Life is a Mind Bending Puzzle

A lovely meal and another convert to Mount and Blade We had friends around for dinner this evening. Fair dues to my lovely other half - she cooked us a knockout meal. I can bask in some reflected glory though because I did the shopping! Our guests are a family just like us and the father a PC gamer who like me should be old enough to know better. We spent a couple of hours lingering over a lovely meal and then the gentlemen retired to the games room while the kids ran riot around the house and the ladies stayed at table and chatted. Kind of like Victorian times only the ladies and gents have reversed roles. It is funny being an older gamer. It is not something I can normally discuss among my peers. Most of my friends (particularly female friends) seem to think it is bizarre that a man in his forties actually plays games!!! You can imagine how refreshing it is to talk with someone my own age who actually shares my hobby. My friend is into shooters and strategy games so I showed him

GW has Guilds - who would have thought? After going the long way around to Lion's Arch I now have to go back and fill in all the missions I missed along the way. Luckily I fell in with an excellent pick up group and we breezed through two missions in under two hours including all bonuses. I surprised myself that my Mesmer character didn't suck in group play despite the fact that I have pretty much played solo with henchmen up to now. I even got invited to join a Guild - Woot! It seems like a friendly guild with mature members so I've accepted and signed up. Guilds are funny things. I played World of Warcraft for about two months before I joined a Guild. Chatting and playing with guild mates brought a whole new dimension to the game which I enjoyed. However it also brought new pressures. I am a bit of a loner at heart and sometimes it bugged me that I could never log on anonymously when I was in a guild. I was also a very poor attender at guild events because they of

Lion's Arch - the long way So I made it to Lions arch without following the missions. It wasn't too tough after all. Apart from a detour (see below) the hardest mobs I had to beat were some lvl 17 skale in Northern Kryta. By the time I got there I was level 14 with 5 lvl 10 henchmen and we breezed through. Mind you it took a long time - it would probably have been quicker to do the missions. I have to say I am seriously impressed by the new smarter henchmen. The healer (Aleysia) seems to be 10 times better at staying alive and is pretty on the ball when it comes to healing. At one stage we accidentally wandered into a high level area called Lornar's Pass. Me (lvl 13) and my 5 henchmen (lvl 10) were immediately confronted with four mobs ranging from lvl 22 to lvl 24!!!. Amazingly we survived and beat them. Mind you I got over confident then and was soon eaten alive by some terrifying monster worms which literally exploded out of the ground under our feet. It was all w

Guild Wars - Running to lions Arch the long way This being the weekend before Halloween Arena-net have included some special content for the event. Trouble is the special content is in Lion's Arch and my level 12 toon has only gotten as far as Yak's Bend. Lion's Arch is still half a world away across the forbidding Shiverpeak mountains. Now I could just play through the game missions and end up in Lions Arch eventually. Alternatively I could pay a high level character to run me to Lion's Arch. However I have decided to do this the hard way - I am determined to solo my way to Lions arch by running over the mountains. To be honest it isn't really soloing - I have a team of computer controlled henchmen to aid me. These guys tend to have lowish levels and are not always the brightest but sometimes that's an advantage. At least their behaviour is more predictable than that of human companions.

Currently playing: Guild Wars Gaming is a big thing in my life. PC gaming that is. However I am too old and too mean to keep up with the latest trends so I generally survive on games that are 6 months to a year out of date. I am currently playing the original Guild wars (prophecies campaign) I picked it up for €15 in a local game shop. A complete bargain - MMORPG style gaming without the monthly fee. Of course all the hot shots are now playing the third instalment (called Nightfall) which was just released yesterday. However people like me get some benefits from the new release too. There are some handy new features. Salvaging rare items to try and extract magical items is now a whole lot better - you get to see what you will get before your salvage. There is also a handy new button for ordering your henchmen to move to a spot. Unfortunately I can't find a way to separate the fighters from the casters but at least it's a start. The henchmen seem to have better AI too - this

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