There still remains much more tweaking to be done, and on top of that I’d really like to figure out how to import my older content into WordPress, even if it’s just displayed under a separate, non-bloggy “Old Archive” page. I tried reading a few guides to importing old MovableType content, but they all assume that the user still has working access to their MovableType installation. This, as you may recall, is not the case with my situation, since my web host decided to upgrade some hardware/software/widgets which completely b0rked my MT installation. So I connected to the friendly #wordpress IRC support channel on Freenode, where it was confirmed by some kind folk that without access to my MT installation, I am out of luck. This leaves me with the option of somehow manually importing all of the HTML files MT had generated, which is surely possible, but potentially laborious.

It may be helpful to first set the scene. The TV show in question is “Blackadder” (or “Black Adder”, if you wish), a popular British comedy that has had four different incarnations. In this scene, we are in the fourth and final incarnation, wherein Blackadder and chums find themselves on the verge of being sent into battle during World War I. In fact, word has just come down from on high that tomorrow morning at dawn, “the big push” will be taking place and the British troops will go “over the top” of their trenches, venturing into no man’s land. Each of our three soldiers takes the news differently: Lieutenant George (or Dr. House, as he is known in some circles) accepts the news in impossibly good spirits, and goes off to prepare the other men. Private Baldrick, a self-professed poor, gormless idiot, seems unperturbed and takes it in stride. Captain Blackadder however is quickly moved to hatch a plot; an old trick he picked up while campaigning in the Sudan, involving two pencils, a pair of underpants, and “wouble”.

You can listen to an MP3 clip, and the images below are linked to larger versions.

As with most games of this genre, the most enjoyable element actually ends up being the social aspect, which is odd considering I’ve spent a large chunk of my playing time clad only in either underwear or pajama pants. It can be a lot of fun to have your digital avatar beat a digital representation of a hulking troll into so much dog meat. But it is infinitely more fun to have you digital avatar, alongside the digital avatars of several close friends, engage in this same beating. Nothing develops camaraderie like urgently banding together against a common foe - and if digital trolls don’t warrant urgent banding, then I don’t know what does.

Aside from having no monthly fees, another unique feature of Guild Wars is less obvious: its unusually low level cap. I’ve read that other such games (like World of Warcraft or EverQuest) set their maximum character levels at something much higher. In WoW for instance, your character can make it to level 60. In GW however, it is a paltry level 20 at which your character will peak. Overall, this makes for more interesting gameplay within the game, because there aren’t as marked differences between players who spend eight hours a day playing the game, and players who spend eight hours a week. Or so the claim goes, anyway - and I have to say, I haven’t found much reason to disagree so far. At any rate, hitting that plateau is something that players have to deal with much more early on in general, since it happens (relatively) soon.

Gregg, Mike and I are probably three of our guild’s more active members (yes, we have formed a guild, named “Stavromula Beta” if you must know) and two of us have made it to level twenty, and the other to level 19. So, y’know, we’re getting up there, and I think we’ve all had a bit of a mid-character crisis of sorts. We’ve been askings ourselves: is this it? Can there be any more to experience? Haven’t we seen it, done it, and killed/crushed/slashed/hexed/smote/blasted/shot it all? The answer, as we found out last night, was a resounding “no”.

We formed a party of six people consisting of the three of us, and three strangers. The three others ended up coming and going throughout the evening, so the three of us were really the only constants for a long period of time. We had decided to venture south from a town called Beacon’s Perch, through Lornar’s Pass, and way, way, way, waaaay down south, to the very bottom of the (cheesily named) Shiverpeak Mountains. But despite the corny name of the mountain range and the tranquil-sounding words like “Perch” and “Pass”, this area is well known in the game as one of the hardest stretches of terrain to make it through, regardless of your character’s level. Fighting your way through is not impossible, but utterly improbable, as even the first group of enemies is a match for most inexperienced parties, and things only get harder the farther you go. We decided instead on a “run like girlie girls” strategy, where we equipped as many skills and abilities as we could that allowed us to move faster while taking more damage from pursuing enemies, shedding all of our usual damage-dealing accessories.

So we ran, we died, we ran, we healed, we died, and we died some more. We made some great progress, had some awful setbacks, and returned to Beacon’s Perch on dozens of occasions to pick up a replacement member for someone who had given up half way through. And in the end, my map showed as explored at least two thirds of the route between Beacon’s Perch and the next southernmost city, which is a decent accomplishment for essentially our first stab at the run. However Mike commented around halfway through, and I think we all agreed, that it was ludicrously fun being pummeled like crazy by these huge, massively huge groups of huge, massively huge enemies that dealt huge, massively huge amounts of damage with each hit. Each run would inevitably degrade into everyone being killed except one or two fortunate players, who would then get cheered on by the fallen and yelled at when they started straying too far from the safer areas of the map. We died, we were resurrected, and we died, died, died again. But it was all great fun, and made for a very enjoyable evening.