Here’s a little tip I can pass along about Guild Wars. Put one or two guild guys in charge of quests. Give them a nice title like Quest Masters or Quests Lords, because they’re sure not going to get a raise or a budget from this.

The Quest dudes can be in charge of organizing what quests come from which zones, making sure all the parts are completed, watching the radar for destination points, bla bla. Centralizing the responsibilities is key because otherwise everyone is running around like headless chickens and untimely deaths are sure to follow.

This week I was grouped with our quest dude, who wants to be called Quest Overlord, but fuck that … there is no. way. in. hell. I’m calling him that. So everyone pairs off, gets their henchmen (Nukey, Healee, sup?), and insta-ports to the mission zone.

I later had to fire Nukey, he was getting out of control with managing his aggro … charging into piles of Charr mobs, setting off the scorpion traps, nuking too early — he was really off his game that night.

I replaced him with Biff, the not-terribly-bright, slack-jawed warrior/tank. A bear of a man, but dumb as a fencepost. It’s not as if we were going to debate Ascalon’s zero tolerance Charr policy — as long as Biff can tank, we’re all good.

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The more I see of this Guild Wars, the more I like it. In many ways, it smashes all the old rules of online rpg’ing and spits on them.

Like grouping.

If you’ve been keeping up, in GW you can hire these NPC henchmen to round out the quest group and assist out in the field. No charge, but they do ninja loot and coins. Kick ass group members tho — our mage henchmen was tanking a couple of mobs at one point without complaint, or much apparent damage either. Usually, he was flawless in his aggro control, he must have been bored that late in the mission.

One group, we hired a healer henchman, errr, excuse me … it was a henchWOMAN … and rarely have I seen such a stellar performance from a cleric (called monks in GW, whatever). Priests, doctors, friars, monks … they’re all clerics to me.

Damn, she was good. I was a bit behind the others checking the cleared portion for any loot wreckage, chests, whathaveyou, that we might have missed, and the monk comes running back to check on me. She was nuking, healing, meleeing, anything to service OUR needs. Not a single whine did she utter, not a single afk did she take.

Those henchmen are better than real people as groupmembers. Probably superior guildmates, too, but don’t quote me on that.

Our one guildie is so enamored with henchmen now, he never has room in his groups for anyone else. Example: “hey, I have that quest too, can I join ya?” “sorry, full group” “is the group full OF HENCHMEN??? or are they people?” Silence.

He could be taking this thing too far.

Real, live players are always welcome in my groups, as long as there’s still room for Nukey, the sexually ambiguous mage and Healee, superior monk healer — some might call her a slut, but it’s just because she’s free with her sexuality and doesn’t subscribe to modern societal mores.

We’ve grown close.