Equipment Set Up
Anything one’s warrior is comfy with. A Sword is required.

Skills

1. Severe Artery:
Bleed ‘em from a real up close and personal, apply Gash immediately. Do feel free to cover any Conditions with Severe Artery.

2. Gash:
Make ‘em suffer! Only works if target is already Bleeding.

3. Final Thurst:
Shove this skill up their rear ends when their health is less than 50%, also best used as a finishing move, especially against softies (casters) when their health is down to 25% and they are already Bleeding and have a Deep Wound.

4. Rush:
Run after them, or run away from them.

5. Watchful Spirit:
Cover Mending with this. Quickly re-apply this when it gets removed.

6. Mending:
Use this straight away while waiting for the round to start off. Use Watchful Spirit when Energy has fully regenerated.

7. Signet of Removal:
Use this to remove all those nasty Hexes and annoying Conditions.

8. Resurrection Signet
Help team mates get back on their feet and join the fight.
________________________________________________________________________________

Damage Per Second (DPS)

Overall, the average Damage Per Second (DPS) is not really that impressive. However, the highest damage that one is able to dish out with Final Thrust is decent.
________________________________________________________________________________

Step by Step Guide to play a Removal Paladin:
1. Cast Mending upon oneself
2. Wait Energy to fully regenerate
3. Cast Watchful Spirit upon oneself
4. Engage softies, preferably a Monk
5. Severe Artery, followed by Gash, cover Gash with Severe Artery if possible
6. Keep Dash activated always
7. Remember to use Signet of Removal on Enchanted Team Mates who needs it
8. Execute target with Final Thrust when their Health is less than 25%
9. Switch targets if current target is Blocking
10. Be observant, switch to low Health targets, Final Thrust them if possible
________________________________________________________________________________

Advantages
Constant Health Regeneration:
Having both Mending and Watchful Spirit on means a +5 Health Regeneration unless either or both is removed by Enchant Removals.

Energy Free Hexes and Conditions Management:
Using Signet of Removal, one is able to remove One (1) Hex and One (1) Condition from oneself, or any other target allies, as long as the target is enchanted at the moment the Signet of Removal is used upon the target ally (or oneself).

High Spike Damage:
A well executed Final Thrust can really spike for a juicy amount of damage, often scoring up to 150+ damage per strike on softies (casters) who are on the run.

Disadvantages
Enchant Removals:
Signet of Removal does not work if one is not Enchanted. Without Mending and Watchful Spirit, the Removal Paladin is unable to heal oneself.

Blockers:
Nothing much could be accomplished here, focus one’s attention on another target, come back later to apply Bleeding when the Blocker is not Blocking.
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Deimos’s Daily Reads (DDR)
Do you like Spiderman? Do you like funny movies? BaseGuardian found this trailer of a funny movie titled – Superhero Movie and to be honest, I was LOL-ing the way while I watched it!

Are you a parent yet? Well, not me, I am too poor to afford to have kids at the moment. However, Mike is a parent and his latest article talks about information, opinions and the mindset of kids. The mind is a terrible thing to close, indeed.

Yesterday, I mentioned that Vickie’s Grandma was not doing so well. Today, I wish to express my condolences to her and her family for the passing of her Grandma. Rest in peace yo!

Somehow, this reminded myself of how old my doggies already are. Baby girl (a bitch, aka female doggie) is turning Twelve (12) years old this year, her sight is like almost 100% gone, always knocking her head into things while she walks around inside the house. She spends most of the time sleeping and I wonder what good this would do for her health, sometimes I saw her breathing very heavily and I wonder if she is suffering or something. I know that I will cry myself a river when she finally does passes away, just hope that it is not too soon.

Fancy web comics? Wanna author your own comic strips? Louie found and shared with us a useful site to accomplish that feat! Create your own comics with Comicqs online!

As a Firefox user myself for a very long time, I have gotten myself used to the auto filling password function of Firefox. However, I certainly did not know it could be maliciously exploited in the past, and very possibly in the future too! Michael Aulia shared with us a Firefox plugin – Firefox Secure Login Extension to combat this issue. I am so gonna install this plugin right away!

Deimos’s Thoughts (DT)
Personally, I believe that this is actually a very useful offensive as well as supportive build, as long as the opposing team does not carry any Enchant Removals, that is. However, folks tend to have a very negative impression towards a Warrior who uses Mending in PvP, especially Random Arenas. So I flash Signet of Removal before I use Mending, smart team mates would know why I use Mending then.

Deimos Asks (DA)
Does not hurt to ask a few questions myself I guess, so here goes:
1. Are you a PC Gamer? [DTA: Of course!]
2. Do you play Online Games? [DTA: Only play Guild Wars very sparingly nowadays]
3. Do you play Guild Wars? [DTA: Random Arenas 10 minutes fun!]
4. What do you think of this build? [DTA: It is my own build, so I think it is quite okay]
5. Are you looking forward to Guild Wars 2? [DTA: I know I am!]
Thank you for your time!

