I am not exactly sure where to post this, so the general forum it is... at least for now. After receiving some very nice encouragement to return, I though I would post a bit about my journey as it happens. I didn't put this in the Story forum, since it's not fiction. If it goes there better perhaps someone will move it.
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Sometimes when I get an idea into my head, I just won’t let it go until it has manifested into reality. Anyone who knows me can tell those particular ideas by the dogged determination with which I pursue them. Returning to L2 was one of those ideas. I’m not quite sure when it started, perhaps it was when my boyfriend showed me some screenshots of the things added with C2, perhaps it was the newsletter that dutifully arrives in my box even though my subscription to the game was long cancelled. Probably it was the conversation I had with another gamer where we talked about what games we’d played and why we left them. I found myself wistfully recounting my stint with Lineage II, explaining that if he liked graphics and thought WoW was pretty, he should take a look at something that was drop-dead gorgeous.
Whatever the cause, the thought of trying the game again just wouldn’t go away. I caught myself looking at the website, wondering how the game had changed since I played. Every time I compared it to the current game I was playing I felt certain I’d choose the new one. After all, drops were plentiful, PvP was consensual and leveling was a breeze. But still that nagging feeling followed. Finally I broached the subject with my boyfriend somewhat tentatively. I was fairly certain what reaction he’d have. I wasn’t disappointed. He couldn’t even fathom why I’d want to go back to play. The look on his face was almost comical. After all, I’d been so very against the game when he first tried to get me to play. I HATE PvP, and random senseless ganking. I have a demanding job which means I have a limited playtime. All things combined to make Lineage II a strange choice.
At the root of his not understanding was a fundamental difference that had long epitomized our gaming styles. The first game we played together was EQ. He is the best player I’ve ever met and I don’t say that because of our relationship. He’s just simply phenomenal. He says I’m also good, but honestly what is he going to say to the woman who cooks his food and shares his life. “Yeah honey, you really suck at playing. By the way, what’s for dinner?” Whether or not I am a decent player, I’m no where near his caliber.
When he plays he plays hard and fast. For him, it’s about winning, whatever he’s defined as the goal. Be it the first to reach a certain level or do a certain thing, for him it’s all about being the best. And he usually is….
For me, it’s something different. I don’t know that I could really define it. Partly it is a feeling of wonder that someone, somewhere created this world. The beautiful waterefall, the castle, the very character I identify with fill me with awe at their creation. Partly it is an escape to a time and place where I seem to have more control than the chaos of my job. But there is this other part… that I can’t quite articulate, that reminds me of a six year old at Disneyland. And he kept asking me, to do explain so he would understand why I wanted to go back. Since I couldn’t really articulate it, ultimately I was left with the admittedly shallow reply of “It’s pretty.”
He knows how I am… and his concern was just that I’d be disappointed. But he loves me and when he saw I was not going to relent, he helped me recover my password to one of my old accounts and watched as I entered my credit card number to re-activate it.
I wasn’t sure what I was going to play. I had my dwarves who I’d left stranded in the Forbidden Temple the day I’d logged out. I wanted to get them to level 40 at least, but I’ve always been drawn to healers and the though of making one just wouldn’t go away, so after consulting with my boyfriend about what type would be good and taking into account the feedback I'd gotten on the forum, I decided to make a human.
I knew there were advantages to making the character on the same server as my Dwarf. After all, equipment was still king and I knew my Dwarf could help finance what would be needed, but I thought it might be interesting to start completely over again. Erica became my new home.
My first foray back was rather comical. I created the character, remembered where to get the first quest and blissfully trooped off to kill the bane of all existence, the Keltir…
After a bit of fumbling I remembered to use the mouse to move and got my keys set up to cast my mighty spells. I targeted the vile beast and clicked to cast. The spell hit and the mob attacked. The keltir hit the ground with a satisfying clink of coin. Keltirs were so easy I just knew wolves would be better.
Now here is where I forgot the fundamental rule of Lineage with casters. Rule number one: “Don’t let them hit you.”
I had been too used to playing another game where my caster could go toe-to-toe and take several hits.
I respawned in town.
Well, obviously this would take some tweaking… I went to cast again and somehow ended up with two.
I stood up in the town square.
This was when I finally remembered… Cast and run…that was the formula. Cast again when they were far enough back to keep you from getting hit.
Levels started rolling by and soon I was up to level 8. The place was fairly deserted, but nearby was a dark elf. Suddenly I felt a sort of nervous thrill. I had tried to start a human as an alt when I originally played but got sick of dying over and over to people who found some sort of strange thrill in killing someone who was obviously far below their ability.
My nervousness peaked when I saw him begin to cast a spell, but instead of killing me he healed and buffed me. I thanked him and was greeted with a cryptic “Rec me plz” I had no clue what this cryptic comment meant. “Plz Rec me.” He repeated… Puzzled I turned to my boyfriend to see if he had any clues. He was as stumped as I was. What the heck did this guy want? Suddenly it dawned on me. Recommend was a new thing you could do and he wanted me to recommend him.
Of course I had no idea how to do that.
I did what any self respecting gamer would do…. I looked it up on the web.
I discovered however that my lowly little self couldn’t “Rec anyone plz. By this time he’d gone on with a “Good luck” probably wondering why I didn’t ‘rec’ him. I was truly grateful. His buffs enabled me to kill far above what I’d been doing and I soon became the bane of Orcs everywhere on the beach.
I easily gathered enough SP to get my next spell and I began to happily buff everyone who wandered even close to me with a lowly level 1 Shield.
The next morning, I thought I’d play just a bit before going to work. I was level 10 now but every little bit counts, so I thought I’d frighten a few Orcs before I took on Corporate America.
Leaving town I noticed a very strange sight. Piles of gold everywhere. Admittedly my first thought was to start scooping it up. I looked around to see if this bounty possibly could belong to someone. Sure enough off a slight distance there was an archer one-shotting those fierce Keltirs. I watched for a bit, wondering if he was ever going to pick any of it up, but he didn’t. My cynical side wondered if it was some sort of a sick trap for newbies…pick up gold and get an arrow in your heart. Ultimately I decided to leave him and the gold and head to Orcland.
I killed a few and time was getting close to when I would need to head off to work, so I went back to town passing the guy who had been killing the howling little foxlike creatures. The gold was still there. He was gone. I hesitated… but not for too long and decided perhaps it was just a gift for returning to the L2 fold. I picked it all up.
Leaving town I noticed a very strange sight. Piles of gold everywhere. Admittedly my first thought was to start scooping it up. I looked around to see if this bounty possibly could belong to someone. Sure enough off a slight distance there was an archer one-shotting those fierce Keltirs. I watched for a bit, wondering if he was ever going to pick any of it up, but he didn’t.
Sounds like a bot :)
BTW, have you ever played anything besides dwarves? Because if not, it will be a strange feeling to actually have combat skills :)
“Yeah honey, you really suck at playing. By the way, what’s for dinner?”
For me, it’s something different. I don’t know that I could really define it. Partly it is a feeling of wonder that someone, somewhere created this world. The beautiful waterefall, the castle, the very character I identify with fill me with awe at their creation. Partly it is an escape to a time and place where I seem to have more control than the chaos of my job.
Muahhahahahahaha ! All your gaming are belong to us. By the way, what's for dinner ?
Ahhhhhhhh, yes, the description of a female gamer. Not quite as Kara tho, she seems to have a boyfriend. Oh well, it's still not much protection against the Devil... ROFL
Always nice to see some cool people come back... Welcome back !
Ok, i gotta go use that what's for dinner line on Kara...
As to the question of whether or not I've played anything but Dwarves, my boyfriend ran a Swordsinger/Elven Elder combination and during the great Cruma Tower fight with War, he would sometimes ask me to run his healer since he was on War's hit list and would have to fight them fairly often and running two characters in PvP is a challenge.
Also, I will definately say 'hi' if I see you in game Lord Chaos.
A new spell and half a level, not bad for forty minutes work. Since the corporate world had held me captive last night and I didn’t get to play, I particularly looked forward to this morning.
Playing again is such a strange combination of knowing how to do things and being totally clueless. I know how to level, I learned at the feet of the master. My boyfriend has taught me that the most efficient way to do this is to choose what you kill carefully. It’s important to kill non-stop, so that means you have to take into account how fast you can kill something and how much mana it takes to do so. Orc Grunts for example only give ~150 xp and 5 sp, Orc lieutenants however give ~320 xp and 12 sp. It does take me about three times the time and twice the mana to kill one however. I know this maximizing is the fastest way, but sometimes I like to slow down and just soak in my surroundings.
This morning’s sessions consisted of maximizing my playtime. Although I’m very careful with my pulls, occasionally I get more than one. I can almost always handle it. I just have to run farther and take a few blows while I try to kill them. This had happened and I was diligently running to get enough distance to nuke when I passed a fighter type I’d seen before. I stopped to cast, killed the first one and started to run again. At that time he yelled for me to stop and before I could say anything he’d gallantly killed my almost dead second mob.
I just smiled and thanked him. After all, I’d rather have someone help me when I didn’t need it then ignore me when I did. I buffed him with my Shield buff, he thanked me and off we both went. I briefly wondered if he was also thinking he’d just thank me rather than explain that a level 1 Shield buff was really not something he needed. 
Though leveling holds no mysteries (my boyfriend once jokingly said the best strategy to kill mobs is to get their hit points to ‘zero or less’) I still can’t remember how to do some basic things.
This morning during my session before work, someone was shouting asking if anyone was around, I didn’t know how to answer a channel wide question. I don’t remember the commands. It was a rather amusing conversation since when someone finally answered him and asked what he wanted the shouter's answer was basically to Kill people. The next rather cynical response gave me a chuckle. The person who responded asked him if either he was a child or his account was close to expiring.
I so wanted to join in, but kept silent, held not by prudence but by ignorance.
A new spell and half a level, not bad for forty minutes work. Since the corporate world had held me captive last night and I didn’t get to play, I particularly looked forward to this morning.
Playing again is such a strange combination of knowing how to do things and being totally clueless. I know how to level, I learned at the feet of the master. My boyfriend has taught me that the most efficient way to do this is to choose what you kill carefully. It’s important to kill non-stop, so that means you have to take into account how fast you can kill something and how much mana it takes to do so. Orc Grunts for example only give ~150 xp and 5 sp, Orc lieutenants however give ~320 xp and 12 sp. It does take me about three times the time and twice the mana to kill one however. I know this maximizing is the fastest way, but sometimes I like to slow down and just soak in my surroundings.
This morning’s sessions consisted of maximizing my playtime. Although I’m very careful with my pulls, occasionally I get more than one. I can almost always handle it. I just have to run farther and take a few blows while I try to kill them. This had happened and I was diligently running to get enough distance to nuke when I passed a fighter type I’d seen before. I stopped to cast, killed the first one and started to run again. At that time he yelled for me to stop and before I could say anything he’d gallantly killed my almost dead second mob.
I just smiled and thanked him. After all, I’d rather have someone help me when I didn’t need it then ignore me when I did. I buffed him with my Shield buff, he thanked me and off we both went. I briefly wondered if he was also thinking he’d just thank me rather than explain that a level 1 Shield buff was really not something he needed. 
Though leveling holds no mysteries (my boyfriend once jokingly said the best strategy to kill mobs is to get their hit points to ‘zero or less’) I still can’t remember how to do some basic things.
This morning during my session before work, someone was shouting asking if anyone was around, I didn’t know how to answer a channel wide question. I don’t remember the commands. It was a rather amusing conversation since when someone finally answered him and asked what he wanted the shouter's answer was basically to Kill people. The next rather cynical response gave me a chuckle. The person who responded asked him if either he was a child or his account was close to expiring.
I so wanted to join in, but kept silent, held not by prudence but by ignorance.
I really need to do some research.
You really have a talent for writing.
I also think that it's very important to select carefully what you need to kill in order to level faster. It is even more important for those (like myself) who can't spend 16 hours per day to do so.
What I do is simple. I calculate the EXP to HP ratio for all the mobs (in Excel) and sort them by that new stat (with a pre-selection in the level range I am in).
For example, I know that, right now for me, the best EXP is earned through hunting Vanor Silenos Scout. Why, because their EXP to HP ratio is one of the highest in the game 45-50 level. The ratio is 1.59. This means that for every HP I will take from a Vanor Silenos Scout I will get 159% EXP when it dies... the Vanor Silenos Warriors are not bad either at 155%.
However, you also have to factor in special skills that the mob can have. In the case of the Vanor Silenos they have stun, and therefore are not good to level if your M.DEF is too low.
Here is a partial view of the excel spreadsheet I use. (It does not come out very well, but here it is)
<ul type="square">
Name Level EXP/HP
Pytan Knight 68 215,84%
Pytan 69 206,34%
Barif 64 204,55%
Barif Pet 61 194,52%
Congerer Lord 54 178,99%
Congerer 52 177,02%
Plando 64 173,08%
Lesser Giant Scout 63 170,01%
Lesser Giant Shooter 63 170,01%
Malruk Soldier 63 167,05%
Malruk Berserker 67 164,64%
Malruk Knight 66 163,37%
Doom Knight 65 162,16%
Vanor Silenos Scout 47 159,97%
Kranrot 59 155,81%
Archer Of Greed 46 155,69%
Vanor Silenos Warrior 48 155,33%
Lesser Giant Soldier 62 153,84%
You Orchish must be my boyfriend's long lost twin. He too does spreadsheets with all kinds of stuff; stats, armor, weapons. I remember back when we played together he would be the one to calculate for me what were the best things for my dwarf to crystalize. :D
You Orchish must be my boyfriend's long lost twin. He too does spreadsheets with all kinds of stuff; stats, armor, weapons. I remember back when we played together he would be the one to calculate for me what were the best things for my dwarf to crystalize. :D
We made the same thing kind of thing on our website :) He does sound like a very meticulous person.
This only works for fighter characters and any such constant damage characters. HP/XP is not very useful for mages because then it all becomes a matter of how many spells a mob takes, can you do overhit, whats its mdef, etc.
What a fun read Jute, you had me laughing out loud with memories :) I have marked this thread to come back to, I hope you continue in the game and in your story :)
I was VERY glad that I’d just said thank you the other day to the guy who had ‘rescued me’ in passing and not berated him for ‘stealing’ my XP, since this time I really needed the rescue.
Orc Grunts were not much of a challenge and the amount of SP and XP had dropped after my new level, so I was looking for something else to kill. I wandered around getting wrapped up in the scenery. The waterfall here was beautiful and I found a path through a rock arch that looked as if it might have something interesting behind it. There are many faults I have and one fault in particular often comes back to haunt me in this type of game, I’m incessantly curious. This leads to the dread ‘exploring’ quite often followed by the ‘horrible death’. As I stumbled into several agro mobs I hadn’t even realized I said anything out loud. However when my boyfriend heard the soft curse from me he wryly said “are we exploring again?”. I sheepishly smiled back at him and nodded as I ran for my life.
I was fairly certain I was in for a run back from town, although these were not really over my level they were beyond my current ability to kill. Especially two of them. However as I valiantly tried to outrun them and passed onto the rock ledge with the curtain of water, rescue came in the form of a blond human with a sword. He killed them, I thanked him and he moved on. I dutifully moved back to the area I knew I could handle.
From my previous stint in Lineage II I know the game is very equipment driven, but sometimes I forget just how true that is. I tried picking whites to kill, but all of them took too much effort and mana to be really efficient and if I got more than one of them, it was going to be either, at best, I hope I can outrun them and thus get no kills or, much worse, the run back from town.
I shouldn’t have bought the pants, instead I should have bought a new weapon.
Well, live and learn. I knew, when I’d played the Dwarves, their starter town had a quest around level 10 that got them a good weapon. I was pretty sure there would be one here. I nosed around and found myself a couple of new quests. Herein lies one of the dilemmas faced in L2. Unless you already have a good weapon, you usually can’t kill the type of mobs for this quest until you are much higher than when given the quest. Thus, the weapon really loses a couple of levels of usefulness.
I wasn’t sure which of the quests gave me the weapon and I was too lazy to look on the web to see if the quest was outlined there, so I picked the one which had me killing golems and headed off to try my hand at them.
When I found the area with Stone Golems, there were two people there killing them. One was a magic user and I watched carefully to gauge his technique. He used Ice Shard on them and then hit them with Wind spells. Looked easy enough. I targeted one and let loose my frosty spell. I then hit it with another and watched in dismay as the life bar barely dropped. My dismay increased as a good chunk of my own life vanished with his return blast. Well comparing how much damage he did to me with how much I did to him, I decided prudence dictated running away.
He was slow so it was fairly easy to outpace him. I moved on to my next target. I decided to try an Orc Archer. Now I knew from previous experiences that archers hurt! So I was fully aware this could mean I was going to die, but that dreaded curiosity rose again and I maneuvered close enough to cast. The archer returned with a volley of arrows and though they hurt, I could kill him fast enough that he didn’t do that much damage to me. I happily went to pick up my coin when I noticed my life drop from a wind blast. Since no mobs in this area cast that type of spell I looked around for a player. Instead, moving toward me with the dedication of the Terminator was the Stone Golem I left 10 minutes ago. Another wind blast hit me as I stood dumbfounded.
Realizing that I could die while staring in fascination at this, I ran again.
I left the golem far behind and decided to try my hand at Werewolves. Things were moving along pretty well. I’d killed several and I was inching closer to the adena total I’d need for a new weapon. I opened up my bag and was mentally calculating how many mobs I’d need to kill when I was blindsided by a wind blast.
I had this dreadful feeling in my stomach. I looked around and sure enough the Golem from Hell was still following me! I’ve seen this in movies where the heroine thinks she’s escaped but finds at the moment she least expects it she’s jumped by the horrible monster. Well, here was my own personal Horror flick, staring me and the Golem.
I ran again. Visions flashed through my mind of being tracked across Aden by this slow moving death machine. Luckily I knew a cheap trick and used it.
And he kept asking me, to do explain so he would understand why I wanted to go back. Since I couldn’t really articulate it, ultimately I was left with the admittedly shallow reply of “It’s pretty.”
Best reason I know of to play a game. In the end, the graphics are not only what brought me in, but the main thing that keeps me here.
Welcome back! I hope we have the pleasure of your company for a long time to come. :D
I ran again. Visions flashed through my mind of being tracked across Aden by this slow moving death machine. Luckily I knew a cheap trick and used it.
I logged.
ROFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D :D :D
I really think you will soon find Ash moving this thread into the Stories forum (yes, it's not fiction, but it's still a story). However, I will certainly be following it! Great writing! :cool:
Oh man i know what you mean when you say golem from hell. I was lvling my DE mystic alt, going phantom summoner. And i attacked one of those golems just to test them to see if they gave good xp. Well i guess since c2, slow mobs have uber mdef. So I run away. Till i can barely see the thing. So i continue to fight festering bats. And then the little icon comes up in buff area: Reduced movement speed:
Gah! The stupid stone soldier is like coming out of the mists of the swamp and firing ice bolts at me. They only did 10-15 dmg, but still. They made me so slow. So i enlisted the help of a nearby fighter to help me kill it. I sat on its corpse till it evaporated a few moments later. Sweet sweet revenge.
Very good read, takes me back to the good ol newbie days of long gone :) (now a days its b-grade this, clans that, alliances here, wars there, LOL)
The monsters in C2 has definetly become alot more tenacious and relentless, hunting is not as easy as it used to be and this is of course a blessing and a curse at times ;)
If you need any help, advice, equipment or otherwise, just pm me.
I do really appreciate the offers of items from people both here and privately and although it may seem odd to some of you, I'm going to have to turn them all down.
I came back just to have fun and see how it went for me this time. The kindness behind the offers are really great and friendship I'm happy to take, but not items.
Well, now that my mystic is level 12, it was time to work a bit on her soon-to-be partner on my second account. After all, the game informed me that I’d been playing for awhile and should consider taking a break!
I logged on to my second account and carefully chose the face and hair for my new alter-ego. My first choice in name was taken, no surprise since I’m sure most names have. Anyway I tell myself they must be since I see so many people named things like ‘farmerkiller’ and ‘bobownzu’. (Though farmerkiller was nice and buffed me. I guess he decided I wasn’t a farmer.) I finally settled on one that I liked and was ready to play.
I’ve always been slightly uncomfortable with my identification with the characters I play. I don’t think they are ‘real’ and I know the difference between where pixels stop and flesh starts, but I have this great fondness for each of them and they are all in their own way an extension of my own self. I don’t act any different in game than I do in real life, though I’ve heard a lot about people who do, so who I am shows through fairly well, with all the warts and blemishes of my own personality.
I’ve known people who when they were done with a game would sell or give away their character. I couldn’t do that, which is why my Dwarves sit patiently waiting for me to come back to them someday. The same way all the characters in all the games I’ve played still exist until the company who owns them decides otherwise.
I’ve heard people say that it’s more a female gamer trait to identify with your characters but I’ve seen males do the same. Whatever the reason, and I’m sure there is a graduate Psychology paper in there somewhere, I am how I am.
Fighter created, I was off to once again do my duty and rid the land of the vicious mobs that threatened Talking Island.
Being a fighter is a lot different than a mystic and required an adjustment in my tactics. As I played I caught part of an argument in the general channel about someone who had been scammed. I’m always sad when I read those things and it takes me back to a time near the end of my previous play. I had often seen a Dark Elf fighting in the same area I had, named Kinearswife. I always wondered why the odd name and later found out that the male player was named Kinear.
I never had much contact with her (as a side note, I never quite know whether to call characters of one sex who are played by the opposite, him or her!). Anyway, I’d just fought in the same area often and had traded saved and being saved by her. It was right at the time when Dwarves were first starting to get to level 40 and I had been pushing hard, though I was still level 34 and knew with the grind it would be some time before I made 40. There were very few Dwarves who could get C grade crystals.
I was in town buying some soul ore to use when I overheard Kinearswife talking about a dwarf that had scammed her. He’d said he could crystallize for a fee and …well, in an all too familiar story he’d stolen from her. Many people gathered around to try to help, but there really is no way to retaliate when the character is a low level alt and you have no idea who the real culprit is.
I know that it’s up to the person to make sure they are not being scammed. Caveat Emptor (let the buyer beware!) I believe is the saying. I wish there were a better way, but I’m not sure there is. It’s just…sad. Perhaps it’s that identification with the character thing I mentioned earlier. Perhaps it’s just my own naiveté.
Kinearswife said he wasn’t quitting and I hope he didn’t. I wasn’t around much longer to see what happened to him/her, but I always hoped that somehow he found the outpouring of friendship at his loss a fair trade.
My reflections were interrupted with a musical tinkling and a shaft of light. I have always found it rather ironic that you are congratulated on attaining level 5, where dying really begins to hurt.
More good stories :) A trick on Erica btw, if you have enough money to buy bulk, is to buy soul/spirit ore in dwarf or orc land, they are the only towns not affected by taxes and the ore is quite a bit cheaper there. (but you need to buy enough to make up for the gate fee though, unless you're there anyway, you can for instance do the calculater quest there, which I heard is ok)
I don't know if you have this link, but here's a link to all the new stuff in C2 with lots of explaination (way better than the official one in many areas)
The key to playing is remembering that it’s something I’m doing for fun. I have too much frustration in the rest of my life the last thing I need to do is add to it with a game. Today was a test of that….
Weekends, in theory, should be the time when I can do whatever I want. During the week I’m a drone in the Corporate hive and like a good little worker bee I work hard. So, when I’m off work the time should be devoted to the things I enjoy doing. The theory is sound, however the execution leaves something to be desired. There is always the house to be cleaned and chores to be done. Errands I can’t get to during the week need to be run and all the trappings of adulthood that require attention.
Even when those things are done there is my relationship that requires tending. My boyfriend is the best thing that ever happened to me. After five years of being together he’s still the greatest guy in the whole world in my eyes. Because I’d like that to continue, I need to make sure there is time for him as well.
He’s a gamer and I knew what I was getting when I got involved with him. I know the intensity with which he plays and I have witnessed first hand his total immersion in a virtual world. When the newest game grabs his attention, he becomes submerged in it, and I’ve occasionally felt twinges of jealously. Luckily, I play games too, so I understand the rush and intense concentration. I know it doesn’t mean the game is more important to him, it’s just sometimes I need him to show me. So I always have to chuckle when he feels the tables turned. Today was one of those days.
I wanted to make several levels this weekend and I worked at it in between the laundry and doing dishes. At the lower levels it’s not too much of a problem to do something while I rest. I just take the chance that some random PK will come along and decide my resting character is a tempting target. In between all of this, the playing and the housework I would also get occasional calls for attention, and since I really do love him more than the game, my play ended up being very fragmented.
In addition to the calls for attention from life, I had the some guy who kept going by and smacking me as I rested. Perhaps it was an expression of affection, in the same way small boys will pick on girls they like. After the third time it was a bit annoying and I was tempted to hit him back, however I knew that was just what he wanted and I wasn’t going to be that foolish.
I’d now been fighting in Talking Island long enough to know that my characters were anomalies since they were not equipped in top end non-grade equipment. Most everyone I’d run across was an alt of some kind and very well outfitted. Although character skill means a great deal, I knew that just because he was hitting me for 6 points of damage didn’t mean a thing. I’d seen him earlier killing mobs much higher than those I was currently working on, so at the very least he outleveled me by quite a bit.
At least for now, he contented himself with just being annoying and didn’t kill me in any of the inventive ways he could have.
I’d also finally found the quest for the weapon and in doing so the answer to a question I’d early asked one of my new friends. I’d repeatedly seen various mobs that were called “Spirit of Mirrors” and had no idea what they were for. It turns out they are part of a quest for a weapon. You have to kill three of them, a toad, an orc and a werewolf. I’d found the toad and dispatched him, I’d killed the orc, but the werewolf eluded me.
Thanks to a tip from another new friend, I was able to find the location for the last mob, however I have to wonder what the heck the designers of this quest were thinking. The mob is surrounded by aggressive mobs that are much higher level than the quest one. Getting to the quest monster is nearly impossible for the level of the quest. I made it there the first time with a combination of luck and dumb luck. However in order to properly kill the mob the last hit has to be with a special stick you are given. This has a built in danger since as a magic user I try very hard not to be within smacking distance of the mob, something this quest requires.
My first try was less than stellar. It was down to whoever got the last hit first, him or me. He was faster and I hit the ground. It was at this point when my boyfriend needed attention, so revenge had to wait.
Revenge is still waiting. Not because I haven’t been able to log back on, rather I now appreciate what kind of luck it took for me to get to him in the first place. I tried three more times and now have a total of four deaths. On the third death I dropped my hard earned gloves.
I took a deep breath and decided rather than let the frustration get to me, I’d log.
Not that frustration was the only thing I’d gotten out of today. I had also made a couple of new friends and I am very sure that the friendships will be worth far more than the gloves.
This is the lesson I need to take away from today. I know the game will frustrate me at times. I’ll lose something valuable or have someone kill me for no apparent reason or get disconnected in a dangerous place only to come back dead. All those things will happen. What I have to do is remember to keep a good attitude and play only as long as it’s fun.
My first try was less than stellar. It was down to whoever got the last hit first, him or me. He was faster and I hit the ground...
I tried three more times and now have a total of four deaths. On the third death I dropped my hard earned gloves.
I took a deep breath and decided rather than let the frustration get to me, I’d log.
Not that frustration was the only thing I’d gotten out of today. I had also made a couple of new friends and I am very sure that the friendships will be worth far more than the gloves.
This is the lesson I need to take away from today. I know the game will frustrate me at times. I’ll lose something valuable or have someone kill me for no apparent reason or get disconnected in a dangerous place only to come back dead. All those things will happen. What I have to do is remember to keep a good attitude and play only as long as it’s fun.
Jute, as usual your writing is very refreshing & inspiring. However, I must point out that, although I can feel that you are savouring each moment of you renewed adventure, you sometimes need to pair up with another player in order to succeed.
Not only does it help, but sometimes it is almost mandatory. Furthermore, as I am sure you know by the way you talk about your real life, experiences are so much more pleasurable when they are shared.
Therefore, sharing those wonderful adventures with a friend online would not only allow you to succeed in the more difficult tasks, but also enhanced you gaming experience.
I have to tell you that I would probably have left the game by now if it wasn't for a player I teamed up with on a regular basis.
When you are a team, you feel that you can accomplish bigger things that you would normaly be able all be yourself. You also have many occasions to save anothers' life.... ....it is soooo much more rewarding.
BTW...only the last hit has to be with that special stick so throw a few windstrikes/ice bolts at him to take away some life before you go toe-to-toe with him.
Jute, as usual your writing is very refreshing & inspiring. However, I must point out that, although I can feel that you are savouring each moment of you renewed adventure, you sometimes need to pair up with another player in order to succeed.
Not only does it help, but sometimes it is almost mandatory. Furthermore, as I am sure you know by the way you talk about your real life, experiences are so much more pleasurable when they are shared.
Therefore, sharing those wonderful adventures with a friend online would not only allow you to succeed in the more difficult tasks, but also enhanced you gaming experience.
I have to tell you that I would probably have left the game by now if it wasn't for a player I teamed up with on a regular basis.
When you are a team, you feel that you can accomplish bigger things that you would normaly be able all be yourself. You also have many occasions to save anothers' life.... ....it is soooo much more rewarding.
It's very timely that you have written this, since my next installment has something about this very thing. I agree that teaming is a good thing. :)
I don’t feel well at all. I am alternatively cold and hot, my head feels like someone has stuffed it full of some soft fuzzy material and I have no energy at all. One of my boyfriend’s friends had been over a couple of days ago complaining of being ill. It seems that after he’d gone he left us a present in the form of some flu-like symptoms.
I went into work this morning, but was promptly asked to go home, since I don’t think anyone at the office cared to have me share with them the same thing that had been shared with us. I didn’t feel too bad yesterday, just sort of not as well as usual. Now I know why.
What does all this have to do with L2? Well, in between napping and coughing, I’m playing. Somehow it makes me feel vaguely like a phony, as if I should do nothing but lie in bed staring at the ceiling if I can’t go to work. But I’ll suffer through the twangs of guilt and continue on in my pursuit of levels.
Both characters are now level 11. I find the differences between fighter and mystic fascinating. Both have comparable equipment, but the mystic can definitely kill much faster with much less downtime. I don’t know if there is some problem with my fighter tactics but if I try to kill the same creatures as I’m killing with the mystic I end up spending a lot of time on my rear regenerating hit points. I’m pulling with a bow, using powershot, and meleeing after that. Even if I use powerstrike, it takes time to kill creatures my mystic kills in three spells, without ever taking a hit.
Maybe I’m just better at the mystic, since on her I can easily kill whites but on the fighter I can only easily kill greens.
The drop gods however have been kind to me. Perhaps to make up yesterday for the loss of my gloves, so far today I’ve gotten two rings and a pair of Iron Fists. I don’t know that there will be a market for the weapon, since, my understanding is, they are for Orcs and I’m a long way from the Orc city. However I have made a friend of a low level Orc and if he were closer, I’d give him the fists.
I’ve spent a lot of time the last day or two thinking of how much I’d like to start grouping with someone. I know that XP is often faster alone, but the friendships you can build are worth more in the long run. It just seems the possibilities for grouping at this level, in this place are very limited.
Over the weekend I met an orc. Not exactly met, mind you since met implies he and I were face to face in the same location and unfortunately that was not the case. He is far off in the Orc staring town and I’m...well,,, not there. Perhaps one day we will actually meet and be able to adventure together, but for now, his conversation, when he’s on, helps to breach the loneliness of solo play.
In addition to the Orc, I have also been fortunate to have some conversations with another player. One who will probably soon become tired of my incessant questions. Today I received an education in Compressed packages, since I had no idea what the heck they were. In addition I wondered about the potions I had found in the inventory of a character I created long ago. He graciously answered those questions as well…cautioning me that once the potions were gone they were gone for good.
This made me think of how difficult it is to find knowledge of some things in game. I still have no real idea how to use the compressed packages, even if I weren’t averse to spending so much money. I know I could ask another player, and I will if the need arises, however I hate to bother others over what are usually very trivial things.
Since my new friends are either too far away or too high level to group with, I am going to have to look for opportunities where I am. I hope I don’t run into the same issue as one poor player over the weekend. He was looking for a group and got fairly roasted in general chat with people telling him what a dumb idea it was at his level.
I want to make friendships here, since that is what keeps people playing long after the glamour of graphics have faded. I want to build trust with someone or a group of someones, so eventually they know they can count on me and I can count on them. It may be virtual, but after all, it’s still life.
I don’t feel well at all. I am alternatively cold and hot, my head feels like someone has stuffed it full of some soft fuzzy material and I have no energy at all. One of my boyfriend’s friends had been over a couple of days ago complaining of being ill. It seems that after he’d gone he left us a present in the form of some flu-like symptoms.
I wish you a quick recovery.
Both characters are now level 11. I find the differences between fighter and mystic fascinating. Both have comparable equipment, but the mystic can definitely kill much faster with much less downtime. I don’t know if there is some problem with my fighter tactics but if I try to kill the same creatures as I’m killing with the mystic I end up spending a lot of time on my rear regenerating hit points. I’m pulling with a bow, using powershot, and meleeing after that. Even if I use powerstrike, it takes time to kill creatures my mystic kills in three spells, without ever taking a hit.
I have also started a human mage, and I was also amazed how easy it was to level it. It's only up to level 5, but never the less I remember how hard it was to level my orc, coming close to death on many occasions. With my mage, 1 or 2 shot and the mobs are dead.
The drop gods however have been kind to me. Perhaps to make up yesterday for the loss of my gloves, so far today I’ve gotten two rings and a pair of Iron Fists. I don’t know that there will be a market for the weapon, since, my understanding is, they are for Orcs and I’m a long way from the Orc city. However I have made a friend of a low level Orc and if he were closer, I’d give him the fists.
It is true that orc weapons are harder to sell than sowrds for example. However, you don't need to go to orc village in order to sell them. You can easily sell orc weapons in almost any town. Furthermore, at lower level I have often seen Dwarf and other races use Fist Weapons. You should be able to sell your weapon if you are patient.
I’ve spent a lot of time the last day or two thinking of how much I’d like to start grouping with someone. I know that XP is often faster alone, but the friendships you can build are worth more in the long run. It just seems the possibilities for grouping at this level, in this place are very limited.
Yes Xp is faster alone, but you have to sit more often, so in a way it's about the same if you are grouped with someone close to your level. It is true that it's harder to group at lower levels. However, since other players of the same or close to same level will probably try to level in the same areas, you should be able to find someone to group. Most of the fighter will be happy to group with your mage if you can heal. Also, ignore thre ranting and bad comments some players can make, like in the real world you are bound to meet with undesirable individuals. Be yourself! You will naturally meet someone you will like to spend time with.
Over the weekend I met an orc. Not exactly met, mind you since met implies he and I were face to face in the same location and unfortunately that was not the case. He is far off in the Orc staring town and I’m...well,,, not there. Perhaps one day we will actually meet and be able to adventure together, but for now, his conversation, when he’s on, helps to breach the loneliness of solo play.
In addition to the Orc, I have also been fortunate to have some conversations with another player. One who will probably soon become tired of my incessant questions. Today I received an education in Compressed packages, since I had no idea what the heck they were. In addition I wondered about the potions I had found in the inventory of a character I created long ago. He graciously answered those questions as well…cautioning me that once the potions were gone they were gone for good.
This made me think of how difficult it is to find knowledge of some things in game. I still have no real idea how to use the compressed packages, even if I weren’t averse to spending so much money. I know I could ask another player, and I will if the need arises, however I hate to bother others over what are usually very trivial things.
Since my new friends are either too far away or too high level to group with, I am going to have to look for opportunities where I am. I hope I don’t run into the same issue as one poor player over the weekend. He was looking for a group and got fairly roasted in general chat with people telling him what a dumb idea it was at his level.
I want to make friendships here, since that is what keeps people playing long after the glamour of graphics have faded. I want to build trust with someone or a group of someones, so eventually they know they can count on me and I can count on them. It may be virtual, but after all, it’s still life.
Unlike at the beginning of L2, where it was everybody for itself and you almost bet anybody else was there to benefit from your death, there is now so many players that are willing to help. The community has started to build and now most of the time, a stranger will be a helping hand.
It feels good to meet other players now, where in the beginning you felt threathened each time.
True to my word, the next time someone suggested grouping I accepted. The result was less than stellar. I ended up grouping with someone who seemed to be new to the game. As a result, he didn’t really know how to pull without getting multiples and my healing could not keep up with the damage he was receiving. Either that or the extras would peel off him and onto me. Two deaths for me and four for him meant the group dissolved.
I stuck with it for a lot longer than perhaps I would normally, I was trying to find a good way to tell him what I felt might help, so that neither of us would die. However I know how touchy people are about ‘being told how to play’ and I feel that I live in the proverbial glass house so who am I to throw stones?
However I knew what he was doing wrong and I really feel he would have benefited from me explaining to him how to pull something and how to watch agro. I just didn’t know how to broach the subject. He may have felt I wasn’t playing well and should have healed him faster or some other thing. The casting speed of the regular heal spells leaves a lot to be desired.
I’m used to playing with people who all know their character well and perform their role within the group. Grouping with good players is a joy. However even good players had to start somewhere and I know there are many people who have the potential to be good if given the right guidance. I’m just too unsure of my own skills to be a guide to anyone. So my own insecurity lead to making the situation worse.
After leaving the group, I logged onto my fighter for awhile. While watching someone kill golems they buffed me then asked my level. I’m never quite sure how to respond to that, since I know it’s a piece of information that gives someone an advantage in PvP. However at heart I’m a very honest person and so I generally answer them. I was unclear why they would want to know, perhaps they were thinking of grouping. But, no, that wasn’t it. Next came the ‘rec me plz’.
Now, I didn’t ask for the buffs. I was happy to have them, but I didn’t ask for them. I know it’s a silly ideal, but I happen to feel that my recommendations should mean something. I will rec someone if I truly feel they deserve it. I won’t ‘rec’ someone for buffing me. The person ended up asking three times, I thanked them for the buffs and left with them still asking for recs.
Why do people do that? All it’s done is cheapen the system. There would have been status in getting a blue name at one point, but now it will be impossible to tell whether someone has earned it through legitimate means or been given it for begging.
Ahhh well, perhaps it’s just my lingering illness that’s made me so cranky.
I liked it in the old days, when you could easily tell who was a "nice buffer". Now all we have are rec whores running about.
All a blue name means to me is that a player is either a buffer/healer, or they went to unecessary lengths to get a blue name/ Usually both. :p
The first time I grouped with a random person, they immediately leapt into the closest pack of mobs, laying about with soulshot (never use SS in a group dummy). I hung back cautiously for a second, and then joined in and we barely finished off the mobs. Then before I could even tell them not to draw multiple aggro, they leapt again into the fray and this time, I stood back and watch them get cut down.
I chastised their corpse quite thoroughly and they tried to convince me that it was their little brother playing, not them. Heheh. Since then, I make it a point to play exclusively with my clan/friends.
But ultimately, playing as a group means playing as a team. Therefore, each team member should have a definite role, DD, tank, healer, etc.
I almost never group with stranger, it happens, but not so often. When it does happen, it's because we already are in the same area, hunting the same mobs. Therefore, I can expect that we both know how to deal with those mobs.
When in doubt, I think you should take the time to discuss briefly the role of each.
If you notice the other player doesn't have a lot of experience, then you should take the time to mention what to becareful about, like those mobs aggrow, don't hit a mob when near other mobs, how to pull a mog that aggrows out of a pack, etc.
Thise are simple techniques that you MUST know in order to play this game. If the other player already know these simple guidelines, you will see right away. If not, then you have to tell him/her. He/she will appreciate you taking the time and will also enjoy the game much more.
When you first begin everyone is a stranger, unless of course you start with friends. I hope at somepoint that people will become those friends for me.
I will try next time to explain and if the person does not care for my explanation, I will know that they likely are not someone I would care to group with anyway.
I find the differences between fighter and mystic fascinating. Both have comparable equipment, but the mystic can definitely kill much faster with much less downtime.
Dynamics will change at higher levels, mystics can kill higher mobs, but they become increasingly vulnerable, more expensive and their downtime increases.
Figthers are slower, but more safe, not as expensive, can grind lower level mobs much more effectively and is more "predictable".
I have also been fortunate to have some conversations with another player. One who will probably soon become tired of my incessant questions.
Nah, I think this player probably enjoy your questions when he/she is online. ;)
This made me think of how difficult it is to find knowledge of some things in game.
Indeed, this is why it is important to have friends, clans and alliances in this game.
People ask for levels to know how close you are to theirs, so in a group, they will know how capable you are and how much XP you take. It also decides on which buffs helps in certain situations.
Why do people do that? All it’s done is cheapen the system.
Well, its become what was known it would become, its mostly players that had the misconception that the blue system is about "honor" or such. Its like recommending a shop that does good service, this doesn't mean that its trustworthy or honorable, only that to YOU they helped you. This is how it works in L2 as well. I usually recommend people, if they take their time out to give their mana and time, the least I can do is give a click back, and everyone can do that.
Heck, I use the system too, just to show how silly it is to believe its about honor or trust.
I know that sounds rather harsh, but its the reality of L2.
as a lvl 3x wizard I find the issues is this. When I am in a group I can never be sure what they want from me. Do they want my nukes? or am I there for more of a crowd control aspect with group poision, and Aoe skills. Nowmall I run in eg with a dwarf scav and he collects a big trn runs into the middle of them spoil festivals the lot and I nuke them with 2 bsps shots. Other times though I find group pull more mobs since I can take 1 out by myself. the problem is than I end up sitting for a much longer time. More than once I end up sitting while the tank and dagger go at it.
Why do people do that? All it’s done is cheapen the system.
Well, its become what was known it would become, its mostly players that had the misconception that the blue system is about "honor" or such. Its like recommending a shop that does good service, this doesn't mean that its trustworthy or honorable, only that to YOU they helped you. This is how it works in L2 as well. I usually recommend people, if they take their time out to give their mana and time, the least I can do is give a click back, and everyone can do that.
Heck, I use the system too, just to show how silly it is to believe its about honor or trust.
I know that sounds rather harsh, but its the reality of L2.
I guess the part that really bothers me is the asking for the rec. Giving it to someone who has taken time, etc. I'm all for. I just don't like someone asking me to do it. It just shows that their buff wasn't given freely, but with motive...then on the other side, I'm cynical enough to know we all do things with a motive in mind, even if the motive is something like friendship or making ourselves feel good.
