I’ve had some time with the new expansion pack to Guild Wars, and here are a few things I’ve noticed:
Monster and Henchmen AI has been significantly improved. Monsters will not run headlong into death, and henchmen actually display defensive capabilities. Nothing surpasses travelling or fighting against a human player, but considering that vast amounts of skills available to players, that’s not surprising.
The “hero” system really should be limited to one hero per character. Having to manage five other characters just makes things obnoxiously complicated. Finding other characters was hard enough already, but now people are even less likely to try to work together now that everyone travels in pre-packaged groups of four.
It really bothers me that all the armor now starts out grey. Sad rain clouds are grey. Go back to templates with color.
The Dervish class has been made for people who want builds that focus on chaining most of their skills together. Since this character relies so heavily on enchantments, an opposing build with enchantment removal can easily subdue a Dervish. Few skills are useful by themselves, and even activating spells in the wrong order leads to failure. It’s good for a challenge, but not when you have to tediously level through the same areas time and again (stupid heroes.)
Basically, I’m not sure yet what Nightfall really adds to the Guild Wars universe. It almost feels like an unnecessary addition, especially considering the scope of the original and the first expansion pack. I still haven’t even been able to fully investigate those properties yet, and I’ve spent a lot of time with them. Hopefully, the goal of Nightfall will become apparent in the second half of the game.
-mlbradley
durden26@comcast.net