Guild Wars Nightfall Press Wednesdays Week #1

I was lucky enough to get invited to check out Guild Wars Nightfall in a special press event. After downloading the client, I made a character, "Razors Hawt Dervish", and logged into the game. The first thing I did, of course, was hit /dance and saw just what a Whirling Dervish looks like. Next, I started the tutorial, and that's when the coolness started.

First off, I got a Hero NPC Character. What's that? It's a permanent henchman that levels up with you, instead of being a generic henchman you would normally pick up in a town. You can access its inventory through your inventory interface, and upgrade its weapons and armor. This feature alone is awesome, and will make those times when you have to play solo more fun. But it gets better. You can also assign its Skill Points and Abilities through your interface as well. The particular class of this Hero was a Warrior. But only until I noticed the dropdown box, and saw that you could assign it a Secondary Profession as well. As you change this around, the skills and abilities update to correspond to the different choices. This level of customization for a NPC party member is something I haven't seen outside of some of my favorite single player RPG's.

With my Warrior/Monk Hero in tow. I went through the tutorial in which I was able to fire barrels of flaming oil from catapults into a couple of ships, saving the day. Or at least making it safe for the next 10 minutes. Continuing on, I picked up a normal Healer NPC and ventured out into the wild, with more missions to complete.

I was amazed by the new landscape and architecture of the new areas. The overall look and feel of the towns is definitely a departure from what I've been used to in Factions. Gone are the samurai, and in their place are soldiers and guards that almost look like a cross between Roman Centurions and Egyptian Infantry. The new creatures that were trying to eat my face were impressive as well. Floating spores and snake/plant hybrids were falling to my scythe quite nicely until I ran my L3 self into a pack of L10 mobs. I quickly folded like a lawn chair, and then the next cool thing happend.

Rather than watch as my party got wiped and I was ported to the nearest Rez Shrine, I was rezzed by an NPC in my party. That's right. One of the abilities my Hero has is Rez Signet. I couldn't tell if it was him or the Healer that did it. But the downtime just got reduced, and for those times where one more hit would have killed my foe, I got a second chance to deliver it. I've never had this happen in either Prophecies or Factions so, please let me know if I'm a noob and it happens all the time. Either way, still cool.

The Dervish itself is a blast to play. Melee damage and buffs seem to be the core of the class, with a choice between Wind and Earth magic. Wind affects cold damage and movement, while Earth is for defense. At the lower levels, I dumped all my points into Scythe and Mysticism, and that seemed to work really well.

After I got a couple of "You have been playing for x hours" messages, I got the boot at the end of the alloted playtime and I'm really looking forward to my next chance to play. Thanks to Jenny and Gaile for setting this up, and for those who were wondering, no frogs were harmed during this excursion.

Now, I still wonder how I can manage to make an Assassin/Dervish combo.