Conjured Thoughts

Guess whose back, back again.

2007-07-18T04:04:00.004-07:00

Well I thought I was done, but through random encouragment, Im back.

I dont have a whole lot to say at the moment, but look forward to more shit in the recent futute for sure.

Anyways, please for vote on http://www.eq2battlemage.com/viewtopic.php?t=185 because I would hate to see some guy no mage has ever heard of win this shit. Im not saying vote for me, but please vote for someone people have heard of.

Until we meet again

2007-03-31T21:21:00.000-07:00

`In the end, you too shall pass.

For all of us there comes a day when we must move on with our lives. For some it is because of time constraints, others monetary issues, but for me, I have simply grown bored.

Its no secret that I am a very competative individual. Competition drives me, it makes everything more interesting and more worthwhile in my eyes. For reasons I cannot comprehend, SOE has decided to all but strip any form of fun created by competition from EQ2.

There are 3 contested mobs in all of EoF, if you can call it that. The Pumpkin Headed Horseman is a joke, this expansions Hurricanus. 90% of his loot just isnt up to par, and its not like the encounter takes more than a minute or 2 to kill anyways. The avatars all share one giant spawn timer and with their massive loot table combined with the fact they now have something like a 75% chance to drop their "unique" loot, you have a better chance of being struck by lighting than getting that one item you personally want. Lastly there is contested Mayong Mistmoore, who isnt contested at all, but really just there for the guilds who actually know what they are doing, because he certantly isnt hard. His loot table is very very small and within a month 90% of the guild wont want anything else off of him. No guild on my server can come close to touching us on these mobs, nor will they ever until a new expansion, and that makes Ishbu a dull boy.

Now at some undisclosed time, SOE has announced that they were going to open up limited free character transfers, so immediately the idea of moving off of Nektulos came to mind. I honestly expected to get similar replies from all the top end guilds, but it appears none crave competition as much as myself, to the point not a single one is willing to move to a low population neutral server just to spice the game up some. Furthremore, many members of my own guild, Dissolution, do not feel it is worth our time to move off the server just to create a massive lagfest with one other guild at this point in the expansions lifetime. Everything is boring enough as is and there is no new content on the horizon, so they do not wish to put ourselves through that unless there are going to be multiple guilds present, and as I mentioned, that just isnt happening.

So that leaves me with three options. I can leave Dissolution, but lets face it, thats where I am giong to die, so that really isnt an option. I can continue on like things have been going, but that pretty much bores me to tears. So the only option left is that I can quit.

Obviously I have chosen the latter. I do not feel that SOE has any intetions of creating a more fun enviroment like there was in t5 with the large amount of contested mobs ranging from the very hard to the retardedly easy. Its too bad because I do still enjoy the game when there is something to enjoy, but farming content for the next 6-8 months just isnt in my life plan right now, so it is time I move on.

To my friends - Good luck and keep kicking ass. Never let Dissolution turn into one of those guilds that sucks up to people. Always speak your mind.

To the other high end raiders - Looks like you have a good thing in Archonix for the item person. Hopefully that works out for you in the future.

To all those people that hate me - Thanks for making the last 2 years entertaining. I would have quit long ago if I didnt have your constant posts to keep me interested.

And without further ado, I am out of here. My account dies in 3 days so I will probably be on saying my goodbyes, but for all intensive purpose, I quit. Dont bother looking for me in any future games, I currently have no plans to play anything for a while.

Peace.

World Wide Grab-bag!

2007-02-21T03:06:00.000-08:00

http://eq2players.station.sony.com/news_archive.vm?id=1066§ion=Community

Read it. Once your done laughing and can see through the tears, please continue on.

I would like to take this moment to announce that Dissolution has world wide firsted the following:

Venekor in Cazic Thule. Yes we killed him shortly after DoF launched when he had been changed and was "really hard".

Spirits of the Lost - Did that shortly after the change with LU13 when it was "really hard" as well.

Siyamak in Pillar of Flames - Killed this mob shortly after the combat changes wich changed all mobs with the release of EoF.

Mutagenic Outcast - Killed this as soon as the servers came up the day EoF was released.

Some mob in Freethinkers - These have been changed a couple times so since we go in twice a week im going to just guess we got one world wide first!

I am also going to take credit for Treah in Emerald Halls because I swear the first time we fought him he had more abilities, so we killed him first after the change because we were doing the whole zone in one day, so thats our world wide first now.

In briefly speaking with Exil of Second Dawn tonight, he informed me that SD now holds the world wide first on both contested and instanced Vox, so congratulations to them.

I would also like to publicly concede all prior world wide firsts Dissolution was thought to posses as clearly those mobs have been changed and we certantaly didnt get them first after it happened.

On a final note, congratulations LEET SAUCE (thats right, our fucking alt guild bitches) on what I am giong to claim as world wide first Perdition in Maj Dul. BAM!

Please let me know what world wide firsts each of your guilds now posses. Clearly the accepted way of measuring world wide firsts has changed and every mob now has a new guild able to claim WW1 on it, so I would like to get my "facts" straight.

Hello?

2007-02-13T23:28:00.000-08:00

Is there anything interesting going on at all? Really, anything remotely interesting? Preferably some sort of new drama or controversial subject.

All I can tell is everything is the same old and nothing new will happen in eq2 until the next release of some form. We may or may not get an epic quest, whomever world firsts it grats, on your lockout timers aligning cuz I am sure there will be like 10 guilds that beat it the first time they go into IS or EH or whatever zone you need to go into to finish it. I am pretty sure Lyndro posted that the rewards will be worth it so I guess we may have that to go off on when the rewards are in fact broken and useless piles of shit.

Other than that a bunch of people are playing vanguard like its some new thing when in reality its SOE's new eq2 with most likely the exact same people working on it and calling most of the shots. Have fun leveling up in that game people because once thats over you have eq2 all over again, only your starting from the ground and having to work up again. Not my idea of fun, but to each their own I suppose.

So anyone have some new insult play on my name or something? Ive grown tired of Ishfag and Bitchbu and would like a new one. That or something actually worth disussing/argueing would be great because I think we're all getting a bit bored here.

Cue the Four Horsemen

2007-02-04T01:59:00.000-08:00

Today is a dark day for EQ2. The entire EQ2 community is worse off for its passing. Today, Xelus quit.

Generally I dont give a fuck when people quit. People come and go in this game all the time, its nothing that hasnt been done before. Xelus however, is a different story.

Many people may not know who Xelus is. Xelus is the best player to have ever played EQ2, period. He was better than me, he was better than you, he was better than us all, and he was a genuinely nice guy on top of it. Everyone who played with Xelus knows he was the best player so dont even try and argue against it. Hell I didnt want Xelus to roll a conjuror even as an alt because being the second best conjuror in guild would suck. You all know how full of myself I am, so think how good Xelus must have been for me to feel that way?

Xelus and I have been in rival guilds, no guild, and the same guild since we both started raiding on Nektulos in early t5. He didnt always agree with me, with what I had to say, or how I said it. Hell, he probably didnt always like me, but there will never be a more loyal person than Xelus in a video game. He was the only person to leave Dissolution when I got kicked out, and he came back, and even rolled a needed class when I went back. Also, who could forget his infamous FUCK YOU post to SOE?

Anyways, congratulations Xelus and good luck with the new job. You are the first person to ever leave the game that I am truly sad to see go. All of EQ2 is now less skilled as a whole.

The apocolypse is upon us...

Item Revamp, part 5?

2007-01-23T18:56:00.002-08:00

Congratulations SOE on failing at your jobs once again!

Today some new test notes were posted wich included the following:

- The mobs within Inner Sanctum have been raised in difficulty to reflect the quality of the items they drop.
- Many of the Emerald Halls rare drop items have been increased in quality to reflect the time investment and difficulty of obtaining them.

Great, another expansion with ANOTHER revamp several months into it's release. First let me touch on the Inner Sanctum change.

I really just have one question: Why the fuck did it take so long you dumbasses? Every real raider knew that those mobs were far too easy to be dropping 50% of the set gear. Why wasnt this change implemented the same day you added set gear to their loot tables? That would make sense. Now its too little too late. Everyone who can grab 23 random people now has set gear from these mobs. This change is the equivalent of adding a 12 hour lockout to labs if you only kill trash, its too little too late. The loot has already dropped. We were already having most of the set crap rot because we got it, as I am sure other guilds were too. I am all for more challenging encounters, but not once we've already gotten any worthwhile loot from them for the last month or so. Then it just becomes pointless. Good game on screwing this up.

Now for Emerald Halls. On the one hand, this loot seriously needed to be upgraded. On the otherhand, I am so fucking tired of EVERY SINGLE RELEASE having to have loot upgraded because the designers were too incompetant in the first place. Item girl needs to be fired. Her assistants need to be fired. Anyone who helped design this loot at all needs to never be allowed to work on loot again. Its terrible. Half the classes set gear has stats that make no sense and effects that are garbage. Hell, as a conjuror there is not one single piece of my set I would wear full time. I would swap in the robe periodically and that is it. Grats me on being above the pinacle of left side gear before the expansion was released, and that is just one of the many examples of how terrible your item creation is.

Anyways, more on the loot upgrade in EH. Calaglin was kind enough to log into test and compile links from various guilds to see what was changed. As near as we can tell, 99% of the loot that was changed dropped off the Gardener and Wuoshi. None of the lesser, random named loot drops seem to have been changed at all, and no changes to set gear. I am so glad this stuff was no trade so most of it was transmuted, not that it matters since a crappy 1hander for a druid was changed into a bad ass dps slasher and no dps class would have taken that sword if they had even the slightest amount of intelligence anyways.

Anyways check it out here.

More fun with Second Dawn!

2007-01-17T00:31:00.000-08:00

Ok I got tired of waiting for a real reply like the ones I asked for on the last update so here's one for people to flame away!

If anything, the last update proves that the average intelligence of the Second Dawn/Second Dawn fans out there isnt high enough to read simple paragraphs. It was proven by their repeated replies wich did not fill the required form that was clearly stated at the top of that post. In the end, I guess the update proved what I wanted it to, that what I posted are facts and the SD folks just cant say anything against them that are also facts. They lose.

So since it was unfortunate I had to remove some fairly entertaining flames because I clearly stated what kidn of replies for that one post, Ill try and summ up what was lost (feel free to repost them on this update, notice this is back to normal and anything that was fine to post before is fine again)

I suck
I'm a bitch
Beer is good
I have a small penis
I live with my mom
Dissolution sucks
Dissolution just says the Avatar is broken cuz they are hurt

I think that about covers it all. Now let me ask a question? If the avatar of Valor wasnt broken, how come Exil, leader of Second Dawn admitted that SD just got lucky with no adds spawning for a long time near the start of their fight? How come SOE released a change to that encounter on test today to introduce a mob that never spawned before but was supposed to be spawning?

Evidentally it was broken, as anyone with a brain could tell. Of course, that didnt stop Second Dawn because if you remember, they swamped the SOE boards saying how great of an encounter it was, great script, and Petgroup inparticular was especially adamant that the encounter was not broken. God that guy must feel like a complete dumbass.

I am pretty sure Second Dawn is butthurt because exactly what I said was going to happen, happened. A bigtime beta guild (Second Dawn) world firsted the content they had been beta testing for a month before any regular guild (Dissolution) had a chance to pull it. Its like I said before, I would be ashamed if Dissolution was a special needs guild that beta tests and did NOT world first everything in EoF. There was no level cap to slow down, we had top end gear already, we would have come out and world firsted it all if were in beta or hung our heads in cold, bitter shame. Second Dawn obviously doesnt feel that way and is content taking an extra month over the rest of the world. I guess that is the difference between the two guilds, ours wants to be the best, where Second Dawn acknowledges that they need an extra month.

