I am a big fan of RPGs. Something about changing reality I guess. Diablo, Torchlight, Sacred … you name it, I have dabbled with that game if not played it to the fullest. Then came the era of MMOG (Massively Multi-player Online Games) … and MMORPGs were there.

Till date, I had always felt that India is somehow lacking on the bandwidth front. Not any more!! With decent enough speeds, we Indians can also indulge in a bit of online games. With winning titles like WoW, and free titles like 9 Dragons, 2029, etc. Which game to choose becomes a question.

Here I would seriously recommend Guild Wars … its your money’s worth. Its not a free game, but unlike its other paid brethren … GW does not operate on a pay per use model. You buy the game once, and you get to play it for a lifetime. It pawns WoW in this regard. With World of Warcraft requiring a good $20 a month. Which to some is expendable – the some being a good 21 million souls. With $40 for all the three titles, GW does score of WoW.

The reason why I am mentioning Blizzard so much is because a lot of people who have worked on GW have been Blizzard employees.

The game has a story line, but where the game stands out is the PvP area and its concept of guilds. Many players can be part of a guild, and there are many competitions between guilds. Players can choose different professions (Elementalist, Necromancer, Warrior, Ranger, Mesmer or Monk), depending on their professions their role in the battle changes.

The game play is simple and addictive. I havent finished the storyline (I only have 2 hours of my trial period left!!), but I am considering purchasing the trilogy.

All in all, awaiting GW2 and considering making this purchase.

Give an Indian a free deal, and you can be rest assured he will try. So without any further thoughts, I registered for my account, and got my 10 days worth of WoW – wheee!!

World of Downloadcraft

To begin with, the installer file is around an MB or so. I was happy, so I started the installation on Saturday. To my horror, the installer was just the start, the actual installation files were a mammoth 4.6 GB! This is just the Burning Crusade, and no add-ons. With a stripling connection speed of 256kbps, I downloaded the files over two days (my poor laptop was on for 2 days at a stretch). Now, the game installed and I eagerly clicked the shortcut, some animations followed (breathtaking yes, anxious yes, appreciating the animations – no!!). A moment in the game, the application informs me that it has to be patched before I can log onto any realm (a realm is a server where other players would also be playing). Fine, another 1.2 gigs to be downloaded … phew!! On the third day, everything was downloaded, installed, patched and updated. I was cursing WoW and Blizzard, such a bad experience to start with.

Totally Worth it

After all that bitching, I created my first character … a male night-elf fighter. There is a tutorial, and small quests where you learn running around doing small chores and killing weak animals. The entire application acts as one helluva thick client, with only minimal co-ordinates data being exchanged with the server. The loot is just about interesting to keep you hooked, and the quests keep on changing. The key is to take out as many quests as possible for good loot and faster experience gains.

All in all, the game is still running in my head. In some fights I fought alongside other new players, and we got to understand the pros and cons of each character. I immediately shifted to a female human mage – which suits my style more. Aim, fire, cold … the game is a completely different world, with two professions to learn, you can make your own weapons, or you can make food for others, or be a professional healer. The options are many.

I have been hooked onto this game for 4 days now and my laptop cringes whenever I run it in its full glory. I have lost some sleep when battling the minions, but I am loving every minute of it. Ill give the upgraded account a shot … but only after getting a proper gaming station