Guild Wars Q&A
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Q: And how is the game being adjusted to accommodate players of different skill levels and play schedules? Is Guild Wars being developed to appeal to hardcore fans who will carefully puzzle out ideal combinations of different skills to make killer characters and war parties? And how will Guild Wars be enjoyable for casual fans who don't have many hours a week to devote to trying out different skill sets? Will they just log in and be destroyed online by veteran players?
A: In guild-versus-guild play, your guild is ranked based on past performance, and it will be matched up with guilds of a similar rank. In tournament play, due to the elimination structure, teams are also matched against teams of similar skill. Because Guild Wars is a skill-based game (that is, we reward skillful and creative play rather than hours played), players of varying levels can team up and have fun completing missions together. No matter how new you are to Guild Wars, you are never "useless." Some players may be more skillful from day one, but they will tend to play against players of a similar type. We'll match casual versus casual and veteran versus veteran. This is one of the reasons we include casual gaming arenas. Hardcore players tend to specialize and count on their buddies to cover them, while casual players tend to want to be more self-sufficient. In the casual player-versus-player arenas, you get paired with other players at random, so experienced players cannot choose their teammates. That equalizes the field quite a bit.
Skill selection and preparation play important roles in success. Also, a balanced team will always be more successful. Specific strategies, such as sacrificing health in exchange for massive damage to the enemy, are more easily countered than strategies that use a diverse range of skills. If we do our jobs, there will be no "killer" strategy; every winning strategy that players discover should have a counterstrategy that emerges just as quickly.