The fact that Second Dawn can never escape from is they were in EoF at the begining of October. That is a fact, I have the screenshot to prove it and it has been posted before. EoF did not release until mid November. Second Dawn has 6 weeks to try and learn the content. The sad thing is, they arent even bright enough to tell when a mob is obviously broken like the Avatar of Valor is/was.

I for one, am quite happy that of all the raid content cleared that Dissolution did it either first or second in EoF so far. We knew going in that beating beta guilds was going to be very hard because they had been playing with the content for weeks and talking to developers about what abilites mobs have and we were all just getting to see it for the first time on our own. I enjoy challenging encounters, so do the other members of Dissolution. I guess Second Dawn would prefer to be a special needs beta guild. That is a fact they cannot overcome until the next expansion. They know its true that they needed that extra edge, if it wasnt, they wouldnt care what Dissolution has to say about it, but because it is true they are hurt that someone actually called them on it.

Its not a coincidence that the guilds that beta test always do better. For proof look at KoS. Everyone new NPU beta tested it, NPU got a lot of world firsts in KoS. NPU didnt do very much beta testing in EoF and how many world firsts do they have? Second Dawn didnt do much if any beta testing in KoS, didnt do shit. Suddenly they get to beta test EoF and they are getting world firsts. Its not a coincidence, its that they have seen these mobs before, they have fought them before, and the ones that were changed were changed based on their feedback and what their raid could/could not handle.

So in the end, yes Second Dawn got number 1 on Wuoshi, Mayong, and Avatar of Valor(BROKEN version). And yes, Second Dawn saw all that stuff in beta. Grats I guess if your proud of that and feel its something to boast about as you obviously do. I for one would never want to lower my guild to beta testing and working with devs so if we have to lose a couple world firsts to a special needs guild so be it. Grats Dissolution on killing the same encounters while maintaining the integrity and the balls to do it without an extra month and without a helping hand.

Potatoes Potahtoes. Some people are willing to take a harder rode to say they did it on their own, some people are content to take the easy rode and rely on help from developers. To each their own I guess.

2007-01-14T03:19:00.000-08:00

Ok all I keep hearing is crap from Second Dawn, so Im going to make this update. The only replies that wont be deleted must be about Second Dawn of 1 sentance in length and posted in the form that they are below. They must be 100% factualy correct as well.

FACT - Second Dawn World firsted Mayong Mistmoore, Wuoshi, and the Avatar of Valor.

FACT - Second Dawn has been a "top end" raiding guild since the early days of t5 raiding.

FACT - Second Dawn did not beta test the original game, DoF, Bloodlines, Splitpaw, or KoS

FACT - Second Dawn did beta test TFD and EoF as a guild.

FACT - Second Dawn did not world first anything important in the releases they did not beta.

FACT - Second Dawn did test Emerald Halls and the Avatars on beta, as well as post screenshots showing some of them with Mayong.

FACT - Second Dawn only world firsted anything important after beta testing the last two releases.

FACT - Members of Second Dawn do regularily communicate with Developers and other SOE employeee's about various encounters.

FACT - Despite being a guild longer, Second Dawn has a smaller number of important world firsts than the guild Dissolution.

Are you done being retarded? Are you?!

2007-01-08T12:55:00.000-08:00

Ok, so since the SOE boards are the only boards worth a damn, ive been reading them a bit more lately. Granted I cant post there, but oh well. Anyways, recently SOE made a change to the loot in Inner Sanctum wich amounts to a big "Fuck You" to the high end raiding scene and basically telling us to go fuck ourselves if we want progression and play World of Warcraft.

The first thread on the issue was locked, although I cant really tell why, but a second one soon popped up. You can read them for yourselves but I just wanted to point out one particular post on the third page

http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=zones&message.id=28683#M28683

shamefu11 wrote:

"ok those of u that are all happy cos your noob asses can get set gear, are streight up retarted. Listen to reality, this is how gear goes from EoF. it goes from instanced set gear, to contested gear, there IS NO GOD [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] MIDDLE GROUND. currently a mob that our guild prolly could 2 grp, drops the same as a lvl 75X4 with 3X4 adds also lvl 75. Inner Sanctum was meant to be HARDER THEN EH... EH WAS MEANT TO BE CLEARED FIRST... this has been prevented due to two reasons... 1 SoE has totally effed up and made Inner Sanctum about the quality of labs.... yes a pickupraid can clear it, and yes a pickupraid CAN kill tarinax, cos in SoE's wisdom they made the drontal do about 50% of a lvl 69 legendary geared mystics HP.

anyways back on topic, 2nd reason, is because EH woulda been cleared weeks ago, but HEY there is 15 seconds of u stand there and get beat down by a mob, because SoE designed the zone / charm/ something wrong to cause enormous insane amounts of lag...

are you guys done being retarted? are you? if you still think that the entire GAME should be as well equouued as dusso . sd . NPU untill contesteed die, please refrain from ever posting again, and go stand in the corner.

Thanks!"

Ok granted, there are a lot of spelling mistakes and whatnot, but this post is hilarious. It sounds like something I would have posted and wish I could. I dont know who shameful11 is, but I am glad there are still people out there calling out the retards and just telling them exactly what they are.

I could read that post over and over for hours, and I just might.

2006-12-30T23:35:00.000-08:00

Ok Im just going to apologize to Second Dawn, not for anything I posted/said because I still stand by it, but because that whole line of drama no longer interests me.

What enterains me now is the never ending story at eq2flames. Read all about at our homepage!

Beta players = lieing douchebags

2006-12-28T09:56:00.000-08:00

Does anyone know what this is? Up until this morning I sure as fuck didnt. As it turns out this is something you just happen to pick up on the quest to receive Tunare's Diety cloak. Now considering this cloak/diety does all of jack shit for anyone other than a healer, most people have probly never done it, especially when you realize that Tunare is a GOOD ALIGNMENT ONLY god.

Ok, so now we all know what it is, but what the fuck does that matter? Well logic would indicate absolutely nothing as it is an item that good aligned characters can receive only right? Well that turns out to be wrong. Evidentally this item is supposed to be gotten from the area around Wuoshi in Emerald Halls, only AFTER you kill him. It is then a harvestable item that your raid force can pick up. That makes sense, you clear the zone, you get some item with some mystical useage right?

Oh no, here we are wrong again. To take this craziness one step further, I guess you can delete the tunare cloak quest after receiving this item and repeat it to your heart's content. But still, after being told this when I logged in this morning, I still had no fucking clue why that matters at all because its just some dumb leaf. Well as the story goes, this item is useable on Mayong Mistmoore in some fashion or another to prevent one of his AE's or something like that (i heard it prevents his de-level, but obviously having just been informed this is all second hand knowledge). WHAT THE FUCK! First off, how can something that incredibly important accidentally slip into a GOOD ALIGNMENT ONLY quest line? Secondly how the fuck would anyone ever know about that and then get multiple ones on alts and other characters to use it against Mayong?

Well only the developers can explain the first question and how much of a fuck up that is, but I can answer the second. During beta, a developer explained, in full detail to at the very least, members of NPU and Second Dawn exactly what Wolfsbane was, where it came from, and what it was used for. I was told this by a member of NPU because they figured if anyone would bitch about it, I would, and they were right. Obviously Second Dawn has killed Mayong, and last night they killed him again. Grats, I am sure its still a reasonably challenging encounter, but seriously, dont you ever fucking say beta knowledge doesnt help again. There are tons of guilds getting that guy to 50% and lower who have no clue about this wolfsbane crap I am sure and I bet they all can beat it now once they find out. I heard Second Dawn was zoning in other characters and alts with the wolfsbane last night to kill Mayong because they had planned ahead and gotten so much of it, talk about bullshit.

Like I said, grats on your kill, dont forget to give all credit to your firsthand beta knowledge that 95% of us out here had no fucking clue about. Lieing pieces of shit with their "beta doesnt give an advantage", my ass.

2006-12-23T08:24:00.000-08:00

Lets talk for a minute about something that has come up quite a bit lately: Integrity.

Integrity is defined as follows:

Steadfast adherence to a strict moral or ethical code.

Now lets talk about someone who has no integrity, Elleffgee. He lost it all the minute he allowed his friend to post X rated, obscene pictures that would not be allowed to be shown on HBO. When confronted about this, he resorted to banning all the members of Dissolution from his website because he has no integrity. To further tarnish his image, he went so far as to permantly ban me for calling him a pussy bitch who plays favorites (something he clearly did with this situation) and then, in an act of extreme cowardice he edited my post saying I am the pussy, while at the same time, as I mentioned making it so I may never post there again to reply. What a little girl.

Frankly, I dont care that I am banned from that site. If I wanted to post on a site where the moderators/admin ban people for speaking against them and play favorites, allowing their friends to do/say/post anything they want even when others are not allowed to do so, I would post on the offical SOE boards because at least those are official and not run by some unimportant nobody.

To you LFG, you had a chance for a real good site there, grats on ruining that. I may be the first person you banned because I spoke out against you, but others will have the same happen to them just as they did on the SOE boards. You have started your own decline with this issue proving your no better than SOE and far less important in the grand scheme of things. Enjoy the only friends you have left, your new friends in Vagabonds and that is only for the fact you are apping to them. Its a shame some of them can no longer understand right from wrong because of an application.

Love it or hate it, Dissolution brings the drama wich is what people love to read. Dissolution has now been banned by LFG from his site, and as you said yourself LFG, we were responsible for more people there than anyone else by a large margin. Your a fool and a hipocrit. I hope your lack of integrity, ethics, and morals keeps you warm at night, because the laughter I get at your expensive will tide me over for months.

Hold the phone, 1 month later....

2006-12-12T07:51:00.000-08:00

So while not technically spot on with the date, it was a month ago that EoF was launched. Thats not really all that long of a time period, given that we can expect to be dealing with this same content for another 6-7 months at least. So lets see, where am I?

- I am done grinding AA's.

- I have done EVERY non green quest I could possibly find. (Yes, I even did Cloak of Flames despite being a mage)

- I maxed out my transmuting skill.

- I created a Fae alt.

- I did the new, low level herritage/signature quests even.

My question is, wtf am I supposed to be doing in my spare time in game? Its pretty ridiculous that in one month's time I am done with everything but the raid content. The only real reason 95% of the raid content hasnt been beaten is because it is horrible broken to the point of impossible just like the Matron was for months. Emerald Halls still seems possible, Pumpkin Headed Horseman, and even Mayong Mistmoore* are all I see that can possibly be killed without being changed. There is no fucking way in hell anyone is ever going to kill an Avatar unless SOE makes changes.

And speaking of changes, SOE, did you not learn from the matron encounter? Yes, a hard, challenging encounter is a lot more fun than an easy, walk in the park one. However, we, the playerbase, do NOT enjoy having the content be impossible and slowly tweaked down to where it is just barely doable. We've been there before, its not all that fun. It is much more enjoyable to have this content possible from the get go. Granted we should need to gear up, except all gear I am seeing is lack luster at best. Newsflash, 500hp doesnt really change a whole lot when mitigation is completely meaningless. Yes, I saw Gallenite's response about how useless mitigation is and he completely missed the entire point. The point wasnt that cloth is as good as mitigation so fix that, it was the mitigation curve diminishes so MUCH, so EARLY that anyone who can outfit themselves in full relic need not worry about mitigation anymore because 500 more will add 1-2% difference, aka nothing that will ever make a difference at all.

