Yesterday I took a look at the demo for The Guild 2. It's a strange game. It's somewhat like The Sims in that you have a character that has relationships with other people in the game, and you can start a family. It's somewhat like a role playing game in that you have classes, skills, abilities, attributes, experience points, combat, etc. It's somewhat like a city-building strategy game in that you can build mines, businesses, houses, and so on. The graphics and music are nice. The world feels alive—there are people wandering around, with jobs and relationships and government positions and alliances and feuds. While standing around, a random person came up to me and gave me a cake. I'm very impressed with the game world.

The problem is that someone forgot to design a fun game. In trying to do lots of different styles of games, it does none of them well.

The game is rather tedious. You have to keep track of your relationships with everyone else. These seem to be influenced by your position in society, your family, your religion, who you work for, and who works for you. It has more detail than The Sims (for example, you can buy objects and give them as gifts to someone) and more relationships to keep track of than in Tropico. The problem is that there's too much information, and you can't act on most of it. You only indirectly influence it. This is something that is impressive and thus appealing to game designers, but it's not actually any fun.

To run a business, you have to click on your cart, send it to the market, buy raw materials (prices are set by supply and demand) by dragging them into your cart, then send the cart back to your shop, drag the materials from the cart to the shop's inventory, click on an employee, and tell him to make an item. Then you wait for a while, and once the item is ready, you drag the item to the cart, send the cart to the market, and drag the item to the market stall to sell it (prices are set by supply and demand). It's impressive, but it's boring. Imagine if Warcraft had done this—you'd have to tell each orc to walk to the mine, pick up a tool, mine for metal, pick up the metal, carry it back to the storehouse, and then walk back to the mine. You have to do this for each business you run in The Guild 2. Although there is a way to set this on auto-pilot, there never should've been this much detail. The programmers wasted too much time with this.

There's also combat, positions in government, bribery, assassinations, thievery, a legal system (including court cases), and lots more complexity to this game. That's the real problem: there's too much to keep track of and do, and too little reward for doing it. You get to play out the drudgery of living as a serf in the Middle Ages. I can't even describe how bad the UI is.

There are also some amusing things in the game. Every building has a name: Better Homes, Lumpy & Liquid, The Hot Spot, Raw Iron Raw Power, A Waste of Paint, Roof Included, The Funny Farm. The help text is often strange:

... Scholars are also not adverse to compliments and gifts and will even let themselves be persuaded to dance.

Once the initial awkwardness has faded one can oft soften a reluctant scholar with soft embraces and gentle kisses, bewitch him in private conversation or even climb into a tub with him. But beware of using too much imagination in your courting, for scholars seldom appreciate variety.

There are odd player skills: Master of manure, Pack mule, Kama Sutra master, Exploiter, Great preacher, Deep sleep, Local club president, Face of innocence, Dorian Grayish. The description for the "Strong hair growth" skill starts out like this:

You have been blessed by nature with a curious biological phenomenon: whenever you must rot in the dungeon because of some misdeed, your hair begins to grow at a breathtaking speed. After a few hours, you look as though you have been mouldering for 30 years. ...

Even though the game doesn't look like it'll be any fun for most people, I do recommend that game developers try out the demo. Look for things that you might think would be cool in a game: multiple genres (from role playing to real time strategy to business simulation to action/combat), deep and complex simulation (relationships, businesses, employment, politics, law), open-endedness, etc. Try to figure out whether they are actually fun for a player or merely impressive to a developer. I would have loved to design and write a game like this. It's so impressive that it's sad to see that it's not at all fun.

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6 comments:

Anonymous wrote at December 05, 2006 5:06 AM

It seems as if the more a game approaches reality, the less fun it becomes.

Anonymous wrote at February 15, 2007 4:57 PM

This is a rediculously one-sided opinion. Check the web out before you label something "fun" or not. Or at least say, "this was not fun for ME." Other than the horrible techincal issues with The Guild 2, (which have for the most part been fixed with patch 1.2) people LOVE this game for the exact things you flame it. The "detailed" level of buying/selling allows one to manipulate the markets and make more money quickly. And by the way - this ISN'T warcraft. It's foolish for you to make the comparison. The numerous "things to do" that you ridicule as overkill adds an element of depth and replayability. Nobody can expect to do everything with character, and maybe not even with one dynasty. Your problem with the in game text is that you are likely semi-literate. You have to remember that this is a game that was developed in German, and tries to capture some of the "flair" of the middle age manner of speaking - which is in turn translated to English. Yes, some of the language is a bit cumbersome, but it also adds texture to the overall feel of the game. Your tip to developers shouldn't be "Try to figure out whether they are actually fun for a player or merely impressive to a developer." It should be "remember that as a developer you don't have a monopoly on what other people will think of as fun. Try to keep your target audience in mind." This game is one of the better games released in quite a long time. It IS very fun to play and isn't the same warmed over crap that the industry has been cramming down our collective throats for the past few years. The Guild 2 is so much fun I actually BOUGHT it. Other than the shoddy tech aspect up to the release of 1.2 I say "Congrats Jowood!"

Fashbinder wrote at July 17, 2009 1:49 AM

I absolutely loved the guild 2 and europa 1400. It has depth that no other game has. There is no game on this earth that feels as "complete" as the guild 2. IMagine "The Sims 2" with open for business + a political structure + a functioning judicial system + combat + legacy/dynasty generations. The above review is utter crap.

Anonymous wrote at October 31, 2009 1:33 PM

Just to add it; I love The Guild 2 too! Wish there were more games like it:|

Anonymous wrote at November 23, 2009 12:19 PM

Yeah the guild games rock, do u think the second is better than the first? Just curious, and yes, reviewer u are ignorant

Anonymous wrote at July 21, 2010 7:43 PM

i loved it but after a couple weeks of playing you need something more moder a game like this but set in moder days whould sell about the same as halo?