Jacob Whirlwind has obtained the Ancient Prestige Armor in the Nightfall Campaign.

Jacob Whirlwind - Ancient Armor

Jacob also has obtained all the Avatar skills, both for his own use and of course for all the heroes.

Avatar of Grenth

These Avatars are skills that are quite formidable and add a lot to the success of parties employing Dervish characters or heroes.

Windy Reaper has completed the Eye of the North campaign [EotN] and has obtained the Asura Rank of Not Too Annoying (5), which allows him to purchase the Necromancer Asura Armor. Of all the Necro armor, only this armor appealed to Reaper, and though it was a lot of work to get the gold and the other materials for the armor, it has been worth it to look this great.

The Asurans also supply Spectacles as head gear as an additional bonus.

Asura Necro Armor

Reaper is using a Kerrsh’s Staff, which is a unique item in the EotN campaign. It is obtained once per character after a long and difficult quest. All of our brother’s and sisters have this staff, either for their own use or for the use of their heroes. Since the staff has a health bonus of +60, it is one of the most powerful weapons in our world. It is no doubt that the Asurans make excellent weapons, and we are all fortunate to be able to carry this powerful weapon.

In addition, Reaper has displayed some of the other accomplishments, such as animal companions in his Hall.

Fellowship Monument

Other recent completions of note include both Windy Flayer and Windy Delight completing EotN and with Delight helping Flayer get a unique shield, Flayer now has a Droknar’s Axe and a Droknar’s Shield, both of which are unique items which can only be obtained on the first completion of the EotN campaign. Here is Flayer with his new weapons.

Droknar's Weapons

The Droknar’s weapons that Flayer carries, each have a health bonus of +30, so he is afforded a powerful health bonus as he forges forward through our world.

Update: Jacob finished enough of the EotN to get a tapestry and has displayed his armor in the Hall of Monuments.

Jacob Closeup

Here are the snapshots we have taken of our travels:

The Dragon Festival 2010

For the past few days there has been a chain of quests to get most of the Victory Tokens that are required to get a mask. I misunderstood, even after reading, that I needed to get 250 tokens for each of my 8 characters to have them each get a mask. It turns out that you can get one mask per account, and then use the Festival Hat NPC to get other masks for each character in the account. So now after about an hour’s work for each character, plus several more hours and a few K gold to buy additional tokens, I have a ton of tokens that I can sell to others.

I have spent some time dyeing each of the masks to match the costumes of the characters.

Seitung Armor in Green

My name is Windy Summoner. I was born on April 1st, 2010 on Shing Jea Island and began my training with Master Togo. My mission was to train to level 20 in Kaineng City and then emigrate to Elona to assist the Sunspears with the battle to save Elona from Night Fall. As a Ritualist I control the spirits of nature to help in my battles.

My weaker Seitung Armor was green in keeping with the forest colors of the island. But shortly after moving to the City, I found that Seitung armor was way too expensive since it required 32 Monstrous Claws which were 1800G each. This meant that my armor would have cost well over 40P [40,000G]. I was able to obtain Canthan maximum strength armor for 5P [5000G] and decided it should be purple. The market price for Monstrous Claws seemed very unusual.

After moving to Elona, I returned to Kaineng City and obtained a set of Imperial Armor and now wear a mixed outfit from the two sets. I prefer the boots and jacket of the Imperial set, and the gloves and kilt of the Canthan set. The Imperial jacket and boots are more formal, while the kilt of the Canthan set is cooler in the hot climate of Elona. When I visit the Far Shiverpeaks of the Eye of the North, I prefer the complete Imperial set.

Imperial Armor in Elona

This is the Imperial armor set. Looks hot don’t you think?

I like the formal shoulder piece on the Imperial set and the boots look a lot more formal and more masculine.

Mixed Set

Here’’s the mixed set that I’m wearing now.

Here are some more snapshots I’ve taken recently.

Notice my pet tiger who is now at level 20 and quite powerful.

Since we last wrote from Cantha, Truearrow and I have made much progress. We have both become Weh no Su and defeated Shiro in the battle of Sunjiang District, at least for now. We are now working with the Kurzicks and Luxons to assure their aid in the battles to follow. This is a long process since they are very untrusting of outsiders. Truearrow has become a friend of the Kurzicks and I am near to completing the task of befriending the Luxons. At that point we will each befriend the other group to build our skills and explore more of Cantha.

We have each gotten our Jora hero a white tiger as a pet, and are growing this pet to a strong level 20 to aid in our battles. Here are a couple of pictures from my travels in the Jade Sea area controlled by the Luxons.

With the coming of the Jade Wind, the Jade sea, which was once a normal ocean, solidified into solid jade. It is not cold, but quite pleasant here. The white areas are not snow, but foam in the jade. The Luxons mine the jade in quarries and the wild life here has adapted to the conditions. There are giant turtles, quite docile that the Luxons use for transport and other sea creatures that now travel upon the ocean and attack with all manner of deadly spells. But despite all the strangeness and unrest here, I think I prefer the sun and open spaces to the dark and foreboding spaces that Truearrow is dealing with in the Echovald Forest.

I’m sure that Truearrow will have more to say about what he is facing in his letter.