Template code
Skills – OgkkcRYa5emEQmZoQW8mvxsxvmAA
Equipment – Pk5RR/6nBlaGqnW9rQhXQ90YjXQDLziXQZRngXQDr5hXQbB

Equipment Set Up
Insignias – Full Scout Set
Runes – Superior Vigor, Minor Expertise, Minor Wilderness Survival, x2 Rune of Vitae
Weapon – Sundering Spear of Defense (Damage +15% while Health is above 50%)
Off Hand – Motivation Shield ([+30 Health] [Armor +10 vs. Piercing damage])

Skills

1. Barbed Spear:
Bleed ‘em from a distance, chuck Maiming Spear immediately. Also chuck this straight away after Stunning Strike-ed one’s hapless victim. Cover any Conditions with Barbed Spear.

2. Maiming Spear:
Make ‘em crawl! Target must be Bleeding though. Cover Crippled Condition with Barbed Spear.

3. Stunning Strike:
Mainly used to suppress casters. Quite hard to utilize when more than one condition removal exist in opposing team. Cover Dazed Contition with Barbed Spear.

4. Remedy Signet:
Irritating conditions, be gone! Be wary when there are interrupters around. Mesmer Hex Spell Ignorance will make one cry.

5. Troll Unguent:
Stay alive using this one. Three (3) seconds activation time is a lot, use wisely.

6. Apply Poison:
Make ‘em suffer! Keep this activated always.

7. Natural Stride:
Chase down fleeing mofos, flee away from nasty mofos or block attacking mofos. Note: Natural ends if one is Hexed or Enchanted while Natural Striding, but should one is already Hexed or Enchanted, one is able to activate Natural Stride, and it would not be ended, unless one is Hexed or Enchanted again.

8. Resurrection Signet
XXX is dead! Please rez XXX
___________________________________________________________________

Step by Step Guide to play a Noxious Chucker:
1. Apply Poison before battle, keep it up always
2. Pick a target, a caster
3. Inflict target with Poison
4. Chuck Barbed Spear when Adrenal fully charged
5. Immediately follow up with Maiming Spear
6. Cover target’s Bleeding and Crippled condition with Poison
7. Stunning Strike when it’s Adrenal is fully charged
8. Make sure target is Condition-ed before attempting Stunning Strike
9. Cover target’s Dazed with Poison
10. Natural Stride if need to flee, chase or block incoming attacks
________________________________________________________________________________

Strength
Caster Suppression:
Able to put a single caster out of commission once Daze is applied onto said target caster.

Health Degeneration:
Able to keep -7 Health Degeneration applied on a single target, or spread among a few nearby targets if performed properly.

Speedy Defense:
Able to move 33% faster and have a 50% to block incoming attacks, with a downtime of five (5) seconds if Natural Stride does not end prematurely.

Weakness
Hexes:
Totally unable to remove hexes by oneself. Approach a fellow Mesmer or Monk team.

Blockers:
Can’t do much against targets who loves to block. Switch targets.

Low Damage Per Second (DPS) Output:
Damage Per Second

The Noxious Chucker’s strength does not lie in high spiking damage, but relies more on the ability to keep a target at -7 Health Regeneration and casters suppression.
________________________________________________________________________________

Tested in
Random Arenas
YouTube Flash Videos

________________________________________________________________________________

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Deimos Asks
Any questions?

DANCE! BABE! DANCE! YEAH! That big chunk of Candy Cane sure looks yummy!
________________________________________________________________________________
Actung!

Big boxes of presents! If only I have gift boxes that huge in the physical realm… ________________________________________________________________________________
Mofo-king HUGE Christmas Tree!

Its Christmas babe! WOHOO! ITS THE SEASON TO BE JOLLY! WOOOOOOOOOOO!
________________________________________________________________________________
A blast from the past

Ah, the good old Tombs of the Primeval Kings, before Heroes Ascent was introduced. ________________________________________________________________________________

Its Christmas! Even for the PvP battlegrounds staging area TOPK! ________________________________________________________________________________

Beautiful lighting effects, aye?
________________________________________________________________________________

Magnificent night scenery, yo?

