Returning to the game, slow map downloads

Right so after a year of not playing the game and a new computer, I decided I wanted to get back into Guild Wars. So I go and download the client, log in, and pick one of my characters. Then I'm stuck at the loading screen, with 22k files to download, and my download speed is averaging at about 200 kb/s (which is rather slow for my internet). I wait about five minutes and it barely goes up a single percentage.

So my question is this: Is there a way to speed up my download? And if not is there somewhere I can download all/most of the Guild Wars assets so that I don't have to download them through the client?

Create a shortcut of gw.exe, open the file, and add -image to the end of it.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/-image#-image

Download speed will be limited at ArenaNet's end.

You can run the -image command to download everything.

Thanks a bunch. I've got downloading right now. Still gonna take a while, but at least it's not the full application running while trying to download.

After it's done, you won't need to download maps anymore. It's quite a helper
Good luck

your about to get told the same thing over and over again.
"...use -image"

this happened to me and i know for a fact, every single new map/dungeon, pug... all of it will download piece by piece and very slowly as you enter it.

theres no way around it, the -image thing only seems do give you a raw base client, missing a LOT of data (app 1gb)

the best thing to do it solo as much as you can and download the data on your own to avoid leaving pugs wondering if you have dc r not, ( or warn your group you will be loading for a while)

and thats the truth

In my experience, the -image command line downloads the entire .dat file. It does take hours and is best done overnight or while you are away from home. I have never since needed to wait through long loading screens for new areas.

-image downloads everything. Yours must have disconnected Just Sai.

Hi! I'm returning to the game too and I also found the downloads to be very slow... I'm using the "-image" but still I cant download above 10 KB/s -.-
Its gonna be a long wait...
Why isnt Arenanet doing anything about it?
I have 105321 files to download yet... -.-

Just a thought: if you have any real life friends that play GW, ask them to simply burn the gw.dat file from their game directory onto a DVD and replace your own with it...

Well I don't, my friends are all WoW addicts. :P (At least Blizzard updater is faster... :s)
I've sent an e-mail to NCSoft support, don't know if it will have any effect, seriously doubt it, but it doesn't hurt to try...