I never made it to top game in this, never had near the free time required, but I still find this post about ya'lls guild drama and shit so interesting. What is wrong with me? I was never involved in any of this shit.

I wrote a college English paper once about the argument on these boards when Xan declared Trak FFA. Got an A, and my paper picked out for discussion in class. Guess I ain't the only one.

Your post kind of reminded me of one of the most frustrating things for me back then Surcam; having to explain EQ to my friends and family in real life. Most couldn't grasp the idea of making long lasting, real relationships over the internet. It was a game, how could that happen?

When I went to meet a bunch of friends from Oryx in Kansas my mother and grandmother were freaking out thinking I was going to be killed or raped or something since I had never "met" any of these people before. I was never that worried about it because after being around those people for hours on end every day you can actually get to know them pretty well (and I had a blast!).

Now it's a little more mainstream but back then it was a struggle getting people to understand that those little game characters had ACTUAL people sitting at their computers controlling them...

Wow, really? You always seemed to stand out as an atypical young player in that you were not annoying and I didn't want to stab you through the intrawebz.

I got so sick of trying to explain to people that there was not a pause button, and you couldn't just up and quit in the middle of something.

I remember meeting a bunch of TSO people around 5-6 years ago or so in Las Vegas. I had no idea what to expect as far as what kind of person they were outside the game- I knew what they were in game because, like Nananea stated, you spend so much time with them in game that you learn of their personalities and form friendships (even though you have never met them in real life).

When we all gathered, I realized- they were normal, everyday people like myself. All walks of life, different ages, different jobs, some with children, etc. Just normal people. Which made this even more cooler because let's face it- a lot of people who don't play MMO games like Everquest believed (at the time) that we were a bunch of nerds, geeks, ingrates, living in mom's basement, etc etc. When the reality was (and is, to this day) that we are just normal people who enjoy playing one particular game.

I know with Warcraft that MMO players have become more mainstream and more accepted in society. But I always wondered why someone could play Xbox or Playstation or Madden __ for five hours a day, seven days a week and be considered normal... or someone could watch TV for five hours a day, seven days a week and be considered normal.... but someone who played Everquest for five hours a day, seven days a week was considered geeky or anti-social or <fill in adjective>.

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I agree.

^---- This is true

I'll play devil's advocate and disagree with CC, for the following reasons:

- many of us played FAR more than 5 hours a day for EQ. I know people that played, and *still* play, from 8pm until 3am. And the thing is, much of that time was *uninterruptable*. You literally sat in front of the computer raiding for 5 hours, and anything other than a pee break meant you could be a liability. Chores were neglected; social life with friends/family was restricted; etc, etc.
In comparison, watching TV or a movie or playing on a Playstation meant you were a little more accessible as they were generally pause-able (if that's a word). Not a huge difference, mind you, but at least you could actually be semi-social and eat dinner with friends/family :p

- I guess it depends on your own perspective, but sitting in front of *any* form of A/V media for 5 hours a day, 7 days a week, was never "normal" among my circle of friends/family.
My social life definitely suffered when I was into EQ, and would have just the same if I were heavily into anything else for that period of time on a daily basis.

/shrug. Not criticizing or anything, as I'd be a hypocrit if I did, but just noting that I wouldn't exactly call watching movies for 5 hours a day normal.

That's a pretty big bit of embellishment. Very, very, very little in EQ was so demanding of your time and attention that you couldn't get up to go to the bathroom, feed the dog, talk to your SO, AFK through everything but important stuff, etc etc. I think I spent half my raiding time in EQ alt+tabbed out or doing other things because there really wasn't very much to pay attention to. As long as I could stay awake for the boss then count to 4 and hit a button, I was a great raider!

Granted, a lot of people MADE it into that sort of uninterruptable thing, but frankly it wasn't.

methinks you are misremembering things

So do I. :p

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Not really.

Maybe some people made a point of sitting down and intently watching everything during trash pulls and such, but really...remember how people talked about how you could pretty much bot raids? How Sam Deathwalker 30-boxed or whatever because things were so easily macroable? The reason WHY people fell asleep in raids? Heh.