I’m feeling much better and my days of playing interspersed with sleep will come to an end with my return to work tomorrow. I’ll miss the time in L2, however it’s not without guilt.
I’ve never yet been able to make complete peace with the time that I take to play these games. Somewhere in the back of my mind a small, yet strident voice reminds me of all the useful things I could be doing instead of playing, like cleaning house, curing cancer or campaigning for world peace. I know people that have played so much they’ve lost their spouse or their job. I spend less time in Aden than most of my peers spend watching television. However, the allure of immersing yourself in these worlds is very strong and especially with the chaos of the world today, it’s easy to lose yourself. I try to make sure I keep a balance and give no ammunition to that annoying voice.
The day crowd has a different flavor than the evening. At night, a small group gathers around one of the gates testing each other. There are feints and friendly fights. There always seem to be someone with a colored name from these matches. It’s obvious they know each other by their taunts.
During the day, this gate is void of the rowdy life of later hours. More people seem intent on leveling and since it is prime time in the European community, there is a large representation of various nations.
My pair have now made it to level 14, the fighter without even one death, the mystic with more than I care to count. I had just gotten a new spell on the mystic and was hoping to try it out. One of the fascinating things I find about Linage is how you have to think carefully about how to spend your SP. You can make your leveling much more difficult by getting the wrong spell or skill at an early stage. On the dwarves it wasn’t so difficult to pick, since they didn’t have the variety of a spellcaster. However even with them, there were still choices. With my mystic, it’s much more necessary to choose wisely.
To test the spell, I had decided to go to a field usually identified by the ruins there. I had been there before, but the area was frequently monopolized by a dwarf and a light elf pair that killed the area with mechanical precision. I’d ended up bumping against them once before when I attempted to kill one of the mobs near their killing spree. The dwarf had quickly moved in, spoiled my mob and finished it off, scooping up the pile of gold.
As I searched for mobs to kill, nearby I noticed the same pair on a hill, however there was a third character, a Dark Elf. At first, I wasn’t sure what was going on, but soon both the light elf and the dwarf were dead. The bright red name on the dark elf, showed who had done the deed. He shouted in the main channel that he’d killed some farmers and not to kill him. I couldn’t have killed him even if I’d had the desire. But I watched in fascination as he began to work off the Karma. Killing mobs and dying until his name was first a light pink, then finally a pure white as he played no part in creating the dead pair who still lay at his feet.
I was distracted by a mob attacking me and had to run. When I returned, the pair still lay there where they had fallen and the Dark Elf was gone. I head a shout in general that he’d gone to kill another farmer pair over the mountain.
I worked at killing the mobs in the area, glancing occasionally with a kind of morbid fascination at the two dead characters. I didn’t understand why they just lay there. I killed for some time and eventually a second light elf came and rezzed the dead one. He ran off as the dead one cast on the dwarf. Moments later they were back to their methodical killing.
The whole thing fascinated me. I wondered at all that was going on behind the scenes. Why was the Dark Elf doing this? Was it because he believed his killing would help stop the farming? Did he believe that someone should do something even if it seemed futile? Or did he do it for the thrill of PKing? Would he suffer any consequences from this? Did the farmers mark him as someone to harass and kill?
I pondered all of this as I ran back to town, wondering if I’d ever see him again.
I pondered all of this as I ran back to town, wondering if I’d ever see him again.
Glad to see you're over whatever illness it was that plagued you and are back to enjoying the land of Aden. :D
I think I enjoyed this most recent episode even more than the others. It is fascinating to watch someone pondering motivations and reasons rather than reacting with raw emotion and letting their native prejudices and biases run away with them.
You have the eye of an anthropologist, Jute. Train it well. :cool:
Your have a superb writing style Jute(not sure if it can be said like this, I am French Canadian). I am not kidding when I say that you could probably become a professional writer, or a translator if you know more than one language. Your texts contain many subtile expressions through which we can "feel" what you experienced very clearly. Remarquable.
I’m feeling much better and my days of playing interspersed with sleep will come to an end with my return to work tomorrow. I’ll miss the time in L2, however it’s not without guilt.
I’ve never yet been able to make complete peace with the time that I take to play these games. Somewhere in the back of my mind a small, yet strident voice reminds me of all the useful things I could be doing instead of playing, like cleaning house, curing cancer or campaigning for world peace. I know people that have played so much they’ve lost their spouse or their job. I spend less time in Aden than most of my peers spend watching television. However, the allure of immersing yourself in these worlds is very strong and especially with the chaos of the world today, it’s easy to lose yourself. I try to make sure I keep a balance and give no ammunition to that annoying voice.
I am happy that you are getting better. I also try very often to balance real life & L2. I have a very full time job, and a wonderful girlfriend, and children. In short, I have a very rewarding life & carreer.
I have talked to many players, and most of them invest a lot more hours per week than I can afford. Some of them have important physical disabilities that impair their real life activities, others have few responsibilities beside taking care of themselves. Bottom line is that most of the people I know evolve way faster than I do.
This is not really a problem in itself, except that it becomes difficult to have a friend you will be able to level up over a long period of time with, unless that friend evolves at about the same rate as you.
I have always liked games. I discovered online games a little more than a year ago. It is hard for me to describe it, but although I am an individual who likes to go at his own pace, to take the time to look at the scenery, to do the quests and grinding on my own, I like the fact than there is a community where we can share experiences and help each other. Probably because you know that the community whishes you good and will help you when you need it. Also because it will help you do and see things that you would probably not be able to do or see by yourself. But mostly because within that community you will make friends, with which you will share great adventures and experiences.
To test the spell, I had decided to go to a field usually identified by the ruins there. I had been there before, but the area was frequently monopolized by a dwarf and a light elf pair that killed the area with mechanical precision. I’d ended up bumping against them once before when I attempted to kill one of the mobs near their killing spree. The dwarf had quickly moved in, spoiled my mob and finished it off, scooping up the pile of gold.
This is a rude behavior that is called KillStealing. Those who do that don't care about other players and therefore have no respect for them. It can happen by mistake sometimes, but then those who are respectful will say they are sorry. Very often they are professional Chinese farmers. I do not have anything against Chinese, many of them are really nice. However the professional farmers are not playing, they are working. Why Chinese ? Probably because it is a place where it is easier to be able to afford someone to farm adena & items in a game.
I worked at killing the mobs in the area, glancing occasionally with a kind of morbid fascination at the two dead characters. I didn’t understand why they just lay there. I killed for some time and eventually a second light elf came and rezzed the dead one. He ran off as the dead one cast on the dwarf. Moments later they were back to their methodical killing.
One possible explanation why the two dead people stayed n the ground would be that they waited for someone with the ressurection skill to come and ressurect them. The reason being that you can recover up to 50% of the experience you lost when you died compared to towing to town.
The whole thing fascinated me. I wondered at all that was going on behind the scenes. Why was the Dark Elf doing this? Was it because he believed his killing would help stop the farming? Did he believe that someone should do something even if it seemed futile? Or did he do it for the thrill of PKing? Would he suffer any consequences from this? Did the farmers mark him as someone to harass and kill?
I pondered all of this as I ran back to town, wondering if I’d ever see him again.
Many players take pride in killing the farmers because many of them consider farmers as a nuisance. I think they have the feeling that they did a good deed. Alas, I am not so sure they did, the dynamic of the farmers in the game having complex repercussions, of which some are positives.
Thank you very much for your kind words. I am not a professional writer, I am a professional geek. :) I just write what I think and feel so I'm happy it comes through.
I can’t sleep. I sometimes suffer from what I call ‘hamster brain syndrome’. Thoughts go round and round in my head much like the little rodent on a wheel. Spinning endlessly, but never really getting anywhere. I had gotten woken up by a phone call and now that little hamster in my mind was running around and around, robbing me of needed rest.
Work was difficult recently, challenges I can’t control, but had to accept, deal with and move on. I knew that’s what was really keeping me awake even though the current thoughts revolved around my evening's session in L2.
I had logged on for a few hours after getting home from work, hoping to make enough progress to get me almost to level 15. I logged off several hours later, with a bit less experience than when I logged on.
I’m not quite clear why I die so much more on my mystic. Well, technically I know. I get agro from some mobs I’m not prepared for, either because I get too close or don’t see one around me and I can’t outrun them, so I die.
My boyfriend is always telling me that one of the biggest failings of anyone playing is you have to pay attention to everything. If you are not constantly aware of your surroundings you run the risk of getting jumped or missing something important. Often my particular fault isn’t that I don’t see and know what is going to happen. I can see what's happening I just don’t react fast enough or in the correct way to solve the problem before it turns ugly.
For instance, as I was trying killing in one area, I noticed a fighter and did my usual round of my lowly little buffs, Might and Shield. The fighter asked if I’d like to group and since I’m trying to make friends, I said yes.
We were killing fairly well, and decided, at my suggestion, to move into an area a bit higher level where we could kill mobs slightly more difficult than we would take alone. We were doing well, he would pick out the mob and attack with a bow, I would follow up with a spell or two to help damage, while making sure to heal him.
As he moved to a new mob, I could see one higher on the hill start to move. I went to follow him to the new position. I could tell the mob was pathing toward me and I tried to get out of its way. Unfortunately, my slow little human behind didn’t move fast enough and I had a mob on me. He had pulled back his bow to hit another and I typed that I had one on me. I stood and took a couple of hits hoping he’d see it and get it off me, but he must have missed my plea in the fight spam.
I can’t take many hits from these so I quickly cast my ice spell hoping it would land. If it did, I’d have a chance to outrun the mob. I knew it was likely a vain hope since I’d never had it land on these mobs yet, but it was my only chance. I saw that dread line that ended “unaffected by ice bolt” and my heart sank.
Desperately I used a life drain on it, knowing that it was futile. I tried healing but hits interrupted my spell and with a pitiful noise my character sank to the ground. I hit the ‘okay’ button and noticed I’d dropped my boots.
As I ran back, I asked my groupmate if he’d grab my boots. They are only leather, but hey, they are all I have. He asked where they were and I tried to direct him. It soon became apparent that he hadn’t known I’d died. I was genuinely glad he’d lived, but he didn’t see my boots, so I ran hoping they’d still be there.
Unfortunately, they weren’t.
Looking around there was a farmer pair spoiling and killing and a single guy, just standing around. I asked out loud if anyone had seen any boots. I got no answer so I tried again and asked if anyone had picked any up. The single guy said he had and asked if they were mine. Now, I know that what someone finds that is dropped, is theirs. I wouldn’t have been angry at the guy if he’d kept my boots, that’s the rules of the game. Sometimes people are really nice and sometimes they aren’t. Maybe he needed them more than me. However, luck was on my side and after I said that I had dropped them when I died, they appeared on the ground next to me.
I was very grateful he’d been kind.
I put my footwear back on and we started to kill again. My partner asked if the guy would like to join us and he didn’t answer, but he then started hitting the mobs we were fighting. I wasn’t quite clear on what exactly was happening. This only went on for a couple of mobs then he moved on.
I found the whole exchange a bit puzzling.
We went back to killing, however before long, I felt trapped in a time loop as a second mob aggroed on me once again. The outcome was, unfortunately the same, (minus the dropped shoes) and since it was time to cook dinner, I thanked my groupmate and logged for the evening.
I truly enjoyed the conversation I’d had with the guy. It was nice to talk to someone and we’d killed efficiently, well…except for side trips to the town… and I hope that we can group again sometime…. I just have to figure out what to do about those adds.
Make sure as a mage, you keep your view as zoomed out as possible. That way, you can see if something spawns behind you within a decent range.
Also, not sure how your adena situation is, but keep some of those potions that make you run faster, haste I think. That way you can chug a potion, and jet. You will run faster than the mob, and live to talk about it....
I do play with the view zoomed out, I just need to be better at using that to my advantage. And, alas, I did think of buying haste potions but I choked at the price. I know someday they will not seem so very expensive, but today is not that day. :) I am going to try to keep one on hand for a last ditch effort. I will see how often I have to replace it.
Multi-player games, because they involved interaction with others are by their nature richer in variety that you can experience in single player ones. Because they involved other people, they are less predictable. In a single player game, the same actions in the same pattern will yield the same results. This is not true of multi-player games. Anytime you throw people into the mix, with their very different motivations, reactions and methods you have a mini-capsule of everyday human life. You see the best of people and the worst of people.
So far this weekend I’ve seen both.
It started on Friday evening. Work was done for the weekend and I was free to play. I wandered around a bit, eventually ending up in a field of golems near the ruins. I saw the fighter I’d played with the other day and he said hello. As we chatted just a bit another fellow ran past with a couple of mobs chasing him. My acquaintance from the other day started to chase the small train as I targeted the victim of it. I healed and both guys killed the mobs.
My acquaintance then suggested, since he was already grouped, that I group with this fellow. I was extended an invitation and after accepting I began to cast my buffs. Now I was a bit apprehensive about just accepting a random group, but I’m never going to meet people if I don’t try, so I figured at the worst, I’d die a few times.
I was pleasantly surprised.
The player began to kill golems, at first cautiously. He killed so fast I didn’t have time to help with any spells, so settled in to heal. Soon, he began to seem more confident, I believe it was seeing that I would heal him when he needed, and he started killing incredibly fast. He was a very good player.
He paid attention to what was happening. If he was fighting multiples and one agroed me, he immediately broke away to pull it off. He killed fast and efficiently and we cut through the field like the proverbial hot knife in butter.
Soon we decided to try harder mobs over the hill and we began to kill spiders. Our conversation at first was slightly limited. He typed^^ a couple of times, and I’ve seen that occasionally though I’m not exactly sure of its meaning. In the context I took it for a smile or something close.
I somehow guessed he was reluctant to tell me much about himself. Eventually I coaxed him into telling me where he was from. I understood his reluctance; after I found out he was Chinese. I’ve seen so much misplaced anger against the Chinese when the anger is really meant for the farmers. I don’t happen to care where someone is from, only how they are as a person, so his nationality didn’t matter to me.
I wasn’t dying, experience was flying and I was enjoying my halting conversation with him. The only rough spot was once when he moved to fight a pair of spiders behind a tree. I learned how tricky line of sight can be and I did not get a heal off in time. As his character crumpled to the ground I inwardly cringed. Here we had been having a good time and I’d let him die. I hadn’t known about the line of sight and healing issue previously and I apologized to my new friend.
Luckily he wasn’t angry at me and we killed a bit more before eventually he had to go. I logged soon after, feeling rather good about the evening.
The next day, I was leaving the gate of the city, thinking of what I’d do for groups. In the general channel, someone was shouting for a healer for a dungeon group. I thought about answering, but decided not to, since the other day when I’d been in the dungeon it was train after train of mobs. I had just gotten outside the gate, when a light elf caster type in yellow gear followed me and blocked my way. I’ve seen the bullyboys at the gate occasionally picking on people trying to get them to flag so they can attack them. I have not usually been a target until now.
He smacked me and I kept moving. He smacked me again and I stopped. Even if he’d annoyed me enough to hit me back, I knew by looking at him, I’d have no chance. He was obviously higher and with much better gear. So I stopped moving. If he killed me he’d be red and have that annoyance to deal with and I wasn’t far from town as it was, so the walk back wouldn’t bother me.
I was very confused by what happened next. He said, “I say who makes groups around here.” Hitting me again he called me a [Censored]. I couldn’t help myself… I replied “I’m not the one hitting people”. He stopped and said, “Fair enough” and I went on my way.
I couldn’t figure out what the heck that was all about until I saw the shout again for a healer for the dungeon group. The name was close to mine and I guess he thought I was the one trying to form the dungeon group. I mentally shrugged and moved on.
I headed back to the same field I’d had luck with the previous evening and as I passed a resting player I buffed and healed him. He asked me if I’d care to join him and I accepted. Minus the halting English and the death from line of sight problems, it was a near repeat of the previous evening. He was a very good player.
I discovered through conversation that this was an alt and his main character was a higher level Prophet. Not only was he a good player, but he was a fun and nice guy. I asked him for tips on playing and he gave me some very good pointers. I was enjoying myself and very happy I’d made a new friend.
During our conversation I pointed out a hill that usually has a dwarf/light elf player pair farming it. It was the first time in all the time I’ve played here I did not see them there. Literally any time of the day or night I log on, if I pass that hill, they are there, but this time they weren’t, so we started killing. The experience poured in.
After we’d been there for a time, the dwarf and light elf appeared and began their usual routine. They had only been there for minutes when another pair came and started harassing them, eventually killing the elf and driving them off. Although we kept one eye on what was happening, my partner and I continued our fighting. We were soon alone again, but not for long.
The light elf who had earlier been smacking me outside the gate showed up with a human female caster. They started killing the mobs we had been killing with an air of almost casual boredom and asked if we’d seen the farmers that were usually here. I said they’d been killed a bit ago. The pair proceeded to kill the mobs in our area with an ease the indicted they were far above the level of the monsters. I was again puzzled by the actions here. My partner asked them to please just let us level and after killing for a bit more, they moved on.
It wasn’t too long after that my new friend had to log and I was left pondering some of the strange things I’d seen.
I was looking for a new area to fight, since I was high enough now that most of the stuff in this area was green or blue, so I thought I’d try my hand over the hill along the coast where I’d died at a much younger age.
I’d seen another dwarf/light elf pair working that area, but I knew there were enough mobs that I wouldn’t run into a conflict unless I chose to. Sure enough the pair were there, but not for long. At some point they left and I was all alone, killing as meticulously as possible. I was making good progress and had worked it out to kill each mob with as few spells as possible, when I again saw the light elf male from my altercation at the gate.
He ran through and agroed a couple of mobs. Generally I’m not a petty minded person, so I thought perhaps I’d help and picked off the last one in his small train. I killed it, but was then very bewildered by him, since he kept running around in a pattern gathering up more and more mobs as he went. He soon had more than twenty following him. I stared in wonder, trying to figure out what he was doing. By the time it dawned on me, it was too late. I saw him coming for me and I ran, but being a human mage-type I run very slow and I’d used my one haste potion earlier. Suddenly he magically disappeared and I had twenty angry mobs whaling on me.
I didn’t last long.
Luckily I didn’t drop anything and as I headed back to the spot I pondered this guy. I understand that he’s not unusual. The game is full of people such as him, but why does he do the things he does? Why pick me out? Or did it just happen to be a coincidence and I was not the particular target? Does it make him happy to bring others grief? Does he somehow feel bigger or more important and prove he’s ‘better’ because he can do this? Or was the whole thing just a strange sequence of mistakes with him thinking I was a farmer, since I had been in two of the locations they usually work?
Although it wasn’t much more than a minor inconvenience to me, I can see how this type of behavior causes the game to lose new players. If I do continue to be this particular player’s private punching bag, I have little recourse. I can’t retaliate. He’s obviously stronger.
It is a good example of why you need friends, but also a good example of why it’s hard after a server is established. Few people are in the starter towns and many of those are there solely to grief players, so it is a dilemma. If he continues to grief me, I will have few options.
I have a very stubborn streak and I wasn’t going to let him drive me off, so I headed back to where I’d died. I wondered if he would be there when I returned, but he was no where in sight, only the mobs all bunched up in a knot from where they had dropped me. I returned to my methodical killing and eventually it was time to log.
Even long after I logged, the human interaction factor kept me thinking. I’ve heard people say the anonymity of these games brings out the worst in people. For some it does, but not for all. It’s the ‘why’ of those few that leaves me wondering…
Jute you have made my day, week, month, maybe even my year. You take the mundain and make it marvelous. I am glad you have returned to L2. We need more people like you. You are not into the "zerg" but, stop and smell the lovely lillies that gently sway next to the shining sea. ;) (ok ok I have not her talent. ) Thank you, and come visit us on the RP association site. ::coughs:: Kara is there, you really would like her. :D (I think I should give up the idea of new board Princess... I am not worthy. :eek:)
Why grief? Why PK? Ah, yes, the eternal questions. Sadly, there are no firm answers, only lots of theories. My own pet theory being pretty simple: that's just the way we're made.
Nice recounting, thoughful observations. If you're not an anthropologist, Jute, you should definitely look into becoming one! :cool:
I really appreciate people's comments. I started this not sure if others would even care to read any of my musings.
I have not thought about journaling, though I'm aware that what I'm doing is very much like it can be. As to hosting them somewhere, I'm not sure there'd be enough interest or reason to do so, but I do appreciate the offer.
And I'm not an anthropolgist, I work with computers. :)
My world is much bigger now. Today I ventured off the island and into the wide world. I took the boat from Talking Island to Gludin at the urging of one of my new friends. The long voyage made it really seem as if I were traveling far from an isolated island.
As the boat sailed my mind wandered back to my last day on the island. I had returned to the hunting spot where I’d been ‘trained’ earlier. When I got to the area I was alone. I started hunting, but I kept an eye out for the elf in yellow from the day before.
I had been killing quite some time when I decided to try the much harder spiders. My Chinese friend had come on and we talked a bit while I killed. I told him of my decision to try the spiders and he impressed me by saying that I had to be careful, if they hit me more than 4 times it was likely I’d die. He didn’t say it in those words, mind you, but that was the gist of it. I was impressed, because I knew he was right.
I had never thought about fighting things in those terms, down to the number of hits. I knew for instance, when I fight them, I must time my cast very carefully. I can’t out run them so I get off two spells before they hit me, then it is my third that hopefully kills them. The trick is I must take two hits before I can cast that third spell and it must be timed right. If I get the timing wrong, they interrupt my casting and I’m dead.
Although they are dangerous, I admit, I like the rush of adrenaline I feel when fighting them. I grip the mouse a little tighter and can feel my body tense as I cast, run and cast again. There is a sweet flood of relief when the mob dies and I scoop up my prize.
I have to be vigilant here as well, since the spiders spawn quickly and the seeming randomness of where they appear means they could appear somewhere bad for me. It’s hazardous, but exciting and I accept the risk. That’s the key, I think, accepting that you might die as a fair trade to the excitement and higher gain.
As I started my campaign to exterminate the vermin, the light elf/dwarf pair working this area appeared. They began killing golems, and I thought everything would be fine since I was killing another mob. However at one point I was casting a spell and the dwarf hit the same mob. It was completely innocent on both our parts. I hadn’t thought they would fight the spiders, since I normally don’t see them do so. However, not long after the first time, it happened again.
I hoped they didn’t think I was trying to grief them. Whenever I see these people, doing this, I have greatly mixed feelings. I was fairly sure this was a professional farming pair, and I know what their industry has done to the gaming industry, but I also know there are people behind the characters. I understand there is a complex range of reasons and emotions behind some of their actions. I know they have quotas and families to feed and I know that I have personally been involved in how negative their impact can be on the game.
I remember back when I first played Lineage II, being killed repeatedly in the Wastelands for encroaching on one of the farmed areas. However at that time (I was level 30), my boyfriend was level 54 and he came and killed them until they left me alone, making it clear that I was not to be touched. I didn’t have my white knight to save me here if I got in over my head.
I was very close to level 17 and I didn’t want to have any hassles getting there, but it appeared my hopes were in vain.
I looked up from killing my last mob and saw the light elf from the previous evening. He was talking to the farmers as if he knew them. Possibly this was an explanation and I’d gotten it all wrong. Perhaps he was one of the ‘enforcers’ I’d heard about, characters who protected the farmers from harassment by players, or who chased players out of areas that were used for farming. He wasn’t a farmer killer, he was part of the group.
I continued my killing keeping vigilant for any move from the light elf. I didn’t have to wait long. I saw him gathering up a train of spiders and he appeared to be headed back towards me. Well, two can play at the disappearing game, as he approached where I was, I logged.
I waited a few moments, and logged back on. I needed mana and the elf wasn’t back yet, so I ran to a secluded area on the hill and sat, making sure to keep watch the whole time. I wasn’t going to leave just yet, though I knew I risked dying and being set back on experience. I had such a small ways to go to reach level 17, I wanted to stick it out. I knew there were safer areas, the experience would be lower, but I wouldn’t run the risk I do here. But that stubborn streak of mine came out, they weren’t going to drive me away.
After getting full mana, I went back to fighting spiders. The elf appeared again, but just stood in the distance. One, two spells, run, spider hit, spider hit, turn cast, all the time keeping watch. Eventually, I was within two kills of my level. I quickly made those and saw the train gathering once again. I had a scroll of escape someone had given me for buffing and healing them. At the time, I’d been dismayed since I didn’t want any payment for what I’d done and I didn’t want them thinking I was begging, I’d done it just because I chose to. However, now I was very grateful for the scroll.
As the scroll cast, it became a race, would he get to me to dump the mobs before the spell fired off? As he gained momentum and closed in, I had visions of my new level lost and helplessly wished there were some way to make the cast faster. Luck was with me and as he neared my location, the screen faded and soon I was back in the village.
I was brought back from my memories by the sight of land…
When I stepped off the boat a dwarf greeted me with a ‘Welcome to Gludin’. I felt foolish for momentarily wondering if he was an NPC or someone who somehow knew I was coming. I think he was just a friendly guy and not some personal welcome committee, but still, it made me feel very good about my new adventure.
I don't have any personal dislike of twinking. If I were starting these characters on Sieghardt where my dwarves are, I would probably have done it myself.
I chose to start here on Erica because I wanted to see what Lineage II was like for anyone coming into the game now. I haven't accepted any outside equipment from people who've offered here, partially for that reason, but mostly because I wouldn't want people to give me things just because of my posts.
So, if you want to play your Mystic, by all means I encourage you not only to play but to twink to your heart's content. It is very different starting from scratch however and I am envious sometimes of people in better gear.
Talking Island’s general channel is relatively quiet with bursts of chatter. Here I was greeted by the scroll of hawkers selling everything from recipes to magnificent weapons and armor. This was interspersed with name calling and taunts by people who were apparently at odds with each other or perhaps just hungry for the attention gained by making outrageous statements.
My friend had asked me to tell him when I arrived, but he wasn’t on. I wandered around the city, lost and feeling very much like a ‘newb’. Even when I’d played before I’d spent very little time in Gludin, so I didn’t know my way around at all and activity bustled everywhere.
I walked around the city for a bit, checking out the prices of things and my heart plummeted at seeing how expensive they were. I remember from before that the only real way you could afford weapons and armor was to sell what you were using and use that cash as part of the price of the next set. While on Talking Island I had tried a couple of times to sell my used equipment, but found no buyers. Too few people needed such low level items and I ended up taking what I could get at the vendor.
As I wandered around, I wasn’t quite sure what to do. I could go work on leveling, but my friend who had coaxed me off the island was currently a couple of levels lower than I and I didn’t want to get too far ahead of him.
I had always intended to play two characters at one time. I have two accounts, two computers and I’d done it in nearly every game I’ve played. I started doing it because my guild at the time, needed extra characters, but soon found that it was great for other times, such as when I needed to do housework or anything else that interrupted playing.
But I was torn. Although I had been working on both a Fighter and my Mystic, I didn’t feel like working on the fighter right now. For quite some time I’d been wanting to create another healer. In my perfect world, I would play both a healer and buffer at the same time. However, I’m smart enough to know that a duo of this type could only advance in parties with little to no hope of duoing. This might fly in a clan group, but as a regular thing, it’s not something most players would like me doing. And at this time I didn’t even have a clan for that ‘occasional’ group..
I understand the reasons other players often dislike two-boxing in groups. They feel that one person is getting more than their fair share of the splits, often from players who play two characters much worse than they would only one. I don’t have strong feelings about it one way or another and I would never group this way with people who feel it’s unfair, but on the other hand, if both characters add value enough, I would hope that would be taken into consideration.
One of my friends had been trying to convince me to go with a Shillian Elder/Spell Howler combination, or something along those lines. I knew his advice was good but even if I chose to do this, I would need characters leveled alone for a bit. I decided, while I waited for my friend to log on, I would start a Dark Elf caster. I could choose later whether or not to continue. Right now, it was a good way to play and not pull farther ahead of my friend.
I remember the first time I ever saw the Dark Elf females. If ever I needed reminded that this game was designed by males primarily for males, all I needed to do was look at her. When I first saw the Dark Elf female, I remember being a tangle of feelings, almost indescribable in their complexity.
Here before me was a perfect example of the kind of objectification of women that I find irritating, but I knew I was being hypocritical. I found them beautiful.
Now men usually seem to have some sort of problem saying another male (or even male character) is good looking. They might comment on him looking tough, but never handsome or god-forbid, ****. We women usually don’t have any such problem. If asked if one of my friends is good looking I will gladly extol on how gorgeous she is. It doesn’t reflect in the least on my sexuality to admire beauty in my own sex, even in a video game.
I felt a bit like a traitor creating one of these dark beauties, however. I wish it were simple, but the depiction really is over the top and yet I still like playing one. That is as long as any male I group with remembers the immortal words of Jessica Rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit…”I’m not bad… I’m just drawn that way.”
I carefully created my new character and quickly leveled her to 10.
Reality called me away for a brief time and when I returned I logged back on to my human Mystic to try to make it to level 18. I set out to become the scourge of Lizardmen in the Gludin area and after killing a few I checked for my friend. He was on.
I sent him a tell to let him know I was on the mainland and asked him how his leveling was going. He said not well at all, since his healer kept accidentally healing the mobs. I knew he was frustrated so I refrained from laughing, even though there was something wickedly funny about it all. He asked where I was fighting and I described the area. In moments I saw him running towards were I was fighting. I received and accepted his invitation to group.
I really like grouping with him. He is the guy who has the higher level Prophet and wants to now make a Treasure Hunter. He has a wonderful way of helping me to learn without making me feel inadequate. His suggestions on altering my play showed me how to keep my mana up to avoid the rest times we’d been needing with my previous style of healing. He told me to sit whenever I had a chance and that made a huge difference in regeneration.
I also practiced not over-healing. I had been really paranoid about letting him die and consequently I was healing more than needed. This wasn’t anything he told me, I’d known from watching my boyfriend play his healer previously that it was something I should learn, I just feel so bad when anyone dies that I had been too cautious. My friend’s easy manner helped me to feel more confident and I soon was calculating heals much better. It really was a growing confidence in my own skill.
We had a bad break at one point and while my partner fought two mobs a third agroed on me. I took two hits while finishing my heal. My partner killed the one he was on and pulled the third off me. After the fight he surprised me with his comment.
“You’re good. That was tough and you didn’t run.”
Running had never even crossed my mind, but his compliment sent a warm glow through me. I respect his playing and his words meant a lot to me. It wasn’t the first time since I came back that I’d been complimented on my healing or playing skills, but it was the first time that I was starting to feel it wasn’t just someone saying nice things, but rather a fellow player I admire actually complimenting my skill.
Not long after he had to log and I needed my rest to face a tough day at work the next day. As I drifted off to sleep, a brief thought flickered through my mind…
Soon we decided to try harder mobs over the hill and we began to kill spiders. Our conversation at first was slightly limited. He typed^^ a couple of times, and I’ve seen that occasionally though I’m not exactly sure of its meaning. In the context I took it for a smile or something close.
I somehow guessed he was reluctant to tell me much about himself. Eventually I coaxed him into telling me where he was from. I understood his reluctance; after I found out he was Chinese. I’ve seen so much misplaced anger against the Chinese when the anger is really meant for the farmers. I don’t happen to care where someone is from, only how they are as a person, so his nationality didn’t matter to me.
I have often grouped with Chinese players. It have always been a pleasant experience. They are very good players and are very efficient. There is little need to talk about what what need to be done. They play safe, they play fast. I enjoyed each time I groupe with one or sometimes many of them.
He ran through and agroed a couple of mobs. Generally I’m not a petty minded person, so I thought perhaps I’d help and picked off the last one in his small train. I killed it, but was then very bewildered by him, since he kept running around in a pattern gathering up more and more mobs as he went. He soon had more than twenty following him. I stared in wonder, trying to figure out what he was doing. By the time it dawned on me, it was too late. I saw him coming for me and I ran, but being a human mage-type I run very slow and I’d used my one haste potion earlier. Suddenly he magically disappeared and I had twenty angry mobs whaling on me.
I didn’t last long.
Luckily I didn’t drop anything and as I headed back to the spot I pondered this guy. I understand that he’s not unusual. The game is full of people such as him, but why does he do the things he does? Why pick me out? Or did it just happen to be a coincidence and I was not the particular target? Does it make him happy to bring others grief? Does he somehow feel bigger or more important and prove he’s ‘better’ because he can do this? Or was the whole thing just a strange sequence of mistakes with him thinking I was a farmer, since I had been in two of the locations they usually work?
The reason he did that is very simple. He wanted the hunting zone for himself and his group. It is that simple. They are so efficient that they need ALL the mobs in a particular area in order to kill non stop and level fast. Therefore if someone else if hunting in the same area, the ran out of mobs.
I also recently have purchased another game box ($9.99CDN) and activated a second account.
Like you Jute, I work in IT and I don't have a lot of free time to play L2. My main char is now a level 49 Tyrant. Since I don't play often, as a matter of fact I pretty much have to cut on my sleep hours in order to play, I end up playing at odd and unpredictable hours.
The consequence is that I end up playing alone very often. A secound account therefore seemed like the best solution to minimize downtime.
Since my main char is a melee fighter, I know that my backup char have to be healer/buffer type. I therefore started a Human Mage. I know that there is many choices for those 2 roles. However it is a known fact that Bishops are by far the best healers in the game. Furthermore, I know from grouping experience that Prophets buffs (specially haste) are a super combo with my Tyrant. I haven't decided if it will be a prophet or a bishop yet, but it seemed like the best choice at this point in time.
Again , since I don't have much time to play, I asked my son (18) to start leveling it for me. After 3 days my human mage is now level 13. I sat with my son on a regular basis to explain the game and see how he was progressing, and I did partially re-lived about everything you talked about in your post here.
I can see that my son was going through all the same questions you went through. He didn't know ANYTHING about the game 3 days ago, and now he enjoyed it very much. I think he is already hooked. I mith not be able to use that second account after all lol.
The world needs more good people like you guys. I have always respected roleplayers because they are generally more thoughtful & empathetic than anyother group.
Lineage's system has given my belief system & moral code fits. I wrestle constantly with the idea that there is a player controlling the characters that are in alliance with my enemies. In 4 mmorpgs in 7 years I have always refused to party members of enemy guilds or people that help them.
It rarely comes to do I ressurect someone who died or save an enemy from death by monster? Alot of it came from having members of the enemy alliance in my group turn & kill me or watch our party die rather than help me fight off mobs that hated on me for healing. Though I see many more enemy guild members who have done nothing to me. Do I risk that they might be rerolls from the people who hurt me or just like minded hateful children?
The issue of farmers seems to be weird, I have met many nice farmers, who will rez you or buff you so that you move on to a better area or stay farther away.
I started playing 3 months ago & took december off because I saw myself sliding into some grey areas on my moral code. I can totally relate to being L2's ethics intruding past the time one spends playing the game.
Although I think role-playing is wonderful, I don't actually think of myself as one, because while playing, I'm me, not a role. I talk about mundane things. Ask questions of the person I'm playing with about how they got started in the game, etc.
Although if someone was acting in character near me, I might join in for a bit. I have no background for my character, I have no story for her.
I know role-playing is great fun, but I think more about the mechanics of the game and the person behind the pixels.
I’d left the familiarity of Talking Island to travel to Gludin at my friend’s urging; however, lately he had not been on. I’d continued to play my human Mystic rather than work on my new Dark Elf, since I was afraid I might miss him, but I was also concerned I would pull even farther ahead of his level.
Perhaps there is some command to show which people on your friends list are on-line, but I do not yet know what it is, so I must rely on occasionally sending a message as a means of finding if they are available. Over the last two days my messages had returned a negative. Since my friend didn’t know my Dark Elf’s name and he had other characters he was playing, I stayed on my human hoping that perhaps he’d just been busy with his Prophet and he’d contact me.
It was strange how I’d gone from being completely alone, when I first returned to gradually becoming more dependent on having friends in the game. It’s not that I couldn’t play by myself, I hadn’t reached a point yet where my Mystic was crippled soloing, it’s just that it was so much more pleasant to have someone to share the time, even if just through conversation. My Chinese friend had not been on for a couple of days, my lower level orc friend hadn’t been seen and even my high level Dark Elf friend who patiently answered my game questions had been missing.
I had worried a bit that they might have quit through frustrations with the game. Tensions had been high lately.
It’s fascinating to me that here I’ve met people who have brushed up against my life by playing the same game I do. I glean bits of information that gives me a small window into who they are. One friend has children, another works for an electronics store. They know I have a boyfriend and that I talk a lot. These fragments give me a tiny peek into who they are and what their life is like.
I welcome the fact that like or dislike of someone is based on things other than how good looking they are or how much money they have. Although I do know that people gravitate towards the powerful, even in game, whether or not someone chooses to befriend me is going to be based on my personality and my skill to a much greater degree than it ever can in life.
Slowly, our contact in game builds a bridge to life. I’ve played other games where I spent many hours talking, laughing and even arguing with people. When I’ve left those games I occasionally find myself wondering about them, wishing them well and being a bit sad that our contact was lost. It was through a game that I met the man I love, so I know that lasting connections can happen.
As I thought about my absent friends I killed bears and watched my surroundings. An orc was killing nearby and I buffed and healed him. He thanked me and continued to kill. I noticed he had a “Looking for Group” tag on and hoped he might invite me. He didn’t however, so I killed another bear. After a bit he sat, I presumed because he was hurt, and I healed him again. I suddenly realized it was silly for me wait for him to invite me, since he obviously was open to grouping or he wouldn’t have the tag, maybe he felt, and rightly so, that was advertisement enough.
After healing him, I tentatively asked if he’d like to group. He said sure, and invited me to join him.
We chatted while he killed and I learned he was yet another high level player who had re-rolled. He said he’d been booted from his guild for not playing enough and I had a great deal of sympathy for him, since my hectic life means I don’t play as often as I’d like.
Now, I realize that anyone could tell me anything. I tend to take what people say at face value and augment it with my own observations of how they act. Are they selfish? Do they take all the loot and never offer to share? If I show interest in them, do they in turn show interest in me? If I offer to help them with something they need, are they in turn happy to help me?
I’ve always tried to judge someone not on what others say, but on how they act and my understanding of those actions.
He was another good player and he wasn’t selfish. When I commented on his skill at keeping mobs off me, he said that a dead healer most often meant a dead tank. He laughed when I returned that a dead tank most often meant a dead healer, so I did my utmost to keep him healed.
I really enjoyed playing with him and my confidence as a healer had been steadily growing now over my last few play sessions. We were fighting yellow mobs and we could easily take two. There was a knot of three and he hesitated, saying two he could handle, but probably not three. However, I knew we could do it. So I told him to let me get full mana and we could take them.
Later, I realized what faith he must have had in me, since he had mentioned a couple of times how important it was for him to get his level that night. If I failed him here, it would be a setback to that goal, so he trusted me.
I stood up, ready and told him to attack. I made sure I was back far enough to not easily transfer agro and began healing. It’s always a challenge when a tank is taking damage fast. The regular heal spell is slow, but the faster cast spell takes much more mana. My friend the re-rolled Prophet had told me earlier to never use Battle Heal unless a tank was in trouble, but in cases like this with multiples, you have to have a faster casting heal.
The balance is healing enough, using the right spells, and trying not to gain agro. You absolutely will get agro at some point when you have three mobs attacking one person with no back up to help with adds, so the trick is to make sure you can live through the time you will have one on you. This was one time I made all the right decisions and as the last mob hit the ground he let out a “Woot!”. Small accomplishment, but I felt the glow of pride. That simple exclamation had let me know he felt the same.
We fought for awhile longer and eventually the streaming pillar of light graced my new friend.
I was tired and had a rough day coming up the next day in the Corporate world, so I bid him farewell and logged.
I hope I see him again, though who knows, the transitory nature of a game, sometimes means other things take precedence. But, I hope I do…
Awesome Story, I havent twinked my Mystic, but I am going to the store to buy a new game box today for another account to start a Mystic on, Probably go healer as I have always been attracted to healers. I also must buy a new gamecard because mine runs out tommorow....Keep fighting and keep us updated! Great Story :D
Work was finished for the day, my boyfriend and his dog had their dinner (though not the same one, much to the dog’s dismay), and the wide world of Aden called.
My previously small world was growing larger. I’d finally reached level 19 on my Mystic and proceeded to get the class quest. I was directed to Gludio as my next stop. So the previous night after getting the quest, just before logging I’d run there.
As soon as I logged on, a message popped up from a previous acquaintance. He asked what I was up to and I explained I was working on my class quest. Having previously only done the dwarf one, I had no idea how involved or not the Mystic to Cleric change would be. He mentioned that he could really use a healer for what he was working on and I volunteered to take time from my quest and help him.
He met me outside the town and led me to an area near Dion. He hadn’t requested a group yet, so I sent him an invitation. He declined and said he had to be ungrouped. I explained that I couldn’t see his HP if I wasn’t grouped with him, which would make healing him a bit difficult. It wasn’t something I really cared to try, since we were about the same level and the mobs he was looking to kill were deep yellow. I was too concerned that without being able to properly time the heals, I would miss something and he would die.
He reluctantly admitted that I had a point and we grouped. The field where he had brought me was full of agro mobs, but he indicated he was only interested in one type. I was used to my style of play where if I wanted only a specific mob, I still cleared other agro mobs in the area, to avoid getting an unexpected add, so I was a bit nervous when he wound around unwanted mobs to target his.
However, no additional mobs agroed and with my healing him, he was able to kill the Tumran Bugbear. He indicated he hadn’t received the quest drop he was trying for and once again said he thought he had to be ungrouped. Now, in my previous play, I tested quite a bit with my two dwarves and every quest I ever did was okay grouped, it was just that whoever got the last hit got the quest drop and since I wasn’t hitting, I was sure it would be fine.
He seemed unconvinced when I mentioned the ‘last hit’ theory, but he killed another. No drop. This was apparently the 12th or 13th mob he’d killed with no drop. On a hunch, I used my second computer to check for the class change for knight and saw that he did indeed need to kill Bugbears, but Bugbear Raiders and not the Tumran.
I informed him we were in the wrong place and he headed back to Gludio. He moved faster than I did and was soon out of sight in the city, so I headed east, in the direction I thought the mobs were, and soon located them. In group chat he sounded frustrated and it became apparent he’d gone another way. I told him how to get there and before long he was with me and we attempted the first mob. As the Bugbear hit the ground, he received his first quest drop.
He then said that these were much easier and indicated he’d rather fight alone.
