming, it is certainly a remarkable exception.
i remember those tennis ping pong games! things sure have changed!
Nat - I remember them too :) Everybody thought they were the rat’s behind. Who could have imagined what it all would lead to?!?
Even though gaming isn’t something I do you sure make it sound fun. I can always appreciate craftsmanship and someone’s enthusiasm in what they do. Those creators must be excellent.
Aarlene - This isn’t usually my kind of game either. Usually I’m a crossword puzzle and Jumble kind of girl. But Guild Wars is so pretty and so well done that even *I* can get something out of it :)
Oh, that’s a hoot! I’m intrigued by this Guild Wars now and will look it up.
Toni - Honestly, I’ve never seen anything like it. If any of your friends are into it, it’s better playing with at least one other real human (as opposed to AI sidekicks). Great fun :)