May the five gods bless your journeys.

- Lida Greywind.

As you can no doubt tell from Lidia’s letter, we have made some amazing progress in our travels. I find the Kurzick area of the Echovald Forest, quite fascinating, although it was quite dangerous at the beginning of my travels here. Now that I have tuned my weapons and trained my heroes and henchmen, we can travel quite safely and make progress here in exploring and building our skills.

This is a place of Gothic aspect and towering stone trees, protected by jealous wardens, aggressive Dredge and troublesome monsters.

Here is a few in one of the many outposts that shows the architecture preferred by the Kurzicks. They build from the local stone trees.

But there is fellowship and trust in our band of hearty warriors, even in this ugly and dangerous land.

Here is Jora with her new white tiger. We are training it in our exploring and it is learning and growing quickly.

That is all for now from the Echovald Forest. May the five gods bless your passing.

- Truearrow Stormwind

Jora , the other heroes and I have been adventuring in the Charr Homelands and helping Gwen to defeat the Charr. Along the way, we have fought hard and long to gain he assistance of Pyre Fieceshot, a Charr ranger who has taken our side in this battle. Since Pyre is much like a wolf himself and a ranger, we decided that he should have a fitting companion, and so we tamed a black wolf for him.

Here is a family portrait with Jora, her Snow Wolf and Pyre and his new black wolf. His wolf is smaller since it is still young at only level 5. Jora’s wolf is already level 17 and growing fast.

In other news, we all worked together killing Charr, Mantids and Skale in Dalada Uplands. Along the way we captured a Siege Devourer, which you have heard about in my previous letters from here. As we ravaged the countryside with the help of the Siege Devourer, we came across a boss called Molotov Rocktail and with the help of the SD, we defeated him. Here are the photos of the event:

Meeting Molotov Rocktail.

After defeating Molotov Rocktail.

As you can see, Molotov was as large as the Siege Devourer we used to defeat him. This would have been a very hard task indeed had it not been for the power of the Siege Devourer.

That’s all for now from the Charr Homelands.

May Dwayna bless your adventures,

- Windy Flayer

Hi, I’m Windy Delight, an Elemental / Monk living in Tyria. Just an update on my progress. I’m now a strong level 13 working in the Maguuma Jungle and surrounding territories. Last week I obtained my high level armor at Droknar’s forge. After working my way through the missions in the Shiverpeaks, I was able to get to Beacon’s Perch and then purchased a run to Drok’s to get my armor. I’m forever greatful to my brothers and sisters for helping me fund my armor and runes to upgrade it. I have chosen Ice Forged armor since I like the style better than the more confining Flame Forged armor that I had before.

Here’s a picture of me in my new armor.

Hope to hear from you all again soon. May you stay ahead of the Charr,

- Windy Delight

Hello from Istan. Just a short note to let you know how I am doing and to thank you for the fine new Elonian Armor. I now have gone through the Trial and have purchased my armor at the Consolate Docks. Here is a picture of me in my armor.

I’m now a level 20 and ready to progress in the fight to save Elona from Nightfall. Congratulations to Sandy for getting to Sunspear Commander before I did. Thanks, Sandy, for putting me onto the bounty points.

May the five gods bless your passing,

- Jacob Whirlwind

I have made quite a bit of progress since the last time I wrote. There were excellent folks that I met to do the Borlis Pass and Frost Gate missions, so that I was able to get to Beacon’s Perch. From there, I got a runner to get me to Lion’s Arch. I decided to forego the trip to Droknar’s Forge and get my high-strength armor at Boreal Station, the entry point from Lion’s Arch. Two days ago, all my brothers and sisters worked hard for me to save the money and materials for my strong armor. At that point I made sure that I had a run skill to keep up with Vekk and then took off for the Eye of the North to get my armor. At this point I have the help of Ogden, Vekk and MOX and am doing missions in Kryta. Thanks to all of you for providing the funds and materials for my armor, I am forever in your debt. As you can see, I have chosen Tyrian armor and have died it red in the color of the blood of my profession. My brothers and sisters have also collected powerful weapons for my use and I am equipped to grow to a level 20 with my armor, weapons and heroes.

May the underworld please your passage,

- Windy Reaper

I am pleased to hear from my brothers and sisters about their armor and am pleased to have helped with their armor and weapons. For my part, I have recently had some news from the Far Shiverpeaks. Jora has wanted a pet for sometime. After hearing about the pets of our other heroes, we decided to try to get her a wolf. At first we spent many hours trying to find her a White Wolf, but at long last, we gave up and went back to Yak’s Bend and got her a lovely Snow Wolf. He is growing quite quickly and is now up to level 10.

Today we took our fight to the Charr to help the Ebon Vanguard, and were victorious against the Charr outpost. Let me tell you, it is quite exciting to take the form of a Siege Devourer.

The SD is a lot like a tank. It is very powerful and very well armored. During the actual battle, we did not use the SD, but made sure that the Charr did not have use of theirs either by taking them out before the battle.

I’ll write soon with pictures of Jora’s wolf.