The above four (4) screenies contributed by fellow Guild Wars player Heavenly Heaven. ________________________________________________________________________________
Christmas Greetings by fellow Guild Wars players

Wintersday Greetings as well as a sexy screenie of a female Elementalist by mr_groovy
________________________________________________________________________________

Christmas Greetings and a screenie of a Guild Wars Santarina courtesy of GloryFox
________________________________________________________________________________
Christmas in the Blogsphere

=============== Blogging guide blogger Wayne Liew wrote some blogging tips and wishes all a Merry Christmas! =============== The King of Animes Screenies Kenny LJS posted a totally KAWAII screenie of an anime Santarina! =============== Fellow Gamer Dyna-Storm apologies for his absence in the Blogsphere and wishes everyone a Merry Christmas! ===============

Anime Lover Neko Kyou went all out and posted Ten (10) [It appears that he still has two (2) more days to go! GAMBATE YO!] Twelve (12) Days of Anime Christmas! Totally Awesome! Check out his postings:

12 Days of X’mas and the First Day
2nd Day of an Anime Christmas
3rd Day of an Anime Christmas
4th Day of an Anime Christmas
5th Day of an Anime Christmas
6th Day of an Anime Christmas
7th Day of an Anime Christmas
8th Day of an Anime Christmas
9th Day of an Anime Christmas
10th Day of an Anime Christmas
11th Day of an Anime Christmas
12th Day of an Anime Christmas

Primary school classmate Louise captured some Christmas screenies in her neighborhood. Them Aussies certainly know how to decorate up their houses for Christmas, real creative mofos!

Web Design guru Jayhan is going to celebrate Christmas with J-Pop and also blogs about spending Christmas with whom.

Young Cherry shares screenies of her nicely decorated Christmas Tree on her blog!

Fellow Kong Kitkat shares with us about how to make a reindeer from a computer carton!
Totally Jolly I say!

Fellow blogger Anthraxxxx boasts about how big his balls are!

Sean shares his Christmas gift exchange experience on his blog.

Edward posted up some hilarious Christmas related screenies for funs and laughter!

Generous Vickie personally hands out Christmas gifts to fellow bloggers!

Famous local blogger Kennysia complained about how suckage the “Christmas Tree” outside KL Pavilion is!

Japan based blogger Danny Choo wrote about Christmas in Ginza, Japan and shared many screenies too!

Totally real power blogger John Chow blogged about the Vandusen Garden Festival of Lights and shared with us some screenies and videos.

Pro Blogger Darren Rowse recommended fellow bloggers to get their blogs ready for Christmas and wonders what the bloggers have done for their blogs for Christmas.

======================================== Naughty Suanie posted up a rather hot screenie of a Santarina! Yeah! Babe! Yeah! ======================================== Kung Fu dude Shaolin Tiger wishes everyone a Merry Christmas as well as posted up a screenie of a huge toy soldier like thingie in some in door complex. ======================================== Humour blogger Vincent Chow bids everyone a Ho Ho Ho Merry Christmas! ======================================== yung finally posted up his Merry Yungmus Christmas Greeting. ======================================== Biologist blogger Pelfy Chen wishes all fellow bloggers friends Merry Christmas! ======================================== KL Food blogger Jason wishes all Merry Christmas and Happy New Year while sharing screenies of his nuffnang greeting card. ========================================

Fellow bloggers who have yet to post any Christmas related blog post entries:
kennyljs | yung | Wan Kong Yew | Brian | Droniac | mr jp | Paul Tan | Liew CF | vkeong

Concept
Some main points of proposed idea:
- Players’ Characters never ever need to abandon their starting Armor Set
- Upgrade Armor Set via various Armorers as Character progresses
- Able to modify Armor Set’s appearance and stats via various Armor Upgrades
- Armor Upgrades cost Players’ Characters’ various resources
(Say common crafting materials, rare crafting materials, gold etc)
- Requirement of special items for Unique Armor Sets Skins

Objective
The main purpose of this blog post entry is to deliver a open public message to ArenaNet, letting them know that there is a growing demand for this kind of feature to be implemented into their upcoming game – Guild Wars 2.

Origin
This idea was originated in the following topic of discussion:
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10071643

Different Alias
The name of the author of the thread “Tuoba Hturt Eht” is an alias I took up when I joined that forum community. Originally, I only wanted to be a forum lurker in that community but somehow, I managed to gather up some support (and objections from those who disagree) from the fellow members of the community there regarding the Smart Armor System that I proposed.

Deimos Requests
I – Deimos Tel`Arin, hereby humble request all fans of the Guild Wars series who are interested in this proposed armor idea for Guild Wars 2 to come forth into this blog entry and announce their interest, support and any possible feedback.

Your interest, support and feedback is greatly appreciated.

Source
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10071643
________________________________________________________________________________

Supporters
Deimos Tel`Arin

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Deimos wants to play
Right, enough writing for now. I haven’t played any PC Games for quite a while due to excessive time spent on maintaining this site. All work and no play makes Deimos a dangerous mofo, so I guess I better go and relief myself of my gaming addition now. Cheerio!

Da Skillz:
1. Barbed Spear:
Bleed the mofos from a far! Follow up with Maiming Spear. Also remember to chuck this straight away after you just Stunning Strike-ed your victim. Just use this to cover any Conditions since it only costs 3 strikes of Adrenal to activate.2. Maiming Spear:
Make the bleeding mofos crawl! Make sure target is Bleeding before you chuck this at ‘em. Chuck Barbed Spear to cover the Crippled Condition.

