To Arenanet and NCsoft.

Well, I'm just an old fart (58) with some serious carpal-tunnel and reflex issues. No way can I go head-to-head with my grandkids, so I don't bother. But I've "beaten" (and I use the term loosely) more FPS than I can remember until I got bored stiff. Same old, same old. Got disgusted with Half Life 2 about halfway through and gave it to my grandson (may give F.E.A.R. a try though).

Anyway, GW is not that kind of game. I've got several family members in the game, and WHEN they are available team up with one or more of them, filling in the blanks with henchmen. Usually I'm going it alone with henchmen, period. Took Dunes on the second try, then took 20+ tries to do Elona (finally did it by leaving the tanks at home). Think I'll wait on Thirsty River (3 down on that) until some other family members hit the desert and we can work some strategy. And if GW goes beyond my fading abilities in the end, so what, it's only a game. I've gotten my money's worth. I just won't bother with the expansion.

I do think GW could, in addition, be reworked as a typical single/multi-player modable version with difficulty levels and save points. A lot of people would snap it up.

The high end missions are more linear than the low level missions. In low level missions you can use a lot of strategies and beat them. Later in the game you have to figure out the one or two only ways to win. Playing alone in a henchmen party makes this way of gaming very time consuming and annoying.

Its easy to say for those who beated the levels 20 times that its not hard at all. But finding that one and only strategy when you've never done it is... At that stage entering a random party of pugs is just gambling. If you are lucky you win at once. But mostly it will bring more misfortune.

Time is of the essence. I myself spend like 2 hours playing at weekly days. That's definetively NOT enough to find out how to beat a mission later in the game. Unless you are very lucky its allmost certain that it will take several tries. Thus several days. Without having the feeling of any progress. There's not much pleasure playing that way. For this reason I don't even try a new level like SF unless its weekend. Because I know I'wont complete it on one evening.

I agree with the original poster that missions later in the game need some saving points where you can continue after dying. Not to make them easier. But to avoid the empty feeling of an evening of playing leaving you with nothing at all. Because times up and the only try you could do failed... again. And for those who feel its too easy: every mission becomes easy when you know the way. That willl never change.

If you take all henchmen, the game is almost too easy, simply because if everything is AI controlled you can predict what's going to happen every step of the way. I've found playing alone to be the more effective method of devising strategies because nothing ever changes. I think at most it took me three goes of Elona Reach to find the most time-effective route (an hour's gameplay), and a couple of attempts for the Ring of Fire missions. My build isn't anything special (I'm a Mesmer primary, certainly none too hot for PvE play, especially with henchmen) and I'm hardly a master strategist. I'm a bad chess player, couldn't complete the normal campaign of Advance Wars 2, and haven't won a single multiplayer game of Warcraft III.

I do agree that checkpoints need to be added to the missions. However, to suit, I also think the difficulty should be ramped up astronomically, more bosses should be added to the game (the Iron Man is the only boss fight in Guild Wars, and he's a pushover) and monster groups should be more diverse, packing dual-classed opponents with competent builds. It's a bit late in the day to be suggesting this, though. Maybe for the expansion.