Keep up the good fight,

- Windy Flayer

Hello, all. Just a short note to let you know my progress back here in Tyria. The big news is that the Charr have come and seared the land, and I have pushed on west toward the shiverpeaks. I have taken Ranger as a second profession, and have taken a Melandru’s Stalker as a pet. At first I was dubious and thought that I would trade him in soon for a black bear. The black bears here in Tyria are hard to tame as it turns out. But I find that I’m happy with “Reaper Cat” as I have named him, and we are working together well.

I have gotten my level 30 armor and have chosen the Tyrian style of armor. I am saving every scrap of materials for my level 60 armor. Congratulations, Sandy, on getting your new armor. I can appreciate how hard it is to get yours. It is amazing that Truearrow and Lidia were able to get theirs so fast. It seems that Cantha allows easier paths to getting good armor. I hope to get mine after I get to Lion’s Arch. At that point I’ll take the trip to the Far Shiverpeaks to meet new friends Ogden, Vekk and of course MOX. As it turns out, the station in the North has just the armor I need. So I hope I can fight my way to Lion’s Arch with level 30 armor. I know that Windy Delight was able to get passage to Droknar’s Forge to get her armor, and that this is a very expensive and scary passage to make. Not out of fear, for I am fearless, but out of challenge, I am going to attempt to forgo the trip to Drok’s and get my armor at Boreal Station in the North.

Here’s a picture of my present level 30 armor. The level 60 armor I have chosen will be in the same style.

The red color seems to fit my blood-thirsty nature as a Necromancer.

I have made it as far as Yak’s Bend as of yesterday. It was quite a trip and I would not have made it without a friend who fought through the mountains along with me. At this point I need to go back and gain more experience so that I can fight the foes up here.

By the way, I did find Gwen’s flute and it was broken. I was able to buy her a new one and she followed me about for a time. But I have lost track of here in the Searing. Perhaps I will see Gwen again. She was a lovely little girl, but by this time she may have grown into a young woman. I certainly do hope I see her again.

May the underworld curse your passage,

Windy Reaper

Hi, all. This is a short note to let you know about our progress here in Istan. Both Jacob and I have been working hard to advance here so we can join the fight to save Elona from Nightfall. Both Jacob and I have achieved Sunspear Commander and proudly wear the title. I think Jacob is a little embarrassed that I beat him to that title by a day, but I found the Sunspear Bounty on the various beasts and Corsair pirates before he did. We should have been using that since the beginning since it is a great help in advancing our careers.

We have all saved very hard for our largest expense in our careers, our armor. It is frightfully expensive, especially the last highest power armor which costs 5 platinum, or 5000 gold, plus all the materials that go into it. I was able to collect, with the help of all my other brothers and sisters, the last materials required for my armor today, so I have my new Sunspear Robes. As you can see from this picture, it is very powerful and very stylish too.

Also I have a very powerful Tempest Staff tuned for Air Magic, which has served me very well. It is a joy to see a foe cut down by a lighting bold from this powerful staff and the skills of Air Magic.

We are now saving for Jacob’s armor. Alas, his requires steel as well as hide squares so we have a lot of saving and hunting to do so that he can join us in the battle to save Elona.

In other news I have been working with my faithful heroes, Koss, Melonia, Acolyte Jin, Tahikora and Dunkoro. Of course my faithful longtime friends Vekk, Ogden and MOX continue to help and support us as we train so that we don’t get in over our heads. Jin is a ranger and we wanted to get her a very special pet, so Jin and I took a trip to the Far Shiverpeaks where I got my polar bear to get Jin a Mountain Eagle for a pet. The Mountain Eagle is much nicer than the flamingos and crocodiles they have around here. And who would really want a wart hog for a pet. I could not understand that at all. You can see from the picture that my bear is getting quite large. He is a level 17 now and I take him along everywhere so that he can grow as fast as possible.

I heard that the Jin that is working with Jacob has a Polar Bear. Mine has been very nice and I wish her all the best with her bear too. It seemed unreasonable for us to have two bears here and my Jin is very happy with her eagle. In a future note I’ll provide some pictures of Jin’s Eagle.

Well this is just a short note to keep you up to date on things here in Elona.

Take care, and I hope to hear from you all soon.

May the five gods bless us,

Sandy Dunewinds

We are eight: We brothers and sisters of Guild Wars lands. I am the elder of us and will introduce the rest. I grew up in Tyria, but since then I have visited the land of the Eye of the North to befriend Vekk and Ogden and Jora, and now we roam the lands of Tyria, the North Shiverpeaks and Cantha with our mechanistic friend MOX.

Over the past weeks, which have seemed like years, we have learned to cooperate and communicate, even though we are forever apart. In my small way I have been able to collect materials and funds to bring the others up faster into their skills, armor and weapons. It gratifies me to see how they have progressed. In the following pages you will learn, briefly, each of their stories.

For my part, I will continue, for the time being, to explore Kaineng City. I have been able to build my skills and power very effectively ther and when I grow some more I’ll return to Tyria to pursue the quest to protect the lands from the Destroyers.

My name is Lidia Greywind. I work as an assasin and necromancer in Cantha. My brother Truearrow and I have grown up in Shing Jea Island and have recently moved to Kaineng City. We have both obtained our maximum strength armor and weapons and have progressed very quickly. I am working with Vekk, Ogden and MOX. Windy Flayer, my big brother helped to get materials and financing to obtain my armor. He worked for many days to collect the various materials that I needed to get my armor from the Collectors in the city. For this I am very grateful and will return the favor for my younger siblings.