The mitigation curve needs to be fixed, period. It is completely broken. No tank in relic gear from an old expansion should tank as well as a tank decked out in brand new EoF set gear, but they do. In fact, if tanks are smart and change their thinking a bit, a lot of the old KoS gear is better than the set gear because 50 more hp doesnt matter all that much at all, especially when mobs like the avatars are hitting for 10,000.

Now for the asterik:

* - Mayong is only possible if you fix that mother fucking bug where the entire raid completely freezes up for several seconds every time a mob delevles someone. How did this miss beta testing? Every single fucking time in that zone, one of the vampires delevels your tank, everyone freezes up for 5 seconds. Its not enough that Mistmoore Castle is so poorly designed with so many pixels that it lags seriously bad on even the top end computers when there are 24 people in the zone, but that bug on top of things is just plain ridiculous.

Fix the raid content already. Fix the curve so plate tanks can actually increase their tanking ability. Put in the epic questline that should have been in since release because those of us who actually play your fucking game instead of log in for 5 minuts a week are out of content to do when not raiding already. For the price increase in this expansion I would expect more than a month's worth of content.

Oh and btw, how about you quit showing favortism by resetting certain guild's lockouts for bugs that many others have experienced mmm k?

There are no words...

2006-11-27T02:10:00.000-08:00

Ok, I dont visit the SOE forums much at all these days. A combination of not being able to post, lack of intelligent posters, and the fact that all the good posts are on eq2flames all contribute. However, I did come across this thread and I think everyone could benefit from reading it because it will provide a good laugh and provide a fine example of how to lose at life.

http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=gameplay&message.id=142829&view=by_date_ascending&page=1

Lol, I just dont know what else to say.

First Impressions

2006-11-20T23:31:00.000-08:00

Quite a few people have been sending me tells and PM's asking what I think of EoF since its about a week old now. Well here it is:

Solo Content - I am not a solo type of a gamer obviously, but I simply do not understand how one of those types of people has any reason to play a game like this. I managed to complete every single heroic and solo quest in the loping plains regiong in 2 evenings of playtime, and that was mixed doing some other things. Granted a soloer probably wouldnt go as hard at is as I did, but still, that doesnt even equate to an hour a day for a week. If you are a high level soloer, save your money if its not too late.

I did create a fae because for some unknown reason I wanted to make a fae that looks like a vampire fae, or a faepire. Also, I heard the level 60 title is "Count" so I named my fae Chocula and someday will be a vampire looking fan named Count Chocula. If your a solo player and your looking for some new crap that is basically the same old but in a different location, this expansion rocks! I have no idea why anyone would want that, but for some reason this demographic exists, so buy asap!

Heroic Content - If your a high level player who basically just hits up instances with friends or pick up groups, again, Id say buy the expansion but only if there arent any other games your playing with any interest. Cypt of Valdoon, Obelisk of Blight, and Achadicism are the 3 instances you have to work with. Id compare them to Halls of Fate, Blackscale Sepulcher, and Nest of the Great Egg accordingly. Fun to go through once or twice, the legendary armor sets are probably amazing to this type of player, but I just cant stand doing them on a daily basis, not that there is a single reason to in the world for someone like me.

Other than those instances you do have Mistmoore Catacombs and Mistmoore Castle at your level range, with Kaladim and New Tunaria to a lesser degree. Mistmoore Caslte is basical a zone where the challenge for a single group might make you want to go back everyday, for a week, then you never want to go back again. I am already sick of this hell hole and thank god I am done with all the quests that lie therin. The Catacombs on the other hand are reasonably fun I guess, and if I were grinding AA's in EoF, it would be my zone of choice (Im not though, PoA still owns for grinding aa's). Also, Estate of Unrest is supposed to be added in in a couple LU's so that is something to look forward to.

For lower level players...well there was enough content to get to the high levels as is so who knows and who cares.

Raid Content - To me, the only thing that really matters. Off the bat we have Clockwork Menace Factory, Freethinker's Hideout, Inner Sanctum, and Emerald Halls for instances. There are a handful of x2 in Castle Mistmoore, The Pumpking Headed Horseman, the avatars, and someday Mayong himself should be spawning (with more overland contested and another dungeon contested yet to be added in I am told).

The Clockwork Menace Factory is fun. This zone would have been awesome if it was released with KoS. It wasnt though, it came with EoF, so its easy for any established raiding guild. The coolest part by far is figuring it out the first time through, but its nothing that is going to throw a wrench into your plans the next trip. For us, this zone is already on farm status and we even entered the MINUTE our lockout expired and ran through in under 15min. The loot is all over the place. 75% of it sucks, 25% is amazing. So far we are 1/2 as we got what I would say are currently the best discovered bracers for a cloth wearer in game. Then we got a BP that makes KoS loot look amazing. All in all this encounter was supposed to be the easiest in EoF and it is relatively fun, I just wish it was higher level.

Freethinker's Hideout is another zone that is already on farm status. I am told for the not so established raid guilds that some of the names can be a bit tricky, but I dont foresee that lasting too long. Some of the raid dropped set gear comes from here so the loot as a whole is pretty good. It is another fairly small zone though, but all in all, not too bad. It could stand to be harder though since this would use up half of the raid instances and they were both at KoS/TFD difficulty.

Inner Sanctum is the instanced home of Mayong Mistmoore. This zone needs to be made noticeably harder. First off:

Why the fuck do these guys have 3million plus hp? Why the fuck do they come in pairs halfway into the zone? Why the fuck do you add trash mobs that are of no challenge besides fighting off the boredom as you slowly kill them? No more fucking cows like PPR's third floor please. Change them. (Yes I photoshopped the name onto that picture, but I couldnt get a good picture with the name included)

Ok, now that that little rant is out of me, I can continue with the zone. The Chaperon's are cool, the first time, or second time, but by then you get the picture and they no longer are interesting or pose even the slightest challenge or speed bump. The named are jokes. In fact, the named are complete and utter jokes with nothing unique or new aside from Tacticians Armor and Mayong Mistmoore himself. The Tactician's Armor is different, but all in all I consider it to be a dumb idea simply because it makes.......something.....completely useless. Mayong is rather hard atm, and the rest of the named in zone need to be brought up so that on the first trip in the only thing not dead is Mayong. Come on, this is supposed to be an expansion that lasts several months, and we have already cleared a good chunk of it.

The loot is on par with Freethinker's Hideout for the most part. Nothing more to say about that.

Emerald Halls - This is supposed to be the grandaddy of them all. The raid zone to end all raid zones at this stage in EQ2. Admitedly due to a weird fucking problem we havent had a full night's shot in here yet, but from what I hear the zone does pose a challenge for most of it, but has some major bugs (like named killing each other off). Hopefully these bugs get worked out and I can make a better assessment of the zone later. Also, a lot of named are copycats of the matron. This is dumb, we've been there, done that, NOBODY wants to do it again.

That wraps up the instances, now for the contested.

Avatars - Impossible at this stage, much like the Matron was for the first 3 months of her lifetime. I cant put into words how sad that makes me. These are not impossible because we need to finish getting our aa's and gear up some, these are impossible will need to be tweaked down like the Matron was if they are ever to be killed. I hate when this happens. It completely kills the fun because once your ready you just sit around and wait for them to do the little tweak(s) so that you can finally kill them and see what lies on their loot tables. Granted I havent tried most of them, but the couple Ive been lucky enough to run across arent even worth wasting a minute on.

Pumpkin Headed Horseman - He definitly poses a challenge but is nowhere near impossible. He requires some more AA's and some gear for sure, but he isnt the complete let down and dissapointment the Avatars are. This mob I actually look forward to working on more. This is how I wish more of the instanced mobs were in difficulty too. Something you can work on, make progress on, but actually need to gear up to successfully kill. (or so it seems at this juncture)

That wraps up the raid content, all in all I guess I would give it a 4 out of 10. Most of it is far to easy and most of the rest is just ridiculous and not tuned at all. There certantly isnt enough to tide over raiding guilds for very long as Clockwork Menace and Freethinker's are already farm status with 99% of Inner sanctum being there as well. I know most of us saw this problem coming a mile away and it honestly shocks me they have done nothing about it. Contested are fun and all but if they cant be killed that doesnt leave much to do.

Oh and by the way, anyone kill the matron since EoF launched? Yeah, I didnt think so. Thats completely fucked up to. There needs to be a mention of something high end/raid oriented on the foreseeable horizon or I dont see the raiding base lasting all that long. As usual I have nothing to do but raid because we have gear that can only be upgraded from raids, we all have all our masters, and it wont be long before we all are maxed on aa's again. Do you understand SOE, we NEED stimulating, challenging raid content to fill every day because there is simply NOTHING else worth doing at all. I have 5 freaking alts now and 4 of them are in the same boat as my main. This fae will be there before long as well, so step on it and do whatever it is that you have planned to keep the raiding base playing. You do have something planned dont you?

PS - Someone (who is now dead to me) alerted me that my alt has the second most hp for a swashbuckler game wide. I have since spec'd him for hp/tanking so incoming number 1. Whoot! Go Sarcasmo (former Flexo) go!

/sigh...

2006-11-07T01:29:00.000-08:00

I realize I havent posted anything in a while, but that is because there isnt anything to post.

Everything has been said and done. Next Tuesday is the release of EoF. Here's hoping... I have my doubts :/

New Site Up and Running

2006-10-01T22:11:00.000-07:00

Just thought I would throw out that Dissolution has relocated to a new website.

Visit us at EQ2Disso.com and let us know what you think of the new site.

Down to Their Last at Bat

2006-09-28T10:25:00.000-07:00

Well its about that time again. Time for beta.

Its no secret that raiders as a whole are fairly unhappy with the game. Lets review:

- Desert of Flames (entire expansion) Strike 1
- Kingdom of Sky (itemization and progression) Strike 2

So now we have Echoes of Faydwer. Will it deliver on so many unfufilled promises? One would hope so, however I am not an optomist. The glass is half empty here and beta is off to a bad start.

So far it is just the friends and family beta, yet the entire guild of Fires of Heaven, Drow, and Second Dawn are in beta already. Ne Plus Ultra and The Bekwen Alliance will also be added to beta as a guild, and possibly others. This proves that SOE has learned nothing.

With no level cap increase here is exactly what will happen when EoF goes live:

1. Beta guild logs in and rushes to some zone in EoF
2. Beta guild clears through raid zone/raid access quest/contested mob in first pull
3. Every raid guild that wasnt in beta doesnt even know this zone/quest/mob exsist
4. Should a non beta guild be lucky enough to stumble upon the zone/quest/mob they will have to pull and learn the encounter or explore or whatever where the beta guild will have perfected it during the 2 months of beta.

How pathetic is this? There is no level increase this time to even slow down the beta guilds. You might as well give them the laser goggles because unless the guild sucks, there is no way a beta guild should lose any meaningful world firsts in EoF. Let me repeat that, if you are a beta guild and you lose a meaningful world first in EoF to a non beta guild, you suck. You have a 2month head start. You will know the encounter, you will know where it is, how to pull it, what it does, how to kill it. EVERYTHING about the encounter will be common knowledge to your guild, where non beta guilds will be gazing upon it for the first time.

Congrats SOE on putting EoF in a huge hole. Calling off the "race" before the expansion even hits store shelves is the wrong foot to start on. And to the beta guilds, grats on beta info. I for one will not be impressed by a single thing world firsted by a beta guild. If your so damn good, you should have declined being in beta, otherwise its just sad in my book.

