Aradune Returns to EQ aka the EQ Nostalgia thread

Try Being A Guide, You Nutless Assmuncher

Here?s some background ? I?ve been a guide since March. I took a month off in protest of some seriously fucked up guide policies, and a total lack of communciation between VI and their customer service staff. I came back to discover Verant got their shit together, and now it?s the players that suck. Some of you assholes are up way past your bedtime.

Get a clue, pissants ? Neither I, nor anyone else breathing actually gives a shit about how so and so stole your orc. Furthermore, no one cares that you lost the roll for whatever piece of crap weapon, because guess what? In five levels that piece of trash will be on your fourth twink and you?ll be complaining about some other l33t weapon. (Note to a_pissant00: DO you know how retarded you sound petitioning over how you were ripped off AFTER YOU ROLLED FOR IT AND LOST? What the fuck do you think I?m going to do? That?s right, genius, I?m going to ask your group TO ROLL FOR THE ITEM. If you already rolled, I?m not going to do anything but ROLL my eyes and curse the malformed sperm that somehow beat out all the healthy ones and created you in some horrible genetic accident.)

Next, the guide rezz. NOBODY over level 20 should be confused or surprised by the incredibly limited powers a guide has. I can rezz you if 1) You zoned into lava, 2) Died due to Verant crashing (not you and your dial up, VERANT), and 3) Died to a confirmed bug. Otherwise, I can?t do it. I would love to, but I can?t. I have died to plenty of un-confirmed bugs myself, I know it sucks, and I still can?t do it. It?s not all about you and how I hate you because you aren?t in an uber guild. Guess what, moron? I DON?T PLAY ON YOUR SERVER. I do not know, nor do I give two shits about the status of the guilds on your server. >Elite Cockjockeys< and >: Lords of Jizz< means exactly the same to me ? NOTHING. I rezz every single person I can, because I know exactly how much losing a week?s worth of work to something not my fault sucks. If I don?t rezz you, it isn?t personal. So shut the fuck up about how I would have done it if you were a member of >Dancing Dickbeaters<.

Let?s move on to sending tells to a guide. I logged in tonight to find myself the only guide with count ?em FORTY petitions waiting to be answered. Sorry, Mr. I can?t find my super twinked body and I?m only level 2 and a forty minute walk to my corpse. Not only do people like you disgust me on general principles, but the guy who?s been waiting for three hours stuck on a gate in Permafrost TAKES PRIORITY OVER YOU. Read the rules, dipshit. I take calls by petition, not by your sad sack tell of woe. And cussing at me, screaming at me, and telling me what a rotten person I am makes me accidentally camp out when I finally clear the monster backup and get to your whiny ass. Don?t send me tells, assholes. The ten minutes I end up wasting asking you nicely to send a petition (or if you sent one, the twenty minutes I spend telling you it?s not your turn yet) means that much longer of a wait.

Play nice policies. My personal feelings aside (lay off the wacky weed, Verant), I get to enforce it. Do you know how much I hate you at the end of a long shift? What kind of asshole thinks the king room in Lower Guk can be shared by TWO GROUPS OF 12? Conversely, what kind of screaming cocksucker thinks it?s okay to camp the king room for 36 hours? I think you both suck. The only people lamer than you are the ones that PNP over derv camps in North Ro and then act surprised when I send one group to the DESERTED derv camp a 30 second walk away.

Boats. Hey, Einstein, before you petition me that the boats are broken, do an /ooc and find out when the boat left. If it was two minutes ago, IT?S NOT HERE YET.

Quests. All I have to say to you phat lewt motherfuckers who have wrecked every quest I?ve been involved in is grow up, shut up, go back to Quake or whatever blow shit up video game you came from, and get the fuck away from the quest area. It?s your ten bucks, go somewhere and kill stuff. Why the hell do you feel compelled to ruin the once every blue moon event we have for the seven people (who ALSO pay the ten bucks) who actually want to role play?

