Dramatic Music! Tense Plot Culmination! "Previously on The Tuesday N00b Club..." flashback! I'm sure you've all be unable to eat, sleep, concentrate on worthwhile and/or necessary Real Life Tasks, nervously wondering if we'd fall at the final challenge, or if the imaginary online pretend world of Elona would be saved! Again! By us! More importantly, is it even possible that the word 'Closure' can ever be applied to an MMO?
Well, let me put you out of your indifference...we won! Huzzah! Bucking the trend of one successful night out followed routinely by one disastrous one, this Tuesday session saw us face the last two missions of the Guild Wars: Nightfall campaign, and conquer them both.
First was a bit of overland sub-questing, taking us from the Gate of Fear, through the Domain of Fear, Gate of Secrets and Domain of Secrets, to the Gate of Madness itself. In other words, yer standard Dante-esque journey through an allegorical metaphysical construction based on all the negative emotions and aspects of the human psyche. Full of monsters. These lands are typically twisted and warped versions of terrain we'd already seen out in Kourna, Istan and Vabbi, but all in a very brooding and grim cast. The nightfall tendrils thrust upward all over the place, and it's nice to see a vision of hell that doesn't conform to the standard Christian mythos of flames and lava and screaming, for a change.
The Realm of Torment is a quite original take on it all, although I'm pretty certain we saw something that look a great deal like a Sarlaac Pit at one point in out doomed wanderings. Naturally, we tried to throw ourselves in it, but were foiled by the GW engine's flat refusal to let players jump, fall, fly or even slide down slopes that are too steep. Probably just as well in retrospect.
As usual, we got the dying out of the way early on. Many of these map areas are stocked up with wandering clusters of L28 demon things, and also include our old friends from the last Prophecies mission, Titans. These monsters tend to split in two when killed, and then split in two again, making each Titan seven monsters in effect, rather than the one you initially see. Hard work, and it took us the first twenty minutes just to 'warm up', as it were, on this alarmingly powerful 'yard trash', with many deaths and a few wipes.
Most of these Torment maps have some kind of global hex in effect. I found the 'Spells cost 40% energy more to cast' one particularly awkward, but they're all a pain and need to be planned for accordingly.
Several damned souls were wandering about the outposts en route, with the green arrows over their heads, which struck me as optimistic, all things considered. You're dead, and in hell - are rampaging dogooding adventurers a common sight passing through? We helped them out anyway, meeting some interesting types in the process, including a drowned Orrian, a turncoat Margonite and a confused and annoyed Charr priest who wanted a strong word with his gods, a fire titan we later ended up destroying, about some religious grievance, which is quite proactive as religions go. We helped and moved on, as is our wont, and eventually got to the first mission of the night, #16 - the Gate of Madness.
This mission saw us, lowly mere mortal adventurers, seeking the help of the other five gods (who aren't psychopathic madmen...madgods, whatever) to thwart the currently troublesome sixth, evil and out of control chained god, Abaddon (who is). Lucky for us, and for reasons that are far too complicated to go into now, hell has a temple to these other gods. I expect Abaddon uses it for keeping in touch with the others, gossip, swapping recipies, etc. This means that it's very heavily guarded and clearly he knows we're coming.
The mission was quite a tricky one, and one of those very long ones that annoy me a bit, in that it can take a good 45 minutes just to get to a very difficult bit that you can get wrong or balls up, in seconds, requiring you to spend another 45mins getting back there to try it again. Lots of overland monster whacking, and three very distinct sections, each with their own challenges.
One of the disadvantages of adventuring in hell, is the possibility of bumping into Evil People you've Previously Killed in the living world, and Abaddon cheated by dredging up two old faces: the Undead Lich, whom we last had to smack down in the Hell's Precipice mission in Prophecies, and some guy called Shiro Tagachi, who I've never met, but am reliably informed requires a good kicking at the far end of Factions.
The first obstacle involves him calling in a huge amount of ninjas (possibly form a Wayne's World style mysterious door in a diner) to ambush us on the way to the temple (flock? herd? bushel?) and this was pretty harsh. We'd got lucky with the terrain however, finding ourselves in a bit of a ravine where they could only come at us from two directions, and we did well with our coordination, managing to focus enough to demolish each wave just before the next arrived.
