20 Dec 2006 at 05:48 - 9
This game is... well, unique. Kind of like the retarded kid with the sunflower hat that likes to lick bar peanuts. The game is difficult... but mainly because the monsters are overpowered and travel in packs. You can play without parties, but you have to revert to henchies who eat half the drops you get making the whole thing quite pointless.
The game has about ten worthy weapon mods everything else is merchant food for all except the 2% who try to be innovative (and I applaud them for it). After a certain point the only thing that matters on the side of PVE is how weapons look. If you are into PVP then you can get through half of the PVE game and have everything you need stat wise. There are some elite skills you will have to play the whole (or most) of the game for, but, if you feel like you'll accomplish anything by doing it then you are wrong.
The experience you gain in pve can be used to buy skills for pvp, but if you like the latter then there is no reason (besides elites) to touch the pve since you can get everything else with points.
I've been playing this game since the Alphas and have started to just now realize how pointless it really is. You will enjoy the game at first- that is for sure. You will love it. Hell, i spent a weekend doing nothing but playing it.
Within a few weeks, however, you will find that there is absolutely nothing worth doing that is left to do. Sure, you can waste hours getting titles, but, why? So they can grant you the right to put a string under your name? Yeah you can do quests, but again, why? To buy skills? Out of the multitude of skills there are maybe 15-20 for each profession that will actually be used because people in this game will only follow pre-made cookie-cutter builds; who can blame them? There really is only one way to beat most of the areas, and if you're not in one of those ways, then you're screwed.
You will also go through a phase wondering what the difference is between a gold weapon and a purple weapon of the same stat and skin, guess what, nothing! People seem so desperate to get something out of the game that they turn to little things like those.
Something you will really find annoying is how the game prides itself on having no grinding and being open to the common player when it is so obvious that all this game does is present the same grind in a less fun and less obvious manner. Instead of spending ten hours farming rats- or whatever- you'll be killing the same boss with henchies for a week to get his green, but guess what, you have a less then a 3% chance of that happening because the henchies are stealing your loot. You can solo of course, but then you have to grind the cash to get the runes and skills for the one build that can do it solo.
That is what I have to say about guild wars. It is definetly a fun game, but it gets tedious. I still play it- surprisingly- I just feel this is something everyone should realize. Ultimately this was more for me to vent my frustrations with the game- I'm sorry.