Disturbing trend
There has been a disturbing new trend in the game of late. I'm going to dub them buff-beggars. When we started playing we were lucky if we had a high level patron who could supply buffs. Of course back than anyone in their 30's was high-level. When I meet Pyreal Rat he was 32 and the big B was in the low 40's.
Even Mages with good skills did not always have all that many spells. I remember a story by Pyreal Rat where the big B only had level one Heal Other spells. Rat died because B was unable to toss effective heals.
There was no programs back then to tell you the tapers. Hell, at the start we did not even know the comp order. There was also the problem of supply. Comps were pricey and weighed more back then.
It was not uncommon to see the mage shops full of people fizzling spells. The noise would drive us up the wall. It typically cost several C notes to find a single spells due to comp burn. The money places we have today were not around then. I remember being awed when given a C note by Jann.
All that meant that buffs were given only rarely. You never asked for a buff. While learning portal tie I was lucky to have Jann toss some buffs on me. Still took me an hour to get that spell.
Today a mage cannot go anywhere without a buff-beggar bothering them. When selling off in Lin or traveling anywhere I get people with the, "Can you buff me." tells. I'm tempted to start tossing some useless spell and porting out. Mostly I send back, "You must give me a lot more details than that."
What I'm hoping to do is show them how stupid the, "Can you buff me" question is. Of course I can, I may not but I can. I can also toss a useless buff on you, but won't. Instead I have been asking what they really want. I'm not sure if they teach English in schools today. I make enough errors in sentence structure and stupid spelling mistakes that I feel unqualified to criticize others but I hate to see logic butchered.
The worse buff-beggars are the aggressive ones. I had a guy put himself between me and the vender while begging the other day. That was bad but others are far worse. There are those who spam for buffs and insult those that don't give it.
There are even players who insult people if the buffs are not high enough. One player just returned to the game after a break. He only had level V and IV spells in item. After buffing a weapon for a buff-beggar the guy insulted him. He accused him of holding back on the big spells. Not true but if it was, so what. Anyone who see something like that should put the person on their no buff list.
Bad greedy patrons
You read some interesting stuff on the boards from time to time. Strangely many show themselves to be greedy ass's and don't even know it. The post started with a report on one player demanding that another leave a hunting spot because he wanted to use it.
Here is the post;
I had been killing tuskers at a camp for 1/2 hour or so and a guy named Sacrifice came up and told me to leave so that he could level his vassal. It is pretty difficult for me to get to the tusker camps so I like to get a little bit of leveling time in when I make the trek... but I offer to leave after 1/2 hour. The jerk starts luring Tumideons on me and I am not buffed for magic attacks so I almost die. Oh well... real life is full of people like this, it just kinda sux when you have to put up with them while trying to have a good time gaming.
Not get this, here is the ass's response on the boards;
Hmm you specificly pick a spot to lure shit away from my vassels and the other people on the perch (mabye its not wrong) but weve been trying to lvl him for the past week and cant put up with this bullshit no longer I had to do somthing about it sorry you were the one to make an example for I take full responsibility but its fair play on the tusker perches
Now you would think this mental midget would know better than excuse a wrong because he wanted to do a wrong. Lets forget for a moment he is trying to get someone killed. He is doing it so a low level does not have to do any work to advance. Not only does the vassal get cheated but the ass does not even want to do the work.
The reason I'm sure the player they are leveling is a newbe is the, "trying to lvl him for a week" part. If this was a re-roll or server transfer he would have found another way to level.
I hate power-leveling people. I is boring work. This ass feels it is ok to take short cuts in everything he does. After leveling the vassal he will turn him loose with no training or regard for others. I have seen the results of this. You end up with a vassal so does nothing but level for six months. He will brag about how high he gets and tells everyone that leveling is what the game is all about. He makes a high-level player and sell on e-bay.
Of course the patron gets a load of xp and we get another grief player to deal with. The only good that comes of it is the fact we only have to deal with the ruined player for six months or so. Then he will get bored, sell and leave.