Now, I know how L2 is. When you fight with someone, you split the drops and the XP and the prevailing wisdom is that it’s better to level alone whenever possible. Earlier, I’d also felt that part of his reluctance to group was his reluctance to share the XP or Adena or both. Now I felt that was confirmed.
I dropped group and left without a word.
I resumed my interrupted quest and after a time I received a tell from my former groupmate.
“Are you mad at me?” and shortly after another “I wouldn’t blame you if you were.”
I honestly answered that I wasn’t mad. Mad to me means angry and angry is a very volatile emotion. Instead I was more…I guess, sad.
I didn’t go into that, but perhaps I should have.
This is a game and people play it in the way they feel will give them the most enjoyment. I play my way and others play theirs. I don’t really blame him for wanting to gain any advantage he can, I just hope he also understands that in the future, I won’t drop what I’m doing to help him.
Will I help him again? Yes I will, because I believe in giving people more than one opportunity. Will I help him another time if the situation is similar? No…
I feel we need the support of others in this game. If we don’t have it, we fail. For me, that’s the real ‘win’ of L2.
I feel that Jute, as a cleric my one & only wish is for a friend :p My old clan didn't understand that, then they insulted the closest thing to friends I had.
At levels 35 - 40 almost bishop - I have 4 invites a day to this or that clan. People always ask for a duo - but when they ding - they instantly run to town to skill up & I don't hear from them for a day or two. There's never an invite asking if I wish to come with or question of if I wish to continue.
I miss my friends from real-life whom played & I miss my 18-24 hunt partner Elfstorm. It's lonely at the top I hear, but its like being in HS again when everyone wants to be your friend after winning the game for me now.
Makes me wish I wasn't a cleric, then I'd have an easier time right off the bat telling who was worthwhile as a person.
A vivid vision danced through my head of the dark elf rooted, sleep cast upon him as horde of low-level players pummeled him to death. The last thing his eyes beheld was me, cavorting upon his corpse. I pressed the button that would return me to the spawn point and enjoyed for a moment my fantasy. It was the third time he’d killed me in two days and now I was back to level 18.
My first encounter with the Dark Elf had begun innocently enough. I’d been soloing lizards at the Windmills outside of Gludin when I saw a player with a deep red name coming my way. I stopped and watched him, naively. I’d seen several red named players but none had ever harassed me. They had just continued on to whatever destination they had in mind. This elf however stopped next to me. I was about to say a friendly hello when, BAM! I was hit for 1034 damage.
I wasn’t truly upset, just slightly annoyed. I’d finished my class change quest and I was trying hard to get out of level 19, since I hadn’t gotten much XP doing the quest, this had put me back to almost to 18. I mentally shrugged and headed back out. As I went back to killing, I kept an eye out for the Dark Elf but did not see him. Soon, however, it was time to finish making dinner, so I logged for a bit to tend to the mundane.
After an hour or so, I was able to log back on and resumed killing lizard men. I’d been at it for long enough to gain 10% into level when I saw the name of my killer flash by in general chat. He was shouting for the newbies in the Lizard area to run, since he was unhappy.
I was fairly sure what that meant. I was in the middle of a nasty fight, I’d gotten an unexpected add and was low on health. I tried to finish quickly so I could move to safety. I killed the first one and was within one strike of killing the second, when I saw him. My heart plummeted. He stood there, watching me and I had an incredible feeling of helplessness. If I turned and ran, the mob would kill me. If I didn't run, I knew what he'd do. I finished off the mob and didn’t even have time to turn as he once again hit me for 1034. It was so casual and calculated the way he stood there waiting. It reminded me of a poisonous spider with it's victim trapped helplessly in a web.
Since my immediate reaction was intense frustration, I took a moment to calm myself. I reminded myself that if I got overwhelmed by this, I might as well cancel the game now, since this was the way it is and no amount of my screaming ‘unfair’ would make the slightest bit of difference.
As I stood near the edge of town, contemplating the mechanics of the game, I saw my red named nemesis slip into town and disappear around a corner. I mentally sighed and knew this was my best chance. I headed out of town and instead of fighting the Lizards near the Windmills, I kept going farther out towards Forgotten Temple.
I found a nice spot and once again started killing. A light elf with a bow was near me and I cast my Level 1 Might and Shield on him. He stopped for a moment and I could sense something interesting about him. I heard the music from a recommendation and I sent my usual tell, thanking him but telling him a recommendation wasn’t necessary. He told me he appreciated my kindness. We chatted a bit more and he asked if I’d seen a dwarf around here, giving me a name I did not recognize. I told him I hadn’t. He then advised me to take care, as the person he was hunting was a player killer. I said I’d been killed earlier, but not by that name. He asked me who and I gave the name of the dark elf to the best of my memory. He then said he would watch for that one as well, as his clan apparently tries to help the younger players by hunting such vermin when they hear of a problem. I smiled at my monitor, happy to know that someone cared to help try to stem the frustration I’d felt a short while ago.
I fought for awhile longer, uneventfully, and then logged for the evening.
The next time I played my human mystic I was again near the Windmills outside of Gludin. I had been invited to group with a female dwarf with a nonsensical name. I’d accepted the group and we’d made slow but steady progress for about half an hour. My partner had just attacked a spider when I saw a female orc crumple to the ground, hovering over her lifeless body was the dark elf of the previous day.
I yelled “RUN” in group chat, but my partner did ‘not english’ as he’d told me earlier and I’m afraid he didn’t understand. By this time, the dark elf had glanced around and I could feel I was his next target.
This time, however, I’d make him work for it. As he moved toward me I knew I couldn’t outrun him, but by god I’d try. I gained a small bit of satisfaction as I saw him strike and miss as I sprinted for the guards. He pursued me and I swerved as I ran. He struck again and he missed again. However, third time was the charm. One last swift strike and I was dead. I’d also lost my level hence the visions of torment that danced through my head.
I didn't immediately return to town and I watched helplessly as my partner's health dropped. The dark elf stood there watching the dwarf, much as he had me the day before. I didn't see if he was the one who killed her or if it was the spider, but my dwarf companion's lifeless body lay next to the silent killer.
My group was suddently disbanded and I was dismayed that perhaps my partner hadn't seen I'd been Player Killed and just thought I'd deserted him. Nothing left to do but respawn in town.
I expressed my frustration in a message to one of my friends. He rather pragmatically told me that the problem was Gludin’s location. There just weren’t any high levels around to deal with the problem so it was a popular PK location. I could see he was right and vowed to try to come back here when I was higher to help when I could so perhaps others might not have to go through the same type of thing.
I thought about why I was so frustrated. I really wanted level 20 and I’d let myself get caught up in that, so when the inevitable happened, it hit me much harder than it would have earlier. Realizing that, I decided to log for a bit rather than let myself get too annoyed.
As I logged, I indulged just for one more moment in my fantasy… Someday…someday.
My friend, who had re-rolled from the Prophet, was back. Apparently he had been ill and unable to play for a few days. I was really happy to know he was okay now and that he hadn’t left the game. I’d missed the company of a friendly face, even if it was only a pixilated one.
I had left Gludin to go to the Ruins of Despair. Soloing had now moved into the realm of slightly more difficult and I knew it was due, in great part, to my less than optimal equipment. Better equipment required more adena, and my boyfriend had recommended I try the Grim Collector quest, so here I was.
My friend was still a couple of levels lower than me and he told me he was trying to get someone to come powerlevel him. I continued my eradication of various skeletons and hoped he’d find a willing helper. Eventually, however, he sent me a tell asking if I’d like to group since he’d been unable to find anyone to help him level. He had earlier suggested grouping with my Dark Elf and I hesitated a moment. I was somewhat concerned that her low level (she had just turned 13) would mean I couldn’t adequately heal him. I didn’t have the faster casting heal and from grouping with him previously, I knew this could be important.
I expressed my concern and he assured me it would be fine, so I soon relogged with my little Dark Elf. I was faced with quite a long run, since she was still in the starter village and my friend was outside of Gludin, but I opened up my map and headed the correct direction. In my previous play in L2 as the Dwarves, much like with Talking Island, I’d never ventured into this area and it was rather exciting to see a new part of the game.
It was a fairly uneventful run, if you don’t count gawking at the new sights, dodging the spider and outrunning the orc, and soon the town walls were within sight. I carefully picked my way through the town, passing the vendors who clog the walkways. As I headed out the south town exit, I felt a tremor of apprehension and caught myself looking for the Dark Elf from the previous day.
I needn’t have worried as he was nowhere in sight and soon I spied my friend. We grouped, I buffed him and we began our play.
XP for my Dark Elf was very good and I was enjoying the company. As was usual, I chatted away about all kinds of things and he returned the banter. Talking with my friend, I had a vague feeling of unease that I could not readily define. My friend was very effusive with the compliments and he had recently started calling me ‘sweetie’. It gradually dawned on me he was flirting with me.
I know many people view flirting as just being friendly and since L2 is a worldwide game, there are also cultural differences. To many of them doubtless it means less than nothing. I am never quite sure how to respond to things like that. I don’t flirt in game, not because I have anything against flirting itself, but because I’m in a committed monogamous relationship. I made a decision a long time ago that I would not do anything in my relationship that I wouldn’t want done to me. I’ve seen a number of ‘innocent’ game flirtations turn into something much more real. I have known couples whose marriages have fallen apart after one spouse or the other was caught taking the virtual into reality. That’s a far, far messier situation than I care to have intrude on my life, so I just avoid it.
Maybe I am reading them wrong and maybe I’m not, but this puts me in a very uncomfortable situation, since I don’t want to offend anyone if they are just being friendly. I really enjoy the grouping and I like having someone to talk to in game; however I don’t want him to get the wrong impression or encourage him to think I welcome it. So, instead of being firm and making a mountain out of a molehill, I take the coward’s way out. I make sure to mention my boyfriend in situations like this, hoping he will understand that though I enjoy spending time in game with them, it’s just a game.
Before I could figure out a good way to handle things, my human friend abruptly had to log and I went back to playing my human mystic. I had no sooner cleared the log on screen when I received a message from the orc friend I’d leveled with a few days before. I’d had a brief conversation with him the night I’d been PKed and was really happy to hear from him.
Of all the people I’ve grouped with, this orc is definitely one of my favorites. He has never made me feel the slightest bit of discomfort by flirting, but he’s a very friendly and easy going type of guy. He’s also a very good player with a good sense of humor and… well, he’s kind.
He invited me to help him beat back the Ol’Mahum menace, citing how much I helped with downtime. Now, I knew I did help with downtime, but I also knew the main reason he was asking was to benefit me, since he could slice through these mobs with only minimal damage. Through our conversations he knew how much I wanted to get level 20 and he also knew I’d been having a hard time with the PKing, so I am positive his solution was to offer help and giving me an easy way to accept by letting me know it was also a benefit to him.
I accepted and made the run to the Abandoned Camp. He killed with methodical precision while we chatted and after awhile I was showered in light. He had to log at that time for a bit and I gleefully went to Gludin to get my new spells.
Wind walk to humans is like the kiss of an angel!
I suppose there are other skills I might have better spent my SP on…but well, none that I can think of that would have given me the pure joy that this one did.
For the next 10 minutes I cast Wind Walk on anyone within range. Ahhh, sometimes the simplest pleasures are the best!
Wow! Awesome last 2 entries, these are great! I hope you keep writing, it keeps me and probably some other people from dwelling on the bad and passing by the good of L2
I’d had worse days at work, but they usually entailed hospital visits. Like the time I surprised the burglar in my office. I used to love my job, but lately it was very difficult. I don’t do office politics well and unfortunately, there seems to be little recourse to avoid them.
I was really looking forward to some low stress playtime.
Since my human was now officially a cleric I decided to concentrate on my dark elf. I logged onto my human briefly, just to check if any of my friends were on. Very few of them knew both characters’ names, not because it was any kind of secret, but simply because they had met me as one and I had not seen them online when I was on the other.
Technically I had three characters, but my fighter had been languishing, neglected while I leveled the healers.
My human friend was on, but he didn’t seem inclined to chat, and the only other friend around was the higher level one who knew both characters. I soon switched to my dark elf and settled in to level.
I had spent some time the night before setting up my second laptop to play L2. It was a much faster machine; however it didn’t have the greatest video card. I knew I’d need to have two computers soon if I wanted to try my slightly whacked plan of leveling two healers. As it was, the few friends I’d made in the game were beginning to pull ahead of me in levels. Soon they would outdistance my ability to effectively play with them.
I was faced with a small dilemma. It was important to me to play the game slower this time around. Last time, I pushed hard to level my dwarves, partially to try the impossible task of keeping up with my boyfriend and I had found the process frustrating. This time I wanted to go at a much more measured pace. I wanted the time to observe the world around me and participate to the fullest I could in every level, not just the higher ones. I wanted to learn my characters’ strengths and weaknesses. I want to be a really good player, not just an adequate one.
However, this might mean I would be faced with a constant turnover of leveling partners, since most of the people I’d met so far were re-rolls. Understandably they wanted to move out of the ‘newbie’ levels as quickly as possible. They already knew the benefits of higher levels, so being lower level was mostly a necessary evil on the way to their former glory. This also usually meant they had the means (adena, armor and weapons) to level fast. Because of all this, chances were good I would not be within their range long unless I compromised some of my own personal goals.
My higher level friend also hoped I’d move along a bit faster, since the areas I fought in were far away from his current haunts. He’d been very patient with both my questions and my refusals of his help…well, maybe tolerant is a better word for the later rather than patient. I was honestly grateful for his offer of items and I’d tried to explain my reasoning for refusal. It’s not out of some noble gesture; it’s out of a rather selfish desire to not owe anyone more than I’m willing or able to pay. That and I’m particularly conscious of the fact that in L2 I could easily loose whatever gift had been bestowed with a single death. I would feel awful if someone gave me an uberstaff-of-whatever and I died and lost it.
His help had been invaluable in answering my questions and I’d had a fun time the previous evening after being introduced to Teamspeak. My high level friend had encouraged me to join their clan chat and it had been quite amusing listening to their banter and occasionally interjecting comments of my own.
I was distracted at the time trying to set up the second computer so I know I missed much but it was fascinating to hear the deep rich tones tinted with unfamiliar accents. It is definitely easier talking to someone than typing, but at the same time it can be confusing because without the visual cues to know that someone is speaking, you can easily tromp on another conversation. And since my boyfriend was also trying to talk with me in the background it was doubly confusing.
The number of people in the chat was relatively low, I can’t imagine how much more confusing it can get with a large number of people all trying to talk at one time.
This encounter with others mixing real life and the game brought me to another quandary. As I interact more and more with others, the chance becomes much higher that someone will at some point recognize themselves here. I haven’t sorted out how I feel about all of that, just brushed up against the thought and found it slightly uncomfortable. However soon, I’ll have to come to some peace with it and what it means for my writing.
I cast the heal for the second time and my partner’s health didn’t rise as expected… yet again. That was when I noticed I had targeted myself. I mentally kicked myself and switched targets, going over in my mind how horrible that could have been if we’d had two mobs on him and not just one.
Earlier my partner had commented on how quiet I was and asked if I was okay. My normal breezy banter was virtually non-existent and I’d truthfully answered that I was very tired. This incident showed just how tired I was.
I hate it when I make mistakes in game, especially ones as stupid as buffing or healing the wrong person. You see, I want to be a good player. Not just passable, but someone people recognize has a high degree of skill. I don’t know that I’ll ever achieve the degree of skill I desire, but the aspiration to reach it burns brightly. I know why I feel this way. In part, it’s because I hate letting anyone down. But mostly I think it’s because my boyfriend is such a great player and I want very much for him to be proud of me as a gamer.
I’m sure to some people that seems silly. It’s not like I’m helping lepers in India or solving the problem with world hunger. It is after all just a game.
In whatever game he’s been in, he has always been in one of the top guilds. He is highly sought after for his skill. In many of the games we’ve played together, I’ve been invited into the same guild he is in. I don’t want to be a part of a group who invites me because I’m so-and-so’s girlfriend. I want to be able to stand on my own merit and be invited because of my skill, not because of his.
He never denigrates me and he is always encouraging, but I cringe every time I make what is in reality a totally preventable mistake. He tells me I’m harder on myself than anyone else. Perhaps he’s right, but it is only me who can make the improvements necessary.
I find it highly ironic that I shun the self-label of ‘powergamer’. I will cheerfully tell you that is not my style of gaming. But, sometimes I wonder if my distance from that badge is in actuality only a degree of separation. My pace is slower, but I still have the drive for excellence that is apparent in many of those who bear the label. Even if I have few of the rest of the trappings, the drive to succeed is definitely far from casual.
I decided rather than risk my partner’s XP I’d log.
Occasionally I feel guilty for working so hard to be good at a video game. In the grand scheme of things it won’t ever matter if I ever am. But in my own little corner of the world, I will continue to pursue my own definition of excellence.
Well, you made a mistake. Fortunately there was no consequences to your mistake.
The good point is that you realised you made one and that you will be more careful in the future. It's called learning & gathering experience.
BTW I am exactly like you...I constantly have the urge to be the best. I guess it's because I am competitive. I remember younger how much I wanted to win, even at simpler games, like cards games.
I wanted to win and work hard at it...the urge and desire to win was very powerful..and I would never loose hope, even when it was almost evident that I would loose.
I guess it must be because I find winning very rewarding...also probably also because you get recognition from your peers.
Anyway, like you I can't put in much time in the game (15-20 hours/week)....and I find it frustrating. I HAD to settle for less than being part if the ubber players.
However, I have the satisfaction of knowing that I am a very good player, and that I will be able to group, play my role correctly and not made too many mistakes (yes' I still make some).
I spent 75% of my playing time in duo, with a player that was extremely experimented, methodical ...and prudent.
Now that I am 49 (soon to be 50), I solo a bit more. I like going my own pace. I can spend 2 hours in the same spot slowly and carefully using my HP & MP & SS to kill as many mobs as possible before having to sit. Collecting the coins that I would use to get all of my C-grade jewelries.
I also joined a clan where I have a chance to join bigger groups and hunt higher level mobs (55-65). I group with larger group when I am tired of soloing.
My reward and recgonition doesn't come from being the best. It comes from the satisfaction of knowing how well I can solo (in every little aspects), and how well I can play in a group, knowing that I am bringing a meaningful contribution to it.
Even with chain casting my heal, I could see her life slowly edging downward, the strong poison leaking her life away every so slowly. I tried using Blessed Spiritshots and was able to keep pace with the decline. My mana drained quickly and soon the cleric took over, her much more powerful heals clearly evident.
Earlier in the day, my high level friend had explained to me how they were going to do a quest to move one of their clans to 4th level. He had asked if I wished to come along. I’d expressed my feeling that I might be more of a hindrance than anything and he’d assured me that would not be the case. After some hesitation, I’d decided to go ahead and tag along. If nothing else I would get to meet some new people and see a part of the game I’d never seen other than from the distance of my boyfriend’s computer screen.
I’d been working on my Dark Elf, hoping that I could get close to level 20 this weekend. I had been making very good progress killing spiders in the Dark Elf newbie area. After the assurance I eagerly agreed to join and was to meet my friend in Giran, a long trip from the relative safety of the starting town. I knew my way to Giran, as I’d spent many a day in the surrounding area in my previous incarnation as the Dwarves. I was somewhat concerned about the possibility of agro mobs along the roads, but I felt confident I could make it to the far city with a bit of luck and fortitude.
I needn’t have worried. Things have changed a lot since I last played, at least with mob placement and agro status, consequently traveling seems much easier. I had held my breath on the run from Dion past the execution grounds, where in my past life, Enku Orcs had often chased me, pecking away at my life as they pursued. However, the orcs were no where in sight and it wasn’t long before the safety of Giran town walls lay ahead.
As the Dwarves Giran had become the city of choice. At that time, it had a lot of people, but was never as crowded as some of the other cities, like Gludio. Oh my god had times changed!
I couldn’t believe the crowds. People everywhere! Stores packed all along the walkway scattered about in a random fashion making it nearly impossible to walk through. All it lacked was the noise of hawking vendors. I didn’t even look at any of the shops since I knew by the very location of the city the items offered for sale would be out of my level and grade range.
Before long my friend found me and I grouped with the cute little Dwarf. I had joined the clan’s Teamspeak and although I easily reconciled myself to the masculine voice behind the little girl character, I could see how some people would find it jarring. Soon we grouped up with another of his clanmates, a Dark Elf female and headed for Hunter’s village. Along the way a kind elf buffed us and we picked up a third friend a light Elf male.
So there is one phenomenon I’ve often seen among guys playing together that I simply don't understand and these were no exception. All along the way at various points in time the friends would taunt each other with the occasional blow. The constant exchange of mock combat had their names either purple or blinking for most of the trip. It reminded me of nothing so much as schoolboys wrestling and taunting. Several times I was glad my microphone was muted as I chuckled over their antics.
They took great care however, of me. Always conscious of my low level (they were more than twice my current level of 17), they vigilantly made sure to keep agro mobs from coming my way and it wasn’t long before we entered the village. I felt like the small sister of larger protective brothers and the feeling warmed me.
I didn’t quite get the details, but apparently a couple of them were working on a quest they wanted to try to do some of before the get together for the clan leveling quest. After visiting the quest giver in Hunter’s Village we headed out again.
I was soon taken into an area of the game I’d never seen. As we went through the Forest of Mirrors I was hard pressed to pay attention to the chatting around me as my attention was riveted on the new sights. My eyes delighted to see new scenery and new mobs and I laughed with glee when my companions killed a mirror, the tower falling (splat!) and squishing the small demons underneath.
Eventually we reached our destination and I was given strict instructions to not heal even if they were dying. It would be difficult for me, but I understood their reasoning. And besides, I’d seen what a miniscule amount of hit points my best heal could return. So even if I wanted to save them, I wouldn’t have the means.
They efficiently dispatched the various mobs, the schoolboy taunting gone with the seriousness of keeping alive. It was almost time to go and there was one more mob apparently needed. The Dark Elf female attacked and killed her target. Suddenly all hell broke loose and a handful of lizard’s spawned…and ran straight for me.
One massive hit and I was dead and one level lower. I laughed at the randomness of it all. Unfortunately I found out the Dark Elf female had apparently also died. It would only take me about 25 minutes of grinding to return my level, I knew she would not be so lucky. We all met up back at Hunter’s Village and headed out to the meeting place for the quest, the Dark Elf female softly bemoaning his lost level over Teamspeak.
At the sight, my friend’s dwarf disappeared and he returned with a Dark Elf male. Teams were divided up and I was assigned with two others to stay here. ‘Here’ was at the Ivory Tower. Again a place I’d never been and I was oh so tempted to explore, but I knew that would be nothing more than a quick trip to the nearest respawn point.
I wasn’t really clear on what was going to happen. I thought I was just going to be an observer, but eventually I found out I had a small part to play. I watched the quest begin to unfold and was impressed by how this one apparently was put together. Three characters had to give their life and a fourth had to drink deadly poison and wait, her life slowly ticking away while the others raced for a cure. Although I obviously didn’t get to see the whole quest, I thought it was clever.
There had been a bit of a mixup about the time and consequently there apparently weren’t as many healers as they had thought there would be. That meant just two of us lower levels grouped with the Poisoned Dark Elf, trying to keep her alive while the others frantically searched for the cure.
My Human Cleric groupmate was very nervous. She was anxious over our ability to keep the ahead of the poison for the time needed and so invited an additional low level healer friend to come help. I’m not sure we actually needed it, but the help was welcome and we easily kept the Dark Elf adequately healed.
The various groups returned and the cure was given. The higher levels broke up to pursue their own goals and my friend gave me the means to make it home safely.
I knew they hadn’t needed me but it was very kind of them to include me in their group and even more so to give me a small job where I felt useful. I have come to understand that is more important to when in groups and hopefully eventually in a clan. I want to feel that my contribution is useful.
Eventually back in the familiar lands of the Dark Elf, it didn’t take me long to regain that lost level and even add one more. As I killed, I knew it would be a very long time coming before I was high enough to really contribute to a clan, but I would continue to work towards my goal, one spider at a time.
The email was brief and to the point, something along the lines of how evil I was. I chuckled to myself and replied.
Although we’d never met, J had been my friend for several months now. It was a rather odd twist that we’d become friends at all, but I was certainly glad we had. During the closed beta of WoW, I’d gotten to know J’s roommate. He (the roommate) was a really awesome player and playing with him was one of the best grouping experiences of any game I’d ever been in, simply because his playtime and style fit very well with mine. We became friends in game and eventually it spilled over into life. We emailed occasionally and during the course of one exchange J had gotten copied on the emails. I would talk to him in game, since he was in the Beta as well, and always enjoyed our conversations.
When WoW went live, I ended up on different servers than both of them, so I could no longer party with either of them in game. Somehow it evolved into emailing daily with J, talking about the game and other things and my friendship with the roommate faded while my friendship with J blossomed. It’s funny sometimes how easy you can get to know people you’ve never laid eyes on.
J was one of the first people I told when I was considering returning to L2. He encouraged me to play if I really wanted to, although I felt he hoped I’d stay with WoW. When I started playing again and writing my stories, I asked him for his feedback, since I respect his opinion. He dutifully read them for me and gave constructive feedback, but I never had any idea where this would lead.
Occasionally he’d mention that he was a bit disenchanted with WoW and I jokingly told him to come play L2 with me. I never for a minute thought he would take me up on it. His current email reviled me as evil because my stories had made him want to try Lineage II.
I wrote back cautioning him that L2 was a far cry from WoW and that it was a very difficult game. I should have known how a guy would take that. His next email fairly bristled asking if I was insinuating he wasn’t tough enough for my game. I laughed again.
Maybe I am evil.
I carefully explained that it wasn’t that at all, I just didn’t want to be responsible for someone plunking down hard earned cash on a game they would end up hating. But, despite my warning, or perhaps because of it, he went out and purchased a copy.
Sunday was going to be my day to grind. I wanted to get both my characters the same level so I could start playing them simultaneously. I was less than 15% from gaining level 19 when I got his tell.
He’d installed the game, created a dark elf and already made it to level 4. I let out a real world whoop of joy. I had really liked grouping with him the time I’d done it in WoW. He was fun to play with and knew what he was doing as a player, two of my top criteria. I asked if he knew how to get to the Dark Elf village and at his affirmation activated a scroll of escape.
I knew from our previous emails that he was going to go the route of a dagger class. I had stashed some equipment I’d received as drops or from quests in the warehouse just in case I later wanted to create such an alt. I withdrew it and handed it over to him.
It was fun to look at the game through the eyes of someone who had never played. He had lots of questions and a handful of comments. He hated the downtime and found the interface clunky but appreciated the beauty of the world and characters. I followed him around for awhile healing him, not that he needed it. He was doing just fine.
I knew chances were he would end up leaving the game, since the grind is hard for most. I knew he’s disliked that part of Final Fantasy when he’d played it. I honestly don’t mind it. Perhaps it’s odd, but sometimes I find the repetitive killing soothing. The downtime on weekends allows me to intersperse chores with playing. The laundry gets done and I get a level.
Something I’d also learned from playing a game with virtually no downtime was how it affected your sense of community. Even if people hate the downtime, they usually fill it with conversation and you slowly get to know a lot about the people you play with, creating friendships and a communal bond. So, even if the downtime is occasionally annoying I like the purpose it serves and try to keep that in mind.
One of the reasons I’d loved playing with J’s roommate was how we’d always played together at the same time and stayed the same level. It was wonderful always having a partner that meshed well with your class. It made me understand how tight-knit groups of players formed and why they stayed together. It was so much more enjoyable.
I doubted my friend would actually play too much, since I knew he still really liked his characters in WoW. Because I wasn’t sure how his playtime would work and I wanted a character I could level with him, I decided to create someone new. I also have this totally ludicrous idea that I want to level to at least 40 one of each healer class. I am well aware that chances are slim it will ever happen, but I took this as an excuse to create a Light Elf. As those of you with more experience in the game have likely figure out, I wasn’t thinking far enough ahead.
He had leveled to 9 and I knew I could easily catch up. I created my Elf, quickly made it to level 7 and went to train. That’s when the problem dawned on me. If we were going to level together, it would obviously have to be in the same place. Because of the backstory, the elves and dark elves hated each other and there would be no way I could train in the dark elf city. I also remembered the annoying little problem with respawn on death. I couldn’t respawn there either.
Now, I’m faced with another quandary. I can create another dark elf, but I really wanted to play a healer with him, since I believe it will be better over all and I love playing healers. I can try to play the Light Elf and deal with the issues or I can scrap the idea totally and just stick with the characters I currently have.
I’m not sure yet what I’ll do. A lot of it will depend on my friend. He may not play much, but then on the other hand… I just got another email reminding me of my evilness because he would rather not be at work.
LOLZ, I love it jute -- I sent the same email to my rl friends when they got me in past level 12. I had a dream about L2 the other day & i never dream either!?!
My character lay crumpled on the ground, my throwing knife tantalizingly within reach. I could run my cursor over it, but being dead prevented me from picking it up. I watched helplessly as one of the Dark Elves I had seen previously killed the skeleton that, with the help of lag, had killed me. I was sure he’d pick up my knife, and I waited wanting to at least get a name to see if I could negotiate its return.
I held my breath. I had been fairly certain earlier that this character was a bot. Either that, or an extremely dumb player. I’d watched as he had stood pinned on one side of a fence with a skeleton archer on the other side, pecking away at his life. I stared in fascination as he took shot after shot. Somehow I knew he’d stand there until his character died and for some unknown reason, rather than let him die I killed the archer. The Dark Elf had then immediately moved to another area and sat. His movements, like his killing mechanical.
Now, I wondered how he’d react to my knife and I held my breath waiting.
I’d gotten the knife through a lucky drop from a spider. I’d been really happy about it, since it was the second highest NG dagger, at least I had a chance of selling it. The lower NG stuff would have to be sold for much less than it’s worth to a vendor, since so few new characters were around, there was no market for the lower items. Top NG had a good market and near top could often be sold as well. I was in desperate need of a new weapon and I was hoping the sale of the dagger would augment the funds I had gotten from another lucky drop of a bone club.
I let out a sigh of relief as the Dark Elf moved past me.
As I lay there, pondering what to do, I got a tell from someone I’d met earlier. I’d been sitting and resting, regaining my mana after a round of blasting skeletons in Ruins of Agony, when out of nowhere I heard the music of a recommend. I looked around and matched the name of the recommending party to a nearby Dwarf. I buffed him, thinking perhaps he’d recommended me because he knew I was a Shilien Oracle, but his tell quickly dispelled that notion.
“Thank you but it’s not necessary.” The colored text flashed across my screen. I replied that I liked to buff people, but I wasn’t sure why he’d recommended me.
His return reply said he had done so because I was pretty and it pleased his old dwarf eyes. I chuckled and thanked him and somehow we ended up having a pleasant conversation. Eventually he offered to teach me Italian, one word a day and I cheerfully accepted.
I took a chance at his new tell and I mentioned to him that I’d died due to lag and was laying here with my knife just out of reach. He told me to hang on and not return to the village. He couldn’t rez me, but he’d pick up my dropped item.
What ensued was a comedy of me trying to guide him to my dead form. I’m not very good with directions and I helplessly watched as he zigzagged back and forth, within my sight but not within reach of my dropped dagger.
I had to laugh and luckily he had a great sense of humor, eventually seeing me and picking up my weapon. I clicked the button to return me to the village and ran back to where I had died.
He could have kept the dagger. I knew that and I’d already decided that if he did, I was happier he’d get it than some random bot, but I hoped he would return it.
I needn’t have worried. Within moments of my return, the dagger dropped at my feet and was once again in my inventory.
I buffed him again as he ran off to continue killing and I thanked him for his kindness, offering to help him in any way I could now or in the future. At that, he gave me my Italian word for the day. Niente. It made me smile and feel good about the game and the people I have met.
In the scheme of things, I know the throwing knife wasn’t that big or important. However it represented a lot to me. It was pure luck that I had received it as a drop on a spider I killed solely on a whim and it was pure luck that having dropped it, I had met this very nice guy who returned it. If I were a superstitious type, I’d keep it as my lucky knife. And even though I really need the cash from its sale…. Maybe I will. Too bad you can’t name items in the game. If I could I’d call it Niente.
Excellent! What's the italian word of the day mean? My first weapon drop was a throwing knife at level 26 when helping a friend near gludio. They are great, I still have mine -- it's better than any rabbit foot when I feel down -- though long spear works better with the root & poke :-)
I lost critical time looking for Battle Heal on my casting bar when I remembered my poor little elf didn’t have it yet. She was only level 12 so the slower heals were all she had. Quickly I typed “potion” in group, and hoped my friend would understand I was asking him to drink a healing potion. Chain casting as fast as I could, I couldn’t keep pace with the damage he was taking.
The color receded farther and farther until my heart plummeted as the bar seemed total devoid of red. I was just ready to run for my own life when the Elder Lirien floated to the ground, my friend still standing. The heavy sigh of my own breath made me realize I had been holding it and I smiled at relief he had lived. I’m sure the number of hit points he still had could be counted on the fingers of one hand.
He ruefully noted that he needed to pay better attention to the names, since that one had a different name than those we’d previously killed with much less effort, the ‘elder’ was the key. I heartily agreed.
My friend J, true to his word, had been coming on every evening to play. I hadn’t had nearly as much time to play lately, the obligations of life getting in the way of my fun in game, but I’d managed to squeeze in a bit each night. He sometimes played without me, but lately he’d found the lure of L2 apparently much stronger than the call of WoW. He was level 13 and I’m sure he would have been higher if he hadn’t made sure to group with me.
It was a lot of fun playing with him and I’d really enjoyed being able to contrast the difference in all the healer races. I loved the fast casting of the Light Elf I played during our sessions. It is really fascinating to me to see the diversity between the races, however it did have its own particular dangers. I had to be very careful and adapt my playstyle to the character, since my healers are different levels I needed to take into account what spells they have and the accompanying limitations.
“I just want to be 40.” J’s tell brought me back to the present and inadvertently highlighted a concern I’d been having about him coming to play L2 with me. Having goals is, in my opinion, a good thing. However, sometimes if a goal seems too impossible given the situation, human nature is to give up and walk away rather than work to attain it. I believe those who make their goals have mastered the art of setting waypoints along the way. I’ve gotten through many a tough situation that seemed overwhelming by breaking it up and setting breakpoint goals. Sometimes if I look at the end task, it just seems impossible, but if I focus on the smaller intermediary goals, often, before I realize it, I’ve accomplished what I set out to do.
Level 40 is a long journey for those of us who have outside obligations away from L2. It can seem like an almost interminable task. I had been worried that if J didn’t find fun in the journey, if he was always focused on the endpoint, he might quit too early in frustration.
I have never had a character get to 40. My dwarves are currently languishing where I left them at level 34. But I’d seen my boyfriend get two characters to 40 and then beyond and I knew there was a great satisfaction in completing the second class change quest, a boost in power and general ‘fun’ that came with the change. So I completely understand the focus.
Perhaps my concern comes from my own fears. The first time I played L2, I drove myself hard with the single minded goal of reaching that magical second class change level. My focus caused frustration. I could never level fast enough. It wasn’t just the slow pace of Dwarves, I honestly believe at that point nothing short of instant leveling would have been sufficient. I wasn’t enjoying the journey, I was frustrated that the end was so far and the aggravation, disappointment and dissatisfaction that brought tainted my playing.
I’ve made a vow not to do that this time. Even though I really want my healers to all get their level 40 class change, I am trying to take every game day for what it is. I take time to explore the land and learn the area I’m in. I’m not rushing through anything and I except the lower levels for a time to discover the class to its fullest. I think I’ll be much happier that way. I know I’m finding more delight in the game.
The shower of light and feathers interrupted my thoughts… one more small goal achieved.
My main goals where/are to get to level 20,40,52,60,75 probably like everybody else....
And I have sub-goals which are the training levels (every 3 levels...40,43,46,49)..where I can learn new skills or just upgrade them.
However, as your level increases, so does the time required to gain them....I am level 50 now. I took me 1 month minus 3 days to get to 50 from 49... Needless to say that it would be very frustrating if leveling up to those major goals where my only focus...I usually play 1 or 2 hours on 3 weekdays out of 5, and 6 hours per day on weekends...which total to about 18-20 hours per week.
That's why I have other goals that are not level related. For example, through the coin quest I was able to acquire all my c-grade jewelery without spending 1 adena.... I think I did 3-4 levels just by getting the coins required.... it really is more enjoyable to play without thinking of the leveling, but rather being surprised on how much progress you have made while accomplishing your goal.
As always jute you know how to bring a smile to my face with your stories, but then the brutalness of the grind makes me come out of my dream like state.
From the server i play on i had no friends to join or to join friends on any adventures. For myself i've soloed at the very start while my level may not be the highest it should, it has been one long grind with very few goals in sight.
I looked up from the monitor screen to reply to my boyfriend’s inquiry. Actually, I was a bit puzzled by the question.
“Nothing’s wrong. Why do you ask?” I was curious what had prompted his query.
“Your nose was all wrinkled up like something stinks.” He answered.
I laughed then and explained that I found this guy’s name a bit objectionable, especially when combined with his guild title. My boyfriend nodded and went back to watching his game. As a woman, I found many of the names I’ve run across in poor taste.
I returned my concentration to the monitor screen and pondered for a moment all the characters in the town square, wondering about the guy with the objectionable name. Sometimes when I do this… look at a character I catch myself wondering about the person behind the pixels. Who is that behind the dark elf face, the long haired elf or the green orc skin? Is it fair to assume that someone with a name like Midorkinher is in reality an immature 12 year old? Or could it just as easily be a 60 year old man with a bizarre sense of humor?
I’m fascinated by the glimpses of reality we are given intermixed with the fantasy of the game. As human beings, we are used to judging someone quickly based on visual feedback. A hundred stereotypes lead us to quickly categorize things and make instant judgments. Sometimes those judgments are correct, many times they are wrong. With all the mistakes we make in real life, I wonder how many more we might make in a game.
My friend J once told me that even women are nicer to female characters, since they often assume that the female character is played by a fellow female gamer. I don’t think I’ve done this, since early in my gaming career I was well aware that most of the female animations were powered by males. But maybe I’m deluding myself about that, but I know for a fact how I react to people with objectionable names. I wrinkled my nose again.
Pondering these issues wasn’t going to get me my new weapon, and that was my purpose for being in town. I glanced again at the various shops and sighed. I wasn’t having much luck finding a staff in my price range and I wasn’t exactly sure what to do about that. I’d checked all the towns I felt might be options, running from Gludin to Dion and back again.
As I headed back to my killing fields I thought about the irony. The day before I’d had a chance to get a Mage Staff for a good price, but I hadn’t had the adena at the time. I had traveled to the Dwarf town on the chance I could sell my Bone Club easier there and the chance had paid off. I now had the adena, but no opportunity. Life is funny that way sometimes, even if it’s only virtual life.
On the way back I once again passed the guy with the objectionable name. I thought again about my reaction and wondered if he was aware or even hoping for the kind of feelings I had about it.
That led me to another thought. What did people in game think when they saw me? How did my pixilated face and form affect their reactions to me?
My musings were interrupted by my arrival at my destination. Thoughts without answers would have to wait for another day… the Grim Collector waited and I had a staff to buy.
Two steps up, turn around immediately, two steps back, repeat. I watched in fascination at character apparently gone insane. However, rather than a psychotic break by an individual, I was staring at one of the infamous bots that had somehow gotten stuck.
I had been fighting in Ruins of Agony now for several levels on two different characters and I was very familiar with the various characters that were always there, the dark elf female, the two dark elf males, a light elf male and a light elf female. It didn’t matter what time of day I logged on, they were there. If I had insomnia and it was the middle of the night, they were there; if I logged on early morning, there too; if I played all day, also there…all day. Occasionally they would be gone for awhile, I was fairly sure it was to d-de-level. After fighting there for so long, I had a pretty fair idea how long it took to gain a level or two and as long as they’d been there, the mobs would be dark blue without losing at least some of the experience they’d gained.
I have seen people argue that you can’t really know someone is a bot and many innocent players have apparently been wrongly accused because of being afk or some other circumstances. However, I believe after observing for several days, it was actually very easy to tell. People are a bit more, well, random. They do stupid things, but not the kind of mistakes that these characters made.
Aside from whatever feelings the bots stir in people, I have to admire the programming behind them. At one point I discovered that if I targeted a mob to attack, a dark elf who was running full tilt towards it, would suddenly change direction or stop dead. I was fascinated by this and I must admit to spending quite a bit of time playing cat and mouse with one bot by clicking on everything she ran towards. I felt like some bizarre puppet master making her stop and turn, run and stop. I do admit, I was at least grateful for that bit of programming since it kept them from stealing my targets.
Occasionally they would get stuck between the haystacks or on a fence and it was comical watching them move back and forth trapped in an easily escapable snare, which somehow eluded their programming. Other times you would see them on one side of a fence, being pelted by arrows from a mob just out of their reach. A person would simply move around the obstacle, but the logic of the program didn’t compensate for fences apparently. Sometimes this would lead to their death, laying there in the field for hours in a triangle of haystacks.
One time while the female dark elf lay dead, I hunted her field and I could easily see why this one was always being used by them. It was the best one. Other than when they were dead or de-leveling the field was always busy.
You could easily tell the one. It was always littered with arrows. That was another thing that intrigued me, how they picked up everything –but- the arrows. I made a point of visiting the field every time I was headed back to town, to load up on arrows. Several times I sold them to a vendor for over 1,000 adena., free money, just for the taking.
I met a lot of characters that had real people attached to them in RoA as well. As I have mentioned before, I like helping, so any chance I get I usually buff people. I now have a few more to spread around and even if they are not the awesome buffs of a Prophet people are usually happy to get Wind Walk if nothing else.
My previous friends have now out-leveled me. That’s the hazard of leveling multiple characters. My friend J hasn’t been on for several days, maybe L2 really is too much of a grind for him, so I’ve been working on my Shillien Oracle and my Cleric. My Dark Elf is now level 25 and my Cleric is playing catch up at level 23. My friends from earlier however are now in their low 30’s.
I’m still determined to level them both, but I’m a bit lonely at times and if I don’t find a solution, it’s either always going to be this way, or I will have to move to leveling one at a time.
The game so far has shown me a real spectrum of humanity. I’ve seen people be thoughtless and totally self centered and I’ve seen them be very giving and kind. This weekend was mostly a time of seeing the best of people in L2. I made a new friend in RoA who is definitely one of the nicest people I’ve met in game. However in the course of our discussion I discovered he may soon leave it.
