Guild Wars launch - first impressions. : GW Discussion

Haven't had a chance to play yet - somehow gamestop.com neglected to send me a preorder key with my preorder copy *rolls eyes* I'll post my first impressions when I get the chance to log on...
finally.

EDIT:
Okay - last night I had the chance to play for a couple.. or three... Okay, I played for four hours, staying up two hours later than I normally do.
The interface is fairly intuitive. Immediately after creating a character, you are placed into the game and you notice one of the big selling points of the game - virtually no load times.
On a broadband connection, from when I clicked on 'Create' to actual gameplay took somewhere in the neighborhood of 2-5 seconds. Mileage on modems may vary - I've heard that the first time you zone somewhere it takes a little while, but afterward it is very close to having broadband.
Even in the city zones - the only areas that are NOT instanced - there was very little noticable lag. I didn't notice any l337 |-|@><0rZ in the game either - a welcome change.
An advantage over EQ2 and a familiar feature for WoW players, any quest givers have an ! above their heads. This prevents a lot of wasted time wandering around trying to find those quest NPCs.
In the city zones things can get rather crowded around the vendors and such. The developers thought of this ahead of time, and have implemented a feature similiar to what we've been seeing in Diablo-type games for a while - pressing the left alt key highlights all NPC names on screen. You can left+click on these to perform the default action. This also works for any items on the ground.
One of your first tasks in Guild Wars is to select your secondary class. The NPC that gives this quest to you is very helpful, even offering directions on how to get to where you need to be, as well as updating a waypoint for you. Speaking with the various NPCs unlocks the first 2-3 abilities for a certain class, giving you a chance to try out a given skill set before locking yourself into it. Once you decide on the class you want to play, you just speak again with that NPC and let them know that the subclass you've chosen is the one you want.
Combat is very simplistic at the lower levels - click, press 1, press 2, press 3, rinse repeat. HP and 'Energy' (mana) replenish very quickly both in and out of combat, meaning that there is virtually no downtime between fights. The somewhat mindless combat is one of the weak points, but I understand that it is more interesting once you hit lvl 10.
Another nice feature, is that once you visit a town area, you can teleport back to it instantly from any part of the world. You want to group with your friend, but he's in Wizard's Folly and you are in another area? Fine - just click on the map and you're there.

Well - those are my first impressions. Overall, very positive changes with no monthly fees, low downtimes, and fast zoning. The simplistic combat could serve to limit this game's "fun factor" in the end, but I cannot speak for the higher levels at all.
The immersion factor is somewhat weak thus far, but the graphics are good. In my opinion, a good game for hard-core and seasonal gamers alike.

I pre-ordered it aswell, but atm i do not have enough money to buy the rest. of the game.....

Game is awesome! Insta addiction. The only downside here is that its about 2pm friday night now, kids are getting off school and its showing BIG time, i got disconnected from server and now i cant get back. Predisconnect was nasty lag too, I couldnt use map travel at all, i ran all the way to foible fair and then i got d/c lol

Aye - servers are down due to 'network issues'
ie: "We had no way of anticipating this huge of a launch!"

I'm gonna get it by next week I'm hoping

Was the outage only regional? We had a smooth launch in Texas. Never had a server outage yet. I think guild houses personaly should be more evident in the game. My guild spent quite some time trying to find out how to earn one.

No - there was a game-wide server outage. It was only down for an hour or so, and it was in the off-hours.

i have the game and i have a level 11 warrior/elemental and i got him to 11 in 1 day. If you want to add me to your friendlist my charname is initocian.