July 1, 2005 - Not many people can tell you what they did last week or let alone last year, but I can tell you with great assurance that I spent most of my nights in 2001 playing Phantasy Star Online on Sega’s Dreamcast. At the time, and this isn’t very long ago, I was still on dial-up, hoping that the keyboard I’d ordered online would show up already and was having the time of my life. I used to play with friends from work and it seemed that we would play forever. A few trouble spots eventually reared their heads though and with the rise of cable and DSL, the Dreamcast was soon no more. It took us a long time to find a suitable replacement for PSO. But a few years later, we played Battlefield 1942 once a week, every week. I know this may not seem like much, but I should point out that my co-workers (yes, I lead a double life) are techies, not gamers. They are between the ages of 26 and 50 and have families of their own and they don’t usually play games unless it’s “game night”. We enjoyed BF1942 for a long time, buying the expansion packs and even giving Vietnam a try (but going back quickly to the original since no one likes snipers in grassy knolls). With time however, even BF1942 died out and I honestly thought we would never have “game night” again. But then something wonderful happened; Guild Wars entered our lives. As a gamer, it was easy for me to see the brilliance of Guild Wars, I picked it up immediately based simply on its common points with PSO which I’d missed so much, but I wondered how others would adapt to it. This is our story...

(NOTE: The names, places, events, lengths of time and a few other facts may have been changed to protect us from our significant others)

While Guild Wars may have been a game that came out of nowhere for many of us, it in no way makes it lacking in quality. In fact, I am hard-pressed to find any PC game that has shipped recently that feels more solid and complete out of the box. From its quick installation (2 disc install that does not require any play disc afterwards) to its fantastic Guild Wars Manuscript; a 144-page book that painstakingly details the world of Guild Wars, you will find yourself wowed from the start. The first time you launch the game, you will also be taken aback by how quickly the login screen pops up and afterwards, how quickly it loads all the gaming worlds. Creating a character is painless and once you actually launch the game, it is truly amazing to behold. All of Guild Wars’ information is server side and the game automatically streams required updates and installs them transparently to the user in a matter of seconds. I have never seen a game load faster, on PC or console, than Guild Wars and it may not mean much to many, but waiting to play when you don’t have hours in front of you is important to me. The internet code is fast, lag-free and optimized brilliantly.

Upon initially launching the game, Guild Wars offers you its first choices: do you wish to adventure into the world of Ascalon or do you wish to play Player Vs. Player matches, forgoing all the leveling up? Guild Wars gives you the options right from the start. And while many may very well chose the arenas, I focused on the more traditional RPG element of the game and set off to Ascalon. My next choice: create a character of course. You will initially have to choose a profession for your human character. This will determine the character’s initial attributes and looks as well as skills and progression. The choice are, as with most RPGs: warrior, ranger, monk, elementalist, mesmer and necromancer. From this point, you are also free to customize the look of your character. We all picked female characters (there are no attribute differences) simply because, uh, well, we’re men. I see enough burly guys on a day to day basis, plus female characters are smaller and therefore block less of the screen and optimize character to surrounding view ratio (just go with me on this). You may as well pick a character that you like to look at since you may be staring at it for a long time (you can create 3 additional characters per account if you want to try out other professions/looks).