BellaStrega

Turns out the name I gave him was BelleStar, even though it's spelled correctly on my character (BelleStarr).

I am glad that the person who went for that name first misspelled it. Now I get to be the gunslinger named after the female Jesse James.

I'm BelleStarr on Arcadia server. Celestial Lord had trouble friending me for some reason (said that the character showed up as Illuminati, offline, Leviathan) but he did track me down quickly, so.

I am a bit annoyed that I couldn't work out how to put spaces in my nickname, but eh. I am a gun-toting Belle Starr now.

The Forum Cartel SG on Pinnacle still exists, although only two logins in the past 1300 days or so.

I lost all my chat channels earlier this year and while trying to reassemble my list, I forgot to rejoin (or couldn't get an invite, I don't remember) the Forum Cartel channel.

If Forum Coven had caught on it would have been that. And yeah, I remember.

The only one I knew of was Forum Cartel. I think it was a moment of sublime beauty when another poster actually said a few years later that the title was proof that the Forum Cartel was real.

Huh, it appears you'll never catch up with my post count.

- Kali

As it turns out, I'll be playing it too.

A classic life philosophy.

Unfortunately, this means in three months you'll have to run everyone the hell over.

Your experience with Guild Wars is nearly a perfect mirror of my first experience with Guild Wars. Getting through the beginning area (boring but tolerable), dealing with the monsters right outside the gate, finding the NPCs kind of rubbish, and not really wanting to team with other people.

The first installment is rubbish in a lot of ways - the storyline is very long, and there's a lot of overland travel to get from one point to the next, and I think too many outposts. I mean, once it picked up (after reaching Lion's Arch... which takes a bit too long to reach, in my opinion) it was plenty of fun, but I didn't want to take it that far.

When Factions came out, I tried and found that the beginning area was more interesting, had more interesting quests, I didn't really mind the NPCs as much (although I can't really explain why - probably everything else was improved enough that they were less of a burden).

When Nightfall came out, the addition of heroes mitigated a lot of need to rely on other players or the NPC henchmen. Now you can have a full party of heroes and yourself and no one else, and thus create entire synergistic builds based on whatever you decide to bring along. Heroes being NPCs that are part of your party, who have full-blown builds like you do.

It really is an improvement. But I can understand not wanting to try it. I wouldn't have gone back in if it hadn't been for the Factions beta weekend.

But, my reaction was the same as yours, and for awhile Guild Wars was one of my favorite games.

Really? What does he think the forum cartel gets?

No one spill the beans about the bonus PP and free VIP status.

That is so strange. I remember getting into arguments with people who believed post count actually meant anything. It was funny to be accused of having so much power over the devs, but none of that helped me when I PMed Statesman about my defender getting mezzed constantly in missions and he replied, "Get a defender or controller to join your team!"

If there were a forum cartel he would need 7,999 more posts in 69 days, or an average of 116 posts per day.

Or he could just induct himself because he's a moderator.

I wonder if anyone here remembers when CuppaJo gave me the forum cartel title. People started asking about it as soon as they saw it, and I denied everything. People really tried hard to convince me my title said forum cartel, too. I'm surprised no one sent me a screenshot.

When did you play it last? My first experience was with the first installment, and I didn't get very far for the reasons you mention. I tried again with Factions, and it was much more entertaining. With Nightfall and Eye of the North and the addition of heroes - among other things - I've found it quite fun.

Thanks for saying so! I've actually tried to tone down my trouble-raising tendencies, though.

I tended to leave and return a lot. I left for a couple of years after some political arguments became fairly unpleasant, and I came back in time for Going Rogue, and then again to do Incarnate trials.

I'm glad you dropped by.

Oh, you remember that time we did some open zone team PVP on the test server? The main thing I remember is LaserJesus saying "staytus effects."

I didn't think it was failing, I was responding to people hating on Guild Wars 2, or wanting us all to not buy it.

I don't know what this is in reference to.

It'll be just like all the other times I took a break... Well, except that it won't be here if I get the urge to come back.

It's funny how many people think you are.

I think you would've made a pretty good dev, though.