Guild Wars is a series of massive multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPG) developed by ArenaNet of NCsoft, the make of many popular MMO's. There have been 3 stand alone games that have been released and one expansion. All installments of this game have been released solely for Windows systems.

The thing that makes Guild Wars different from most other massive multiplayers, is that it is a subscription-free game. Thats right, after the cost of the actual software, there are no monthly charges. The way Guild Wars makes money is by making its players pay nominal fee for extra areas. Guild Wars' online system is similar to Battle.net developed by Blizzard, as its totally free for both PvP and PvM players. Coincidently, many of the developers from Blizzard that worked on the Diablo series and some that were involved with World Of Warcraft were also involved in the development of Guild Wars as well.

Development of Guild Wars 2 is in progress, but it is unknown when the game will be released. There are rumors of an early 2008 closed beta release.

The original release of Guild Wars offers over 30 class/profession combinations and more the 200 quests. Each of the stand-alone releases and expansions includes more character professions, quests, and map areas to explore. Guild Wars has a gold based economy and as a result there are many services offering game currency and items for real world cash.

Just because Guild Wars is free doesn't mean you should brush it aside as a game not worth your time. Guild Wars has game play features and graphics that are competitive with other MMORPG's available on the market. With game updates and new content being streamed down to clients in the background, players may not notice new additions to the game. Recent client updates have pushed the graphics engine to new heights, and the game graphics are one of the lushest and most realistic experiences available.

Guild Wars has won numerous awards since its release in April 2005 and has sold far more than 4 million copies. This obviously doesn't mean there are that many active players, but it's a good measure of the games popularity.

Guild Wars is a game that puts a majority of the games information on the users PC so they could cut back on bandwidth costs of their free protected servers. Essential files are downloaded at start-up and the rest of the data is downloaded in the background while you play.

Guild Wars is a great deal of fun to play, and I myself have wasted hours behind the screen playing this game. Guild Wars as a very low learning curve, so those new to the genre as well as MMORPG veterans can both enjoy this game. The lack of a monthly fee is a big bonus. Copies of the game can be picked up very cheaply via online retailers, making Guild Wars an inexpensive and fun introduction to the world of online role playing games.