Let's Play Guild Wars Part The Fifth: In League With Something

Righto, so we've learnt a bit more necromancy and moonlighted with a minor amount monkey magic. What should we do next? Check the quest log, see what's happening.

Hmm... bandits, traitors, rogue wizards, hideous death worms.... BORING. I wanna go learn some spells. According to my sources the Elementalist trainer is holed up at some tower in a place called Wizard's Folly. Obviously with a name like that it must be a safe, boring kind of place, right?

Turns out to be a little unexpected after all. The folly in question isn't so much the sort of catastrophic magical disaster that has rent the very fabric of reality that one might expect. It's much more prosaic. The folly of the wizards seems to me to be that they decided to build their secret tower in a region that is basically made of bears.

Maybe he just wants to cuddle?

Bears, bears, more bears a bunch of bandits and the occasional wolf. You don't go from A to B. you go from dead bear to soon to be dead bear.

 Yeah, she's still tagging along.

Though like I said there are also the bandits. At one point when both bandits and bears I briefly thought that the bears were for some reason working for the bandits. But that would of course be silly. It's the bandits who work for the bears. The bears run this place.

Silly bear, zombies are not picnic baskets.

Still, whilst we're wandering around committing bearicide we bump into a random fellow, just hanging out in the middle of nowhere. If nowhere was populated by psychotic bears. The question needs to be asked, why isn't he dead? Is he in league with the bears?

Looking for a good time? Or maybe some bears?

But wait, that name looks familiar.... Don't I have a quest to find this guy?

Royalist Bears?!?!

Right. well, no need to go talking to random strangers trying to find him. He's right here in front of me. That should save a lot of time and....

No. He won't talk to me at all. Just sits there being an uncooperative dick. Fine. BE THAT WAY. I'll just go and do something else for a bit. Good luck with not getting raped and killed by all the BEARS.

Wait. Maybe THAT'S what he's here for. No wonder he wanted to get rid of me. Remember kids, up to 75% of people you meet online are actually bears. Never agree to meet them out in the middle of the wilderness where no one can hear you scream.

So, let's try in a different direction. Maybe up into the snowy mountains? That's the logical place for a wizards tower I suppose. Oh but first we've got to get back there. You know what that means.

See, told you there were bandits as well.

Anyway, we get back to the base of the mountain, where there are marginally less bears to deal with. There are however a few Elementals wandering around.

Insert bad pun here

But they're a lot more chilled out than the bears, so it's all good. Up we go, into the grim and frostbitten mountains, no doubt blasting a bit of Immortal whilst we're at it. I mean why not?

Half way up we find a base camp, so stop of for a bit of a rest. Whilst we're here we can also ask where that guy I ALREADY FOUND is. Who do we need to ask?

Did you know that women have boobies?

Power Girl. Right then. Moving on...

Up the mountains, searching for a hidden enclave of wizardly might. What arcane sorceries may be hiding it from mortal view? What obtuse riddles as mystical puzzles must I solve to gain some clue of it's location?

Can you say "overcompensating"?

Well, I guess that could be it. Fair enough. I guess if you're going to build a big stone dick replacement then you're gonna want people to see it. Though that does kind of beg the question why it's up a mountain surrounded by bears. But I digress. Now let's see about learning some mighty elemental magics from a grand master of ultimate wizardry!

Just because it burns when you pee does not mean you're a fire mage

Well, I guess it's technically less slutty than the last one. Though fire magic or not I have to wonder about how practical that outfit is when you live up the top of a snow covered mountain. Maybe she has +1 thermal undies?

Anyway, here's the deal. She'll show me some demo mage powers if I protect from a bunch of nasties whilst she's engaged in some very important standing there like a lemon. The only downside is this will give me.... AMNESIA!! And I'll forget my monkey magics. This is a little disappointing, but variety is the spice of life, so what the hey, we'll give it a go. So yeah, she stands there and a bunch of Ice Elementals bum rush the stage, only to die horribly at the hands of my new powers of fiery doom. Though frankly my existing powers of necromaniacal tomfoolery seem to do just as well, if not better. It's all fun enough, but I can't help wondering if maybe there isn't something a little better....

