First a quick thing for people expecting a well thought out, long article. This is intended as a series to be updated as I find things I like about MMOs and find things I don't like as well as shine a microscope on some things that tick me off about PC gaming in general.

So while I was in Canada I found a copy of Guild Wars: Eye of the North for $10 and picked it up, hoping that with Guild Wars 2 on the way that it would be the spark I needed to get back into the game and maybe start seeing what everyone else sees in MMORPGs. First however I need to install Guild Wars again onto my workhorse computer. I've had this PC for nearly 6 years yet it continues to chug on year after year taking almost everything I throw at it. For that reason alone I'm rather fond of it and its the only computer in the house that'll run Guild Wars.

Now some background on this. I have played MMOs in the past quite a bit, fleeting moments with WoW, free to play stuff like Pangya, Runescape and Survival Project and then I ran into Guild Wars (£20 in a Game sale). I liked it, a lot however college and constant internet use made my time short and my gameplay choppy and laggy. So this time I have my laptop for doing other stuff meaning less RAM getting used up by stuff other than the game.

So from the eyes of someone who hasn't played them obsessively, what is the appeal of MMOs? Hopefully I'll be able to dissect the specimen reasonably well over the course of the upcoming weeks.

First thing though is a bitch about loading times and install times. I put the disc in about 35 minutes ago and I've only just got into the actual game, these things sure need patience.

>NJ