Me Jane

My nephew was right. Guildwars is great! A lot more beautiful than any fantasy world the adventure games had to offerr. With an exception maybe, but just maybe, for Myst. But the Myst world is not fluid. You get from one screen to another. There's no total view. In Guildwars you can go anywhere. explore as much as you like.
What character should I make? There's a choice between a warrior, an elementalist, a mesmer, a monk, a ranger and a necromancer. I go for a ranger. Mostly because of the pet, frankly. I call her Me jane. That's right, Tarzan. So the Doors are not an option yet.
For the time being Me Jane leads a lonely life, because I'm not ready to join any group yet. The clumsiness I foresaw is undeniably there. To become a real, acknowledged as such ranger, I have to do a test for a ranger master. Kill about five worms, coming up out of the ground at irregular intervals, within a given amount of time. It takes me ages to accomplish this (really very simple) test. First to find this master, then to do the test. I don’t know yet that to target an enemy you can just use the tab key. Don’t have to click on it. So I move around like in a frenzy, and fail the test time after time. But eventually I do make it, with a little (well, a little!) help from my daughter. Lucky for me most quests don't have a time limit.
For a long time I choose to remain in the world my ranger was born into. My nephew is surprised to learn that at level 10 I'm still in pre-searing Ascalon . Level 6 or 7 is sufficient for the real job, it seems. When I finally cross the border I realize what pre-searing comes to. The real ascalon, the big world, is a nightmare. It's the same world, but a few years later. Hordes of Charr have invaded the country, completely destroying everything on their path. In what once was my lovely green birth ground now endless red deserts and grim rock formations stretch out as far as the eye can see. Spooky darkness reigns here, apart from the occasional smouldering fire. The sun is nowhere to be seen, hidden by a thick blanket of undoubtedly poisonous clouds of smoke. And it's very dangerous here. Just as well I'm level 10, or I would not have dared to take one step out of town. Lucky for me again there's some more help available than just my pet. There are henches for rent. NPC's - non playing chars - with the same classes as normal players. They don't cost anything, but they share in your loot. And you get less XP (experience) with them around.
Me Jane does not mind, because she's still roaming about on her own. Clumsiness has diminished a bit now, but not enough yet to join a real group. So she's happily leveling, untill she discovers, to her great dismay, the phenomenon of missions. You can't do missions on your own, or with henches. You really need a group for those, if only because otherwise you'd have no clue about where you should be heading. Finding your way with quests is no problem, because of the little arrow the game designers provide on your mini map. No such arrows with missions, though. Of course there will always be players who know where to go, because they did that mission before or checked the internet. Alas for me, all my Guildwars ànd WoW life I'm doomed to remain a very bad pathfinder, so I really need other pple's skills for this.
Apart from the problem of directions missions are just too hard to do with henches. And you need those missions to get to new areas. Or you could walk there, but that would be very hazardous (although there are players who earn their living by running for pple). One more thing, missions provide a lot more XP than quests do.
So Me Jane certainly has a problem. To be frank, she already had a problem, because she's wiped rather easily. Rangers wear leather and that may look cool, but it does not offer much protection, And Me Jane's bow does not exactly impress me wih the amount of damage it does. So Me Jane has to go.

(to be continued)