Remember how I had warned you about grouping in Guild Wars? Y’know, only group if you really, really must and be prepared for players that yell all the time and then spit on your feet before they leave your ass in the middle of a mission? (Here’s a link and a screenshot to refresh your memory.)

So today, I logged into GW on my alt. Alas and alack, none of the buds were online yet, so either I fill out the group with the suicidal henchmen, or I find myself a group.

Rock, meet Hard Place.

I grouped, and no sooner had we zoned into the mission when Psycho Player starts hers/his/its shit:

In my opinion, if you are psychotic, you should warn your group members BEFORE zoning into the instance. Just to be polite.

This particular mission, you need to “attune” these pedestals by placing a crystal in each one BEFORE the opposing NPC team can “attune” theirs in a similar manner.. There’s three total pedestals. You do NOT need to kill any of the opposing NPC team at all as they will happily run around trying to outrace you.

I don’t want to spoilzorz anything, but let’s just say, the NPC AI is encoded so they run as a group, vastly increasing the ground they have to cover. If the players split up and don’t engage the NPCs, easy to win.

Now, if the Psychotic Player hadn’t spent all that time YELLING AT EVERYONE IN CAPS, I would have explained this.

Instead, Psychotic Player ran around, engaging as many NPCs as she/he/it could, we died one by one, and Inf**** and Ele**** (Psychotic Player) left the group while our sole survivor rezzed the dead.

Y’know, so any chance of recovery and a retry was for naught.

The next time you think that I exaggerate or that I’m overly critical, slap yourself.

Epilogue: I hired 5 NPC henchmen and finished the mission by myself in under 15 minutes. After all, I’m not getting any younger.

My days of educating an entire server on how to game properly are over.

So if someone were to ask me if it’s a go, I’d have to ask, which way is the wind blowing?

Is that good? Is that an improvement in gaming? Hell if I know. It is different, I can tell you that.

Examples of different:

1. The Community. I spent the larger part of the race to level 20 (max) with the general chat turned off. It’s a noisy din like I’ve never heard before, and I’m including the East Commons tunnel (pre-Bazaar days in EverQuest) and Ironforge (World of Warcraft) on a Sunday afternoon in that assessment. It’s migraine-inducing chatter.

The problem in living without general chat is, as far as I’ve witnessed, there is no community. In GW, whack out a few quests and you’ve moved on to the next town, and, the idiots you ran into before are long gone … either left in the dust or they popped up in another clone of the Next Town.

That part is good, but I should be more vigilant with adding the good players, the reliable dudes, to my friends list … because there are quests/missions where a real live person is vastly superior to a hired NPC — even a not-terribly-attentive real live person.

There comes a point where the hired NPCs have a death wish and they’re taking the entire group with them.

2. Lack of Other Activities. In GW, there’s few distracting activities to occupy your time while you wait for the guild/friends to log on. No crafting, no fishing, not much shopping or hawking your wares, no harvesting … there’s killing, and lots of it.

Sure you can invite a pack of henchmen and move ahead in the quest line, but then you have to wait for your guildmates/friends to catch up and, of course, you can certainly pharm gold or skills or components, bla bla … again, when the guildmates arrive, they want those too, so away you go to get the same shit for them.

As I mentioned yesterday, you could also spend some time (and a big chunk of change) combining dyes in pursuit of a look that isn’t quite so … brown and fresh off the vendor, but y’know … I like to kill and I like to be rich.

I was never a fan of games that required lengthy To Do lists, but maybe this is going too far in the other direction.

3. No Light at the End of the Tunnel. I’m not saying that I’m not enjoying the journey, because I am. But this game has been so unusual thus far, that I’m not sure where I’m headed. Part of this could be because I haven’t done ANY homework or outside reading on this game … I’m just here for the ride. But the other part is because this game COMPLETELY changes the rules every dozen hours or so.

Thusly: You run around in a verdant pasture occassionally populated with aggro mobs, you do this task, you do that … BOOM! You hit the Searing and now it’s a smoking wasteland and you have to relearn everything. You put out fires here and there, you meet some people, you get some skills, you max your level … BOOM! You face your cloned self and then advance to a PVE area where the mobs spawn in dozens and they cheat! My God, they cheat with elite skills and minions and traps everywhere. (I won’t spoilzorz anymore, you get the idea.)