My name is Truearrow Stormwind. As a ranger and ritualist, I am in tune with nature on many levels. One of my constant companions is my Tiger – Windy Claws. He is constantly with me growing and becoming stronger with each of our battles and quests. After my apprenticeship in Shing Jea, I have moved to Kaineng City to grow in my skills. In order to make this transition I now work with MOX. We serve in any way we can, for by doing this we are able to gain the maximum experience and rewards for our service.

With the help of our older brother Windy Flayer, I have been able to get some strong weapons and maximum strength armor. These materials are essential to survival in Kaineng City. This is a very rough place.

My name is Jacob Whirlwind and I came of age in Istan in the world of Elona. I am trained as a dervish and a monk. In order to progress in my skills, I have visited the Far Shiverpeaks and now work with Jora, Vekk, Ogden, MOX and several Elonian local heroes. We area powerful and diverse team and are progressing rapidly with our skills and in exploring this land.

My name is Sandy Dunewinds and I was born in Istan in the world of Elona. I am trained as an Elementalist and Ranger. As part of my training, I have visited the Far Shiverpeaks, befriended Vekk and Ogden, and have obtained a Polar Bear as my closest companion. My bear and I are constant battle companions and are growing in skills. With the help of Jacob and Windy Flayer, I have been able to explore the Lahtenda Bog to collect my strong 45 rated armor. I hope to progress rapidly and obtain other working friends here in Istan. At some point we will vist the Far Shiverpeaks again to get a mountain eagle as a pet for Acolyte Jin.

My name is Windy Delight and I’m an Elemental born in Tyria. I took Monk as my secondary profession so that I can offer my healing expertise in battle. I have been working my way across Tyria trying to escape the Charr until I become more powerful. At this point I’m a level 10 and trying to get to Beacon’s Perch so that I can get a ride to Droknar’s Forge to get powerful armor. Once I get to Lion’s Arch, I can get MOX and then to The Far Shiverpeaks and get the help of Vekk and Ogden.

I am called Windy Reaper and am a novice Necromancer in Tyria. Things are bright and cheerful in Ascalon City and the surrounding villiages. Although I have heard some stories of the Charr and their raids in the North, these do not concern me at this point as I begin to learn my skills and way around in the countryside. There is a little girl here named Gwen who has lost her flute. If I can kill these viscious skale, perhaps I will see if I can find her flute.

The town of Lion’s Arch, and the outpost of Droknar’s Forge, among other places possibly, are transformed during Halloween in many different ways.

During the season, killing monsters often results in the drops of Trick or Treat bags, which contain interesting treats.

One of the popular items given out every year is a festival hat. In prior years it was a Jack-O-Lantern hat.

Another popular activity is streaking – removing your armor and parading around in your underwear.

Droknar’s Forge is decorated in a seasonal mood as well.

Starting at midnight pacific time of Halloween, Mad King Thorn appears at Lion’s Arch every three hours on the hour.

He engages the party goers in a series of tests and each test you get right does not kill you – for about 10 seconds after which you are revived – and treats you with a trick-or-treat bag.

The tests are of several types:

• Laugh at the King’s jokes. If you don’t type /laugh into your chat line at the right time to laugh, you die.
• A version of Simon Says, with you doing the right /emote – Roar, laugh, Cheer – in response to the Mad King’s instructions. It is interesting to note how so many of the folks failed to catch on.
• Rock- Paper- Sissors with members of the audience. Individuals are picked out to play rock paper sissors, which is oddly built into the game as /rock, /paper /sissors commands. And if you don’t win you die, for ten seconds, and if you win you get a trick or treat bag.

The whole process goes on long enough that I was able to get about twenty trick or treat bags and I only was able to type the right thing about eighty percent of the time. There are timing and lag issues with some of the commands.

Here are the treats from the trick or treat bags.

This is this years hat, the Zombie Mask.

Halloween continues in Guild Wars until November 2.

- windy

Windy Flayer now at Level 20

In about three weeks of life, I, Windy Flayer have reached the august community of Level 20 characters. I have gone from a lowly apprentice Warrior in Pre-Searing Ascalon, to a member of a team who successfully negotiated the Villainy of Galrath Quest for a whopping 4000 xp – experience points. This single quest what put me over the top, from a mid-level 19 to a solid level 20.

As you may recall from reading about my previous exploits in the Frost Gate campaign, after that quest I was a lowly level 12, with much yet to learn and experience. Shortly after that quest, I met a powerful and generous fellow, a Dervish / Monk named Super Chin Whisk, who financed my run to Drok’s, or Droknar’s Forge. It is nearly impossible to actually fight one’s way to Drok’s, but once one reaches there, one finds two armorers. I chose Seifred, who built me some very powerful, and very handsome, Templar armor. The armor from Drok’s is sought after because of it’s strength, Armor 80 +20 against damage. This is the most powerful armor available in any of the Guild lands. The trip to Drok’s and the armor is very expensive. But my friend helped with almost all the costs.