3. Stunning Strike:
Powerful against casting mofos! Say bye bye to spell casting! A bit useless if there are more than one caster with condition removal in the opposing team. Follow up with Barbed Spear to cover the Dazed Condition.

4. Flail:
Chuck ‘em faster, this is one of the main reasons why this build is a Warrior / Paragon and not a Paragon / Warrior instead.

5. Rush:
Break out Flail stance with this, use it to chase down fleeing mofos who has gotten out of your spear chucking range, or become a fleeing mofo yourself when the situation demands it. Also one of the main reasons why this build is a Warrior / Paragon and not a Paragon / Warrior.

6. Healing Signet:
Heal up yo! Do it in a safe place, as a lot of things can happen in two (2) seconds.

7. Remedy Signet:
Remove annoying Conditions.

8. Resurrection Signet
Team mate down! Team mate down! Rez plz!
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Strengths:
Stunning Striker:
Able to maintain Flail stance up always once you scored 5 spear chucks means that you would be chucking spears 33% faster always, which translates into charging up Stunning Strike faster for spamming the Dazed condition onto casters.

Fast Chucker:
Flail away babe! You are able to chuck spears 33% faster!
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Weaknesses:
Condition Removal Spammer:
There are more than one caster on the opposing team, and yes they have the ability to spam Condition Removers. In this case, trying to keep Dazed a caster is hard.

Hexes:
Same as the three (3) builds I introduced earlier:
http://ahkong.net/guild-wars-pvp-random-arenas-ranger-necromancer-degenerative-toucher/
http://ahkong.net/guild-wars-pvp-random-arenas-warrior-necromancer-grenth-warrior/
http://ahkong.net/guild-wars-pvp-random-arena-build-warrior-paragon-symbolic-axer/

Hexes sucks and we all know it aye? It sure feels like screaming “Medic!” or “Technician!” when playing Enemy Territory : Quake Wars yarrrrr. Find a fellow team mate with hex removal.

Damage Output:
Quite pathetic damage per second for a Warrior, hence this build is more of an offensive support mainly relying on Stunning Strike to shut down a caster, provided that there are no other casters with conditions removal nearby.

Screenies:

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1. Plague Touch:
Give ‘em a taste of their own medicine.

2. Vampiric Bite:
Your main form of damage and self healing.

3. Vampiric Touch:
Same as above, your main form of damage and self healing.

4. Life Siphon:
Suck ‘em dry and fill up yours!

5. Apply Poison:
Activate before engaging your foes, cover Bleeding with this.

6. Signet of Agony:
Get in touch range before you activate this, use Plague Touch to pass it to your target, cover Bleeding with Poison, you did activate Apply Poison earlier, right?

7. Escape:
Last for a whole eight (8) seconds and having a twelve (12) seconds recharge time, this means you can spam this skill almost forever unless you get Wild Blow-ed or Wild Throw-ed. With only a down time of four (4) seconds, thirty three percent (33%) faster movement speed than your touch victims means they are less likely to escape from your barrage of touches.

8. Resurrection Signet
Fellow team mates are no good to you if they remain dead, please resurrect them.
___________________________________________________________________

Step by Step Guide to play a Degenerative Toucher:
1. Activate Apply Poison before engaging in combat
2. Target their casters first, preferably a Monk or Ritualist
3. Chuck spear, inflict target with Poison
4. Hex target with Life Siphon
5. Chuck spear, keep Poison-ing target
6. Escape into touch range
7. Activate Signet of Agony
8. Pass Bleeding to target with Plague Touch
9. Chuck spear, target should have -10 Health Regeneration now
10. Spam Vampiric Bite and Vampiric Touch

If done properly and combined with focused firepower from your fellow team mates, target should be down unless the opposing have one (1) or more efficient healers.

Fort Aspenwood, Luxon:
Replace Resurrection Signet with Whirling Defense, once you get into the inner chambers the gate keepers are as good as dead.
___________________________________________________________________

Weakness:
Same as the two (2) builds I introduced earlier:
http://ahkong.net/guild-wars-pvp-random-arenas-warrior-necromancer-grenth-warrior/
http://ahkong.net/guild-wars-pvp-random-arena-build-warrior-paragon-symbolic-axer/

You have absolutely no way of removing hexes by yourself. So the drill is to approach a fellow Mesmer or Monk team mate as soon as possible (ASAP). This is after all, a team game, right?

___________________________________________________________________

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2. Severe Artery:
Bleed the mofos! Erm, I mean your opponents. Follow up with Gash.

3. Gash:
Opponent must be suffering from the Bleeding Condition before you can “Gash” him or her. Upon a successful hit your opponent would have two (2) Conditions! Bleeding + Deep Wound ftw!

4. Final Thrust:
Try to refrain from using this attack skill unless you feel like you would be able to kill your opponent in one hit with this. Say you are alone with your opponent, and he / she has like less than 25% health left, and he / she is a caster. Or if you have another team mate who can spike hard, then use it on those who have less than 50% health and coordinate accordingly with your team mate to finish him / her off.