For what end? I don’t know, I assume in perpetual pursuit of the guild ladder. They say the game opens up at level 20. They do not lie about that. Never have I played a game where the noob levels sucked so badly and the later game was so engaging.

4. New and Improved! In fairness, there’s been a buttload of improvements to the noob levels. About ten days ago or so, I made an alt since my main PvE character has been max level and tricked out with the top-end gear and skills for quite a while. The guild has dabbled in PvP although we are far from having our game on yet, but I like to have a side project.

Cue the alt, and back to the verdant pastures of the pre-Searing lands!

They’ve added about 45,903 new popup help windows to the noob levels which will aid the new players a great deal. I have a bad habit of not reading game popups, quest text — I’m a cinematic skipper (dammit! I like to kill. And loot.) I still would have asked 45,903 noob questions in chat … but I would have gotten answers!

Not just the noob areas received attention, they’ve made a LOT of improvements to GW since release. Just about every week, a patch. Crazy.

There are many things very right about Guild Wars. There are some things kinda off with it. I do know this: I asked for it, I got it.

Some days I wish I would have kept my fool mouth shut. Other days, I’m like a school girl.

lol!!! omg, total!!!

Obviously, that’s bought-and-paid-for product placement for the (maybe someday) Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. See how sneaky they were in hiding the S O H??

Man, this is how the hype starts: subliminal advertising — next thing we know, we’re preordering and using character calculators to map out our skills. DAMN THOSE MARKETING DEPARTMENTS!

Or, it could just be a coincidence.

Grouping is ill advised!! Flee the area!

(Here’s another GW tip: being ninja grouped is nothing that an insta-port can’t solve.)

Don’t.

I know, you’ll be tempted. You’ll think, “How bad could a pickup group be?” Then you’ll think, “Ok, that was just the one group that stunk to high hell.” Eventually, you’ll rage, “This can’t be! Every single goddamn group is a fucking nightmare. This just isn’t possible!”

Oh, it be possible.

I’ve grouped quite a bit in the last week or so. Two or three guildmates, we round out the group with strangers (some stranger than others — BA DA BING!). Every fucking time … fucking nightmare.

(Who are these people? How did they get to be so insane? Are there no Ascalon social services to save them?)

Every group, we get at least one swearing guy. “Don’t do that you fucking idiots!” “You fuckers, this way!” “We need to get this mob for my capture, assholes!” (ya, that’s a priority for me.)

For all my cursing in TeamSpeak, and (ahem) here, I don’t curse at strangers unless they really, really, incredibly piss the shit out of me and they deserve it. Sure, I’ll roll my eyes and pray to God for a timely death irl, but, in game chat, I’m marginally civil.

Who are these fucked-in-the-head psychos that join a group and immediately begin cursing at everyone? I dunno. It’s a phenomenon to me.

Then, we have the “Leave without a word” people.

Grow .. a .. pair and say you’re out of there instead of the wordless exit in the middle of a fight.

It’s a whole new world now, I realize. Bailing out on a group because the going gets tough is the new protocol. Christ, even I make up an excuse on the fly before I bail. (My mother’s dying, my dog just shit on the keyboard, that worrisome kidney stone is passing, etc.)

Sadly, all that is too much to ask. Minimal gaming courtesy need only be used on guildmates, IF THAT. (I’m sure there are guilds where courtesy is but a fond memory.)

Summarizing … Group with real, live people only if you absolutely must.

Your cardiologist will thank me later.

… but I’m gonna guess the guild tag is fitting.

***

Here’s some more examples of the loving, supportive community in Guild Wars:

(he’s a bigger person than me … I’ll only admit to one dumass mistake per day MAXIMUM)

***

Choosing this name was his second mistake …

… the first was not reading the AFK Gamer rules for character names. *sigh*

***

I kind of like this name:

I’m not a fan of canned pasta products, but I’d like him in the guild just so we could sing “Boy oh boy ardee” in TeamSpeak … would make a great battlecry too. (And a welcome change of pace from the current battlecry of “LEEEEROYYY” that everyone and his mother is doing nowadays.)

