Guild Wars Is up and Running.

[LochnarITB]

Fragbait, I think most of your problems can be attributed to a slow(er) connection. There does seem to be a lot of content coming down the pipe. I think you might have missed some tutorial stuff too. Playing through the initial solo area, every time a new control was needed, an info window popped up showing how to do it. Maybe the timer was up and it disappeared even before the actual content finished downloading or maybe you somehow skipped over the first solo area, I don't know. As to your trying your fire spells, that is why I talked about balance issues. My first character is a fire elementalist. The spells just don't do enough damage to kill a group without dying. When I tried a ranger, suddenly the monsters were, at least comparatively, falling over with just a couple well placed arrows. BTW, the ranger has some issues too. She makes some shots that would make a Gunbound player proud. I've shot at monsters that were at the bottom of a canyon beyond a wall in front of me. Up the arrows went in a beautiful high arc - hit, hit, hit - dead monster - like shooting fish in a barrel.

If you have access to a fat pipe, give it a try through that. I think the experience would be different. There is a lot of potential there but we are still dealing with an alpha and have to expect a lot of issues and limitations.