What on earth am I doing here? Writing a hands-on of an online role-playing game? Regular readers of the hilarious/genius NeverQuest will be aware that it's not exactly my genre of choice, and thus my very presence on these pages is in direct contravention of the strictly laid-down office diktat. The truth is, Richie Shoemaker couldn't make it and the editor begged me. Besides, if anyone knows about Guild Wars it's me, having trudged the badlands of Ascalon for months and met some interesting people, not least the female student who sent a photo of herself on a spacehopper wielding a whip.

In fairness, of all the 'goblin games' I've been forced to plough through, Guild Wars is probably one of those that I hate the least. Bucking the trend of the genre, mercifully it doesn't require you to spend three months catching rats before you can venture outside your village. Equally crucial to its success is the business model. Once you've bought the game, it's free to play, so you don't feel obliged to justify your monthly subscription by spending every waking hour playing it, to the dereliction of the rest of your life. In many
ways, it's the online role-playing game that you can play between meals without ruining your appetite.