History VideoGame / GuildWars

** Many players have had fun naming characters stuff like CarmenSandiego names.

** ''VideoGame/GuildWars2'' plays with this, since the max level is 80 (just like ''WorldOfWarcraft : Wrath Of The Lich King'' at the time the decision was made), but is not a major part of how the game works. [[PlayerVersusPLayer PvP]] scales the levels of all players and unlocks all skills, for instance. And then there's the fact that each level requires approximately the same amount of time.

** The [[http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/The_Norn_Fighting_Tournament Norn Fighting Tournament]] is packed with references to various fighting games (right up to the final opponent, [[StreetFighter Magni the Bison]]), as well as in-game references

** Some players take the view that certain female Mesmer outfits, with their short skirts and thigh-length boots, are also examples of this trope. The "Elite Enchanter" female mesmer outfit, for example, looks much more like something one would wear in the bedroom than on the battlefield. The female version of the Krytan set has an [[TheisTitallationTheory open jacket over a sheer top]], the jacket seems to stay in place with [[MagicSkirt magic]].

** The 'War In Kryta' update added a character called Courier Falken who fights using brawling moves, including a unique move called [[VideoGame/{{F-Zero}} Falken Punch]]. And sometimes he sings this funny song: ''[[SpiderMan Delivery man, delivery man, does whatever a courier can. Transports packages, any size. Brushes off Mantle, just like flies. Oh yeah, here comes the delivery man.]]''

* ScamRelgion: The White Mantle. While they seem to be good at first you find out they [[spoiler: practice HumanSacrifice]] and eventually you gain the ability to see their invisible "gods" who turn out to be [[spoiler: HumanoidAbominations called the mursaat]]

*** Elona is a reference to a genus of snail(what's even more interesting is that Guild Wars was not the first to use the snail's name as a ShoutOut but the game {{Elona}} also referenced the snail).

** Keiran's battle quotes are more reference-heavy than most, with a peculiar lean toward mecha anime (with some VideoGame/{{Fallout}} and MetalWolfChaos thrown in).

* WingedHumanoid: [[spoiler:The Mursaat]], who don't actually use them, and just levitate around instead. Paragon spell animations also feature wings heavily, and promotional art of the class typically displays very real and very solid-looking wings.
** Also the harpies and at least one variety of Margonite

* WorldBuilding: Done surprisingly well, creating three continents with their own history, culture and mythology.
** And one of those continents is even connected to Tyria. [[TheDevTeamThinksOfEverything And if you have Prophecies, you can actually walk into Tyria's Crystal Desert through Elona]].

* WorldWreckingWave

* YouMeanXmas: Wintersday, which features a battle between Dwayna, goddess of life and Grenth, god of death, in the form of a SnowballFight. And Grenth's minions are very much Dr. Seuss/Grinch inspired.
** And the whole purpose of the Dwayna vs. Grenth battle is inspired by, of all things, Groundhog Day. (No, not [[Film/GroundhogDay that one]].)

* BadassNormal: In the game you have mages, necromancers, illusionists, spirit-callers, divine conduits, scythe-wielding furies, shadow jumping assassins, priests of healing and smiting, hunters that can charm beasts and summon nature spirits, [[MyFriendsAndZoidberg and warriors]]. That last one is the only class in the game with no magic whatsoever. At all. [[{{Badass}} And they are awesome]]. Devona falls under this trope as well.

* EarlyBirdCameo: Two out of six Elder Dragons of ''GuildWars2'' show up in ''Eye Of The North'' in their resting state : Kralkatorrik can be found sleeping in Grothmar Wardowns, and Primordus is resting in the Great Destroyer's chamber [[TakenForGranite in the form of a giant statue]].

** In Factions, the Tengu (the avian race) and the Dredge (mole-like creatures, whom the player has previously encountered as slaves of the Stone Summit in Prophecies) have a hard time of it at the hands of the humans. As mentioned elsewhere on this page, the one quest where the player actually encounters a CorruptBureaucrat has to do with trying to improve conditions for Tengu refugees in Kaineng Center. And one of the side quests in Kurzick territory involves the player trying to get permission from the Kurzick lord for the Dredge refugees to settle in Kurzick lands. [[spoiler:It doesn't happen; Count zu Heltzer rejects the Dredge plea out of hand because most of the refugees have, frankly, been making thuggish nuisances of themselves - they show up as enemies that the player has to kill in most Kurzick areas. And by the time of GuildWars2, the Dredge, who were, with the aforementioned exception, neutral or friendly toward the player character in the days of the first game, have turned completely hostile.]]