That made me sad.
I understand some of why people leave the game. It is, after all, just a game and people should do what makes them happy. However, I can’t help but wish there was some way I could help to give them some of the joy I’ve found in playing recently, in the hope that perhaps they could regain some of the pleasure they once felt in playing.
The irony was my new friend was thinking of leaving partially because of frustration with bots, like the one I watched now. He had his own personal campaign against them, but I’d been in RoA long enough to see what happened there. Occasionally someone would come by and kill them. The fields would then be bot free for a time, but eventually they would return, hardly missing a beat with the resumption of their killing.
I could see why people would think it is an un-winable situation.
Ahhh well, there were levels for me to get and Adena for me to earn. One last look at the ‘good’ field being criss-crossed by the Dark elves and I sadly turned to one of the less desirable ones.
Although I do have a character named Jute that I hope to level someday, the characters I am currently leveling do not bear that name. I thought I would mention this because I had an amusing encounter of meeting someone who claimed to be me.
If you believe you've met me and have any desire to confirm that, please feel free to send me a message here.
I’d moved to Abandoned Camp for a change of pace from killing skeletons at Ruins of Agony. They were mostly green now anyway and although I knew I could still use the adena from the quest, I really was tired of soloing. Sometimes soloing is good, I can do laundry or housework while I regenerate mana and I don’t have to worry about a group member getting me killed. But I do like the company of others and as a healer, my skills are geared towards grouping. A group is where I shine and since the higher levels will be all about grouping, it’s important that I learn to manage healing and mana in them as I go along.
I’d originally come to the camp to complete the quest and receive the Black Lion Mark, since my high level friend had advised me to do so. I’d killed enough of the hyena’s to get the Mark, and now I’d returned to see if I could make another level. The camp had a very different feel to it than RoA. It was busy and crowded with mobs, rather than with the dark and brooding feel of the Ruins.
I’d met a variety of people here already. From the sad female orc who was trying to use L2 to distract her from a failed relationship, to the dwarf scavenger who didn’t really need my healing skills but grouped with me anyway. We actually made quite a comical duo. She’d given me a bunch of soulshots and told me she wanted to solo. I was a bit confused, but thanked her and dropped the group. Her frantic cry of “no, no” told me I’d somehow misunderstood and she managed to finally communicate that in order to kill faster, she wanted me to spam them with my weapon. So, I had a fun time blasting away only stopping for the occasional heal.
Normally, I am averse to shouting for a group. I’m not exactly sure why, but I feel an odd sort of shyness about doing it. I’d rather wander around and hope for an invitation, which, I know, is not a very efficient way to get groups. My hope has always been that after grouping with me, people will want to do so again and eventually I won’t have to ask for groups. My one stumbling block has been the leveling issue, since the people I’ve grouped with in the past are now 8 or more levels above me. I know it’s my own fault, but I just can’t bear to stop playing either my Human Cleric or my Dark Elf Shilien Oracle. I leap frog in levels between the two, since I doubt very much I could find a group willing to let me play both.
My shout was answered by a couple of people and I had seen one of them not long ago, so I moved to the area where I had last spied them. When I got there, I had an interesting experience.
“Oh, you aren’t a banana”, One of the guys commented. They were all in nice armor with nice weapons and I stood there in my grayish Devotion set.
“No, I am a new player so I don’t have top level D yet.” I explained, used to the fact that most people had better equipment than I did and seemed to expect that I was just a re-roll.
“Sorry then. We want a banana.”
Initially, I was a bit taken aback, but quickly decided with that attitude, they were probably not the group for me anyway. I headed back toward the entrance figuring I’d just kill on my own, even if it wasn’t ideal.
I’d moved out of the camp and across the road when I received a tell from another player looking to duo. After a slight comedy of errors involving which entrance to meet at, I finally saw him coming into sight.
My first feeling was one of slight surprise as he seemed small for an Orc. I soon figured out he was a monk and that accounted for his lack of heavy armor. We grouped, I buffed him and we set off to kill.
I always warn people that I talk a lot and I won’t be offended if they tell me that they’d rather be quiet. So far no one has said anything, but I’m not quite sure it’s because they like the chatting. I think it may very well just be a reluctance to tell me to shut up! In any case, I gave my standard disclaimer and the Orc informed me he didn’t mind at all.
I found out, through my incessant questions, that he was a new player. He’d become addicted to the game thanks to a roommate. He liked it a lot but was unsure about his class since the Orc was difficult to level solo. Even if he was a mana sponge, since he wasn’t really designed to be a tank, I enjoy grouping with all kinds of people so it was fun and I learned some about a new class.
We talked while we killed and I learned he was in the Marine reserves. I appreciate the sacrifice made by those who serve in the military even if I am conflicted about the reasons they are necessary. Once again I was struck by how you learn bits and pieces of the person behind the pixels.
We were killing slowly but steadily when we ran across another Orc, this one in heavy armor with a Tarbar. After a brief discussion we added him as a third and off we went. Killing was suddenly exponentially faster, with the new Orc as a tank, it allowed the monk to avoid taking damage while effectively dealing it.
I thought it was a funny sight, the contrast, when the small human female sat to regenerate mana between the two large green Orc males.
Our little group lasted for several hours but eventually the monk had to go. I stayed with the second Orc and after a close call we ended up on top of a hill where a female Orc caster was soloing. It must have been my day for the green ones, because she joined our duo.
She was a really good player, though I never learned if the player was male or female, and we mowed through the mobs quickly. I gained a huge appreciation for just what the Orc caster classes are capable of doing. Eventually we added a dwarf and the four of us tore up the Commander/Captain area. Ultimately, our tank had to leave and the female Orc, the old dwarf and I kept killing but it was getting late and we all had to sleep.
The day had been good. I’d made some new friends and learned a surprising thing about myself. At one point another player had come into the area we were clearing and started taking mobs. I found myself getting rather belligerent about the whole thing and I, the one who doesn’t like pvp, told the player to stop it. I then, found myself calculating whether or not I was committing a mistake by aggravating someone possibly much higher and with a powerful clan. However, at that point, I really didn’t care. His excuse was that he only needed Captains for a quest, as if this was the only area they spawned in… AND one of our members apparently needed the same mobs for the same quest.
I thought about this afterwards. I’m not sure why his actions irritated me so much, but they did. Perhaps it’s because he didn’t ask us if we minded, he just came in and took. I don’t want to be a bully and I don’t want to be selfish, but I also don’t want to be pushed around. I don’t know where the situation would have eventually gone, but it stopped with the Dark Elf getting his mobs and leaving.
I’ve read that in L2 it’s all about who has the biggest or toughest gang. Right now, I am just a gang of one, so perhaps I better be more cautious in the future.
you wouldnt like TOI... farmer heaven. We took over a farmer room the other day .. they must have been sleeping or something when they came back we had about 18 mold hardners spoiled and they stated, "Sorry, i must pay the audience. You go now bye bye" not the nicest people.. or brightest for that matter around ;p. Have fun while it lasts.
Being green myself(Tyrant, wich is a basically a Monk 40+), I can tell you that it's very hard to level them. We basically are melee fighters, and therefore have to take a lot of hits, where an archer, a nuker or many other race/professions often have a lot of range attacks and can stay away from the mobs.
We are Damage Dealers and work best with a tank. We can tank, but our p.def is too low to be the main tank, so we can't do it very long unless there is a good healer that is willing to heal more than what would be required with a real tank. We are therefore limitated to be the alternate/temp tank while the main tank is regenerating. We deal a LOT a damage when we are buffed by a prophet. When fully buffed, my atk.speed comes close to 900.... and since I hit with both fists it's very very very fast.
I have started an alt human mage and got him to level 16 fast. I am amazed at how much easier it is. It's a whole different technique that gives me a new perspective on how I can enjoy this game in a completely new way.
I was getting much better at the acronyms and I was pretty sure OB meant Orc Barracks. I was also really happy to hear from my female Orc friend. I had enjoyed grouping with her the other night and had grouped with her and our Dwarven Scavenger friend a few times since then. I’d been unable to do any long sessions since work had been pretty hectic and on top of that my boyfriend had been really ill.
But now, it was Friday night and life was calmer. I had been looking forward to a marathon session of play and perhaps getting a new level and playing with my favorite Orc Shaman would fit the bill perfectly.
We met in Gludin and headed to decimate the ‘bad’ Orc population. I really enjoy playing with this particular friend. At first when I met him I wasn’t sure if the player was male or female. Not that it really matters much to me other than I like knowing there are more females playing. At the mention one day of his wife, I was fairly certain the player was male he just had never indulged in one of my pet peeves about the male gamers I meet.
Invariably at some point after finding out I’m female most male gamers ask how old I am. The only answer I ever give is that I’m of legal age. This question truly irritates me, since it always immediately follows a comment about me being female. What does it matter if I’m 18 or 80? I have no romantic interest in anyone I meet in game and I don’t see how age makes a difference. It’s fairly easy to see someone’s maturity level and quite frankly that’s not firmly tied to their age. When I meet someone, I care about how they act. I care how they treat me and their fellow gamers. I care if they are a good player or at least attempt to be. I care if we have fun conversation and seem to hit it off in a friendly way. I don’t care how old they are, if they are male or female or any other numerous personal details.
Most of the people I consider my friends in game have never asked that question. Perhaps it’s one of my unconscious friendship criteria, but even if it was my Orc friend had passed with flying colors.
Once we made it to the camp, I buffed her and she buffed me and we proceeded to kill Orcs. I had not been able to get the quest at the camp, since my inventory was too full. Now this was a perennial fault of mine. I tended to keep way too much junk. Not because of any feeling that having a full inventory would save me from my weapon dropping, rather more of just a pack rat mentality. In other games, I’ve found I needed to be very careful if my boyfriend ever played my characters, since he tended towards a much leaner running inventory, I would occasionally find he’d sold my precious ‘broken tooth’ or ‘tarnished earring’. Why I ever think my cleric would need two copies of the recipe for Necklace of Anguish is beyond his understanding.
I’m not actually that bad, but you get the picture. I hesitate to tell him that it’s just that sometimes I forget to sell, not from any deep-seated need to collect unusable recipes.
Our killing was going pretty well. I was fairly certain that he could have soloed the Orcs here just fine, but I was happy that he’d invited me anyway.
I had recently been trying to gain back my two-boxing skills and while we killed I ran my Shillien Oracle to the barracks. I wanted to see if my Empower spell would help the Orc Shaman. Now, I had extensive previous experience running two computers with two characters (use a mouse and keyboard with both) in the past. I’ve never run any macro or botting programs and I have no desire to do so. Previously, I was okay at running two, but I hadn’t done it for a very long time. WoW just hadn’t been conducive to running two characters and while I was in the closed beta I didn’t have two accounts even if I’d had the desire.
I didn’t have my computers ideally set up for running two, but I didn’t think it would really matter since I had only planned on doing some buffing.
While my character ran there, my friend let me know our Scavenger friend was on his way as well. Once he made it to our location we would stay put and just work on the Orcs in one of the rings. While we waited for him to arrive, we started clearing. My second character made it to our location and I gave both of us Empower. My Orc friend said the buff was a good improvement and while we fought, I used the second account to heal if things got rough.
There was one hilarious moment for me when the Dwarf joined the party and in party chat he was talking about my Shillien Oracle (who was standing to the side not in the party). He was telling us that he knew the person who played her. I had originally met him playing that character. I quickly stated that ‘she’ was ‘me’, but it was momentarily amusing.
My two friends had recently joined a clan and as we killed they explained one of their clan members would be coming to join us. For the sake of having a name to use, I will call this character Twen, though it’s not her real name. What happened next will forever be known amongst us as the “Twen incident”.
It started innocently enough, but then most disasters do. A Dark Elf female caster arrived. She using the highest D grade equipment so I made an erroneous assumption that she was higher level than me, however when my Orc friend asked Twen if she had Empower her answer was ‘no, not for a long time yet’.
We resumed fighting again, but after buffing the group, Twen rebuffed everyone that I had just buffed. At that point, I figured instead of double duty it would be good to work out who did what and I asked her how she would like to split things up. She replied that she’d make sure I lived and I could take care of everyone else.
Things seemed to be working well at first. We had a problem for a bit because apparently our Dwarf friend had never seen the ‘Sleep’ spell and kept waking up mobs who then decided they absolutely hated me above all things, since I was the one who had cast that spell on them to begin with. Twen kept me alive during one of these sessions and I had high hopes for the future.
Oh, how little I knew.
For much of the time, Twen had seemed a bit distracted, and had even mentioned she was on the phone. But I didn’t think much of it until we had another ‘wake the sleeper’ incident and suddenly my health was plummeting. I watched the red in my bar slowly disappear. I know in part it was my own fault because I didn’t heal myself, but I kept waiting for her to heal me. I was down very low when suddenly, one lucky crit and I was suddenly seeing the ‘Return to Village’ popup. I hadn’t received a single heal.
Okay, I thought… perhaps it was just bad timing or whatever. I patiently waited for a Rez. When Twen seemed oblivious to everything that had happened, I finally got the Rez I was waiting for, but from a scroll cast by my Orc Shaman friend.
I shrugged it off, rebuffed and went back to fighting. Unfortunately the rest of the events are sort of a bizarre blur of death. Somehow I ended up dead again. This time I had tried to heal myself but been interrupted. Twen again didn’t heal and when she didn’t rez I just hit the ‘Return’ and ran back on my own.
I sent a message to my Orc friend asking if Twen was AFK or what. I didn’t really think she was AKF, since I’d seen her cast Wind Strike.
So far it had only been me who died…but that was about to change.
We were fighting again and all of the sudden Twen ran into the circle and drew a whole bunch of mobs. They were all over the place. This time, I used my Shillien Oracle to heal as well. Oh, the carnage! It didn’t take long with multiple mobs beating on me for both my characters to die. Not long after, the Dwarf went down followed by Twen. The only one left standing, or running to be more precise was my Orc friend. I released my Shillien Oracle and ran her back as fast as I could. I got back in time to help finish off the last couple of Orcs. I used Rez to start bringing people back. Twen was apologizing, and I went to try to Rez her but notice she wasn’t in the group any longer. When I commented on it my Orc friend tersely said “I kicked her.”
I shouldn’t have, but I laughed.
That was going to come back to haunt me, but that’s a story for another day.
As I lay there, dead for the fifth time that night, I thought about my chuckle as Twen was booted from the group. I was tempted to chalk it up to karma and learning a lesson about being a bit more forgiving, but what really concerned me was whether or not my Orc friend would actually be my friend after tonight.
Once Twen had departed, I had accepted an invitation to have both characters in the group. My computers weren’t set up ideally to do this and I still needed practice two-boxing. I hadn’t done if for many months and it was definitely something that required practice and I should have followed my first instinct and only grouped with one. We were in this predicament precisely because I had gone to heal and dragged my heal icon off my bar. Instead of using my head and getting it back on quickly I panicked for a moment and now my cleric was dead, but what was much worse, another party member had died. I hate making mistakes. I hate them even more when it causes someone to die.
Thankfully, after rezzes, no one seemed angry about the deaths, but I was still unsure what would happen later after this group was done. It wasn’t a lot longer before time was up and I needed to log for the night.
The next day my Orc friend would not be on. He had personal business to attend to and had said it would be missing a day of play. I had a whole day to fret. There wasn’t really anyway around it. The last couple of deaths that night had been my fault and after that last one I had taken my second healer out of the group so I could better concentrate. But the crux of the matter was I wasn’t doing a good job. I am an okay healer when I can use all of my attention on one. Splitting my attention between two was making me be a less than ideal groupmate.
I really liked playing with him and our dwarf friend and I was really concerned that he just wouldn’t want me to play with them any more. I liked playing with him and I liked what I knew of him personally. Maybe he would let me play with them if I just played one of my characters. It wouldn’t be my first choice. I really wanted to level them both evenly, since eventually when my cleric became a Prophet, she would not be doing much healing and I wanted the Shilien Elder for that. But I totally understood how others might feel with me playing two, especially in the learning phase, where it would take me some getting used to how to work with both of them together. The key would be finding people who would give me the opportunity to learn.
The time passed and the day came when my friend was supposed to be back. I was on playing both my healers and I got a very welcome tell.
The Orc was back and he wanted to group with me again. He has a lot of patience and he has a great attitude and, at least for now, he was willing to use some of that patience while I learned to two-box my healers.
I felt very fortunate. He was fast becoming a real friend and in the end that’s what makes the game worth playing.
The little female dwarf bounced along ahead of me. Each twist and turn of the road faithfully followed. My little light elf healer followed her through the ice and snow of Dwarfland. Making casual conversation, I said I didn’t like the cold and the Dwarf stopped dead. After a pause, the reply came. She didn’t like cold either. She stopped like that every time she answered a question, so I was used to it now. I knew she'd continue on her careful journey after the answer came.
Often, we do not know much about who is behind the characters in the world we share, however in this particular instance, I knew the little female dwarf was being played by a little six year old girl. I smiled at the mental picture of the little girl at the computer controlling the dwarf's actions with her father vigilantly by her side.
Her father’s alter ego was my female Orc friend. He had asked a few days ago if I would be willing to do him a favor. His small daughter liked to play and she had leveled a Dwarf to level 11. So far she'd been playing alone. She really wanted to group with someone but for obvious reasons her father had not let her. So, she'd been soloing. She’d ventured out farther than usual one time, and been killed by some nasty goblins. It had made her too shy to try again and she’d been killing wolves and keltirs far below her level. He’d offered to pay for my costs if I’d group with her.
He’d been reluctant to just let her group with anyone, let alone random people. It made me feel good he’d trusted me enough to ask. I’d honestly been looking forward to it all week and now that, in game, I followed the bobbing head of the small dwarf, I wasn’t disappointed.
I was pretty sure it was Dad reading the things I’d typed to her and typing the answers, sometime his own in answer to a question or a sporadic comment, except occasionally something would appear on the screen that made me believe it was her, a short ‘t.y’ after I buffed her, for instance. That was not a message I'd ever received from her father in all the time we'd played. I liked thinking she'd carefully typed the reply.
We wandered around with the aimless logic of a child, her killing and me healing. I helped her by smacking things sometimes too, but since she had several quests and needed the killing blow, I mostly stayed back and just healed. Her father indicated she was nervous as we came close to the Goblin type that had killed her, but he must have gently encouraged her, because she moved in to fight them. I healed her once during the fight, but she came through with flying colors.
He had given her a pole arm and at one point he showed her how to gather up two of them and kill them both together. The little Dwarf ran in a wide circle, agroing more than two goblins gathering them together to swing the long spear. They both died quickly and I imagined the delight she must have felt, since not long after that, she did it again, a bit less gracefully than when her father helped her, but none-the-less effective.
We killed and wandered around the area. I could see her gaining confidence and I was determined that no matter what I wouldn't do anything to shake that returning security. I'd make sure she stayed alive. Her father had given me a few resurrection scrolls, just in case we needed them, but so far I'd easily kept her from dying.
I giggled out loud at her carefully removing her armor each time we swam a stream, stopping on the other side to re-dress. I am sure it made perfect sense to a child. I’d learned that she took swimming lessons and since she didn’t swim in armor, her character didn’t either.
I was very familiar with Dwarfland from my previous incarnation on Sieghardt and I soon recognized that we were returning to the village. I made mention of it in a tell and Dad informed me that she wanted to buy some new boots. For some reason that made me grin. I wasn’t sure if we would fight much more after her shopping spree, but I had a hungry man to feed breakfast and her time in town was a good opportunity for me to quickly make something for him.
Breakfast done, I returned to the game and I thought I detected a hint of sadness as she told me Dad wanted to play. Although I very much enjoy playing with Dad, I certainly felt a bit sad myself that our time was ending. I honestly thanked her and told her I had a good time.
I really, really had and I hoped I could do it again.
This is the kind of experience that makes online game so rewarding. Through your eyes we were able to get a glimpse at something wonderful. You were witness to a moment of pure delight, and I get the feeling you enjoyed every seconds of it.
I did enjoy it, very much! I feel I was fortunate to be a part of her time. I know that the game isn't really suited for a child to play long term, but now with the deserted area of the newbie lands and a child who can't read it's pretty easy to let them just play a bit.
Of course it has it's downside. I'd hate to have her PK'd by one of the stupid people who play the game, but it is one of the dangers of L2.
My gloves were missing. They had been a lucky drop from the other night in Orc Barracks and even if they were only one of the lower D grade gloves, they were better than what I had been using and certainly better than none at all. I must have missed dropping them the evening before during one of my deaths when we were fighting in the Forgotten Temple.
I usually don’t have a lot of time to play on weeknights. My job pays the bills, but it exacts a high price. I have often been called away from a good game session by phone calls from far away places I can only dream of one day visiting. Weekends are usually better. I had been looking forward to Friday night and my Orc friend thought maybe our usual group would like a change of pace from the same thing and suggested a run to Forgotten Temple.
As the Dwarves on Sieghardt, I’d spent a lot of my last days in Forgotten Temple. The time had been full of fights with farmers and some of the best grouping experiences I’d had with my old clan. I had a lot of fond memories of the place and was anxious to see how it had changed.
A few days before my Orc friend had told me he’d decided to leave the clan he was in and start his own. I thought he’d be a good leader. He was honorable, a decent player and willing to work hard. I had been spending a lot of time thinking about whether or not I’d ever join a clan. I had been asked by a couple of people already to join theirs and although they were almost all great people, I hesitated. Partially because I really wanted to know the people before I joined a group. Not just one or two, but what I could expect from the clan as a whole. Back when I’d played EQ I had belonged to a guild that was full of drama, backstabbing and greed, eventually it was just too much for me and I quit the game. I didn’t want to be a part of anything like that again. So, it was really important to me that my clan experience be a positive one. Since the clan is no better or worse than its members, I had to spend time with the members of a clan before I would join one. Most of the clans I'd been invited to consisted of much higher members. People I would not be able to group with for a very long time, which meant I would have no way to really get to know them better.
I’d been grouping with the same people almost exclusively now for the last week or so, except when they were not on. It had been great fun. They had the same sort of attitude I had about playing and I hoped I’d get to keep grouping with them. Through a strange twist of fate one of them had been the dwarf who had saved my lucky knife. Life is sometimes full of strange coincidences.
When my Orc friend told me he’d started a clan, he asked if I’d join. I hesitated only a few moments and told him yes, I would. I liked him and the chance to be a part of a clan from the very beginning was appealing. I knew he would be a fair leader and he'd promised we wouldn't invite anyone we weren't comfortable with. This sounded like what I'd been looking for. So, I was no longer clanless and alone in the wide world of Lineage II. Now I had a family, even if they were only three of us.
I know I hadn’t really been alone before. My high level friend had always been there to help, but it was very nice to be able to group with people on a regular basis, especially people who had the same outlook on the game. My high level friend was always there to answer questions or lend an ear or a hand and I was very grateful for his help and guidance. Someday perhaps I'd get to group with him. But that day was a long way off.
Our little group trouped off to Forgotten Temple to see what we could kill. At first it was just my two healers, the Orc Shaman and an Orc monk we’d picked up. As we first entered the Temple a Dwarf asked to join. She was warned that we shared spoils, but it didn’t bother her a bit…she was an Artisan. We grouped her anyway and headed into the temple.
This is one of the things I really like about my friend. Although an ideal group is always welcome, we are willing to make do with what comes along. I hate turning people out of groups because they aren't 'optimum'. You never know what kind of friend you will make if you give people a chance.
We didn’t do too bad at first, but at one point the Orc monk lost connection and we were one short in a room we could barely handle with all party members. Buffs were fading and we moved out of the room to rest and rebuff while waiting for his return. If I have one huge complaint about the changes in Forgotten Temple it would revolve around the obscene agro range of those nasty skeleton archers. Even though, on the screen, they were clear across the room from me, they still started plucking arrows into me. The Orc monk couldn’t have picked a worse time to come back. He reloaded into a room of agro mobs and before we could get things under control both my Cleric and the monk were dead. I rezzed my cleric with my Shilien Oracle, but couldn't rez the monk since his body was no longer there. I asked what had happened and found out he had an emergency and had to leave. I havent' seen him since to ask if everything is okay, but I hope so.
We headed back to an easier area and as we did our Dwarf friend who usually fought with us logged on. I heard something about an exchange for a recipe and didn’t think much of it. I knew something about the Artisan was bothering my Orc friend and I didn’t find out until later what that was.
The Artisan left us and I had heard a tank LFG so I asked if he would like to join. He hadn’t found a group yet and he gladly came to fight with us. This obviously wasn’t his first character and he was very good at what he did. I'd met several people like that and they were usually good to group with, though for whatever reason they often drifted out of contact.
We fought steadily for a couple hours but our Scavenger friend had to leave and that left the Shaman, my two healers and the tank.
We continued fighting and eventually we ended on the bridge on the fire side. I remembered how difficult the bridge could be from when I'd been here long ago. I remembered correctly.
Mob after mob came after us. At one point he must have had at least 8 mobs on him, his health dropping like crazy. I fired off heal after heal, both healers alternating. Luckily the human tank kept agro and through it all I managed to keep everyone healed. I was getting better at two boxing and it felt good when my Orc friend sent me a tell after the battle saying I’d done a good job.
A bit later he might have wanted to eat those words as I once again accidentally pulled my heal icon off my bar. I swear I have to figure out how to only use the hotkeys so I stop doing that! I wish there was a way to lock the bar so my stupidity didn't endanger my group members. At least the only one to die this time was me.
We ended the evening by killing as fast as we could for about half an hour. No talking, just mowing through mobs. I really enjoy talking to people but sometimes that kind of killing is fun too. No extra time wasted on chat, just killing in a methodical and efficient way. Moving from mob to mob in an almost hypnotic trance of XP.
The night came to a close and I hoped we’d see the tank again, but I was realistic that we probably would not. People who re-roll usually level much quicker than I do and since I often do not know the main character they play, I lose touch. I remain hopeful, but realistically there is probably little chance we will group again.
The largest problem I’d had that night was my armor since it just wouldn’t hold up to being hit. If I got agro, most of the mobs could kill me in about three hits. Although it’s part of my job to try to make sure I don’t get agroed, sometimes it happens. My Orc friend had encouraged me to upgrade my armor and had spent time running around with me looking for it. I had hesitated, since the money I had saved was really for a weapon. I was using a borrowed one at the moment and I knew at any time my friend who had loaned it to me might need it back. If I spent all my funds on armor, that would leave me in a bad way. My Orc friend promised to help me replace my weapon if it got recalled so I'd taken the plunge and bought new clothes. That’s when I had noticed my gloves were gone.
I mentioned to my Orc friend I must have lost them in the Temple and he told me how the Artisan Dwarf we had grouped had picked them up. My friend hadn’t known they were mine but the Dwarf had wanted a recipe and my friend had offered to trade the recipe for the gloves. The dwarf agreed but took the recipe and didn’t give the gloves. She soon dropped group and that was the last we’d seen of her that night. This was why my friend had been unhappy with the Dwarf. I figured it was the last I’d see of my gloves.
After helping with my armor, my friend had to log and I did some other running around. As I was passing Abandoned Camp I saw a shout from a familiar name. It was the Dwarf who had taken my gloves. I sent her a tell and politely asked for them back. She quickly agreed to give them to me, which took me by surprise, though a pleasant one.
I sent her a tell asking where she was and when could we make the exchange. However my happiness had a cloud, I began to have doubts as she didn’t seem to want me to come meet her and she said she was too busy to meet me. She eventually told me she was in AC and since I was close I told her I’d come. I didn't want to give her a chance to change her mind.
Then she started telling me how it was a huge problem for her to give them back since she’d sold her other gloves to use these and I should be happy because most people wouldn’t give them back.
Now maybe I live in a rose-colored world, but most of the people I’ve met would have given them back right after I dropped them. She didn’t seem surprised in the least or even question me when I asked for them, so I’m absolutely sure she knew they were mine at the time she picked them up.
I didn’t want to give her an excuse to get angry and keep them, but I couldn’t help myself. I told her I really appreciated her returning them, but a lot of people would have given them back right away.
She didn’t say anything and I held my breath as I looked for her in AC. Eventually, I saw her and she started a trade. We then started this odd dance where she opened the trade and cancelled it three times. Eventually I got my gloves and off I went. Thanking her one last time.
Much later in the day I received a tell from an alt of my Orc friend asking me if I’d gotten my gloves back. I was surprised he knew, but cheerfully told him how I’d gotten them back. I expressed my surprise and did mention the reluctance of the Dwarf to part with them. My friend then said he’d better apologize to the Dwarf because he’d been giving her a lot of grief about it. He’s an honorable guy and loyal to his friends, so he publicly apologized to the Dwarf.
Although I was sorry for the misunderstanding, I have to admit it gave me warm fuzzies to know that he’d defended me even over small thing like a pair of gloves.
Now maybe the whole thing was a misunderstanding and the Dwarf never meant to keep my gloves. She did give them back and for that I'm very grateful. i prefer to look at the good in people, so I choose to look at the good in this.
“Do it again and I’ll kill you.” The Dark Elf threatened.
Some little devil in me was really tempted to do it again.
“I said it was an accident and I apologized but you apparently have too much attitude for your own good.” Instead I settled for a verbal taunt.
It –had- been an accident. I had started a cast on the mob before she had hit it and had not canceled it in time, so I got the killing blow. I’d apologized to let her know it was an accident but apparently she felt the need to play ‘tough’. She might kill me, and then again she might not get away while red, since I had two healers there. Perhaps she didn’t feel like pushing her luck since she soon moved on.
I don’t know if it’s the atmosphere in the Execution Grounds or something about that day, but I’d never met so many nasty people in one play session since my return.
Earlier I’d been on killing Spectres, Sorrow Maidens and other assorted nasties near the Southern entrance to Execution Grounds. I had that area pretty much to myself for a few hours and was making good progress. My high level friend had recommended I go to EG, and his advice was sound. The two healer combination on undead was great. I wouldn’t have been nearly as efficient killing non-undead mobs. I would kill until my buffs ran out, then move back to the stairs to rebuff and regen, rinse and repeat.
As I finished rebuffing I noticed something strange going on. A player came through flashing purple for a time. He looked like he had fired on someone near me. I saw a Light Elf archer running past me with a few mobs on him and the Demon tempest. The whole situation made me nervous and when the light elf turned my way, I just logged.
I waited a few minutes and came back on. I decided to move out of where I was to one of the lower areas of EG. There was plenty to kill and I really didn’t want to have someone death train me and risk the possibility of dropping my borrowed weapon.
But, as I started to leave the area, the Light Elf appeared and kept pace with my cleric. I moved down, but he kept picking up more mobs and following me. Then, I got agroed by a Spectre and I knew I was in trouble. The Spectre and other mobs I had picked up while running were hitting me and I knew at any moment he might just drop the whole train on me. It went from bad to worse when I missed the EG exit and ran into another version of Tempest. Now I had one of the biggest trains I’d seen on me and my health was dropping fast.
I knew if I stopped to heal I was dead, but if I didn't get some sort of healing I was dead anyway. I had bought a couple of healing potions as an emergency. I clicked on one and my health came up enough. I mashed on the exit key, hoping against hope that I’d avoid a hit just long enough to be able to drop the game. Luck was with me.
Now, I know that exiting like that is a ‘cheap tactic’ but so is dropping death trains, so I didn’t feel one bit bad about using one cheap tactic against another.
My Dark Elf had logged off a bit back so I logged her on first to see if the coast was clear. At first I didn’t see him and I started to move her out, but was agroed by a Spectre. I stopped to kill it. It was a big mistake. There he was again, gathering more Spectres to drop on me. I logged my Dark Elf immediately.
I waited awhile this time before logging on. Finally I did and I didn’t see him. I had been talking to my high level friend and I explained to him why I had dropped. He expressed sympathy and encouraged me to stay in EG. Since I didn’t see the elf, I decided to stay and returned to my hunting area.
As I readied for fighting again I passed the stairs and there was the Elf, sitting. My heart jumped. I told my high level friend he was there and I got his name and clan. I told my friend I was leaving, since I didn’t want to risk dropping my borrowed items. He encouraged me to stay. He said that the Elf was a member of a clan he knew and he wasn’t supposed to be doing this.
Whether he was supposed to or not, he had been.
I hesitated, but went back to killing, keeping an extra watchful eye out. Before long I received a tell from my friend saying that the Elf had been doing that to me because I had trained his friend.
That was a bald faced lie!
I angrily retorted to my friend that I’d done no such thing. My friend assured me that the Elf would leave me alone. But I was pretty angry over the false accusation. I went down the stairs to where the Elf was resting.
“You are a liar. I never trained your friend.” I stood there confronting him. “I was minding my own business killing stuff and if your friend told you I trained him, then he’s a liar.”
Just then I heard a loud crash in my house and ran to find out what had happened. My boyfriend had slipped on some water and fallen. After helping him up, I went back to check my characters. The Elf had said nothing, so I quickly logged to tend to real life.
Later, when I thought over the events, I wondered if the Elf had been telling his version of the truth. Had his friend told him someone was training him? Had it been all a misunderstanding? Had I just been in the wrong place at the wrong time? Or had it been a lie?
I really appreciated my high level friend intervening, but what was the truth of what happened?
I have no way to know. But I remember the Elf and someday, if I get the chance, I think I’ll ask.
I think you made the right choice by joining the clan of your high level friend. He seems to care and also to know a lot about other players & clans in the game.
Furthermore, it seems that he is always able to help out, wether it's playing with you or straightening difficult situations by talking to other players. He really has what it takes to make a great clan leader.
As for the Elf who trained you, it's hard to know the real reason why he did this. I have been trained when I was at lower levels, but the reason was that the trainers and his team wanted to have the hunting territory all to themselves.
Now that I am 50+, I still see trains, but they are only from chineese players, who first take the time to tell us to go away or they will train us..."rang rang or train" to be more precise.
Most of the time, even with a full group of 9 players 50+ we don't have a choice to move out, since the trains are simpy too powerful to handle, specially in Giant's Cave where there's plenty of 55-65 mobs that aggrow.
Actually, I didn't join my high level friend's clan. I joined a smaller clan where I'm only one of three member's currently.
I don't believe he ever asked me to join his clan. I wouldn't have been able to get to know the people in it, since our levels are very different.
He's been really great and I have liked the people in his clan I've met. I just have gotten to know these people really well and we have the same attitude and playtime. I've found those things are really important to stay playing together and happy.
Actually, I didn't join my high level friend's clan. I joined a smaller clan where I'm only one of three member's currently.
I don't believe he ever asked me to join his clan. I wouldn't have been able to get to know the people in it, since our levels are very different.
He's been really great and I have liked the people in his clan I've met. I just have gotten to know these people really well and we have the same attitude and playtime. I've found those things are really important to stay playing together and happy.
Oops....sorry my mistake I misunderstood you.
You can always change clan if you are not satisfied anyway.
For myself, I've been with my clan for many years now....L2 was the 'official' replacement of the game we were playing until it got cancelled. The clan and the core players survived...which proves that friendship will outlast many things.
Two more steps and I would have made it out the door.
“I’d like to have a short meeting with you, Ben and Jim.” I knew my boss well enough to know his meetings were never short. Something that took 15 minutes to say would stretch to an hour easily.
I had worked 12 hours the day before and at least that much several times last week. Paying the bills was seriously cutting into my time to play L2.
I know many people in my position play at work, but because I do what I do, I am well aware that anything on a computer network ultimately can be monitored and I’ve tried hard to follow the dictate that I don’t do anything that would be a personal disaster if it were on the front page of the New York Times. I’ve known people who did not follow that logic and although their misdeeds didn’t end up in the newspaper, they did end in a lot of messy personal issues. So, although the idea was very, very tempting; I left my play time for home.
I didn’t want to be late tonight! I had volunteered to help with the test of the doors on the Lineage II test server. The clock ticked away as our 15 minute meeting reached 45 minutes. I was just ready to come up with some desperate excuse when my boss finally said he was done. I quickly headed for the door, since I also knew the literal translation of that was “I am done with the main topic, but I’ll have two more things for you before I’m really done.”
This time, I made it through the conference room door and into the hall before I heard him start in again. Thankfully since he didn’t call my name, I could keep going with a clear conscious. I didn’t quite make a clean getaway since one of the consultants corralled me as I grabbed my jacket and purse, but his request was quickly dealt with and I was on the freeway headed home.
I don’t particularly like driving or the traffic you find in the urban areas of California, but I like the quiet time during the drive. It gives me time to contemplate all sorts of things. Tonight I kept coming back to that work/life balance issue. Why was it so hard to find a good balance? It always seemed like so much of my weekday was sucked up with the trappings of adulthood; work, making dinner, grocery shopping, etc. that I had little time for some of the more fun things I wanted to do. There were so many things I wanted to do in L2. Places I wanted to go. Characters I wanted to level. There just wasn’t enough time for that and all the other important ‘life’ things.
Recently I talked to my clan members about taking a night off during the week. We all had family obligations as well as other demands on our time and we all agreed that it would be a good idea for us to choose a day where we don’t play. Now I was finding my playtime being eroded even further with issues that seemed never ending. I seriously wondered if it would ever calm down. I pulled into the garage no closer to an answer.
A couple of days before I had downloaded and installed the test server client, and after running the patcher I was ready to play a few minutes early.
I had logged on and created “Jute” at the time I’d downloaded the client. I’d made her an elf for no better reason than none of my other 'Jute' characters were elves. I had humans and orcs and dark elves, but no light elf.
I wandered around for awhile seeing no one. I debated on whether or not to kill anything. The instructions for the test had sounded as if I needed a completely blank character, so I didn’t even do the newbie map test. In my wanderings I came across another light elf female. I recognized the name from the forums on the official boards and struck up a conversation. In an interesting coincidence we both play on Erica, but he was much higher level than me and we had never crossed paths.
A third elf female soon joined us. We chatted while we waited and eventually a beautiful light elf appeared and let us know she would be porting us to the test. I had never seen any of the NCSoft staff in ‘person’ although most of the time I’d seen Mistryl on the board, she had always had a stunning Orc avatar, so somehow I expected her to be one here. Either that, or the Dark Elf she’d recently changed to.
After a small delay we all gathered at talking island. All races were represented with males and females, though not of every race. I recognized several board names from posters I had followed. It was really interesting to see how they acted as characters. It was even more fascinating to me to see what avatars the NCSoft staff chose. Ash was an Orc, but not the muscle-bound bruiser that Ornery chose; rather he appeared as the lean compact model. I wondered if they had freedom to choose however they wanted to appear, or if the avatar was dictated by the test. I rather imagined they had some freedom and thought it an interesting glimpse into their personality if it were true.
Ash politely said hello to me, but many people were vying for his attention and my reply to him seemed swallowed by the clamor. He truly seemed to enjoy the celebrity status and he played and teased with the crowd, entertaining us with a death gasp and crumple to the ground in fake death. He was a popular target for people to try out their PK skills, but they were sorely disappointed as nothing seemed to even faze him.
It reminded me briefly of a schoolyard full of six year olds with characters running about smacking each other in playful fights. Miykael attempted to restore some order and asked us to sit while groups were made up. Most of us sat quietly, but some seemed unable even for a short time to sit still. I couldn’t imagine how hectic it must have been the NCSoft staff, trying to balance the hyperactive volunteers and coordinate the test at the same time.
As we grouped up, my secret wish was granted and I became part of Mistryl’s clan and group. It wasn’t that any of the other staff were somehow less worthy, just that her calm demeanor and quiet friendliness were very attractive after a hectic day.
Groups were finally done and after a last round of PK insanity we were ported to the ship. I had volunteered for the test genuinely wanting to help, but I also had the selfish desire to see some content in the game I would not have the chance to see for a very long time. There is nothing I love more than exploration and experiencing new things in game for the first time. I just wanted a peek into that world tonight and I was getting my wish.
Many of the people were having a hard time just waiting and doing nothing. I thought about how little credit was usually given to people who did this for a living. Everyone liked to think how fun it must be to play games for a living, but few really understood what testing involved. A lot of it was about as much fun as being pk’ed constantly as a newbie. It took patience and attention to detail, something most of us here seemed to lack.
Most were little level 1 newbies with the hit points to match and I gawked in wonder at the demonic doll who one-shotted one of my new clan mates. Mistryl dutifully rezzed the poor dead individual who quickly moved away from the door. We were given instructions to target the door and we waited. Not long after that, the hour struck and the door magically opened.
We moved inside and mobs came to greet us. Let’s just say Mistryl was rather busy for the next few minutes rezzing those of us unfortunate enough to gain the attention of the passing mobs. Live again, we were instructed now to move back out again.
As we stood there waiting, I noticed the Pirate captain peering through the bars of his self-imposed prison. I wanted to get closer to him but I knew I’d be quickly be dead and Mistryl was busy enough that she didn’t need me to add to her duties. I was surprised to be showered in light. As I looked around others too were hearing the distinctive tone of leveling and suddenly my little level 1 Mystic was a level 75, but still a Mystic. Although they were capable of leveling us up, they were not able to make us change class. It was rather amusing to think of this level 75 character with skills only slightly better than level 1.
I felt like an uneducated tourist gawking at the sights, my attention on the Pirate and the light show, I noticed I missed a trade opportunity. I confessed my inattention and Mistryl tried again. After a bit of comedy where I hit trade with nothing there, she finally got me to accept a set of armor and a staff. We were being outfitted with various armor and weapons, I presumed for the purpose of the test.
Here’s where I give great kudos to the staff and their patience. People started complaining about what armor and weapons they’d been given and asking for specific things. One person asked my level and what I was wearing and when I told them Demon, they laughed and told me ‘they gimped your character’. I inwardly smiled at that. It didn’t matter to me if I was given bronze armor and a bow, I was just happy to be helping and have the opportunity to see what was there. The staff didn't lose their temper and from what I could see they even tried to accommodate requests.
It was wonderful looking around at everyone in the different armor with the various weapons. I do admit I had a momentary twinge of envy at of how pretty some of them looked. Demon doesn’t do the grace and beauty of the Elves justice, but I squashed the feeling and just enjoyed the sights.
Eventually the hyperactive testers came close to getting out of hand and Miykeal laid done some no-nonesense smack and said the next person to attack was getting booted. That stopped them in their tracks and quiet resumed while we waited once again for the doors to open.
Time came and the doors opended again. We moved in and after getting a final confirmation on how many people had crashed we headed down to fight the bad guys. The test was done and they let us have some fun. It was truly hysterical to try to heal people with a little level 6 heal. I promptly died from agro and Mistryl rezzed me, only for me to quickly die yet again.