***

I don’t even know why people ask me anything about GW anymore.

That’s pretty much my standard answer to everything. Isn’t it clear by now that I know nothing? (Ya. Ya, it is.)

***

Speaking of evil, and I usually am, AFK Gamer had the mark of the beast over the weekend.

I didn’t want to point it out at the time — widespread panic and all that. Stand down, fundamentalists! The Lucifer Alert Level is back to the usual yellow.

Few months ago, one of my coworkers was picking up the tab at Starbucks and the total was $6.66. He bought some Starbucks gum to change the total. Seriously.

(Starbucks has gum? People buy extra to avoid $6.66? Jesus, kill me now, this world has nothing to offer me anymore.)

I asked if he always did that when a bill came to $6.66. According to him, that was his first time.

He has never again suggested we get coffee.

(… and she’s dying her hair again. Red, this time.)

Before Laura heads out to hunt the White Mantle, she likes to invite her best friend Millie along, because everyone knows that two kooky housewives are always better than one.

I return you now to your regularly-scheduled decade.

Well, I don’t like the sound of that.

Seems like something you shouldn’t have to tell people though, but I do have an inborn mistrust of psychotic internet strangers and their promises of ingame riches. Which is nice.

***

At first glance, this seems just an unfortunate choice of surname at the character creation screen or possibly Bunny is an orinthologist:

Then I spotted the guild tag and it all became clear to me.

“Bunny” needs a slap upside the head.

And even as we enjoy the splendors of insta-travel, and even as we enjoy the wonders of NPCs-for-hire, and even as we bully our way through the Primary Quest Line many levels before the commoners … still we are blockaded by the pathing, and yet we are denied by conspiracy respawn.

Out of the jaws of the proverbial agony of defeat, we have snatched victory. Two seconds on the timer and three mobs beating our ass during the cinematic, I say “ka-boom!”

I hurt where I can’t feel, I feel where I can’t hurt.
I know where I can’t know, I bleed for me and mine.
Ka-boom, a rat-tat-tat, and some good ole bliss
Cause I’m a sister, and I’m a motherfuck.

Mary had a little lamb, her face was white, white as snow,
And everywhere that Mary went, I was sure to go.

Now Mary’s got a problem, and Mary’s not a stupid girl.
Mary’s got some deep shit, and Mary does not forget.
And this is how Mary’s garden grows, and this is how Mary has her ghosts.

And into the eyes of the jackal I say “ka-boom!”

Now bow, nigger.

(Derviative of many … Smashing Pumpkins/Billy Corgan, Tolkien and that Ian “nigger” dude. Not that I ever met an Ian that used the word nigger. OMG, just saying.)

In my own mind, no monthly means we’re not married. I can walk away, they can walk away.

In many ways, this is my kind of relationship.

I know they had some blahblah about pushing new content every so often, but who believes that anymore? But there it is, in black and gold, in less than a month they pushed new content. Crazy. (The 5-16-05 news item because ArenaNet doesn’t believe in permalinks either.)

The rest of it is standard front page schtick: guild of the week, contests, press coverage, yawn, but one item caught my eye … Name Alert System. You can, in fact, report offensive character names via email. Damn.

I was enjoying the whole Wild West, lawless, Deadwood feel of Guild Wars. You’re on your own in this world, cupcake. No GMs to whine to, no official/moderated/corporately-sanitized (I hereby lay legal claim to the adjective “corporatized”) message boards to spam, no recourse WHATSOEVER.

You fuck up, you’re annoyed, you’re offended, game screws you, tough shit.

On paper, that sounds bad, but hell, there’s no monthly fee, the server farm is always open for business, I have no complaints.

I’m not a frequent petitioner in any game as it is; I think the only petition I ever sent to Blizzard was “hi, boats are broken. thx.” The authority-free world that I imagined of Guild Wars (and maybe is, the email addy could be a junk folder for all I know) was tremendously liberating.

It’s just the NPCs and us. There’s no one here to save you now.