Illiterate people. I am NOT talking about the English as a second language kids. I go through those slowly and calmly, and more than once I?ve resorted to typing /ooc Anyone in this zone speak BOTH Japanese and English? By illiterate, I mean you fucking cretins who send me petitions that read ?Ur gona get my coprse rezzed, plz.? What the hell am I, psychic? How did you die, where did you die, and so on is stuff I need. If you tell me in a format I can comprehend without calling over my twelve year old neighbor, I will send you a tell that says, ?Hang on, let me check out your corpse. Yep, you died to that bug all right. Here?s your rezz. Good luck, friend.? Your fucking cryptic petitions mean ten minutes of agonizingly rotten typing and stupidity that have me wondering where the hell I left my universal translator. Plus, any petition I get in dewdspeak automatically biases me against you. Why? Because it?s the d00ds that are usually trying to snow me, and get something for nothing (like a free rez for a death caused by jumping off a wizard spire with 150 HP), and who feel entitled to absolutely everything.

The only thing more annoying than dewd petitions are the ones that say ?Hurp.? When I finally discover that ?Hurp? means you were duelling someone named Hurp who promised not to use magic in a duel, and it turned out he had a 49th level cleric HP buff up, and you want me to use the broadcast command to tell the world what a cheater he is, I DON?T CARE ANYMORE.

Scumbags. I may not know who the uberguilds are, but I sure as hell know who the scumbags are. You?re the one who caused a dozen petitions because you were spamming the zone with ?So and so is a faggot.? You?re the one who trained all the bouncers to the CT entrance just to fuck with the kids inside trying to escape the lizard train your twin brother created on purpose. You?re the one who backed a female wood elf character into a corner, calling her names and sending her foul tells. You?re the one who tricked the player with poor English skills into believing a trading a GLS for a whatever-piece-of-shit was a good trade because you were giving him a lore item. I know you. Don?t get all fucking bent because I told the GM not to change your name and let you duck your reputation. Don?t be shocked that I never rule in your favor in PNP situations. And don?t waste your time crying to another guide about how I hate you, because there are only six guides on the entire server who show up for work, and we talk.

Speaking of the aforementioned female wood elf and other forms of sexual harassment ? there are two sides to this one as well. It happens. It happens a lot. Unsolicited tells, really truly disgusting emotes, and situations in which one lonely knob beater chases a female avatar from West Freeport to Emerald Jungle ? it HAPPENS. You people sicken me. That said, I have very little sympathy for the person behind a character named Likkmebrestesses who types /em wants to have some fun with the brawny barbarian! and then complains when said barbarian asks if she?d like to go cyber in the hidden inn. Or my favorite, the gnomes who petition when someone says ?You?re the perfect height? for a b?. eer.? Get a sense of humor already. You make it harder for people actually being harassed.

If my little hissy fit keeps ONE SINGLE IDIOT from sending a petition because he?s going to get laughed at, I did something good today. I sure as hell feel better.

Hello Azeroth! Hello Kalimdor!
2003-05-14 01:11:59 - Furor Planedefiler

Yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting up with Tigole and company at Blizzard Headquarters for a pre-E3 sneak peek at the World of Warcraft. This was my second time meeting up with Tigole in a year and after the last showing and tour I was given, I was extremely anxious to see what all was going on over there at Blizzard HQ.

The first thing on the agenda was to check out the new work area for WoW. Tigole pointed out that they had moved the whole team to the larger side of the building to accomodate their new staff members and larger work force. You could tell right off these guys were not messing around. I'm talking a veritable army of people pouring their hearts out to put this game together. Even with quite a few of them already away for E3, the buiding was a hive of activity.

I was introduced to quite a few people, zone populators, quest builders, artists, AI developers, you name it, I even met the guy who designs items - perhaps a mistake on Tigole's part! I KNOW WHERE YOU WORK BUDDY! Watch those nerfsEveryone I met was just amped about the game, which got me even more excited about the whole damn thing.

So we finally reached Tigole's office and I sat down for the demonstration. Now mind you, when I went to visit last year and saw the build they had then, it looked READY to roll out. Remember, I'm an EQ player so I'm used to being fed unfinished crap. WoW at that point, however, looked more polished and ready than EQ ever was/has been. I was ready to consume WoW just from what I saw then, unfortunately, someone didn't get my $12,000,000 donation, Alpha evaded me!

So as I was saying, I was thinking to myself, "How can this get better than it was?" Boy was I in for a surprise. Aside from the gameworld being way, way more developed, this time they showed me their UI, Quest Engine, Tradeskilling Engine, you name it, it was rolled out... All those complaints we've had in Everquest, and other MMORPGS were addressed. Essentially, you could look at the game and see that this game was built by people that LOVED to game. People that had faced the same damn frustrations we face and have faced daily. No more carpal tunnal syndrome tradeskilling. No more 45 hour Jboot camps. No idiotic quests, instead quests with meaning and meaningful rewards starting at lvl 1 and moving onward. To top it off, an intricately designed combat and spellcasting engine that didn't look and feel like absolute crap. Even PvP seemed like something people would WANT to participate in - something I had previously deemed impossible for an MMORPG to combine into a PvE oriented world with success.

