Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Woohoo

Turns out there's a link on the main Guild Wars site that allows one to download the game. I already have an account, so it was all I needed. I have to visit every area of the world to download it, but it's not too long to wait.

I have all the graphics options cranked to full, and the game has only lagged once. That's in a lot of hours of gameplay, only once. And it was in an area where it always lagged anyway (in Ascalon City, turning to go down the stairs from where Warmaster Tydus is into the area with the crafters), so I feel very good about everything.

I've gotten into PvP in the least practical way: snowball arena. As part of the Wintersday celebrations (which go on until New Year's), there's a special arena where all your skills are replaced with snow-based warfare, and the object is to pick up presents and deliver them to your deity. The goddess of life and the god of death are at war to decide the fate of the world (spring or eternal winter), and I guess they couldn't decide of a better way than with a snowball fight.

Each side gets one unique skill, and each class gets a unique skill. The other 6 are the same for every player, and as with anything in Guild Wars, how you use the skills is much more important than the skills themselves.

For example, the necromancer's unique skill is to sacrifice all your health, deal 50 damage to every enemy around you, and give them -15 health degeneration. The degen actually caps at -10, but the monk's skill gives +5 regeneration, so the necro skill overrides it. Now, the skill's fairly powerful, but if you use it when nobody's around, it's wasted. If you use it in the middle of a tightly-packed cluster of enemies, you might kill them all. In the snowball arena resurrecton is instant, so you can blow yourself up and then get right back to where you were, possibly keeping the enemies in that area with the massive degen. It's all in how you use it, which is one reason why I'm starting to like the PvP system.

I'm sure I still won't enjoy regular PvP, just because I know everybody out there is going to have a build that will absolutely destroy mine, but until the new year, I'm addicted to snowball fights.

More info about Christmas will be coming soon, I just can't stop playing Guild Wars.

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