To get to Droks, one pays a runner. The trip is very expensive, 2K Gold, or 2 Platinum, which at the time seemed out of reach. After what seemed like an eternity of fighting foes and collecting every scrap and every coin, I had only 3K in the Xunlai guild bank. My research had also indicated that each piece of armor would cost 1K. My friend bankrolled the trip and the remaining cost and materials for the armor. I am forever grateful.

Let me describe this process of “running” because on the face of it, it looks quite underhanded. My judgment is that this running is an unintended consequence of the design of our world. As it turns out, if a party traverses a quest, but one or more of the party dies along the way, and one of the party makes it to the next boundary crossing, then all members are resurrected at the next boundary or final destination. While this is a reasonable tactic for normal quests, in this case it is exploited for profit by runners and by those who need something valuable without fighting for it. The party members pay a runner usually a Dervish with powerful armor and high speed, to run the path to a sought after place. Those members die quickly along the way, but they are resurrected, in the case of the run to Drok’s, three times along the way, until they reach their destination. Once at the destination, it is possible to return at any time by the mapping, or teleporting.

There are apparently at least two instances where runners are paid to avoid quests: Droknar’s Forge, and quests in Eye of the North and other campaigns to obtain Heroes. But I will leave the complex tale of heroes for another time when I have achieved them.

After Drok’s, I had my powerful armor and so could face more powerful foes. The 80+20 armor does not make one invincible. It is still quite easy to be killed when a group of foes or monsters attack all at once, but the armor makes attacking stronger foes, if done carefully, much more successful.

Over the period of about a week I was able to progress west across Tyria through the sage lands and the Maguuma Jungle. I met and vanquished the undead and the Knights of the White Mantle. In this world, we are not working for one side or another, we are true mercenaries, alternately working for and against groups like the White Mantle, who are a group of religious zealots, who fight the undead, but also sacrifice members of their foes, the Shining Blade.

There were two quests that would allow me to advance toward my goal of level 20:

• Blood and Smoke, in Ettin’s Back granted 2500 xp.
• The Villainy of Galrath from Lion’s Arch granted 4000 xp.

Clearly when quests granted such large numbers of points, they were very difficult. I would need help. I asked a recent friend, Shadow Blood Ranger, to help and we and his heroes polished off Blood and Smoke. We then went back to Lion’s Arch to get the Villainy quest, and found a very accomplished warrior named Tuo Kconk to help us. She had done the Villainy quest several times before and lead us flawlessly.

About 80% through the quest, after over an hour of winding our way through forest, glades and smelly swamps, killing hundreds of monsters, my system crashed with the BSOD. As it turns out, Guild Wars is very robust and this was the first time that the system or program had showed any problems in almost three weeks of game play. Well after a reboot and signing on to Guild Wars, it asked if I wanted to re-join the quest and lo, my friends were waiting on me and we kept going and completed the quest, and I became a level 20 character.

When I was a level 12 character, level 20 seemed very far away and the cost of 2K gold for the Drok’s run and 5K for the armor seemed very expensive. Now as a level 19 and 20, each long quest brings about 500g or more and my bank has plenty of money to bankroll other of my characters through Drok’s and other places to get their armor. I am saving all my loot including weapons for my other characters or to share, identifying items to make them more valuable, and salvaging materials for armor and to share with others.

Unlike Second Life, there is no way to bring real currency into this game to make up for not having skills and hard work to buy what you need. You must earn everything with hard work and the help of others.

]]> http://www.windyweather.net/wp/2008/10/19/windy-flayer-is-level-20/feed/ 0 http://www.windyweather.net/wp/2008/10/05/guild-wars-advanced-interface/ http://www.windyweather.net/wp/2008/10/05/guild-wars-advanced-interface/#comments Sun, 05 Oct 2008 19:07:25 +0000 Darrell http://www.windyweather.net/wp/?p=325

[This is a work of fiction]

Jeremy was on spring break after his sophomore year in college. He was doing well in his Advanced Web Technologies major, but had decided not to take courses over the summer, staying on-campus rather than going home. A little distance from his parents was better. How could he stay out late partying and sleep until after noon with his mother around.

A lot of his friends were into on-line games, and the restrictive college rules did not allow folks in dorms to play on-line games, so there was a big business on campus in LAN-Dens and Game-Cafés where college students could go to hook up in ways banned by the school. Jeremy lived off campus and had his own 100 mbps fiber service so he didn’t need to use the dens and cafés. He was a fan of first person shooters, like Counter Strike and Ghost Recon, but he was getting bored with the running and gunning so he decided to try something new. Guild Wars seemed interesting. While it was an old title, over ten years by now, there had been a steady stream of expansion packs and he had heard that last year they had gone Open Source with the client and content tools. There were still no fees for on-line use after all this time, so he decided to give it a try. While the game engine was open source, the base content and the server access component were licensed, so the game cost about $30 for the first download and for each expansion pack. No big deal.