5. Rush:
Try to always maintain this Stance, moving 25% faster means you can slice and dice up those running mofos. If you hit a running target, you will automatically score a critical hit.

6. Healing Signet:
Its Random Arenas, so it is best to rely on your own for some self healing. Try not to use this while under pressure, as you would probably be obliterated by all the combined fire power the opposing team focused on you. Instead, when you are heavy fire and your health is dropping fast, activate Rush if you can and flee away from the front lines. Find a safe spot and use that precious two (2) seconds to activate Healing Signet without getting yourself killed.

7. Grenth’s Balance:
Fun skill to mess around with, if the opposing team does not have heavy spikers, consider using this skill against opponents with most health, when your health is low. Try to avoid using this skill when your health is too low and there are heavy spikers on the opposing team.

8. Resurrection Signet
Rez your team mates!
___________________________________________________________________

Weakness:
Yeah, you can’t get rid of hexes. Sucks, aye? Try to flee towards a Mesmer or Monk team mate and pray hard that he / she can get rid of the hex(es) for you.

You can’t do much against those who constantly block your attacks too, and don’t fight inside wards against melees.
___________________________________________________________________

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Today, I am going to share my first Random Arena PvP builds here, i.e. builds that I made just for play in Random Arenas. Meet the Warrior / Paragon – Symbolic Axer!

________________________________________________________________________________

Runes, I just stuck on a Superior Axe Rune to my Head piece and used Minors for Strength and Tactics. Superior Absorption to the Chest piece for the -3 physical damage reduction it offers against attacks to the chest, and of course a Superior Vigor for that extra +50 Health, more Health is always good.

How to execute this build
This build is rather simple to execute, basically you will only be using 2 skills for damage – Symbolic Strike and Charging Strike. If you time it nicely, you can get 3 high damage attacks in one combo, quite deadly to unprotected casters.

Charging Strike has a recharge time of 5 seconds, and it last 8 seconds in this build. So activate Charging Strike when you think you will reach the target within 5 seconds, attack your target to activate the +32 damage to your target, follow up with Symbolic Strike for a delicious +60 damage attack with a 11% armor penetration from your Strength, then activate Charging Strike again for another +32 damage.

In order for this 3 hit combo to work, you must have Symbolic Strike ready, so this means you can’t execute this combo right off the start of a round. Also, it helps if your target is rather stationary, even better if not moving at all.

Thus, rangers, casters make good target for this 3 hit combo as they need to be stationary to shoot their arrows, cast their spells etc. However, casters tend to kite more as everyone seem to go after them first.

Remember to activate Signet of Strength before the start of every battle, and every 45 seconds. Surely you would have executed 12 attacks within those 45 seconds right? Ironically, I always forgot to re-activate this signet.

Signet of Remedy and Healing Signet are much self explanatory, for condition removal and self healing.

Signet of Stamina is very useful if your health is low and you need a huge boost to your maximum Health, so you have enough time to flee and heal up. It has 1/4 seconds activation time, so most of the time you can activate it unless you got unlucky.

Say got so conveniently knocked down or interrupted at the split second you are activating it, at that time you’re usually dead, so wait for your team to come and rez you.

Signet of Return is useful in those situation where, only you and 1 opposing dude remains. More useful if he / she is particularly afraid of you and is always running away from you, this is when you will utilize those precious 5 seconds to bring back a team mate.

I can only imagine the shock he / she gets when he / she realized that I can hard rez my fallen team mates. Heheh, this would be their expression while this would be mine.
________________________________________________________________________________

Weaknesses
Unfortunately, this build offers very little protection against Hexes. The only remedy I can think of is activating Signet of Stamina, activating Charging Strike to flee to your team’s Hex remover, hopefully they can remove it.

If not, you would have to hide in a remote area, using Healing Signet to heal up. You would not be able to perform if you are heavily hexed and dead, better to run and hide and heal up first.

Well this pretty much sums up everything you need to know about this build, in fact this build is quite workable in Alliance Battles as well as Ashen Fort.

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Given that ArenaNet was also founded by former employees of Blizzard, why don’t we compare the two offsprings and see who got the better genes -

Hellgate : London vs Guild Wars, let the showdown begin!

vs

(Click here to page down and cast your vote into the poll)

The List of Rounds involved:
Round 1 : Gaming Sites Review Scores
Round 2 : Business Model
Round 3 : Multiplayer
Round 4 : Player versus Player – PvP
Round 5 : Skills
Round 6 : Respecs (Re-specification)
Round 7 : Inventory System – Item Management
Round 8 : Emotes and Dances
Round 9 : Stability – Server, Build Updates, Initial Launch, etc
Round 10 : Environment, Explorable Areas, Towns, Outposts, etc

_____________________________________________________

Round 1 : Gaming Sites Review Scores (Back to the list)

Gamespot
Hellgate : London | Released : 31 October 2007 | 7.0 – Good

“Hellgate: London has plenty of neat ideas, but many of them aren’t executed as well as you’d like.”