** YMMV, though, if you think through the implications of the lore that forms the backstory of GuildWars2. It's strongly implied that the events of the first game, especially the war between the humans and the Charr, were engineered by the Five Gods for inscrutable reasons. In particular, it's hard not to be disturbed by the revelation that [[spoiler:the Charr were there first, and the humans, essentially at the behest of the gods, took away their lands and drove them into the north, sparking the long series of wars that eventually led to the destruction of two of the three main human nations on the continent of Tyria and the reduction of humanity as a sovereign entity to basically one huge city-state.]]

** The six primordial dragons of ''GuildWars2'' are either sealed or just hibernating, then get turned loose into the world sometime after the end of ''Guild Wars''. Two of them can be seen now, with one entombed in the wall of the Great Destroyer's cavern and another making up the large ridge between two regions.

* OldSaveBonus: The Hall of Monuments in the Eye of the North records your titles, trophies, elite weapons and armor, and favored companions. Your ''Guild Wars 2'' characters, [[AfterTheEnd centuries in the future]], will inherit bonuses and benefits based on the contents of your Hall, though Arenanet insists these will mostly be tangible {{Bragging Rights Reward}}s instead of unfair game-breakers.
** As of October 2010, the beta version of the "Hall of Monuments Reward Calculator" is now available at the Guild Wars 2 website. As promised, the bonuses awarded to players with a stated number of points (up to 30 of 50 so far, though it's possible more "tangible" rewards may be added later - from 30 to 50 points, it's strictly titles) are goodies of various kinds, some of which, judging by the reaction on various discussion forums, players have been waiting/hoping for for a long time. The reaction to the new schedule of rewards has so far been overwhelmingly positive, though it did spark a major run on crafting materials, miniature pets and other such items by players anxious to fill up their Halls of Monuments (even though Guild Wars 2 is, at this writing, likely to come out somewhere in 2012).

* PlotlineDeath: In addition to less important characters, one major death occurred in each campaign, namely [[spoiler:Prince Rurik, Togo, Kormir, and Gadd]].

* RapePillageAndBurn: The Charr culture, in a nutshell. Although when it comes to their treatment of humans, there's a lot less Rape and a lot more Eat.

** Part of the reason was that they assumed most people playing Factions would have already played through prophecies first; however plenty of people joined around Factions, in part because it practically skyrockets you to 20 as fast as possible. So unfortunately, a lot of people who didn't know common strategies were stuck at Vizunah Square, which was designed for 20s. (And even then, it was fully possible to reach it at level 12.) Vizunah was thankfully nerfed, although Tahnhakai Temple still remained a newbie trap, but by then there's virtually no way to reach Tahnhakai and ''not'' be level 20.

** The response to the new Engineer profession has been mixed because of this. While the steam-punk feel of some skills will match reasonably with the aesthetics of the Charr, not everyone is convinced that modern-style grenades, land mines with blinking red lights, and automated turrets will mesh particularly well with the human or sylvari art style.

** The five primordial dragons of ''GuildWars2'' are either sealed or just hibernating, then get turned loose into the world sometime after the end of ''Guild Wars''. Two of them can be seen now, with one entombed in the wall of the Great Destroyer's cavern and another making up the large ridge between two regions.

* SequelHook: Palawa Joko in Nightfall, the [[spoiler:colossal hibernating dragon that opens its' eye]] in the Eye of the North ending cinematic.

* SpotlightStealingSquad: In ''Prophecies'' the player is, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero for better or for worse]], the driving force of the plot. In ''Factions'', you could take out the player, leave Togo and Mhenlo as the protagonists and put in a few {{Red Shirt}}s that [[EscortMission help them get from one plot-critical action to the next]], and you'd have trouble spotting the difference. ''Nightfall'' and ''Eye of the North'' fix this by having most significant {{NPC}}s be the Heroes that take orders from the player. Exactly how big the role of Destiny's Edge will be in ''Guild Wars 2'' remains to be seen, but as of now a lot of the information on the story (including an entire novel) has focussed on this group of {{NPC}}s.
** From what has been revealed of the game to date during public betas, the Destiny's Edge NPC's are the player character's key interlocutors throughout the character's "personal story" (a personalized storyline which the player sets up when creating a character) and will fight alongside the player character in quests related to this storyline. It's widely speculated that one of the player's primary missions will be to re-unite the Destiny's Edge members, following their breakup chronicled in the aforementioned novel.

