My latest online game

About eight months ago I discovered Guild Wars. It's a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORGP). People from all over the world play and ages seem to range from about 10-60! You can play the whole game on your own if you wish, or group with others. There are many quests to complete and monsters and skills to find and the scenery is lovely. There are deserts, frozen forests, jungles, volcanic islands.. Of course, as the name suggests, there are many Guilds. Far too many in my opinion: it's too easy to set up a guild: it's instant and there's no application process. I think there should be some kind of application process and that Arena Net, the company who make the game, should have a database of each and every guild. I joined a guild after a couple of months playing, which wasn't bad going since you're asked to join one regularaly from early on. I greatly enjoyed the guild at the beginning but after some time, grew to dislike the leader and eventually left. I have been guildless ever since. Until about a month ago I was quite happy with this, but it's time I joined one as I'm tiring of PuGs (pick-up groups: teaming up with players you don't know to do missions and such). Many players are fine, but you only need one jerk in the group to spoil it, and then there are people who go AFK (Away From Keyboard) letting you do the mission for them, and those who simply leave, leaving you short of players..
I recently made my own guild: well, two actually, as I have two accounts for my six characters: Elementalist, Monk, Necromancer, Warrior, Ranger and Mesmer. This stops me getting pestered to join a guild, but of course it's only a temporary measure. There are four character slots per account and eight different classes that you can play if you want to. There are only 20 levels so if you're a 'level-freak' this game isn't for you. There's loads to do though, like capturing elite skills for your class. I have them all now, and there isn't a great deal left for me to do, especially since I'm not in a guild. I play mostly with a friend I made in the game, and on occasion I team up with a couple of my ex-guildies :) Overall, it's a great game, with no monthly subscription fee.



A new version of the game is coming out at the end of the month. It's called Factions and if you buy it you can either play it as a stand-alone game or merge it with your GW Prophecies (the first campaign) account. If you play it as stand-alone you get four character slots. If you merge it you get two slots, making six in all on that particular account. Two new classes will be available: Assassin and Ritualist. So if you have both campaigns and only one account you'll have to decide which six of the eight classes you want to play with. Of course you can delete them at any time and make new ones, but I'm not into that ^^



So were are the wars?
Of course, there is a whole chunk of the game that I haven't mentioned: PvP (Player versus Player). This is optional. You can play entirely PvE (Player versus Environment) if you wish, or PvP. For PvP though, you will find the need to level up at least one PvE character, since this way you can 'unlock' skills and items which will then be available to any pvp characters you make on that account. You can unlock skills and items (e.g. Runes) by gaining 'Faction' from PvP, but this would probably take a looong time, especially for a beginner (since you're not always going to win).

You can play 4x4 battles, in which you're in a team with three others, playing another team of four. You can also team up with seven other players and fight another team of eight. You might do really well and get to the 'Hall of Heroes' (HoH) and you might even get to win Favour for your zone (currently, Europe, U.S., Korea).

Then there's GvG (Guild versus Guild). This is where you gather a group of eight players in your guild and battle another guild who has done the same. In this situation, both teams are made up of members who know each other and should know each other's playing styles, and both teams can plan a strategy. It is unlikely that you will get a team in HoH that have these advantages, although you could take guildies there, which would give you a good advantage over any PuGs you 'drew' against.