EL Strikes Again!

2006-09-20T14:17:00.000-07:00

Wow, just when you think Ethereal Legacy has crawled back into their hole, something new and equally retarded involving them rears its head.

http://www.eq2flames.com/showthread.php?t=78

In short, multiple people in EL have receive Chel'drak's Tooth. You know, the mythical, ONE PER SERVER item off of Chel'drak. The person who has a second one is not a server transfer and has been with EL since before they killed it the first time.

If you read that thread, Crabbok admits they knew it was wrong and forgot to unequip it for the night to hide it from EQ2player profiles. How pathetic.

This is probably the lamest thing EL has done to date. And, it all goes to show that if SOE would just perma-ban completely stupid people that say and do completely stupid things, a lot less retarded shit would go on.

I sincerely hope the whole guild receives at least a suspension for failing to report this obvious oversight and taking advantage of it. And for Nadia (the person with the extra tooth), she should be banned for good.

And just when I thought the joke was over...

Extra! Extra!

2006-09-19T12:51:00.000-07:00

EQ2 Flames

This is a new message board central hosted up by a guild member of mine. Its just like the official SOE boards, except your not going to be moderated, have your posts edited, deleted, etc for saying whats on your mind.

Generally I dont put much faith in these 3rd party boards because SOE with this game has done everything in their power to squash anything like them, but there are a good number of people already posting over there from a variety of servers. Several of them "big name" players in the game so I wanted to promote it a little bit.

The only downside of these boards so far is that the devs obviously do not post on them. That may change, although I doubt it. But, in my experience I can tell you this much, the only times a post gets dev attention is when someone emails a dev and links it to them about how and why its a good point and needs attention. There are just far too many threads all complaining about something and quite frankly, the devs dont care to read them all, so you may as well post somewhere you are free to speak what your actually thinking.

With that, I hope everyone checks out www.eq2flames.com

Jacked Up

2006-09-14T07:30:00.000-07:00

Back up and running. Charter still sucks.

Having a hard time reading the boards since I know any reply worth a damn from me is going to result in me being banned yet again. Will post something hopefully more interesting soon.

Blasphemy!

2006-09-06T11:10:00.000-07:00

The Devil

I hate those guys. You know they are slow to getting things set up when dialup becomes a speedy alternative. Oh, and no, there arent any other options in the area.

Go Red Sox!

2006-09-01T06:19:00.000-07:00

As the Boston Red Sox fall further and further behind in the American League wild card race, Tamat and Ogaming fall further and further away from interviewing real raid guilds for their Born to Raid series.

Why the Bostom Red Sox comment you may ask? Well its simple, this go around the lucky contestant is Drow. You know that guild with Curt Schilling. Read all about it here.

On another note, Im going to be moving this weekend and fuck it takes a lot longer than it should to get highspeed internet hooked up.

Warriors Need to be Able to Heal!

2006-08-29T11:15:00.000-07:00

Get ready this will be a long one...

Fabled T7 Bucklers for Warriors

Wow, where to start. This thread was doomed to be a cesspool of ignorance from conception. The original post was calling for fabled bucklers oriented towards tanks to be included in the game more often. This of course is because of the stamina AA path that most warriors choose that gives them the benefit of double attacking as long as they equip a 1hander + buckler instead of a tower shield. It may sound like a fair trade off on paper, but in reality the 3-5% avoidance lost by equipping a buckler is all but negligeable. By asking for "tank oriented" bucklers to be added in, basically what Kalidon is saying is make a buckler that is equivalent to a tower shield for tanking. This of course spurned a huge debate.

1. The stamina AA line for warriors is overpowered, period. Of all the classes that get a double attack option, warriors have to give up the least by far. As I mentioned, switching from a tower shield to a buckler is a minor inconvenience at best and not really a penalty at all. Rogues have to keep their secondary slot empty and brawlers need to go completely unarmed. Warriors? They just have to use a slightly smaller shield and still retain all their mitigation, so who really cares if you get hit 1 more time out of 20 swings for a highly mitigated amount?

2. Everyone already knew that this line was overpowered, they had learned to accept it. Calling for items to be put in game that enhance an already overpowered ability? Now that is a joke. It makes as much sense as someone seriously asking for summoners to do 2x more damage but get 1/2 as much aggro. Its just idiotic. Here is a tip for ALL classes out there: If you are the beneficiary of an overpowered ability, do NOT ask for upgrades, be happy with what you have. Asking for upgrades is only going to draw extra attention to your abilities and result in a high liklihood of them being nerfed.

So now of course you have the standard players posting about how this AA was already overpowered and now we're going to ride it since you were foolish enough to bring it up as needing to be upgraded vs the sheep who are members of the guild run by the OP, the berserkers (argueably the most overpowered class in game) who cant stand the thought of everything they do not being better than other players, and guardians whom I have already expressed my feelings on in a previous post. Yes there are one or 2 good people from the various "cliches" posting intelligent remarks here and there, but as a majority they fall into the afore mentioned categories. What I think most of the warriors are failing to realize is that the people saying it is overpowered are not asking for the dps to be nerfed even, they are simply saying the purely offensive AA path should have drawbacks in the form of tanking ability. Nobody should expect to be able to tank and simultaneously do top end dps. Thats just plain stupid.

Now before we get too far into the thread, let me just bring something up. DPS Tiers. Yes we have all heard of them and yes we all know that SOE regrets ever posting them. They were intended to be a rough guidelines, not a bread and butter, do or die ruleset that the playerbase turned them into. It was perfectly reasonable that at times classes would be up or down a tier for various reasons. All in all though, the layout was still a guideline for the balancing they hoped to achieve. So looking at the DPS tiers we cant at least form a reasonable estimate of what classes should be at least equal in dps to others.

T1 - Wizard, Warlock, Assassin, Ranger
T2 - Conjuror (using dps pet), Necromancer (using dps pet), Brigand, Swashbuckler
T3 - Conjuror (using tank pet), Necromancer (using tank pet), Troubadour, Dirge, Illusionist, Coercer, Bruiser, Monk
T4 - Berserker, Shadowknight, Paladin, Guardian
T5 - Fury, Warden, Defiler, Mystic, Inquisitor, Templar

These classes are supposedly listed from relative top to relative bottom within the tiers as well. Keep in mind this reflects the developers rough guildelines for where classes should be dps wise and nothing else. Using our brains it is easy to see that a warrior doing high end dps on encounters where they may shine could feasibly be doing dps equal to the t3 classes.

Now back to the thread.

The first defense from the warriors of the world came in the form of: Buckler reversal proc's a ton of damage so warriors can really only do decent dps when tanking. Calaglin quickly shot this theory down as he posted a zone wide parse from Lyceum (a zone with MANY multi mob encounters so the dmg would be higher than normal). This parse showed that buckler reversal accounted for a mere 3% of the total damage output of the warrior who was tanking. It is the 5th post from the bottom here.

So now we have some warriors who are absoultey upset and throw into a fit. My favorite quote appears from Comalv, a berserker in Xanadu on the Runnyeye server:

"i think that all players that say that STA line is overpowered need to a) learn to play their character better, b) get a life and quit whining."

Ok Comalv, Im saying the STA line is overpowered and your saying I need to learn to play my character better. Find me a conjuror whose out parsing me zone wide. Yeah, I havent seen one either. Oh and Ill be sure to get out of my mother's basement and get a job even though Im 10 years old right?

I will give credit though to Henladar Bloodheart for being a realist and saying:

"This is coming for a zerker who tanks alot of [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn]... rdy for it? STA LINE IS OVERPOWERED!"

Oh and lets not forget this one from AncientElster:

"I do about 700dps or so *without* a buckler in the MT group.

I guess that means guardians are overpowered then Phov?"

No, it just means you fucking suck AncientElster. Seriously your really bad if thats all you can do. Im sorry but you might want to re-roll and try and learn your class when you level up this time.

Now here is where things get sad. I like the guild Fable. I respect Fable, but this berseker of theirs, Bravesword, says some really stupid shit (more from him later, and dont feel bad Fable, we all have that one person that posts dumb comments):

"You noobs must be able to see the way SOE designed the classes: Scouts, mages, and fighters all have 1 subclass, that sticks out as low on dps, but high on utility"

Actually Bravesword, SOE designed this game so that ALL priests could heal, ALL fighters could tank, ALL mages and ALL scouts could dps. That is what this game and all of those classes were founded upon, that core ability. Believe it or not, enchanters, bards, rangers, and warlocks are all dps first and now your want to be able to be the MT for all content in game AND outperform these classes on their base roles? Get a clue. Look back at those dps tiers. You doing the same dps as bards and enchanters is ok, but not as the norm and you shouldnt be out parsing them regularily either, maybe only once in a great while if at all. Please at least have an idea of how SOE designed the classes before commenting on it in the future.

Now for those of you who have read this before, you probably know who Anariale is. He's is the paladin turned Guardian named Darton in the guild Ghosts of War on the Permafrost server. This guy is your classic little brother. He wants to hang out with the big boys but gets all flustered and acts like he doesnt care whenever they laugh at him. This is what I wrote about him in a public thread on the Dissolution boards the other day:

1. GoW guy makes post making outlandish and/or stupid claim
2. Real raiders from different servers point out how prior claim was laughable at best
3. GoW guy argues, making himself look even dumber some how
4. Real raiders write him off as retard and mock him and his guild relentlessly
5. GoW guy replies with "it works for us, so whatever /shrug

That being said, check out his quote in this thread!:

"Time to stop the Rumors guys...
1) Guardians with bucklers do NOT do Tier 1 damage.
2) 30% or more of a MT's DPS comes from reactive damage"

Um, didnt we just point out how the biggest "reactive damage" was a mere 3% of the warriors dps? Yes we did. Learn to read you idiot. Oh and how about how they don't do t1 damage. Im sorry, if the MT of a raid can do a zone wide parse of 1500 wich is right there with all the top dps classes, they are doing t1 damage. Its not hard to open your eyes and read numbers. God I knew this retard would post something stupid in this thread, I just knew it.

While we are on stupid posts, lets go back to Bravesword:

"You say it is ok that an enchanter can deal 950 dps, but it is waaaay too much for a warrior. Eh, can you tell me the logic behind this? Enchanters are much more like crusaders, than warriors. Warriors take damage and deal damage. That is what they are build for. Enchanters are supporters like paladins. If a paladin could ever come close to a warrior in dealing dps and taking just as little damage as a warrior, who would play a warrior? NOONE!"

Hey, do you know why nobody should be playing crusaders? Its because warriors deal more dps and tank better! Im not even going to expand on the sheer stupidity behind posting that enchanters are more like crusaders than warriors are. I mean, good lord. Oh and again, Warriors were never about dealing damage, take damage yes, deal damage no. Dealing damage is for the dps classes, the scouts and mages, wich is, GASP, what an enchanter is.

And then there is this guy named Krontak who is a swashbuckler in the guild Rapture on Blackburrow. For some reason he's just not smart. Ive seen a few dumb posts from him before, but his hangup in this thread revolves around this, wich he repeatedly brings up:

"I saw the post disso had on the zonewide(or what we were lead to believe was zonewide, including even single target encounters)."