* TeamSwitzerland: For the most part in the storyline, this is the role of Vabbi. After the princes of Vabbi are rallied, this role is taken by Palawa Joko's undead army who acts as their own faction and only really teams up with the player and the sunspears because Varesh is in his way.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: ''Guild Wars Utopia'', a planned fourth campaign with an Aztec theme. Eventually canceled in favor of doing an entire sequel, since Arena.net found themselves so limited by the current game. Instead, they put out Eye of the North, a smaller expansion that presumably reused some of the assets, like the Mesoamerican stuff in the Asuran areas and the Silver Eagle armor.

** Also due to the account-based nature of Guild Wars 2 rewards referred to above, since a player will only need to obtain one of each of a certain kind of weapon or set of armor per account to accrue the reward point on his/her account.

** In GW2 auto-attack doesn't exist anymore, but you can order your character to use a skill repeatedly. And you usually have a skill that will act similarly to a basic attack.

* TheChosenMany: The White Mantle hunts these down and [[spoiler: sacrifices them on the Bloodstone, so that the prophecy describing the downfall of their gods, the Mursaat, won't come to pass]]. It's revealed that [[spoiler: The ''player characters'' are Chosen, and heavily implied that it ''any'' of the Chosen can fulfill the fireseeker prophecies, not just a specific one.]]

** The Shamans, too, ([[spoiler: with the Titans and then the Destroyers. Not to mention their treatment of Charr women, which eventually comes back to bite them in the ass. If the lore recounted in the published novel is an accurate indication, the Shaman caste is now at the bottom of the Charr social pecking order because of their long history of abuse of power]]).
*** It is, by ''VideoGame/GuildWars2'', [[spoiler:The Flame Legion still respects them, but the other three Legions don't exactly like or trust the Flame Legion, and basically regard Shamans as [[EvilSorcerer evil sorcerers]]]].
* CrapsackWorld: In the Tyrian continent of the first campaign, [[{{Arcadia}} Ascalon]] is [[spoiler: burnt to a crisp wasteland]], the Dwarf Kingdom is in being destroyed from within by civil war with the AlwaysChaoticEvil Stone Summit, Kryta is taken over by the [[ChurchMilitant White Mantle]] who [[spoiler: use human sacrifice and worship [[SufficientlyAdvancedAliens the Mursaat]] ]], and the Kingdom of Orr was completely obliterated off-camera [[spoiler: by Grand Vizier Khiliborn (otherwise known as [[BigBad the Lich Lord]])]]. Cantha (outside of Kainen City, at least) and Elona tone this back to more reasonable levels.
** Judging by what's been released about the storyline of Guild Wars 2, the ENTIRE place will pretty much be a CrapsackWorld after the rise of the [[spoiler: Ancient Dragons.]]
*** A similar kind of SceneryPorn as in [[spoiler:the ruins of Ascalon from the first Guild Wars]] is the Dragonbrand region in GW2, corrupted because [[spoiler:one of the Ancient Dragons ''flew over it''.]] Now those guys are badass.

** She is one of the first/oldest servants of the Old Gods however, so maybe there is a bit of the Jesus thing involved.

** Ritualists as well. Ritualists cast spells by binding angry spirits with ethereal chains or channeling the raw ''anger'' of dead souls, but much like Necromancers, can be perfectly heroic people. Heck, Master Togo is a Ritualist, and he's arguably the nicest guy in the entire ''Factions'' campaign!

** Interestingly, there is no similar dialogue when bringing in other non-human heroes along. I found it interesting when I brought Zhed and M.O.X. on that mission.
*** this is because all the other non-human henchmen a) where introduced AFTER nightfall came out and b) would not exactly fit with the chewie joke.

* EarlyBirdCameo: Two out of five Elder Dragons of ''GuildWars2'' show up in ''Eye Of The North'' in their resting state : Kralkatorrik can be found sleeping in Grothmar Wardowns, and Primordus is resting in the Great Destroyer's chamber [[TakenForGranite in the form of a giant statue]].

* ElementalRockPaperScissors: Partial subversion. While the classic four of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water exist as the types of elemental magic, they don't oppose each other or imply weakness. Instead, they vary in their styles: Air focuses on one target, fire hits areas, earth is defensive, and water focusses on disrupting and slowing down enemies.

** Escortees are definitely NOT competent. Well, it might be escorters. Also, you get to escort LeeroyJenkins' embodiment (Kilroy Stonekin) with all the expected difficulty (though you do get an Über-buff from him in return).

