We did it.  We all got a copy of Guild Wars Reforged… I think we all had old copies laying around somewhere, but we all, in the end, just gave ArenaNet $20 to start again… and got it installed and made characters and logged in.

There were some issues.  Everybody else went the Steam route, which was marginally easier than my run at buying it straight from ANet, but it is still a very 2005 experience.

Then there were problems when Potshot and I were not clear that we were all making characters for the Prophecies campaign, and somebody was upset at the downgrade in hairstyle selections in the older campaign.  Style matters.

Names do to.  Oh man, names.

I went in with my first character trying to stay in my lane of at least being somewhat roleplay compliant, but the character naming scheme… something else I had forgotten over the years I guess… requires a minimum of two words, first and last name being the template I guess, with the first letter of each word being capitalized.

But you’re not limited to just two words.  It is a field 19 characters long and you can squeeze in a whole sentence if you’re terse enough.  And after I got into Ascalon I was practically assaulted by the range of names visible.  Little Suzy Hotbox and Pea Nutbutter and Zimo The Greek and Jimbob Bobjimmer and That Misfit Mal and Pitter Pattur and Insert Bad Pun and I could keep going but I think I’ve made my point that perhaps not everybody was taking the naming system seriously.

Yes, there were some good solid names, and I think I fit in with Tistann Delange for my hunter.  But enough hanging about town will convince you that maybe it doesn’t matter all that much… and if you end up with name regret, you can fix that for $6.00 in the cash shop.  I mean, what does WoW charge for a name change these days?  More than that I bet.

Anyway, I didn’t feel bad going with Vikund Shoesize for a name given what I had seen.  And I will just refer to each character by their first name anyway.  So you’ll just have to squint at screen shots to see what Holden’s last name is.

So we got characters together and all got into Ascalon and then into the same version of Ascalon, which fortunately the UI is pretty clear about displaying and which some other titles that go in for multiple instances of the same zone could learn from.  That got us all together, our initial lineup being:

• Renzo – Monk
• Holden – Elementalist
• Ulanis – Ranger
• Vikund – Warrior

That seemed like a decent group, but what do we know at this point?

Potshot and I had done some of the starter quests so we got everybody to go out into Lakeside County for the first “leave town” quest, then while out there, speak to Lena who gives a quest that rewards you for forming a group.

We all went and did that, then went back to town, all got in the same version of town, and then tried to group up.

That was when we found out that there was, at this stage of the game, a maximum group size of two players.  I invited Holden as I had learned how during our initial trial.  But once he was in the group, there was not an option to add anybody else.

A tip popped up just to make sure we could figure that out

This is something that not only do I not remember, but which conflicts with the vague memories of at least three of us being together out in the Lakeside County zone over by that mill.

I feel like we went here back then… maybe…

New or old, that was the state of affairs.  We would not be able to group up until… well, at some point in the future.  So we paired off into two separate groups, with Renzo and Ulanis forming one and Vikund and Holden in the other.

So Holden and I went out and did some of the nearby quests, including finding Gwen’s flute and then heading on down the road to Ashford Abby, which like Ascalon, was full up with people with less than perfect RP names.  You get sent there so the game can show you how to fast travel to towns, sending us back to Ascalon.

It also teaches you that such fast travel breaks up your group.  But we got back in the same instance and grouped up again.  Turning in that quest got us our first level up as well as a resurrect signet.

Once level down

We were also offered the quest to learn a second class.  That, however, was going to take too much deliberation, so we kept on going, heading back out into Lake County.

As the same time, since we were all sharing a single voice channel, we could head Renzo and UIanis and their progress.  At one point we heard them talking about a quest we had just finished and were standing right there, so I looked around for them… forgetting that the open world is just your group.  Going to have to get used to that.

Holden and I did pretty well as a duo.  We made it through a number of quests, went down into the catacombs and only had one death there.  The swamp water debuff ran a couple of ticks too long and my warrior heal appears to only be a self-heal.  Cool for me, but I couldn’t save Holden.

I was able to use the resurrect signet.

Bringing Holden back

All in all we had a pretty good workup on Sunday afternoon.  Everybody got a character going, we all got a couple of levels.  Skills were learned.

I think we all put off the second class for the time being.  That was going to take a bit of research.

So was the whole “party of two” thing.  That was not going to work out.  Potshot did some reading up and found that we have to do an event before we get to where we can all group up.  So we’ll be headed towards that next time.

He also found that there are a few vendors about who will take drops in exchange for upgrades.  Specifically, skale fins can be traded for a belt pouch, which increases your inventory.

Some more bag space please

Since we were already bumping up against the constraints of the initial bag, that became a must do.

Anyway, next time… a full group perhaps.