I installed Guild Wars yesterday. It took me less than forty minutes to install the game, create an account and a character, and complete two quests.
The game is extraordinarily beautiful even on a system beginning to show its age. I’ve only got a AMD Athlon 2500+ with 512MB RAM and a 128MB GeForce4 Ti but the scenes in the beginner area just about blew me away. Everything is rendered with a soft glow and this romantic look is apparently a setup for events to come.
I had little problems with lag which was a relief. My ISP, the much-maligned TM Net, is not known for its stellar service but Guild Wars seems to run just fine with few lag spikes or slowdowns.
Overall, I found the game to be a very pleasant experience. This could be described as a massively multiplayer online game for those who find massively multiplayer online games disagreeable for various reasons.
There’s no monthly fee after the initial game purchase and the FAQ claims players will not be required to purchase future expansion packs. The biggest draw, though, might be the way the game minimises aggravation from other players. There are common areas where players congregate but once you leave those, the game sets up user-specific versions of areas.
This is a big deal.
This means there’s no competing for kills and no whining about kill-stealing. There’s no queueing to get into a dungeon or to take on a boss. It’s just you and your party members. Furthermore, item drops are allocated automatically to individual players in the party so there shouldn’t be any arguments over loot.
Another appeal of the game is the tactical combat. There are 30 possible player combinations to choose from and there are even more ways to customise one’s style of play thanks to the humongous skill set.
The designers have made it easy for you to change your style of play by customising attributes and skills. As you gain experience, you get refund points which allow you to subtract points from one attribute and add it to another. Switching skills is even simpler. You may only use 8 skills at a time but you can choose which ones to take on a mission every time you’re in a town or outpost. Acquiring new skills and investigating how to use them in conjunction with your other skills is one of the niftiest aspects of this game.
I chose a Necromancer for my first character’s primary profession. Some guides note that it’s not the easiest of classes of play (with one guide author noting it required finesse) but the thought of slaying opponents and defiling their bodies by creating undead allies was too deliciously bastard-y to ignore. I initially thought a Monk’s healing spells would make it a nice secondary profession as undead minions decompose quickly but I haven’t found any of the major healing spells yet.
I’ve pretty much done everything I wanted to do in the starter area so it’s time to move on the next phase of the game.
Bring on the Searing.
