Choose my Adventure: Introducing Moira Zonk
by Shawn Schuster 
May 27th 2009 at 11:00AM
Filed under: Fantasy, Galleries, Guild Wars, Events, in-game, Leveling, Massively meta, Hands-on, Roleplaying, Choose my Adventure
Join me as I brave my way through lands unknown in an adventure dictated entirely by you, the Massively readers! Vote for everything from game played to character creation to ultimate goal and watch it unfold in a series of journals and galleries here on the site. Then, as the ultimate goal is reached, we'll do it all over again in a new game!
After Monday's post getting us on our way in Guild Wars, you voted on what type of character I should make to begin my adventures. The character has been made and the first goal has been reached: getting a second profession. In this installment, you'll vote on the next goal and the ultimate goal I should reach before moving on to another game.
I've decided to make this project go two ways: one as a basic rundown of what I've done in the game to achieve my goals, and another to be more of a supplementary 'in-character' journal provided in the captions of the gallery, linked below. So follow along after the jump for an explanation of how your choices molded my newest Guild Wars character, and don't forget to vote in the newest polls before tomorrow at this same time, when the polls will close.
I must admit, it's been a long time since I've created a new character in Guild Wars. I was extremely happy that GW was chosen by the Massively readers, as I had previously run a Guild Wars podcast and fansite many years ago. Luckily, the character creation process in Guild Wars is very simple, which helped me get on my way.
Following the choices made by you, I created a female Necromancer PvE character in the Prophecies campaign. When deciding on a first name, I chose my favorite NPC from my current favorite single-player game (Moira Brown from Fallout 3) and for the last name, there was no question that I must pay homage to my former-boss-turned-developer, Michael Zenke. Hence, Moira Zonk was born.
My favorite part about beginning this character in Prophecies is the tutorial Pre-Searing area. It always reminds me of the first time I created a GW character roughly four years ago. I look forward to playing a bit more in Pre, before venturing out into the 'real' game.
This time around, my only goal was to gain a second profession as Monk. This came quite easily, as did the ding to second level, but I know that the remaining journey will be filled with quite a bit more work. So this begs the question, what's next for Moira Zonk? Should she stick around in the calming tranquility of Pre-Searing Ascalon before venturing out into the burned-out world after the Searing? Or should she get out there and start earning her way, gaining the friendship of henchmen and diving headfirst into the storyline, and ultimately, more important goals? You decide!
[Edit: Looks like I'll be going for the Collector's Armor set and leaving Pre at level 10. Thanks for the votes everyone! Look for the next update next week.]
Following the choices made by you, I created a female Necromancer PvE character in the Prophecies campaign. When deciding on a first name, I chose my favorite NPC from my current favorite single-player game (Moira Brown from Fallout 3) and for the last name, there was no question that I must pay homage to my former-boss-turned-developer, Michael Zenke. Hence, Moira Zonk was born.
My favorite part about beginning this character in Prophecies is the tutorial Pre-Searing area. It always reminds me of the first time I created a GW character roughly four years ago. I look forward to playing a bit more in Pre, before venturing out into the 'real' game.This time around, my only goal was to gain a second profession as Monk. This came quite easily, as did the ding to second level, but I know that the remaining journey will be filled with quite a bit more work. So this begs the question, what's next for Moira Zonk? Should she stick around in the calming tranquility of Pre-Searing Ascalon before venturing out into the burned-out world after the Searing? Or should she get out there and start earning her way, gaining the friendship of henchmen and diving headfirst into the storyline, and ultimately, more important goals? You decide!
[Edit: Looks like I'll be going for the Collector's Armor set and leaving Pre at level 10. Thanks for the votes everyone! Look for the next update next week.]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Ant said on 11:35AM 5-27-2009
Great Idea!! I'll be watching.
I'm actually thinking of installing Guild Wars again and replicating this adventure using the poll results..I'm sure I can think of a better name than Moira Zonk tho :) Good luck.
Reply
Cithrax said on 5:39PM 5-28-2009
I don't think that opening other chapters is a fitting ultimate goal. It would be much more interesting to beat Prophecies. I haven't heard the opinion of someone who's just joined (or rejoined) Guild Wars recently in a while. Should be great.
Reply
Arkanaloth said on 11:31AM 5-27-2009
starting in pre-sear... ouch.
But from what I read you've been there before so you know the drill, I've not logged into GW in a while but I still dip in there from time to time. Are you going for Factions and Nightfall access once you hit Lions?
Reply
Jack said on 11:34AM 5-27-2009
I think this choose my adventure part can become one new way to really review a mmo... the normal way to review games like this does not work... Like in case of Age of Conan the reviewers give it height rates for the first zone but later everything did turn bad...
Reply
Arkanaloth said on 11:40AM 5-27-2009
my old mesmer is still in pre-sear I think. I was trying for LDOA but....
