Overall, the game had been a pleasant experience. While there are a few points that I do want to pick on, the rest seems just fine.

I am very much inpressed by how the game distribute its content. The time between the moment I clicked on the download link to the moment I began making a character couldn''t take more than 5 minutes. Anything else that I would inevitably encounter in the game would be streamed to me when the time comes. Definitely a welcomed change over the traditional ways of registering, downloading, and patching sequence many other games incorporate.

Graphics were quite nice. Of course, for someone who has tasted the galore of FPS, there''s nothing new in this game. It definitely won''t hurt, though, as the experience is that much more mesmerizing with the realistically fantastic environment.

Game mechanic is definitely different from those of other MMORPG. From the moment I saw Mesmer''s skillset on Gamespot, I instantly knew that this game would somehow model after Magic:The Gathering. And it does play like so, somewhat. As the countless PVP matches proved, the set of skills you choose do matter. From those 450 skills will spawn numerous player archtypes, which is good for anyone looking for individuality and variety. For example, I was a Necro/Warrior who specialized in melee with a bit of support. The limiting conditions for some spells to work also promote a certain degree of teamwork. This is not your regular hack and slash game here, and I''m loving it.

The types of gameplay available to the players are all entertaining enough. The only weakpoint, like Lor_Xan mentioned, was the explorable areas. I haven''t played much MMORPG, but I know this much about walking around, as we all do. With the implementation of the teleport system, players can move about in a more convenient way. With the instanced dungeons, players have better ways of acquiring exp and items. All that''s left of traveling is the pure notion of traveling. Not much incentive there I must say.

To be fair, it was pretty exciting to find a trainer out in the middle of nowhere with a whole new set of skills to learn. But after the first time, visiting that specific trainer feels more like a chore than anything else. And what''s up with the population out there? I''ve been out in the wilderness for at least a couple hours in toll, and i haven''t seen a single soul besides myself and my henchmen. I mean, I''m traveling! Doesn''t it make sense to at least FIND somebody out there walking around just as I? It gets so friggin lonely that I began debating whether to go back to the arena.

I thought the PVP was pretty fun. I certainly felt the necessity to strategize throughout the matches. If my team did well, we win. If I or my teammates did poorly, we lose. The win to lose rate for me was about 50/50.

The server didn''t seem very stable at times, especially during PvP. I cannot remember how many times I get myself slaughtered because I couldn''t cast a spell or attack a foe in time. It sux if this is the sacrifice we make for 0 monthly fee.

I''ll definitely pick this one up, provided that the problems are attended to.

I think you folks said it all. I also felt it was a MMO version of Dungeon Siege.

For myself..... If WoW and EQ2 both end up being a failure then I''d pick this up as a 3rd choice, otherwise... I don''t think I''ll be getting it.

Every single class can rez.

I will see you this weekend during the first beta event, unless WoW takes all my time!

I am heading out to preorder this today as I''m really interested to see what changes between now and it''s release next year. If I don''t like the game, I''ll cancel the preorder. Now for all that I like (the graphics, the commaderie, the Guild Hall, the teleportation, the bad-ass I can make a difference in a battle if I choose my skills right feeling) there is a lot that needs worked on There is a huge amount of tweaking that still needs to be done, though.

Quite a few times, I would receive loot that was useless to me. A spiked axe does nothing for an Elementalist, give me some wands and staves. Can you even earn skills as a drop-item? How the heck do you buy armor and weapons if your not a crafter? Also, I never got the whole skill charm thing... I couldn''t find it explained anywhere and so I just decided to stick with the skills I could purchase.

The explorable areas were sort of crappy but I chalk this up to it being an alpha. I imagine the development team wanted to get the event up and running before WoW and EQ2 came out and wanted to see statistics on what mid-level characters are going to do to their missions and gameplay. The explorable areas were probably towards the bottom of the list of what need to be done but it was interesting to find named bosses and go ""dungeon crawling"".

I have no idea if it was my Soundblaster Live 5.1 or some other thing but the ambient sounds were driving me nuts. The constant overwhelming roar of the waterfalls, the shreking of the seagulls, the sounds of battle at full volume even when the battles are taking place on the otherside of an area just really start getting me unnerved. Also, I''m really hoping they get some voices to go along with the cinematics. Just hearing the background noises as the text changes was really boring. Whoopie, I saved the day and became a White Mantle, yippie...

Please, God, PLEASE I hope they make a Trade chat channel. If I have to listen to one more jackass trader screaming out his wares in All chat I''ll go insane.

One buzz killer was that you can be attacked and killed while the cinematics are running. It happened to me at the end of mission 3. That is a complete and utterly BS thing that is actually a bit of sloppy coding. There was one time when the GWJ group was redoing Mission 1 in which the NPCs watching the ending ceremony were being attacked by Undead.

And my ultimate problem with the game... the Guild PvP. What a mess that was. I have no idea what the game decided to use for its matchmaking but it definately needs worked on. The last two matches of Guild Battle that I did with GWJ was really disheartening and I hope it was just a matter of bad code and not what to expect at release. This will definately be the thing that kills my interest in the game if they don''t get it right.

