One of the hazards of starting off fresh with a 20 year old game is that I wander along a line wondering if I should write about things that anybody who has played will show up and go “well, duh!” about. But then I also want to chart our journey, as I have done with so many titles over the last 19 years.
Guild Wars Reforged
It isn’t like missions are a hidden item in the game. In fact, you are sent pretty swiftly in the direction of the first mission once you’re in Ascalon City after you go through the searing event. There is a quest right away that sends you to the Great Northern Wall, which announces itself as a cooperative mission.
What makes this wall so great anyway?
You get there, there is a quest to turn in, and then you look up and see another NPC with a quest over their head… and you’ve so far been trained to click on them. So you go over to the Zaishen Scout with his quest and he says “Let’s go to the beach!”
It’s the beach! It’ll be fun!
Sure, why not? Let’s go make friends at the beach!
And then you arrive as a level 5 solo and you see a bunch of people with tags over their head with their professions and levels and… they’re almost all level 20.
What is this Embark Beach
There is a lot going on there that I, as a new player, did not understand. I poked around, found missions and a few other things.
But can I do that mission?
More importantly, I had no idea how to get back to where I came from, which is always a hazard for a game. I had to go Google how to get out, and even then the answer I found was a bit vague about where the guy was I needed to speak to. I found him eventually.
Kenai! Send me home or something!
The lesson from all of that was to leave the Great Northern Wall area and seek my fortune elsewhere. This is how you end up with blog posts about me wandering the Diessa Lowlands in search of the next settlement.
My fifth journey through Diessa Lowlands
Fortunately for the group, Potshot was not so easily deterred. One evening when we were both on he asked if I wanted to run a mission. He had fiddled with it and had done it successfully once. So we went back to the Great Norther Wall, avoided making eye contact with the Zaishen Scout (Potshot had been on that ride as well), and went on the first mission as a duo with two henchmen in support.
Welcome to the missions, good luck scouting the wall!
As with a lot of the game, which is 20 years old, there isn’t a lot of direction… and no mention of the fact that there is a bonus mission within every mission. You get a slap on the back, a shove in the right direction, and off you go.
Scout, report back, how hard could it be?
Fortunately, Potshot had done the legwork before and knew about the bonus mission, so we ran through things, fighting mobs that hang out around every corner, to get to the bonus guy and get that quest going.
We found the missing items, turned them in, which got us 1,000 xp. Not an insubstantial amount at our level.
Then we pressed on, found our way to the spot from which to scout, got the update, then were instructed to get back to Captain Calhaan… with the whole army chasing us.
There are what, 20 Charr there… tops?
I did get a timely tool tip along the way.
Let the devil take the hindmost!
And we did, in fact, win the mission, got the 1,000 xp for that, which gets you the double crossed swords on a shield, something reflected on the map so you can see where you have succeeded.
Mission and bonus success
Also, at the end of the mission you get dropped off at the next mission… or somewhere near the next mission… which is a handy way to move forward on the map without, you know, all the wandering. Anyway, we were now at Fort Ranik.
Great. We managed that with alts. Now to get the group together to do it.
With the holidays and travel… that proved a bit of a challenge. Ula, Potshot, and I did the first mission one Sunday.
Then Holden was back but Ula was out, so we did the first two missions with him. I was the group leader this time, so I finally got the last bit of the puzzle, how to start the mission, because you don’t see that as just a group member.
It seems obvious once you see it
We managed that successfully. But now we were still out of sync. So this past weekend we managed to all get on together where we ran through the second mission again to get Ula caught up… you only get the mission and bonus mission xp the first time you do a mission it seems, but there is always kill xp and drops… using the siege weapons and getting a side quest from a pop culture reference.
We’ll tell Elly Rigby we saw you too
We got through and were all on the same page and ready for the next mission in the Ruins of Surmia.
That was one where we had to travel a bit to get to the mission site, and it was the first mission where you really get involved with the manic depressive nature of Prince Rurik. At some points he is keen to run ahead of the party and it is all you can do to keep up and keep him safe. Then suddenly he’ll be all “where ever you guys want to go, I’ll just tag along.”
But we kept on track, though some of that was because I had done the mission on the alt ahead of time. That wasn’t enough to give me the optimum route through things, but I at least kind of knew where to go. As I noted, we’re in the land of 2005, where something like map references or precise objectives were viewed as a luxury. First we had to rescue some guys… which fortunately Rurik was keen to lead us to because one pass through the mission doesn’t make you a ranger or the north or anything.
We line up so nicely while Rurik frees the captives
Then we ended up at the wrong side of a drawbridge and the prince idly muses that there is probably a way around the back to lower it.
Rurik the dismissive
It is through some tar and he doesn’t want to get his armor dirty, so we’re sent to go look into it while he idles there waiting for his path to be cleared.
Add “imperious and/or lazy” to the many faces of Rurik I guess.
Also, angry Rurik
At this point it was a good thing that I had done the mission already, as Rurik is less than vague about how to get to the “other side” he mentions.
Also, I knew about the bonus mission. So we got that. It involves trailing a group of four Charr to their altar, but you have to follow at a distance or they’ll aggro, you’ll have to kill them, and then you won’t be able to finish the bonus mission. Ask me how I know that!
With that in mind we were extra cautious and managed not to blow our cover.
The Altar in Sight!
That done and cleared, we ran back and did the tar river run to get to the lever to let Rurik in through the gate. There he spots the Charr forces, declares they are too much and that we most avoid contact, then runs off and directly into half a dozen fights with groups of Charr.
So a bit of chaotic Rurik as well I guess.
We ended up at the gates of the Nolani Academy, where Rurik went to school as a lad if I got his exposition right. There we had to defend him while he fiddled with the lock. Again, having done this once was an advantage, so I knew we were going to face rushes from east, west, and south at intervals. So we watched the mini-map and went after any group that started to rush us.
As such, nobody got anywhere close to Rurik. Then, on completing that, we got a cut scene where the hostiles were practically on top of Rurik and he saved us by opening the gate in the nick of time.
Rurik the self-important? I guess we’re all the hero of our own stories.
Anyway, through the gate we got the cut scene that described what went on.
Why do we have to line up for every cut scene?
And there we were in Nolani Academy, the starting point for the next mission and well along on the map towards Yaks Bend and eventually Lions Arch… names I vaguely remember from playing some Guild Wars 2.
Our group… worked pretty well. Having three pets along makes us seem more than we are I suppose.
Our group with Rurik
That said, there was enough of a workout in getting through the mission that we learned a few things. But we seem to be on the mission track for now. There will likely need to be some side ventures. Quests out in the field still get you skills for your profession.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 