GuildWars continues, with a surprising break in the progress deadlock the other night. Regular readers will remember that the last we heard of my GW-self, they were stuck in the Crystal Desert, on one mission in particular:

GuildWiki: Thirsty River (Mission)

An irritating mission, and one I'd come to learn by heart, largely because I'd attempted the thing so damned many times now.

Enter, loop right, clear devourers and sand giants for morale, loop back round, cross to the other side, clear sand giant, follow path ahead, clear devourers on corner, follow path, to oasis, clear devourers, giants, up to gate, impatiently click through cutscene, enter first arena, kill animated armours and illusionists, wait until 1:20, rush Enemy Priest, kill boss, clean up, follow path to next arena, hug left wall hard, thin first team, wait until 1:20, rush Enemy Priest, kill boss, repeat for second team, enter third arena, hug right wall, rush the Enemy Priest 1/3, clear up boss and team, wait until 4:00, thin team two, 5:20, rush Enemy Priest 2/3, kill boss, and repeat for team three. Easy!

Only team three has enemies that heal each other at a staggering rate, meaning that just me and henchmen alone can't take them down, meaning that I need help form other actual players. Which is usually where it falls apart. On the whole, players of GuildWars are not nice people, I've found, and tend to come in two varieties; the abusive or the sullen, neither of which you'd want to trust your life on, virtual or otherwise. By picking another living breathing human being, over an AI henchman, you are sacrificing control for power.

If only I knew someone in GuildWars who was half-way competent and didn't seem to be playing a game that made them extremely angry. Fortunately, such help arrived in the form of a long-time online friend who was passing through that neck of the MMO world, and gave me a lift. This lift took the form of three of Nightfall's new Hero NPCs. I don't have Nightfall myself (yet), so these were a bit new to me, but seem to basically be AI Player Characters! In other words, unlike the normal Henchmen, they do get a secondary profession, have equipment slots of their own, a set of configurable skills, can be given simple commands, (which they will obey), and do not call you a 'retard' if they die! In other words, all the competence and manners of an AI henchman, with all the DPS and healing of another Player! Perfect!

My friend, (who is rather competent themselves, I might add,) had taken some time beforehand to set them up with the right kinds of skills and gear, and we entered the mission, embarking on the usual plan, outlined above, me pessimistic, and my friend quietly confident, and we basically steamrollered the thing - no wipes, hardly any deaths, and once again, by not giving a toss about the 'Bonus' task, we ended up completing that by accident - in this case the bonus being 'complete the third arena  in 10 minutes', one of those godawful timed exercises that always add unnecessary pressure. I came away from the thing wondering what all the fuss and difficulty had been, and could only conclude that the problems were solely down to most GuildWars player not knowing how to play the game properly, and of course, being too proud to contemplate that the wipe might be their fault in some way...

Anyway, the story, which I had been quite enjoying up until this point, continues. Next was the Ascension itself, which saw me quite literally alone - no henchmen, players, heroes, etc, having to fight a doppelganger of myself - a mob with the same skills and stats as myself. I've heard that this can be quite difficult, but I suspect my current build, the R/N Touch Ranger detailed previously, might accidentally be very good for PvP, as I ended up demolishing the duplicate in under 15 seconds somehow, getting me the bonus for that mission also.

Next was a quite lengthy mission to seek audience with a dragon, involving a long, but fairly straightforward romp through a huge set of crystal caverns, culminating in some more plot-related exposition, and at last, I'm out the other side of the bottleneck, and back into more 'normal' territories, exploring and questing at Droknar's Forge and surrounding regions, and a lot happier for it.

With the exception of the doppelganger fight, the AI controlled Heroes proved invaluable throughout, removing a great deal of the usual hastles of group-dependency in general, and GW's own special brand of PUG unpleasantness, letting me get back to enjoying a world and story that are increasingly becoming the main reason I play the thing.

It does rather make me wonder how much of the average group-member's contribution could be entirely automated in other games as well. The Main Tank in a Molten Core raid might have to be marginally alert, but what about the fifth assist tank? Or the third healer? Or any of the DPS people? Botting is usually against the rules, certainly, but I've often thought that if a machine could do you job, your job is not interesting enough. Still, there isn't a lot interesting about slamming yourself against Thirsty River for the twelfth time in a row, if you ask me.

If there was ever a compelling argument to buy an expansion, Heroes is it!