Let's Play Guild Wars Part The Fourth: I Lurk Where This Is Going.

So, having proved my ultimate mastery over the forces of life and death by dying like a bitch I figure maybe it's time to stop buggering around doing odd jobs OF DEATH and actually look at some at getting some training. Luckily I get a tip about a Necromancer who may be able to teach me some summoning magic. Apparently they're hanging around some abbey or other.

Well, anythings better than a bright sunny field of flowers. Let's check it out.

No under 18s admitted.

Oh yeah, this is much more like it. Only a shame it's till daytime. It's hard to be sinister when it's so nice out. Still, one does ones best. Sadly Gwen isn't allowed in. You must be at least this high to enter the catacombs? Probably for the best, the place is full of priests after all, and hate for anything untoward to happen before I get the chance to sacrifice her. Ritual void if seal is broken and all that.

So, leaving my young ward in the safety of a deserted wilderness crawling with hideous monsters I head into the abbey. There's a few nutters monks hanging around. Ones very keen that I rush back to the city to tell the authorities that he had a bad dream, but I can think of better thing to do with time. For example this other monk who will teach me some new skills if I help out his retarded mate retrieve something from the catacombs. Well, I'm headed that way already, so why not? So I get taught a healing spell to help muppet boy stay alive as he trudges through the fetid poisonous waters of the depths. Quite why you couldn't just teach HIM how to do that I'm not sure. Even better, buy him some decent boots. That's do the job, right?

Still, that's all a secondary concern. The main business after all is to learn ourselves some grim blasphemous sorceries of the damned. Onwards, towards damnation!

Another strong female role model.

Oh, I'm sorry. I appear to have come to the wrong place. I was looking for a necromancer. Still, no point in wasting an opportunity. How much for a...

Oh. You ARE a necromancer? Doesn't that get a bit draughty in all those midnight graveyards and shadowy crypts? Oh, never mind. What you do in your free time is your own business. I'm not here to judge. So how about you help raise something up? IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN (I mean zombies).

Does it live in a dark dark crypt in a dark dark catacomb?

A Dark Entity? A Dark Dark Entity of Darkness? And it feeds on the flesh of the living? Now we're talking. This is all so much more goth. Right, I'm on. I finally get minions!!!

Rolling with my crew.

Well, almost. See, the problem with dark evil crypts is they tend to be inhabited by skeletons. And once you've finished convincing the skeletons to lay back down again there's not really enough working parts left over for any thing special. Still, there's a few convenient giant scorpion corpses lying right next to the deadly deadly fire traps, so it works out in the sense of not dying. And thus we plunge into the dank depths of the dark crypt of darkness to confront the fearsome dark entity of darkness.

Hint: It's the dark bit.

A hideous feral shadow lurks within the crypt, rank with the foul stench of fear and death. All who have come before it have died, screaming in torment as it feasts upon their very souls, their flesh rent by fangs of living shadow sharper than scythes and colder than the grave. What chance do I have against a beast such as this?

Did I mention that monk from earlier taught me holy magic? Is that considered cheating? Seriously, the bitch dropped faster than Munne's drawers at the mention of gold. As epic battles go, that wasn't one. If the last guy got eaten then maybe he was made of fail and poison.

On the way out I remember to help out that monk, since I guess I do owe for the holy magic. A quick trudge through the poisonous mire does highlight one small flaw in the plan. Sure, I can cast heal on him, but who's meant to cast heal on me? I'm getting the impression that there are certain missions I'm not supposed to survive. Maybe this is how the monks keep their catacombs stocked with the restless dead? After surviving I'm offered a full time position of part time monkdom, but I'm not sure I really wanna work for these guys. Though I guess I would fit in, what with the molestation and grave desecration angles. Still, there's the tantalizing hint that I may be able to snag a few more demo skills from the various other class trainers.

This warrants further investigation.

Perchance To Dream

I am currently in some considerable physical pain, having just been out to watch a film. This is of course not a normal response to the cinematic medium, unless of course we're talking about micheal bay (thrice cursed be his name and all his descendants). I'm both pleased and relieved to state that my current discomfort derives not from the film itself, but from the rigours required to achieve it's viewing. Many would question this as well. After all, surely the logical course of action when going to see a film would be something along the lines of "go to cinema, watch movie". But this simplistic assesment betrays their appalling taste in film. Put simply, the chances of the local flea pit showing something worthwhile are so slim as to be laughable.

