Sir Tydus

Ok, this guy is offering a quest (swords crossed over his head), do I need to do the quests in Wizards Folly, Green Hills County etc, or do I have to just get the stuff immediately local to Ascalon out of the way?

Pre-searing btw

It doesn't matter in which order you do any of the quests. But if you accept Sir Tydus's mission you'll leave pre-Searing permanently. So do the other quests first if you really want to finish them.

Cool, because this my first "real" go with the game I don't want to skip content.
Thanks for replying =)

NEVER, NEVER speak to Sir Tydus a second time until you have accomplished everything you need/want to do in pre-searing. The Prophecies campaign is the only one in which your character can not return to the beginner area. I can't say more without spoiling your experience of this part of the game.

In practice, you should feel free to talk to Tydus after you have acquired all available skills for your primary and secondary profession, and after you hit ~lvl5. There is a nice bit of backstory for Prophecies in some of the quests, and the Catacombs are fun to explore (and also the area beyond the wall), but on the flip side many of the quests are filler/fluff, and the rewards (items, gold, and XP) in the beginner area are appropriately bad.

right, because calling it pre-SEARING is not a spoil :P

Well, the OP already referred to it as "pre-searing", so I doubt anything will be spoiled for him.

Also, once you can do Tydus' quest, you've done everything you NEED to do in pre-searing, and you can move on without fear of missing something except a few quests that give crappy weapons and experience.

I wish I could go back to experiencing the game for the first time...

That makes two of us.