Yes, we found some invicible mob that could take unlimited damage and racked up huge numbers against him. Or we took our 2 best parses and added 4 zero's to the end of it. Oh and then we deleted out every 3rd fight. Seriously, stop and think for 5 seconds before posting. Anyone with a brain who has done these zones can tell that is a true zone wide parse. What good would making up data do? What possible reason would we have for that? If it had to be made up to show that something is overpowered, that would mean it actually isnt overpowered. You do realize we have 2 warriors in guild who both use the STA line right? Why on earth would we want to get them nerfed/fixed if the ability wasnt over powered? Its not hard to use your brain. Kids start doing it before they learn to walk, try it some time Krontak.

So at this point Dissolution is getting ready to raid lyceum since our lockout has expired. This is the one zone we use our berserker as a MT because of their superior AE aggro control. The MT group is set up as normal and as the fairly typical group used by high end raid guilds. Our guardian was our off tank should shit hit the fan or something. We pull fast so quite often we find ourselves with multiple groups of mobs and he is required to tank. Also the guardian is going to be tanking Vilucidae at the end of the zone. This shows the guardian's group is more than capable of tank ready, not being doctored up much at all. He has healers, he has buffs, he has support, its a solid group. We do our usual parsing, at the end of the zone, the bersker comes out with 1535 dps. The guardian comes out with 1230. Can anyone honestly say that 1535 dps isnt top end for an entire zone? That is absolutely ridiculous to see the MT of the raid get that high. What is even more ridiculous is that the best tanking class in the game in a still very reasonable tank group put up a 1230 for the zone. Perhaps I should mention we did the zone with 20 people so these numbers could have been higher. We were missing our inquisitor, wizard and both assassins (and our hit by a truck swashbuckler). Do you realize how fast shit would have died with those classes? I dont have the exact raid parse infront of me, but if I recall correctly I was atop the zone wide dps list with the necromancer and berserker tied for second/third. I know people want to use the arguement that well you guys as a raid do more dps blah blah blah. Yeah maybe we do but we were missing 4 big time dps characters so our raid dps that night was much more what you would expect from a regular guild. That should be evident by the fact that 1500 raid wide dps was in our top 3 (I cant help it that Im uber and even though I died 4x I can still do 1800 zone wide with no troub in group:))

But do any of these facts matter? No of course not because as I have said, 90% of the MT's out there are just plain stupid. You have people trying to discredit the guardian that wasnt tanking but still in a group allowing him to tank if need be. They post just ignorant crap like our friend Bravesword:

"So to me it looks like a guardian, who is not MT has a very hard time keeping up with the rest of the fighters"

What part of the 1200 dps not tanking was so hard for you to see? Thats good dps period. Many guilds are thrilled with that zone wide from dps classes. This is a fucking guardian who isnt tanking. If he was tanking his dps would have been higher and he would have had a better group!

Or how about AncientElster again:

"Clearly you set your raid up to enhance your fighters DPS"

Didnt I just say how he was set up for tanking and not dps? As previously discussed in that thread a proper tank group does have some dps benefits associated with it. Shit, all 4 of our groups are set up for dps by many guilds standards.

And then for fun lets go back to Bravesword with his absolute dumbest comment yet:

"You claim, that a warriors sta AA line is way overpowered. Ok. Show me one parse, where a guardian, who is not MT and has the Sta AAs, parse more than 800. My guess is, that it is close to impossible."

Seriously, how did you miss the huge fucking parse breakdown of the guardian who didnt tank doing 1200+ zone wide dps? close to impossible? Try all that and 50% more. Wow, just wow. People are so blind its scary sometimes. Scafloc, this guy is your leader? Please tell me he is hungover today or something. Unfortunately he wasnt done posting:

"Oh, and Pinski, why don't we nerf the illusionists as well. I see no comment from you on the zonewide parse, where our illusionist did 1200dps. Enchanters must be nerfed..."

Did he forget that illusionist are mages and are supposed to do dps? Did he forget the part where guardians are supposed to be the ultimate defensive tank? How can you forget such core mechanics? Its absolutely mindblowing. Your able to tank the hardest mob that has been killed (Chel'drak) and do good dps while using a buckler. How can anyone not see how wrong this is? The buckler line is supposed to lower your defensive capabilities but enhance your offensive ones. It is for the warriors who are not tanking in a raid. It was never intended to be used while tanking and therefore it needs a much bigger drawback than it currently has, something like the brawler and rogue double attack aa's have.

Now unfortunately I have to quote Crabbok from EL over on the Bazaar here. He actually was posting pretty well this whole time but this comment was fairly bad:

"thats right where warriors should be on parse...about 5th or 6th"

So of Assassins, Brigands, Conjurors, Necromancers, Rangers, Swashbucklers, Warlocks, and Wizards, wich ones should the warriors be out dps'ing and why exactly? His statement was clearly not thought out at all.

So now Krontak steps back in:

"Those parses above, with the charts...are they from only 2 encounters merged together?"

Yes, we did millions of damage on 2 encounters. I honestly think this guy is just dense and unobservant. He's one of those people that walk around completely unaware of the world around them at all times.

Anyways, thats my rant on this thread. I cant post on the SOE boards and I was astonished at the level of garbage I was seeing there. I should make note that Scafloc was doing his best to run damage control on Bravesword at times so hats off to him. And to see what I found as the highlight of this thread, take a look at page 4 when Phov from Vagabonds on the Unrest server told Kalidon exactly how useless his SK comment was in the whole spectrum of the disucssion. Also, Koenig's line of comments leading up to Guantlet was good.

2006-08-27T15:33:00.000-07:00

Born to Raid

I just have one question. Who the fuck are the Lords of the Tripple Moon?

If Mistmoore server is Born to Raid, then Nektulos should be the poster server for Born to Roleplay and Nagafen can be Born to PvE.

Like a Clown: Funny or Sad?

2006-08-17T08:27:00.000-07:00

Let me ramble for a little bit about tanks and guilds.

Ok so its not a huge secret that 90% or more of the "Main Tanks" in the world are fairly stupid. I dont know why that is, but it just is. If you take any random 10 MT's of 10 random guilds, at least 9 of them will be people too stupid to even hold a 5 minute conversation. Of course there are regular people who choose to pursue the main tank roll too, but those are few and far between. Regardless of what I may think of their guilds, off the top of my head, Kirby of NPU, Psykil of Chaotic Legion, and Vellek of Vagabonds are seemingly some of the more intelligent MT's of the world. That is to say, they dont adopt the "I are da MT. I know everyting. Me always right." philosophy that so many MT's seem to have.

See, I know I should never be the MT for a guild. Its not that I cant play a tank class (I used to play Magank all the time), but that I have an ego that is more than large enough. It certantly doesnt need to be inflated with the "Im the tank" crap. And coincidingly I dont generaly tolerate that from our tanks. When one starts getting that way they find themselves being put down rather quickly. Maybe this is part of the reason Disso has gone through a few tanks, but its working well for us and I dont think we have any regrets.

Then there are guilds.

Some guilds are just brash, blunt, rude, and outspoken to an extreme, like Dissolution. There are quiet guilds you dont hear much from like Fable. There are the show boat guilds like NPU, and then a whole ton of regular guilds that just go about their business, commenting when they see fit.

Now, the one thing I have left out here is the dumbass guild. In the case of a guild that seems to be 90% dumbasses, your only hope is to PRAY that their leader or MT is an at least semi-intelligent person. Should the dumbass guild be paired with a complete retard, you achieve what is known as: Ethereal Legacy.

I have come across some very dumb people playing in this game, but Kalidon takes the cake. Part of the reason may be because he needs to have two people playing him so they dont even know what conversation they tried to have just a couple hours prior.

We have all seen Kalidon's post explaining their uber strategy that he dubbed "Death Coordination". But did you all know that EL publicly denies ever using death coordination and says that Dissolution (me) made it all up? Seriously, I can link you to Kalidon's post 100x over ("RIGHT HERE!") but these people are so dumb, they just dont get it that Kalidon was the one who said it. Honestly, its right there in black and white. You said it, you admited to it, now just hang your heads in shame and maybe it will go away. Making up stuff isnt going to help your cause because we all already know.

And speaking of making up stuff...

Kalidon as posted in that thread cares about his credibility. Any credibility he may have had left has long since been thrown out the window. A lot (ok a majority) of the pointing, laughing, and generally making fun of has come from Dissolution so Kalidon got all mad. To combat the joke he has become he has taken it upon himself to make up lies about Disso and then repeate them until he honestly believes they are true. Last night in the guk.guardians channel he accused of us about 100 different exploits, asked about them, when told it was made up, he asked again about 100 more times. I actually determined that only one of the two people playing Kalidon is literate so one does the typing and the other is supposed to read, but cant so they can never actually understand anything.

Of all the exploits Kalidon made up, I think my favorite had to be how Disso's conjuror (me) pulled Jura'Nata with a pet and ran her off away from the raid to OTHER FLOORS of PPR while the raid killed her adds one at a time and she reset. Besides the obvious on how that is impossible, I wasnt even online when they first killed Jura'Nata. Seriously, I would love to know how from my vacation around chirstmas time I was able to do complex, impossible pulls. But when Kalidon was told this information, he insisted that what he made up happened. Honestly, that has to be the most retarded thing I can think of, making up something and when the key part of your story is discovered to not even have been online sticking to it anyways? The word dense isnt strong enough.

After 90 minutes to 2 hours of his broken record of made up bullshit, I thought I would join in the fun. I made up that Kalidon and EL had to exploit Pedastaly of Sky and the Supernova, and then subsequently repeat it so that Kalidon might get an idea of how insanely stupid he looked. Strangely enough what I thought I had made up ended up being true. It turns out that EL did actually exploit the Supernova and admited to doing so through Crabbok to one of our members. So now Kalidon turned into a burning rage at wich point I continued to spam the channel some more just for a few more laughs while all his guildmates kept talking to each other like the world wide guardian channel cared about what EL's wizard thinks about a wizards dps.

So anyways, to the point here, I just wanted to ask what does everyone think of Kalidon/EL? Are they extremely funny or just plain sad? Are they a true uber guild from the bazaar or just a joke?

At this point, I know that Kalidon keeps dancing for my amusement and I thoroughly enjoy reading his ignorant ass try and form rational thoughts that usually just end up as garbled sentance fragments full of lies he concocted. I sincerely hope that he keeps posting and shouting like he is worth a damn. Speaking of wich, has EL ever world firsted anything? (and no, items that are random drops dont count)

2006-08-11T06:16:00.000-07:00

To keep with the trend, here's the next "Born to Raid"

This time at least it is a real guild. A guild that you know, actually raids and isn't some wannabe pvp guild. Most importantly it isn't a real raiding guild that wants to have Tamat/SOE's child. Whether intended or not, Esar at least turned those questions into a little of what I was hoping to see this whole time, someone saying what needs to happen in EoF if SOE wishes to retain their raiding playerbase.

The most entertaining thing though about this article is probably the introduction on the eq2.ogaming main site:

"Born to Raid: Eternal Chaos

This week I had the chance to sit down with Quantum from the Havoc guild on the Nagafen server. Quantum shared with us just what it's like to be a hardcore raiding guild on a PvP server in this installment of our "Born to Raid" EverQuest II raiding guild series. Check out the Havoc website for more information about the guild. Here is a little sample of the interview..."

Way to take some pride and not just copy paste things there....

Lol

2006-08-05T18:22:00.000-07:00

Ok now this is officially nothing more than a running joke. Interviewing the best of the best my ass. See for yourself here.

Round 3

2006-08-03T13:34:00.000-07:00

The long awaited, much anticipated third installment of "Born to Raid" is finally here!

