Guild Wars? Anyone playing it?

[jessie]

NT

[Fishbelly]

Yep.  So far it's ok for a free game . . . but I've not been overwhelmed.  But I've just started, so we'll see if it becomes more diverting as I progress.

[-Lord Ebonstone-]

I thought the preview event started tomorrow?

[farley2k]

It actually got started early.  Which was very nice of them.  

I am currently downloading files so I won't be playing for a bit.

[jessie]

yah, started this morning.  i was late to work because i wanted to finish the tutorial.

looks great, though i think they overdid it just a hair with the bloom.

[Interloper]

Been playing it for a few hours, mostly tryign the different classes.  So far it reminds me a lot of CoH: Get a group, do an instanced mission, etc.  Graphics are great, runs smooth as silk, and apparently there a tons of spells and skills to learn.  Seems like a rpg lite.  Not bad for free.  So far, the elementalist/mesmer is my favorite.

[ElijahPrice]

Is it true that this game is a little different than most MMOs?  In the sense that you have to travel in groups and not by yourself, or something like that?  I would love to hear anything about it because I am missing the weekend free-bee...

[Lordnine]

I’ve played for about four hours and from what I’ve seen it would be virtually impossible to go through any of the missions completely alone.  You can pick up henchmen but the AI is a bit lacking and they tend to get stuck on objects quite easily.  The best thing the game has going for it has to be the graphics; except for a few abnormalities they are simply stunning.  My biggest gripe overall is that the over simplistic game play makes me think its really Dungeon Siege Online, click on enemy, choose spell or attack, wait 30 seconds until its dead, occasionally run away and heal, rinse repeat.  Also the fact that teaming up is basically a requisite finding like-minded people to travel with might be difficult, luckily I have a few friends I’m trudging through the beta with.

 Overall it’s a fun diversion if you’re with people you know but I can’t see it having much lasting appeal.

[Scuba-V]

This is crap.  I load a bunch then do what I assume was the tutorial and got into Lion's Arch. Now it's loading more stuff.  What the hell? I want to load everything at once, preferably overnight so I don't have it in the background while I fool around on the Internet waiting.

[Fishbelly]

Agreed, the multiple loads was annoying--though I have so many distractions at home w/ 3 kids, I just used load times to deal with them.

Still not sold on this game.  Combat is not as involved as I was hoping.  At least in the beginning, my various attacks don't seem to be all that different from each other.  Why choose one attack over another?  Perhaps it becomes more of an issue later on?

[Interloper]

Luckily I have cable so the load times for each area are very small.  I'll keep playing through the weekend, but after that I'll be done, meaning I won't purchase it.  It is simplistic and while the combat can be quite harried and fun, I don't see anything that will hold my interest long term.  I just don't care for the game structure; ie meet and group at a mission point, perform mission (which is the exact same every time you play that mission, no variance); it gets kinda mundane.

[naednek]

moving to Road to Gold.  The game has not been released yet.

[Fez]

Well, there are some wild areas to explore that are not related to missions, but it's a bit difficult to find them at this point in beta.  At certain "meeting spots" you can exit using a different exit and get out in the wilderness.

I agree it seems like combat is a bit mundane at times, however, certain creatures are nearly immune to certain forms of damage, and it pays to run through different weapon types to see which is the most damaging.  As an example, you will notice that "Smiting" damage currently does much more damage to the undead (as would be assumed), and cold damage is more effective against fire creatures.  As you play around with this, you can find out the monster's weaknesses, which is particularly useful later on as it gets challenging.  And, as I've gone further into the missions, it gets quite a bit more challenging.  At this point the game is specifically testing specific levels (i.e., 15-20), so there is no content in the game beyond that which is necessary at those levels.  I'm assuming the game will have considerably more depth at release, when you start at level 1.