Pretty simple for me... I''d buy it simply because there is no monthly fee to play... so on occasion it may be a good time with the right people and TS

Agreed. I finished the second mission (the Eye one) with a party made up entirely of henchman. I''d like it even more if you were able to hire more than one henchman of specific type.

I know you were able to during the E34E Event. Anyone know what happened to the skill gems?

I may have been part of that mission. Pretty funny to see the guy rambling on while at the back the troops are having a row .

Ah, I forgot to comment about that in my original post. For me stability was notably worse than the E34E Event. I went link dead in the first AND second mission (with a cool crew of GWJ guys, no less ), and experienced some pretty laggy moments here and there. Maybe the server loads were just a lot higher this time around (eg due to word of mouth spread since E34E)?

Damn straight. In all my playing I only saw 2 rare drops. With the normal drops being garbage most of the time I''d say that''s too few.

Are you talking about the attributes on the Hero page (Air Magic, Fire Magic, etc)? If so, they definately had an effect on my Elementalist/Ranger character. If you look at your skills you''ll see that some numbers are shown in colour (eg Fireball does <52> damage). Those numbers change depending on how many points you have invested in that attribute. So if I bump my Fire Magic up, my fireball does more damage. That''s a pretty nice touch IMO.

You sir, have entirely too much money. Start giving some of it away! CONFORM!

Wouldn''t you have to buy the content though?

I actually think this would be hard to keep up with each other epecially if we all pick and choose different content to buy.

I am not sure I am going to buy this one or not yet but at least it is not releasing soon so have a lot of time to make up my mind.

Well I didn''t play it as mush as I wanted to. You see, a while ago, I decided to live with this girl, and while I wouldn''t change a thing about that, I have to admit she''s eating a hell lot of my gaming time.

I managed to make it to level 16 (woo. hoo.) and my second and last gaming session was a lot more enjoyable than the first one, probably due to the fact I had more of a clue on what I was doing. I really wish I tried the (drumroll) guild wars though. It looks like it''s what the game is all about and I have no idea how it is.

I don''t think I''ll get this game anyway. Just like WoW, even though I enjoyed it, I think these type of games eat up way too much time. I especially hate the fact that when you''re doing a quest/mission, you just can''t quit when you want, you sort of become a prisoner of the game and that doesn''t go well with my lifestyle.

I really enjoyed this game and am starting to get a feel for it now I think. It was a Warrior/Monk for the E34E and kept him for a bit but rapidly switched over to a Monk/Necro named Brother Spleen. Once you start using the different skills the gaming aspect of it really starts to come to the fore. Having played the snot out of 2 different character builds I can see that there are large differences between the the way the different classes play. (On that note Mateo, all class combinations are possible, Warrior Monk, Mesmer Ranger whatever you want).

One thing I absolutely LOVED, and I''m not saying this just because I got to be the boss (which I didn''t really realize when I bought it), was the Guild. What an enormous improvement over E34E. It was so great to have that Guild chat channel. Grouping can still be a right pain in the ass on occasion but playing with you guys is about as easy as it''s ever going to get! I had a great time in every single GWJ grouping I did.

Some people have mentioned they feel WoW is a better contender and it may be. I had a lot of fun playing WoW too, but I grouped with precisely Zero people the entire (albeit short) time I played. Not once. Even without a Guild system I was asked to group with people all the time in Guild Wars. Nobody had time for a N00b in WoW. If I''d been able to hook up with some fellow GWJer''s my opinion might be different.

Now, on to some bitches.

I sure hope this is due to the pre release nature of the product but: The economy is totally borked!!!

Found a sword? I''ll give you 2 Gold. Found a sword that does 3x as much damage and adds +5 to Energy? I''ll give you 2 Gold. Found a cursed sword that sucks your life away and kills you? I''ll give you 2 Gold.

Want to buy some Armour? Too bad pal! No, instead you have to go on a massive scale scavenger hunt for the raw materials that will take literally days of real time effort to upgrade even the slightest bit. Oh and remember, this is explained NOWHERE and there is a code of silence. Silence that is broken only by the incessant spamming of people trying to buy and sell items in General chat because the economy is so completely screwed!!!

Item drops are a mess. Yeah, it sucks to have the fastest guy grab all the loot in other games but there''s got to be a better way than this! Gretz and I played a Mission where I received easily over 80% of the loot. One thing that might make at least a little sense is to save items for like classes. My monk found nothing but swords, My warrior found staves aplenty and never the twain shall meet. I understand this supposed to encourage cooperation but considering the reserved drops are implemented to try to mitigate greedy jerks anyway you can guess how well that normally goes.
This is all OK though, as you never find anything really useful anyway! Nope! You have to build it all from its component molecules instead!