Hilarity ensued as we tried to attack and kill the boss, but were not able to even scratch him. It eerily resembled the attack on Ash. However this mob bit back and it wasn’t too long before most of us were dead or dying.
Since the test was over, we released to the castle and with a final thank you we were let loose on the world of Aden.
I had really enjoyed my time and especially enjoyed meeting the people who put such hard work into a game that has become a high point of my day. I felt like I knew a little bit more about each poster whose name I recognized and hoped someday to perhaps run across them again.
I knew the test server was slated for a wipe before C3, but I wanted to try out the high life while I could. I knew I’d have to do my job change quests before I could actually have the skills and spells of an Elven Elder, so I decided I would work on that right away. It was quickly brought home to me the plight of those high level people who lose items or equipment, since my character had exactly 1 adena, I tried killing things nearby and found dark blues at that level don’t drop a thing. So I had the levels and I had some SP but I had no money for spellbooks. I wasn’t going to let this stop me, but it was late and I had work tomorrow. I would find someway to earn money, even if it meant starting another character to fund my higher level’s spellbooks.
As the game was shutting down I thought back to the happiest moment of my night. I write the things I write here never knowing whether or not they are read, other than the few comments I’d received, I could just be typing to myself. I don’t write them for praise or any accolades but I do hope others find them entertaining. I hadn’t expected anyone to comment to me about my stories here and no one did. But as I stood in the castle courtyard a title appeared above my head and I smiled in delight. ‘Storyteller’. I guess someone did read a bit of them at least.
As always your stories are a joy to read, I am glad you got to go on the testing experience, I know from experience it can lead to both great fun and a serious sense of accomplishment. :)
Now we all know you were really the star of the show! You set it up, you were the whole reason I got to be theere. Thank you very much. I know it had to be difficult to deal with all of the rowdyness, but you handled dit very well. After all cracked the whip that kept them in line. :)
I envy you for the chance that you had to be a part of this test. It shows indeed that there is a lot of people who work for us to have an enjoyable experience in this game.
We were able to see the "other side of the coin", which is the people actually working while others are playing. It seems like something I would love to do. I love IT and I love games....I should probably be looking for an IT job in a company that makes games.... dreaming....
“Can I please have my armor back? I’ll pay you.” I could almost feel the desperation on the part of the guy we’d just seen die. At first when I'd seen him running from multiple mobs I thought he might be doing the 'train trick', but he'd just taken on too much. We’d grouped him dead and I’d rezzed him, now I was in the midst of buffing him and dealing with requests from two other people for buffs as well, so I was not sure who he was talking to.
Luckily my clan leader was on top of things and helped me out with my confusion. “Shay has it.”
He again said how he’d pay to get it back and I quickly looked in the inventory of my Shillien Oracle. There it was, a half-plate breastplate. I initiated a trade with the guy and quickly hit confirm before he could add any money. Again the formerly dead human said how he wanted to give me something for it. Again I said ‘no’ and the pickup tank we'd grouped earlier said if I wouldn't he'd take it.
“Don’t try arguing with her, it doesn’t work well.” My clan leader advised him.
The guy wasn’t listening.
He asked again and I told him to give it to the guy who’d begged for the money. I didn’t want anything for the rez or the return of the armor, but if the guy felt he really needed to give something, give it to someone else.
I could tell the rezzee was puzzled by my attitude. It wasn’t that I was rolling in money and couldn't use it. I was actually hurting for it since buying the banana suit for my Cleric and a NG weapon for another character. I really don’t want people to pay me for something I enjoy being able to give freely.
But, the guy really wanted to give some in return. He said it was for luck and who am I to argue. He was confused by my refusal but eventually gave it to the other guy. The random guy we’d picked up for the group who was on the receiving end of the money was really happy too. Two people happy for the price of one deed.
We all play this game with our own motivation. It seemed that he didn’t like owing anyone anything and I could respect that. I hope in the end he respected my choice as well. The minute I start taking money for something like that it will change for me. I don't care what others do. It's not a judgement thing, it's just my own personal choice.
We’d come to Death’s Pass because my clan leader had said our current fighting in Partisan Hideway wasn’t giving ‘the girls’ a workout. “The girls” was my clan’s designation for my two healers.
He was right.
Most of the time both my healers were at full mana and I wasn’t even breaking a sweat with the two boxing. I was much better at controlling both now and I was able to deal with not panicking if everything got crazy. Our little clan was also much better at working together and we were learning to anticipate each other in the way of people who constantly grouped. Throughout the night we fought red creatures, traveling from place to place looking for things that were challenging but not impossible. Only a couple of times did things get a bit challenging. However all the challenges were not from mobs.
At one point we were waiting for our third clanmate to get to our location and we met a group of people passing. I always feel bad for Orcs when I see their painfully slow run speed, so I buff them with wind walk if I can. A large Orc in fighter gear was passing and I gave him the run speed boost. He thanked me verbally, and then did something completely unexpected. He smacked one of my group mates. At first we were not sure if the Orc knew the guy he hit, but after a quick check and a denial, we found he didn’t.
The Orc hit our group mate again.
I can feel my pulse beat rise in these situations. Time seems to slow a bit and there is a preternaturally sense of awareness. We had no idea how high a level this guy was. He had two other people who had been with him and all their gear looked like it was out of our league. The Orc laughed, sat down and demanded buffs.
I refused.
Now sometimes something inside me just gets stubborn. I don’t know what it is or why exactly I do it. Later, I reflected on my stupidity because I wasn’t alone. It’s one thing if I get myself killed. It’s another thing if I get my group killed. I wasn’t sure how my clan would react if the guy decided to kill me. I still would have refused, but I should have told them to stay out of it. That way, if the guy decided to push it, I would have been the only one to suffer. I have my doubts my clan would listen however. Once upon a time not long ago in a situation where it looked like things might get ugly, my clan leader stated his willingness to die for me. I didn’t doubt for a second that either he or our other friend would sacrifice themselves for any one of us.
Luckily it didn’t come to that and my clan leader had sense enough to move us along before the situation got uglier. It was a stark reminder that I was moving up the ladder, no longer a ‘newbie’ and although I was not yet in them, the big leagues were definitely different.
I can understand why people like pvp. I understand how that adreneline rush could be embraced. I don't know what I will do when it eventually breaks into a fight. And in this game it eventually will... I just hope whatever happens I never let down my friends.
The whole night was one of new experiences and expanding my in-game horizons. I got to see Hunter’s Village again and we fought some of the creatures in the surrounding area. Although much of it was the same type of creature I’d fought since I started, such as spiders and orcs, I still enjoyed the show. To cap off the night my clan leader suggested we go watch the fight against Nurka.
We’d spent a lot of time recently in Partisan’s and I was curious about the fight, so I enthusiastically agreed. Nurka is huge and the fight started but just seemed to drag on forever so eventually my clan leader suggested we leave to get a bit more xp. He knew I’d been hoping to finally get 30 and new skills on ‘the girls’.
At this point, it was down to just my two characters, my clan leader and the pickup tank who’d been the beneficiary of the dead guy from the earlier. We fought a few mobs but it was just getting too late and my clan leader announced his intention of leaving. I said I’d follow suit and the tank guy expressed his dismay.
“Shay, you can heal right? You are staying?” He obviously was desperate for someone to continue the party.
Now that took me totally by surprise. I could have sworn at one point in the night after a particularly hairy fight I’d said something to the effect that I played both. I don't try to hide that I play both and I had been happy that no one had died in a tough situation so I'd made a comment. Perhaps he missed it or it was too cryptic for him.
“Since Shay is me, she’s leaving too.” I said on my cleric.
He asked how I did that and if I were using a bot program. Now that really, REALLY irritated me.
Although my guild leader tells me I do play the two characters as if they are two separate ones, I certainly don’t do it well enough to think that one is being run automatically. There are many clues if you look. Since it isn’t possible for me to do two things at one time, there is a slight hesitation between actions when I have to try to control both at the same time. The best I can do is hit F1 on both keyboards simultaniously, but there is usually that little time it takes to swich mice or shift my attention to the other screen.
After I calmed down enough to tell him ‘no’ and explain that I had two laptops, side by side with two mice and two keyboards and my attention split between two screens it was time to go. I am still not sure he was convinced.
I guess I am still sensitive to the perception that two-boxing is cheating. Although I can understand the points people are trying to make, I don’t agree with them. If I wanted to gain an unfair advantage over others, I certainly wouldn’t be playing two healers. Perhaps it just bothers me that someone I’d liked conversing with and had hoped someday to meet in game, feels I’m cheating.
I logged mulling that over. I don’t accept money for buffs or rezzes, but that means I give them only if I choose. I hate the rec system because it feels like it violates that for me. That’s as peculiar to some people as the perception of two-boxing as cheating is to me. We all have our own set of peculiarities. That’s what makes interaction in this game both so wonderful and so frustrating. People are individual and you may think you will know how they react. You expect one thing and then out of nowhere, they surprise you with another. I guess that’s part of the charm of the game.
It happened that quickly. One minute she was alive, healing and the next minute Shay was dead. It took me a few moments to figure out what had happened.
“Sorry”, the apology came from a player I’d seen cutting through mobs nearby.
I had been attacking a Neer Ghoul Beserker and another one had joined the fight. At first I thought perhaps I’d missed something else attacking Shay. Then with the apology I thought perhaps the player had attacked me, but looking back through my log I saw I’d been killed by a treasure chest.
“What’s up with that?” I said still confused but ready at the first indication this person was up to something. I quickly rezzed Shay in case there was trouble.
“I attacked the chest, I’m sorry. I’ll give you buffs.” They had a higher level prophet following them around who started buffing me.
“I’d like my xp back.” I replied, wondering how they’d reply to that.
They didn’t answer but buffed me and moved on. I mentally shrugged and went back to killing mobs. Things happen. Although it was annoying, according to the person it had been an accident.
I’d been trying so hard to get to 30 and I’d had a couple of stupid incidents where things just didn’t seem to be going right. My clan leader had just logged on and I mentioned what had happened.
“They did it on purpose.” He stated.
I told him how they’d said it was an accident and he explained it was a new griefing tactic. Attack a chest when someone was nearby and if it was not a mimic, it exploded hurting and maybe killing them. I quickly looked around for the person who’d caused my death and didn’t see them anywhere. Maybe it had been an accident, maybe it hadn’t. I’d be more cautious in the future.
I was growing savvier about the possible things that could happen in game, but sometimes I worried that ultimately it would make me cynical and unwilling to help others. For instance, I liked buffing people and I did it randomly, but my clan leader had told me about the griefing tactic people used on healers, where they would hit them as they were casting a buff, so the buffer turned purple and was a free target. It made me more cautious when buffing people, but I still buffed them.
Taking pity on me, my clan leader logged on his Elven Knight and I headed to meet him at Partisan Hideaway. The Knight was lower level than my two healers so they would get more XP. He never said that was why he was doing it, but I knew.
He couldn’t stay on long however, so after a bit he logged. I was just trying to figure out what I was going to do when I got a welcome tell.
Raven was someone we’d met in Forgotten Temple awhile back. He had put me on his friend’s list and I’d get occasional tells from him for groups. They were always welcome. I was pretty sure that this was not his only character. He was an incredible player, easily the best tank I’d ever grouped with. Not only was he very adept at playing but he was polite, nice and a lot of fun.
Last time we’d grouped after killing for quite some time he asked if we would like to check out a level 24 Raid boss. Now, all of us knew that the four of us would not be able to take the boss, but it was an adventure, and sometimes adventures involve messy deaths. We were prepared for that and in the spirit of adventure we all agreed and headed off to the shore near the Wastelands.
Every time I take the time to really look at the fine detail in L2, I’m blown away. The mobs are lovingly crafting in glorious intricacy and the Raid Bosses are spectacular, even the lower level ones. This one was no exception. We waded out into the water to get a good view and see what we were up against.
We hemmed and hawed for a few minutes trying to come up with a good plan. I would try to sleep the minions and they would attack the main boss. After buffing and resting to full mana, we began.
All I have to say is …wow..
I cast sleep and everything came for me. I couldn’t heal fast enough and my Shillien Oracle was soon ‘sleeping with the fishes’. Raven was furiously trying to kill the boss but his health was dropping fast. Down he went, down I went and all that was left was my clan leader hoofing it as fast as he could to the shore. At least he made it out of the water before dying.
We all laughed and talked about how hard things had been. We’d dropped some minor stuff and after respawning in Gludin we started heading back. My clan leader had to log and Raven had to log to go to a party after we retrieved our things. It had been fun, even if we’d died miserably.
That was the only time in our grouping together Raven had ever died. The first time we’d grouped, I was still re-learning to two-box and my cleric had died ignominiously several times. Raven had been patient with the deaths and had then proposed we try to kill as many mobs as we could in 30 minutes. We’d then plowed through things at an amazing rate.
The next time grouping with him and been in Partisan and he’d shown me how he could easily tank multiple mobs, keep them off my healers and keep us all alive.
I was very impressed.
So his tell was very welcome and it wasn’t long before we were cutting through the mobs around us. He always stayed cool and focused no matter how many mobs were on us. It wasn’t long before Shay finally was bathed in that magical shower of light to reach level 30. My cleric had died a lot more and so she was still another 27% away.
As we’d fought in the area we came upon a huge Ol’ Mahum easily 5 times the size of normal, surrounded by guards. He wasn’t a raid boss, just a regular one, but he was red to Shay at 30, so we debated killing him. As we discussed the merits of doing so, my clan leader logged back on. Eventually we decided he’d bring his Orc and we all agreed to try to kill the boss.
We regrouped near boss and I rebuffed everyone. I sat to regenerate mana, since the buffing process took almost half, I wanted to be full when we started. Raven said he’d pull the aggressive mobs nearby to clear out the area before we attempted the boss. Raven headed in and started to pull the mobs. That is when all hell broke loose.
Later Raven apologized and said he’d hit the wrong key. I guess it happens even to the best of players, but suddenly we were being attacked by the boss, his guards and every other Ol’ Mahum in the area. There must have been ten of them and my cleric had half mana.
There is a psychological term called ‘flow’, sports players are familiar with it and call it ‘the zone’, where everything you do just flows perfectly and your performance is far above what you normally do. Later I knew that was what happened to me at that moment. My hands flew along the keys, targeting, healing, sleeping and at the end of it all, the ground was littered with dead bodies. None of them ours.
“I’d hate to see what we could do when we ARE ready” I said.
What separates the okay players from the great ones is they don’t lose their cool in a bad situation. My clan leader is a great player, Raven is a great player and at that moment, I felt that I saw a glimmer of goodness in me.
I don’t know who he really is, he’s kind of like that masked man that rides in and then rides away. Raven leveled and it was time for him to go.
One of the difficult things in this game is the transitory nature of your relationships with people. He could disappear and I’d never play with him again… it’s happened before to people I’ve met in game and each time I feel a twinge of sadness. But luckily there are always new faces and characters to met.
I just hope that for this Raven, it isn’t ‘Nevermore”….
I stopped puzzled by the cryptic comment, patiently waiting for more information. I waited a long time and nothing happened.
“Anne are you okay?” I typed, hoping nothing was wrong.
“This is mom typing now, she had to take a quick bathroom break. I’ll type what she wants when she gets back.”
Playing with Anne was becoming a regular weekend thing. Last weekend, her dad had needed to work on something and had asked if I’d mind playing with Anne again. Would I mind? Sheesh, I’d jumped at the chance since I’d had such fun the first time.
I’d learned that contrary to what I’d thought, even at 6 years old she was in an advanced reading program and she actually could read the things I typed on the screen. Her dad was suitably proud of her achievement and had let me know that she even typed her own replies. They were slow, because sometimes she had problems finding the keys, but the responses were hers. That had made me smile. I was amused at my reaction because now that I knew she was reading I tried to make sure to type in complete sentences with proper punctuation. No need to have her have to try to figure out cryptic Internet shorthand.
That last time we’d played, she had gained a lot of confidence as she became more certain I wouldn’t let her die. I trotted behind her with my little Light Elf Healer and she’d announced we were going to Abandoned Coal Mines. We meandered through the mines taking in a variety of sights. At one point we’d come to ‘bat bridge’, so called because of the row of bats spaced evenly across it, and I noticed a dead character on the ground ahead. It immediately got my attention because his name was red.
I scanned the area, alert for any problems. I was very aware that Anne would not understand the implications of PK and I wanted to be ready if someone attacked.
As we moved along the bridge I had a sudden flash of déjà vu, the same dead character with the same red name. I could have sworn he was back farther… A few steps more and there was another one and farther along another one.
If I’d been alone I would have just stopped and made a report, but I had to make sure Anne was okay and she was trotting ahead blissfully unaware, so I used the report function to give the character name and let them know there were multiples of this avatar dead. I followed Anne along, not sure what would happen next.
She could spoil, but did not yet have the SP for sweep, so she happily spoiled ever mob we killed along the way and I chuckled at the throbbing blue indicating yet another antidote or stem going to waste. I loved living for a moment in her world. She wandered around the mines never staying in one place too long and I could just imagine what she must have been thinking; the creaking of the mines, the new mobs and new architecture, all of it a new experience.
She wanted to kill ‘fish heads’, which was her name for Magical Weavers. I laughed out loud the first time she’d called them that. I could see how a child would interpret their strange appearance that way, the little floating fins reminiscent of fish.
I had spent a lot of time in Dwarfland in my previous incarnation on Sieghardt and I was very familiar with the layout of the mines. I knew where to find the floaters and eventually we made it to an area with multiple Magical Weavers. She happily charged in to kill.
Now earlier, I had started having my little dwarf tag along on my second computer, just in case there was trouble. There was one funny moment when her father obviously worried that something might get out of hand took control and angrily demanded out loud to know why that character was following. I laughed and explained who it was and he sheepishly apologized. But he was right to be vigilant and I was glad he was paying attention. He had indicated that either he or his wife was checking on her ever 5 minutes or so.
As Anne charged in to kill the ‘fish heads’, I knew things were going to get ugly. She was pretty good at the game for a 6 year old, but she still wasn’t quite sure how to judge proximity agro for social mobs and instead of one ‘fish head’ we had four.
I wasn’t going to let her die!
This is why I’d been trailing us with my level 9 dwarf. I attacked with my little dwarf and my healer started chain healing. At one point I drew agro on my healer from one of the mobs and before I could switch mobs my healer died. My little dwarf had helped enough though that Anne had lived through it with more than half her HP.
Now I had a slight problem. My healer was dead, Anne was the group leader and my dwarf didn’t have any rez scrolls. I knew from last week that Anne probably had at least one on her, but I wasn’t sure how well I could communicate what was needed. I took the easy way out.
“Anne, please go get your Dad and tell him I died.”
There was no response but it wasn’t long before dad let me know he was there and my little Light Elf returned to the land of the living. In my mind’s eye I saw her jumping down and running to get her father and him showing her where the scroll was she needed to use. I could just imagine her delight in using the scroll.
As Dad left again to go do his chore and we resumed our travels, I received an answer to my petition. It was fairly brief with a request for the location I’d seen the dead people. That was one thing I’d neglected to get.
However Anne and I were near there, so I took down the /loc and gave him that, telling him they were just across the bridge. He said thank you and closed the petition. Okay, that was short and a bit abrupt, but I’d done my duty and made the report.
As we wandered around more in the dungeon, I was a bit worried about how the farmers would react to Anne. Her father had taught her well and she didn’t attack mobs others were killing, but I was cautious at how they might view her intrusion. I didn’t want someone training her or deciding to PK the little girl. Realistically they would have no way of knowing their opponent was a 6 year old and just as realistically many wouldn’t care if they did.
No one bothered us, however, and Anne soon moved from ‘fish heads’ to ‘beasts’. She seemed to really like killing the shiny cats called Gemstone Beasts. As we killed I had a petition window pop up and a name I recognized as one of the higher GMs asked me for more details. I explained what I could and when he asked if I could go back to that location, I sadly told him that I could not, since I was grouped with a little 6 year old girl and I had to make sure she was okay. I think he was a bit surprised but he was very understanding and I told him I’d given the approximate location to the other GM. He thanked me explaining that he would investigate.
I had told him the dead bodies were on ‘bat bridge’ the name I’d heard used many times for that location. He apparently didn’t know where that was. I briefly thought about how interesting it was that players in a given area would have names for landmarks and locations like this that were immediately recognizable to them, but the GMs or even other players who had never been in that location, would not necessarily know what the names meant. I found that fascinating for some reason. I wondered how many of the GMs actually had the opportunity to live in the world where they worked and out of those, how many had spent a lot of time in Elmore? It was a job for them, but for how many was it also a passion?
I don’t think it’s too much to ask that GMs know the basics of the game, but sometimes I think we forget that it is their job and I don’t know about anyone else, but I certainly don’t live my job and when I have time off, I want it to really be time off. I don’t expect them to like the game as much as I do, though I know many do.
My attention moved back to Anne as she was having trouble finding enough to kill, there were too many farmers and too few mobs. We decided to leave the dungeon and travel to an area with more mobs and less players with which to contend.
As we headed out the back of Abandoned Coal Mines, I could feel Anne’s excitement. She ran around the area darting here and there, but a server announcement interrupted our play. The server would be going down in a few minutes.
I didn’t want her left in a bad place with no support if the server went down, so I told Anne to get Dad and when he came back, it was decided she’d go to town and our play for that day was done. She’d apparently had a good enough time in the mines that time for her to want to return during our present session.
I was brought back to the present by a message.
“She wants to go to the hanging bridges.” Her mother conveyed her wishes. “Can you hear her stomping her feet in impatience?” I laughed at her mother’s comment.
Hanging bridges…hmmm maybe she meant the bat bridge? I told her to follow me and away we went. However once we arrived, it didn’t seem like what she wanted as she crossed the bridges and moved into the tunnel. Okay, maybe she meant the rope bridges in another area.
“Did I go the rong way?”, she typed and again I smiled at the phonetic spelling.
“No”, I replied. “Keep going”
She politely thanked me and moved through. We killed a few mobs here and there and her attention was momentarily diverted when she checked her SP and excitedly told me she finally had enough for a new spell. We continued on looking for the rope bridges but when we reached them she still didn’t seem satisfied.
“Are these the bridges you want?” I asked.
A quick ‘no’ had me puzzled. Okay, what could she mean? Then it hit me.
“Anne, are these bridges outside?”
Her affirmative reply meant I’d a clue to the answer and I asked her to follow me. We traveled through the dungeon to the outside area and eventually into the open air. One of the things that had fascinated me about the Dwarf area was the striking skyline. And this was the area we’d been in last time when the server had gone down. Criss-crossing the sky above was a network of catwalks that went from one Mine to the other. On low detail on a low end computer they were barely visible but on a high end system with video details up, they were breathtaking.
I could almost hear a squeal of delight as she ran towards them. Back and forth she moved with some sort of purpose I was unable to discern. Finally she stopped and I pictured her slowly typing her question.
“How do you get up there?”, she looked to me for an answer.
I grinned at this, but was momentarily flustered at how to answer. How would I explain that although it looked like you should be able to get up there, you couldn’t? The boundaries of the game geography cleverly kept you from being able to get there. I knew, because I’d spent one whole day trying. But how could I make a child, even a very smart one understand? Finally I settled on an answer.
“I’m sorry, but you can’t. They are just decorations.”
“Ohhhhh” was the reply and I was fairly certain she understood. Although she understood, she seemed very disappointed and I wished with all my heart I’d had magical godlike powers and could have transported us up to the catwalk.
She told me she wanted to go back to town. I thought about it for a moment, and decided to see how much she’d learned.
“Anne, look in your bag and find the Scroll of Escape.” I typed to her. “Do you know how to right click?” I asked, not sure if the term would mean anything to her.
“Yes” she replied
“Okay, right click on the Scroll of Escape”. I waited anxious to see what would happen. The familiar blue pattern emerged and I excitedly told her she’d done a good job. It wasn’t long before we were back in town and after a brief run to try out her new spell, our time together was over.
Her mother and father always thanked me for playing with her, but I hope they know that I genuinely love doing it and I feel like I should thank them for the special gift I get with each play session. Playing with Anne is a joy to me and I love looking at the world of Elmore through her eyes. ‘Hanging bridges’, ‘fish heads’ and ‘beasts’ will now forever remind me of a special little girl.
*******
Disclaimer: For what should be fairly obvious reasons, Anne is not her real name. Although I do use the diminutive of the name of one of my character's in my last few stories and similar nicknames of other's I play with, I felt it best to not use any indication of my 6 year old friend's real name.
I've been here since prelude. But I hardly ever post on the forums. I just wanted to take the time to thank you for your stories. It really makes my day when I come here and find that you have made a new entry. It is refreashing to see that others can also play this game with some dignity and manors and still progress and have a good time.
Too bad your not on bartz so I'll never say hi to you in game. But hello and keep up the good work!
Jute,
Your most recent post about your experiences with Anne in Elmore was particularly enjoyable. Thanks for the good stories; I'll check back to this thread often.
Thank you all for your comments! I enjoy the writing and I enjoy the experiences that lead me to write. As I've said before I never know if people really read these and it's always nice to hear that something that brings me pleasure is also enjoyed by others.
I rolled over and looked at the clock. Midnight. The hamster brain was working over time. Hamster brain was my term for what was happening to me. Round and round my mind went over the same things again and again. Just like that small rodent desperately running as fast as he could on the wheel to go nowhere.
Work had been tough the last couple of days and I knew the next installation I was overseeing was crucial. If it didn’t go well, it wouldn’t bode well for my career. Nothing like an angry Vice President to help you brush up on your resume skills.
I had planned things out as well as I could, but there are always last minute problems and I hadn’t counted on Switzerland having a four day holiday over Easter weekend. Round and round.
If I didn’t sleep soon I wasn’t sure how I would function at work. The steady breathing of my boyfriend in slumber was a calming influence and I slowly drifted off.
The strident music of my cell phone bolted me awake. The panicked voice of our European consultant greeted me when I answered the phone. Glancing at the time I saw it was 1 am, at least I’d gotten a bit of sleep. I took a deep breath and calmed him down. It took a few hours to solve the problem but once done, I had a slight dilemma. Try to get some sleep or stay up the two hours till work. I had lain back down to try to grab what little sleep I could before I needed to head to work, but that hamster kept cranking away.
Giving up, I got out of bed and went in the other room. Soon the soft glow of the monitor bathed the room in muted light and I pondered what to do. I could surf the web or I could play L2, but if I played, I was tired enough I might just end up with less XP than when I started. However, I’d wanted to go back to the test server for some time now and it seemed like the perfect opportunity.
The log on server has the choice as Bartz. I logged in with my elf from the Zaken test, trying to figure out what I was going to do with a level 74 character with level 20 skills. I had exactly 1 adena, a map and the items I’d gotten from the test. I had done the first clas transfer quest and wanted to do the second, but ran into a stumbling block. I needed 100K adena. I would get it back apparently in one part of the quest, but I still needed it to hand over initially. I needed spells to earn money efficiently, but I had to have spell books to get the spells and books cost adena. I felt like the hamster was back.
The first problem I needed to solve was money. I had to find a way to earn enough for some of those spellbooks. Even if I’d wanted to sell a piece of my equipment (which I did not) the server seemed empty and there was no one to do the buying. Everything was dark blue to me and I doubted my ability to kill anything that was close to my level without better spells.
Initially, I’d thought dark blues would not drop anything for me. However I was told that was incorrect. Things would drop, the chance was just much lower. Given that as the case, I began the systematic extermination of mobs in the area of Dion and Florin. I could kill them in one or two hits and at the first tinkle of coins I laughed in delight. My friend had been right. I could get adena after all.
Greedily I scooped up the coins and began my plan; I knew which spell I’d buy first. It didn’t matter to me if it was the most practical, I was an addict. I fought until I had about 1000 adena and ran to the magic shop to buy my chosen spell.
After obtaining the book, I headed to the church to receive the knowledge of the priests and it wasn’t long before the blissful whoosh of air heralded Wind Walk being cast. Now I could travel faster and hopefully gain adena more quickly. Yes, the spell I so desperately wanted was Wind Walk. I’m sure it would have been much more practical for me to get something like Disrupt Undead, but Wind Walk is so much more fun.
Normally I’m a fan of leveling at a measured pace. I’m not looking to shortcut anything. I like learning my characters abilities and testing my limits, but there were so many areas in the game I had not been and I wanted badly to see them, even if it was only to take a peek at them. My hope was that with this character I could be a tourist and visit a few. I struggled with the part of me that said, “have patience it will all come in time”. But the eagerness to see the sights outweighed my sensible side.
I can understand why it’s so frustrating to people who lose a weapon or have some unfortunate set back. It’s not that it is impossible to earn money. I was proving it with my slowly growing stash of adena. It’s just that it would take seemingly forever and most people would have little patience with that process.
I checked my 'clan' online to see if just by chance someone would be around, but I truly doubted I'd ever see them again. Although the quiet was a welcome respite, I longed for a little company.
The test server is so peaceful. It’s almost like a private paradise and it was just the kind of calm I needed after the stress of my evening. I wouldn’t give up my clan for the world, but I can see the lure of this world could also be strong when I just need a break from everything and tranquility is my goal.
I glanced at the clock and sighed. Life beckoned and regretfully I logged off. As my willowy elf faded I vowed to return soon. I know the wipe for the test server is coming soon and when that happens I’ll lose my ‘Jute’ there. It’s a race against time for me to gain the money I need before that happens and I’m not sure it’s a race I can win. However, whether I win or not, I’ll enjoy the run!
The gentle roar of the waterfall kissed by the of colors from the rainbow awed me with the thought that the beauty of this world was created out of the mind of some very talented artists and brought to life by the gift of programming. It never ceased to amaze me and I stood gazing in amazement until I realized my companion had moved on ahead of me. As I hurried to catch up, I thought about how lucky I was to be here.
One of my higher level friends had heard that I had started looking to buy my spellbooks for use after my second profession change. It was still a long way away but starting early would only mean it would be more likely I’d have them when I needed them. He had suggested that I save my money and instead of buying them, I could make a trip with him to try to see what we could get to drop.
The trip had a two-fold purpose. I knew from previous experience that my friend also enjoyed being able to show me new things and even in my previous incarnation on Sieghardt I had never visited Enchanted Valley. I had gotten glimpses of it when my boyfriend played, but he had spent little time in the area, so this would be a new experience.
Lately, Dion had been my home base, though I knew it wouldn’t last much longer. My friend indicated that I should head to Hunter’s Village and meet him there. I had passed through the Village on a couple of occasions, and I knew the way.
After casting buffs on Si, my cleric, and Shay, my dark elf, I started out on my adventure, passing through familiar lands to ones less familiar. Although I’d been hunting in the area close to Oren with my clan, we had really covered a very small part of it. Also, the higher level of the mobs meant I could not solo here and anytime I needed to I had to head back closer to Dion or Giran to find them. That’s one thing I wish the designers of the game would take into consideration. As a healer, you really only have the option to solo undead mobs as you gain in levels. I knew there was a decent supply of them in the Execution Grounds, but soon those would be too low and I was not sure where to head next. As far as I knew there were no undead in this area, so I was completely dependant on parties here.
The times previously I’d been to Hunter’s Village I’d been following others and hadn’t really paid attention to the scenery. This time I soaked in the sights as I passed through. I never get tired of looking at the world in this game. It was one of the things that drew me back and I know that from now on I will measure all others against it.
I met up with my friend and after grouping, buffing and the regular group setup things, we headed out to the valley. A short march and we were there and now I hurried to catch up with him as he moved deeper in. I had to keep myself from just stopping and staring. It was so incredibly beautiful. Although there are many spectacular areas of this world, the sylvan feel of the landscape suited my idea of natural beauty.
My friend is always good about warning me which mobs are aggressive and special things to watch out for. We killed as we explored wandering around the area aimlessly. My friend was able to kill the mobs fairly easily, what wasn’t easy was the random targets from the casters. Twice one of my characters died from spell hits. I knew the main fault was my jewelry. I was still wearing the newbie stuff I’d gotten as drops when I first started. My mdef was pitifully low and I paid for it whenever I got hit by spells. I kept meaning to get better jewels but I was still trying to save for Shay’s banana suit. I had gotten Si’s new armor and it had been an incredible help when spells failed or the few times I got agro in groups. The armor was important, but I definitely had to do something about the jewelry. If I didn’t, life would only get much worse and although I try to look at character death philosophically I actively avoided it.
Character’s rezzed and rebuffed and we moved on. There were so many wonderful sights. I laughed in delight as we crossed the leaf bridges, my feet making squishing noises as I walked along. There were sights and sounds, the only thing missing was the ability to touch. I wished I could reach out and pet the majestic unicorns or run my hand along the gnarled bark of the trees.
My friend spent time finding and showing me the fairy queen and the little fairy for the hatchling quest. He took me to the protected pool with the waterfalls. Every corner turned held a new delight.
After an idyllic time in the valley we decided to move on. As we headed out the canyon, I couldn’t help but turn back for one last look. Regretfully I watched as the magical place passed out of sight. The valley is appropriately named and I hope to return soon. No matter if I can or not, I think this will always be a favorite place of mine. I thanked my friend for bringing me and again reaffirming my reason for playing this game.
I laughed as I viewed the spellbook, my reward for a whole day of running back and forth gathering ingredients to make my wish come true. I had wished for Wisdom, partially since in life it is an elusive goal of mine and partially since quite honestly my little level 31 self couldn’t handle some of the other possibilities. I pondered the wisdom in getting a book for a spell that I’d had since my character’s early days. Perhaps it was just to remind me that the simple things are the best sometimes.
However, I was addicted to this silly quest and ready for my third try. I was determined to get something good from it sometime, even if it meant running all over Aden another bunch of times to gather the grocery list of ingredients.
Many people, rightly so, claim that the grind in Lineage 2 is the hardest thing to accept. I’m not really sure why it doesn’t bother me as much as it does most people. Sure, I want my characters to get to a higher level. I’m really looking forward to the class transfer and finally being out of my character’s adolescence moving into the maturity of the higher levels. But I don’t mind the repetitive killing of the grind. Perhaps I would mind it more if I didn’t have the steady companionship of my small clan.
I glanced over at my clan leader. He had chosen our name carefully. The name meant ‘Iron Flower’ in one of the elvish languages, conjuring images of both strength and beauty. We still had only our original three members and although we wanted to make sure whoever joined fit well with our philosophy, I hoped we’d find ourselves growing a bit soon.
The day had been good. Whenever we were on together we grouped. It wasn’t out of any sense of obligation, but rather a genuine desire to enjoy the companionship of friends. We played at similar times, had similar goals in the game and the same sort of motivation to see the other members of our small group flourish.
After turning level 30 my clan leader had suggested we do the wishing potion quest. This was our second try at it. Earlier we’d joined in the bunny hunt and scoured the land for the furry creatures. Unfortunately, we found not a one although I’d enjoyed going places I’d never been.
We’d both had to log for a bit to take care of life’s grown up obligations and when we’d logged back on after a bit of indecisiveness we had headed off to the Wastelands to gather the ingredients we needed from there. We had an exciting time when the Wild Desperados had jumped us while we were fighting other mobs. Coolness persevered and we lived through the encounter. Moving on to find more for our quest in the distance over the hill we spied a flash of white. I was afraid my eyes were deceiving me, but my clan leader’s exclamation of “Bunnies!” made me give a whoop for joy.
Carefully we killed our way closer, edging around a group of agro mobs we jumped on began our rabbit bashing.
I did feel a momentary twinge at the death of the helpless furry little creature, but that soon passed as they faded away. Next up was the chest which was a bit tougher than I’d expected, soon it too fell with a shower of gifts.
I couldn’t believe the bounty. We picked up the fallen items as fast as we could and when I glanced in Si’s inventory she had nearly a full set of D grade jewelry. My clan leader, being the kind of guy he is had gotten the remaining piece and without even a comment he traded it to Si.
Now she wouldn’t die so easily from spells!
I also had a lifetime supply of Soulshots! I hadn’t expected so much from the chest but that wasn’t the end of the surprises. A bit later my clan leader told me to look at my XP bar. I was stunned. Lately, with work so hectic I’d been only getting one level a week. I was close now to my second level in two days.
We’d joked about how perhaps we could find another chest so Shay too would have her jewelry, but even though we did a bit more exploring our one windfall was all we discovered.
Now we were here at the Dwarf making our wishes. The day had reminded me again about how important relationships are in this game. You can be a loner if you wish, but it’s really the interaction of friends and enemies that make it worthwhile. Right now I had many of the former and none of the latter, but in the way of life, I knew at some point that would change.
I had been lucky those days in RoD and Abandoned Camp when I’d hooked up with the people who now shared my online life. In many ways the game echoes life and it is what you make of it. I was glad that in my case, I’d made friends.
Every single time I come to the Execution Grounds I’m confronted with the negative side of human interaction in L2. I don’t know what it is about the place that perpetuates it. Perhaps it’s the whole sordid atmosphere of death and torture. Whatever it is, I can guarantee that at some point in my foray into this area something will happen. The dead elf was a fair representation of the less savory side of L2.
I had gotten off work on time for once and made it home in record time, the usual traffic snarl surprisingly not there. My boyfriend had to go out for work and I was left to do as I wished and so I heeded the siren call of L2.
My systems patched and ready to go I made my first attempt at logon. However one of my accounts would not allow me to log on no matter what I tried. Luckily I remembered reading in the forums a bit earlier about a problem that might be solved by using the ASCII representation of numbers. I found the page, located the codes I needed and that did the trick. I was in.
My clan leader, Loh, was on an alternate character of his. He’d been playing his scavenger the last few nights to help us gather some needed recipes and materials. He asked if I wanted to go with him to the Execution Grounds to try to spoil some specific recipes. Happily I agreed and after the usual round of buffs we were off.
Once there, we fought in the lower area not far from the madragoria farm. I didn’t usually fight here, but the mobs were higher level and we were specifically looking for some recipes that were purported to drop from the golems and bats.
People rushed back and forth, the area crowded with characters all after the almighty XP gain. At one point Loh stopped to talk to a female elf. Asking her how her leveling was coming along. He’d met her recently when she was 20. She must have been working very hard because she indicated she was at level 30 now.
I liked her armor and asked her what it was since I am not fond of the ‘banana suit’ I am always looking for something that might appear more fashionable. Her answer was Sage’s Rags, one of the recipes we were looking to spoil. I thanked her and we moved on.
It wasn’t long before shout was filled with explicative from the same elf with whom we’d been chatting. I was shocked and it took me a moment to realize I’d made the classic mistake of thinking that the character was being played by a woman. The ranting in general chat took me by surprise because I’d made that assumption.
Now I know some women who can out swear sailors, and it very well could have been a woman doing the cussing and threats, but I would bet my banana suit that it wasn’t. It took awhile to cut through the trash talk to figure out what was going on. Apparently someone had PKed a buffer at the crossroads and she was taunting the PKer.
About this time Loh indicated he had to put his kids to bed. It was a nightly ritual that usually took him away from the game for about 20 minutes. I missed his initial announcement and so I was surprised when he led us to the crossroads where the confrontation was taking place.
His avatar faded out and Si and Shay were left standing in the middle of a smacktalk fest between two different factions. The previously PKed character lay on the ground, her body littered with coins as if to bury her in gold. I am sure there was some purpose to this strange ritual, but quite frankly if all hell broke loose I didn’t want to be in the middle of it.
I moved my characters a bit farther down the path and logged onto a pair of alts I’d been working on when my clan members were not around. The usual 20 minutes passed and I fielded a PM from Loh to let me know he was back.
A quick switch and I was back on Si and Shay. I moved up the road to find him and we rejoined our little party. I was just explaining to Loh how there had been this huge tauntfest going on after he left when out of nowhere a red named elf ran up to a sitting character nearby and slashed at her. Her pitiful death cry rang out. We weren’t very far from where she’d been and I turned back to see the elf headed for Loh. He saw him too and started to run. My human must have looked like an easier target and the elf swerved towards me. I desperately tried to run but he easily caught me. He used a special that took me down to a quarter of my HP. One more blow and I’d be dead, but the elf veered off and headed away after a new target.
I’m not a PvPer. I usually go out of my way to be nice to others and I like to think of the best in human beings. But something happened that is hard to describe. Maybe it was all those times I’d died at a much more tender age to griefers who had nothing better to do than torment the lower levels. Maybe it was watching my boyfriend and his friends fight and win with overwhelming odds. Whatever it was time started moving slower and something inside me took over. Controlling two characters is never a cake walk and in a PvP situation I would not willingly do it, but here I was, like it or not, in the middle of just such an occurrence.
As the elf moved away, I spun Shay around, targeted the running form and hit F5. Sleep landed and the elf stood motionless. I was spinning Si to follow up with root when I noticed that everyone seemed to be frozen with shock. As root hit, they sprang into action and Loh, along with another guy who’d been closeby pounded on the Elf. I saw him hit Loh with mortal blow but it did less than a quarter of his HP in damage. Shay cast battle heal on Loh while Si followed it with a heal on the guy helping.
In seconds it was over. The elf dead and all the rest of us alive.
Loh came back to where I stood and we soon went back to killing. Now that it was all over, I found myself shaking. A strange reaction but I knew it must have been from the adrenalin reaction. Now that I had time to think I was amazed at how quickly I’d reacted and I know I babbled nonsense to Loh for the next few minutes.
I wondered what the dead Elf was thinking. Did he care that his target had turned the tables and killed him? Was he cursing or did he just take it in stride as part of the PK experience? I don’t even remember his name, but I did wonder if he would remember mine.
The advice Sorvath gives to new and returning players came back to me. He wisely tells them that PK happens, but if they grow strong, it will happen less and sometimes they will be able to turn the tables on their attacker.
I still don’t like PvP, but the encounters made me feel better about myself and my character handling skills. I wouldn’t always win in an encounter, there is always someone better, faster or more well equipped, but at least now I knew I wasn’t just a pushover anymore.
Very nice writing here. Once you get more powerful it will feel even better when a group of people tries to gang up on you and you take them all down by yourself. I have to say that L2 is one of the few games out there that can give you an adrenaline rush during PvP in the field.
I had read where you did that very thing Silvera. :)
I know I'll win sometimes and sometimes I'll lose. It's just the nature of the game. But it did feel good to know I wasn't as helpless as I was as a newbie!