* EvilOverlord: Palawa Joko sheds his AntiVillain facade in ''Guild Wars 2'' diverting an entire river to establish a new kingdom in the Crystal Desert (while wrecking much of Elona), and usurps the once-heroic Sunspears to be his personal stormtroopers.

** The charr continue to use the power of the Titans (and eventually [[spoiler:win in completely wiping out your country]] by the time of Guild Wars 2, and the War in Kryta events prove that neither the White Mantle nor the Mursaat were ultimately destroyed in Kryta. Even the Scepter of Orr, a MacGuffin early in Prophecies that was scooped up by the villain by the end, ends up conveniently back in the Shining Blade's hands in ''Eye of the North'''s epilogue. In other words, the two main plot lines in Prophecies: Ascalon being under attack and the White Mantle's evil are not advanced ''at all'' by the actual campaign. The only thing you do is defeat the Lich, who officially reveals himself literally for the last level and has no direct connection to any of the other major events, aside from an off-screen destruction of a country, and even his defeat almost doesn't carry story momentum, as he attempts to [[spoiler:do virtually the same thing again in ''Nightfall'', this time from the underworld]].

** In the Nightfall campaign, the mission ''Consulate Docks'' has you sail from the large island of Istan to mainland Ehlona's Kourna region

** We are led to believe that every god has gone through this, what with several "predecessors" being mentioned, the fact that we know they are not the first pantheon having existed, and the fact that they are younger than the Elder Dragons, and presumably, event the giants that are mentioned in the lore.

** ''Guild Wars 2'' will be similar, limiting [=PvP=] to specific areas and events. Outdoor explorable areas will no longer be instanced though, so a degree of kill- and loot-stealing by passing strangers might be possible.
*** Loot will probably be protected, if the current practice of "assigning" loot to a person on drop holds. Kill-stealing (and perhaps, kill-stealing to get drops) might be a problem.
*** According to Anet, they're attempting to solve the kill/loot-stealing issue by a very simple decision- ''all'' enemies give ''full'' exp and drops to ''all'' players who contribute to the kill. If they can pull it off, it could spell the beginning of the end of [[{{Griefer}} being an asshole to people you've never met for lulz.]]
*** And apparently you can't kill other player characters outside PvP areas anyway.

* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler:Prince Rurik, while holding off the enemy forces while the player(s) lead the Ascalonian refugees through the Frost Gate.]] We all are very grateful that it happened. Luckily, he is NotQuiteDead and we get to [[spoiler:kill him again ourselves.]]
** And back when there was only the first campaign [[spoiler:you also had the opportunity of capturing his not-too-bad (at the time) elite skill.]]
*** That elite skill, Hundred Blades, is once again considered a highly desirable one by Warriors and other players who use Warrior skills. Especially for farming.

* HumansAreWhite: Averted. The player can choose from a lot of skin tones, but will tend toward colors and features appropriate for the setting - European for ''Prophecies'', Asian for ''Factions'', and African for ''Nightfall'' (where even white [=PCs=] look quite Mediterranean). The different regions in each campaign have noticably different dominant skin tones, with only the Ascalons of Tyria being typically white. (Everyone else around Kryta seemed South American or African) The dwarves and norn, however, are all pretty uniformly white, but are also confined to one small geographic area (corresponding to the Alpine and Scandinavian regions of Europe).

** Guild Wars 2, however, will include a 'Z-axis' which will allow characters to jump over obstacles and the like.

** Based on comments by Asura other than Zinn and Blimm, this was somewhat tame for the Asuran. Zinn made the mistake of thinking the court was about truth, while the real purpose was political manuevaring and strategic bribing.

->[[spoiler: '''Xan Hei:'''How naive can you be? Evil exists in this world; we're fighting to end it! If people misunderstand what I must do to make the world better, then so be it. I knew from the start that I didn't belong in the world I was helping to create.]]

* LevelGrinding: Averted. In all three campaigns, one reaches the level cap of 20 rather quickly. This might be changed in ''Guild Wars 2'', though.

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Most of Prophecies is spent undoing your own actions ([[spoiler: save the Scepter of Orr from undead, give it to the Mantle, steal it from the Mantle, give it to the BigBad (who's in charge of the undead), release the Titans unknowingly, who destroy the Mursaat that have actually been keeping the Titans under control, then kill the BigBad and seal the Titans back up]])

** The only ''Guild Wars'' campaign in which this trope doesn't play a part is Factions. [[spoiler: Some players might argue that Togo's death at the hands of Shiro, thus enabling the Betrayer to regain his mortal body, is an example, but this is debatable, seeing that Togo was defending his half-brother, the Emperor, from being assassinated by Shiro; it's quite possible that had Shiro succeeded in murdering Emperor Kisu, the power he'd have gained would have made him truly invincible.]]

