Been a while since I posted, I know. Part of it was going on a week-long
vacation to Florida. Had a great time, did the whole Disneyworld thing with
my sisters and nephew.
When I got back last Saturday night, I logged on and got told to immediately
come to Air - we were trying Xegony again. I went, we tried, we failed
again. Over 30 Xegony attempts, no wins.
Then Sunday I log in late. The very first thing I see in guildchat is "ALL
WAVES DOWN". I quickly do a / all guild and see that most people are in
Air. This is terribly exciting; that must mean we're fighting Xegony and,
for the first time, we've gotten past the last wave of adds. This is
confirmed by the subsequent guildchat of "Burn her!" and "Keep Vsal up!"
The countdown begins... 20... 18... 12... 10... 5... 4... 3... 2... ....
.... 1.... .... win!
There is considerable cheering. I join in, of course, but I can't help
feeling melancholy... this is yet another guild "first kill" that I've
missed out on. I try to get there in time for a flag... I zone into Air,
get killed, join the raid, have my corpse summoned up to Xegony's isle, get
rezzed, and run towards the Planar Projection. I hail it... nothing
happens. I frown and quickly check - yes, I'm still in the raid. I'm about
to hail it again when it disappears. Bah.
Oh well. We'll definitely do her again. I curse myself for not logging on
earlier (I was out shopping). One of these days I'll be there on a major
first.
Last night I played bridge and didn't get home until 11pm. I log in and at
almost that exact instant, a GM broadcasts to send him a tell if you wanted
to get summoned to the Arena. I ask what's happening. Evidently there is a
GM event in the Arena by Lake Rathe. It's a Free For All - everyone fights
until there is only one remaining. The prize is a Guise of the Deceiver - a
mask that allows any class / race to right-click it from inventory and get
Illusion: Dark Elf.
Now that would be cool. I hate PvP - I chose to play EQ over UO because
Player Killers were a real, real problem at the time in UO. I hate causing
grief, and I hate receiving grief. I don't like the mindset that makes it a
pleasurable goal to make someone else's virtual life miserable. So I don't
PvP, and I very very rarely duel - usually just a couple of friendly fights
that usually end before someone actually dies.
But the Guise is really really tempting. I know I don't have a snowball's
chance in PoF of winning this thing, but I can't resist. I send a tell and
get summoned.
A lot of people from my guild are there. So are a lot of people from my
server's resident uber-guild, Cats in Hats.
Let me take a minute to talk about human motivation. My guild, Silent
Tempest, tries to be pretty forthright about things and tries to get along
with the rest of the server. As an example, during a recent Tactics pit
group, we got a stampede. The ranger snared the piglet and we killed it and
got a WMBS. A necro in another group went nuts and accused us of
kill-stealing. He claimed he snared the piglet first. I took the time to
calm him down and talk to him. I also talked to the ranger in our group.
He looked back over his scrollback and realized that his snare didn't
stick - the necro's snare had, indeed, hit first. So we handed over the
loot to the necro with apologies. The necro was mollified and no one ranted
us on the eqdrinal.com forums. That's an example of us doing what we can to
get along with everyone else.
CiH is, um, different. There have been numerous example of them
kill-stealing other guilds and simply not caring. Recently, they've been
doing things like recruiting our recruits - that is, telling our recruits to
use us to get Elemental flagged, then dump us and join CIH. There's not
much we can do about it, other than resorting to the same tactics. But we
don't; we have no interest in stooping to that level. We really do want to
be good citizens all around, even when others do not treat us the same way.
However, that doesn't mean we like it. =) There's a lot of animosity we
feel towards CiH. The utter contempt with which they treat the rest of the
server makes us all burn. So when an opportunity came for us to vent our
frustrations a bit... well, we really couldn't help ourselves. Our long,
slow simmering finally had a chance to boil furiously, and we simply *had*
to take the opportunity, even if meant a small cost to our honor.
So guildchat is filled with a list of targets we're going to take out.
Number one on the list is a cleric officer who has been particularly
obnoxious to us - for example, he sent jeering tells to our guildleader
after a ranger dumped us for CiH an hour after getting Elementally flagged
with us. Number two is another cleric who left us over a loot decision and
flamed us heartily for not appreciating her when she didn't get an AHR
neckpiece. (She surely would have won the next AHR neckpiece that dropped,
making her deguilding over this loot decision even more stupefying.) Number
three is a very obnoxious CIH necro.
The GM running the event tells us all to get to the center of the arena, sit
on the platform, and turn on LFG. He then goes around and dispels
everyone's buffs. While this is happening, CiH has noticed that just about
every ST member has their cleric officer on target. They send some nasty
tells to our officers which only make us laugh.
The GM says there is only one rule: no lev. Other than that, anything goes.
Then he gives us two minutes to buff. We hastily buff each other and I get
a surprisingly robust buff lineup, including VoQ, BotN, Focus, and other
neat things. I buff myself and symbol lots of my guildmates.
Then it begins. I immediately run around trying to find the cleric officer.
