Some Thoughts on Guild Wars

Just because it's my current obsession which is eating the hours I would normally be devoting to making my top-down 2D shooter epic ... doesn't mean I don't have a small wishlist of changes I'd like to see for the game.

Personalization
I dunno how, because this isn't really a complaint about any of the frameworks they currently have in place ... but I do feel an odd kind of sameness with my characters in Guild Wars. Perhaps I was spoiled by the amazing character generator in City of Heroes, which I grant wouldn't make much sense here, but especially running around Pre-Searing, I kinda feel like players don't stand out much. Maybe it's because I don't have a cape or just because I haven't played enough to craft a lot of armor though.

I do like the dye system though. Maybe a starter pack of dye would be good, but I like the user-based vanity economy. Whisper has a vial of silver and I have no idea if I should sell it or use it.

Merchant Me
Trading needs a better front end. So many people wander around the towns with Willing To Sell or Willing To Buy chats that it gets distracting and confusing. Better would be if players could simply hit their inventory, select items they'd like to sell and maybe a starting price, and then they get an icon over their head. Potential buyers could then peruse them like they normally do merchants. I've had several profession specific items that I wouldn't mind selling to people at a low cost, but the hassle of gabbing around town to find a buyer just never really seemed worth it.

Looking For Quest
In a similar vein, it seems like it could be easier to find pick up groups for the area quests rather than the story missions. The story missions aren't too hard because if you're in a town where there is one you can just look for someone without a full group and try to jump in. But if you're looking specifically for aids to a quest in towns without one, you end up having to do the same town crier impersonation. Guild Wars has a great PUG community, but the interface isn't quite up to speed with the rest of the game for it.

Trading Cards
Take a lesson from Phantasy Star Online. Since that game was console based, everyone had a business card. If you wanted to remember a person for later gaming, you could easily trade cards. When you looked up the person's card later it would also tell you additional information about their online status other than just on or offline. The current system works, but it could be far more streamlined and robust. I should be able to click on someone, swap cards, and then late on click on their card an know where they are, if they're on a quest, etc ...

Lag Monster
This is probably my personal problem and not a rampant one, but I occasionally get burdened with crippling lag. I'm convinced it's nothing on my client now because I've had several blissful nights of lagfree fun. Now, lag with an MMO is obviously just a terroritorial hazard, but ArenaNet's "instanced" versions of the world seem like they should be able to handle it. If I'm reading my trace right, I'm heading out to LA still for data ... maybe NCSoft could appropriate a few Midwestern servers?

Minor stuff. Beautiful game. My only other complaint is that it should be less fun, so I'd get more work done.