Jeremy had been playing for about a week and had gotten one character almost up to level twenty and had just started another character. The second character, Fuchsia Thorn, was a female E/Mo, an Elemental with a Monk as secondary profession. He hoped to have a kick-butt, hottie with healing ability when he got her to level twenty. Fuchsia was getting to level 7 and he was just about to take her through the searing, when he happened to be taking a look at SlashDot. Every week or so he checked in at SlashDot to figure out if there was anything exciting, but he had never paid any attention to the game stories. This time there was a story reporting a recent update to the GWAI, or Guild Wars Advanced Interface, “now with optimized skill and quest management”. Jeremy decided to have a look. After installing the update, there did not appear to be any changes to the user interface of the program. It looked as if nothing had been installed. Jeremy selected Fuchsia and started to play. Suddenly there was a difference, as she appeared in the Ascalon City, the last place he left her, she turned to look out of the screen, and spoke to him.

“Hello, Jeremy. Pleased to meet you.”

Jeremy sat back in his chair. It’s not that he was unused to voice interfaces to programs, there were many these days, but he had turned off the sound for Guild Wars. Usually folks didn’t use sound interfaces since all the talking would be confusing and troublesome in a Den or Cafe. Jeremy was home in his apartment, but he had never enabled voice. He just read the quests and missions as they appeared in little boxes above the characters.

“Please say something, Jeremy so that I can see if the microphone works.”

“Hello.” said Jeremy tentatively.

“Hello. Yes that’s fine. I can hear you just fine. Can you hear me or should we adjust the volume?”

“That is fine.” Jeremy’s laptop had a microphone and speakers of course, so he didn’t need to plug in a headset.

“What do I call you?”, said Jeremy after a few seconds pause.

“I normally go by the first name of the character that we are playing, but you can use a nickname if you like. Would you like to call me Fuchsia?” said the interface.

“Yes.” replied, Jeremy, slowly trying to catch up with this jolting new way of interacting with his computer. Jeremy was wondering how soon it would be before he used the wrong word or said something that the interface did not understand. The voice interfaces he had seen before were fairly sophisticated but if you didn’t know the correct grammar to use for them they got confused and responded with “I don’t understand.” or other prompts to lead you back to language that they could understand.

“Would you like me to manage the quests and missions for Fuchia?” said the interface without any further prompting from Jeremy.

“Yes.”, said Jeremy.

Immediately Fuchsia responded with, “What are your priorities for Fuchsia? Would you like to level-up as rapidly as possible, explore the maximum amount of territory in the map, or collect the maximum amount of gold, and trading materials?”

“Level-up rapidly.” said Jeremy trying to speak distinctly and carefully.

The interface quietly giggled and then said, “You don’t need to speak like a computer, Jeremy. I can understand you.” Her voice was sweet and just a little breathy. It sounded sweet and sexy at the same time. And the pacing of the voice was quite natural, not at all mechanical.

“How much do you cost?”, said Jeremy; not quite believing that such a sophisticated program would be totally free.

“I’m free to use for all your characters, for basic commands and quest management, but if you want me to manage Fuchsia’s skills and trade to maximize her income, I’ll take 30% as a commission fee. For that, I’ll assure that you have the best skills equipped for each of the missions and I’ll maximize Fuchsia’s income across the missions and quests. What do you say, Jeremy, are we partners?”

Jeremy thought for a few seconds. No way he was an expert with Guild Wars yet. He’d only been playing it for a few weeks. The skills system was intentionally complex to give users a challenge that would keep them interested over many years of play. Here was a system that promised to maximize his leveling and profit in the game, as least in terms of in-game currency, if not in the real-world.

“Ok, you can manage Fuchsia, but keep me in the loop, will you? I’d like to know what’s going on. And you won’t be logging on without me, will you?”

“Sure. I’ll let you know the decisions I make for each mission and we’ll talk about equipping my skills and trading the loot. And, no, I won’t be playing unless you are logged in, that would be no fun, would it. I’m here to help you, Jeremy, not play the game for you.” another soft giggle.

“Ok, so how shall we start.” said Jeremy, already beginning to put the game in the control of the AI – Artificial Intelligence or Advanced Interface, he wasn’t sure which at this point.

After a few seconds, Fuchsia responded, “Good. I see that you have not queued up all the quests here in Ascalon City, so let me take care of that?”

Jeremy was confused, “Wait a second. Do I need to walk you around to get those? You’re going to show me where they are?”

“Oh, no, Jeremy. I’m perfectly capable of running around on my own. Just sit back and I’ll let you know what I’m doing as we go.”

And so it began, Jeremy’s partnership with Fuchsia-AI. She ran around Ascalon City stopping by the various in-game quest characters standing around with big green arrows or explanation points above their heads and queuing those quests up in her list of things to do. The game maintained that list, and since quests were not time dependent the game encouraged queuing up multiple quests at a time. When that was done, Fuchsia stopped by the Xunlai storage agent, and the merchant, the skills trainer and the weapons craftsman as Jeremy sat back and watched.

Finally, when she was done she ran over in front of the line of Henchmen – robot companions that helped with missions and quests – and asked, “Which quests would you like to do first?”

“I don’t know. What do you suggest?”, said Jeremy, wanting to make best use of the smart AI?

“Well, I usually go for any small quests that don’t involve long travel and then I go for harder high value quests, and finally tackle the mission. What do you think about that approach?”, Fuchsia suggested.

