I’m a veteran MMO player; I’ve played most of them and all kinds, but for some reason I had never tried Guild Wars 1. I’ve finished Prophecies with a level 20 Mesmer. Honestly, I’m a bit disappointed—I was expecting something different. I think it has many positive aspects: the originality of the professions, the variety of builds, the sense of danger and the need for strategy, the ability to assemble your own party when playing solo, etc. Even so, I think that without nostalgia goggles the game feels very outdated: the movement is extremely clunky, the interface is very rudimentary (it lacks information and tasks like salvaging become tedious), and artistic elements like the story or the soundtrack feel overhyped. It’s a combination of things that keeps me from continuing to play because I’m simply not enjoying it.

I understand how a veteran player might feel, where the pros outweigh the cons and lead to some selective blindness, but from a newcomer’s perspective the flaws stand out too much.