** Honestly, Tyria probably would have been a better place had the heroes not existed.
*** Letting the Charr annihilate Ascalon completely, the White Mantle and Varesh win would have been a better outcome??

** Achievements and titles in ''Guild Wars 2'' will be account wide, which should make things a lot easier for players with multiple alts.

** ''VideoGame/GuildWars2'' plays with this, since the max level is 80 (just like ''WorldOfWarcraft : Wrath Of The Lich King'' at the time the decision was made), but apparently it still won't be the major part of how the game works. [[PlayerVersusPLayer PvP]] will apparently scale the levels of the players, for instance. And then there's all the talk about the fact that "each level will require approximately the same time".

*** The new, web-based "Hall of Monuments rewards calculator" demonstrates the account-based nature of ''Guild Wars 2'' rewards in dramatic fashion (and, by the way, sparked a frenzy of buying and selling in-game as players scrambled to obtain items like crafting materials and miniature pets to put in their Hall of Monuments to boost their scores).

** But in Guild Wars 2 he [[NotSoHarmlessVillain becomes a true villain]], conquering Elona by taking out their water supplies thanks to a dam on the Elon River.

** [[spoiler:In-game lore for the upcoming Guild Wars 2 indicates that, after Palawa Joko overruns most of continental Elona and wrecks the Sunspears, the Order of Whispers will be the main organization resisting his tyranny.]]
*** [[spoiler:And they are apparently one of the factions you can join !]]

'''[[BoisterousBruiser Koss]]:''' No, there are '''three''' of us [[note]](the PC, [[TheObiWan Kormir]] and himself)[[/note]], and only '''two''' corsair ships. We outnumber them!

** One joke quest has you traveling back in time to the titular Guild Wars in order to [[{{Terminator}} stop a golem from killing Gwen's mother]].

** Some shout examples: [[Music/MCHammer "Can't Touch This!"]] [[Franchise/MortalKombat "Finish Him!"]] [[Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail "It's Just A Flesh Wound,"]] [[VideoGame/ZeroWing "Make Your Time!" "For Great Justice!"]] [[CaptainPlanet "The Power Is Yours!"]] [[Film/GalaxyQuest "Never Give Up!" "Never Surrender!"]] [[Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail "None Shall Pass!"]] and Kilroy Stonekin has a shout of his own called, well... [[LeeroyJenkins "Kilroy Stonekin!"]]

'''''Guild Wars''''' is an MMO produced by [=ArenaNet=], a splinter group formed off of Creator/BlizzardEntertainment, and published by the Korean [=MMO=] giant Creator/NCSoft. It has been both lauded and criticized for its notable and unique business plan, which is quite simple: It's an MMO that requires no monthly fee. Part of the reason is due to instancing, and part due to design. Anet has said (to paraphrase) that it's not aiming to be a ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' killer, but that it's happy being its own niche. Indeed, ''Guild Wars'' was largely an experiment to see if this business model could even succeed in the first place, which it undeniably has.

** The [[http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Kind_Of_A_Big_Deal most prestigious titles]] are all references to {{Anchorman}}. My Guild Hall does smell like rich mahogany.

** Many character names. The Kurzick elite armor crafter in ''Factions'' is named [[EVideogame/arthBound Giygas]], an Asuran named [[WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender Sokka]] is a warrior and tinkerer, another couple of Asurans named [[Film/{{Aliens}} Hicks and Vask]] accompany you when burning out a bug nest, and there's an Inquisitor [[Series/TwentyFour Bauer]] who's very enthusiastic about torture. And that's just for starters.

** Some shout examples: [[HammerMan "Can't Touch This!"]] [[Franchise/MortalKombat "Finish Him!"]] [[Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail "It's Just A Flesh Wound,"]] [[VideoGame/ZeroWing "Make Your Time!" "For Great Justice!"]] [[CaptainPlanet "The Power Is Yours!"]] [[Film/GalaxyQuest "Never Give Up!" "Never Surrender!"]] [[Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail "None Shall Pass!"]] and Kilroy Stonekin has a shout of his own called, well... [[LeeroyJenkins "Kilroy Stonekin!"]]