You'd be hard pressed to argue that things really were so intent and in-depth that you HAD to be there and HAD to be paying 100% attention for 5 hours straight in a game with truly very little in play depth and 70 other people there to take care of things when people had to afk and whatnot. Even the boss fights...if I had set up an auto-clicker I could have probably successfully performed my role in 90% of boss fights.

There's no arguing that raids in EQ took a LONG time...but I never felt like I was glued to my chair the entire time, not by a long shot.

Perhaps that is because you were not in the forefront making things happen (running raids, doing DKP, pulling, tanking, etc) and just sat in the background collecting your loot and clicking a heal every now and again. For a good portion of us, however, the game took a good deal of paying attention.

I always felt like I had to be there every second... but then again I led raids a lot of the time.

My social life *definitely* suffered because of EQ. I'm not going to pretend I played in a healthy manner when I played. I played for huge amounts of time, to the detriment of my relationships with RL friends and family.

being slightly in front of the arc with everyone else during my first vindi raid, dying to rampage on the first hit.

awesome.

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You mean I was 99% of the population? Cool. (Tanking? Really? lol)

Sorry that "raid leaders" had to spend more time due to the responsibilities they took on herding cats. But that has nothing to do with the game itself. Like I said, the rest of the population, the overwhelming majority, wasn't glued to their seats.

Tanking gets a "lol"? As I said, I think you're just misremembering things (or more likely confusing EQ with WoW). Raid leading had everything to do with the game itself for those involved, just like guild leading. We weren't logging in for 8 hours a night to run XP groups, we did it because we were raiding. Anyway, this is a stupid argument. We obviously played the game differently.

I remember Solkan in VT; corner mob, auto attack, make sandwich. I was envious =p

But as a Shaman raiding, yeah I felt I had to pay attention all the time. Hell even in exp grinding sessions, anything longer than a quick "bio" break or smoke break and I felt like I was letting people down. I hated sitting there with a thumb up my ass when the others were afk for whatever reason, and I didn't want others to feel that way when I was gone.

I can't say it affected my social life, as I never bothered to have one in the first place (I moved around a lot, and forming new_social_peer_00 was never much of an interest with me, but it did affect my job with the late night raiding and whatnot.

I am reminded of a bad EQ memory. Oryx Shaman chat. Normally it was fine. I miss Xoba and the rest. But two shammies HATED each other. Judanu and Lilpeanuts. Oh they were polite to each other, but if one was offline the other was quite loquacious about how the other was out to destroy her. And when both were online, it was the same thing from both of them in tells. Both really sweet people otherwise, but jesus fuck I never liked drama to begin with.

Yeah. We played it good. He played it faggot Sullon Zek or whatever.

EQPvPLoL

It's only stupid because people are getting all uppity about how important and demanding they remember their EQ playing to be.

Important? Not really, no.


Demanding? Fuck yes.

Yeah I remember on the raids I used to do early in my short and likely-mostly-imagined raid career, anything more than a couple of minutes away and you could get killed, left behind, or otherwise yelled at for not being a productive member of society.

And I was a real bad rogue for a long time, it's not like I was contributing much anyway.

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Yeah, people would whine, depending on the type of people you played with. But again, that's more about people than the game itself.

Oh well, I guess I just raided with more laid-back assholes than uptight assholes. (They were assholes, make no mistake.) We were still the top guild on the server in raid progression, and I certainly never got bitched out for "just pushing a heal now and then."

Raid leaders, yeah. I know their job was a lot tougher.

Anyway, it's clear we just remember things differently or played differently. I see Givin is here to give his unique touch to things and since I don't want to turn this thread into what it'll turn into if I take his bait, I'll just drop it now. <3

Rofl!!! This one came in to play more times than I could ever hope to count.

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Larreth Wolfsong (long retired)
Lanys T'vyl, Everquest

Zinky, Lvl 60 Warlock
Thunderhorn, WoW

People not involved in trash clearing are parasites. Sure, you could show up 3 hours into a VT clear, but the fact is that you had to be at the keyboard. If you're going AFK for long stretches or taking breaks in the middle of raids, you're cheating off other people. Which, based on your social opinions, makes perfect sense

Vex Thal is the DEBIL !

That's cool, Orme. Throw some stones after I agreed to drop it.

Trying to melee in water zones. Gah!

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Hope is the new black.

Trying to pull in water zones o_O

Worst memory ever?

