Playing Guild Wars - Slow Beginnings

I finally managed to get somewhere in Guild Wars Prophecies, but not very far. I feel like doing the first Post-Searing Ascalon mission is actually a step forward. I'll briefly talk about playing the game here.




Anyway, I started several characters trying to find what would fit both my personal playstyle and also the way the game works. I tried a Warrior/Monk for a bit, and it was nice, but once you get past the intro area you'll find yourself running around a lot with NPC henchman, and trying to keep up with them while playing a melee character was hard. So I wanted to switch to range. I next tried a Ranger/Necromancer and that seemed okay, but I loathe pet classes, and it just wasn't working. I finally settled on an Elementalist/Mesmer. I can stay ranged, do lots of damage, and also have control when needed.

It took some time to become accustomed to the henchman party. When you get past the starting zone, you can add up to three more people to your party. Being moderately antisocial, and wanting to just go through the story without excessive downtime, I'm choosing to use henchman. There are static henchman NPCs lying around in the towns and outposts, and you can add them in to fill out your party as needed. I can easily get a warrior, monk and ranger to finish it out. It lowers the XP I receive, as the XP is "split" among us - they receive none, but I only get 1/4 XP.

Another issue with henchman is that I have essentially no control. I can manipulate them by understanding the logic they follow, but they will then do whatever it is they feel like doing. I wish I could tell the Monk to stop running around when mobs are after her, because it gets irritating.

I'm currently trying to figure out how I plan to play through the game. I have a wiki open with a list of all the quests, but I'm afraid of missing something. Since I can get so many of my abilities through quests, it's worth it to do every last one of those skill quests. But then there are pure side quests that serve no real purpose beyond story immersion. While that sounds fun, there are just so many that I'm not really interested in pursuing them all, especially if I hope to finish Prophecies, Eye of the North and the follow-up quests before the release of GW2.

I'm considering using the wiki to create something of a roadmap for me. You know, which side quests I want to run through so I can get all the skills for free, maybe some that have specific rewards I could use, and then when to do the actual missions that progress the storyline. Because the story is almost entirely led by missions, I don't have to worry about missing any of the core story. I'm more worried about missing skills.

So far, so good. I'll play some more tonight and see if the story can continue to compel me forward.