Thief trick
This may seen too simple to work, it does to me, but is has worked several times this month. Someone comes up with the name of Cook. He says that he is making a new player and needs some items from you. The player may have a lot of information on you and your patron. This gang has done their homework.
The con goes like this. First he asks you to meet him. He is getting the player powerleveled that night and wants you to have the xp. After you get there he pledges to you. He then says he is making a web site with a page for each member. He needs a picture of you. After taking the screen shot he says he want a picture for his page of him in your armor. If you resist he acts pissed, "You don' trust me? Maybe I made a mistake in coming to you. I'm getting you all this xp and you don't trust me." If you do give him that armor he does not stop there. Whatever you have shown him, orbs, bows, weapons, helm, boots or whatever he has seen he requests.
After that he gets a good laugh in your face. A proud thief.
I have heard of Mattie robes, Mage Armor and GSA's and sundry items getting stolen in this way. Now mostly this only works on the kids in the game. Adults are a bit more wary. If Elder wanted my GSA for something you bet it will not be Elder's Cook who gets it. I would ask him to log Elder himself. Being a smart guy Elder would not mind providing this proof.
Like I have said before, it is the immature mental defects who do the stealing. It is also the gullible kids who are their target victims.
Update; This guy or group has hit several times this week. As the person(s) doing it deletes the ppl soon after we have no idea who it is. The person is quite proud of his accomplishments. We have log files of him mocking his victim after he has what he wants.
This is not funny, this future drain on society is quite good at his con. If you have a new player or kid with a high value item in your tree, warn them about this. I think he looks for low to mid level players to work his scam.
I cannot stress this enough. The guy is very good. Warn everyone in your alliance. Monarchs use the new global send to post a warning. Put a detail file on a web site and use the global to provide the link. Not getting the word out will mean losing people or lowering their effectiveness.
In the others shoes
Sometimes a person does something without any idea how bad it looks or is. Thieves are mostly heartless slime who have no care about others. Some are just young and have not learned the lessons of life.
Today a young thief learned what is was like to be a victim. Dark Anarchist had his GSA stolen. He has stolen from some Elders and seemed to have little regret. Seeing the other side he realized how bad he was making people feel.
One of our members was a victim of Dark Anarchist's stealing. He ran into him today. Dark Anarchist apologized and asked him to go to his mule. He replace with he has stolen with higher value items. It's part of growing up I guess.
My first Plasma
After a buff cycle on the island I found myself near the castle. I decided to go kill the Vapors. The first one was dead, a bad sigh. The next four were there along with a Cursed Bone. I'm guessing the Bone ran whoever killed the first Vapor off.
On the other side there was a mage and no Vapors. I decided to head up the hill and kill the rest of the Bones and the Reverent. No Bones but did get a high undead leg bone off the Reverent. Since it was clear I kept going up the hill.
I got a Plasma on my radar and put a yield and cold vuln on it. It was the wrong one. There is one on the ground floor and one on the top, I had de-buffed the one on top and did not have a clear shot at it.
I got the other one and landed a yield and cold vuln. Two Diamond Golems joined it for a three-sided attack on me. I waited until I took a little damage and beat feet down the hill.
After they headed back I charged up the hill. Got the Plasma and fired a few cold blasts at it. I hear a spawn sound and was being attacked by four Bones from the back. I escaped with about 50hit points. Just before I ran I saw that the Plasma only had a bit of health left, darn it.
The Bones were not the ones that camp the hill. They were inside the Castle. With a little careful setting up I got a shot on the Plasma. It died at my feet. I had to run as the Bones got pissed at me again. Killed one and the rest ran back. Now I got to see what has to be some great loot, I mean a 360+ monster that tosses level VI de-buffs has to have great loot. Empty body.
Hell of a battle
As I was fighting the Plasma I got a call from an Elder member. He was leveling a BM over by the Corals. Before 50 a BM is quite weak overall. Add in a few Drudges and de-buffs you have bodies, three in this case.
