Choose my Adventure: Goodbye, Tyria
Join me as I brave my way through lands unknown in an adventure dictated entirely by you, the Massively readers! Vote for everything from game played to character creation to ultimate goal and watch it unfold in a series of journals and galleries here on the site. Then, as the ultimate goal is reached, we'll do it all over again in a new game!
As we reach the end of this first experiment with Choose my Adventure, I can't help but reflect on how fun it's been and how much I look forward to doing this again with a new game. My trek through Guild Wars, although certainly not a new game for me, was still exciting nonetheless.
So in this final installment of my trip through Guild Wars, I will talk about the end goal that was reached, as voted upon over two months ago, and gauge interest in improving this column. Of course we also have the in-character gallery journal from the mouth of our star character, Moira Zonk. This week's adventures start here. Be aware that there are spoilers in the gallery captions though! Follow along after the jump to read more on my thoughts through Guild Wars and how you can vote for next week's game and how to improve the Choose my Adventure series.%Gallery-64234%
While playing through Guild Wars, I couldn't help but remember a comment on an earlier post in this series about how I shouldn't talk about my inability to find a group in Guild Wars. I've played this game since just after launch and never had a problem getting a group for anything, but I hate to admit the fact that this commenter was right.
There are two fatal flaws in the group system of Guild Wars right now: the Heroes and Henchmen are more intelligent than some players you'll find and everyone insists on doing everything in Hard Mode. In fact, I almost feel like I cheated a bit through this series because my companions were mostly friends. I realize that I never specifically said that I would be doing this whole thing solo (that would be an entirely different column), but my support group of friends and guildmates really did make this much easier. Would it have been possible without them? I don't think so.
The recent addition of Z-quests to the game has been wonderful for bringing veteran players all across the entire world of Tyria to complete older missions that they may have previously completed and forgotten about. The trouble is, the rewards for doing these missions in Hard Mode are so much greater, and not even worth doing in Normal Mode. Even when asking alliance mates for help in a mission, the most common response was, "In NM? No thx".
Reaching the ultimate goal (all 25 missions and bonuses) was exciting for me because it had been so long since I've worked my way through the Prophecies storyline. Some of the bonuses were difficult, but it made me realize that ArenaNet really stepped up their game with Factions and Nightfall. The missions and "bonuses" (approached in an entirely different way in these two chapters) are far more difficult than those in the first chapter.
So while I did have fun in Guild Wars and I did realize much that I missed since my hiatus from the game, this period of creating a brand new character and recreating the starter experience really showed me that these older games are not really designed to be beginner-friendly anymore. It's a dilemma that affects many older games, and a debate I'll save for another day.
I want to thank all of my friends and members of the following guilds for their help: TRUE, dei, GOD, their alliances and any unsuspecting pickup group I may have joined.
So for this final installment of the Guild Wars Choose my Adventure, you can vote on what game you'd like me to play next, in much the same format. If you didn't like this particular format or have suggestions for improvements, please vote in the second poll and comment below.%Poll-32544%
As for improvements, any suggestions are welcome in the comments, but I put together the most common and reasonable ones into a poll. Your choices are:
- Continue in the same style as this one. This includes the same brief summary, in-character diary in the gallery and polls to vote on the progression each week.
- Streamline the voting process. Readers vote on the intial game and character creation, but further adventures are documented as they come and are not voted upon. This would mean no polls each week and I would still make a summary post and in-character diary depicting my thoughts (in more detail) on what I'm experiencing through the starting areas into mid-level.
- More fun, less serious. Ditch the in-character diary and have the readers vote on fun challenges along the way. These could be crazy challenges, fun challenges, something that you've always wanted to see someone do. Just have fun with it.
- Other (explained in comments)%Poll-32552%
I will still keep this as a two-month (8 installment) series for each game. The galleries will also stay, but be recreated for each new game. Feel free to vote on the rest and we can all work on making this series more fun each week! I look forward to how this can progress through current games and upcoming games as they are released.