Same as a few others. FL/Visions merger. Less than a month later I sold Xkhan on playerauctions for $750 and just played my rogue off and on until GoD came out.

Most frustrating time was staying at 51 and leading so many Naggy raids in order to get a CoF and seeing it go time and time again to others. Especially frustrating was having it drop X4 from several kills and losing the roll every time.

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"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." -Henry Louis Mencken
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VEGETARIAN -Noun (vej-i-tair-ee-uhn): Ancient tribal slang for the village idiot who can't hunt, fish or ride.

Yep, FL/Visions merger was the last straw for me back then. All the drama about who made the cut and who didn't.

Wasn't long after that announcement that I decided to throw in the towel and move on.

Only thing worse than the merger was reactivating about 6 months later to pop in, say hi to old friends, and see how the guild was doing - only to find my characters were deleted, and the GMs unable to do a damn thing about it.

Those would be my 2 worst memories of EQ.

*nods* I look back now and just shake my head at the hours put into EQ. It was fun, sure...but wow...the time spent. When I was in the Airforce I'd get out of work around 10 or 11pm, I forget..but I'd log in before even changing out of my BDU's and play till 7 or 8 in the morning. When I got out it was even worse because I didn't bother looking fora job for almost a year due to the pile of money I was sitting on. I'd log on around 3pm and play till 7 or 8 the next morning...day in day out. I'm not sure Given ever logged.

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Larreth Wolfsong (long retired)
Lanys T'vyl, Everquest

Zinky, Lvl 60 Warlock
Thunderhorn, WoW

Uhm no dood. I was shocked when I found out you were a youngin. You always handled yourself with class bro. One of the best rogues I ever played with in any game.

ps Can't believe so many still post here...I haven't been around for year(s).

Hahahaha. I could totally sense that between them.



Thanks (and Bzal as well). I tried to handle myself pretty well, but there were times I made immature mistakes and some people didn't forgive me for it I guess. Good times though

Oh, yeah, Vex Thal sucked. The idea of the key and the zone itself were awesome, but God what a time sink...so unreal.

I just remembered something.

Fuck you Red V!

I feel better now.

I didn't have many bad memories, almost all good. For that matter I made some friends I value greatly, I just dropped Xiola off at the airport to go back home after spending 5 days here. I had plenty of real life problems while playing, but those were my choices, not EQ's and I outright refuse to blame a game for choices I made.

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Marauder Harabakc Goat

I still have those pictures of you and I in OOT with the naked bug Steve.

That's not a bad memory, that's just some fucking weird bug.

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Marauder Harabakc Goat

I would have to say my worst memory was during my rogue epic. First and minor, Fallen Legacy was doing a General run, and I asked if I could also do the turn in and kill it in OOC. Someone from FL said sure, and I gathered my stuff and a few friends and headed over. I waited until they had completed it, and then asked if I should do my turn in. Xantheous (sp?) said something to the effect of go ahead, if you can solo the general lolzhahaha. Later while guilded with him, he took all the drops to become our new off tank, only to bail to Conquest when he was geared enough a week or three later.
"Yeah, I'm rich" - Xantheous
"Yeah, just like cow manure" - me

After that douchebaggery, I joined a pug General run and was third in line for the turn in. I guess I got agro right before turning in and had to start the quest line over. This happen twice (redoing the quest due to agro) until I finally got it. All in all, I was just frustrated with this...and this was the easiest of the three epics I got.

How can one man cause so much chaos?!

Mama said Xantheus is the DEBIL !

Shit, I think I've got that award hands down because of that fucking merger. And yes, that was lowest point in EQ for me. Fucking scary to think how long ago that was, and just how different many of us are now.

PS - Caving on Kam, Kaylain and Truk was the actually the price for Xan and a few others if I remember it right. God that whole thing was stupid. Thx reminder!

Ah.. I vaguely remember that. I was an officer in Colossus (Teiresias) and I remember thinking the guild really had potential. Chris the warrior, his cleric girlfriend, Nizumyen the erudite SK, and of course Ghaani the ranger! What actually went down when it dissolved? Chris + GF quit or something?

Man that was a long time ago.

Tanking it up! <an Ice Burrower>

God dammit, I'd almost forgotten the second person you mentioned, thanks for bringing that bitch up.