Next, the ravine opens up in to a large area with five monster portals, complete with Portal Wraiths, ala Prophecies last mission. This proved to be the trickiest bit of the night, mostly due to the portals summoning new troops, and the ravine being home to some quite powerful and rapidly wandering monsters too. One misjudged pull bought the whole lot down on us, and it was only a well-timed 'retreat' order that let any of us survive. We ended up with just the Necromancer, Myself and a hero Dervish alive. 'No rez?' 'No rez'. Then I remembered I'd given the Hero a Monk secondary and the reusable Resurrect spell. Saved!
There then followed an incredible delicate and painstaking salvage operation, with all manner of complex and intricate luring, feints, distractions and surprise muggings, all to allow the Hero to get close enough to get our many dead party members raised, all without bringing the big clump back down on us again. Touch and go, and nerve shredding stuff, but we were all back up in the end, and the remaining portals were closed not long after.
Lastly, we need to actually kill (again) the two bosses. They're together, and one is an Necromancer, and the other an Assassin, Levels 30 and 31 respectively. Considering we get capped at 20, I wonder how much further up the monsters could get before becoming unbeatable. Apparently lots of people wipe at this point, blindsided by the Assassin's sheer speed, and the very heavy hitting damage of the Necro, and the lobby outside the mission is one of the busiest I'd seen in Nightfall so far. Clearly it's a difficult thing to get right with a Pick Up Group. Forewarned is forearmed and all that, and we managed to split them up. The Assassin seems to have a larger aggro radius, so can be pulled back out of the big arena bowl temple, to the gateway and dealt with there.
I'd gone with my previously mentioned Illusion/Inspiration PvP build, in anticipation of difficult melee bosses, and this helped a lot, but he still took an incredible beating before he died, er....re-died...whatever. I wonder where you go if you're in hell, have led a bad life there too, and are killed? Not my problem!
Next was the Lich, but there was also the bonus to consider. In this case, it's simply a case of capturing all five altars that surround the arena floor. Not hard in itself - they're only guarded by a minimal Margonite presence, but I'd guess it's very difficult if you've got both Bosses on your back. Did I mention the Assassins get a short-range teleport? Anyway, our own Necromancer kept the Lich busy with undead minions while we ran around and secured all the altars. The Lich himself, when we finally came to it, was actually quite easy to deal with. He hits hard, but slowly, and there's a lot of us. 'You never fight alone!' and all that. Illusion of Weakness helped me a lot in this mission, absorbing his big hitting damage spell whenever he tried it on me, and he was vanquished in good order.
The Gods then decide to show up, and after all that trouble on the way in, I'm more than a little miffed to have them offer us help in the form of a heart-warming and self-affirming pep-talk, along the lines of; 'You have the power within you!', 'Search your soul!', and 'Mortals are in fact much more powerful than gods, for ineffable reasons we don't have time to go into!'
Personally, I was kind of hoping for something more concrete, like a +30 Cake Fork of Godslaying, Satellite Based Weapon System, Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, or just the ability to shout 'AKIIIIIIIIIIRRAAAAAA!' and have the whole world blow up on demand, rather than these Yoda-isms. Still, you take the breaks you're given, I guess. Disgruntled, we left and were immediately whisked to the Abaddon's Gate mission lobby, ready to issue some Mortal Justice.
One stirring cutscene later, we headed into the last mission, #17 - Abaddon's Gate. This is quite a contrast to the previous, and is a small one, with only one objective, kill Abaddon. Not as easy as you'd expect, as this is a classical old-school mega-boss fight, with attendant choreography. Abaddon himself is a suitably huge floating head and hands, chained to a ledge upon which the action takes place. He has an immense pool of hit points, and tends to be invulnerable a lot of the time, requiring you to take out the monolith rock monsters to cause vulnerability every minute or so. Interestingly, he's also only level 30, making him, a supposed god, less powerful than Shiro, some half-arsed undead Assassin lackey he'd dredge up from somewhere.