Ironically, I found the assignment of skills to be handled better in the E34E. There''s enough going on in this game without having to worry about finding some boss monster that has a skill you want (if by some miracle you see it at the top of your screen), going back and equipping your Signet of Capture, travelling all the way back to the monster and hoping to God that he uses that skill again before your group kills it and that you see it use that skill and that you manage to press your signet of capture just at the right time. Let me tell you, after all that, it better be one damn good skill. Oh, and remember the code of silence! We wouldn''t want those N00bs to figure out this ""easy"" system.

I did really like the game though, and am looking forward to playing this with some of you Nov 6,7 during the first pre-buy weekend.

This game is essentially Dungeon Siege (and remarkably similar to what we saw of Dungeon Siege 2 at E3) or Diablo with LARP player lobbies. I think it''s a great idea and it has been fairly well executed. After all, we were all volunteering to go through missions we had already completed before to help others who needed to complete them. That''s testament enough to the basic gameplay mechanics.

I was worried that with only a handful of classes to choose from, and each person being two of them, we were going to end up with a server full of clones. But with the variety of skills and ways you can focus on a particular line, we saw an entire guild full of unique characters. I played a Necro with a massive concentration on Curses. That more or less meant that I couldn''t survive a single fight on my own, but I could render enemies more or less defenseless for the rest of our party. That combined with the player creation customization combined with the variety of weapons and armor and the ability to dye most of it, I always felt like a unique character.

I''d have to agree with GameGuru''s sentiment. No monthly fee makes this a much more attractive buy for me. Many of us complain about not being able to play MMORPGs casually. Paying a monthly fee when you only get a handful of opportunities to play each month starts to feel like a gym membership. Guild Wars allows me to fire up a GameCal event and spend an evening killing off most of the local fauna. The guild chat and relative ease of the chat interface made it fairly easy to drum up a few volunteers for whatever mission you were ready to tackle. Actually finding each other is still sort of a chore with the different zones acting like spammy GameSpy lobbies. (By the way, repeatedly yelling ""WHO WANTS A KICK-ASS RANGER IN THEIR PARTY!!!??"" is not conducive to receiving an invite from most people.) What would be nicer is if the party leader could transport the whole party between areas. That way we could meet up in the Guild Hall, grab a couple henchies if necessary, and jump directly into a mission area. If the game is going to eliminate travelling, they might as well take full advantage of it.

I also agree with the bland free exploration areas. I see enough lush vegetation and random mob activity in the goal-oriented missions. I don''t need to see more of the same when I''m ""exploring"". The most attractive aspects of exploring in full-on MMORPGs are the unique encounters, whether it be coming across a remarkable landmark (chessboard in EQ was one I remember) or an interesting mob (Nessie in DAOC) or perhaps smaller triggered events within the explorable areas (""Thank goodness you''re here, my brother-in-law is sending over some spider assassins to kill me, please protect me and I''ll give you my collection of hides""). Again, if the game is going to eliminate travelling, they better give me a valid reason to walk somewhere.

Excellent visuals, though most of it became wallpaper after a while. Again, I''m thinking about the landmarks I remember from other MMORPGs. Beautiful windmills in the midst of an equally beautiful landscape just aren''t going to stand out in my memory. Perhaps it''s one of the downfalls of our ability to render such detailed landscapes in games these days. But I still think there are ways to set visuals apart as special even in this game. I was shown a notable waterfall by one of the GWJers, but it still sort of had to be pointed out to me. I dunno, throw a magnificent bird perched on a branch jutting out from the cliff near the waterfall and calling in a haunting melody and I''ll bet I''d remember that waterfall. Sound, in general, seemed to be a little...well...missing. If I turned up my volume to hear the various ambient sounds and music (there was music, wasn''t there?) and experience the sounds of the battles, I would get overwhelmed from the very loud and bland THWACK sound every time I got hit. So I''d have to drop the volume back down until everything became that subtle wallpaper again.

Reading this over, I''m sounding overly critical. I guess I''m pointing all this out because I''m fantasizing someone on the development team will stumble on this thread and nod to himself as he reads through all of our comments and we''ll see all of our suggestions implemented by retail. Whether that happens or not, I had a great time playing with all the GWJers this weekend. After someone taught me the /age command Sunday, I was startled to see I had invested 15 hours since creating the character on Thursday night. For someone with too many games and not a whole lot of patience for reward, that''s a very good sign. So I forced myself to take a break and ended up being shown the business end of various weaponry in CounterStrike: Source.

There''s one coming up already! Yikes... the wife is not going to like that at all... well, she better get used to it I guess. WoW is due in a few weeks after all.

Crap! I just realized I''ll be out of town during this coming weekend''s event. D''oh. I didn''t end up playing GW at all on Sunday thinking I''d be able to play on the beta weekend, not realizing it was so quickly arriving.

No spleen, not our guild bib, but the guild bibs in the game. The fact that they look like bibs is enough not to like them. On warriors they look pretty good, but on necros and other classes they look silly. I understand they function well in PvP, distinquishing who is in a guild together, but I hope they work on the design a little.

After 26 odd hours from this last event, you''d better believe this game''s not popular with my wife either.

I''d like to think I''ll be ""better"" next time.