No, if we're going to be watching something we're going to want to watch something good. And that means getting up to bloody london. And that means gettting to the bloody train station. And since the weather was tolerable and I'm fat I decided to WALK down to the station. It's only about 3 and half miles according to google maps, and I can do it under the hour they reckon, so go me. Give me a gold medal and a hip replacement, somethings not working properly.

Of course, in order to even get that far first I have to actually convince myself to go out at all, which really isn't as easy it may sound to many. After all, I can have a really bad time being lonely and miserable at home, for a fraction of the cost. Why go to all that expense? So, as you can see I really do need to get out more. Anyway, sticking my metaphorical fingers up at both mind and body I set out to see King Of Thorn.

King Of Thorn is a manga I've had my eye for a while, it having somehow cropped up in my amazon reccomendations. It sounded interesting, but I hadn't yet got around to buying it in. So when I found out there was a showing of the anime my curiosity was natuarally piqued. For a start, what bloody anime? According to the programme it's only come out this year. This explains why it's not on amazon yet and thus why I had to trudge umpteen miles up to bloody london to see it.

Of course in addition to being interested in the manga and needing time out of the house there is also the fact that this has my type written all over it:

So really there was no excuse to miss this. Outside of my crippling mental problems. But fuck those guys.
The plot concerns a group of people who are put into suspended animation as a hideous plague known as the medusa virus is ravaging the world. If you wonder why they call it that then go look up a few things and catch up with the rest of the class later. After an unknown period of time the survivors awaken. Only everythings completely fucked and this hideous monsters. Good luck with that guys, off you go.

I'm not going to go into much more detail than that, as you can't really without spoiling stuff. The plot makes a kind of sense and manages to remain fairly consistant throughout. There are some interesting twists to the story, but nothing that isn't entirely unexpected. Everything is set up beforehand, which does make the prospect of the manga quite intriguing. After all, if the film is following the mangas plot quite closely then there must have been a fair amount of planning ahead from basically day one. Obviously I'm somewhat spoiled as to the major plot developments now, but I'm still interested in picking up the original to see if certain themes and characters get a bit more fleshed out.

The animation style is generally pretty good, with a few interesting choices in the use of cgi. My first impression being (honestly) "do those turbine REALLY need to be cg?". That they seem to use cgi on the monsters does make for an interesting look, emphasising as it does the unnatural aspect of the beasties. A little odd, but not overly offputting. The designs of the various monsters, characters and the like all seem pretty good, but of course the real test is how they compare to the original source material. Which is not something I'm able to do yet.

One of the things highlighted in the talk beforehand was that whilst the books and the film were succesful, they weren't exactly on the crazy popularity tier of some of the big name stuff. And as much as I hate to say it I don't think it will. It's a good, solid film certainly. But it's also more the sort of thing you'll be watching if you're already into anime. More a sort of B rank the A+ of the blockbuster stuff. Which frankly suits me down to the ground. We can forget about the hype and rabid fanbases and just appreciate the work on it's own merits. It's an engaging story with some fairly tight plotting and fun characters. It's fairly original both in the basic set up and some of the design elements, and although things may seem a bit muddled at the end it's at no point dissapointing.

Most certainly I enjoyed it, and I don't feel like it was a waste of time or money going through the effort to actually watch it. In fact the only dissapointing thing is just howdifficult it is getting to see it, seeing as how it was only playing for one night and probably won't be out on DVD for a long while yet.

Still, one watch out for when it finally does gain some degree of availability.

Let's Play Guild Wars Part The Third: An Appointment With I.G.N.O.M.I.N.I.O.U.S. D.E.A.T.H.

After A brief respite in the fever dream of reality, it's time to return the world of games.

The story so far: I his ongoing quest to find new and interesting ways of killing new and interesting people, our intrepid hero Myo has taken to wandering the countryside accompanied by a young girl. Whilst this may not, on the surface, strike you as a particularly dark and sinister thing to do it does have to be said that murder takes on whole new dynamic when accompanied by a skipping child.