First go was a bit of a failure, mostly due to a silly muck up with skill selection. ALL our Heroes had Resurrect, rather than Resurrection Signet. They function similarly, but the signet can only be used once, until a morale boost happens to recharge it. Resurrect makes more sense then usually, but in this mission, the entire party get hit with a knock down effect, every few seconds, interrupting spells. I got pounded into the floor by a spouting Torment Claw early on, and then was unable to be resurrected, because the spell version takes longer to cast, than the knock down frequency, meaning it never has time to complete. Stuffed! The signet version, although only usable once, casts instantly, so avoids this problem.
One quick reequip later, we're back and this time it goes much better, with only a few deaths, all now easily raised. Some outstanding choreography during the fight, and a much larger number of Monk healers than we usually take, saw us work the enemy health bar down to zero, killing the god. Huzzah! And even better, we'd done the thing in 14m 50s. The bonus here is just an added timed objective - finish it in under 20 mins. Double Huzzah!
The final cutscene...well...I ought to leave some surprises for anyone who wants a go at it all themselves, but it's a good one.
It, and the previous twists and turns in the story in previous weeks, makes Nightfall a sterling kind of interactive novel of sorts, and as a result, a lot more engaging than most MMOs. People dispute whether GW is an MMORPG at all, and I think it's probably not, strictly speaking, but it is something unique and clever, and it's been a real joy to play through the campaign - being part of it all, seeing actual world progress cleverly meshed in with the mundane requirements of a multi-user shared playground.
In particular, having a regular group, and rationing out the content has made the thing feel more like a favourite TV show, than a nightly obsessive game grind.
After the cutscene, we arrived at the after-party area, where we got to pick up a one-time souvenir collector weapon, while the end credits rolled...quite literally. I ummed and ahhed for a while, and went with the Domination Staff in the end, although to be honest, it's only slightly better than the Morlah staff I picked up way back in Kourna at the Corsair Village. There's also one of the '15k Armour' crafters there, although despite being forewarned, and bringing ALL my materials and cash to a fight with a god, I was still well short of funds, and Fur Squares for any of my pieces. Seems a bit odd having that facility there - you need to kill Abaddon each time you want to visit the tailor! Still, we know how it's done now, so can save up for the bits and return. We also got to unlock all the Heroes we didn't pick, whenever any choices happened to eliminate them during the story.
From there, access is now opened, via the Chantry of Secrets, to the VIP lounge that is the Gate of Anguish, which is an extra bonus bit of the Realm of Torment and where all the really cool kids hang out. It has a number of really difficult explorable areas attached, and the whole thing functions much like Sorrows Furnace, the Underworld or Tomb of Primeval Kings in the other campaigns - a kind of super high level raiding content place with repeatable quests, etc, for those folks who've reached the top and don't want to stop. I expect we'll take a look in due course; apparently, there's a Ritualist Hero to be found in one of them.
We've also a number of side quests to wrap up, some Challenge Missions to get good at, and I'm only actually 10/17 on the Master's level completion of the basic story missions, so some gaps to fill in there. There's also the much coveted Cartography title to get on with, and toward the end of the campaign, we did rush past whole swathes of explorable land, in an effort to get to the end. Entire maps we've not yet explored. I really feel like I ought to save up the materials and cash for my 'I killed Abaddon and all I got was this lousy set of overpriced Primeval Armour' T-Shirt though - I have earned it after all.
And there's still lots of Prophecies bits to do, Elite skills to unlock, and I'm even starting to take a rather morbid and self-flagellatory interest in the Random Arenas PvP. Much of these things can be soloed though. Guild Wars: Eye of the North is not far off - hell, they even patched the game while we were between missions, and the loading screen/character select now has icy winds and wolf howling on it, instead of it's usual music. I think I'd quite like to fill in the missing Canthian blanks first though.
I'd just like to give a quick word of thanks to everyone who contributed to the GuildWiki, which I've continually found helpful throughout the campaign. Wikis are always a bit touch and go, but this one seems consistently well maintained, exhaustive in detail, and quite professional in it's approach. Bravo!
And so there we go. Five months later, we've done it, and are goddamned heroes. Perhaps this was always how MMOs were meant to be - a modern day analogue for the days of sitting around a table with friends, pizza and pointy dice? I've really enjoyed it, and this probably isn't the end of it all. After a bit of a break, the Tuesday N00b Club will return...in Guild Wars: Factions...