This time the lucky guild is Havoc, a PvP guild on the Nagafen server.

Is it just me or this a very random selection? There is no rhyme or reason for this guild to grace the pages of ogaming third. Honestly, Im going to bet a fair number of big time raiders dont even know who Havoc is. The only reason I know of them is because the guild was founded by my original guild leader when I was in Chaotic Legion and then became a member when we formed Dissolution, and a current member of Dissolution.

The PvP servers are just too new to have an established raid guild on them that is "born to raid". Im sure Havoc does just fine (they should since their leader and members are constantly asking us for help with encounters), but where did this come from? It seems like Tamat's heart wasnt really into the interview either. There werent any interesting questions or anything. It was just kind of bland. Because of this, I am hoping the next update will be arriving shortly, so here is who I would like to see interviewed and what type of questions they should answer:

1. Ethereal Legacy from The Bazaar. I want them to explain in detail their strategy of "Death Coordination". Furthermore I want to understand their reasoning for running away from Eternal Chaos back when they were on Faydark and how they feel knowing that many people write them off as a joke for having to play on a special rules server where everyone can trasnfer to for free but can never leave.

2. Chaotic Legion from Kithicor. I want them to explain why they ran away from Dissolution and why they try and exploit all encounters. Also, I would like to hear how their plans of "beating everyone on a world wide level" is coming.

3. Ne Plus Ultra from Guk. I know they were already interviewed but I am sure Tamat misses them greatly and cant wait to talk to them again. Plus that way I could at least be entertained because this Havoc interview was boring.

Those are my suggestions off the top of my head. If anyone has any good ones (feel free to take a shot at Dissolution, we're used to it :)) lets hear them. Otherwise I got nothing because things have been rather boring lately.

I hope I die before I get old

2006-07-25T15:32:00.000-07:00

On Monday, Moorgard put a link on his blog to all his old mobhunter articles. Being an avid eq1 player for 5 years or there about I decided to read through them just for fun. Some of the things I found really surprised me:

- Here is him commenting on charm changes in Kael Drakkel after the world first kill of the Avatar of War by Legacy of Steel and Shock of Swords.

"Until then, we make a plea to Verant: keep your customers informed. Even though only 80 players were directly affected by the change to Kael, when you cripple one of the top guilds in the game, you cripple the dreams of tens of thousands of players across all servers who look to these guilds to give them hope for the future of EverQuest.

Hope like that is priceless to a company, and is irreplaceable once lost."

and

"So, Verant is saying that the change in Kael is not due to the Avatar of War being killed through the use of an unknown "bug." Rather, it addresses a general problem that has manifested itself in other ways within the city of the giants.

Tormax and Vindicator/Statue have had charmed giant pets used against them for a long time now. It's only been lately that pet aggro has been changed to allow 25-person raids against these ubermobs to be carried out successfully. Fixing such an obvious exploit is, without question, a good idea.

However, the timing in this case--as in other "bug fixes" by Verant--is certainly suspect.

Are we really supposed to believe that, had the AoW not been killed twice within a week, that this change was scheduled to happen anyway?"

- This is his general comment on a remark from Tigole about raiding in Sleeper's Tomb.

"If you don't know why that's so damn funny, it's time to get the hell out of Crushbone and try a real raid."

- Here is a little snippet from his take on instancing.

"So along comes instancing to solve all these problems, right? Well, not everyone thinks so. A lot of people like the competitive aspect of EQ, and argue that instancing dumbs things down too much. They don't want to see EQ become an ubermob-on-demand system where players can order up whatever content they want, when they want it.

They have a point. EverQuest is, after all, a massively multiplayer online game. If people want content all to themselves without working for it, there are plenty of single-player adventure games that should suit them. A big part of the appeal of EQ has always been that the people who put in the most time and effort reap the biggest rewards. Uberguilds should have access to content that others don't because the uberguilds have worked harder for it. Without those kind of rewards, players lose their motivation to beat the high-end content, and I suspect a lot of people would lose interest in the game."

- The last quote I am going to put up is Moorgard's opinion on encounters that are ridiculous and obviously have some problems with them like the Derivine Matron and the rewards that should come from them.

"But after weeks and weeks of the best guilds in the game all working on the same encounter without success, it's time to simply accept that the encounter is broken, either accidentally or deliberately.

Read the uberguild sites and boards. Almost all of them are losing people to boredom and frustration. That's what happens when your progress is halted--and it's the biggest danger for any gamer, whether you're at Ximix's level or Furor's. When people get too frustrated with a game, they move on. While there might not be a lot of compelling places for frustrated players to go at the moment, it's likely that there will be soon.

EverQuest is in need of two things right now, quite badly. First, it needs another full-blown expansion that will offer a lot of compelling content to the high-level but non-uberguild player. We're talking multiple zones that range in difficulty from just above NToV to Vex Thal, but without the bullshit hassles of a VT-like key quest. Second, it needs the Rathe Council to fall. Lock uberguilds into months of Plane of Time farming if you must, but the PoEB roadblock has to go, and the content beyond it has to make people drool. High-end players have to be able to say "yes, it was worth it" for the health of the game. Even players who will never reach that level of content care about it, and need to know it's out there and working.

So the question still remains: Does PoP suck? For some people, yes it does. And it's pretty important for that to change."

Following the links at the start of this entry you can read all his articles, and there are many more good little bits and pieces scattered around, especially if you are an old eq1 fan. The one thing I just have to say though is....

What the fuck happened Moorgard?

Evidentally you used to be on the good side. You used to understand and see all these issues we are constantly battling in eq2, only now your one of the people helping to keep them as problems. Seriously, whats the deal?

To use a phrase from Bart Simpsons, "What happened to you Moorgard, you used to be cool."

Lesson Learned or Just Unflattering?

2006-07-17T07:50:00.000-07:00

Well, the second installment of " Born to Raid" over at Ogaming has been up for a couple days now. This time, Vellek leader and main tank of Vagabonds over on Unrest was interviewed. Take a look: http://eq2.ogaming.com/data/4170~Born2Raid-Vagabonds.php

After reading this one, there are a couple different ways to look at it. Either Tamat realized that his interview with NPU was ridiculous, misinformed, and all around laughable, or, and more likely, he just doesnt think as much of Vagabonds as he does NPU.

There was no congratulations Vagabonds, as there was NPU. There was no you guys are the best Vagabonds, as there was NPU. In general, this was a very unflattering interview. The way I looked at it, Tamat has clearly decided in his little misinformed universe that there are two types of guilds that are born to raid: NPU and then everyone else.

The one thing I found really...interesting...in this interview was Vellek's list of the most neccessary classes to a raid. He listed them as Guardian, Defiler, Dirge, with a Swashbuckler coming in 4th. How the heck did he come up with that? The way I define most important is a class that does something that really helps out that NO other class can do. Swashbuckler as 4th? I have a swashbuckler and no fucking way. A brigand owns a swashbuckler hands down for a raid. Sorry other swashbucklers, its true. While it is true you dont neccessarily NEED any particular class to win a raid, some do help more than others. My own personal top 3 would go something like:

1. Brigand - Nobody debuffs like a brigand. A brigand allows all other classes to land their debuffs and abilities easier and for more damage. Combined with the ability to do t1 dps and innate ae avoidance and you have a class born to raid. No good raid is without a brigand.

2. Dirge - A dirge is the perfect compliment to a tank. Nobody supports like a dirge with their power regen and amazing parry/stoneskin buffs. It may not be the most exciting class to play, but a dirge is very versatile bringing great buffs to a dps group as well should the tank group be full.

3. Coercer/Troubadour - I couldnt decide wich one seems more valuable. Power regen is an issue for a raid. Without it, an easy kill can go to questionable, and possibly result in a wipe. Nobody can power regen like a coercer. Throw on some hate, mezzing, and a little deaggro and they are an amazing class if played correctly. A troubadour on the other hand can bolster a properly configured group's dps by a very significant amount. Add on the group deaggro wich is a must for some classes to play to their potential and you have a class I personally never want to be without.

Obviously a raid needs a tank and healers, but imo its there isnt one that really makes or breaks a raid like the classes above do. What do the rest of you think about the most important raid classes?

Anyways, back to the topic...

Since Tamat didnt say it, I will. Congratulations Vagabonds! It is no easy task with the current state of the high end raid game to maintain a guild these days. Your guild has been around a long time and continues to perform well. The turnover/burnout/frustration rate with the "uber" guilds these days is at an all time high and when "on your knee's" guilds like NPU get all the publicity it doesnt always make keeping a full roster of quality players easy since that relies so heavily on cross server applicants/recruits. Keep going strong and killing the mobs without resorting to a joke of a guild like NPU that does nothing but kiss ass, beta test things for their developer friends, pat themselves on the backs, and parade around like they are somehow superior to the guilds that actually do things without developer info and help.

Wich reminds me, why the heck is the popular/public opinion that NPU is so damn great? What have they done that a handful of other guilds have not? I guess the most recent notch on their belt was the world first kill of Chel'drak. Its no secret they beta tested this encounter, and they beat it in a matter of hours before Second Dawn did. That can be chalked up to bad luck with the RNG. Furthermore, there are 4 other guilds that beat it shortly after who never beta tested the encounter and had to start from scratch when the adventure pack went live. Oh, and btw, of all the guilds that did kill Chel'drak, why has NPU only killed him once? Its been 3 weeks now. Second Dawn will be killing him for the 4th time tonight, but NPU still just has one kill to date.

The excuse I have heard is that they are more focused on killing the Matron in Mystic Lake. Please. That is pathetic. Chel'drak takes 15 minutes (30 if your one of the guilds that took 10-20 min to kill him). You zone in, you kill 3 trash encounters comprised of heroic mobs and then you kill the turtle dragon. Get in, get what's yours, and get out. The zone in is even located in mystic lake on the way to the matron ring event. Since NPU seems to love world firsts and proclaiming to the world the exact date, time, and what they had for breakfast the day they do anything of the like, why would they leave an "easy" and quick encounter alive that has many world firsts undiscovered on the loot table? Yeah, I call bull shit on the "we're more focused on the matron" excuse. 30 minutes every 5 days for some nice gear is more than worth the time.

And the Winner Is?

2006-07-12T07:29:00.000-07:00

What makes someone, who plays on any server but my own and does not participate in the high end raid scene of Everquest 2 think that they have any idea what that scene actually looks like?

Honestly, everyday on some message board there is new person who hasn't even gotten to level 70 telling one of the high end guilds how much they suck or how bad some other high end guild on some other server owns them. Why do these people think they even have a clue or for that matter, that their opinions are worth more than the garbage on the side of the street?

The latest in this uninformed, ignorant babble, and what prompted this post can be found here: http://eq2.ogaming.com/data/4160~NPUinterview.php

This is Ogaming's very own Tamat doing a fully biased, flattering, and ass-kissing interview of an NPU member. Who the fuck is Tamat? Does anyone know? I heard that he was a member of the guild Drow over on the Unrest server.

You may be thinking to yourself, why does the name Drow sound familiar? Oh that's right, that's the guild most of the devs and their cronies (Curt Schilling) play in! If this rumor is true, that would certantly explain the infatuation with NPU, SOE's little love child.