Guild Wars | Released : 26 April 2005 | 9.2 – Editors’ Choice

“It’s a very impressive game that’s rewarding on many different levels and can be tremendously appealing for any number of reasons.”

If we just compared Gamespot’s scores and editor’s notes alone, we already have a winner here, but let’s be fair and take a look at review scores of some other notable gaming sites.

Average ratio based on Gameranking.com :-

89% – Guild Wars | 74% – Hellgate : London

For various comprehensive player written reviews, check out gamefaqs:

Guild Wars | Hellgate : London

Guild Wars has 37 user submitted reviews in gamefaqs, highest score 10/10, lowest score 5/10, and an average score of 8.57/10.00

Hellgate : London has 7 user submitted reviews in gamefaqs, highest score 8/10, lowest score 3/10, giving an average score of 5.86/10.00

It ain’t gonna take a genius to figure out who is the winner for this round aye? I hereby declare the winner of Round 1 to be – Guild Wars! Hip! Hip! Hoorah!

_____________________________________________________

Round 2 : Business Model (Back to the list)

Guild Wars - No monthly subscription fees, not now, not ever

- Releases new standalone chapters playable right out of the box for recurring income (Released 2 standalone chapters: Factions & Nightfall, 1 expansion: Eye of the North)

Hellgate : London - “Basic” online multiplayer gameplay is playable free right out of the box, while the monthly subscription is “Optional”.

- Subscribers gets more “benefits” (Click here for more details)

- Limited “Lifetime” subscription offer at a cost of USD149.99

Personally, I detest online games that requires a monthly subscription. Hellgate : London is slightly different as its subscription is purely “optional”.

Anyway, let’s analzye Hellgate : London’s subscribers’ benefits in detail and compare it against Guild Wars:

• Hardcore Mode
  • [The "Survivor" title which is similar to "Hardcore Mode" is certainly better than it, as you do not lose access to your character permanently.]
• Guild Creation and Management
  • [In Guild Wars, you only need to pay 100 in game gold in order to create a guild. No reason to further bill the players for such trifle matters, right?]
• Larger Stash
  • [Guild Wars have shared stash, capacity of stash is greatly increased following a recent stash update.]
• Additional Character Slots
  • [Both Hellgate : London and Guild Wars have 6 different classes / professions, initially Guild Wars only offered 4 character slots, but later ArenaNET introduced the Guild Wars Online Store, which allowed players to purchase additional character slots at a cost of USD9.99 whereby Hellgate : London only offered 3 character slots to non-subscribing players while subscribers get 24 slots, as long as they continue to subscribe, of course.]
• Themed Events and Quests
  • ["Themed Events and Quests" in Guild Wars are freely available to all players without any further charges of any kind.]
• Unique Event Items
  • [Same as the above, "Unique Event Items" in Guild Wars are freely available to all players without any further charges of any kind.]
• Special Event Pets
  • ["Special Event Pets" are "purchasable" through PC Gamer magazine, i.e. CD-KEYS distributed in certain issues of the PC Gamer magazine.]

Wait, we’re not finished yet:

• New Levels to Explore
  • ["New Levels" in Guild Wars are available for purchase as new standalone Chapters or Expansion, once purchased, the player basically "owns" access to the said "New Levels" while in Hellgate : London the player loses access to these "New Levels" if they happen to suspend their subscription at any time.]
• New Monsters
  • [Same as above.]
• New Weapons
  • [Same as above.]
• New Skills and Spells
  • [Same as above.]
• New Character Classes
  • [Same as above.]
• Raid-Level Areas
  • [When Guild Wars was first released back in 26 April 2005, these so called "Raid-Level Areas" are already freely available to all players, basically "The Underworld" and "The Fissure of Woe".]
• Seasonal / Themed Events and Items
  • ["Seasonal / Themed Events and Items" are freely available to all players.]
• Additional Difficulty and Game Play Modes
  • ["Additional Difficulty" in Guild Wars, the so called "Hard Mode" was made available to all players as an update, as mentioned earlier above. At its initial release in 26 April 2005, there are already several different game modes available to all players.]
• Additional PvP Modes and Rewards
  • [At its launch in 26 April 2005, Guild Wars already offered various PvP Modes. The PvP "Rewards" are made available to all players later as an update.]
• Achievement Rewards
  • [In Guild Wars, "Titles" were freely introduced to all players as an update.]
• Advanced Guild Management Tools
  • [I have no idea what kind of "Advanced Guild Management Tools" that Hellgate : London has to offer, can't really comment much here.]
• Web-based Rankings and Character Viewing
  • [Initially, Guild Wars only have web-based rankings for Guilds who participated in ranked Guild vs Guild PvP Battles. Since the release of Guild Wars : Nightfall, individual players who participate in ranked "Hero Battles" are able to access their web-based rankings.]