Oh...and appologies to Sovrath for mispelling his name. Unfortunately I can't edit it now. :( I once read of a famous actress who would not watch her own films (I believe it was Katherine Hepburn) and have had the same philosophy with my writing. Every time I go back over them I cringe at mistakes in the writing. Too much time passes and I can't edit them. Unfortunately I have to usually dash them off quickly in between work and I can't spend the time I'd like.
Maybe I should send them to Ash for a check by the master before I post! ;) Since I hear he's only made one mistake in his posting life!
Just as a little note, if you're after a sage robe, its hellish hard to get, the recipe is so-so hard, but the parts for it only *spoils* off a level 40+ mob thats fairly covered in dangerous territory.
Reds sadly really never care of you kill them, they just spawn back, I've killed dusins up around EG and in Gludin (when I train lower level characters there, I usually always have my high level character around to blast pk's)
I have done that quest so many times (Wish) and never got tired of it.
The Wastelands was at that time a deadly place where I had to be on my guards at all time....one wrong aggro and I knew it was death.
I use to do that quest while I was alone and couldn't find or simply couldn't group with someone else. I often play in the middle of the night for a short period (1 hour or 2 when I wake up), and therefore cannot commit to a group. I also have a baby that can wake up at any time, which is another reason why it's hard to commit to a group. I therefore did the quest alone almost every time.
Every moments of that quest were intense and never boring. It was also a clear change from the grinding. The task was focused on getting the ingredients without getting killed....
Even now that I am too high level to incurred any risks at all, I still enjoy doing the quest. It's not hard and perillous anymore, but each time I go through the quest I cannot help but feel the superiority of my character...
The feeling of invincibilty I get is a pure delight. I probably enjoy this feeling so much because of the number of times I did it knowing that my life was hagning by a thread.
I can now run around and ignore or kill any mob I please, as if I was the God of the Wastelands.
I used the potions a couple of times only, out of curiosity. After that I started to sell them. I must have gained 10 million adena with this quest alone, selling wish potions..
The only thing I find annoying about the Wishing Potion quest is finding a good supply of Ant Soldiers and Tyrants, they are very scattered about, and without a walker also quite annoying to find. They're fun to find the first 30 times, then they get very very boring, heh.
I had a love/hate relationship going with macros. Since I had discovered them and automated many of my tasks it had made two-boxing a whole lot easier, but sometimes for no apparent reason there was this mysterious failure.
Now was a bad time to fail and the angry Skeleton beat harder on my cleric Si. I quickly turned to Shay’s monitor and mouse. A few clicks and thankfully things were back under control. I logged off grateful I hadn’t died.
Lately my play time had been very limited and a death would be a huge set back. Work, which always took up far too much as it was, had been even more demanding. A department reorganization had given me more responsibility and that meant more time at work. Time that cut into my play. So, my leveling of Si and Shay had slowed to a crawl.
I felt slightly discouraged. Si and Shay were the first in a host of characters I wanted to level and play, but my limited time meant that I wasn’t even able to get those two to the second class change quest yet.
So far I’d been pretty good about not letting things get to me, just taking each day as it came, but sometimes I wished I had a week where I could do nothing but play and level my characters.
I found it amusing that I’d left World of Warcraft partially because it was too easy. I was able to level to nearly maximum even with scattered playtime, but I felt it lacked a challenge. So here I was in a more challenging atmosphere and I found myself fighting the frustration of the ‘casual’ gamer. Not enough time to do what I wanted to do.
Remembering why I left WoW helped me feel less frustrated. If I focused on what the game was, rather than where I would like to be in it, I was able to relax and enjoy things.
Other by products of the ‘less time to play’ had also been less things to write about and less time to write.
I had done a few fun things, I’d visited the Sea of Spores, met a wild woman assassin, leveled a Dwarf to 19 and joined my clan leader in lower level caster mayhem and soon as I get more than a moment to breath I would try to write up some of those things.
One more hit and Jute would be dead. Desperately I tried to cast Battle Heal on myself, but in my panic I hit the regular heal, by the time it landed I was laying on the floor. Another couple of hits and the Gladiator was down. That left my Elven Wizard and the Abyss Walker. Of the four mobs that we had pulled two were left.
I hit my macro to cast the Wizard’s spells and when nothing happened I realized my problem. The Gladiator was dead and the macro fired off his target. With barely any red showing on her bar my boyfriend’s Abyss Walker downed one of the mobs and started on the last one. Then I did the one thing my boyfriend had tried to teach me not to do, I panicked. And in my panic I forgot that Wizards can heal. The Abyss Walker crumpled to the ground with a pitiful cry and the mob turned on my Wizard.
I tried nuking but the four times hit points mob was too much for my lone Wizard and she soon joined the group of dead avatars on the floor. No choice but to release back to town.
When things go right and I can heal fast and keep everyone alive, I feel great. When things go wrong and I mess up, I feel really bad. Two mistakes and we’d wiped. I felt really bad now.
In town I stood there for a moment trying to figure out what we would do. The Gladiator, a friend of my boyfriend, started heading back. He was sure that no one would find all the stuff we’d dropped since we had been fairly far into the dungeon and had seen almost no one else. I’d been the one who wanted to try the new Dusk/Dawn dungeons and we’d chosen one of the lower end ones for our level range. We all had mostly NG gear and I knew we’d have trouble taking anything too high, but we were fighting whites and doing not too poorly… until the wipe.
So I stood in town moping about how I’d let people down and they had died. I was apologizing for the fourth time when Atrophical sent me a PM about joining his guild. I don’t multi-task well in this kind of situation and I tried finally had sense enough to tell him we’d just wiped. Thankfully he understood my difficulty in communicating with him at the time.
I had ‘met’ Atro in person one time before early in the career of my two characters here on Test. I had been a bit surprised by his appearance as a charming human. I don’t know why it surprised me, but I somehow pictured him as choosing a ‘tougher’ looking avatar. Not that there is anything prissy about the humans, just that I somehow pictured him as more battle scared, less of the Orlando Bloom in “Pirates of the Caribbean” and more Johnny Depp.
I’d been having a rough dilemma concerning what to do about guilds. Right now I had four people I had been playing regularly with on Test and I didn’t want to leave any of them out. I was really excited and happy that my boyfriend had come back to play on the Test server. Playing with him and his friend reminded me a bit of the old days when I played with the power gamers. I enjoy that style occasionally but I don’t do well on a steady diet of it. Playing again with this kind of focus and skill had been fun. Also, my guild leader from Erica was on playing with us. He’d been a prime factor in making L2 lots of fun to play. He tolerated my multiple characters and had the same play time/sense of adventure that I have.
So my dilemma stood. I’d been offered a chance to join several good guilds and I knew how important that aspect of play was, but I didn’t want to leave any of the rest of them behind. That was something to think about later. Right now I was feeling bad about the deaths.
I was shaken out of my misery by a laugh. The Gladiator was chuckling at my apology. “I pulled four mobs for crying out loud. It wasn’t your fault.”
I smiled a bit at that and ran back to the entrance of the catacombs.
The new C3 additions were incredible. I’d been having a wonderful time on the test server. The new interface, the graphics and just the bustling atmosphere all contributed to the fun of play. I had leveled two elves up to 43 and had been trying to decide what to do about the class quests. I knew I needed to earn more cash so I could get out of the NG gear, but I really wanted to see the new dungeons.
I could tell these would be interesting with what we’d experienced so far. The mobs were all linked and scattered throughout with a mix of agro and none agro mobs. Most of them seemed to have some kind of special ability and magic. The new models were beautifully detailed, but I did begin to wonder when I would stop seeing the same Imps and Spectre models I’d seen since the beginning of my journey through this world. I especially liked the death animations on the Egyptian-like guardians. Their freezing in an upright posture and disappearing in a puff of smoke was something completely new to me.
After a comedy of errors where we made a couple of wrong turns in the mazelike dungeon, we made it back to the spot we’d died. Sure enough, all the stuff was still there. We loaded up, fought a few more and then it was time for me to sleep. As I logged off I thought about one of the bonus things I’d gotten in this time I’d been able to play on Test.
I’d ‘met’ several people who I only knew through their posts on the boards. I’d enjoyed buffing and sparring with Darkmotion (and finding his chest!), and talking with those who’d taken the time to send me PMs (Silvera, Splatter, Hallie and I’m sure I’ve forgotten someone!) . My adventures so far in the first few days were enough to fill many posts and I hoped I’d have time to write them.
I had ‘met’ Atro in person one time before early in the career of my two characters here on Test. I had been a bit surprised by his appearance as a charming human. I don’t know why it surprised me, but I somehow pictured him as choosing a ‘tougher’ looking avatar. Not that there is anything prissy about the humans, just that I somehow pictured him as more battle scared, less of the Orlando Bloom in “Pirates of the Caribbean” and more Johnny Depp.
** ** Jute, that made me giggle. Great stories, by the way. :)
I'm still very much enjoying your writing, keep it up. It was nice talking to you on the PTS as well, I'll be sure to come to the forum picnic when you've got it set up.
“Are you a healer?” The Dark Elf female posed the question to my human cleric.
We were in the pit below Ivory Tower, gathering spellbooks we needed for our characters. Moving from mob to mob at a blistering pace, we had paused only briefly for buffs when the Dark Elf had started talking.
“Yes, I am. Why?” I answered.
“Could you heal me sometimes.” She asked.
Now this took me slightly by surprise. If she’d watched for any length of time she would have seen the Cleric, the Human Knight and the Dark Elf Assassin all repeatedly fighting the same mobs. But I gave her the benefit of the doubt.
“I’m in a group.” I thought the explanation would suffice.
“I know, but could you just heal me sometimes.”
I was honestly stunned. I stood for several moments wondering what the heck to do when I finally decided it didn’t deserve an answer and moved on to the next mob.
Playing a buffing class you quickly have to get used to begging. People constantly ask for buffs. I do understand how much difference buffs make to a fight. I know that they are important, but whenever I get these requests I can’t help but wonder about the people doing the begging. Do they ever consider what it means to the buffer/healer from whom they are making the request?
Most of the time I am fine with doing what they request. Most of the time it doesn’t bother me. Most of the time…
Usually in town, it might mean a small delay in what my character is doing. Occasionally the small delay has turned into a constant stream of ‘ww plz”. So mostly it’s a minor inconvenience.
It’s when I’m out fighting somewhere in the fields or a dungeon that there is really a potential problem. You see people who ask for buffs or heals ask because they want to be able to kill faster or fight longer before resting. I understand that. What they don’t seem to understand is that when I give them buffs or heals it’s that much sooner before I have to sit and rest. So by helping them fight longer, it’s cutting into the time I have to fight before resting to regain mana. And if I’m in a group, my downtime is my group’s downtime.
Now, I like healing and buffing. I like it so much that I make healers whenever I can. I have all the classic symptoms of someone who plays the helper classes. As I travel from place to place I usually buff people randomly. I heal people if I think they are in trouble and I take it very personally if someone in my group dies. If I see someone dead I’ll gladly rez them. But sometimes I get a bit weary of the demands others feel they can make on people who play the ‘support’ classes. I don’t want reqs or adena, what I’d like is a bit of respect for what people are really asking.
You see, I think most people miss the point. They feel that all they are asking for is a bit of mana. No big deal. It’s not like it’s much of anything. But, they don’t think it through to the end. They don’t translate that bit of mana into time played. They don’t really think about what they are asking for is a trade….your time for theirs.
Maybe I was just having a grumpy sort of day.
My clan leader from Erica had been playing with me and my boyfriend on the Public Test Server and it was his Dark Elf Assassin in my party. I mentioned my amazement at the beggar and for a brief bit we talked about the sense of entitlement so many people seem to have nowadays.
I wondered if that was part of the problem with how things had gone the last few days on the Test Server. I’d seen a wide range of human emotions from greed to good.
At first when the Test Server had gone live, everyone was ecstatic. The server was literally flooded with new people, everyone joyously leveling and having a great time. Then the first few problems came up. Leveling so fast quickly out paced the cash for equipment people had and so it started the cycle of de-leveling to gain adena.
Then came the first of the scheduled boots and to quote my mother “Everything went to Hell in a handbasket.” There was so much adena floating around that prices went nuts. I found it amusing in an odd sort of way to see how everyone had gotten what they’d asked for, lots of easy leveling and easy adena, and now they were very unhappy with it.
I’m sure there is a couple of great Psycological and Financial studies in here, such as the nature of human greed, how economics work in a market where money becomes worthless and what happens when people get drunk with their own power or how no matter what you give people they will find something to complain about!
But there were some other studies as well too. When pricing went crazy and things got wild, there were several people who stepped forward to try to help control things. Warsmiths, the pariah of the Live servers, began to give of themselves to try to bring prices down.
Now to be fair, many Warsmiths were part of the problem. They charged a huge an insane amount for ‘shots’ the lifeblood of leveling for most people. On the one hand, I understand why many people over-charged. My boyfriend is one who believes if people will pay it, then that’s what you should charge. Whatever the market will bear, is his philosophy. And it is true that part of the problem was caused by people with too much money willing to throw it away.
I could also understand why Warsmiths might feel a bit like they were entitled to this. Since on the Live servers they have so hard of a time of it. They are one of those classes that no one wants to help level, but they sure want them when they need them. I could understand the feeling and the philosophy, but it wasn’t mine.
I had made a couple of Dwarves along with a host of other characters. I had gotten them to level 40 and on the way I’d spent a lot of time gathering the D shot recipes. As I looked around at the prices I wanted to help in my own small way.
I only had the D recipes so I set up a shop making shots in Dion. It was very frustrating because I kept constantly crashing due to the craft shop bug, but I kept at it and something wonderful happened.
I made a new friend.
He came along to make shots and through the crashes we chatted. One of the beautiful things about playing on Test is how you get to meet players on other servers. That’s also one of the sad things, since after this test is over, so will the easy opportunity to play with these people.
During our conversation it finally came to me. This is the true meaning of the exchange of buffs and time and favors. It’s the opportunity to build a relationship with another person that carries farther than that one encounter. You see as we talked, he discovered I had been frustrated with one of my class change quests and he offered to help me finish it. My gift of my time was returned with a gift of his and a friendship was formed.
By the time I saw Elianna was bleeding she was down to a sliver of life. I had been occupied trying to control the two mobs on Jute. My attempt to re-sleep the mob the Elf had woken was met with little success and it wasn’t long before Jute too was down to less than a quarter health.
Such is the perils of two-boxing. I had been so concentrated on the one screen I didn’t see the problem on the other until it was too late. Down so low on life, all it took was one hit and Elianna was dead. I ran Jute to the front of the Temple, swearing under my breath at the griefers.
I was attempting to do the class change for the Elven Elder and had come to Forgotten Temple as part of the level 35 quest. Having never done this quest I was not quite sure which mob I was supposed to kill. I also wasn’t sure how easily I could do this, since I was fairly high level after the experience bump, but I still sported non-grade gear. I needed to get new stuff, but I wasn’t sure what to get, so in my typical decisive fashion…I got nothing.
I had fought in Forgotten Temple with my small clan, and it was here we had met Raven for the first time on the Erica server. I vaguely remembered some salamanders and hoped the ones near the front were the correct ones.
The music in Forgotten Temple is among my favorite in L2. Whenever I hear it I can’t help but imagine a group of cutting through mobs as they charge ever deeper into danger. I loved the architecture of the Temple, the cool, misty feeling of the water side with the ice sculptures contrasting with the lava flows and warm tones of the fire side. Like so much of this amazing game I marveled at the thought of a team of people creating this beautiful place.
So I had come to the Temple to kill something for some talking head in an Orc dungeon. I really should have payed more attention to what that ‘something’ was. I knew it was a salamander, but having been in this dungeon previously I knew the place was literally crawling with them on the fire side.
The first salamander I ran into would be a good test for me. I’d kill it and see what happened. Unfortunately the first salamander was one of two in a passageway with a couple of aggressive bowman skeletons. I killed the bowman and started to attack one of the salamanders. That’s when I remembered one vital detail I’d forgotten. It didn’t matter that the second salamander was clear across the room. The little bugger wiggled his way across the floor and proceeded to start whaling on Jute.
Quickly I cast sleep and the second one was under control. I was just turning my attention to the first one when two male characters came through. They were almost halfway through the dungeon when they turned around and came back towards me. I thought perhaps they were going to beg for buffs, but the Light Elf smacked the sleeping salamander, which proceeded to join the first in smacking Jute. I didn’t see it at the time, but the second must have hit Elianna with bleed. They ran through deeper into the dungeon. On top of everything the Skeleton Bowman had respawned and were plinking arrows into Jute as well.
It was not a fun time.
So now Eli was dead and Jute was running.
As soon as I collected myself I went back and rezzed Eli. I was unhappy with myself for not reacting faster. If I’d seen the strike on Eli I could have possibly slept one of them, though I may have had little success with my NG weapon. After the fact is always interesting since you can think of a dozen different things you didn’t do. I was really sorry I did not remember the names of those characters. I’d like to meet them later when I am in better gear.
I was fairly certain the death hadn’t been personal, as far as I knew I’d never met this person before in game and they hadn’t said one word to me before or after the killing. I wondered briefly if they were trying to keep others from completing their quests or if I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
This was the second setback I’d had trying to do these quests with the lower gear, so discouraged, I decided to port out and regroup. I always find it’s better to do something else when I get frustrated, so instead I decided to do something that would make me feel more positive about things.
I had a serious case of alt-itis. One of the things I loved about Test was how it was allowing me to get one step closer to my dream of having a character of every type. I knew I wouldn’t have the chance to make all the characters I wanted, but I was sure having fun with the ones I’d made so far.
I chose to log onto one of my Dwarves, I’d made a pair and leveled them to 40 and thought they hadn’t yet done their class change, one could make D grade shots. Because of the huge problem with inflation, some people had set up shops to craft shots at 1 adena. I decided to do that in Dion and set my little Dwarf up with the crafting shop.
It was during this time I was making shots that I met Hunter. It’s funny how you create and impression of a person, even though you have never met. Sometimes I even have a mental picture of what I think they are, probably totally wrong, much like the movie game we played briefly here on the boards where I ended up being Cinderella.
Hunter seemed kind and ready to have fun with the game and in life. We chatted about many things, the game, our jobs and I crafted shots for his alt while he refilled my mana. I found out he played on Kain and I told him Erica was my home. He had returned after a long time away from L2 as had I, so we had a lot in common. At one point in the conversation I mentioned my frustration at my PK experience in the Temple and how I was momentarily stalled on the class change quest.
He offered to help and at first I turned him down, since I didn’t want to impose, but after thinking it through I knew I’d have problems if I didn’t accept help. After logging off my Dwarf I sent him a message asking if he was still willing to help me through the Temple part. He unhesitatingly said yes and in no time at all we met at Gludin to head to the dungeon. With his help it was incredibly easy and I was once again on my way to Elven Elder.
Since that time we’ve kept in touch. I’ve really enjoyed the chance to make new friends here on Test. I’ve had a fun time and I will be very sad when it is over. The reality is that although people promise to stay in touch, it is often difficult to do so and tenuous bonds made can fail because of lack of contact.
That’s one great thing about the new interface, you can send mail to people, even when they are not on line. Although in the rush of the first few days I received several emails, lately they have dwindled to nothing and I do wonder if it will be something people use. It’s one way I think I can use to stay in touch with my new friends on Kain, or other servers. But like everything else, it has to be something they use. I will use it…At least, that’s the plan.
Friends are so important in this game. Although you can play it alone, the interaction between people makes the game richer and a more satisfying experience. Not all of it is positive, but even the negative ones can sometimes have promising outcomes.
Now if I could just remember that griefer’s name, perhaps I’d introduce him to a few of my friends!
I held my breath and waited for the mob to move. If I ran in now I might make it, but then again, the Death Knight just might be too close to the doorway. I fretted trying to gauge the distance. I wasn’t even sure where the darn box was, but I could see most of the room from my current vantage point and I saw nothing that looked like the Titan box.
Whoever created the Dwarf class change quests had a peculiar sense of humor. Not only did you have to farm mobs till your eyes bled for quest pieces (rather than the 10 or 20 of most quests, dwarves need 70 of several pieces), you had to find the ever elusive Master Toma (for the Warsmith not once but THREE times) and best of all you had to make it to a box on the second floor of Cruma Tower populated by aggressive mobs far higher than your level.
I had heard it was impossible to get the box without it being either right after a server down, before the mobs repopulated or having a good group escort you up. I didn’t have the group and I didn’t want to wait for the random event of a server down, so inspired by my boyfriend I ran my little pair of Dwarves to Cruma to attempt it on my own.
I’d found a map and with my boyfriend giving me directions and encouragement I made it through several rooms inching along walls. At a couple of points I had to stop and move one Dwarf through a room, switch to the other and move her through after. Occasionally, like now, I had to sit and wait for the mobs to move to a better position.
Finally the Death Knight shifted over a bit more and I bit my lip as I moved forward. I hugged the door to turn the corner and sure enough there straight ahead was the Titan box. I dashed for it and quickly clicked through the quest dialog. Getting the piece I needed on one Dwarf I used the scroll of escape and was out of the tower in a flash of blue light.
I made the dash with the second Dwarf, but the Knight had moved and was hitting my little Dwarf. Ignoring my quickly dropping hitpoints I clicked through the quest dialog. I turned and ran back the way I’d come, hoping perhaps I could miss being hit long enough to restart the game. Normally, dying on the Test Server was not that big of a deal, however I’d forgotten to dump my crafting materials into the warehouse and I’d hate to lose the D crystals I’d been saving for Jute’s new weapon.
For a brief moment I though I might make it, but my dash through the next room had pulled a couple of other mobs. I had a haste potion and was sprinting just ahead of the big nasties. Maybe I could make it! But as I turned to head through the next room I saw a small party killing their way through. A painful dilemma presented itself. I didn’t want to train them, and I didn’t want to die. I hesitated for a moment, stopping so I wouldn’t run the mobs into the small party. That hesitation cost me and I was suddenly being beaten down by several mobs. A brief moment later and my Dwarf crumpled to the floor with a pitiful groan.
Luck was with me and I dropped nothing.
Back in Dion, I did a little Dwarf dance of excitement that I’d managed to get to the box. I blabbered happily to my boyfriend about how I was through the worst part of the quest now, smiling and humming a little tune while I prepared to run back to Cruma Swamp to give the lazy Dwarf who’d requested the key impression the quest piece.
“You know you have to go back again.” My boyfriend’s words cut through my haze of joy.
“What?!” I squeaked.
“Yah, that’s just the first time, you have to do it again after you get the ingredients for the key. I was reading up on what all you had to do.” I know my eyes narrowed a bit at the thought of once again trying to negotiate the maze of aggressive mobs and confusing corridors.
Well, I’d done it once, I was sure I could do it again. At least I now knew the way.
One of the curses associated with having lots of characters on the PTS, meant having to do lots of class change quests. I had completed two, was almost done with two more and had just begun my third set. Several things had become evident to me while doing these quests.
First, they weren’t all created equal. Every quest I’d done so far seemed to have a bit of a difficult spot for the character doing it, but the healer quests required you to kill some fairly tough mobs and the Dwarf quests required this Cruma Tower thing. Which brings me to the second point I learned.
You aren’t meant to do these quests solo. It’s possible to do them solo, but that does not seem to be the intent behind the quest design. Most of them at some point or another require the character to kill mobs that are difficult for their class. However if you have a good group they are not that hard, though most people hesitate to ask a group to drag themselves through the quest steps for the sake of one person since they take so much time. This leads to my third point.
These quests are not made to be done in a day or two. Most often players seem to save these quests up and do them all at one time, which has the advantage of saving some money and a bit of time. Often one of the quests will want you to kill mobs in the same area as another, so if you do them both at once, the logic is you are saving time because of it. However this means that instead of doing it slowly over several weeks as you naturally level, it’s all crammed into one mind numbing session.
There is a lot of complaint, with some very good reasoning, about these quests. But I found that reading the text while I did them and not just quickly clicking through gave me a bit of that lore I’d heard was missing in game. I had learned that Elves were more short-sighted then their long lives should mean and that Dwarves wanted to gain mastery over a forbidden and dangerous magic for the sake of profit. I learned that in Aden the line between good and evil is more like the ebb and flow of tides, a movable target, than a wall of stone. I wasn’t sure I liked all I had learned, since some of it was much less ‘heroic’ than my vivid imagination. But it had given me a better understanding of the World in which I spent so much time. I knew I’d learn more as I went along and I vowed to make sure I didn’t just ‘click’ through the text of quests as I went along.
Just for a moment I had a flashback to when Si was young outside of Gludin and she’d died three times in one day to some red named PKer. Revenge in this case, was sweet. Even if it wasn’t the same characters, the circumstance was close enough to satisfy me.
“Will you rez me?” I looked in disbelief at the dark elf with the red name lying dead at my feet. Well, I’d give him an ‘A’ for audacity anyway.
“No”, I answered cheerily.
“Can I have my bow back?”
Okay, so this guy had a fairly interesting sense of things. He’s outside of Gludin killing much lower level characters and after I kill him, for doing that very thing mind you, he thinks I’m going to give his weapon back so he can kill more of them?
“Nope.”
I thought perhaps I should explain a bit more, maybe he was just missing the point.
“You were killing characters much lower than you.” I started, intending to go on about how since he hadn’t liked dying maybe he would get the point that others didn’t either. But my explanation was lost since the Dark Elf had released.
“He tried to kill me.” A human fighter standing nearby chimed in.
“That’s why I came.” Okay so it wasn’t exactly why I’d come. Not for the human fighter anyway, but rather the fact that he’d killed my poor little Dark Elves not once, but twice. They hadn’t stood a chance against him, much like poor Si when she first started.
But unlike with Si, where I had no recourse to deal with such things, this time I did. After the second death of my fighter/healer pair I decided to fight fire with fire. I logged on Jute and Eli.
Now normally, I’m all for trying to deal with what happens to your character with that character. I got killed on my Dwarf a few days ago and I just accepted that as part of the price of fighting back when some rude *** fired on me. I didn’t go get my Spellsinger, I took the death as part of the game. But that had been a much closer to even match. This was not.
I honestly don’t understand why people do this. Oh, it’s not that I don’t understand how they like to do it or that they feel some power and pleasure from it. It’s just not something I would ever find fun. I remember too vividly the frustration it held for me being on the receiving end of it.
My elves had been in Giran but a few ports and I was in Gludio. The guy who killed my Dark Elves had been in C grade gear, so I knew he was at least level 40. Jute and Eli were still in Mithril armor and I counted on the fact that he would miscalculate because of that and think they were easy pickings.
I buffed them both up and headed to the windmills.
It didn’t take long before I heard the crackle and saw the flash that indicated he’d hit Eli. I smiled and turned to target him on Jute. One cast and he was sleeping.
Now it was Eli’s turn. I hit him with a lower spell and let him think for a moment he might win. He tried shooting Eli again with his bow. Two spell casts later and the Dark Elf went down with items falling like rain.
I picked up an earring, a bow, a bunch of arrows, a record of the dusk/dawn event and proof of blood.
Now looking at the empty spot he'd occupied, I stood here wondering if he’d try again.
“I need my weapon.” Yup, he was back.
I waited a few moments trying to decide what to do and slept him again. I didn’t really want to help him work off more karma, I just wanted to see if maybe I could help teach him a lesson. I thought about leaving him slept for a bit, but instead I hit him once more with a spell from Eli. I wasn’t sure what he’d do, but I’ll give him points for bravery or perhaps stupidity, since he hit Eli with a dagger move. I was prepared to heal her with Jute if necessary, but I figured I’d give him a taste of real damage. Eli cast another spell and he started running. I chased him, but it was getting late and I’d have to leave soon and my main point was just to try to get him to think about consequences of his actions. I wasn’t sure what I’d do when I caught him. He solved the problem for me by logging out and it was time for me to go to work.
As I headed for my car, I thought perhaps this was a gift from the L2 gods. I’d been unsure of what to do about a clan and now here I’d been handed proof of blood. I’m really a much better member than I am a leader. I lack the patience and understanding needed by a good one. I know my own fallacies and although I certainly would adore the chance to ride a Wyvern, I completely lack the motivation it would take to make this happen.
Driving into work I wondered if the Red named guy would go back to picking off people outside of Gludin. I had a momentary pleasant though of him looking over his shoulder wondering if a pair of golden elves would come sweeping down on him at any moment to extract a little justice.
I glanced anxiously at the clock again. The hands inched toward 6pm and still I was stuck in the office. I’d been ill for the last two days, home with a chance to play L2, but I was paying for it now. My day had begun with a 2am call from Germany and I hadn’t seemed to catch a break yet. I fidgeted and shuffled papers, trying to catch up on what I needed to complete, but my mind was back in Aden.
This was ever the problem with playing games like L2 for people like me. Never enough time to play and do all the things you needed to do for the rest of your life. I’d indulged myself for the last several weeks, rushing home each night to gorge myself on the Test server like a glutton devouring the game like binging on a whole box of chocolates.
I had so much fun.
I leveled 8 characters past 40 and another 4 to 35. I had the chance to play with my boyfriend again, meet people I’d known only as posters on the board and run around with my clan leader from Erica. I kept an eye out for an Angel, my favorite Elven Elder from the Zaken test, and a couple of famous (or should that be infamous) Orcs, one who carries a chainsaw in another life, though I never met any of them in game, it lent a bit of excitement to think they might be around any corner.
I created a level three clan composed almost entirely of my alts!
One whole day recently I got to spend with one of my favorite board posters, exploring the lower level versions of the new dungeons. Her skill impressed me and so did her temperament. During our multiple deaths she never once grew angry or upset.
I spent many days wandering with my Guild Leader, he patiently tried to help me get the various B grade shot recipes (no luck though for us there). One of my biggest delights was being able to craft for him the B grade armor for his Shilien Knight. It was a small thing, but it made him happy. He’s given so much to me with his patience and companionship that being able to give back just a little bit felt good.
But now, like an idyllic vacation in some far away exotic land, my time of indulgence was over.
I have to admit being horribly torn about returning to the live servers. I love my characters there, but I’d grown very fond of the PTS. I’d played on Test servers in other games and really enjoyed it and the PTS had been my best experience yet with one.
Ironically the playing time I had on the PTS had highlighted one ever present problem. In these games, it’s really the people you play with that make the game. Although I like playing by myself sometimes, it’s the bonds of friendship you create that make or break it.
There is nothing like sharing the excitement of PvP, the high of finally finding how to kill a tough mob or take that castle. But one very essential part of this is having a group of people who have the same playstyle and hours of play as you. Playing together creates a strong bond. If they play more or less than you, soon you are out of their league in levels. Either too high to give them fair XP or too low to really experience the same game content.
And that’s where I stumble…
Most people seem to be able to play more than I can. Even my guild leader, whose evening play hours are close to mine can play from work and thus easily pull ahead of me. Pair that with my often long work hours and I am faced with either spending all my free time playing or falling further behind.
Lately I’ve been haunted by other areas of my life I’ve neglected.
My boyfriend has dropped subtle hints that he misses the days I experimented with creating new dishes in the kitchen. A half finished quilt lies neglected on my sewing table. Even my writing here on the stories forum has fallen behind.
I tell myself that I could just as easily be spending 3 or 4 hours a night watching television as meandering through the wide world of Aden. I tell myself that others follow sports teams or spend hours working on various hobbies, my yards of fabric, a testimony to another consuming passion. I tell myself that others spend hours and hours doing much less meaningful things.
But it seems hollow somehow. Nothing else seems to take such a huge chunk of dedicated time as these games, where you can’t be interrupted to do simple things, such as cook dinner or answer the doorbell. Nothing else seems to wreck such personal and professional havoc with so many people. With people missing work or neglecting loved ones because they stayed up too late or can’t leave such a good group.
I owe it to myself to have a better balance in my life, but I fear for what that means for my time in game. I don’t want to leave Erica and my friends there, but I worry that less playtime will mean I am soon left behind anyway. Perhaps that’s why the PTS seems to be a haven hard to leave.
My musing was stopped as I realized it was time to go home. No closer to an answer and with no time for play tonight, possibly slipping farther behind.
I know everyone faces these questions and everyone follows their own path. For now, I don’t know what’s around the next bend. I just know that I will try my best to enjoy the journey for what it is.
If you feel your falling farther and farther behind your friends, and your not able to keep pace with them and the countless hours ingame.
Remember one thing. No matter how others pull ahead in level to you, others will always be behind level from you.
One nice feature with the MSN messenger we have now is you can talk to others that are on different servers. So drop that slow leveling orc a PM once in awhile.
If you go back to Live I'd suggest finding a few people that are willing to play alt chars only when you're around. That way you'll never need to feel left behind since there's always at least one person around to level with you.
Since I tend to level a lot faster than anyone in my Clan I do this quite often, I have 6 alts at varying levels that I jump on occasionally to party with other clanmates. It lets me pull further and further ahead with my main without having to worry about leaving my friends behind.
The hard part of course is getting someone else to agree to do this, but after reading much of your writing I believe you've met a few people that would help you out in this way.
Edit: Lineage II is fun and all, but you definitely need to avoid neglecting your real life obligations. It may be a lot of fun now but you'll likely regret things you missed when you finally leave this game behind.
Your thoughts are mimicked by many other Lineage 2 players of all levels, knowledge and power...it is common, with the hardsships of levels and the penalties of too wide level spreads makes it hard to keep up...also the party size sometimes kicks in...nothing worse than sitting a bunch of great friends and having a hunt spoiled because you cannot balance out two parties with limited amount of people that won't fit into one...people will say "I'll just leave", but you really don't want those who have looked forward to it to just go. :(
I know a very nice and talented player, she happens to play several characters, often 2 at a time, but she's so far below my character levels, either my characters (alts) lags behind hers, or my mains outlevel hers...so its very rare we can play together, despite the great fun it could be...so yes, I know how it is and you curse the system and feel kinda torn between accomplishing with your character and staying at a level thats close enough to play with people you feel close to.
I play/played on the PTS, it is/was alot of fun, right now I am off it pending the decisions on bonus or the cat, but yes I can see the lure there where levels is almost no hinderence for people to play with eachother and have some fun.
I glanced anxiously at the clock again. The hands inched toward 6pm and still I was stuck in the office. I’d been ill for the last two days, home with a chance to play L2, but I was paying for it now. My day had begun with a 2am call from Germany and I hadn’t seemed to catch a break yet. I fidgeted and shuffled papers, trying to catch up on what I needed to complete, but my mind was back in Aden.
This was ever the problem with playing games like L2 for people like me. Never enough time to play and do all the things you needed to do for the rest of your life. I’d indulged myself for the last several weeks, rushing home each night to gorge myself on the Test server like a glutton devouring the game like binging on a whole box of chocolates.
I had so much fun.
I leveled 8 characters past 40 and another 4 to 35. I had the chance to play with my boyfriend again, meet people I’d known only as posters on the board and run around with my clan leader from Erica. I kept an eye out for an Angel, my favorite Elven Elder from the Zaken test, and a couple of famous (or should that be infamous) Orcs, one who carries a chainsaw in another life, though I never met any of them in game, it lent a bit of excitement to think they might be around any corner.
I created a level three clan composed almost entirely of my alts!
One whole day recently I got to spend with one of my favorite board posters, exploring the lower level versions of the new dungeons. Her skill impressed me and so did her temperament. During our multiple deaths she never once grew angry or upset.
I spent many days wandering with my Guild Leader, he patiently tried to help me get the various B grade shot recipes (no luck though for us there). One of my biggest delights was being able to craft for him the B grade armor for his Shilien Knight. It was a small thing, but it made him happy. He’s given so much to me with his patience and companionship that being able to give back just a little bit felt good.
But now, like an idyllic vacation in some far away exotic land, my time of indulgence was over.
I have to admit being horribly torn about returning to the live servers. I love my characters there, but I’d grown very fond of the PTS. I’d played on Test servers in other games and really enjoyed it and the PTS had been my best experience yet with one.
Ironically the playing time I had on the PTS had highlighted one ever present problem. In these games, it’s really the people you play with that make the game. Although I like playing by myself sometimes, it’s the bonds of friendship you create that make or break it.
There is nothing like sharing the excitement of PvP, the high of finally finding how to kill a tough mob or take that castle. But one very essential part of this is having a group of people who have the same playstyle and hours of play as you. Playing together creates a strong bond. If they play more or less than you, soon you are out of their league in levels. Either too high to give them fair XP or too low to really experience the same game content.
And that’s where I stumble…
Most people seem to be able to play more than I can. Even my guild leader, whose evening play hours are close to mine can play from work and thus easily pull ahead of me. Pair that with my often long work hours and I am faced with either spending all my free time playing or falling further behind.
Lately I’ve been haunted by other areas of my life I’ve neglected.
My boyfriend has dropped subtle hints that he misses the days I experimented with creating new dishes in the kitchen. A half finished quilt lies neglected on my sewing table. Even my writing here on the stories forum has fallen behind.
I tell myself that I could just as easily be spending 3 or 4 hours a night watching television as meandering through the wide world of Aden. I tell myself that others follow sports teams or spend hours working on various hobbies, my yards of fabric, a testimony to another consuming passion. I tell myself that others spend hours and hours doing much less meaningful things.
But it seems hollow somehow. Nothing else seems to take such a huge chunk of dedicated time as these games, where you can’t be interrupted to do simple things, such as cook dinner or answer the doorbell. Nothing else seems to wreck such personal and professional havoc with so many people. With people missing work or neglecting loved ones because they stayed up too late or can’t leave such a good group.
I owe it to myself to have a better balance in my life, but I fear for what that means for my time in game. I don’t want to leave Erica and my friends there, but I worry that less playtime will mean I am soon left behind anyway. Perhaps that’s why the PTS seems to be a haven hard to leave.
My musing was stopped as I realized it was time to go home. No closer to an answer and with no time for play tonight, possibly slipping farther behind.
I know everyone faces these questions and everyone follows their own path. For now, I don’t know what’s around the next bend. I just know that I will try my best to enjoy the journey for what it is.
An adventure….
All ya got to do is learn to make the game second place, Even if I am in a party I rather answer the door or the phone and let my party members die, than ignoring it.
Hope you don't leave erica thou, there is such little amounts of players as it is, btw what lvl are you now on the live server?.
The game does come second to the most important things. It's just sometimes I wish very much that there were more time for the important things AND the ones like this.
I love Erica and so many of the people I've met there. The main two I play are only 33 having made little progress lately due to a combination of things. The time taken away by work and the time taken away by being on Test.
As I've said here, one thing that's been difficult is the pace of my levelng has meant many of the friends I've made have out leveled me and I can no longer play with them.
I am okay with leveling slow, although after seeing the power of my chosen classes at a higher level I'm anxious for them to be there, I can still deal with the time it takes them.
It's just that although I two-box, and sometimes I like to play alone, it's not what I like for every time I play.
Oh, I don’t mean to make light of the pain some feel when they have a streak of bad luck. I know there is intense frustration and upset if you lose an item or hard won experience. It can set you back weeks or even months, but the character rises again to hunt another day and usually what is lost can be won back through friends and hard work. The character still exists.
However permanent death stalks them in another form.
I remember my squeamishness the first time my clan leader deleted a character I’d hunted with extensively. His Light Elf Knight needed to go, so he would have room for another character. A husband and father, he helped keep peace in his household by only maintaining one account, however painful that might be. This limitation however meant that whenever he had a desire to try a new class or race, he found himself faced with a choice. So, in this case, the choice spelled the end of the tank I’d come to know.
Although I’m not a role player, I find myself individualizing each of my characters. Sometimes I feel like a 6 year old with a closet full of dolls. I pull them out to dress them up and rather than the ‘tea parties’ of my youth I prance them through the world of Aden. Like my childhood toys, I hate to give any of them up. I’ve taken care in their choice of features and class. Each one is an individual to me and that is why it was odd to me to see my clan leader delete his character with seemingly little remorse.
On the test server, I’d chosen each of my characters with care. I’d had fun with all of them. I’d learned a lot about each character class that eventually I feel will make me a better healer. I’d been playing healers and fighters primarily, but I felt it was time to learn more about the mage classes.
I’d gotten onto this kick where all my character names had some botanical origin, names like Briarthorn, Cinnamon, Thyme, and a dozen more. All of them leveling happily along. All but poor little Spice…
Originally my character Elianna was going to be a Summoner, but I generally level characters in pairs and I try hard to keep them both about the same level. After thinking it over I realized I’d have a problem because Jute, who fought with Eli would quickly out level her because of the summoner’s penalty. So Eli became a Spellsinger and my desire to play ‘my little pony’ would have to wait for another time.
So Spice was born.
I created her to level with a Dark Elf summoner, thinking that would be the best way to go. Neither one would outlevel the other and I’d have a good way to compare skills. Happy with my idea, I carefully chose both the Dark Elf and the Light Elf models, named them and off I went to level. Keeping with my botanical theme the Light Elf name was Spice. I thought she’d make a nice compliment to Cinnamon and Thyme.
On the test server, it takes me about an hour to get to level 19 and start the class change quests. It took a little bit longer due to the logistics of playing a Light Elf with a Dark Elf in the lower levels. It was soon time to do the first class change quest and I began the change. I’d already done the Light Elf one once for my Spellsinger, so I knew what to do and where to go. However, I’d never done the Dark Elf one and that took a bit of figuring out. Finally I knew I had to head to the Altar of Rites in Dark Elf land and headed out to do so.
I ported my Dark Elf over and then Spice Once in the Dark Elf city I chose the Neutral Zone port for both of them, because I wanted to check out some more of the changes as I ran to the altar. Although my Dark Elf made it fine, Spice crashed.
I’d occasionally have this problem, but not much since they fixed the bow attack error. I didn’t think much of it, just restarted and attempted to log her in again. However, when I did, the game crashed once more.
Well, perhaps if I just rebooted the problem would go away? I did that, and once more tried to log in Spice.
The system crashed again.
I tried another computer. No luck. I tried every computer in the house. Still the same. Okay…maybe I just needed to wait. I shelved playing my new mages and went about doing something else.
The next day I tried again. Still the same problem. I carefully scanned the error and it seemed evident Spice had somehow gotten stuck in the World.
I skimmed the forums seeing a few others with a similar issue. I waited and hoped for a fix.
Now I know that this is Test and I know at any moment the characters can be wiped. I accept that. I accept there are problems that will never be fixed on Test. Live is where the focus is and that is as it should be. I accepted that Spice might be doomed…but that didn’t stop me from trying to get her fixed.
Finally, I decided in one desperate last attempt to call Techincal Support.
