Guild Wars Is up and Running.

[LochnarITB]

The first thing to say is I'm having fun. However, I haven't decided if just the fun of trying something new and different or if it is something I would want to play long term. The spell/skill system is certainly different from what I am used to. My first blunder was to waste 95 precious gold (we're talking 3 gold being a w00t drop from a monster so far) on a gem to up the level of a skill I already had. Skills don't have levels, you either have the skill or not. Balance is an issue now too. My elementalist was getting walked on by monsters that my ranger cake walked through. That is probably a symptom of it still being in alpha. One point to note is that "leveling" is different now than it will be in the final game. All characters are set at level 15. Once you have enough xp to level up, it gets you one more skill point only. You stay at level 15. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention how getting skills is handled. You have to do two things to get a skill. You have to gain enough xp to be granted a skill point. You then must have a character type specific gem that holds the skill you want. This gem is then taken to a trainer who, for a fee, takes one of your earned skill points and destroys the gem and then adds the skill to your list.

I think it is too early to really know if Guild Wars should have a forum. It is definately still alpha and things could change drastically. They have the base here to build something really incredible but there is also a lot of room for total floppage. I would hope they take what they learn in this open alpha and run with it.