Guild Wars 2

Also known as “Rytlock is sort of cute sometimes.”

Let me tell you a story about the Ascalonian Dungeons.

I joined a hastily-assembled war band in order to raid the dungeon after Tribune Brimstone rushed in after his former companion, Eir, descended its depths. (By hastily-assembled, I am actually referring to myself, as I was the last addition to the party before we set off.)

My companions, I admit, I was meeting mostly for the first time. Headed by a Human Elementalist, who was my connection to this party, we numbered two Humans, two Asura, and one Charr — me.

And Rytlock, of course.

The dangers were high, and we struggled through the dungeon, but as we proceeded I noticed something interesting.

Through thick and thin, Rytlock seemed dedicated to stay by my side in our adventure. Even after finding his old companion within the corridors, he still opted to position himself — even in battles with long-gone Ascalonian generals — within spitting distance of me.

I’ve seen enough of my storyline to have it established that the two of us are valuable companions to each other, so seeing this act was incredibly awe-inspiring.

Thus, I was left wondering, was this behavior part of his programming? In a party with such a sparse number of Charr, is he coded to stick with the one or couple that are present? If this is, in fact, intentional… then I have no option other than to compliment ArenaNet immensely, as this is probably the nicest touch I’ve ever seen in this sort of game. If it was merely coincidence, then it was the BEST coincidence possible.

What do you think? Coincidence or Nice Touch?

I noticed he liked sticking by my charr necromancer in that dungeon as well. I might also point out, that he always seemingly went out of his way to drag every dang warrior in the instance to me when i was in downed state. Such a great pal he is to his charr buddies lol.

He was also by my side when I was playing a Charr Engineer. I’ll do story mode again sometime as a Human Guardian and see what happens. I didn’t pay attention the 1st time.

@Sjach
Haha, an excellent friend indeed! Our group moved very slowly, so we only had a swarm problem when we were first getting the hang of how the dungeon worked, so I’m happy to say I think he only pulled warriors to me once. I went down first, and he was quick to follow, no more than three feet away.

@Vydia
Make sure your party has a Charr in it, and I would love to hear about the results! I’m beginning to believe that this behavior was no mere coincidence.

I sort of wish ANet would chime in at some point so we can get a definitive answer, but hearing your experiences is fascinating.

Don’t the npcs just follow whoever talked to them last?

I’m not sure, do they? I also don’t really recall having talked to him over the course of the dungeon; unless it was keeping track of more than just the dungeon experience, in which case, yes, I probably did talk to him more recently than my non-Charr companions. Or if reviving counts as talking, although I wasn’t keeping track of who revived him most recently either.

@Alde

Yeah some pal. I get get him out of his boring office to be out killing ghosts which he so much enjoys doing and in return he goes out of his way to come across the room to stand 3 feet from me when i’m downed, aggro a warrior to be on top of me and not even rez me. Seems more to me like he was taking advantage of NPC vs PC aggro. I must say though out of most the runs I did he did rather seem to stick by me the most from what I could tell.

Hahaha! Sorry, just imagining it makes me laugh. But good friends always torment each other! Maybe his actions were his way of teasing. : P