 La dee da, just another regular day....

For her part Gwen seems remarkably unfussed about whats going on and is either in shock at what the fishmen were doing with her flute, or is actually FUCKING CRAZY.

To be fair, that would be a reasonable reaction to the world around us, populated as it is with monsters, murderers and the incredibly lazy. It's odd how peoples "duties" seem to prevent them doing anything outside of asking other people to do their jobs for them.

Now, since several of these jobs are hideously dangerous you can appreciate why someone sane would want to get out of them. However when we have someone who's so busy standing around that they can't even be bothered to pay their rent?

I'd do it myself, but I really can't be bothered.

Here's a tip mate. I'm not even going to tell you to go see your friend yourself. Instead I'd advise GETTING A FUCKING JOB rather than standing around a courtyard all day. Unless that IS his job. In which case he's shit out of luck. As previously discussed, judging by their appearance most of the ladies around here are in the same line of work.

Anyway, since I'm not sane I'm quite happy to soak up silly and dangerous quests from anyone who's got the punctuation.  And it's due to this shocking lack of discrimination on my part that I fin myself off to the cozy little hamlet of Ashford, where I will die an ignominious death.

See, there's some gribblies around there that need killing. So rather than call in the police, the army, or some form of expert, they get me. Go talk to the head bint about the gribblies I'm told. Righto. So off we trot, stopping off for a quick murder on the side.

He's a firestarter. Soon to be twisted pile of ex-firestarter

And so we find the head bint, and bring up the subject of said gribblies. Her response? Let's go get them. RIGHT NOW. And she runs off to face the teaming hordes. Somewhat confused I follow. Up the road, over the bridge and here they come!!

For some reason he's not pleased to see me.

And so she heroically buggers off for a minute, leaving me to face them alone. And by "them" I mean the ground. And by "face" I mean what I was lying ON.

That's one DEAD motherfucker...

Thanks bitch. This WAS your idea.

There's a bright light, and then....

There are Chocobos in heaven?

I'm back at the village by some sort of shrine. Death has no power over me!!! I am immortal!!!!

Right, let's try this again shall we. A short run up the road and... They're all dead. And there's that smug bitch standing there without a scratch on her. Nice. So they all get distracted killing me, and then you pop in and take them out with a sneak attack. What with not actually being visible for any point of the fight up to that point.

Still, I guess the fact that I survived must have spooked her a little, since she actually coughs up the reward. wasn't expecting to actually have to PAY, were you?

Note the complete lack of guilt.

Anyway, screw this noise, I need to go learn some better necromancy.

Arachnophobia.

Life is an awful lot like a game of solitaire.

It's something that you will at some point find yourself spending an awful of time doing, even though it's not really very fun. No matter what cards you are dealt they will be inevitably wrong. Sometimes of course you will simply be dealt exactly the wrong card at exactly the wrong time. Often you simply never get what you need, even if you had several options that could have theoretically resulted in some success. And slowly these add up towards your inevitable failure. You will make mistakes, but even you undo them ultimately nothing improves. Sometimes you might ask for hints, and whilst they may seem like a good idea at the time, in the long run they simply don't help. Often you will think that you're doing alright, and making suitable progress. It is at this point that everything will of course go suddenly and horribly wrong, and you will find yourself mired in a chaotic mess from which there is no escape.

There will be, of course, the rare occasion where you will triumph, and everything seems great. On reflection though this is always the product of sheer blind chance as much as it is any skill on your part. Usually moreso. And the next time you come back to it you will be confronted with the same wall of inevitable failure. And there's no way around it, because ultimately you WILL come back to it, in the end.


If you do it for long enough you will question the concept of free will.

It is something that you will always do alone.

And the only way to avoid all this is simply to quit.

Let's Play Guild Wars Part The Second: Fishfuck

Finally the downloading is done and we can start on our mighty adventure. Load up, make sure we're on a European server, and....

What do I do now? I'm in a castle, of some description. But that's all I know. Still If I wander around for a bit I'm sure I'll find someone to help point me in the direction of some learner quests.

ahh, here's a likely fellow.

In the universal language of mmorgs, giant floating punctuation means you have something to say. According to this fellow someones been looking for me. What a coincidence, I've been looking for someone!

