Today at Fry’s I picked up a new game: Guild Wars. I’ve heard good things about it from people on the BioWare boards. Fry’s only had the original game and one of the expansions. I’d have liked the trilogy pack, but I suppose if it’s good enough I’ll just buy the entire thing bit by bit.


It’s installing right now. I assume this means it’s installing the regular game, and then downloading all the latest patches from the internet. Oh, hey, that took about 15 minutes. Nice.

I’m immediately prompted to enter all of my personal information. As they’re not charging my credit card, I have no idea why they need this. After setting up my account, I'm taken to a set up screen where I’m offered the six classes – warrior, ranger, monk, necromancer, mesmer, and elementalist – the one sentence descriptions offer me little information. I usually pick a warrior for my first character, as they tend to be the same across games, but I decide to try something else. Ranger doesn’t appeal; I don’t want ranged damage and I don’t want a pet.

Necromancer and Elementalist seem like wimpy magic users, which leaves me with Monk and Mesmer. Long ago, I did a image search for female monks and came up with a GW picture where the lady was bald. BALD. That’s awesome so I pick a monk.



I’m then taken to more customization options. I can change the height of my character within a range. I assume this is so guys are always taller than women. In WoW, I always picked a Draenei gal so I could tower over the puny human men I met, but my monk will be tiny. They also allow me to change the color of my character’s clothing and to have a tattoo on her head.

Why would I want a tattoo on her head? Her head is awesome. I also keep the robes orange to show her humility. Lastly, I name her: Khnum Maya

As soon as I create the character, I’m tossed into a cutscene where a king pontificates about the charr attacking. I notice he has a flaming sword and is very white. This is apparently a fantasy setting based on the European middle-ages, so what is my monk doing there?

The king pronounces that the greatest hero in the land must be found and the camera swoops down on… something . Oh, that’s me and three other people standing in the exact same spot. I move forward, click on the NPC with the green arrow, accept a quest (I don’t read what he says, the first questgiver never says anything of interest), and another NPC gains a green arrow over his head. I run all of twelve steps, click on him, and finish my first quest (150xp).

Yes, that’s lame.

The second quest giver then sends me to a third quest giver. During this time, other people have been running around me, and someone is spaming world chat with requests for gold. I pass a guy named 'Bacon Lube.' Then there's the third questgiver who tells me to… run outside and talk to someone else. Okay.

Questgiver three stands beside an archway filled with shimmering mists. I run through, hit a three-second loading screen, and everyone else disappears. I’m in a private ‘exploration’ area.



If you can’t tell from the screenshot, it’s all terribly generic pseudo-medieval fantasy looking so far. Moreover, that damned tattoo is on my head though I specifically unchecked it, and I appear to be wielding a glowy mace. I find both of these facts disappointing. I had hoped to use punches and kicks as attacks, or maybe have monkish weapons like a staff, Chinese sword, or tiger claws. As there are classes instead of races, why not give monks their own Chinese-influenced starting area?

Anways, I have another questgiver so I run up to him and get my first real quest: He gives me two abilities (I have a row of eight possible spells/abilities in my hotbar) and tells me to rescue a little girl from across the river, but beware, there are monsters!

I immediately attack the first red dot on my map… and my mace begins to spew energy. That’s right. It’s not a mace, it’s a WAND. My awesome monk is wielding a freaking WAND. The indignity is almost too much to bear. At the same time, a humble monk like Maya wouldn’t be bothered by using the most pansy of fantasy ‘weapons.’ I try to think of grasshoppers and wrens as I slaughter three creatures I know nothing about, but I assume are evil. (He said MONSTERS. A random guy with a green exclamation point over his head would never lie to me.)

The little girl follows me back to the ability-granting questgiver and I get more XP. He then gives me a quest to hike across the map to talk to yet another questgiver. No, just no.

I decide to explore the area, and quickly learn that the world is barren. After searching for three minutes, I finally find another questgiver standing beside the only mob spawn point in the area: a small cave of giant bugs with eggs. I lead his assistant into the cave and kill two giant bugs. I then encounter one stuck in the wall.

Problem: The assistant won’t pick the eggs unless the bugs are dead, but I can’t attack the bug because ‘Obstructed View.’ I run up to the bug and walk right into it, but still get the ‘Obstructed View’ error when I attempt to attack it. I finally rummage through my inventory and switch the holy wand with a two-handed hammer. Problem solved. With a feeling of great sorrow, Maya pummels the bug into the rock of the cave.

Wand = Crap weapon. That’s all the evidence I need.

Weapons in this game don’t appear to have any speed or strength requirement, and don’t seem to be limited by class. As I continue to smash bugs to a gooy pulp with my giant hammer, I wonder if I’m doing something wrong; I must have started out with a wand for a reason and wand wielders usually don’t benefit from two-handers. Perhaps in this game, weapon utility is determined by magical enhancements. Like wands give you +5 to energy while giant hammers give you +5 to strength, and energy is ultimately more important to a monk.

I have little time to ponder this before I come across the newest bit of inanity…



Large barrels in the middle of a open, well-lit area without even grass to obstruct them are now a 'Hidden Stash.' A can only imagine a game of hide-and-go-seek with the developers of this game would consist of them standing on the coffee table, waving their arms.

Coming Next: I level, and Maya finds true love.