Interested in winning money for playing the best fantasy-genre team PvP game ever?

[Zuranthium]

Hi there. If you love fantasy-genre MMOs, and specifically love combat and PvP, then you should most definitely be playing Guild Wars 1. The level of strategy and teamwork, and potential for unique character selection, surpasses that of any other MMO. You get diverse, yet defined roles in this game that people love (unlike Guild Wars 2, with it's lack of healers), and the possibilities for individual character templates and overall team composition are almost endless.

The highest form of PvP in Guild Wars 1 is Guild vs Guild battles, which places 8 players against 8 other players on the battle field (each team has a base on opposing sides of the map). Matches run for 28 minutes and the eventual goal is to kill the other team's Guild Lord inside their base.

Every month, on the 3rd Saturday of the month, there is a world-wide Guild vs Guild (GvG) tournament. The winning guild of the tournament receives $2,000. Details can be seen here - http://teamquitter.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=32589

Because Guild Wars does have a rather high learning curve, I (and some others) will personally help mentor people who'd like to start up. My entire goal with this is just to simply re-grow the community of Guild Wars 1, and get a broader (and deeper) amount of competition going. For the love of the game!

[Zuranthium]

Relevant documentary about the most high-profile Guild Wars tournament from years ago - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdJM0xsbHhs

[a_gnoll_pup]

daoc called, they want their best fantasy genre pvp title back

[Zuranthium]

daoc isn't nearly as good. Great for it's time, though.

[runlvlzero]

I would try DAoC again if I had a time machine.

[Bardalicious]

would play if I could ever remember GW1 login info lul

[Handpartytowel]

gw1 was great. i had a blast playing a ranger and then a cleric. gw2 was fucking awful.

[Kevynne]

What is guild wars

[Zuranthium]

Here's what the teams for a typical Guild vs Guild match look like:

http://www.gw-memorial.net/builds/mAT/2013/March/997/

2 frontline (Warrior or Dervish)
3 midline (Elementalist / Mesmer / Ranger / Necromancer / Paragon)
2 backline (Monk)
1 flagrunner (usually Ritualist)

*Frontliners do the highest damage, so they are often the main source of kill threat in a build.

*The midline provides all manner of possible abilities: damage assist, disruption, shutdown, enchantment removal, supportive defense, movement control.

*The backline, your Monks, provide protection abilities, healing, and condition and hex removal.

*Then you usually have one person in a build who is planned to run flag, which starts out in your base and needs to be brought out to the middle of the map and placed in the flagstand. Every 2 minutes that your team controls the flagstand, without the other team replacing it, you get a boost. Once your flag has been replaced, you need to go run a new one from your base, if you want to be able to boost. Flagrunners are usually Ritualists because they provide good defense that synergizes with Monks, which makes them ideal for both large fights and also defending your team's base on their own.

A "typical" GvG match has all 8 players going to fight at the center of the map, with each team's flagrunner going back to the base to get a flag as needed, and whoever wins the fight there pushes the other team back into their base and eventually kills the opposing Guild Lord.

However, it's also very common for teams to "split" characters off throughout the match, either to attack the enemy base or to go after someone running a flag. This is where the game gains an immense level of additional strategy. I've not yet mentioned the 10th class in the game, Assassins, because this character is usually used for splitting. Any character can split, and Assassins aren't even always specifically the best at it, but they are mostly used for that purpose.

Deaths in Guild Wars are usually extremely high consequence because characters only resurrect (with a penalty) every 2 minutes. Teams always bring addition resurrection abilities on in their team build, but these are limited and/or prone to be disrupted. Because of this constantly immense level of danger, the very flexible method of building all different kinds of characters and team setups, and the overwhelming necessity for teamwork and strategy, Guild Wars is by far the best live-action team PvP game ever.

[Zuranthium]

High-def recording of a GvG match, with good commentary:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpbmHx_2W8s

Might make it clearer what the gameplay is like.