Reply
Sharon said on 12:47PM 5-27-2009
For those of us who don't play Guild Wars (or haven't played it in four years) it's a bit tough to choose items in the polls without a little more background on what they mean. I'm looking forward to following your adventures, but I would love it if you could give us a bit more information about the poll choices so we could learn more about the game. :)
Reply
Arkanaloth said on 12:51PM 5-27-2009
while you are correct, explaining all the terms of the poll could become a daunting task in and of itself. It would likely be easier to pop in deep-links to the GW-wiki, heck Underworld is a full article on it's own.
Sharon said on 1:36PM 5-27-2009
Good point! Popping in links to the wiki would definitely be better. Now I'm going to skip off the wiki myself and check it out.
Kennet said on 1:10PM 5-27-2009
Just a quick comment... Reaching max level is really easy in Guild Wars - in fact, level 20 is where the "normal" game starts.
That is, if you follow the story line of Prophecies, that's around the point when you get access to elite skills and 8-man parties.
Of course, since Prophecies is a bit more slow paced than Factions or Nightfall, that might seem like a big step, but really, level 20 (max level) is only the beginning - not nearly a goal worth pursuing since it's not very hard to do.
Reply
Wade said on 1:17PM 5-27-2009
The journal along with the pictures is a nice touch!
For those that don't play Guild Wars perhaps you could put a link to the official wiki at the top of the poll section each time:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Main_Page
so they can do a quick search on things before voting. Ditto on that for the other games when you get to them, hard to vote for something you don't know anything about.
Reply
Metroid said on 1:19PM 5-27-2009
Your ultimate goal for Guild Wars should be PvP. Chances are your will get burned out with PvE by the time you finish the campaigns and start on the high end stuff, as the monsters become very predictable and easy to counter, even in the harder areas. Ironically in Guild Wars, the more challenging the PvE areas get, the more simple builds you begin to use. As a necromancer, you will probably end up spamming hexes, which gets boring fast. Your other options as a PvE necro are blood magic buffer, minion master, and Soul Reaping abuser, all jobs done more efficiently by the AI controlled heroes. The necromancer is really a fotm class that goes in and out of popularity, and is considered by many to be the most poorly designed core class. The general class suggestion is Warrior because it is a "short time to learn, forever to master" class that is versatile and always in use in both PvE and PvP. Guild Wars is a game built for competitive play, and in my opinion, where it really shines. GvG is the most enjoyable aspect of Guild Wars to everyone I know who has played it, and what the game is built and balanced around. You would be missing out on the main attraction if you skipped out on PvP in Guild Wars.
Reply
rekoiln said on 1:26PM 5-27-2009
Heh i remember those hunters in the forest, ah good times :)
Do they still give you free beer? ;)
Reply
THAC0 said on 1:42PM 5-27-2009
Is there a guide besides trying to hunt things down in the wiki for the titles and quests that get over looked in pre-searing
Reply
Wade said on 2:29PM 5-27-2009
http://www.presearing.com
has some very good guides and overviews of everything Pre-Searing related and
http://www.guildwarsguru.com
http://guildwars.incgamers.com
have tons of stuff for the rest of the game areas.
Reply
Arkanaloth said on 2:57PM 5-27-2009
this article is seriously tempting me to pop into GW just to say hi and wish you well on your journies!!! I don't really play it enough to be a permanent fixture though (changes to FFXI have pulled me back there hardcore).
Reply
devilsei said on 1:53AM 5-28-2009
Aww... no goal to get the title for reaching lvl 20 in pre-searing? Boo...
Reply
Dirame said on 3:16AM 5-28-2009
I left Pre-searing when I had finished all the quests, I was wondering why that wasn't in the options because that's when I think pre-searing should be left.
Reply
Mr Rodgers said on 2:17AM 5-30-2009
As someone who just recently returned to GW, I have to say that your ultimate goals are set pretty low. None of them are terribly difficult to do as my friend (a "casual gamer") and his girlfriend (basically a non-gamer as she never did much beyond Wii Sports and Super Mario before we got her into GW) have both done everything on your list over the period of about 3 months of casual play. Admittedly they had my help, but if they can do it with some nudging from me, certainly an experienced MMO player like yourself can do all of those with ease.
Your best option so far is beating the storyline, although if you just changed some of the "Get to..." options to "Get to and complete all the quests in..." you'd have some better possibilities.
Also, if you end up doing the Prophecies storyline, I vote that you also do the Titan quests and go through the Eye of the North story too. They tie up all the loose ends anyway.
I'm glad you're getting the collector's armor in Pre-Searing. For some reason I always do that even though it's largely useless and outdated almost instantly. Be sure to meet Nicholas Sandford and Professor Yakkington. I
Reply
Shawn Schuster said on 6:20AM 5-30-2009
I do recognize the fact that these are fairly moderate goals, but remember that this whole project is made to switch games every few weeks or months, so that we can keep it fresh. One of the great things about GW is there's so much to do, and the possibilities for goals are almost endless, but I want to give other games a chance too.
Also, since this is the first one, I may find that I'll need to set harder goals next time. But we'll see! It should still be fun though :)