Guild Wars Nightfall: Snowballing War Stories

Snowball Arena is about as perfect as PvP gets for me. There's no need to worry about levels. No need to worry about equipment. Not a thought to spare on laying out a skill bar. Everyone has the same. The matches are quick and there's no consequences for losing. And the rewards for winning (Seriously, the rate of return on faction is great. This is what people get for big time GvG battles – call it an average of 300~400 faction a game, win or lose – in about 5 minutes. Throw in the candy canes which go for about 50~100g a piece and there's mad profit to be made.) are good enough that you care about winning. When I left my account I'd hit UAX with about 170k faction (I was pleasantly surprised on my return to find out I wasn't capped out because, thanks to the slight rank I have, my cap had been raised by about 6k. Sadly, I don't have any other titles that increase the cap because, when I left, they were all character and not account based and I made extensive use of PvP characters rather than, say, earning Gladiator or Champion status with my RP toons.) and after a few days of fighting I'm up to about 230k earned. And I've managed to unlock all the new runes (With the exception of the Dervish armor inscriptions because I figure I'll stumble across those eventually.) and all the key weapon and inscriptions that I wanted.

What I'm trying to say is that I've spent a lot of time there. Enough to earn my first Gamer track and make good headway on getting my “Pro Skillz”. And I have a lot of stories about my time, as you might imagine. Monumental thing like my consecutive win streaks. 25 or so is my record (The secret, like anything, is having good teammates). I know it sounds cliché but I really don't pay all that much attention to just how many games I'm winning – I know I got five consecutive win bonus and you get those after every fifth win but it's only when someone else points these things out that it registers with me.

Or funny things like the present train. Me and two other teammates each holding a present, walking in a straight line – completely unmolested – to cap and win the game.

Here, though, is one of my favorites. The situation. 4-4 match stretching into its 8^th minute (Most games last about 5 or so minutes, longer than that and it's a slugfest, shorter than that and someone's racking up the points. Neither one really indicates the quality of the match, in my opinion – some of the hardest fights I've had were the ones that ended up 5-1 or 5-2.). For whatever reason, I'm off on my own but the rest of my team's just picked up a present and are fighting about half of the opposing team to get it to base. I notice a present spawn and rush towards it but there's an opponent way closer and she manages to scoop it up and start chugging towards base. And I, of course, try and work her over to get her to snowcone her skills out before knocking her over and grabbing the present. But she's a good dodger and she's getting closer and closer – no help's coming as I can see the health bars of the rest of my team roiling up and down as they try desperately to advance their own ball. I'm barely managing to stall the runner myself but I'm not in all that bad a shape. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I see another opponent trotting down from the hill towards his base. He's holding another present and I'm suddenly in big trouble. If either of my opponent's get to their base and touch that avatar with a present then the game's over. It's time to change my tactics, so I work in close to the first runner, pop off a hidden rock and grab the present. But rather than trudge towards my base, I stay and fight. I pelt her with snowballs and fort up to put up another rock. And when the second runner comes near enough, I start blasting him. The whole while I'm dodging like mad even with my speed slowed, trying to keep from being knocked down or tagged with a rock – which will pretty much make me useless – and scrambling to pick up the present if I drop it. Already weakened from battling the first runner, I'm in serious trouble and I have to snowcone – getting a quick boost of health but locking out all my skills for a eternity the game tells me is ten seconds. And the deadly present is close, oh so close, to being scored. I'm still alive, though, and with nothing else to do I maneuver in front of the second runner and go for the body block. Just jam my character into his and hope to slow his progress just those few moments. It's a desperation move because it leave me wide open to getting pelted by both of my opponents but, this time, it works. With that present a few feet from the avatar, my team's number changes from 4 to 5 and the match is over. GGs all around and my last ditch stand at the other team's base as our side scrambled to score is quickly forgotten as we're on to the next fight and the one after.

Anyhow, the snowball arena comes highly recommended from me. I missed out on it the last time around because I wasn't playing. But it's a great place for people who are just looking to see what PvP is all about. Or people like me who're looking to improve their skills a bit. Or even people who've been playing a while and are looking for a change of pace. It's the sort of place I wish the game had all year around. Sure, there's Random Arena but, there, you have to worry about equipment and builds and things. By enticing the hardcore PvPers like myself with some rich rewards and, at the same time, eliminating almost any factor beyond player skill (Unfortunately, there's some imbalances thanks to the god and profession specific skills. And some bugs that allow attributes and equipment to matter – nothing so bad as having pets show up like last year, but still things that give an advantage to people in the know.) in a risk-free environment it creates a great “gateway” into PvP for the uninitiated. Personally, I'd like to see Team Snowball because playing with a good group makes all the difference but a pick up game is a lot easier to get into. But the only real criticism I can make of the place is that it's very difficult to figure out exactly what's going on. At first, anyway. Because like a lot of other things in this game it's very poorly documented. And extremely unexplained. There's no tutorial, no explanation about what skills do what or where presents should go or anything of the sort – you're expected to pick it up as you go along. That's all well and good, of course, but it means that some people are going to be intimidated if not discouraged by everything that's going on even in what's the simplest and, to my mind, purest of all PvP.