Guild Wars (PC)

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A tale of a man and his panther...

As I sit here and listen to the frolics of my housemate and his girlfriend - playfighting, real fighting, pen-stabbings - I am led to remember that thing a lot of people tend to talk about. You know the one - with the trees and the grass, the kids playing and the dogs running; work, money, play, boredom, insanity, depression, painful death and Joe Pasquale (effectively the same thing). Most know it as "real life," though, some intellectual has probably written a book on how the existentialism of our society dictates that life in itself is in all probability, a mere actuality of our physical and mental makeup, rather than one long track of boredom inter-spliced with rare moments of fun. Regardless, life is there, and it is there to be taken part in.

So, why did I agree to test out a MMORPG? The spawn of Satan himself. The kind of game that I have actively avoided for all of my games-playing life. Put simply - I have never seen the appeal. Sitting, for hours on end, levelling up whilst putting up with tirades of nonsense/idiots/abuse and avoiding the Killer Bunny Rabbit of Doom(TM) that will most certainly kill you if you face up to it. Why would I torture myself, if only for a couple of days, with the kind of game that causes people to buy in-game artefacts for REAL MONEY off Ebay? Why? Well, let's call it 'investigative journalism.'

Whatever the reasons - I'm glad I did.

Some scenery is simply beautiful

Guild Wars is a lovely little game. 'Little' figuratively speaking, of course, as the game itself is pretty much hugenormous. Through a mere weekend of play my entire viewpoint of the MMORPG genre has been changed. Whilst I doubt the game is groundbreaking or will change the lives of the more grizzled veterans, for a mere n00b (feeling... of nausea... rising...) like me it was perfect.

Starting out with a pretty small download (broadband-wise), I was soon greeted with my options for creating my character. Now the game is currently in a beta, so is by no means finished - this is the most likely explanation for the lacking customisation options, with only around five or so hairstyles available. All with pony tails of some kind. Nevertheless I soldiered on, choosing my class as a Ranger - nimble, good with bows and able to control wild animals to fight alongside them. Opting to make my chap a tiny sort and giving him a nice red tinge to his hair, he was soon christened: Ianos of Ian. You can feel the imagination pouring out of me right now, can't you?

On finishing up the creation aspect, I was soon presented with another download screen - this time a larger file than the last, though again nothing mind-bendingly long (and again, broadband-wise). This made me aware of the 'streaming' nature of the game - the whole package is not immediately downloaded. Instead, things are sent to your computer as and when you need them - new areas, new missions, new characters and whatnot. I liked the idea - it made for some breaks in the action initially, but it meant things started out faster and once each download was complete, everything ran at a lovely pace, with very, very little lag.

Architecture: a strong point

On loading, the game presented me with a cutscene, informing of the impending doom on the land - paraphrased it was something along the lines of: "nobody knew that this land would be destroyed by the end of the day," except much more 'fantasy-like' and less 'second hand regurgitation-like.' Arriving in Ascalon City I was greeted by a large-looking chap, who told me it was my duty to serve in the army, to defend the nation against invading forces and the usual fantasy guff. I was presented with a 'where do I sign up?' option, or a 'no thanks.' Being the kind of person rather opposed to The Man(TM), I told him where to shove it and went on my merry way exploring the town. Not the biggest of places, though rather pretty, I was presented with a fair few NPCs to talk to - most said something, but didn't offer me anything to do, whereas the Outfitter was somewhere to buy clothes, weapons and the rest of it.

What immediately struck me about the game was the simplicity. I found it incredibly easy to do everything; movement, inventory selections, talking, dancing, naked dancing, (and later on) using special powers - it was all very intuitive. As the last MMORPG I had played was Anarchy Online, this ease of use struck a real chord with me. I already liked the game. This scared me.

The city hub, where teams are formed

On meeting up with my Pro-G colleagues, we decided to go adventuring into the wilds and see what mysteries awaited our brave band of warriors, elementalists and rangers. Leaving the town prompted another download - once again, not too big. When the download finished, we entered the countryside and it dawned on me how things operated in the game (disclaimer: I never said I was an MMORPG genius, alright. I didn't know some games worked like this). We were the only real players present in that particular world - everyone else has their own expanses to frolic in, and players can only traverse worlds together if they operate in teams. Otherwise the only areas where other players are present are the towns, forts and general safe havens. After getting over my "aahhhh!" moment, we set to work. Asked to retrieve a young girl's flute, we travelled a short distance north to be greeted by a few monsters. I was dreading the initial encounter. Already wary of the aforementioned Bunny (of Doom(TM)), I felt that my impending death would annoy me to such a degree that Guild Wars would be removed from my hard drive and never spoken of again. Instead, I was involved in a pitched battle and left the victor by quite a margin. A satisfying and not overly easy win. Again, I was liking the game. It was getting less scary.

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