The more I see of this Guild Wars, the more I like it. In many ways, it smashes all the old rules of online rpg’ing and spits on them.
Like grouping.
If you’ve been keeping up, in GW you can hire these NPC henchmen to round out the quest group and assist out in the field. No charge, but they do ninja loot and coins. Kick ass group members tho — our mage henchmen was tanking a couple of mobs at one point without complaint, or much apparent damage either. Usually, he was flawless in his aggro control, he must have been bored that late in the mission.
One group, we hired a healer henchman, errr, excuse me … it was a henchWOMAN … and rarely have I seen such a stellar performance from a cleric (called monks in GW, whatever). Priests, doctors, friars, monks … they’re all clerics to me.
Damn, she was good. I was a bit behind the others checking the cleared portion for any loot wreckage, chests, whathaveyou, that we might have missed, and the monk comes running back to check on me. She was nuking, healing, meleeing, anything to service OUR needs. Not a single whine did she utter, not a single afk did she take.
Those henchmen are better than real people as groupmembers. Probably superior guildmates, too, but don’t quote me on that.
Our one guildie is so enamored with henchmen now, he never has room in his groups for anyone else. Example: “hey, I have that quest too, can I join ya?” “sorry, full group” “is the group full OF HENCHMEN??? or are they people?” Silence.
He could be taking this thing too far.
Real, live players are always welcome in my groups, as long as there’s still room for Nukey, the sexually ambiguous mage and Healee, superior monk healer — some might call her a slut, but it’s just because she’s free with her sexuality and doesn’t subscribe to modern societal mores.
We’ve grown close.