Anyone in one of the upper echelon guilds knows that there is no guild that is heads above the rest. There are 5 guilds or so that are all of comparable skill and talent that routinely are among the first around to kill any and everything relating to the high end raid game. Anyone who says otherwise is full of shit. Of course each individual member is going to say, well I think is better than but they know that they are pretty much on the same general level. At any moment that competition could get the next world first or whatever (less so in the case of guilds that get to beta test over everyone else). So, if the players who are actually out there and experiencing this content know this, surely some random fuck who has no part in the game would pick up on it right? Oh no, I bring to you the dumbest fucking interview question eq2 has ever seen:

"Tamat - Ne Plus Ultra has arguably dominated most of the Kingdom of Sky expansion. What do you think helped put NPU above the rest in this expansion?"

Wait, what the fuck did he just say? I think I know quite a few guilds that may take offense to that statement, and for good reason. Did he miss out on the fact that NPU beta tested more of KoS than any other guild? Or how about that they in no way, shape, or form dominated the expansion on a world wide scale at all. I think Snarks of Eternal Chaos said it best:

"Gorenaire-NPU
mutagenic-npu
Talendor - disso
harla dar - vagabonds
MoA - arirang
princes - disso
hurricanus-ec
claymore/tarinax-disso

seems like more of a spattering of guilds, and noone seems to be able to lay claim to 'most' of kos"

Just for completion's sake, lets add Vyemm to NPU and deathtoll access to Dissolution. I would also like to add Cruor to that list since he was another notch on the belt, and I believe the rights to that one go to Second Dawn (correct me if I am wrong, it might have been EC). I still fail to see how NPU dominated the expansion. Of those now 10 or 11 benchmarks of the raid game, I count only three to NPU. 30% = dominated? You know what a 30% winning percentage gets you in sports? Fired.

I wonder if Tamat took the time to even ask ANYONE in the high end raid game about what really has transpired before he made such an ignorant remark. His idea of a "Born to Raid" series of interviews had a chance to be informative and entertaining, and possibly even a useful tool for the developers to see what the major raid guilds are thinking about their game. Instead, with the very first inclusion of the series, Tamat has turned it into a joke. I have learned that next he plans on interviewing Vagabonds, followed by Eternal Chaos, and then more guilds to follow although I do not know any specifics of that.

In his own words, Tamat says, "I'm interviewing the best of the best." Take that how you will guilds on his interview list. It is quite clear he considers NPU to be in a league of their own, not sure what he feels about the rest of you. I know I would have a hard time fielding his questions when in the back of my mind I know he is thinking NPU owns you.

My opinion on the guy? He's a misinformed dumbass who has a real future working for a tabloid since obviously facts matter very little to him and he has lost all journalistic integrity already.

From Sea to Shining Sea

2006-07-03T09:40:00.000-07:00

For those Americans out there its the continuation of 4th of July weekend.

This is the first time Im taking a break from work and the guild and finally taking a few days to go out to the lake. For the rest of you, go out, start up the barbeque, and get drunk or else America will fall back under the rule of England.

The Teachers Pet

2006-06-29T07:08:00.000-07:00

So here has been something that has been on my nerves for quite a while.

WHOLE GUILDS BETA TESTING

Who honestly thinks that this is a fair or even a good approach to "beta testing" new content? Just for starters, lets take a look at KoS and the raids presented there and what happened since they went live:

· Hurricanus - Script changed multile times to accomodate the idol aspect of the encounter
· 3 princes - Didnt even work correcly. Switch changed as well as hp increased. Script changed to function correctly as well
· Mutagenic Outcast - Number of fixes and changes
· Labratory of Lord Vyemm - I dont even think there is a number large enough to describe the number of times Vyemm/Alzid have been tweaked
· Talendor/Gorenaire - Both changed and even moved to a different zone in a sense
· Harla Dar - Made significantly easier and changed to a different zone again
· Deathtoll - Tarinax and Cruor have been modified many times

I am leaving Halls of Seeing and Lyceum out because neither of those zones went live until much later and were not around for the beta test. However; is anyone having a problem noticing the trend here? Every single one of these encounters had to be changed and/or fixed upon going live. Obviously pulling whole guilds into your beta system is not simply testing the encounter to ensure it works. What other possible reason could there be?

Oh thats right, the age old concept of l33t Beta Inf0z. I find it amusing how the SAME guilds get to beta test content for weeks on end, night after night, before anyone else even has a chance of seeing the encounter, let alone attempting it. This happens over and over and over, every time new content is added. Yes, there are 1 or 2 new guilds here and there, but that is just to save face and not appear to be showing blatant favoritism. Its pathetic.

I am not trying to take away from the guilds that test these encounters. They do put in their work to beat them. But I find it complete bull shit that they even get credit for world wide firsts on live servers when the content goes live. Grats, you got to try this night after night with no risk to you since you were in a sheltered testing enviroment while the rest of the world didnt even get the opportunity to watch. Congrats further for having the designer/developers of the encounter helping you and telling you the in's and out's along the way to try and "ensure the encounter is working". Its a load of bull shit.

The bottom line is that there are probably 15 guilds world wide that would easily kill these encounters giving all the beta info and all the extra time and help with the encounter. It is just downright sad that a guild would even try and claim to be the best after getting this special attention, and even sadder that they claim it doesnt help because some little things changed (wich of course they were still told about). The only thing amazing here is that often times other guilds who were not SOE's personal little bitches get the world firsts on things. Those are the guilds that I think are actually worth a damn. There are several of them scattered around SOE's servers, and everything they do is at a disadvantage because they didnt get WEEKS OF TESTING like some guilds.

You might think I am bitter about not getting my guild to beta test stuff. No, not bitter. If I was offered the chance would I take it? Of course! I would be a fool to not give my guild a leg up. That doesnt mean I support the idea. I am firmly against whole guilds, or even good percentages of guilds getting to beta test content. It is nothing but a way for the devs to show unbridled favoritism.

You may also be asking yourself, how do I know all this? Well let me tell you. When the KoS beta rolled around, I was lucky enough to receive a random invite. Caring about the game, I set off to try and explore the land and do the things beta testers are there to do. One of these guilds that are repeatedly copied to beta to test things was trying dilligently to recruit me to their guild at the time. For kicks, on beta I joined up with them. I saw first hand the exclusve testing, information, and treatment they received. I saw how night after night they were targeted and summoned into zones and throw against encounters. I did not go with them, but I witnessed it. This was not my guild and Ill be damned if I was going to ruin our credibility by "stealing" that info. Its really pathetic it takes these beta guilds more than 2 or 3 tries to ever beat this shit or that they ever do not beat it before anyone else because it is almost like the developers/designers give them blueprints to the inner workings of the encounter. Furthermore, these guilds are in constant dev communication and often exchange emails about things like exact timers and how encounters should be worked once they have been pushed live. Its a fucking joke.

Heres the deal: This content can be tested easily enough by the developers to see that it, for the most part is working and running its script correctly. That should be enough. When it hits live, we, the real players, will report the bugs as we find them, and you can then fix them in correspondance. Venekor in halls of seeing was a perfect example. It was too easy, so a script was added. The script worked improperly and was reported on. The script was changed, but still bugged. Again the players offered feedback and now it has been working for a long time. This is how all major encounters should be handled.

If you insist on giving people a leg up, take a collection of people from different servers. You people at SOE know damn well who the hardcore or bigtime guilds are. It would not be hard to take one or 2 from the different ones on different servers and combine them into a raid to give it a few run throughts. That way everyone has an equal footing if nothing else. Dont let the same people test it more than once or twice. You dont want them learning or defeating the encounter, just to ensure that for the most part it is working.

Most importantly though, and I cant say this enough: STOP LETTING WHOLE GUILDS BETA TEST CONTENT

Enough is enough. No, I dont want my guild beta testing, I dont want the neighbors guild, I dont want the kid down the street's guild and I dont want the guild across the country beta testing. If one or two of their members are randomely accepted into beta, no big deal, but copying over entire guilds and working exclusviely with them is fucking ridiculous and needs to end now.

The people in the hard working guilds that actualy play the game are getting tired of working 2x as hard for their rewards. They are tired of working harder than another guild, actually making more progress than they did but since they didnt get weeks of special treatment, having said guild rub it in their face like they are somehow superior. There is nothing the legitimate guilds can do because if they even say anything you will have 5000 ignorant, naive people who are completely obvlivious to the situation saying things like they are just jealous and angry they didnt get it first. Your damn right Im angry, not that I didnt get it first, there are lots of things I dont get first, but I am angry that these people get 3 weeks of hand holding and babysitting while the rest of us have to sit back and give them this headstart. Perhaps I should start refering to these beta guilds as Special Ed, since they obviously need this special help and attention.

The hardworking guilds communicate with each other. They are fed up. If EoF rolls around and this same shit of whole guilds beta testing content, getting a leg up, etc happens again, there are guilds canceling for good. In essence you are giving these guilds a cheat code to bypass content. I dont want your beta inf0z, I dont want your fucking help. I want everone on level ground. Random people taken from different servers and different guilds are enough to ensure encounters are working well enough to be pushed to live. Quit playing fucking favorites.

A Little of Column A, a Little of Column B...

2006-06-27T07:43:00.000-07:00

Enter the Antechamber of Fate and it's champion: Chel'drak, the Ancient Lord.

Let me start by saying that so far, I am a big fan of this encounter. It has been very challenging, but there is progress being made and unless something goes crazy with the script, it definitly seems possible, just that it is going to take some hard work.

The encounter basically relies on all aspects of all classes. Your going to need some solid tanking and powerfull healing, combined with overwhelming dps. If your missing any of these three, dont bother zoning in, you dont stand a chance. I think that this makes every member of the raid important, wich is a good thing. I hate those fights where I know half the raid could have turned on auto attack and gone afk and it wouldnt even matter (like the crab instance).

For people who have not yet attempted this encounter, here's a basic run down, or at least some of what I know about the encounter thus far (minimal spoiler below, anything said can easily be figured out in under 45seconds of engagement):

- The encounter consists of Chel'drak the turtle dragon(aka the Turgon or Drattle)

- With Chel'drak are a handful of skeletons that are a seperate encounter, but are more or less linked to him (think alzid and vyemm)

- During the fight a Shadowy Priest/Fighter/Thief/Sorcerer will spawn and needs to be killed on a reoccuring timer

- Also during the fight a pair of skeleton adds will spawn that also need to be killed on a reoccuring timer

- Chel'drak himself his like a truck. He also has a poison AE that is going to be unavoidable. For this AE, think Cruor only more badass

- With all this going on, Chel'drak also has an AE stomp ability with knockback

I know it seems like a lot, but thats what a good encounter of this magnitude needs. A well tuned and organized raid force should be able to deal with most of these obstacles and with enough percevirence, be able to overcome the ones they are not able to initially deal with. I am having fun working through the encounter so far and pray everyday that it is not nerfed to accomodate less "hardcore" players. I was deprived my chance of beating the hard version of the Elemental Warder in Halls of Seeing because of a nerf, I do not want to have this taken from me as well, nor do I think it will be. Hats off to whomever came up with this encounter.

That was the "rave", now for the "rant". (bigger, although not huge spoiler to follow):

- a Shadowy Fighter: Can only be attacked by fighters. All priests/scouts/mages will be reflected should they attack it.
- a Shadowy Sorcerer: Can only be attacked by mages. All priests/scouts/fighters will be reflected should they attack it.
- a Shadowy Thief: Can only be attacked by scouts. All priests/mages/fighters will be reflected should they attack it.
- a Shadowy Acolyte: Can only be attacked by priests. All scouts/fighters/mages will be reflected should they attack it.