As we can clearly see, what Hellgate : London has to offer to its subscribers, Guild Wars offers to all its players who purchased the game.

Obviously, Guild Wars is the better choice here, in terms of economics, Guild Wars would allow fellow gamers to spend less and at the same time, play more. Now ain’t that a good thing?

Hellgate : London, on the other hand, requires players to fork out USD9.99 monthly for the so called “benefits” where Guild Wars is already providing to the players free of charge. Oh, and don’t forget that if you ever stop subscribing in Hellgate : London, you will lose access to all these so called “benefits” immediately. Neat feature aye?

Therefore, the winner of Round 2 is indeed Guild Wars! Again! As expected! Woot!

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Round 3 : Multiplayer (Back to the list)

Hellgate : London – Maximum of 6 players in a party, i.e. you can only invite up to 5 players to join your party.

Guild Wars – When Guild Wars was first released in April 2005, up to 8 players per party in PvE. As for PvP, the “Tombs of the Primeval Kings” PvP Mode (Now known as “Heroes Ascent”) allows up to 6 teams of 8 in a single battle field! That’s a bloody 6 times 8 equal 48 players multiplayer mayhem in a single instance, and that’s 8 times the current max party size of Hellgate : London.

Let’s sum it up aye?

Hellgate : London – Max 6 people per combat instance

vs

Guild Wars – Max 48 people per combat instance

Note: “combat instance” basically means an instance where players are able to attack, activate skills, spells etc.

We all play online games because we want to play together with other players, right? Obviously, Guild Wars is doing a better job than Hellgate : London.

Folks, this is a no brainer! Guild Wars win the 3rd consecutive round! Awesome! Yeah!

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Round 4 : Player versus Player – PvP (Back to the list)

Hellgate : London - In order to participate in Player versus Player (PvP) combat, players must either type “/duel <insert player name>” or type “/pvp” to “activate” PvP mode.

Guild Wars - During its initial launch in April 2005, the various PvP modes available to the players can be easily accessed by map traveling to the various PvP Outposts, where players can engage in Random or Team 4 players versus 4 players Competitive Matches, organize a party of 8 and test their worth in the tournament style PvP-Mode “Tombs of the Primeval Kings” or participate in the ultimate PvP mode – Guild vs Guild.

Again, Guild Wars offers various better PvP options while Hellgate : London’s PvP is quite lackluster in comparison, not to mention that its max player per combat instance is only 6 players! Need I say more?

So Guild Wars kicks Hellgate : London’s rear end real hard in Round 4! 4 Consecutive wins! Marvelous! Stupendous!

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Round 5 : Skills (Back to the list)

Hellgate : London – The Cabalist Evoker, Cabalist Summoner and Templar Guardian have a choice of 27 skills while the Hunter Marksman, Hunter Engineer and Templar Blademaster have a choice of 26 skills.

Guild Wars - Each of the 6 core professions (Warrior, Ranger, Monk, Necromancer, Mesmer, Elementalist) have a choice of 75 skills, not to mention that your character can have a secondary profession, adding up to a choice of 150 skills. Did I mention that your character can also change his or hers secondary profession? That’s oh-my-gosh 450 skills for your selection leisure!

The more the merrier they say, its very clear that Guild Wars offer much more varied choices in selection of skills compared to Hellgate : London.

Winner of Round 5, Guild Wars! FIVE CONSECUTIVE WINS!
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Round 6 : Respecs (Re-specification) (Wikipedia defintion) (Back to the list)

Hellgate : London - No respecs option, characters are unable to change their attributes or skill ranks, meaning if you messed up your build, that’s it. No experimenting different builds either, you would have to create a new character to accommodate that desire. And yeah, did I mention before that non-subscribers only have 3 character slots?

Guild Wars – Respecs option available via “Attribute Point Re-assignment“, players are able re-assign their attribute ranks to suit their current needs and desires. Players have 24/24 “Refund Points” that they can use to alter the ranks of their Attributes, spent “Refund Points” can be earned back through gaining a certain amount of experience points. It is worth noting that the “Refund Points” system was abolished after a certain build update, players are able to re-assign their attributes with much more freedom.

When it comes to flexibility of attributes and skills, Guild Wars wins this round hands down! Yawn. 6 wins already aye?
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Round 7 : Inventory System – Item Management (Back to the list)

Hellgate : London – Very crude grid inventory system, characters’ inventory is made up of 6 columns by 12 rows grid boxes, while the “stash” is made up of 6 columns by 10 rows. Weapons and Armors come in various sizes, say Body armor is made up of 2 columns by 3 rows of grid boxes, head gear is made up of 2 columns by 2 rows of grid boxes, true to the very primitive stone age Diablo 2 inventory system. Now if you try real hard, you might be able to squeeze in about 10 to 15 items on your character and in your stash.

