Well, I haven't been very forthcoming lately about my EQ exploits, and for
one major reason: secrecy.
For the first time in my EverQuest existence, I am part of a guild that is
trying out encounters no one has ever done before. In almost all my
previous raids, the people running the raid had at least a vague idea of
what to expect. With my current guild, we're trying out a bunch of
encounters in Dreadspire Keep that have never been done before.
Of course, we're also encountering bugs no one ever has before. One mob,
for example, had his treasure chest - y'know, the actual loot you get for
killing him - spawn far, far away from his actual corpse, making it
impossible for us to get it. On another mob, after we killed him we eagerly
opened his treasure chest to find... two cloth caps.
This is a fun new experience for me, even if it means dying. A *lot*. I
mean, think on it: you have no idea what to do or what's going to happen, so
you engage a mob fully expecting it to wipe out the raid just so you can
learn what happens. After each wipe, people exchange lots of information
about what just happened, then you engage again, wipe again, and learn a
little bit more. You wipe over and over again, then everyone logs and posts
their experiences on the message boards. The officer mull this information
over, then try a strategy. After each wipe they refine the strategy, or
throw it out and try another. Depending on the difficulty of the encounter,
it may take days or weeks to figure everything out.
For example, the very first mob you engage in Dreadspire Keep. He's a guy
that does various nasty things, and positioning is important, but overall
he's easy. Only took us a couple of days to figure him out. Redfang, a bat
in the tower... he's *tough*. It took us weeks and weeks to figure him out,
and even when we finally beat him last night, it was only by the skin of our
teeth.
The biggest impact this has had on me is that I haven't been able to be as
descriptive about my encounters. Normally I'm quite free with my
information, talking about exactly what I'm doing and how our guild has
attacked each encounter. I've had several people tell me they've used my
stories as the basis for their own strategies when their guilds have
progressed to the encounters I've described. I enjoy talking about what I'm
doing and my reactions to everything that happens.
But... I can't anymore. See, my current guild is vying to be the first
amongst all the guilds on all the servers to win these encounters.
Sometimes we have been the first to kill a certain mob. Many time we
haven't; for example, we were only the seventh guild in all of EQ to beat
Redfang. Because a large part of our motivation is to be the first to win
these encounters, I am enjoined from sharing information about them. Our
officers don't want other guilds to learn how to beat these mobs and then
leapfrog us progression-wise.
So, because I don't have a lot I can say, I haven't been able to post much.
I don't like that a whole lot. I understand the reasoning, though. We have
a hard enough time getting people to log on, and it's seldom we have a full
raid these days. EverQuest truly is a slowly-dwindling game, and we don't
have the large pool of high-end raiding players we used to. So this
motivation, to be the first in all of EQ to beat these encounters... it's
necessary. We need people to log on, we need them to participate and help
us progress.
The end of my own EverQuest life is within sight, alas. I am beginning the
process of going back to school and completing my degree. I dropped out of
college twenty years ago, and believe me that was the biggest mistake of my
life. I have a successful career now, don't get me wrong, but that lack of
a degree is an itch I've always wanted to scratch. Plus I've sort of
reached a plateau in my career, and getting a degree will help me reach the
next level. When I start doing that, I'll have a lot less time to play EQ,
especially in a high-end raiding guild.
That's a couple months down the road, though. For now, I'm committed to
helping my guild beat Dreadspire Keep and confronting the end-game boss, who
I suspect will turn out to be Mayong Mistmoore although I could be wrong.
We have a long way to go; after finally killing Redfang, we moved on to
another encounter where the first thing we did was... wipe to the mob so we
could learn what the encounter is all about. This one seems like it will be
quicker and easier to figure out, though, so there's hope that we'll soon
move beyond that.
And on to the next series of never-ending deaths. =/
Ah well. Like I said, right now I'm having a lot of fun figuring this stuff
out with everyone. We'll see what happens after that. I hope to hang on
long enough to at least lay eyes on MM.
--
-Richard
Monual Lifegiver
Prelate of Rodcet Nife
Triton
Povar server
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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!