Guild Wars differs from most other MMORPG's in several important ways. Firstly, it has a lower level cap, level 20 in fact. In addition, you pay only when you buy the game, not per month.
Fortunately, another difference is that this game runs in both Wine and Crossover Office.
Fortunately, another difference is that this game runs in both Wine and Crossover Office.
Guild Wars is not so different from other MMORPG's in that you will need to dedicate some time to progressing in it. You can play it for 2 hours per day and only make moderate progress through a single campaign. However as a game it is still less time consuming than Eve Online or WoW, one reason is the aforementioned level cap. A level cap that can even be reached in the "Pre-Searing" tutorial area. Generally, the level cap will be reached about half way through the first campaign. There being three campaigns at the moment with a fourth coming out, this means that you'll spend most of your time at maximum level.
After reaching the level cap the main difference between characters is in items, runes and skills. Runes being items that can be used to enhance other items with skills and stat bonuses. Skills are about what can be expected, they are bought independently, their power depending on the character's stats and can be switched around inside any town or outpost although only 8 may be allocated at any one time. These skills may be earned either through quests or bought with skill points and gold from trainers; it's also possible to draw normal or epic skills from boss enemies, this is the only way to get the truly powerful Epic skills. Experience also teaches that it's a good idea to research online for a good "Build" or character development path to use as making a new character and advancing past the tutorial can take 20 minutes alone if you rush. Although since stats can be reallocated at will, the only real concern is the possible builds with any classes.
Some good builds are listed on PvXWiki. Specifically in the Working>Great section on either side. In my experience, a really good build works in PvP and in PvE fairly well.
Another significant difference is that Guild Wars contains a central story ark for each Campaign. Theoretically you can play with your friends through a massive RPG and engage in the aforementioned "Guild Wars". In practice, unless you can get 8 friends together on demand, you will still need to rely on henchmen to get through some of the harder areas. As it happens, there is a party search function but almost no-one uses it. Even if you join a guild, it's unlikely that someone will be online and willing to adventure with you when you need them, that the guild will be strong enough to participate in inter-guild wars and if they are, that they'll be willing to take you as a member.
Graphics wise the game is fairly nice. They aren't super realistic models using lifelike graphics. However the models look nice and so do the spell effects. In addition, Bloom and Pixel Shaders are used to good effect, especially in the Pre-Searing Ascalon areas. The game also supports all the way down to DirectX 7, as well as operation without Pixel Shaders at all. While Crossover Office suggests using DirectX8, which operates perfectly, my personal experience is that there's a far superior result by playing it with the full DX9 and Pixel Shaders if possible. There are some graphical glitches, mainly the player's shadows and in drawing objects in the distance, however these are barely noticeable.
Running it in Crossover is fairly straightforward. The biggest problem is that the sound won't work without starting Guild Wars with the "-dsound" switch. If you start without the switch and have OSS or ALSA enabled in winecfg, the game crashes on a black screen. This is one of the main reasons why it's a good idea to run everything in a enclosed desktop window; things inevitably go wrong and you don't want them messing up your other open applications. However, beyond that almost everything works fine. Wine works equally well, however it does have a cursor bug that causes the mouse to display an incorrect icon.
Would I recommend this game for Linux users? Yes, it's pretty awesome, but only if you have the massive amount of free time needed to play it.
References
http://www.pvxwiki.com/wiki/Main_Page
After reaching the level cap the main difference between characters is in items, runes and skills. Runes being items that can be used to enhance other items with skills and stat bonuses. Skills are about what can be expected, they are bought independently, their power depending on the character's stats and can be switched around inside any town or outpost although only 8 may be allocated at any one time. These skills may be earned either through quests or bought with skill points and gold from trainers; it's also possible to draw normal or epic skills from boss enemies, this is the only way to get the truly powerful Epic skills. Experience also teaches that it's a good idea to research online for a good "Build" or character development path to use as making a new character and advancing past the tutorial can take 20 minutes alone if you rush. Although since stats can be reallocated at will, the only real concern is the possible builds with any classes.
Some good builds are listed on PvXWiki. Specifically in the Working>Great section on either side. In my experience, a really good build works in PvP and in PvE fairly well.
Another significant difference is that Guild Wars contains a central story ark for each Campaign. Theoretically you can play with your friends through a massive RPG and engage in the aforementioned "Guild Wars". In practice, unless you can get 8 friends together on demand, you will still need to rely on henchmen to get through some of the harder areas. As it happens, there is a party search function but almost no-one uses it. Even if you join a guild, it's unlikely that someone will be online and willing to adventure with you when you need them, that the guild will be strong enough to participate in inter-guild wars and if they are, that they'll be willing to take you as a member.
Graphics wise the game is fairly nice. They aren't super realistic models using lifelike graphics. However the models look nice and so do the spell effects. In addition, Bloom and Pixel Shaders are used to good effect, especially in the Pre-Searing Ascalon areas. The game also supports all the way down to DirectX 7, as well as operation without Pixel Shaders at all. While Crossover Office suggests using DirectX8, which operates perfectly, my personal experience is that there's a far superior result by playing it with the full DX9 and Pixel Shaders if possible. There are some graphical glitches, mainly the player's shadows and in drawing objects in the distance, however these are barely noticeable.
Running it in Crossover is fairly straightforward. The biggest problem is that the sound won't work without starting Guild Wars with the "-dsound" switch. If you start without the switch and have OSS or ALSA enabled in winecfg, the game crashes on a black screen. This is one of the main reasons why it's a good idea to run everything in a enclosed desktop window; things inevitably go wrong and you don't want them messing up your other open applications. However, beyond that almost everything works fine. Wine works equally well, however it does have a cursor bug that causes the mouse to display an incorrect icon.
Would I recommend this game for Linux users? Yes, it's pretty awesome, but only if you have the massive amount of free time needed to play it.
References
http://www.pvxwiki.com/wiki/Main_Page