The guy who answered the phone was very nice. I explained my problem and emphasized that I knew it was a Test Server and if my character couldn’t be fixed I would accept that.
He listened to the explanation, looked me up in the database and sent me an email with some instructions to run diagnostics. He also told me that he was pretty sure Spice was stuck in the World, and although it would be a simple matter to fix her on Live, they couldn’t do it on test, since it would require GM intervention. He told me he would try, but that I should be prepared for the worst.
He didn’t give further explanation and he didn’t have to. I understood that taking a GM’s time from Live to help me on Test with a character that would probably be wiped anyway was really not good use of the company’s resources. I knew that and I accepted it.
However a small flicker of hope was there and we chatted while he entered the ticket details. He asked me how I liked Test and what level my character was, small things but he asked like he was really interested. He explained he was sending me an email and asked that I follow the instructions in it. Then with a pleasant good bye we hung up the phone.
I waited the requisite 10 minutes for the email, retrieved it and ran the tests he’d asked. I sent the results off along with the specific error and held my breath. I was impressed with the speed of his response. Unfortunately the news was not good.
It wasn’t my system that had the problem. Spice was stuck in limbo in the world and although he’d asked nicely if there were any possibility of helping her. He’d been told what we had both expected. He did say I could wait to see if server maintenance would free her, but since there had already been a window period pass since she’d gotten stuck I was fairly certain it wouldn’t help.
So now she must die the ultimate death in L2. I have to delete her. I know she could be born again, but I’m not sure about how the naming rules work and whether she will have her same name.
I’ve decided to wait just a few more days.
Although I’m very attached to my character and I hate to give her up, sometimes life is like that and I understand it’s just transitory pixels in a game.
That doesn’t, however mean I will not mourn her passing.
So now she must die the ultimate death in L2. I have to delete her. I know she could be born again, but I’m not sure about how the naming rules work and whether she will have her same name.
Deleting a character can be one of the hardest things. A person can develop such a personal connection with them, that could leave someone in tears.
You could make her again with the same name, but it's never the same....
I know everyone faces these questions and everyone follows their own path.
I, like you and many other players, had to balance the game & the real life as best as they could.
Priorities are set as follow:
(1) Family
They are the top priority. My girlfriend and my son come first. If they are around I don't play.
(2) Work
I must work in order to support my family, my own life and, yes, my need to play...that brand new top of the line & dedicaed to L2 PC at 3k must be paid for, and work is the answer for me.
(2) Play
Everytime I have a chance I play, but since I can't when I work, and I don't when my family is around, that leaves me little time do play. Fortunately I don't need much sleep (5-6 hours), so I play when I am not sleeping.
I manage to put in 15-25 hours per week. Usually anything between 0.5 hour to 2.5 hours per night on weekdays , and about 6 hours per night on weekends; when I stay up late or wake up early.
My main char is lvl 56 now. I must say that level difference between myself and other players is less important now. Players of 55-65 can easily group together in the hunting areas that we go.
Also at those levels, most of my clanmates have started to reroll a second or third alt to change the routine...which gives me a chance to stay not too far behind.
I have started a second alt myself, on a second accoount. Since my playtime hours are unpredicted, I often solo. I therefore now have a second account with a healer/buffer to support my main char. LOL although i never played it (always auto follow) my cleric is now level 31. The %bonus for duo since C3 makes it even better.
I basically group every weekends where I have much more time to do so; and less often during the week , only if conditions are right.
One thing is sure, if you want to balance your game time and your real life time, you will probably endup soloing with 2 account more often. The challenge is to enjoy simpler things in the game, like collecting coins for coin quest, or doing 1 more hunter quest....and not worry so much about leveling.
You also might have to concentrate more on 1 toon that the others, in order to have at least one that is high level enough.
It’s a sailor’s word for a state of being adrift in a sea without wind. Floating aimlessly. Rather than being a desired state it is one that sometimes drove sailors to madness and was dreaded among them.
Lately I feel that way.
When I started writing here I wanted to keep an honest record of what I did and felt. At least as honest as any writer can be, since I can only view things from my perspective. It wasn’t long before I found I had a dilemma. Did I stay true to myself and my observations, even at the cost of possibly writing about people I liked in an unflattering light? Was that even fair for me to consider? After all, it was just my own feelings and I wanted to be honest.
However I have often felt that ‘honesty’ is sometimes an excuse for brutality. I’ve seen things said in the name of honesty that have forever altered relationships in a negative way. I’ve seen friendships turn to bitter enemies and families torn apart. All because someone wanted to be ‘honest’.
That’s not to say that all things said in honesty are like this. Ignoring things and never speaking your mind is not the way to be either. Just as many problems are caused by not saying things as they are by saying them.
The key is walking the line between honesty and harm. For me, writing what I see and feel but still understanding that those who play the game with me are people who deserve consideration.
The first time I ran into this problem in game was with a friend who had a very different philosophy about L2 than mine, which occasionally led to upset and hurt feelings on both sides. I never wrote about my feelings and our conflicts because I never wanted to cause him grief by writing about them. Despite our conflicting opinions of the game, I think he’s a great guy. I have always enjoyed talking with him and have enjoyed the very brief times I’ve gotten to play with him. So, I never wrote about the disagreements and the fights.
But I also knew that my problems with conflicts in the game were the same kinds of things people run into all the time. It is part of what makes these games as complex as they are; that human factor. So, in many ways I felt not writing about these cheated what I had originally intended to do.
One of my goals in writing was to allow people to have a window into what I thought and felt and see how that was similar to their own experiences. I thought that perhaps, if people could understand we all went through the same things, life in L2 might be a little better.
In life I have a philosophy I call ‘no nukes’. I try to never do or say anything that I can’t take back. Everyone has experienced a time in a relationship where someone has said or done something that forever alters the relationship in a negative way. Someone does something or says something and no matter how you work to undo the damage, things are never the same. That’s a ‘nuke’. In many ways I felt that if I wrote about certain things it would possibly herald that very nuclear devastation and my friendship with those people would be lost.
I’ve long believed that although you should not ignore the negative things, concentrating on them only breeds more negativity.
So I shied away from writing about such things and consequently I realized recently, it severely limited my ability to interact with others in the game. I shied away from being involved with a clan partially because of my writing. I never really realized that before last night. I came to this realization because of a sad event in my L2 life.
Last night my clan leader decided to disband our small clan. Underneath the open sky outside of Dion, I sat and chatted with him about where we were going and what was our next step. My clan leader is a really great guy. He’s one of the best people I’ve ever played with. It was fantastic for me because we always grouped together and I knew that I would always have someone there to play with who played the same style and the same times as me.
But things change and the PTS was the catalyst for a huge shift. There, my clan leader got to play a new class and realized that at heart, he was in love with being a tank. I stayed on the PTS far too long and he out-leveled me on live. Excited about where he was going and what he wanted to do next he used the time I was gone to move ahead. He made new friends and joined a new clan. Life moved on for him, while for me, I was playing in an idyllic paradise that wasn’t meant to last.
I came back to Erica last night. We sat and talked about the clan and his plans. It’s funny… I knew where the conversation was headed, things had been moving this way for a time already and I accepted the inevitable, but it didn’t prevent me from feeling a wave of sadness when the decision was reached.
We promised to keep in touch and still play together in the game…and although I know we both mean to, I fear ultimately we will drift apart. The end of our conversation sounded too much like 'goodbye'.
I hadn’t realized how much I’d come to rely on that relationship with him until it the specter of it’s disappearance loomed ahead. What would I do now? I’ve come to understand that the absolute most important thing is having people who have a similar philosophy who have the same play habits you do. They need to play at the same hours and have about the same amount of time. That’s hard enough to find. But then, to add my writing into the mix complicates things even further.
My writing here is important to me for a variety of reasons. It’s something I enjoy. But how do I reconcile the honesty with the compassion? If I join a clan how would they feel about me writing about them?
I recently saw a television program about wolves and it showed one wolf that stayed apart from the pack, but you could tell by it’s actions that it desperately wanted to be a part of the larger group. Wolves by their nature are social creatures and unhappy when left to live their lives alone on the fringes of the pack. They also tend not to survive very long because they need the support of their family.
I recently saw a television program about wolves and it showed one wolf that stayed apart from the pack, but you could tell by it’s actions that it desperately wanted to be a part of the larger group. Wolves by their nature are social creatures and unhappy when left to live their lives alone on the fringes of the pack. They also tend not to survive very long because they need the support of their family.
I feel that last part mirrors my life in and out of game so much. I am that wolf which has been separated so long from that pack that he has become unsocial to the pack.
I’ve come to understand that the absolute most important thing is having people who have a similar philosophy who have the same play habits you do. They need to play at the same hours and have about the same amount of time. That’s hard enough to find.
To me, it's been impossible to find that. Therefore, I play alone(2 accounts) most of the time.
On weekends since I spend a bit more time and can usually group a couple of time and chat with other alliance members.
I often try to imagine what they think of me...they see me here and there...they probably think I only play on weekends.
I couldn't help but feel sad reading your post. I also lost my clan leader after 46 levels.... she was on most of the time, so she was there every time I logged on....now I am a lone wolf.
Then don't be, it's a choice everyone makes themselves, even if it's an unconcious choice. I know in real life I'm definatly like that wolf, but in game I'm not..I'm more the annoying clingy type that PMs friends far too often.
Anyway, this post really struck a chord with me. I have had a lot of friend in this game and a lot of them have left or we've drifted apart. It's a really depressing time when it happens and I just feel apathetic about everything in game even though I still end up logging on.
We promised to keep in touch and still play together in the game…and although I know we both mean to, I fear ultimately we will drift apart. The end of our conversation sounded too much like 'goodbye'.
Don't let it happen, PM him once a day and stay close. It's definatly not worth losing a friend, and keeping in contact in game is very easy now especially with the in game email system. I know it's easy to say, and I've let myself drift apart from people, but really if two people are good friends it shouldn't happen and they should make every effort not to let it happen.
As for your writing and how it might affect others if they read about themselves. I'm not sure about your reasons for posting here (I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't I like to read these posts), if it's the act of writing that you like or the replies that you get or some other reason.Well my only suggestion is to write what you want, include all the bad things that you feel about people, and then re-read it and strip out the parts that might cause problems. Maybe it's just the act of writing them down rather than making your thoughts public that matters most.
One final point, I could never play this game alone. The people you can meet here are wonderful and I cherish the good friends I've made in game as much as any friends I have in real life.
I don't often visit the official boards, but now I have a reason to. A friend linked this to me, thinking I would likely enjoy it. He was right.
I like your writing style, which feels like a carefully worded musing, a well kept journal (which this is). Despite that, it really brings vivid images in the mind, and much empathy.
Keep in touch with your friend! I've done so with my rather long friendslist even with small conversations via PM. Even little questions like "how are you" can open up conversations you can have inbetween bashing away at the mobs.
If there was an ‘I told you so’ emote I’m fairly sure the Orc talking to my dead body would have gleefully done it.
The humor of my situation struck me and I caught myself laughing out loud imagining him ‘tsk tsking’ me.
Laughing was good, since lately there hadn’t been a whole lot of it in my life. I’d been having a rough time finding time to play. Upper management at my work in their infinite wisdom had finally decided it was time for my company to move forward with some long needed projects. That was the good news. The bad news was they apparently were a little ‘time challenged’ and didn’t understand the concept of how long certain things actually take. I had to do a 6 month project in 5 weeks.
Oh…and they wanted it done right.
At various times in my life I’ve wondered if there wasn’t something fundamental I was missing in my psychological makeup. I’m pretty sure anyone who knows me will tell you I’m a fairly strong-willed individual. So I constantly marvel at the fact I end up in these impossible situations at work, where I am asked to deliver a miracle.
The problem is I usually do. And because I get the job done under very difficult conditions, the next time they raise the bar a bit more. I once told my boss I felt I was constantly being asked to pull the proverbial rabbit out of the hat. Produce the result, just like magic.
My problem is I’m running out of rabbits.
And I’d been suffering serious L2 withdrawl.
I felt it had been especially important to log on lately because the little clan I’d belonged to was disbanding and my constant companion of recent months had moved on to other things. We’d promised to keep in touch and I’d worried that wouldn’t happen. I really enjoyed spending time with him in game.
True to his word, he’d been good about trying to make sure to talk to me whenever I was on. However, lately I hadn’t been on very much do to trying to keep up my magic act at work.
My chance to play, however was coming up. I had informed my boss not to expect any work out of me over the long holiday weekend. I really needed some time to unwind and play a bit of my favorite addiction.
Unfortunately, my former clan leader was not going to be around for the long holiday and although I’d had a kind offer from another person on Erica to group with her, I hadn’t seen her around to take her up on it.
I sometimes like playing alone, but lately I’d had a deep hunger for companionship. I didn’t want to play by myself. So, I was ready, willing and eager to play but wandering around looking for someone to join in the fun.
I had corresponded off and on with a regular on the official boards. He’d offered to group with me a couple of times and it hadn’t worked out, but taking a chance he’d also have the day off I left him a PM and asked him to contact me if he had the time.
I was in luck and he did.
I knew this individual was a bit Orc centric. Whenever I pictured him in real life, I always had a sneaking suspicion he would resembled The Hulk of Marvel Comic’s fame. Orcs were definitely his thing. I love playing different classes/races and I already had a little Orc pair I hadn’t gotten to spend much time developing. Here was a perfect opportunity. I logged on and killed while I waited for him to come.
It wasn’t long before he showed up and we grouped.
I marveled at how easily we slipped into playing together. It seemed almost as if we’d known each other for a long time. Talking to him was very easy and it wasn’t long before we had established a fairly good pattern to our fighting. We laughed and chatted for some time and then fell into one of those companionable silences. Not the awkward kind where you wish you were gone from the situation, but rather the sort you share with a friend when you are working on a mutual task.
He was a good player and no one had died… well, at least until now.
After a long killing spree we’d all leveled (both my two characters and his one). We’d headed back to the village to get skills and drop off quest items. During that time I’d stopped and gotten a few more quests.
I’d asked where we were going to head next and he’d asked in return what quests I had. I told him about the one I’d just gotten. I swear I could hear him laugh.
“The messenger quest? You are going to regret that one.”
I should have listened. After all, he’d spent the last year in and around the ‘green ones’ so he certainly knew what he was talking about. However, shall we just say I was a bit naive?
Again, I could picture him shaking his head at my insistence that I’d like to do the quest. He dutifully trotted off to show me where to find the messenger I was required to kill and I willingly followed.
He’d showed me where the quest said we should look for the guys and then told me it had taken him quite some time to actually find them, because they weren’t anywhere near the location given by the quest giver.
When we finally reached the location of the messenger I was a bit taken aback.
This quest is given to little Orcs. I mean ones below level 14.
Although I’ve gained a great appreciation of Orcs and how powerful they are, whoever designed this quest must really have a strange sense of humor.
I’m the self-proclaimed Queen of the newbies. I’ve leveled every race/class combination to at least 20 once and some of them more than once. Every weapon quest I’ve done for the under 20 crowd can be done solo. It didn’t appear to be the case for the Orc weapon quest.
There before me was the messenger I had to kill. Just him and his six buddies.
After my new/old friend had shown me where to find the messenger, he’d started to say something.
I should have listened, but in my usual rash style I waded in. And here I was now, laying there at his feet, dead.
He patiently explained (though I swear I detected a bit of suppressed laughter in his explanation) that in order to complete this quest, you wade in, kill the messenger and run like hell for the bridge.
And, to top it all off, you have to do this not once, not twice, but three times!
Perhaps this is all to prove that only masochists play Orcs?
Well, mark me down as one. It wasn’t before the third try that I actually perfected the ‘kill and run’ technique.
At one point during our play some poor Dwarf was asking for help finding a prisoner in The Cave of Trials. In my PTS orgy I’d completed 12 of the class change quests and I immediately knew where to go to help the Dwarf.
I wasn’t sure how my companion would be about helping others. I usually enjoy helping people in game. It’s a great way to get to know new people and occasionally it leads to a long term friendship.
I needn’t have worried since after I broached the subject my Orc friend eagerly approved of my suggestion. We set off to find the Cave and with relative ease I showed the Dwarf where to go. She was grateful and asked us what she could do for us. I gave my standard answer.
Just be a friend.
She agreed and before long was off to finish up what she needed to become a Warsmith. I hope someday our paths will cross again.
It was getting late and I had to run to do some other errands and get spend some time with the man in my life, so I said goodbye to my green friend.
As I said goodbye I hoped he knew how genuine my expression of enjoyment really was. I’d had a wonderful time and although I knew it wasn’t his regular server, I’d hoped we could do it again someday.
However, we could skip the ‘me laying there dead’ part. ;)
Actually, the trick (at least pre-C3) to the messenger quest, is to agro him, run like hell, keep running...his minions give up before he does...then when he's been alone for a little run, turn around, kill him...and viola :) its done.
Have not tried it in C3...was wanting to try on the PTS, but we all know where that went.
They should make soulshot flying into a sport. It's my favorite national pasttime. On sunny days, I enjoy going outside in the backyard and letting that soulshot loose.
Five of them now and I had been too concentrated on trying to keep my partner healed to notice the life rapidly ebbing away from my Knight. A pitiful cry and she crumpled to the ground, dead.
“I’m so sorry.” My companion said in between spamming Soulshots. I almost missed his apology I was so concentrated on his life bar.
It was very considerate that he apologized but it really hadn’t been his fault.
I’d finally had a break in work and decided to come back and play a bit of L2. On the test server, I’d had a chance to level up a Dark Avenger (among many, many others) and I’d really enjoyed the class and had thought I’d like to have a more permanent one than the PTS provides.
When I very first started playing, I’d made a human warrior and I’d gotten her to level 16 before deciding to go with a Shillien Oracle as a complement to my Cleric. I’d been stuck at level 33 on both my healers for far too long and with my long absence from the game my leveling partners had moved on. I thought perhaps if I leveled up my Knight it would allow me to finally get to that elusive class change.
Snatching a few hours to play, I wanted to work on getting enough Adena to properly equip my Knight, so I went back to leveling her by doing the Grim Collector quest. I brought my Cleric, Si, along to buff and heal. Much to my dismay, the quest reward had been cut by quite a bit and it wasn’t really worthwhile any longer. Interestingly enough there were still a number of characters in the fields who didn’t appear to be run by people, though I wasn’t completely sure since being accused of botting myself by some over-zealous individuals, I’ve become less quick to judge others. Since the reward for the quest had been gutted, I wasn’t quite sure what they were doing. Perhaps even with the low reward, it was better than nothing.
One character kept stealing my kills and after the second time I felt fairly certain it was no accident. Now, I do try to keep a level head, but I’ve found as my time in the game has progressed I feel less inclined to let others just take stuff from me. He did it one more time and I decided fair was fair and began to follow him around with Si.
Disrupt undead on low level skeletons is a beautiful thing.
I’d wait for the guy to attack, hit disrupt undead and totally obliterate his chance at the quest reward, any money or drops. One spell and the skeleton would die as my kill. He never said a word and just kept moving from one mob to the next. Eventually I decided, if a real person was behind that character, my message had been delivered and moved back to leveling with my warrior. I didn’t have any more trouble.
I finished out level 19 and moved on to the class change quest, it had been a quick trip to level 20 and finally I had a new Knight. My high level friend had caught me on line and we’d chatted. Several days before I’d told him I wanted to meet and return the borrowed equipment since I wasn’t sure how my playtime would be. He’d told me that unless I was going to quit, I should keep it and now, as we chatted he offered some D grade for my Knight.
Arguing with my friend is always interesting. I know it infuriates him that I refuse his offers of help. We’ve had many a lively argument about it, but ultimately I give in and he wins. I had a sneaking suspicion he was concerned I’d quit the game altogether and this was his way of helping me feel like sticking around.
I had been struggling with whether or not I should just leave the game. My work life is very demanding and although at times I hate it and long for something much simpler with less pressure and demands, I must admit I’m addicted to the paycheck and at this stage of my life I’m not yet willing to forgo the luxuries my demanding job helps me afford.
Like Lineage II accounts.
My conflict about continuing to play had little to do with the enjoyment of my characters and more with frustration over my sporadic playtime. But snatching bits of time over the last couple of days had once again shown me why I like playing and my friend’s offer was a sweet reminder of the main joy of L2, friendship.
So, I’d taken him up on the offer and stopped arguing with him. Partially because it made him feel good to help me, but also because it would honestly help me get my goal faster. I then took my little level 20 Knight and my level 33 Cleric to the Necropolis of Sacrifice. I’d had an excellent experience there during C3 testing on the PTS. I’d gotten to play with one of my favorite people from the board and so I had fond memories. I wasn’t sure how crowded the place would be but I figured if it was too bad, I could always leave.
I didn’t have to go too deep before I hit a room I could work. I didn’t group Si with my Knight, I just used her to sleep and heal. I know some people abhor powerleveling and for the most part I agree with the arguments. Since my point was to quickly catch up to my healers’ levels and I already had played several of the ‘fighter’ types, I was more than willing to sacrifice the benefits of slower leveling for speed.
I’d set to work at cleaning the room and was moving along at a fairly good clip. I don’t spam soulshots, but with the borrowed equipment and Si sleeping extras my Knight was holding her own.
As anyone who has played for any length of time knows, the way they time respawns in L2 occasionally results in chaos. You will be going along, just fine, killing at a steady clip and suddenly nothing will spawn for a bit. This is your first clue.
Unfortunately the second clue is about as subtle as a sledgehammer, because everything starts either spawns at once or you get spawns happening one right after another with no break in between. It’s nice in one way because it breaks up the monotony, however if you are not prepared for it, such a time can also mean a messy death!
I was trying to avoid the ‘messy death’ part, killing a seemingly never ending stream of mobs. I had two slept and was working on a third, the floor was littered with my drops since I hadn’t had time to pick things up while I was killing. A dwarf moved into the room and stood near watching me for a moment. Then suddenly she started picking up my drops. As I finished off the one I was on, she smacked one of the slept mobs and killed it much faster than I could.
That should have warned me…but I was too ticked off about her stealing.
I held down the ctl key and smacked her with my club. She turned on me, got off a stun and with the help of a partner killed my Knight with ease.
Whenever I attack someone, I accept that risk. I’ve chosen to open myself up to death. If they kill me, even with the help of others, it’s something I’ve chosen. I don’t exactly agree with the tactic of two on one, but I’ll deal with the consequences.
I rezzed my dead Knight with Si and went back to killing. The two then decided to harass me and try to provoke me into fighting. They would attack me while mobs were on me and this time I didn’t hit back. I handled the mobs with the help of Si. At one point they attacked Si, but again, I didn’t fight back.
I have a strange sort of stubborn streak sometimes and although I will walk away from a situation if I’ve decided it’s a losing proposition, I refuse to be driven out of some areas by people who are being bullies. This was one of those times. I kept fighting mobs and eventually the dwarf said, “We’ll leave you alone now. We thought you were a bot.”
Now, I’m well aware of how bad botting has gotten. But I’m rapidly coming to the opinion that maybe the bot hunters are getting almost as bad. I’m really tired of people ‘testing’ me to see if I’m a bot or not and I’m especially tired of those people who use ‘bot testing’ as an excuse to be bullies. You can’t even try to level a dwarf in peace now without everyone constantly ‘testing’ you. I don’t know a good solution, but I think the problem is starting to get out of hand.
All of that had happened yesterday. I’d stuck it out and gained two levels and I’d come back to the Necropolis today to try my luck again.
I’d been leveling along well without the interference of ‘testing’ today when my old clan leader sent me a tell asking if I was again in NoS. I told him I was and asked why. He said there was a young man he knew who wanted to meet me. He hadn’t told him my character names and gave me the name of his young friend.
I thought about it for a few moments and decided after I saw the name he’d just given me flow by in shout.
I introduced myself to him and mentioned that my old clan leader had said he’d wanted to meet me. We chatted for a bit and he asked if I wanted to group.
I knew his level was much higher than mine and grouping with him would mean I wouldn’t make much progress toward my goal. But, that was relatively little weighed against the possibility of making a new friend, so I readily agreed.
The area I’d been fighting in was really too low for him since the mobs were light blue with only a few green. We decided to move into a more difficult area and my new friend took the lead as tank.
We chatted as we fought, but I do find it very difficult to talk while controlling two characters so I’m afraid my answers were somewhat limited. I wanted to talk more, but trying to talk and keep people alive was proving a challenge.
I should have taken the time to set up macros, but I hadn’t.
Since Si, as the healer, was out of the group, it was often very tricky. I could watch my partner’s HP on my Knight’s monitor, but I still had the challenge of targeting without being able to click on a group member. Occasionally when he was surrounded by mobs I was very worried I would mess up and he’d die. My dying wasn’t going to be a problem, but if he died I’d feel awful. Here we were now, mobs chain spawning, my cleric almost out of mana and my Knight dead.
Welcome back to L2.
One of the really bad things I do is miss things all the time in the chat window. In a fight, I am so concentrated on health bars that I almost never see really vital things like “RUN” until too late.
I feel especially bad about this because often out of the same sense of loyalty that keeps me standing there healing until I die, those people who want to flee won’t leave me to die either. I’m sure they are puzzled by why I stand and stay after they’ve tried to get some breathing room by running. Quite simply it’s because I didn’t see them say it.
In this case, even if I had seen his request to flee (which I later scrolled back and read) I don’t think running would have gained us anything. But through his spamming soulshots and my my spamming BSPS and healing, we lived through the onslaught.
I felt really, really bad however since earlier he’d commented how he didn’t spam SS because of the cost and here our situation had eaten up his supply of them.
I tried to trade him some Adena, but he wouldn’t take it. He really was a nice guy and because he’d kept his cool in a difficult situation, we’d lived. I couldn’t help, though but feel he was frustrated after my Knight’s second death. It truly was okay with me. At level 22 it wasn’t a big deal for her to regain the lost XP and I honestly would much rather have her die than him.
Our main problem was the wisps. Although my Knight had fairly good NG jewelry, she still took a beating from their magic attack. Also, my lack of macro set up and the fact that I hadn’t played in over a month meant my skills were rusty and not up to par.
I knew he’d wanted to meet me because he’d read my stories and liked them. That had made me feel good. But now I wondered if he’d found the reality less than his imagination and was frustrated with the group. He never for a moment indicated he was, but the thought did pass through my mind.
I had very much enjoyed the time spent with him and as we were getting ready to leave, once he’d found out I’d used all my BSPS he wanted to give me some Adena for them. I wouldn’t take it so he dropped some and naturally it split to all members of the party. Two could play that trick and later I used it to return the Adena he’d given me. If he wouldn’t take mine, I wouldn’t take his!
As we parted ways for the evening, I wondered if I’d see him again. I knew he was leveling fast and wouldn’t long stay in my level range. But it had been a pleasant time and I’d really been glad I met him.
As I logged off for the evening, I felt content. I had been worried that my life lately would cause me to leave the game behind, but today had given me a renewed sense of commitment to the game and especially to the friends it had brought me.
I was ready to throw my second laptop out the window.
I work with computers. I can usually diagnose and fix most anything that happens, but this one had me really frustrated.
Almost since the beginning of my return, I’ve played with two laptops simultaneously. Side by side, two mice (is that really the plural?) and switching attention between two keyboards. It’s been challenging and I’d not always done it well, but it had been satisfying for the most part. Neither system was really optimal for playing graphics-wise, but they worked just fine.
However, at one point while playing on the PTS after the last patch before C3 went live something weird started happening. I would be playing just fine when suddenly for no apparent reason the graphics would begin to act like a slideshow. On the other screen I could see my character moving normally and if I used that screen as a guide I could continue to play. If I stuck it out and waited, eventually the system would go back to normal, but I never knew when it would strike again.
I’d tried everything, checking for a virus, updating drivers, checking the web for similar issues. I had a suspicion that it had something to do with overheating, since it took a bit of play time to cause the first slowdown. I really have to wonder about who at Dell thought placing the vent for the system on the BOTTOM of the laptop was a good idea. However even elevating the system and making sure the vent was cleared didn’t help.
It was a conversation with my higher level friend that gave me the first real clue. Following his lead and with my boyfriend’s help I located and installed a utility to check my processor speed. The next time the graphics slowed, I alt-tabbed out and checked the speed. My beautiful 3GHz laptop was running at a blistering 600MHz. No wonder the graphics were like molasses in winter.
My boyfriend had searched and found a fix for the speedstep on Dell laptops from Intel, but even installing that hadn’t helped the problem.
For a moment I wondered if the spirit of BKMiller and Kari had infected my second machine to keep me from two-boxing!
It was in the middle of this irritating moment that I received her PM.
Just from the way she wrote I knew she was a delightful person. She’s PMed me on these Official Boards with a gracious offer of grouping. I had spoken to her after that in game and found her delightful, but our paths had never seemed to cross at the correct time for a group.
Now, frustrated with my second system, I could almost hear dulcet elven tones asking me if I would care to group with her.
She knew I played two characters and let me know they would both be welcome. Although I was sorely tempted, the problems I’d experienced while grouping with my new friend in Necropolis of Sacrifice had been enough to make me shy away from trying to deal with the problematic system.
I had already made one less than stellar impression on a new friend. I didn’t want to mess up a second one in two days.
I told her I’d love to but I’d only be playing one. We agreed to meet outside Giran and I headed that way.
I’d been sad to see my usual soulshot vendor wasn’t selling any longer. In fact it seemed was becoming harder and harder to find BSPS in D grade. I knew the lack of items to crystallize was affecting everything. I could only imagine how it might be affecting Summoners.
Since I knew I’d be playing with others much higher than my current level, I pulled some shots out of my warehouse emergency stash. I hoped I wouldn’t have to dig too deeply into it and it wouldn’t be long before I found a new source for the shots, but I’d have to see.
Soon I was on my way and it wasn’t long before I saw the crossroads come into sight. I thought she had picked a fitting form. Graceful and beautiful the light elf Spellsinger perfectly fit my impressions of her from our written exchange. She had chosen my favorite elf form and the one my beloved Jute on PTS had worn.
I’m always fascinated by what people choose for their avatars. Sometimes they fit my mental picture of them, sometime they don’t, but it’s always fun to see. I’m sure there are a few people who just pick whatever is on the screen at the time, but most people take care in what they choose. Either crafting a character that is beautiful to them or one that fits the image they have in mind of their personality.
We joined up and began to head off to kill Orcs. We hadn’t gone two steps when we met a gracious gentleman who was introduced as her clan leader. He was on his way to help another and did not join, but it was nice meeting him. We moved off and before long we were joined by another human. A similarly delightful creature who spewed fire as readily as she traded quips. Although I had chosen Si for this outing, I wondered out loud if I hadn’t made the wrong choice. Shay would work much better with the casters. I mentioned this and decided I’d run Shay to the spot we were hunting. I could then switch and it wouldn’t be too much downtime.
The two casters complimented each other well and you could tell they had a very warm relationship. They bantered and killed having fun all the time.
At one point my Spellsinger friend dropped connection. Unfortunately that was just at the point where we had 5 orcs running toward us. Bravely the fragile caster still left did her best to kill them. I tried to heal but she was taking a beating and even my battle heal couldn’t land fast enough.
As she dropped to the ground she shouted for me to Run. I knew if I made it out alive I could rez her, but the orcs much faster than my Windwalk 2 and a bit of pummeling later and I was dead.
I had been running Shay there on my second computer, swearing occasionally when the slow graphics would hit. I knew I could use her to rez if my Spellsinger friend didn’t make it back. Luckily she did and within minutes she’s used a scroll to rez my fallen form.
I rezzed our fallen comrade and we moved out to the road to wait for Shay. Not such a great start to our relationship. I didn’t mind dying at all, but I certainly didn’t want others to die. Not a very auspicious beginning.
Maybe I just suck at first impressions, but then maybe that’s just me.
We joined up with another of their friends and by the time Shay made it to the spot we were ready to head into the Catacombs. That’s when I remembered that being gone so long I’d forgotten to have Shay join a side.
Good thing Si was still there, but I felt like a total idiot.
A person here or there joined the group and eventually we had a full party. They were all much higher level than I and it was obvious that my Spellsinger friend was held in high regard. I could see why, she was truly a nice person.
My usual talkative self was reduced to only an occasional comment. I am not quite sure why I felt uncharacteristically shy. Perhaps it was because it quickly became evident that I couldn’t really contribute much to the group. I was much lower level than they and my heal hardly even budged the HP of the groups tanks. I could however effectively heal the spellcasters so I concentrated on that.
No one else died, so that was a good thing. Seeing their easy camaraderie and the pleasure they took in each other’s company was warming and it also made me more determined to find a group with which I could share those same feelings.
The time passed quickly and my bedtime approached. I thanked my new friend and left the group.
I like feeling like I contribute something to a group. For whatever reason that’s important to me. It’s one of the things that is very hard in L2. You have no way to really group with others effectively if they are outside a narrow level range.
My friend had repeatedly reassured me that just having my company was good enough. I believed that she felt that way, but I really wished I could be more than just a companion. There is a special bond that is built between friends in game when they conquer difficult situations together. You learn to trust the other person and rely on them. You begin to work in concert so that your actions are not independent but blend together in a synergy of action.
I had felt that way in games before and I’d grown to be like that while hunting with my old clan leader. I longed for that feeling again. I could see it happening with my Spellsinger friend and her companions.
Someday….
Ah well… patience is a virtue. One I’m afraid I’m sadly lacking.
I'd like to thank you for the time you put into writing these. I know the stories are more like your L2 journal. But I think the reason so many people like them, and wait for your updates, is that they relate.
You write about many situations that a lot of us have experienced. So while reading I know I am often reminded of my own adventures, or my own feelings towards certain situations.
It is nice to have someone else with some skill at writing put them into words.
Like you I am in IT, fighting S-O compliance.(I refuse to type thier name today). I also find myself with limited play time. Watching all the friends I hunted with quickly leave me in the dust, while I try in vain to catch up. It is depressing to be playing since prelude and not even be in B grade yet.
It is rough. I made some friends in cruma but they are long gone now. Have had several good friends in clans, but they too have passed me by.
So I am left solo most, if not all of the time. I know it is for the best. As I really have to fight to play for an hour or two here and there. But I just miss the company sometimes, of seeing another human being. Even if, in a good group you fall into a rhythm and barely speak, at least you know someone else is there.
This situation also leads to my biggest fear. Bothering people. I am a chatter, I like to pass time verbally while playing. Even if it is about stuff that has no relation to the game. While soloing I often PM old friends, just to say hello and pass a few moments in chat to just stay in touch.
But you wonder, are they there talking to you out of pity? Are they bothered by you intruding on thier play time? Are they wondering why you insist on keeping in touch even though they have long since passed you by?
As I have pondered that, many times I have wanted to PM a friend, but just haven't. Deciding that I will just spend my time in quietness, only broken by the explosion of SS and the faint crys of my elf.
Sigh.. See. I ramble way to much. So I will shut up.
This situation also leads to my biggest fear. Bothering people. I am a chatter, I like to pass time verbally while playing. Even if it is about stuff that has no relation to the game. While soloing I often PM old friends, just to say hello and pass a few moments in chat to just stay in touch.
But you wonder, are they there talking to you out of pity? Are they bothered by you intruding on thier play time? Are they wondering why you insist on keeping in touch even though they have long since passed you by?
As I have pondered that, many times I have wanted to PM a friend, but just haven't. Deciding that I will just spend my time in quietness, only broken by the explosion of SS and the faint crys of my elf.
Not at all.... Not everyone plays on the same server. This is why i started a MSN cross server chat thread. If you or jute ever care to drop a PM, your welcome to....
very nice post jute i'm glad that the knight friend of urs kept his calm in those situations and that and im glad he also thought that u were intresting
I've often thought we should have an 'unofficial relaxed server' like they do with the roleplaying server. One where all the people who work too much can play. That way, we'd always be able to find someone around our level. :)
I'm sorry you don't play on Erica, you sound like the kind of person I'd like on my friends list.
Thank you for the encouragement and I hope you don't give up.
These are very nice stories. I'm reminded of the old days (you know, when I actually had time) that I would write in a journel after each ADnD session. I would never have had the guts to make it public, however.
Regarding your computer issue, I have encountered cases similar to the one you described. SP2 will update drivers for the CPU. I have seen issues in Dell laptops where clock speed falls in the MHz range after SP2 is installed; this is caused by the driver update and can be fixed by rolling back the driver. Another option is to simply update the CPU driver manually. Unfortunately, this case is not identical to yours; you may have had SP2 for a while, or maybe you don't have it at all. And it's strange how your clock speed is changed during uptime.
But still, if you haven't tried rolling back or updating your CPU drivers, it might be worth a shot...
I'm desperate and I'd love to try this since it did start happening when I did the SP2 update. I tried rolling back the driver but it didn't change from the SP2 one. Is there a place you can recommend I go to get a different driver?
It had been one of those levels that make you sweat and bleed. You know the ones where nothing ever seems to go right. It’s almost like the whole game conspires against you to make sure you make no progress. I’d died so many times this level that by the time I reached 35 I easily should have been almost 36.
Some of it was my own fault, hurrying and not being careful enough. Like when I was one kill from 35 and my boyfriend wanted breakfast. So I thought instead of sitting and getting my mana up I’d just kill this last tree. That would have worked if I hadn’t gotten too close to the tree right next to it and now I had two and not enough mana for even one. Lesson learned… even if you only have one kill before you level, take the time to be cautious or you may find yourself back to having an hour’s worth of work.
Some of it was bad luck. It’s wonderful when you are fighting a mob and suddenly you get three more spawning right on top of you. Oh well, lesson learned, you can’t outrun Hangman Trees as a human caster.
And some of it was a griefer with a blood red name who decided I should be his special project.
The first time he killed me I just chalked it up to the nastiness of the Execution Grounds. I’ve always wondered what it was about that area that seems to attract the dregs of humanity, but I’ve never been anywhere else in L2 that had more people bent on making life miserable for fellow players than EG. Heretic’s Catacombs which are in EG seems to become infected with the same festering playstyle.
The second time he killed me I was about 4 kills from leveling and I had to just stop playing for a bit, since that was my 5th death that day. One death had been from my own carelessness. Two had been from various people who liked dropping trains of trees on unsuspecting individuals and two had been this red named guy’s special present.
I do understand the thrill of pvp. I have felt the adrenaline rush, the thrill of pitting your skill against another person. I do understand how sometimes griefing is a tactical move, although I think it’s less than honorable. You use it to harass your opponents and keep them from leveling up. I don’t, however, understand what thrill or joy you can possibly get from killing people who have no chance against you.
After the second time he’d killed me I had to take a break. The game was getting to me and I have been trying hard not to let that happen. Right now I felt as if I was just punishing myself by playing. I play this game for enjoyment, not frustration and the frustration level was mounting. I had to do something else. If I got too frustrated, I needed to walk away. That was much better than letting myself get angry and tense over a game.
So, I stopped playing for a time, taking the opportunity to work on a few other things I needed done. I spent some time cutting fabric for a new project I wanted to do and cleaned up the kitchen. The few hours helped me gain perspective and I was ready to go back to playing.
Even though I hesitated, I went back to the Execution Grounds. I’d died there so many times today, but what option did a couple of healers have for duo play? The only thing I could kill was undead and the only place with undead the level I needed them was Execution Grounds. At least when other classes are having problems with griefing in an area they can leave and go somewhere else, but healers can’t. The only other thing I could do was try to get a group, but with the way my second system had been acting I really didn’t want to take the chance I’d get other people killed. Me dying was bad enough. Me killing others would be unacceptable.
So I went back. Keeping an eye out for the griefer I went back to my harvesting trees. I hadn’t been playing too long when I saw a dead caster on the ground. I asked his dwarf partner if he needed a rez and was told yes. I dropped my group with Shay, joined up with them and brought him back to life. I was in the middle of buffing them both when I noticed someone saying “Please guys, save my tunic.”
I looked around and saw a dead female orc nearby. As I buffed with Si I ran Shay over to where the orc lay dead and picked up a Brigadine tunic. I could almost feel the panic from the orc. “Please don’t steal that.” She begged.
“I won’t.” I replied and offered her a group. She took it, I rezzed her and promptly handed back the tunic. As I buffed her she thanked me.
“I’ve been having a bad day.” I answered. “Helping someone else not have one just made mine better.”
The orc explained he was getting materials for A grade on his main and it would have hurt to lose the Brig tunic. I laughed and said these two –were- my mains and it would hurt me to lose anything. The orc told me that if I ever needed anything I should just ask his main.
I knew he meant it at the time, but now I don’t even remember his main’s name. I wonder how many people do not remember mine. I know I should keep paper and pen handy and write down both those who have done me well or ill, but I don’t. I do try to remember people who make an impression, but so many meetings are transitory. I don’t remember most of the names of people I have helped. Maybe it’s because I honestly don’t expect anything from them.
Although those I’ve helped slip into obscurity, I do remember the names of people who helped me. I wonder if it’s the same for others.
I went back to leveling and passed the time talking with a new friend. Usually I would have talked with my high level friend, my new Spellsinger friend or my old clan leader. But no one seemed to be on. So I had started a conversation with someone new. He’d sent me a PM on the boards and told me to say hello sometime. I hadn’t taken him up on it before but I did now. I found him funny, nice and I really enjoyed our conversation.
I ran across the same dwarf caster pair I had helped earlier. The caster was once again taking the proverbial ‘dirt nap’ and I rezzed him a second time. I felt bad for him, since he seemed to be having the same kind of day I’d had.
I went on my way feeling pretty good, but my mood soon changed. My nemesis the red named caster was back.
The third time he killed me he told me he’d make a point of killing me anytime he could. He would make my life miserable. I should tell my friend not to group with me any more since he’d kill my friend anytime she was with me.
Well I suppose the one bright spot in this was at least since he thought Shay was my friend he didn’t think I was botting.
As I lay there he sat on my corpse taunting me. I found it very funny that after he taunted me for awhile he put me on ignore. He was a coward even there. I wasn’t sure why I’d become his particular target. I knew he’d killed others, but he told me he’d make a special point of killing me.
What I don’t think he realized however was how his nastiness opened the door for something really great to happen. He had caused not just me but several other lower levels there quite a bit of hassle and by the time I managed to run back from the village, several higher leveled people had shown up.
I had vented my frustration with this guy over chat and I’d gotten a wonderful response. I hadn’t said anything so someone would come ‘rescue’ me. I was just really frustrated that the only place a healer could level was going to make me an easy target for someone. However, rescue did come both from an old friend and a new one.
