MUDder checks out MMO

I have been curious, but dial-up and slow machines have stopped from indulging in the past. The machine is newer, not top of the line, but it is adequate, but dial-up ewww! But where there is a will.. So in March I bit the bullet and shelled out the big bucks for Guild Wars Platinum Edition. Here are first impressions as posted on J2 Games I will add to it as I get deeper and deeper into the game.

Week 1 (give or take a few days)

First - I go to local store ask about running Guild Wars on dial up. 'Casey' - young energetic and actually believes I might know my way around a game (most game store employees talk to my daughter or worse my husband - who can barely run a word processor ) says "You'll get pwned in towns but would be okay in the quests" Yes he actually said pwned. He directs me to Titan Quest Gold instead I buy that and Game of the Year Edition of Guild Wars Titan quest is fun btw and will get to that one at a later date.

I load both disks, installs like a dream on Vista. No worries there. It goes out and dls over 4000 FILES in updates. Ok, so they made some fixes. No surprise. I log on, make my first character - a ranger - hmm really want a thief not an option, no real rogue or thief types. Maybe will get Factions so I can play one later. That was the expansion that REALLY piqued my interest in the game anyway. I go to load first zone in the game. Loading bar appear and it tells me that there are over 13,000 FILES that is FILES to dl. Why bother giving me a disk then, much less 2? Oh well kill it for the night, is now 1 am and I need to work tomorrow.

Next evening - I go to log in and get the you have not verified your account message. I click the have not gotten e-mail option, after checking my spam mail and everything else, and continue. I start the dl for the 13000 files, post on the RPG board, edit some stuff, play solitaire, read some articles, then read a book. Finally I give up and go to bed leaving it running. When I get up it is done, it took around 8 hours I would estimate on 56K. (Monday the 15th, now) I log out, go check e-mail no message well it was the weekend and something is going on for St. Patrick's so .. I leave it for now. Come back that night and start to play.

Monday - still no e-mail I will give it one more day then will contact tech support as they suggest. I get to Ascalon (pre) Learn controls, do a quests, check out the zones and professions open to me. Died very little. One or two people speak to me, but that is ok. The initial chat shows as white on a tan background. and it is hard to read for these old eyes. I finally figure out how to open the chat box and dark background makes it much easier. I get the ranger to about 3rd level and create my real test character a mes/ele. If I can survive as a full mage, anyone can survive.

Tuesday - still no e-mail go to contact tech support. They don't make THAT easy. Play for a while. Got 2 propositions from people on chat for cyber, turned them both down. (Oh come on now, admit it; you were curious.) Not much else in the way of conversation or even group requests. Finally get a female character needing help on a quest I have done, Run with her to place killing stuff she is a newbie as well so I do not get frustrated and she apologizes a lot. Said others gave her a hard time about backtracking. Np one needs that especially not a mew player. Let them get lost and learn their own way around. I get the ranger to level 5 and mes to level 3 and get her second profession. Still deciding on one for the ranger.

Wednesday - starting to get the hang of it and the net lag is not too bad. Would not go PvP. Lag spikes always come at the worst times. Time for my big digression here. Pre Searing is a zoo. In almost any city there are a bunch of Idiots. Definition time

Newb or Newbie - new player. New players are naive, lost, and some are just plain cautious. They ask uninformed questions or don't even know what questions they need to ask. They die a lot, get frustrated, wander into zones too big for them and and miss zones they should hit. We were all Newbies at one time in any game.

n00b - aka PITA. These are the ones that stand around acting cool. In Guildwars they dance repeatedly, show off the emotes - which honestly leave one wanting. I would prefer to doubletake at someone or scare someone specifically as on a mud (Socials usually are set up like this - Emote $other, Emote $self or Emote $none So would be Fred scares Mary, Fred scares himself and Fred scares someone who is not here) N00bs spam, beg for stuff, they beg for people to lame them, they complain no one will help them or that the game is too hard or stupid or ... Worse they hit cheat sites, parrot information and opinions then whine when they have "the best" eq, best weap and get owned in PK. They exist everywhere. And they NEVER SHUT UP.

Scammer - these are the players that 'need killin' in game. They take new players - both types - for cash (usually in game but have heard of rl money) by selling stuff they can get easily enough at inflated prices. Have seen people advertising to buy WoW accounts, AdventureQuest and other online games. Obviously admins are not present. This is one drawback.

Pre-Searing is full of n00bs and scammers. There are cool people there, there are nice people, there are helpful people, but there are also the OTHERS. Female characters are dancing in the nude around the city, male characters are playing air guitar, drums and I see very few of same guild cape standing around. Odd, I thought solidarity was one of the points of the game. Again I get propositioned, I turn the guy down, get some attitude in return. Finally tell him I am probably old enough to be his mother, he goes away.

Another guy approaches asks if I want to join a guild. I have been reading Wikis and featured Guild items and faction info. Most of it assumes you know game premises. They need some help in that department. I am uncertain. He tells me if I hate it I can leave, people change guilds like underwear. I am not that type of girl. They are Kruzick, have a cool cape and the recruiter impresses me with his honesty so I join. Suddenly everyone around pre starts talking to me.

Lesson 1 - people ignore you till you join a guild.

Ok this is long enough will return to being cranky tomorrow. Upshot - so far I like the game dial up is not too bad and I can ignore people. More later.