So Day Two arrived in Guild Wars (Day One for you non-preordering types, ha!), and we continue our assault on max level in the least amount of time possible. This is the only way to actually win an online game … reduce the nuisance of it all to the minimum time.

Thank whatever god is this game’s diety for instant city travel. If I had to run all over the countryside backtracking as some of these quests expect me to do, I’d be plenty pissed. The instant travel is the bomb –> best … feature … ever. Guild Wars, no matter how brief my stay in this virtual world, will always have a special place in my heart for instant travel.

Here’s something else that’s great: the place is lousy with instances so escaping the unwashed gaming masses is as simple as stepping across a swirly portal thing. My /ignore list is already thankful, and refreshingly light so far with only two additions! I have to insta-travel back to town to sell off my crap loot, and there’s a dogpile of characters dancing by the main gate (WHY?? WHY??). Naturally, they’re filling the public channel with their unsolicited opinions about fucking everything, so much so that I can’t even keep up with tells from guildmates … zap! into an instance away from the madding crowd.

There. Two things that I like. I even said so in TeamSpeak and everyone else agreed … insta-travel and instances to escape the general population are two very good things.

The End.

Oh ya. I don’t do reviews. I do journals.

Continuing … the one guildmate spent most of his time at work yesterday reading the web, culling what super-secret insider info he could on this game so we weren’t bumbling around again. You’d think he’d be a font of information. Sadly, no.

Admittedly, we climbed aboard the GW bandwagon late. It was a last minute vote thing … who wants to spend the next few months raiding Tarren Mill in Warcraft and who doesn’t? Unanimous vote there. Who wants to try EQ2? Lone vote for which the voter was mocked. Who wants to try Guild Wars? Landslide win.

When I say “last minute”, I mean on Tuesday and since we all wanted the collector’s edition in-game doodads, which could make or break the game, you just really never know with those doodads, we scrambled that afternoon to preorder. Therefore, no time to do any prelim homework and research.

Although, one would not think that one needed homework and research for the noob levels. The noob levels are usually something that just happens and almost before you know it, you’re level-whatever and have a firm understanding of what your spell lines do, and what your role in a group will be, and which level monsters you stay away from and which are ok to engage.

I’d really like to know why a level THREE mob is doing any damage at all to a level SIX player. I wouldn’t run up to a level 18 mob and expect to make any headway. I expect to get sent to the swirly graveyard thingy. I mean, a level six organic intelligence versus a level 3 artifical intelligence .. SHOULD BE NO CONTEST. Maybe by the time I’m level 10, I’ll figure out how they’re conning these mobs. I can kill level-zero aloe seeds, or pods or whatever those are, in one hit. So I have that going for me. Which is nice.

Day Two ended without much fanfare, or progress … some of the guys had to redo their characters because they accidentally perma-trained in a second profession they didn’t really want. Not sure how they did that with all the dire warnings the trainer NPCs give you.

The one dude asked the million dollar question in TeamSpeak before we logged for the night: so do you guys like this game or hate it? Note that he didn’t ask “are we finally getting the hang of this game” because he already knew the answer to that.

Unanimous vote: I don’t know, it’s ok, I guess.

Usually, the noob levels are the honeymoon. It’s just one big happy player population, utterly in love with the new landscapes, the new adventures, the new magic and combat systems. “It’s ok, I guess” doesn’t sound like a honeymoon.

Sounds more like one of those relationships you have to work at.