Guild Wars Ironman 2020-01-22

I have been playing Guild Wars since Factions was released in 2006. I worry that one day they'll turn off the servers like they did with Dungeon Runners and everything will be gone forever. You know what's really shitty? There are people on Amazon selling DR which shut down a decade ago. Anyways, in February of 2018 I was kind of surprised to see that a couple of Guild Wars developers decided to start working on it again on their own time. I was suddenly given the impression that maybe GW would be around for a while because some of the updates were pretty big, such as graphics updates and fairly major chat system changes. So I joined up with an alliance and have been paying some attention to Alliance chat as I slowly pick away at getting Legendary Survivor in Pre Searing.

Then, one day some weeks ago I saw someone mention the Guild Wars Ironman Challenge. They gave me a link to this video and frankly, I really like the idea. One of the fellers in my alliance actually recorded a crapload of Ironman time in this playlist. The idea is that you play the game with a bunch of self-imposed restrictions that make the game harder, more like the original mid-2000's game, and a lot more fun. It seems individual players can simply choose which rules they want to follow but the general idea is:

• Play through all campaigns in order
• No account unlocks
• No transferred items or trading
• No bank or material storage
• No tomes (skill trainers [not unlocked] & quests only)
• No consumables
• No merc heroes
• No /bonus items
• No Z menagerie for pets
• Only party with other irons

I think the only exception I am going to be making is the one about consumables. I am willing to use consumables as long as they obviously dropped for me and I can't specifically farm for cons. The purpose of all this is to artificially create conditions for chonological self-sufficient progression. You are only able to use drops that are for yourself and a lot [or all] of the modern power creep is taken away. This style of play makes you really want to do all the side quests you can get your hands on and brings a feeling of fun back to the game that I haven't felt in well over a decade. Yes, I actually started an Iron character, and of course it's a monk, just to make things as hard as I can. :-)

Iron Mo at Piken Square.

It is almost thrilling when good drops hit the ground, and having to come up with decent builds on such a limited skillset is forcing me to think a little about my skills and attribs. It's a very different perspective than rustling up a ritualist with a pile of spirits and walking through the whole game like some invincible wanker. I have obviously only made it as far as the mid-Ascalon area so far but am really enjoying it. I am pretty sure that when I finish off my LSOA I'll spend a whack of time working on Iron Mo! If anyone wants to come along for the ride let me know and I'll happily team up for some adventuring with another Iron character.