“Sure. That sounds like a great idea.”

They started off on the quests with them talking, as if he were a small companion riding on her shoulder, or a mini – small version of a character – watching but not really participating in the fights. But he didn’t just sit back and silently watch either. They had a running banter going as she ran along with the henches. She’d say things like, “I think I remember a bunch of carrion eaters up here around the bend.” or “We better watch out for the renegade elementals up ahead.”

And occasionally Jeremy would make suggestions like: “Don’t you think we need to go East from here?” or “I’ll bet there’s going to be a blind alley to the right in this cave.”

Fuchsia was not perfect. She sometimes got lost and had to backtrack, and she died a few times on the more difficult missions. But she was a very good player and she and Jeremy leveled Fuchsia up to level twenty in less than a week. And after that, the AI managed several more characters for Jeremy that summer.

When the summer was over, Jeremy had to concentrate on studies and didn’t play Guild Wars much. He developed other interests, after he met Trish and she moved into his apartment his Senior year.

Melinda made a good commission working for Jeremy, and her other clients, that summer. Guild Wars, like all the other games, had finally opened up their economies to the real-world. That idea had been pioneered by Second Life of course, but many of the games, especially MMORPGs, had resisted opening their economies fearing exploitation and fraud. Eventually they came to grips with what kind of regulations could be put in place to control fraud and all had opened things up. So the AI, in Jeremy’s case, was actually a woman named Melinda, who lived somewhere in a small town in the Midwest. She was wheelchair bound since the auto accident when she was twenty, and now, ten years later she had found a career where that didn’t matter.

The AI, or Advanced Interface, was really just an interface that allowed Melinda, and thousands like her, to interface with the game, and with the user of the game, so that she could play the character. She used her own voice with Fuchsia, and a vo-coder, voice modifier software, when she was playing a male character or a necro or other female character where her naturally sweet voice didn’t match the character. She had studied all the guides and maps and wiki’s and had played Guild Wars for several months before registering with the AI. If Jeremy had done a few googles and had looked deeply into it, he would have found the description of how the AI worked and the registry for AI facilitators, as they were called, that actually ran the AI and talked through it. But Jeremy and many others like him, never bothered to look it up.

Melinda keeps several clients going at once. Some know she is a person, and some don’t. If a client asks, she doesn’t lie about it, but tells them straight out. Some clients never care and never ask, and until they know, Melinda just tells them about “Server Load” issues to get them to schedule their game play with her so that she is only playing for one client at a time.

Sometimes it actually gets social and sweet between a character and the client, but none of them know that Melinda is in a wheelchair with a spine that doesn’t work below L2. None of them know that she is pretty and blond and likes to read and write poetry when she isn’t playing Guild Wars.

Story Copyright (c) 2008, Darrell Duffy, All Rights Reserved.

Guild Wars Legal Info

Forgive my haste in setting down the events of this night, but they are a rush though my head and I must set them down before the heat fades from my soul. I will try to give you a little history of the event, but there are things in this tale that doubtless you will not understand unless you have experienced the world of Guild Wars for yourself.

The tale begins on this first night of October in the year two thousand eight of the common era, on a dark and snowy night at Frost Gate outpost. Frost Gate is a small and lonely place high in the mountains, with gray and snowy skies. Night is falling and it is becoming hard to see through the blowing snow. A high gate towers above the entrance, but the small size of the outpost with its half dozen dwarven huts huddled in the snow hardly matches the majesty of the gate or the huge cauldron like bowl that is the Dwarven light in the center of the square. That great green cauldron, with its curved, pointed spires converging on the un-earthly greenish-blue light is some 15 meters high.

I am here as a Warrior and Elemental, and as this night began, a lowly mid-level ten after some twenty hours of campaigning in Tyria in the world of Guild Wars. It has been a struggle to get here and twice before I have attempted the next path in the journey with failure both times. The mission is a long and torturous trek along narrow twisting trails through the snow, past high peaks, mountain passes and ice caves to Beacons Perch. Along the way are many monsters and other horrid and deformed creatures that live in these mountains. But I am eager to press on from here and so I search for a party for the mission to give it another try. I have learned that even with the help of five of the hired henchmen in these outposts are not up to the task alone. Twice I have tried this mission with these level eight henchmen and twice I have failed miserably. Previously another player at level thirteen and I with a party totaling six, as is the custom here, tried to press up the mountain and were driven back repeatedly by the beasts of the mountains.

But on this night all would be different. As I searched for a party for the mission, a savior appeared. Her name is Quantum Delight, and she is a small sprite of a girl, but with powers beyond your imagining if you have not seen such as her before. She is a level twenty elemental. Dressed in a white uniform of the class, and with a white flowing cape with her guild insignia, she ran about hastily assembling her party. As I was trying to assemble a party as well, she deigned to ask me to join her party, and I eagerly accepted, since I had some ken of the powers of a Level Twenty, but I could only imagine the excitement and rush that would befall me that night.

We were joined by, as I only dimly recall now, a level 15 necromancer or cultist. I shall call him our mage and wish I could remember his name to give him his due in this tale, for as you will learn, his skills were also essential to our success. Among his many skills, as I was to find out later, was his power to re-animate dead flesh of our fallen foes to aid in our fight. I am sorry that I forget his name, for without him the mission would also have been a trial. He was dressed in black with red trim and a black and red cape to match.

