A different kind of Tuesday last week, with two new faces in the Tuesday N00b Club, which was frankly two more than I was expecting after what is currently being referred to as my 'Call to Arms' on the last podcast. I'm not sure I'd couch it quite like that mind you; makes me sound like some kind of power-mad tyrant hell bent on world domination, which is absolutely not the case!
It was more of a general invitation aimed at those folks who like the game, but are fed up soloing it all, and yet can't stand the quality level of the typical GW pick-up group, which at best is a brutally efficient and silent eight-man machine for getting the job done, and at worst is a harrowing adventure in psychological abuse which can put people off the thing entirely.
Not so our happy band of halfwits, and TNC is turning into one of those most nebulous of guilds, the 'Small Group of Friends Who Just Like To Have Fun', which probably translates in most gamer's minds as 'lightweight', 'casual' and 'not going to be putting Mallyx on farm any time soon'. Mind you, actually enjoying a game and being any good at it aren't always mutually exclusive, so who knows in the months to come?
Our two new faces included a Warrior who'd got in touch direct via my email, who seemed to a very well set up chap indeed, all elite armour and glowing axes. A welcome addition which might stop me doing quite so much of the crazy Mesmer Tanking on future forays! Also something of an EVE Online regular and was indeed also, thanks to a double-booking, managing to help their corp out with a haulage op. in another window during play, which was quite impressive (That or a testament to how dull EVE hauling can be!)
Also debuting was an Elementalist and podcast listener, who as it turned out, had played Prophecies to Lv12 or so, three years ago, and hadn't touched it since. A shame. Curiosity piqued by my own constant ramblings, they'd fired the thing up to say hello, but was somewhat concerned that their newbie self would only slow us down. Not a problem for the N00b Club, and having an actual N00b aboard helped a great deal to stop the ironic guildname disappearing up it's own pretentious backside a bit!
(Note: I don't do Names on this here blog, but if you want to pipe up in comments, be my guest!)
Can't speak for the others, of course, but personally, I always have time for genuinely new players, in any game. I envy them tremendously, and like to do my best to share my own enthusiasms, and help them see what I see in a title. With that in mind, the whole TNC went on something of a nostalgia tour, taking in Borlis Pass, Frost Gate and Gates of Kryta, three of the earlier missions in the Prophecies campaign.
Its silly really. I bang on about how 'levels don't matter' in Guild Wars quite a lot, but this turned out to be one of the few occasions where actually, they did. None of us has suitable alts at that same point in the campaign as our new Elementalist, so in the end, we all turned up on our L20 tricked out mains, which possibly overpowered the missions a tad. I hope it didn't ruin the journey for our new chap too much, but we each managed to handicap ourselves in various ways.
I was doing my usual thing with the Comedy Mesmer builds, and this kind of lighter challenge is an ideal place to road-test some of the more obscure and experimental ones of those. Our Warrior was, as previously mentioned, also piloting a starship in a distant galaxy as we played through. Our Ranger was going wildly off mission and soloing the more remote clumps of monsters (And getting quite competitive about it I might add! "I was soloing that!"), and our Dervish was shouting LEEERRROYYY JENKINSSS! an awful lot. I'm glad they've got that particular urge out of their system there, rather than on one of our 'Serious Outings', frankly. Our Monk was taking the experience a little more seriously, and trying to keep us all alive throughout our generally counterproductive antics.
We got through without too much mishap, although on several occasions, even us L20s learnt the dangers of hubris, taking the odd dirt-nap here and there. As an added bonus, several of us turned out to have been missing Bonus Completions on some of these missions as well, so something in it for everyone. We finished the night in Lion's Arch, the hub of the Prophecies world, a useful tick in the box for our new Elementalist, and there was what must have seemed a deluge of well-meaning advice on various aspects of the game; builds, runes, attributes equipment and such, dispensed as we travelled in a leisurely pace through the Shiverpeaks. I think the Elementalist began to see the hidden depths of GW's unique skill system, as a result.
They way I see it, there will always be the endgame, but the early game is only fresh or novel once. Prophecies in particular can be a bit harrowing solo; compared to the later campaigns, with the missions all stretched quite far apart, and a lot of hard slog in between. Our new Elementalist finished a few levels closer to the liberation of 20; that point at which we'll all be equals, separated only by what outposts we've got tagged, and what Elite Skills we may have captured, and from there, we can face world as peers, rather than a gaggle of well-intentioned aunts and uncles! Happy to lend a helping hand to get up to that point, even if that hand is a bit hamfisted.
It was also nice to revisit areas of the world I'd not gone through 'properly' in quite a few years, living as it were, vicariously through our less experienced first timer...