I feel the opposite, personally. To me the fun in this type of game is in deciding “which of my many abilities do I need to use at this specific moment in order to win?”. The strategy layer is important because it defines what options I have available to me in the tactical layer, but I am FAR more likely to enjoy a game with a good tactical layer than one with a good strategic layer.

So the monk is like a little goalie. The little bastard has skills 4x as powerful as anyone else’s, and you won’t score a kill (point) as long as he’s active and in control. The entire thing has a “minkwars” affect to it, and the combat feels more like a soccer match.

So in the PvE game, you’re a guy with seven bots under your control. Who are they, what skills should have, which equipment is optimal for their setup? This Football Manager style minigame is much more fun than the c-space combat…

From a higher vantage point, this is the strategic layer + tactical layer is the main draw of RPGs – that what you do between bouts of murdering is what makes them so special. Personally, I believe the tactical layer is mostly irreverent – it exists to augment the strategic layer. Games like Magic the Gathering are an example of a frightfully powerful strategic layer.

What I find astonishing is that, even in a very barebones game like the first Dragon Warrior… that thing still has a strategic layer. In what order should I get my upgrades? When should I move on from my current hunting ground? Where shall I hunt next?

tldr: The strategic layer in Guild Wars is like throwing together an army in Warhammer or a tactics game or a football game with orcs and ogres and trolls and bull centaurs and beastmen and angry half-nude elves….

… come to think about it, Guild Wars does kind of suck…

You have GOT to elaborate on that.

It turns out, it is possible to be DnD’ed out. Personally, if I was damned to design an old school clone, I’d go with a weird twisted version of the Jewish mythos. How awesome is a spell called Flesh to Salt from a scale of 1 to 10?

More Guild Warsyish words: my favorite way of playing it is by playing its metagame: For awhile I made a big push on getting the bots to use skills correctly (of big interest to me, since I play it as a soccer simulator most the time, which it is) – though the only big win I made was getting them to use Forked Arrow right. All me. Other things may be more subtle and perhaps not all me (like the current ability to use any level of /rank you’ve earned), but that was a 1:1 cause:effect from going through their channels.

It is… a game that isn’t talked about nearly as often as it should be.

I may have already mentioned it, but I gave GW another shot about a year ago and I really enjoyed it for a few months. I still missed not being able to jump, and in the long run I think I don’t like that I MUST have a group (either PC or NPC) all the time. But overall, very good game.

I like knowing the GMs are around even if we cannot see them. I do not mind it taking 4 or 5 times for me to figure the way that works for me to complete a mission. Most of all, I am used to things changing – code improvements, cheat blocks, bug fixes, and rebalancing. I play games such as guild wars to meet people, play the game and have some fun. I had just as much fin dying until i was at 60%dp in UW as I did completing it because the players I was with were playing a game and having fun.