When he's in range, I immediately begin dispelling him. I get in a couple
of dispels before a CiH SK begins attacking me. I run off.
This goes on for quite a while. There are 130 people running around the
arena. I can do precious little - even with my spell hastes, nukes take too
long to cast and people usually move out of range. Plus if I stop to cast,
I make myself a nice target. So I concentrate mostly on debuffing people as
much as I can. There's sort of a thrill to debuffing people in skellie form
and watching them revert back to their normal selves.
People are trying to get the cleric officer but he's moving around a lot -
much like I am. We do get a couple of other CiH folks and celebrate each
kill. The GM yells that there is to be no teaming up, it's a FFA event.
Some people respond that there are groups of CiH people ganging up on
people. No one seems to notice that ST is not attacking each other but is
focusing solely on CiH. In fact, I heal a few of my guildies. Anything to
keep them alive long enough to kill more CiH.
Our second target, the cleric that ditched us over loot, is finally killed.
There is much rejoicing. A few minutes later our first target, the cleric
officer, is killed by our SK officer. That brings us almost to the point of
delirium.
After almost an hour, the GM tells everyone to stop fighting and come to the
center platform. The first thing he says is that there are people who were
killed and rejoined the event, and that they have this one opportunity to
leave the Arena now. I look around and, sure enough, the CiH cleric officer
is standing right next to me, despite having been killed earlier. He leaves
as do a bunch of others.
The GM then tells us to continue fighting - but to restrict ourselves to the
platform. This is a very small area. Just about the first person to die
after that is the CiH ranger guildleader, who has about four ST members on
him. Not much he can do when he can't run far and free. I'm running
around, again not doing much but dispelling and the occasional nuke or two.
An air pet starts wailing on me and that is annoying because it keeps
stunning me. I nuke it twice, bringing it down to 20% health before its
owner suddenly withdraws it. I quickly heal myself - I also have four bard
dots on me.
Our third target, the obnoxious necro, is still alive. I dispel and nuke
him over and over again. I can't keep up a sustained attack, of course,
because standing still for more than ten seconds is too dangerous. Around
and around we go - me dispelling, everyone attacking, the GM telling us to
stop running and start fighting or he will snare everyone. Finally, we get
the report that the CiH necro is dead - again, much rejoicing. I look
around and it appears that of ST there's me, two SK's, a wizard, and my
guildleader, a paladin. I'm running a little low on mana and with fewer
targets available I'm getting hit on more and more. The ST SK officer
finally gets killed, and suddenly I'm getting bard-dotted and mana-sieved.
I DB, then DA, then TDA, but it's no good - I can't get mana because I'm
getting sieved. Down I go.
I bound myself right outside the Arena. The GM summons my corpse outside
and gives me a 100% rez. I loot and sit. The action is being reported - my
guildleader died very quickly after I did. The GM snares everyone, and the
casters quickly die. Soon the only person up from our guild is the other
SK, who's doing a fine job. Alas, the bard gets her, and we're on the
sidelines.
We're getting updates - it's now down to two contestants. Somewhat
fittingly, neither of them are CiH or ST. A druid and a paladin are
fighting it out. I find myself feeling quite satisfied - neither ST or CiH
will win this one, but we did take out our major targets and had a fun time.
Perhaps it doesn't make up for all the years of suffering - but it'll do.
=)
Back in the Arena, strange things are afoot. Two SK's who died earlier get
back into the arena. They HT the pally and druid, killing them. Then one
SK kills the other. There's a lot of idle speculation by the observers
about what the GM will do about this. The answer is astounding -
"Congratulations SK for winning the Guise of the Deceiver!"
130 people simultaneously explode. Did the GM not see what was happening?
Did the GM not notice that this SK had come back after having been killed?
There are various shouts from all sorts of people. I'm outraged, of course,
but at the same time it's mildly amusing. The SK was playing very much in
character, daring to cheat right in front of a GM, and did it so sneakily
and convincingly that the GM bought it.
The GM leaves to check his logs. When he comes back, the Guise of the
Deceiver is removed from the SK's inventory and no winner is declared. I
feel bad for the pally and the druid that were the last ones standing. At
the same time, it was perhaps the appropriate response from the GM - after
all, very few people were actually following the rules. Mostly is was CiH
and ST in a minor guildwar with everyone else along for the ride.
I check my clock and it is 2:30 in the morning. I was up much later than I
had planned to be. I spent at least two hours running around non-stop,
buffing, healing, and dispelling. But it was fun; I had quite a blast.
I'm not sure I'll want to do it again, though. I really don't like PvP.
But watching CiH folks fall down was, I admit, quite satisfying, and will
sustain me for some time to come. =)
--
-Richard
Monual Lifegiver
Archon of Rodcet Nife
Silent Tempest
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This page is Copyright by Skaarak; Everquest (TM) is property of Sony Online Entertainment
All stories and art work are Copyright@ by the origial owner/writer.
Most, if not all stories, were taken from newsgroup alt.games.everquest (AGE), I recommend that anyone who gets a chance to read it should!