Let's Play Guild Wars Part The First

I've toyed with the idea of trying to write a Let's Play style series for a while, but never quite seem to get around to it. Partly because There really aren't that many games I've been playing that really lend themselves to it. Which I guess is something to do with my general distaste for online gaming. But now I've decided to play Guild Wars for a bit. Why? I hear no one ask.

Well, honestly because I was Stumbling and got an article about how in the sequel you get your own house. That was enough to actually interest me, and a couple of links later we get to the free demo. I like free, so I figure hey ho, let's give it a go. I don't have to set up any new accounts as I've still got one from my City Of Heroes days, so really there's nothing to stop me.

Installation seemed suspiciously pain free. I download the installer, the installer does it's thing and we're straight into character generation. That was remarkably fast. So I break for lunch and then come back to build my ultimate character of ultimate destiny. Not all the various options are available in the demo. I can't create a PVP character. OH NOES!!! Whatever will I do?

Technically speaking I could be less interested in PVP play, but then I'd be in a coma.

So Roleplaying character, chapter the only one that's allowed and we're on to the choice of character class. There's a Necromancer. This means that the concept of choice is entirely irrelevant. If there's one thing I fucking LOVE it's Necromancy. So I ignore the other so called options and choose Necro.

Character setup is pretty straightforward, choose from face, haircut and few colors and off we go.

 I'm so pretty

The name is obviously tricky. I go with Myo Ossificans. In this case Myo is short for myositis. Or, as the dictionary would have it:

myositis ossificans

Ossification or the deposit of bone in muscle tissue, causing pain and swelling.

Sounds appropriately melodramatic for a man of my persuasions.

And then it's time to start the game!

Oh, wait. No it isn't.

You remember how earlier I said the install time was SUSPICIOUSLY fast? Now we find out why. Because it had downloaded the character generator, but very little else. So now I'm stuck on a loading screen as we wait for the actual game bit of the game to download.

It's an.... interesting design decision. I can kind of see how it could work. If, for example, there were a sufficient variety of starting areas then it could be technically more efficient to just download the you need. However, the problem here is the interruption of the flow. I've downloaded an installed, I've generated my character. At this precise moment the last thing I want to do is wait for an hour while shit downloads. I want to be, you know, PLAYING.

I'm conditioned to expect the initial download time to be tedious. I'm fully prepared to leave it going while I do something else and come back later to play. But to put the big download here? Seems a little odd. Can I go and do something in the meantime? Will it be safe to, or will I come back to find myself just standing around like a muppet?

Who knows. I don't. I was gonna spend the time writing this, but we're only up to 38%. Guess we'll just have to wait until next time.