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

I would probably still be playing/raiding in EQ if Fallen Legacy was still running.

Yeah we had just got up and running, started doing some dragon raids and all of a sudden *poof* Chris and his GF split (was her name Krystell?). It sucked because we had started really gelling and doing stuff. We had started to get people to join the guild and it was over.

Noojens, I didn't realize that you were Teiresias.

Yeah I don't think anyone else on these boards would even remember Teiresias, besides maybe a few folks from the FL reunion on Stromm. I wasn't around for most of the classic drama, heh.

I read this thread a few times and actually tried to remember much of anything that happened in EQ and drew nearly a complete blank. It's stranger still when I run into someone that will vividly remember something I'd said quite offhandedly 6 or 7 years ago.

Worst moment? Probably something to do with finding out Finlainea and Celeste were dudes. It made whacking off for the next few months really difficult.

I don't suppose one of you would bother to go into more detail about this Visions/FL merger? I was but a level 40 n00b when that picnic started, and have always wondered just what caused the two super powers to even bother doing that in the first place.

Anyone?

Long story short - some of FL's leadership was quitting (or close to doing so), recruiting was drying up and prospects for better were fairly shitty. Visions were having similar issues, and I honestly didn't expect them to hold together as well as they did when a merger was brought up. The hope was to originally steal their members as a result, abandon the process, fill the ranks and hand things off to folks like Cagen, Listero (and even you Giv, best fucking banker ever), etc.

It basically ended spiraling into massive amounts of negotiating and bullshit. Little did I know exactly how much irl money those officers were making off that guild which kept a fairly solid base there. How they kept some of those members is beyond me. At the end of the day, a few of us were just burnt out and hoped that our core would overtake their core and jettison the fucktards once we left. Never happened, the douchebags in Visions leadership (Ral and some others excluded) adopted our merit loot system and completely twisted it. I still consider our loot system (while flawed) the best ever used in any MMO I've played. Lots of selfless players and lack of loot drama played a big role in that.

Wait, that wasn't long story, short. Long story, short - I fucked up, made a bad leadership call, and shit on a bunch of folks I called friends doing what I thought (at the time) was the best for the greater good. Never actually occurred to me that these folks might still enjoy playing together anyway even if we weren't #1 or couldn't field a raid every night.

How did "the list" come about? Who's idea was it, who all had input on who stayed and who got the boot, etc?

Good question Neesha! Good question! Taradin was freaking out about that list for quite a while if I remember right.

I'm curious to hear more details about the money people were making off the game. Are we talking selling Vindi BPs, BoCs, etc. on player auctions or whatever the auction site was as the time?

I know bits and pieces of the story have been shared on these forums over the years but all I'm recalling is that female half-elf rogue having a big hand in things, the name escapes me though.

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Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

Ellyria. Don't forget Kam, Cad, and that crew.

As to the question about the list, I'll hit that one up when I have a bit more time. Work = feh.

Ellyria was the Visions RPP thief that self awarded itself RPP because it was RPP officer or some bullshit. The Visions guildbank put a down payment on a house/truck at least twice that I heard of. Yayger for certain. Probably Cad and his crew several times over.

Times the FL guildbank was stolen/sold, even though that faggot Casu wants it to be more, = zero. I still have the monthly logs packed up somewhere. Every transaction documented. I did the same with my half of the Conquest bank. The CQ bank was so massive we were handing out plat for people to go buy their own spell regs because I was too lazy to go buy them myself. There was so much surplus plat it funded the first CQ meet.

When the FL/Visions merger went into effect and I was ousted as banker (I wonder why) I hid 90% of the FL bank and gave Elessar like 100k or some shit that went to the Sigil bank. We weren't super loaded at the time because I remember spending a fuckload on a few res sticks and a shitload of Seru bane mats or something. I forgot. There it sat untill CQ returned and it then went to buying up bazaar gear to get people up and running.

So where did I fit into the merger. I remember running to Seb to talk to Elessar and to show that I was no longer tagged in Visions?

I got ousted on the list for Suko...fucking Suko Josh! God Cad hated me.

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"I'm the best there is at what i do, bub, and what i do isn't very pretty"

Sola: Cad made a lot of stupid choices. Well, stupid for the guild. But I think that's more or less been covered already.