Anyway, I must confess I'm a little confused by this deal. Someone has paid this guy to pay to me to go talk to them. Evidently they have some issues with making friends. Still, what else do I have to do except wander aimlessly?

So, possibly several METERS away we find Sir Tydus. I can tell immediately that he's important, because not only does he have punctuation, he has BITCHES.

 Is it REALLY a law that all woman must dress like hookers?

He's obviously mad pimping or some such vernacular. Anyway, He's gonna send me off to Necromancer school. This should be awesome. I'm a wizard Harry!!

Anywho, Off we trot through the gate to Lakeside County. This is a charming pastoral area, full of peace and tranquility. And giant fish monsters, but we'll get those in a bit.

Nothing bad could possibly happen...

My contact, Verata the Necromancer is.... Hanging out I guess? Just chilling by road. Now, it's a nice day for it and all, but that doesn't strike me as being exactly.... Necromancery behaviour. Shouldn't we be lurking in a crypt somewhere?

 Have you ever TRIED lurking in a field of daisies?

Still, it's not for me to judge. Maybe he's only supremely gothic on the weekends.

Tru-Dark™ Twice as powerful as the leading name brand

Or maybe not.

Still, he only wants me to go kill a hideous fish monster so that he can use it's rotting carcass in some unholy ritual, so that's fine. Up the road there are (conveniently) some hideous fish monsters. Also just hanging out, enjoying the scenery.

 Go to DIE, go directly to DIE. Do not pass go, do not collect the rest of your life.

They didn't seem to particularly enjoy being brutally murdered five minutes later by a wand wielding psychopath, but frankly that's not my problem.

Now for the fun bit. He did say I would enjoy this...

I shall love him and hug him and call him George

Awww, it's cute. I want one. This is going to be so awesome, I'll have hideous minions to to my evil bidding! Or.... maybe not. At least not yet. After showing me the twisted blasphemy of unliving flesh he is capable of creating, Verata tells me he can't actually teach me how to do that.

Oh REALLY?

Why not exactly? Don't you know how? The simple fact that you made a point of showing me that you do would kind of dispute that particular theory. An alternative theory would be because you're a dick. Anyway, some spells is better than no spells, so I guess I shouldn't really complain too much. So he gets to show off his metaphorical penis and I get a couple of offensive spells. And I don't mean Tourette's Flapping Mouth.

Anyway, what else is there to do around here? Aside from vent my rage on fish monsters?

Well, the Healer has a refreshing attitude towards her job, but I'm not really the chummy type.

Oh, who's this?

 I don't think he lieks Mudkips either

What's that? You'll trade me stuff for bits of fish monster? No, I don't really care what stuff. I'm sure it's very nice, but it's the killing part that I'm interested in. Oh there will be blood, and pain and darkness and death and....

If not, do you have any puppies to show her?

A little girl? And she want me to find her flute? Awwwww....

Well, don't worry about the scary monsters. I'll just go and have a talk with them and see if we can't find where your flutes got to...

Hint: Not happy

BLOOD!!! BLOOD AND DEATH!!! CLEANSE THE EARTH OF ALL THAT LIVES!!

Hint: Not Sleeping

Ahem.

Anyway we trot off for a bit of recreational murder. For hideous bestial creatures of the water these fish men do seem to carry a fine line of wands. Not that they ever seem to be carrying them....

Hang on. Wand shaped object, appearing after all life has ceased... it would have to be coming from......

EEEWWWW. That's not right. I mean, really fish people? REALLY? Save it for when your at home, there's CHILDREN around here. And that counts double for the one with the staff.

Excuse me while I go wash my hands, equipment, backpack and mind.

 My Avarice-Sense is tingling...

After a brief interlude of perverted fish murder we find the poor childs flute. It's broken.

I WONDER HOW THAT HAPPENED?

Still, probably for the best. She's only young, and may not have thought to wash it first.

I give you my word as a practitioner of the black forbidden arts that you'll PROBABLY be just fine.

And now she wants to...follow me around? How exactly is that going to help?

This is starting to get disturbing. I mean she's like, what, 12? Is this some kind of set up? I mean, I'm really not into that sort of thing but what if someone gets the wrong impression and....