I guess all those deaths really were worth it if the outcome was this. I’d told someone earlier when they tried to give me money for rezzing them, that friends were better than adena. It’s nice to be right.
I've always struggled with the concept of making and retaining a chaotic character.
And I feel your pain. My own baby prophet has become a special project for one of the reds on Lionna. Fortunately I at least know why.
Apparently, one of his alts had asked for buffs at some point while I had a sell shop up in Giran, and I had "ignored" him.
I would imagine that this particular griefer singled you out for an equally frivilous reason. It is good that you found a good spin on the day, and were able to make new friends.
I've found that it's always easier to log back on when the last time you were on had some good stuff happening.
You'll be ready for DV soon I should imagine anyway, and the griefer will still almost certainly be in EG praying on the weak.
It had been one of those levels that make you sweat and bleed. You know the ones where nothing ever seems to go right. It’s almost like the whole game conspires against you to make sure you make no progress. I’d died so many times this level that by the time I reached 35 I easily should have been almost 36.
Some of it was my own fault, hurrying and not being careful enough. Like when I was one kill from 35 and my boyfriend wanted breakfast. So I thought instead of sitting and getting my mana up I’d just kill this last tree. That would have worked if I hadn’t gotten too close to the tree right next to it and now I had two and not enough mana for even one. Lesson learned… even if you only have one kill before you level, take the time to be cautious or you may find yourself back to having an hour’s worth of work.
Some of it was bad luck. It’s wonderful when you are fighting a mob and suddenly you get three more spawning right on top of you. Oh well, lesson learned, you can’t outrun Hangman Trees as a human caster.
And some of it was a griefer with a blood red name who decided I should be his special project.
The first time he killed me I just chalked it up to the nastiness of the Execution Grounds. I’ve always wondered what it was about that area that seems to attract the dregs of humanity, but I’ve never been anywhere else in L2 that had more people bent on making life miserable for fellow players than EG. Heretic’s Catacombs which are in EG seems to become infected with the same festering playstyle.
The second time he killed me I was about 4 kills from leveling and I had to just stop playing for a bit, since that was my 5th death that day. One death had been from my own carelessness. Two had been from various people who liked dropping trains of trees on unsuspecting individuals and two had been this red named guy’s special present.
I do understand the thrill of pvp. I have felt the adrenaline rush, the thrill of pitting your skill against another person. I do understand how sometimes griefing is a tactical move, although I think it’s less than honorable. You use it to harass your opponents and keep them from leveling up. I don’t, however, understand what thrill or joy you can possibly get from killing people who have no chance against you.
After the second time he’d killed me I had to take a break. The game was getting to me and I have been trying hard not to let that happen. Right now I felt as if I was just punishing myself by playing. I play this game for enjoyment, not frustration and the frustration level was mounting. I had to do something else. If I got too frustrated, I needed to walk away. That was much better than letting myself get angry and tense over a game.
So, I stopped playing for a time, taking the opportunity to work on a few other things I needed done. I spent some time cutting fabric for a new project I wanted to do and cleaned up the kitchen. The few hours helped me gain perspective and I was ready to go back to playing.
Even though I hesitated, I went back to the Execution Grounds. I’d died there so many times today, but what option did a couple of healers have for duo play? The only thing I could kill was undead and the only place with undead the level I needed them was Execution Grounds. At least when other classes are having problems with griefing in an area they can leave and go somewhere else, but healers can’t. The only other thing I could do was try to get a group, but with the way my second system had been acting I really didn’t want to take the chance I’d get other people killed. Me dying was bad enough. Me killing others would be unacceptable.
So I went back. Keeping an eye out for the griefer I went back to my harvesting trees. I hadn’t been playing too long when I saw a dead caster on the ground. I asked his dwarf partner if he needed a rez and was told yes. I dropped my group with Shay, joined up with them and brought him back to life. I was in the middle of buffing them both when I noticed someone saying “Please guys, save my tunic.”
I looked around and saw a dead female orc nearby. As I buffed with Si I ran Shay over to where the orc lay dead and picked up a Brigadine tunic. I could almost feel the panic from the orc. “Please don’t steal that.” She begged.
“I won’t.” I replied and offered her a group. She took it, I rezzed her and promptly handed back the tunic. As I buffed her she thanked me.
“I’ve been having a bad day.” I answered. “Helping someone else not have one just made mine better.”
The orc explained he was getting materials for A grade on his main and it would have hurt to lose the Brig tunic. I laughed and said these two –were- my mains and it would hurt me to lose anything. The orc told me that if I ever needed anything I should just ask his main.
I knew he meant it at the time, but now I don’t even remember his main’s name. I wonder how many people do not remember mine. I know I should keep paper and pen handy and write down both those who have done me well or ill, but I don’t. I do try to remember people who make an impression, but so many meetings are transitory. I don’t remember most of the names of people I have helped. Maybe it’s because I honestly don’t expect anything from them.
Although those I’ve helped slip into obscurity, I do remember the names of people who helped me. I wonder if it’s the same for others.
I went back to leveling and passed the time talking with a new friend. Usually I would have talked with my high level friend, my new Spellsinger friend or my old clan leader. But no one seemed to be on. So I had started a conversation with someone new. He’d sent me a PM on the boards and told me to say hello sometime. I hadn’t taken him up on it before but I did now. I found him funny, nice and I really enjoyed our conversation.
I ran across the same dwarf caster pair I had helped earlier. The caster was once again taking the proverbial ‘dirt nap’ and I rezzed him a second time. I felt bad for him, since he seemed to be having the same kind of day I’d had.
I went on my way feeling pretty good, but my mood soon changed. My nemesis the red named caster was back.
The third time he killed me he told me he’d make a point of killing me anytime he could. He would make my life miserable. I should tell my friend not to group with me any more since he’d kill my friend anytime she was with me.
Well I suppose the one bright spot in this was at least since he thought Shay was my friend he didn’t think I was botting.
As I lay there he sat on my corpse taunting me. I found it very funny that after he taunted me for awhile he put me on ignore. He was a coward even there. I wasn’t sure why I’d become his particular target. I knew he’d killed others, but he told me he’d make a special point of killing me.
What I don’t think he realized however was how his nastiness opened the door for something really great to happen. He had caused not just me but several other lower levels there quite a bit of hassle and by the time I managed to run back from the village, several higher leveled people had shown up.
I had vented my frustration with this guy over chat and I’d gotten a wonderful response. I hadn’t said anything so someone would come ‘rescue’ me. I was just really frustrated that the only place a healer could level was going to make me an easy target for someone. However, rescue did come both from an old friend and a new one.
I guess all those deaths really were worth it if the outcome was this. I’d told someone earlier when they tried to give me money for rezzing them, that friends were better than adena. It’s nice to be right.
The PM came from the player who’d returned my dropped earring. I wasn’t sure if it was a warning or a threat, but since she’d returned my earring when I asked, I’d take it as a warning.
I was trying to group more. I felt that if I was truly going to advance in the game I’d have to get to know people who might like me well enough to group with me on a continual basis. Since my second computer had been acting up, I’d started alternating between Si and Shay. I’d been able to advance both and still keep them pretty close to the same percentage of XP just by alternating who grouped.
Lately, I had been grouping on a semi-regular basis with a very nice bunch of people. I’d been introduced to them through the female Spellsinger I’d been fortunate enough to gain as a friend. I seriously think she’s the nicest person I’ve ever met in game. Not cloyingly sweet, just nice, spiced with a biting sense of humor. I think it’s that special combination, the niceness with the zingers that make her so fun to be around. And I know I’m not the only one who things so, once when I was introduced as her friend someone quipped ‘that’s half the server’.
She’d made a point to invite me to groups with her friends and I’d gotten to know several of them and become very fond of them as well. The Gladiator who made me feel welcome and always accepted my offer of ‘zerk (Defense is over rated!), the fiery human with her dread of enclosed places and combustible nature, the beautiful and deadly Dark Elven Elder, who despite her self proclaimed ‘lazy healer’ status deftly kept us alive in very difficult situations and the Bishop who adeptly kept us from wipeout even without Greater Heal. I always felt I learned from them whenever I had the chance to group.
My Spellsinger friend had asked if I’d like to group and I’d jumped at the chance to once more party with them. I had finally climbed to 36 the day before with the help of the howling Gladiator and the Shillien Elder. That had been a very interesting day.
In my effort to improve the number of people I know I had started frequenting the Catacombs, since I’d been told that’s where the people were. I’d shouted for a group and been invited to one with two brothers. Now one thing I’m trying very hard to do lately is keep an open mind. I have found that sometimes people have reputations that don’t live up to the reality, both good and bad, and some of my friends are people that for whatever reason other’s dislike.
I decided a long time ago that I would judge someone based on how they were to me and what I saw as their interactions with others. One of my friends I like very much, though he’s definitely not going to win any popularity contests. He’s always been good to me and as long as that continues, I’ll value our friendship no matter what others think.
So, when these two invited me into their small group, I decided I’d keep an open mind. We had a good run together, I kept them alive and gotten quite a chunk of XP in the deal. I found out they were brothers and that the clan they were part of was their cousin’s. There seemed to be a touch of awe when they talked about their cousin. He was much higher level than they and they obviously admired him. During our conversation I found that he was the one who introduced them to L2.
We had a few difficult moments with a character who was training people in the Catacombs. I hate trainers. I think it’s a coward’s way to grief, but I know many people do it as a relatively risk free way of gaining some advantage over someone, or punishing them. I know it’s a mechanic that’s available in the game and I accept that some people use it because of that. It doesn’t make me like it however.
Both the brothers swore about how they hated the trainers and how low a tactic it was. At the end of the evening I accepted their invitation to become friends. Since that first time I grouped with them, we grouped a couple more and eventually they asked me to be part of their clan.
I really miss having regular partners, but I don’t want to join a clan just to join one. Even if I like someone I think it’s important that I understand how I fit within the group and that I believe in the principles the clan stands for, even if it’s just having a good time. I want to make sure I like the people in the clan and that they like me. Because of that, I am going to be cautious in accepting anything. I told the guys I appreciated it and would like to get to know people better.
It was the day after this conversation that the Howling Gladiator had taken pity on me and invited me to group with him to see if I could get another level. I was close to level 36 and really looking forward to moving one more bit closer to the Holy Grail of the class change. I’d gladly accepted his invitation and run to the Catacombs for the group.
As part of the group I’d gotten to meet another person from the boards I’d only previously known from his posts. He was a Bishop and true to the rest of his clan, he was a very nice guy.
A lot transpired that day. During the course of our grouping we ended up adding a couple of random people looking for a group. The second Gladiator was a good player and he’d stuck by us in a couple of difficult situations. At one point we’d wiped and he’d picked up an earring dropped by one of our party members. He’d returned it and continued fighting with us.
We’d come back to the gatekeeper to pick up an additional person. While we were there another character started a fight with this second Gladiator. Accusing him of being a ‘bot’. I wasn’t quite sure what the heck was going on since I’d been grouping with the guy, he obviously wasn’t a bot. I’d also seen recently a very frightening growth of what I call ‘bot’ hysteria. I’m all for enforcing the rules, but we now seem to have a number of vigilantes that use the ‘bot’ excuse for their own form of griefing.
The fight between the two of them died down. We picked up our new members and headed deeper into the dungeon. Apparently the two new people who joined were friends of the person who had started the fight with our group member. After a few moments it was evident they were in communication with the person. We were advised to drop the second Gladiator from the group. If we didn’t, the other person would train us.
No one said anything right away. I thought about this and its implications. I don’t like bullies and I felt as if someone here was trying to bully us. I didn’t know much about the person who had started the fight, but I had fought (and died) with the Gladiator. It dawned on me that this person, the one who was doing the threatening, was the clan leader of the group I’d been asked to join by the brothers. This was their admired cousin.
Life sometimes is ironic.
I spoke up and said I didn’t like the idea of dropping this Gladiator because of the threats. Another member spoke up the same and we moved deep into the dungeon. Our leader, the Howling Glad was smart. He moved us into an area that would be difficult to find. Unless of course someone had help…
We fought uneventfully for a time, but eventually at a bad moment the troublemaker showed up and dropped a train on us. The object of his anger died.
Now call me suspicious if you want, but the two people who we had picked up conveniently were afk when the train came through. Also, I don’t see how the guy found us without help.
Eventually we were able to rez the dead and move on. But the entire incident left a very bad taste in my mouth about this clan, their leader and the tactics they employed. I don’t know what sparked the entire issue, but the Gladiator they killed had been a good group member and a decent guy. I can’t say the same however, for the one who trained us.
This had been the day before I’d received the warning to get out of town. Yet again I was seeing the less savory tactics involved in the game. The Independence Day event was happening and some people were using this as a method of wreaking havoc. They had trained the boss mob and several minions into town near the gatekeeper. I had ported into Oren and promptly been smashed by a deep red mob. As I died, I’d dropped one of my earrings, which had been scooped up by a waiting character.
Now, I knew that the earring wasn’t going to mean anything to the person who had picked it up. I guessed they were probably easily above level 65. The D grade earring would be pittance. However, it meant a great deal to me.
As a side note here…I know you are supposed to drop stuff in your inventory before you drop equipped items. I wish I had the kind of luck at gambling that I show in L2 because I swear I always drop something equipped. I’ve dropped jewelry, tunics, pants… everything except weapons. This was the second time I’d dropped this earring. Luckily the first time my second character had been there to scoop it up. This time I was alone and someone else did the scooping.
I lay there dead watching the havoc and felt very sorry for the people who dropped tunics and other items. I knew that the earring could be replaced, but I thought I’d at least try to get it back.
I messaged the person and they didn’t reply.
Eventually a few brave souls came into town and killed the mobs, making it safe to accept the respawn. Where I came back to life was near where the entire group of trainers sat. With them I saw the female character who’d picked up my earring. As I moved near her I got a request for trade. I accepted and she put my earring in the trade window.
Happily I accepted and thanked her. Not long after I got the warning.
Now, I don’t know why I’ve been lucky with people returning things to me. Occasionally someone will keep something but on the whole, people have been decent (except the person who took my pants!). I’d like to think it’s because I try to be decent to others in return.
I am sure that there are people who hate the person who returned my earring. I don’t know what she’s like to others, but I’ll remember her for her decency to me.
I spoke up and said I didn’t like the idea of dropping this Gladiator because of the threats. Another member spoke up the same and we moved deep into the dungeon. Our leader, the Howling Glad was smart. He moved us into an area that would be difficult to find. Unless of course someone had help…
Its fairly easy to find someone by simply using the target command in a macro, especially if you know the dungeon well or have a map.
Great stories, keep them up, I love reading them :)
Wow. :eek: Long series of unlucky events with some lucky ones thrown in for flavor. Heck of a story. I hope your luck improves on all fronts and you find a clan of people you can feel comfortable with.
This is a confession of sorts. I’m a serious addict. My vice isn’t alcohol or drugs but creating and leveling various characters.
I know I’d make much faster progress in the game if I could just stop playing so many characters. I’d be 40 in no time if I concentrated on only one, even two probably. But instead, I split my time and devote a little each night to various characters in my horde.
The uber XP on the PTS was perfect for me. During those few weeks I managed to level 14 characters to level 40+ and do 10 second class transfer quests. I know most people complained about the quests but I’ll let you in on a secret. I actually enjoyed the challenge.
It was an incredible opportunity to learn about the relative power and function of each class. I had originally hoped to be able to write a detailed analysis of my thoughts on each of the healer/buffer classes. Unfortunately I ran out of time.
Time always seems to be the core issue for me.
Since the PTS wipe I’ve concentrated on gaining levels on Erica. I’ve tried to set small goals for me each night. I’ve found it’s easy to get frustrated if I think too big. I want to be 40 on each of my characters NOW! If I step back and break it up into smaller goals, it is much better for my sanity and my enjoyment of the game.
My routine lately goes like this. I log in Si or Shay to see if I can find a group. I don’t spend too much time looking, since that’s time I could spend on other things. If I don’t find a group quickly, I play one of my other characters. My current goal is to get them all to the first class change. So far my list of characters past the first class change looks like this:
Dark Elf Wizard
Elf Wizard
Scavenger
Artisan
Elven Oracle
Human Knight
I have another three at level 19 and three more at level 16. Like I said…it’s a serious addiction problem.
When I write, it’s mostly about what has happened to Si and Shay, but sometimes interesting or funny things happen to the others. I’ve just mostly concentrated on Si and Shay.
It’s funny some people have asked me who my ‘main’ character is. I don’t have an answer for that. I like all my characters and if I have to pick just one to go to the highest level with, I’m not yet sure who it will be, although lately I’ve really become enamored of the idea of a very high level Orc caster. I blame Splatter! ;)
Several people know many of my guises. I don’t hide who I am and if someone is my friend I like talking to them no matter who I play. I’m sure my addiction baffles my friends. Most people seem content to concentrate on one or at the most two characters. Why do I have this problem?
Although it causes me some problems, I’ve a sneaking suspicion that it actually makes me a better group member. I know what the limits of other characters are and I also know a bit about their strengths.
It saddens me a bit that it will never be practical for me to continue this into the high levels. Although it’s relatively trivial to level many characters to 20 it’s much harder as the levels climb and I’m sure somewhere in the 30s it will become totally ridiculous.
But for now… I merrily plug away, grinding each of them in turn as I steadily move forward, percent by percent.
Lately I’ve been leveling my knight with the help of my Cleric, Si. She’s climbed to level 27 grinding in Necropolis of Sacrifice. Last night provided a great deal of comedy.
I had moved into an area where everything was white to my Knight. The killing pace solo was a bit slower than I liked and I decided to move back into a bit lower area.
As a side note, I don’t know if it’s the same in the other Necropolis (what is the plural of that word) and Catacombs but in NoS the mob levels jump in a strange way. You go from having the first group be light blue or green to you to the second group that is all white. If you stay and grind on the greens in the first areas, you will kill a lot of light blue mobs. If you move to the all white ones, the difficulty level jumps quite a bit. Now I know you aren’t supposed to solo this stuff, since it has four times the HP of normal mobs, but even in a party this jump would be odd.
Anyway, I had decided to move back to the lower level, even with the light blue I thought gain XP faster, since I’d been killing faster. I cheerfully started back the direction I thought was the right way. I soon found that that was much easier said than done.
If you ever have to choose a companion to help you when you are lost in the woods…well, let’s just say that I should be last on your list. I get lost in game easily. My boyfriend is amazing with mapping things both in his head and on paper. He has patiently tried to increase my ability to navigate in mazelike situations. However so far all his loving patience has provided is a calming influence when there is a situation. I hate being lost and sometimes I get a bit panicky even if it’s only ‘in game’.
After the third time of seeing the same dwarf who was playing dead in the middle of a group of mobs and the fourth time of the caster/orc pair, I started getting a clue that perhaps I wasn’t completely clear about which direction I should have gone.
The light elf I passed for the third time must have wondered what the heck I was doing. Since every time I ran through her room I ended up gathering an agro mob or two, which I would then have to stop and kill before I made yet another wrong turn.
I had heard someone shouting wanting a group and after the second time they shouted I sent a message to them saying that if I ever got un-lost I’d happily group with them. They got a larger chuckle out of that.
So round and round I went, running through the same rooms obviously completely, utterly and totally lost. At one point I had to stop and kill yet another agro mob pair and as I was just getting ready to start hitting the second one a guy rounded the corner with 6 mobs on him.
Now, my previous day’s experiences with training had taught me something valuable. As the banana suited caster unceremoniously croaked at my feet, I immediately halted my attack and let the mob hit me. I ran down the hall a ways, mob hitting me all the time, me praying that I could get far enough away to safely fight and heal. Luckily I was able to and I killed the nasty gremlin-like creature pecking away at my HP.
I said outloud that I’d rez as soon I was done killing but when I went back to rez him with Si, he had apparently released. Before he released he said in shout that he was sorry he hadn’t meant to train. That was nice to know.
We had an amusing moment when the person who had been shouting for a group shouted asking me if I could hear her voice and asking if I was still lost. I shouted back yes. She then shouted “follow the sound of my voice”. We all got a big laugh out of that one.
So round and round and round I went. Lost…utterly and completely lost. Luckily no panic had set in and I even found the situation amusing, with the help of a few others in shout. I had just about given up…ready to soe out when I turned a corner and there was a group with the character I’d been PMing. I was finally on my way out!
I moved to the gatekeeper and logged for the night. I know I’m hopeless in these mazelike places. I was glad I’d been able to keep my sense of humor and not let the frustration get to me. I was grateful to the individuals who helped me chuckle through the ‘lost’ time.
Lately I’ve alternated between driven and drifting.
A kaleidoscope of people have paraded past me on their way through L2 recently. In two days I leveled my Shaman, Kae, from level 19 to level 29. She’s now at level 33. I’ve been playing whenever I can squeeze time in between work, but I haven’t written a thing. A lot has happened, but sometimes I find when so much has happened it’s almost as if I don’t know where to start with writing about it.
One of the things I like most about these games is how many different people I meet and get to see. I am completely fascinated by the motives of various individuals. What makes someone do the things they do in the game? Do they think about how others think of them? Do they recognize themselves why they do certain things?
One day recently I was leveling in the Necropolis of Sacrifice (I have finally spent so much time there I no longer get lost so easily). As my group moved deeper into NoS, some human asked my Dark Elf for Wind Walk. Naively I gave it to him. Later, as we fought several mobs he ran through and deliberately trained us. I wondered if he knew he would be training us even as he asked for the buff. Did he find some twisted delight in asking for me to assist in my own death?
We had been fighting slowly but doing well. I was just finishing up the last mob of a group of two when I looked down the hall and saw him coming. He must have had twenty mobs following him and somehow I knew that it was on purpose. I’ve seen too many of these lately. He ran directly for us and I immediately stopped hitting.
He started smacking my two characters and my partner. My partner fought back but was overwhelmed by mobs and died. I ran and though he chased me I was able to keep ahead of him. As I ran trying to find the way to the gate I turned the corner and saw a group of people sitting. I shouted for them to look out since I knew the griefer was trailing me. I knew if they didn’t move they would be okay. The line of mobs was focused on me.
I ran twisting and turning trying not to gather more mobs but hoping to outdistance the griefer just long enough to log. Health dropping fast I prayed I could just stay out of strke range long enough and spammed the log out. I finally managed it.
I have no problem going toe to toe with someone and dying in a fair fight, but I feel no compunction whatsoever about logging like that running from a trainer.
I was very sad over that particular incident, since the archer with me fought bravely trying to bring down the griefer, but he died for the second time that day. He’d been a good group member and a nice guy. He was new to the game from WoW and I always hope that incidents like this will not tip the scales and help someone decide the game is not worth it.
But it is what it is… harsh sometimes, other time, really truly rewarding and full of fascinating people all interacting for their own reasons.
I’d made so many levels so quickly due to a couple of things. One of my friends had loaned me some equipment and that helped out tremendously. Also another couple of friends had brought lower level alts to NoS and the three of us had torn through 3 levels in record time.
I was very impressed with one particular friend. I’ve seen her now play several different characters and she plays each one well, adapting to the different strengths and weaknesses. She was an exceptional tank.
I had laughed when she had asked me what level I’d like to be by the end of the day and had said 30. I was 24 at the time. She didn’t flinch or laugh as I had expected. Just came and helped me get within a breath of that level. We probably would have even made the 30 if we hadn’t run into a problem where I tripped over my two boxing and everyone died.
I really hate that when it happens. I always wonder if people are angry at me for it. I warn them that I don’t play two as well as one, but I still feel horrible when people die and I could have prevented it if I’d just reacted faster/better/more appropriately. Maybe it’s unrealistic to believe I could have made a difference, but sometimes I know I could have and that’s when it’s really hard.
It’s been interesting to see how little most people know about Shaman and how much harder it is for me to find a group as one. I have always thought that it was ironic when you have characters that no one wants to help get leveled but they fight over them when they’ve reached a certain point.
Healers seem to always be able to get groups, at least at my current levels. Yesterday a dwarf came through looking for a polearm group. I don’t know if he was a scavenger or an artisan, but I remembered thinking it was too bad my group wouldn’t take him. I was recently introduced to the beauty of polearm groups and was amazed at how fantastic a good one is. No one seemed to want to group the Dwarf, but I bet they would like to have him craft things at higher levels.
I know people are concentrating on the here and now. They see the most efficient way for them to level is in small groups with only those classes that make leveling fast. Can’t they see that in the long term, it benefits them to set up relationships with these less than optimum classes?
Someday I hope Kae will be an Overlord. Just as I hope Si will be a Prophet and Shay will be a Shillien Elder. But, I think the road for Kae is going to be much harder. She’s tough though. I think she’ll make it.
You have some horrible luck Jute, or just an insane server. I have never been trained, and only been PKed 3 times total over like 4 months. Keep it up though bro, write there names down, and revenge yourself when your ready.
Actually the happy ending to that story should have been included. Some higher levels heard of the issue and came down to make sure the miscreants behaved. :)
Erica is a great server. I think I'm just a train magnet :)
Well, I thought it wouldn’t happen to me. I admit it, I was one of those people who are a little smug in their own self confidence. After all, early in my L2 career I’d seen a number of innocent people get scammed one way or another.
During the open beta there was a contest for the highest leveled character. My boyfriend was determined to get the prize and worked very hard to level fast. He quickly moved up the ladder and was number two. His name and character were posted on the Official website and he tried desperately to catch the guy ahead of him. He leveled two boxing an Elven Elder and a Swordsinger.
He was playing his two characters trying hard to level when suddenly he got disconnected on the SwordSinger. Since he was playing two together he saw this character log back in and use a SoE. I was watching it on his screen and I felt like my heart stopped.
He tried to log back in on that character but received a message the account was in use. We both dreaded what was happening. I told him to change his password immediately. He quickly logged into his account and did so while continuing to spam trying to log in. I sent a PM to his character so we would have something to mark the exact time in the logs when we talked to a GM. Finally it worked and he was on his account. All this had taken only about 5 minutes.
My boyfriend reported to a GM and it was escalated. It was my first encounter with HGMSpam. I won’t go into the official conclusion at that time, especially since it was long ago, but for a long time we played in fear that the same thing would happen again. Luckily it never did. It could have been awful. If we hadn’t been on when the account was hijacked and if we hadn’t thought quickly, he might have lost everything. It was a sobering experience.
My next lesson was when a character I knew in passing was robbed by a dwarf who had promised crystals. The dwarf posed as a level 40 Warsmith (I even remember the name he used WillWarsmith) and in fact was under level 5. The scammed person couldn’t even kill him for satisfaction and have it mean anything.
Reading the Official Boards I’d seen a lot of people get scammed by strangers or people they trusted. I was smug with self confidence that I couldn’t be ripped off. I was smarter than that. Luckily I didn’t lose much, several thousand adena and my pride.
Why did it happen? I’ve thought about that a bit. I was tired, I’d been playing all day and been dealing with a bit of a problem at my house. Our water main had broken the morning before and we were without water. I’d been dealing with trying to get the landlord to fix the issue and my gaming kept being interrupted by the doorbell. I had come into town and was looking for some soulshots. I’d just bought a thousand at a good price and was headed out of town when I saw a shop set up at an even better price than I had paid.
The doorbell rang again and after I finished with it I came back. I double checked the price, since it was really too good to be true! Maybe the guy was quitting. I’d heard someone shouting earlier that they’d sell shots for that price. Well, I’m sure those of you who are smart know what is coming. I bought the shots. At least I thought I bought them. What happened was I ended up selling him the thousand I’d just bought at a loss for me. I hadn’t paid close enough attention and the shop was a buy shop, not a sell.
“Okay,” I thought, “it was my own stupid fault.” I’ll let it go. Perhaps the guy was really legitimately trying to buy shots at that low of a price. A few minutes later I saw the guy stand up and talk to another character. I had logged off the character who lost the adena and so I messaged him with the one I was on. I told him the shots had been sold to him accidentally and would he buy them back for the same price.
He said okay.
My first thought was WOW…I’m going to just tell him to keep them, my fault, my lesson learned. But as I was typing it, he said he’d sell them back to me, but only at a higher price.
I stopped what I was typing and changed it. I PMed again saying it was a mistake and it wouldn’t cost him anything to sell them back, but it would gain him a friend and keep him from making an enemy. He didn’t answer and after a few minutes I PMed him again. He had logged.
I thought about this for awhile and then I did something I rarely do. I wrote down his name. I know that it was my own fault, I should have paid better attention. I got caught and I have no one to blame but myself. At first I thought he might have been legitimately trying to buy the shots at a lower price. I don’t think that was the case, but even if it had been he missed something very valuable. Perhaps my friendship would have really not meant anything to him. I would have given it gratefully if he’d been willing to return the shots. But I have found over and over in this game that friends are really the key. I often say ‘friends are better than adena’. I know it is true. It appears it’s not something he has learned.
I wrote down his name because perhaps, someday I’ll see him again and I’ll have the opportunity to teach him the error of his thinking.
I thought I was a smarter one too. Always double check things, ect.
Until one day like you I was tired, been working all day to save adena to buy a C grade weapon in Lux shop.
So I needed umm ~5000 D crystals? or something like that. Well at the time they were scarce. I picked up a few here and there. When I clicked someone and seen they had all I needed and at a good price.
So being tired and happy I didn't check, and bought like 4000 Soul ore or something.
Knowing it was my fault for not checking, I PM'd the person and just ask if they would buy them back at less than what I payed. They would still scam me for a 100-200k, but I wouldn't be broke. Of course they never answered.
Sadly it is a part of the game. Also sadly these scammers never leave town so there is nothing you can do about it as NCSoft says to. So taking down thier names is useless. The majority of the players on Bartz knows that cybersales is a scammer. But is obviously an alt. So what to do about it? Nothing.
Whats funny I guess as I wasn't even that upset over it. If I was mad for any time at all, it was with myself.
Yeah...I was embarassed over it more than anything. I almost didn't write about it because I felt so dumb. I did see this person out of town tonight, so I may still get my chance. :)
It’s there now whenever I play. A little tingle of anticipation. Just a small bit of budding excitement. Not full blown, just a small shiver, but I can feel it building. Nibbling around the edges as I grind.
I know what caused it. It happened when both Si and Shay hit level 37. I had been neglecting them lately to play Kae. I like all my characters but I get a special satisfaction from my healers and I’d been away from them for awhile as Kae leveled up. They’d both been stuck at level 36, but that ended with a bit of determination, some luck and a couple of good groups.
Now when I play it’s always there in the back of my mind. Level 39 is just around the corner. I’m almost there. Yes, I know with the amount of time I can play it’s still going to be awhile, but the excitement is there pushing me on.
On the PTS I already did quests for both a Prophet and a Shillien Elder so I know what to expect. However on the PTS I had the luxury of being able to easily port all over. I also was duoing with a fighter on each of the characters, so I’m sure it will be a bit more difficult than it was there.
I could start two of the three quests now, slowly doing them as I level along. I think that’s how they were meant to be done, not all in a mad rush as most people do them. However, lately I seem to always be in a mad rush and so at the moment I’m going to wait for level 39 and start them all at one time.
At least that’s what I tell myself.
But that little niggling shiver of excitement keeps tantalizing me. If it feels this way now, how will it be in two levels?
If you need a hand with any of the quests, Please call :) Iknow a couple parts, you pretty much need a group to accomplish (especially killing Portas for the human quest)
bleh the 37 one was easy, I did that one (did it at the same time as the 39 one but I went WC meaning different 39 quest) and my 39 quest at the same time and only lost about 25k (I did other quests as I went along) The 35 one is gonna be the long one especially if u can't port to TI.
So I’ve come to the conclusion I’m terribly shallow about certain things.
I don’t like admitting it, but I’m afraid it’s true.
Take for instance character names. For the most part, although they aren’t names I’d choose, the odd, wacky or funny names do not bother me. If you want to call yourself PurifiedWater or isyngieIx, or RominHands I don’t blink an eye. But there is a certain category of names I just can’t seem to get past.
The people who bear them might be great people. They may be helpful, nice and great clan mates, but I find myself cringing mentally whenever I look at them and see their name. I find I can’t interact with them on the same level I do with others.
I have had this experience recently. I’ve had invitations for a nice group of people twice now. I’ve taken them up on it because I’m trying hard to increase my circle of friends in L2. The groups have been good, the people seem nice, but one guy is playing a female character with a name that is very derogatory to women. He’s not in the group but comes along as a watcher to make sure nothing happens to us. All-in-all he hasn’t done anything to show he’s other than a nice guy.
Looking at that name, it makes me wonder how he feels about women in general. I see lots of these kinds of names in L2 and ever single time I see one I it makes me wonder why they are tolerated. I don’t know for sure, but I have a feeling if those names were racial the characters would be gone or renamed, whatever happens when someone violates the naming policy, but I see names with variations of derogatory and sexual terms for females on a regular basis. I doubly cringe when I see these names on female dwarves.
It really bothers me. Mostly I think because when I look at any character I don’t stop at that character but go farther to think about the person playing. Wrong or not, when I see names like that I feel that must reflect the philosophy of the individual playing and the conclusions I come to bother me.
So when I see this guy, his name makes me think he must have a pretty low opinion of women and since I’m one, I wonder if he has a low opinion of me.
I’ve often prided myself on trying to look beyond the surface to get to who the person is below, but I just can’t seem to bring myself to do it for people with these names.
And it bothers me that it bothers me.
Maybe I’m reading too much into things. But I have a sneaking suspicion that I’m not. Perhaps it doesn’t bother other females in the game. Most of the guys just seem to think the names are funny. Maybe they never think about how these names might appear to the women in the game. Would they find them funny if they were racial slurs against whatever race they happen to be?
Perhaps I’m a coward that I haven’t said anything directly to him. But part of me wonders if I’m just making too much of nothing.
Right now, since I might be around this guy a bit more I need to find a way to make this not bother me so much. Either that or just be straight with him and tell him I find it offensive, regardless of whether or not he and the others think I’m over-reacting. Why is it I have such a reluctance to say anything? It’s not like I’m unable to voice an opinion. God knows there are many people who would happily testify they wish I’d just shut the hell up.
If I say something I imagine I’ll be labeled a ‘prude’ or ‘over sensitive’. I’ll be told it’s just a joke so big deal. So I go back and forth over this and in the end, I don’t do anything.
We all have our little pet peevee's, nothing wrong with that at all. But of course we on the other hand also have to show a certain amount of tollerance towards eachother and not judge books by their cover. You know like certain people have duo-boxing as their pet peevee's. Don't be too hasty in discounting someone, simply because the name might seem degoratory on the surface.
As for NCSofts naming policies...I don't know...after a certain guy on our server got away with a title about having sex with children...and he's still running around with really bad titles, I simply can't figure heads or tails of the policy.
As for the guy in question, I am pretty sure he doesn't have a low opinion of women (they would beat the crap out of him if he truly did), and he doesn't have a low opinion of you either (or I'd beat the crap out of him). ;)
You can easily report an offense name, and what happens is the GM will rename the char. for them (atleast thats what i've heard) I happen to agree with you Jute, and if it is offensive/stupid enough to warrent you writing a piece on it, then im sure your not the only one who feels that way. Maybe you should take care of it.
Circumstances lately have been conspiring against me. Work has piled up to make my play time erratic, my boyfriend’s job contract has come to an end and the tech job market in this area isn’t what it used to be. My parents had a large number of medical bills and needed some help. All of this has made me need to look at sacrifice somewhere.
I wrestled with this for several days. We need to cut back somewhere and since I couldn’t play L2 sometimes for a week or so and I have three accounts I’m paying for, that seemed to be the logical place.
Canceling all three accounts wouldn’t solve all the problems, but it would help and at this point, every bit of help is needed. I love the game. I love playing when I can, but more importantly I love the people I’ve come to know through the game.
After all, friends are better than adena.
But I felt trapped. So I made a very difficult decision. I would have to cancel my accounts. It made me very sad to have to do this and I PMed a few people to let them know my decision, since goodbye threads are forbidden, I didn’t’ want to just disappear and have them wonder what happened to me. Besides I had stuff I needed to return. I would miss them very much, but I didn’t feel like I had a whole lot of choice.
However one special person took pains to try to convince me that perhaps I should cancel two of the accounts and just keep one. That way I could stay in this world and continue my play, but be able to cut back as needed.
It’s nice to have a Guardian Angel.
But which account…
I don’t consider myself a roleplayer but each of my characters are special to me. It’s like being able to play dolls as a grown up. I can take each of them out, dress them up and parade them around Aden. I like them all for different reasons. Choosing any one account will have disadvantages over choosing another.
But if I choose any other account than the one tied to my board account I lose the Jute name too.
Obviously this isn’t a goodbye post, since those are forbidden ;) , I’m going to take the lifeline offered and choose to keep one account. I just don’t know which one.
The obvious choice is ‘the one I enjoy most’. There isn’t one I enjoy all the time more than any other.
The one my board account is on? Then I have to give up my beloved Dark elves and my sassy Knight. If I choose my Knight and my Shillien Oracle I give up my Cleric and my wonderful Shaman. And my poor Dwarves. &#61516;
I think I know in my heart of hearts which one I will have to choose, but that doesn’t make it any easier.
I’m not posting this for sympathy. I’ve always hoped my writings here would give people the sense that they are not alone. Perhaps they can see a little of themselves in both my joys and my heartaches. I know others have had to make difficult choices.
I’m going to think this over tonight and decide. Whatever choice I make though difficult, will ultimately be worth it to allow me to stay and be a part of this wonderful game and to continue the friendships I’ve made here.
I am sorry to see you faced with this kind of difficult choice. Yes, I do oppose multiboxing, but that does not mean I am unsympathetic to the cares and needs of those who play with multiple accounts. It's a hard choice, but I am certain whichever account you choose to keep will bring you countless hours of pain, pleasure, heartache and happiness.
If you don't choose the one tied into the Jute board account, couldn't you simply make a new board account tied in with the one you do keep?
I think you can still use your forum account even if you have deactivated your game account. I believe you are only barred from posting on the forums when your account is banned. I was gone for something like 8 months and the forums still allowed me to log in all that time. However, I never tried posting in that time (not that I post much in the first place).
Maybe someone else can confirm this? It might help your decision about what account to keep.
I let my account lapse not too long ago, and I thought I was screwed. It turns out, though, that I got to keep everything but I just couldn't log into the game or actively participate in the forums.
That is my suggestion, Jute. Let some of your accounts go inactive, but keep active the one you want. Everything will be waiting for you.
Take for instance character names. For the most part, although they aren’t names I’d choose, the odd, wacky or funny names do not bother me. If you want to call yourself PurifiedWater or isyngieIx, or RominHands I don’t blink an eye. But there is a certain category of names I just can’t seem to get past.
The people who bear them might be great people. They may be helpful, nice and great clan mates, but I find myself cringing mentally whenever I look at them and see their name. I find I can’t interact with them on the same level I do with others.
I have had this experience recently. I’ve had invitations for a nice group of people twice now. I’ve taken them up on it because I’m trying hard to increase my circle of friends in L2. The groups have been good, the people seem nice, but one guy is playing a female character with a name that is very derogatory to women. He’s not in the group but comes along as a watcher to make sure nothing happens to us. All-in-all he hasn’t done anything to show he’s other than a nice guy
Despite LC dismissing this as a pet peeve I think you should trust your intuition.
I have been unfortunate enough to learn that the "great" public persona is indeed a facade and the title or name a player gives themselves is far more revealing of their true nature.
True, but in this case it wasn't. But this is a story thread, so lets leave it at that. If you want a debate, you should take it to the general discussion forum.
True, but in this case it wasn't. But this is a story thread, so lets leave it at that. If you want a debate, you should take it to the general discussion forum.
Oh I see, only you are able to offer Jute advice on her quandary huh?...very erroneous advice at that, may I add.
Now if you truly dont want a debate I suggest you leave it at that or open up your own thread. :mad:
Sorry to hear that Jute.
No easy choice I am sure since you put so much emotion into each character.
As for your forum name. Reguardless of which you keep. Jute will always be Jute. It isn't your name that draws us here.
It is your stories and insite. I for one am sorry your not on my server because you seem like a great person, who would be fun to explore a bit of aden with.
Reguardless of your decission, please keep us your adoring fans informed. :) I am sure everything will work out for you in the end.
Oh, and remember. The Characters are not gone. They will just be taking a long nap. So If things improve, think of the joy and memories that you'll have if you ever get to reacctivate that account.
But this is a story thread, so lets leave it at that. If you want a debate, you should take it to the general discussion forum.
Can't you realize that this thread is the story of Jute's coming back to the game, and then how she experienced each characters that she built and how she went through many different situations ?
This thread is all about Jute's experiences.... I would say that what Jute is going through right now falls under the exact same topic...
I can't believe that you are telling the creator and owner of the thread to post somewhere else !!?!?!? Will you start to decide what she can or can't post in HER thread ?
Please if you don't like, don't read the thread, but don't tell Jute what to do.
TO JUTE: This is your thread. Please feel free to post anything you want here.
Oh man Jute and I was really hoping to meet you. I posted a reply to your Erica thread about Overlords. If you keep either healer active and level her up you could powerlvl your shaman and the other healer by using the one, may be an option. I recently had to do the same thing, cut back on bills so one of my accounts got cut. It was easy for me to decide though because my Overlord has always been my main and any other character (and there has been many, lol) has always been made with the idea of benefitting my OL. So my pretty little bladedancer is canceled for awhile. As far as the previous post, I'm on Erica too and I see some of the most sexest, degrading and perverted titles and names too. It really bothers me, so much to the point of wanting to pk them, but I would never do that and what good would it do.
SirElrohir is not the creator or owner of this thread, and he was the one I adressed, as to not greatly disturb the thread about a debate on internetnames.
As for my comment, that is because I know everyone involved in the incidence personally, therefor I can make my comments with a good conviction that I am on the right track with it.
As for her coming back, there are forces at work trying to make that happen, lets hope they succed.
Jute's accounts expired on September 10th. She doesn't know when or if she will sign up again.
I had the opportunity to get to know her over the course of 3 months in game. Didn't even know who she was when we met in game. Definitely one of the nicest people I've had the chance to meet here.
I don't know if we will ever see jute again, but i went ahead and saved every post she made talking about her life in lineage so the board monster doesn't get them....
The right thing for Sarge to do would be to sticky this thread. It is too important to many of the people on the forums. Do it as a small tribute to Jute. God knows she deserves it.
The right thing for Sarge to do would be to sticky this thread. It is too important to many of the people on the forums. Do it as a small tribute to Jute. God knows she deserves it.