Guild Wars – 45 items per character, 20 items in shared stash. Through various build updates, the size of the shared stashed increased significantly. Now players are able to store up to 80 items in the shared stash, as well as 250 of each of the 33 common and rare crafting materials.

Ladies and gentlemen, more items is always good they say, especially the ability to horde more items. Apparently, Hellgate : London does not seem to be doing very well in this area. Again, I announce the winner of Round 7 – Guild Wars! Gosh, this is so predictable already!
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Round 8 : Emotes and Dances (Back to the list)

Hellgate : London - None. Nada. Nothing.

Guild Wars - A variety of emotes that your character can perform by typing /<insert emote command here>, for a complete list check out the following url:

http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Emotes

For a complete list of various dances, check out this url:
http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Dance

When you just owned your opponent in a spectacular match and would like to dance over his or hers fallen body, then you realized that you are unable to do so, because you are playing Hellgate : London. Sorry, no dances, no emotes in Hellgate : London, move along now, nothing interesting to see here.

Now that would have pretty much sucked eh? Guild Wars, on the other hand, would not let you down as you many emotes to perform. Another no brainer. Guild Wars win this round. Enough said.
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Round 9 : Stability – Server, Build Updates, Initial Launch, etc (Back to the list)

Hellgate : London - Too many bugs, memory leaks, memory exhausted, character getting stuck in areas. Check out the following review by somethingawful.com if you don’t believe me, what’s even more shocking is that everything they wrote is so true!

http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news/hellgate-london-subscription.php

Its not even a month since its official launch and there are already server down times because they need to “update” their server.

Besides that, the South East Asian is seriously messed up. Check out the following url for the official wiki link for more details:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellgate:_London#Delay_of_Patch_0_and_Complaints
_of_Poor_Support_for_South_East_Asia_.28SEA.29_Server

Basically, SEA Hellgate : London players paid to play a beta build of the game online, as the SEA Hellgate : London game servers hosted by IAHGames are running the game servers on a beta build instead of a retail build.

By the way, head over here: http://forum.iahgames.com/hellgate/forumdisplay.php?f=65 to check out the angry mob of SEA players flooding the official forums for the SEA version of Hellgate : London. They certainly ain’t happy and they ain’t stopping until the issues are rectified, so far the issues still exist and IAHGames have yet to solve the problems.

However, this does not mean that the US / EU servers are doing much better, the official “Patch 0″ still contain many bugs that it was originally intended to fix.

Obviously, Hellgate : London current build is still very unstable and not reliable, check out their official forum here:

http://forums.hellgatelondon.com/forumdisplay.php?f=25

Note: You can’t access the official Hellgate : London Forums unless you have a valid US / EU Hellgate : London cd-key or you were a beta tester back then.

To sum up what’s in that particular forum section, basically it contains 43 pages of 846 topics where players reported that their Hellgate : London game client suffered random freezes and crashes, i.e. anything else that seriously messes up your gaming experience.

I wonder how does one enjoy their gaming session if it is constantly plagued by random freezes, crashes and all sorts of gaming breaking issues?

Guild Wars - I experienced a very smooth launch back in May 2005 when I first played Guild Wars, no major bugs experienced for myself. The game engine and net code is very optimized, the game even played out very smoothly on my ancient rig! I was a using a Pentium 4 1.5Ghz, 512MB PC133Mhz RAM and a nvidia Geforce 4200Ti back then.

Absolutely no server down times when they updated their build, when you connect your client to their server, it will automatically download all the files and decompress all the files that your client is required to run the game. The only real downtime I encountered was only once, when they have to do some database maintenance or something like that.

Well, it is time to announce the winner of this round, which is Guild Wars, of course.
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Round 10 : Environment, Explorable Areas, Towns, Outposts, etc
(Back to the list)

Hellgate : London - Randomly generated areas to give you an unique experience every time! Infinite re-playability! Sounds good, right? However, after going through a few rounds, I discovered that there are only a few tile sets that keeps repeating itself. You will find yourself constantly wading through corridors, sewers, streets, hell rifts, etc and after some time, you find all of them extremely repetitive. Even all the stations look and feel similar, well, after all, they are in fact – underground stations.

Guild Wars - Beautifully rendered landscapes, towns, outposts, explorable areas, etc. None of those randomly generated crap that is plentiful in Hellgate : London.

Okay, this marks the 10 consecutive wins for Guild Wars.

Like so we’ve seen how the reviews, business model, multiplayer, PvP, skills, respecs, inventory, emotes, stability and environment of a 2+ years old game like Guild Wars beat the hell out of Hellgate : London, which is a new game released a week ago.

We can go further with this but why bother? Hellgate : London has taken enough of a beating for one article.

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[poll=2]

Where do you stand?

Would you join the ranks of Guild Wars supporters and proceed to stomp Hellgate : London into the ground?

Or would you rather take up the challenge and speak out for Hellgate : London?

Have any new ideas to contribute to this epic showdown? Do feel free to voice out!