I was shown all the classes, including the new Druid (more on this one later). The basic methods of tranportation were shown to me, including Griffin rides. Now this one really stuck out at me. Tig clicked on the NPC and a mini-map came up, he clicked on where he wanted to go (he had have to have been there before this destination was even available to him btw), paid his 50 pesos, and he was off. Now the thing is, as you're being taken to your destination on these Griffins, you can pan around all over the place and see the world around you. The AMAZING thing, however, is that you think you're looking at a damn painting as you fly overhead because it looks so damn amazing, but you're looking at the actual gameworld. You can see NPCs and players fighting below you, hell they can see you flying overhead. I got a really great feeling flying over what I was told was 'a really dangerous area,' imagining that one day, I'd be fighting down there while newbies flew overhead 'ooooing and aaaaahhing' at the amazing things going on below them - an incredibly, incredibly immersive and awe inspiring feeling.

The level and attention to detail that had been shown to every aspect of this game was evident. You are an alchemist? You need to forage herbs? Click on the forage button, your player actually begins to walk MUCH slower and looks down at the ground, meanwhile the overhead map directs you to hot spots where the rare herbs you need may be spawned. This was just ONE aspect of Tradeskills. Perhaps you are a blacksmith? When you are experienced/skilled enough, you may be able to craft the "Unholy Vorpal Blade of Uberness," but WHERE you craft the item would be of utmost importance. To craft such a fine blade, you would have to forge the blade itself in the depths of Blackrock Spine. These guys just don't miss a DAMN beat. I never thought I could get excited about a damn tradeskill, but just hearing something like this just wowed me (no pun intended), being shown these things, just freaked me out - a game that wasn't all talk? That lived up to a legacy it had built up for itself over the years from its RTS incarnation. Amazing.

So aside from the classic three classes, Warrior, Mage, and Shaman, I was shown the Hunter and the Druid. I was also told that there was more to come, but I was warned that should I gain such knowledge, people with bamboo sticks and a large burlap sack would be knocking on my door in the morning - I didn't wanna take any chances so I didn't press the issue.

The Hunter you could liken to the prototypical Ranger. They are masters of ranged attack, whether through gun (dwarf with shotty reloading T2 style is a sight to see) or bow, these guys put out some hurt. But the coolness factor of them being able to tame various animals in the gameworld, name their pets, and even level them up in power, is what gives them that extra Blizzard touch. Watching them in action was pretty bad ass, and this is guaranteed to be a popular class.

By far and away, though, the Druid was the most bad ass of the classes I was shown (IMO!). Now it was funny, because when I looked at the character selection list I saw this big bad ass looking Night Elf and then under his name I saw 'Druid.' I gave a little chuckle under my breath, then they loaded him up. This ain't your momma's druid! A Druid is a shapeshifter. At different levels they gain the ability to shapeshift into different animals, and these animals have different abilities/pros/cons. The second I saw the shapeshift to the panther, I knew it was ON. After that I saw the shapeshift to the bear and then finally the hawk. Yes, you can fly. Heh... insanity. They can also 'dopplegang,' I guess you'd call it, into various forms of animals that are in the area they inhabit. Which would obviously make for a great ambush attack, as I hide in the bushes as a little harmless bunny wabbit and someone insolent, like I don't know, Parv, rolls around and I own him 'Bear Stylie.' What did Miggs tell you Parv??? That's what I thought...

I assure you, I am leaving out so much, but I don't think you want me typing for the next three hours about WoW. Wait for all the incredible reviews it is guaranteed to get this E3 - and guys, I'm sorry if I forgot any details or even muddled up some details, it was information overload combined with being mesmerized for an hour and change. I'm only human!

Thanks again to Tigole and Blizzard for having me and letting me get a peek at this insane and incredible game. After all the crap I've had to put up with these past four to five months, it really helped just cool me down and feel good about this genre again... great works guys.

*bow*

Oh damn, I almost forgot. The bank in the human city HAD A VELVET FREAKIN ROPE LINE! VELVET I TELL YOU! Where do I sign up?