 Funny you should say that, because I was just gonna show her MY pointy end....

Yeah. Figures. Funny how the first title you can unlock is "Pedophile".

Let's Play Guild Wars Part The First

I've toyed with the idea of trying to write a Let's Play style series for a while, but never quite seem to get around to it. Partly because There really aren't that many games I've been playing that really lend themselves to it. Which I guess is something to do with my general distaste for online gaming. But now I've decided to play Guild Wars for a bit. Why? I hear no one ask.

Well, honestly because I was Stumbling and got an article about how in the sequel you get your own house. That was enough to actually interest me, and a couple of links later we get to the free demo. I like free, so I figure hey ho, let's give it a go. I don't have to set up any new accounts as I've still got one from my City Of Heroes days, so really there's nothing to stop me.

Installation seemed suspiciously pain free. I download the installer, the installer does it's thing and we're straight into character generation. That was remarkably fast. So I break for lunch and then come back to build my ultimate character of ultimate destiny. Not all the various options are available in the demo. I can't create a PVP character. OH NOES!!! Whatever will I do?

Technically speaking I could be less interested in PVP play, but then I'd be in a coma.

So Roleplaying character, chapter the only one that's allowed and we're on to the choice of character class. There's a Necromancer. This means that the concept of choice is entirely irrelevant. If there's one thing I fucking LOVE it's Necromancy. So I ignore the other so called options and choose Necro.

Character setup is pretty straightforward, choose from face, haircut and few colors and off we go.

 I'm so pretty

The name is obviously tricky. I go with Myo Ossificans. In this case Myo is short for myositis. Or, as the dictionary would have it:

myositis ossificans

Ossification or the deposit of bone in muscle tissue, causing pain and swelling.

Sounds appropriately melodramatic for a man of my persuasions.

And then it's time to start the game!

Oh, wait. No it isn't.

You remember how earlier I said the install time was SUSPICIOUSLY fast? Now we find out why. Because it had downloaded the character generator, but very little else. So now I'm stuck on a loading screen as we wait for the actual game bit of the game to download.

It's an.... interesting design decision. I can kind of see how it could work. If, for example, there were a sufficient variety of starting areas then it could be technically more efficient to just download the you need. However, the problem here is the interruption of the flow. I've downloaded an installed, I've generated my character. At this precise moment the last thing I want to do is wait for an hour while shit downloads. I want to be, you know, PLAYING.

I'm conditioned to expect the initial download time to be tedious. I'm fully prepared to leave it going while I do something else and come back later to play. But to put the big download here? Seems a little odd. Can I go and do something in the meantime? Will it be safe to, or will I come back to find myself just standing around like a muppet?

Who knows. I don't. I was gonna spend the time writing this, but we're only up to 38%. Guess we'll just have to wait until next time.

Surely Someone Else Has Already Done This?

I just remembered that I made these ages ago. Quite why I'd think of an old Dinosaur Comics / All Your Base mash up first thing in the morning I'm not quite sure. Probably something to do with my mental problems. Anyway, I've dug it out and uploaded it, ain't you lucky?

Some Dim For Papa

"As well know Isaac, I enjoy pain."

I was thinking of putting a poll up here. Not that anyone would care, but it'd be fun to try it and see. And what would I put up for the question? Well based on the only feedback I've ever recieved for anything I've ever written I thought I'd ask for suggestions on which bloody awful book I should recap next. You know, retarding myaelf in the name of your entertainment. So I looked up what would make good possibilities. Obviously there's Twilight, though that's a little played out at this stage don't you think? I could try the Bible or something similar, but that would go on a bit, probably beyond my ability to cope. And then I saw it. A book with an enticing tag line SO retarded it took a grip on mind like a brain damaged pitbull. There was no way I could deny it. It could only be this book.

That's right. It's part 2. I mean, why stop now, just when I'm hating it?

Brace yourself for some EVIL PASSION. It's coming down again.

Though by the end of all this it might be coming up.

My lunch that is, not my penis.

After last time it packed it's bags and left to join a monastary.

Too much detail? THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS TOO MUCH DETAIL! YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE DETAIL!!!