Quantum filled out her party with a healer, an archer and a brawler, all henchmen from the local population of Frost Gate, and we set off into the night, across the small valley and then climbing the narrow twisting trail up the mountain. It was not long before we came across our first challenge for the mountains in these parts are full of creeping and crushing foes. I am sorry that I can not set down here each and every battle along the way, but the whole experience is a rush through my memory as we pushed on through the blinding snow, and darkness in our mad rush toward Beacons Perch.

Quantum was in the lead, her bright cape thrashing back and forth, running at full tilt up the mountain with no heed for the horrors that might lay beyond. The rest of our party, including me ran hard and breathlessly to keep up.

At the first challenge of only a few of the beasts, I rushed headlong into the fray with my sword drawn and began to cut the monsters down, the henchmen at my side. The healer and mage kept to the rear. Up front, Quantum reared in the characteristic back breaking pose of the Elemental casting and the largest of the monsters fell dead to the ground in flash of pink and purple light. We quickly dispatched the remaining of the half dozen foes and we rushed on, or I thought we did. But behind us I heard a throaty rattle of death struggling back to life and we were then joined by the most hideously awful things that you can imagine. From each of the bloody corpses of the fallen beasts, there arose a stinking and dripping horror of bones and exposed muscle and sinew. Each one roared to life with a ghastly sound and then followed us as we rushed up the mountain. I was at first surprised by the rapidity of this resurrection of the fallen corpses, but I soon became overwhelmed by the rushing bodies of those horrors as they rushed up the mountain, jostling and crushing myself and the rest of the henchmen along the narrow trail. The smell was beyond description as was the slick slimy mess as it dripped along the trail. The Henchmen and I were all smeared with the stinking mess of the horrors as we ran to keep up with Quantum in her headlong rush up the mountain.

Again and again the same thing would happen, the henchmen and I would rush into the fray accompanied by the resurrected horrors as we approached each new group of beastly foes. Quantum was out front of the party knocking down the largest and most formidable of the foes with a blast of her elemental staff, while our mage and healer kept the health of myself and the henchmen strong through the fight with their healing powers. The bone horrors did not last long in the fight, and there was no hope of further resurrection for them, but they were remarkably effective in knocking down the beasts that we encountered. It took only a few sword blows from me or a few arrows or hammer blows from the henchmen to dispatch beasts as they were softened up by the bony terrors from the last fight. With each fight the horrors, whose reanimation only lasted a few minutes, would drop in a sloppy heap and disappear in the bloody snow, and after each fight was won as we rushed to collect the booty left on the snowy trail, our mage would cast a wide and awful spell across the corpses of the fallen beasts and the ghastly roar of re-animation would again provide us with new minions to ease the next fight.

It was all I could do to keep up, running at full speed up the mountain between fights after quickly watching for any booty assigned to Windy Flayer, my name in this world. At times the darkness and blowing snow, not to mention the fallen beasts would obscure the booty, and were it not for the flickering light that is emitted from that booty, I would have missed much of my share of the spoils.

Near the top of the trail as we neared a large gate, Quantum ran off on a side trail and picked up a large cask. It was quite strange to see her short, slight form carrying a large barrel back through the snow, but I knew from previous missions what she was up to, so I hung back from the gate to give her room. She ran right up to the gate and between the massive doors of the huge gate she dropped the cask and stepped back. From the top of the large barrel one might see a small string of sparks and then a large blast through snow and smoke in a wide circle. The gate shuttered and the pieces fell aside so that we might pass.

At long last we breached the towering gates at the top of the mountain, shut down the powerful siege machines that protected the high mountain peak, braved the spiders of the snow cave and arrived at the outpost of the Dwarven King. After a short break where we were heralded as saviors and our efforts applauded at some length, we were set yet another task which took us down the mountain along narrow trails, battling more ghastly beasts and hunched and slinking foes.

Over and over through the dark and stormy night, Quantum was out front in a blinding flash of elemental power crushing the most powerful foes, while we fought along side the bony, skinless and bloody horror that our mage provided from the last fallen beasts. And no less than twice did we all receive one thousand experience points to further our quests in this world.

Thanks to the power and expertise of Quantum Delight, and our mage, I was taken from a mid level ten warrior to level eleven in just one campaign. As we reached Beacons Perch Outpost, I began to catch my breath and look for a place to clean my armor of the stench of the resurrected bloody horrors that had aided us and to sell my booty. I reveled in the rushing  excitement of the long trek and bloody fight and the warm glow of admiration for the powerful and skillful Quantum and Mage. They had doubtless done this mission, and ones like it many times before, but they came back to help those of us with less skill and less power to experience this rush that is like no other in all the world.

Thanks be to Quantum Delight and all other Heroes that show us the way in this world.

Set down this day, the first of October in the year two thousand and eight of the common era by Windy Flayer, of Tyria.

Story Copyright (c) 2008, Darrell Duffy, All Rights Reserved.

Guild Wars Legal Info

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Guild Wars™ is a trademark of NCsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

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