Is there a 'try before you buy' option?

Saw this game in the local PC gaming shop today, looked interesting, but being located in Australia (as I'm sure many of my fellow Aussies will have also experienced), we invariability end up having to play on US servers (as I understand will be the case with GW too, has US, Europe and Korea based servers, which while better than many others, is still not the same as having a geographically local server which AU/NZ most likely won't get with lack of population count).

Whilst I do understand that GW has made big strides in bandwidth-requirement minimisation, and has character predictive movement, which all reduce the "effects" of lag, but even if I had the largest bandwidth "pipe" available, no telecommunications provider can change the laws of physics which dictate how long it takes for electrical/light signals to physically travel the multiple thousands of kilometres to the server and back.

So before I hand over hard-earned cash to buy the game, would like to try it (limited areas or time or levels whatever, so long as it's enough to get a "feel" for the game). I did ask the shop sales staff, but they had not-a-clue (no surprises there), been doing a bit of searching around the GW web site, but couldn't find anything but this forum, read through most of the "sticky posts" but couldn't find any details, so posing the question here.

Oh and could I ask people to please not post "I live in XYZ, and it works great for me"-type replies, that's great and I'm happy for you, but the point of this question is having the ability to test the game at *my* location, on *my* gaming rig, with *my* internet link.

TIA
- Wolfie

well the closest "try b4 you buy", was the beta weekends events.

stores sold the pre-order package from $0.01-$10. if u did get the pre-order package u would receive a beta access key + a friend's key to play in beta events ( somewhat an advanced testing period ). w/ this even if u werent planning on buying the game, your account would have been saved and you could choose to play the full game a month by now, and still be able to activate the same account w/ player names intact.

but ofcourse, its over now. srry. (try it on a friend's?)

The game has no monthly fee so a try before you buy shouldn't be that much of a show stopper for you. If you don't like it throw it away its not that expensive. The game is great and i really recommend you get it.

I know you said that you didnt want a it works fine for me post but here you go, i live Australia and play from a location that is too remote to have access to adsl so i run on dial-up and it works great even in 4v4 PvP.

They didn't sell them in Australia, hell we only got a retail deal not so long ago.

Anyway to contradict your request
**stop reading here thread creator**

I'm from Australia, during the beta events on my 512/128 dsl I was very happy with internet performance, it also runs great on ATI cards.

**start reading again**

I'm afraid that try before you buy is not really legally possible anymore. I do believe EB games have a return policy though

The Beta weekends whent on for what nearly a year I think... So if that is not good enough for you... I dont know what is... I mean I think everyone has had ample opertunity to try it if they have ever heard of it at all by now... But one never knows. the friend pass system worked pretty good for the betas. maybe they will do it again in a limited fashion for registered users to bring more business in... Its something for them to think on...

Wolfie_, I live in United Kingdom, I purchased the North American version of the pre pay Guild Wars box, and when I made an account, it placed my account, by default on the American servers.
While I was playing on the American servers, the game played brilliantly for me, no lag. But you can change which server your account will log into. On the character selection screen, you can edit your account, and change your server territory to either American or European servers, although you can only change this for a max of 5 times for the entire lifetime of your account.
Just buy the game, see how the lag is on the American servers, and if it's not good, switch to European servers. Then whenever you log in, you'll be on the European server.
Also to note, no matter which server you decide to play on, you can switch (while in the game), to play on American districts or European districts, and still progress your character. So it's very felixible, you can't go wrong.

Ahh, Ingram, well I for one only came across this game yesterday, so please don't go jumping on ya high horse. Until now, I wasn't aware there were such things as these test weekends, and I gather from what Starsky-sama said, these beta tests are over and done with (which makes sense since it's now been released). Besides, they would have been with pre-release code (ie, that's what a beta is all about) and so would not be the final released experience that I want to check.

(I'll reply to other posts separately).
- Wolfie

Interesting point Willowisp, although accessing Europe is usually more latent that US (more and bigger "pipes" off the east coast of Aust., and most go to US, probably via NZ or Pacific country) than the west coast which would go to Africa / India and on to Europe), so I'd say Korea's server would probaby be speed-wise the closest, so depending on the numbers of Englishs-speaking players there, it would be a choice between US and Ko servers. Thanks for the info though.

- Wolfie

I come from NZ and play all the time and it works fine for me

What's your rig and internet connection like? There is no way you can "try it" out now, unless you play on a mates account or something.

Yes, thanks thaumaturge, this is probably the best option available to me. I am curious what you mean by "not legally possible", if a game developer/publisher wants to release a time/level/map (or whatever) limited version of their game for potential purchasers to try, why wouldn't this be legally possible? Or am I mis-understanding what you meant?

- Wolfie

Generally EB will not refund on online games as they can't sell them again - though your local one might if they know you and you buy a lot from them.

Dont "Try" just "Buy" and the Expantions it literally is CS in (PVP) with a huge better than most (RPG)