Guild Wars & PvP

I have been playing Guild Wars off and on for the past couple of months as I find time in between contract work, developing games and having my wife force me play World of Warcraft with her. For those of you who haven't played Guild Wars before its a pretty cool little game that mixes Diable with a MMO to create this interesting quasi blend of the two. The game is lush and very beautiful to say the least with some amazing attention to detail in both the art and code, although its combat system is a bit slow and annoying (but thats why I figure they put in a secondary motion system to simulate soft bodies such as player attributes). Overall it is a great game to play especially since there are no monthly fees and for the most part you can partake in the game on your own without worrying about MMO jerks.

My big complaint with the game though is how the developers are choosing to focus on the PvP aspect of the game as time goes on and players complete the main game story and get bored with making new characters. Every new update that you hear of from ArenaNet seems to involve new features that they are adding to reward PvP players including giving access to some really cool, rare and sought after stuff only if you get a good PvP ranking.

So I have to ask what the hell is up with this? To me as a casual player of Guild Wars I can most definately assure you that it's not the type of game I wanted to invest my time in playing. I want to kill monsters, go on epic quests and adventures, save the land from the Charr and all the usual fantasy themed crap that goes with it. If I get a cool item I want it to be because its something I busted my ass off in the game and earned through countless hours of toil to defeat some quest or vanquish some boss from the face of realm with. Not because I can enter into some lame ass arena battle with or against a horde of other players to see who's the p0wn the other guys the best. So I have to wonder why is the casual gamer who has no interest in tacked on PvP games punished or at the very least held back?

New Wireless Gear

During all the madness of trying to visit two seperate groups of families who both wanted to do something on Saturday I managed to setup some new wireless gear in my house.

The first and most obvious addition, well more of a replacement, was getting a new wireless router. I had a Dlink DI-614+ wireless router before but it only did 802.11b, but luckily Costco has a sweet deal going on right now for the DI-624 wireless router that does 802.11a/b/g. The router itself is roughly $98 bucks Canadian (everywhere else it goes for $127) plus good old Costco has a deal going with Dlink for a $30 mail-in rebate through Costco (which basicly means that you know you aren't going to get screwed on the rebate).

Speaking of Costco's rebate system, I love the fact that you can file your rebates online now. I had submitted the rebate form through their site on Saturday morning and by Sunday morning I had recieved confirmation that the form was in their machines for processing. Quick and painless.

The second, and coolest, wireless addition was another Dlink product, their Streaming Media Server (DCM-320) which I also bought at Costco (ya I buy a lot at Costco, you just cannot beat their no questions asked return policy if you don't like the product). What this media server does is it ties in music, photos or movies that you have on your machines on your network with your home theatre system so you can relax in the comfort of your living room. The device was incredibly simple to setup and get working on my wireless network even with the 128-bit encryption that I had done. On top of that from the amount that I have used it thus far the device works like a champ, it's super easy to use and thus far I have no complaints about it.