Can anyone tell me what could pose as a problem here? Ill give you a hint: While you have to be killing wichever random one of these 4 spawns every 30 seconds, you also need to be killing the turtle dragon and the skeleton adds that keep spawning. What kind of crazy ass raid has healers to spare should the acolyte spawn? Fighters do a measure of dps and can take/avoid hits better than anyone else, requiring them to randomly have to kill a single mob is not a big deal, even though my guild in particular, uses far less fighters than anyone else. Mages and scouts are born to do dps, so requiring them to kill a random mob is again, not a big deal. Preists are in a raid for healing!

I am fully aware that there are preists capable of doing fairly decent dps. That isnt the point. Chel'drak is going to require 3 or 4 healers keeping the tank and the tank group alive. There are going to need to be 1-2 other healers keeping up with the damage from the skeleton adds. I am just going to assume these 4-6 healers (4-6 depending on how severe that round of attacks were, for the harder hits, your going to NEED more than 4 healers) are also capable of keeping up with cures and heals on the rest of the raid from getting hit by the multiple ae's. Now you want healers, and healers ONLY to be killing a seperate add that shows up? WTF.

There is no way (that I know of) to predict wich shadowy mob will spawn, it seems purely random. This is what I can tell you about this raid. Your going to need probably 7-8 healers to reliably be able to take down a shadowy acolyte when/if they spawn at any point during the fight. Lets not forget that priests also do less dps than the other classes so the mob will die slower, resulting in an even longer duration where they cannot be healing (wich is their role). I dont know what kind of raid you role with, but 7-8 of a base archetype seems ridiculous to me.

My suggestions is remove the shadowy acolyte from the spawn table or for the love of god remove the randomness of the spawn. You can plan for the acolyte if you know it will spawn every 4th spawn. That is more manageable. The idea of forcing healers into a dps role on a fight that requires large amounts of healing to begin with seems stupid to me, thus the suggestion of removing the acolyte. Let the dps be required to dps, or do you plan on giving the dps some form of healing to make up for it? (NOTE - this would be a poor idea)

Last night we went after this mob with a mere 4 priests. We knew we were short staffed for the evening and didnt really plan on winning. The goal was to do as well as we could and try and figure out exactly what we would need to have a more reasonable chance. Here's what we found out: If the acolyte spawns, you need lots of healers to kill it and that is dumb. No matter how skilled your healers are, you need an excess of healers to cover this base and with some shitty luck (something we have been known to have) you could end up with the acolyte spawn 3 or 4 times in a row. Healers, in argueably the most challenging raid in game, do NOT have power to burn doing dps every 30seconds and forcing that is just a piss poor way of telling guilds they need to have others sit out in favor of more and more priests. For a guild like mine that only has 4 fighters, the shadowy fighter should be by FAR the most challenging of the 4 random mobs to deal with. We already have to be tanking Chel'drak and the skeleton adds that spawn, and then fighters need to be killing this mob too. That should be a problem for us, not that we need to get more healers than any other archetype because they need to heal a raid and be killing a mob on their own. I dont care if this is a heroic mob, the idea that a raid should have enough healers to heal a x4 orange con raid mob, some epic level 74 adds, AND be the only dps on level 74 heroic adds is stupid.

In summary, this is a fun, somewhat unique, and challenging encounter. I do like it, but I find the priest requirement foolish. Scouts and mages are meant to dps. Fighters are meant to tank and if not tanking dps. Healers are meant to buff and heal. Dont force healers to dps on top of their role. Its dumb.

If You Can's Stand the Heat, Get out of the Kitchen

2006-06-23T06:58:00.000-07:00

Ok time for the first rant. You know what has really been getting on my nerves, and increasingly so over the last month or two? People bailing on guilds and the game in general.

Every week, and at times, every day someone else that has been playing the game for months or even over a year, calls it quits. You see this same sort of bull shit with every expansion, every adventure pack. It is a never ending cycle and I for one, am getting tired of it.

It started with Darathar. You would have your raid force of 24 people and get them all started on the Dragon Language quest. Before you got to Darathar's Island though, you could bank on having 2-4 of those original 24 quit on you as they just werent up to the challenge. You recruit a couple more, you continue working forward and then you get to Darathar. It takes a few wipes, and invariably some one who was present for hours of dieing, testing, and learning misses out on the initial kill. Adios that person. Do they really think we arent going to be coming back to kill the mob again? This kind of selfish behaivor really irks me. You missed out, that sucks but its the way things go. We WILL be back and its partialy your own damn fault for not being online!

Once that issue is resolved, hurray we have our shiny prismatic weapons! Time for another 4-6 people to quit the game claiming that they have conquered and beat eq2. Bull shit. Thanks for leaving everyone hanging assholes. Guess what? The game isnt over. Lady Vox is still up, Lord Nagalik is still up, and Borxx (he was bad ass back then) is still up. We have killed maybe half the content. Nothing is over.

This of course, starts the whole cycle over yet again. Some people arent up to the challenge of these new encounters and bail. Fuck them. Those are your people who will show up again in 4 months claiming how they were so hardcore and stuck out all those attempts on darathar. Fuck em'. Your not welcome here. Then of course, once all the mobs are put on farm status (wich I always thought was a good thing, who wants to spend their nights dieing over and over?) more people quit claiming victory over the game.

Fortunately for those of us who care, this is a dynamic enviroment and it is never too long before some major or earthshattering changes and/or inclusions arrive. In the case of t5, it was Spirits of the Lost and the arrival of Wrath of Fury.

(NOTE - I am leaving out Bloodlines because really only one guild on every server did that, and that was simply to cure the plague and get the mythical item, calling it a day. There wasnt even time for "burnout" to take place.)

Spirits of the Lost was a great inclussion to the game. I heard very little, if any, real complaints about the zone. People were able to tough this one out as the zone was neither too difficult, nor poorly itemized. Even if you could only clear half the zone, you were rewarded nicely. Wrath of Fury was another story. All the farm status contested mobs that were being killed with 3 person bot crews consisting of the late night players were now semi challenging, and in the case of a few, down right hard. It didnt take more than a wipe or two agains Nagalik or The Krathuk to see people again running for the door. These people get absolutely NO respect from me. Congrats, you joined the best guild on your server after they had already mastered the content, told you exactly what to do, where to stand, and gave you a ton of gear they no longer had a use for. You were a real fucking asset to the team, especially when you bailed at the first sight of a challenge.

During this time period, the Splitpaw Saga was also introduced, bringing us Acts of War and Brutal Acts of War. It didnt take many guilds more than a try or two to figure out the inner workings of the Acts of War, allowing them access to BAOW. However; Brutal tended to wear down many guilds, and again, I watched as people quit logging in and ceased to play because the content was "too hard" (cry me a river).

In september, Desert of Flames is released. A mad leveling frenzy ensues to get to the raid content ASAP. But guess what? Due to some recent changes, a majority of the raid content is damn near impossible until a later change corrected many issues. Before this correction could take place though, of course a handful of people need to bail on the guild yet again. Some couldnt handle the pressure of leveling up quickly, and some refused to give the game even a week to balance out their content and would rather just say fuck you to the people in the guild.

DoF did a good job of keeping people logging in. At times it got tired, repetative, and boring, but, and as much as it pains me to say this, the Djinn Master's Prism and Pedastal of Sky did a good job of keeping people logging in. Of course over the hours it took to figure out and execute DMP, a handful of people need to quit because again, it's too hard, boo hoo hoo.

With the arival of Kingdom of Sky, shortly after DMP had started to be cleared, the leveling grind was once again upon us. And once again, people couldnt hack it. Wow, so shocking isnt it? Then we approach the KoS raids. At the start there were a fair (not really good, but fair) amount of contested mobs, a few epic quest lines, and a major goal to be working towards, Deathtoll. Guess what happens though? Farming eye's is boring, the itemization isnt good enough, time for some more people to bail on the guild. As more and more guilds got into deathtoll, more and more people began quitting claiming poor itemization and not enough content.

Seriously, fuck off. Dont you think I realize how shitty some itemization was? Do you think I overlooked the fact that half the week I sit on my thumb looking for something to do? You dont see me bailing on the other 23 people though do you? Get some fucking backbone and tough it out. Im so sorry that i didnt have everything ready for you on a silverplate for you to grab at your leisure.

Thankfully SOE heard our plea's and got to pushing out Lyceum and Halls of Seeing, earlier than expected. Neither of these zones are tremendous, but they do provide some content, enough to keep people relatively busy. Itemization is again a problem, but that whole issue is slowly getting better (and I mean very slowly). But you know what? That doesnt stop anyone from quitting over self inflicted issues. The content is boring, there isnt enough, whaa whaa whaa. I am so fucking tired of it now.

The Fallen Dynasty adventure pack was released recetly. It contains two poorly itemized x2 raid zones (either too good or too shitty), a x4 instance, and a contested mob. The contested mob is supposed to be the meanest SoB in the game (I wouldnt know, they need to fix a despawn on server reset bug so I can tell) and the x4 instance guy is probably a close second. And of course, once again I am dealing with people leaving the guild and screwing over the rest of the people because they arent up to the challenge. They wont commit the time, effort, and repair costs to beating these encounters.

I am fucking tired of this shit. If you cant do a level grind, no matter how boring it is, you do NOT belong in a hardcore raid guild. Do not bother applying to one after you have taken your sweet time getting to the level cap because your nothing but a waste of resources as you bail come the next level increase. If you cant face a challenge and give 110% you do NOT belong in a hardcore raid guild. We arent always going to have all the strats for you. When you leave a lesser guild it shouldnt be because you want to defeat higher end content, it should be because you are capable of defeating higher end content and your efforts to improve the other players and help them learn it with you in your old guild were exhausted. Hardcore raid guilds are not fucking charities, we dont like you, we dont care about you, we only care about the guild. And finally, for those of you who make yourselves bored of the game (yes, boredom is a state of mind) and try and bring other's down to your level beore quitting, FUCK OFF. Get the hell out of my guild. I have no time to deal with your crap and how you want everyone to be as miserable as you make yourself. Roll an alt and do some quests. Go tradeskill. Play a different game during down time. There are tons of things to do other than bitch about how your bored.

This isn't just affecting me and my guild. It happens everywhere. I am a regular viewer of the homepages of different "big time" guilds on various servers. Their rosters are full of people I had never heard of a month prior. They are constantly recruiting new people and in a state of change. It is ridiculous. I am aware that there will always be some turnover, but these are supposed to be hardcore and dedicated guilds comprised of hardcore and dedicated people, not these little bitches that cower at every bump in the road.

Finally, a message to everyone: Guilds rely on all their members. If your just going to get cold feet and run the first time that the world isnt looking like Shangri-La, stay the fuck away and dont bother in the first place.

A New Begining...

2006-06-22T09:19:00.000-07:00

If you are here and reading this, you probably already know who I am. I am a conjuror in Everquest 2 by the name of Ishbu, guild leader of Dissolution on the Nektulos server.

I am both very opinionated and outspoken, and at times have turned both my guild's website and the official SOE boards into my own private blog. Neither of these places were entirely appropriate for all the material I have put forth, so I have decided it is time that I created my own little niche` of the world, where I can be free to post exactly what I am thinking/feeling without reprocussions from moderators and without tieing my guild into it and at times, dragging them down with me.

I make no promises as to how often this will be updated. I dont plan things out, they just come to me. When I have a rant, it will be here. When I have ideas and suggestions it will be here. When I have praise to offer, it too, will be here. I may at times forward or re-post these idea's in other outlets, but they will always appear here as well. You may not like me, you may not always agree with me, but in the end, it doesnt matter if the game is improved, and that is my ultimate goal here.

With that, the formal introduction is complete.