I was a long way off and overweight with loot. He said he would wait until I got there. Took a chance and ran with buffs dropping. Not smart as I found I had imperil VI and Lighting vuln VI on me at the time. If a few of the Drudges had caught me I would have had a problem.
I got to the Corals and buffed up. He was killing Sheths to clear the vit so I started forward. I could see this was going to be a problem. Some spawns had formed close to the water line.
I was about to put a de-buff on a Coral when two Bandies jumped me. Good thing I had not tossed the spell. I dispatched the Bandies and reset for the Corals.
There were two of them but I had been facing down three with little trouble. I tossed a vuln on both as they charged. As they arrived another Bandies spawned on the hill. Now this was trouble.
I was using my Focus Stone so mana was limited. With a few drains and a blast I got one Coral. Recovered mana and started on the next Coral. I figured the Bandie I could save for last. I got a few resists and was in big trouble. I had less than 20 hit points when the Coral fell.
Not it was a race. Can I select the Bandie and get a drain before it gets a spell off. I got a drain for 75 health just has his spell hit. Dispatched the Bandie but it was a bad start for the rescue.
Moved forward and killed a few more Corals. Another mage leapfrogged me and got the next one. We did this until we hit a pack of Drudges. He stopped at the Drudges, said, "I hate them Drudges" and ran back the other way. I started looking for bodies and found one. I found I had permission and looted it. With the loot I had I was getting my packs filled. I was hoping he would get there soon to get the stuff. I did not have room for another bodies worth of stuff.
He arrived at last. D I E, a new Elder, was there as well. I burn a few Drudges off D I E's back. As I did that a flock of Wasps headed down the hill at us. We got two Drudges, two Corals and five White Wasps attacking the three of us. As we killed something a Coral would spawn and join in the fight.
It was getting worrisome for a while. I had to run around a pillar to get some breathing room. A level VII heal got me back in the fight. At one point it seem like there was a never-ending stream of Corals coming at me. I lost track of D I E but they BM was alternating between running for his life and coming back to help me.
We finally cleared it up and I could take a breather. Still one body to go. At the end of the pillars I spotted a Firestorm. Bad news monster. Man let me tell you, they move fast. I got a Yield on it after a few resists, then a cold vuln. It was attacking the BM who had found the third body.
One of the advantage to an Og is the Yield helps all mages. After a level VI Yield the BM could land a spell. Between us we froze it in place. He had his bodies and I had no room for loot. I said good hunting and ported out.
Careful with names
A few players have been deleted over time. Their names were deemed as offensive and after a short warning deleted. I know of one 80+ player who left the game this way. There are still a few good players out there with names that might get them in trouble. This week we found there was another danger.
A player named Sexy never had a warning. In fact I doubt there would be a reason to delete this player. However MS has changed the filtering so a name with Sex in it cannot be created again.
Sexy was accidentally deleted this week. Normally this is not a problem as a quick undelete will fix it. But here is where the filter kicked it. To undelete the name had to pass the filter. Of course it disallowed the name. A 35lv Og mage, full of GSA and other great items, made an instance disappearance.
They begged to just let her in long enough to get the items. The admin could do nothing. So word of warning, if there is any question at all about your name, don't delete it and expect to have it back.
Tactics
I got a lot of good feedback on my pointers this week. Trying to watch what I do and set it to words. Most of my actions have become automatic these days. I do it without thinking about it.
You fighting a load of monsters and you run to a safe spot where you can cut down the numbers and keep them on front. You hit the swing key as one is in front of you. Suddenly you find yourself running forward and into the middle of the hall, getting your head handed to you.
The cause of this is lag. The client thought the monster was in front of you but the Server thought it was several feet way. When you swing the Server takes precedents and you run towards there the Server says the monster is.
The answer to this is to wait. You have may have to take a few hits before being sure that everything has worked itself out. Hard to do when you have a load of monster eating up health and stamina but a lot better than the alternative. This is one that takes a while to get down. With time you will know the instance you can start swinging.
When facing two or more monsters it is hard to keep them in front of you. Tuskers will swing to your back a lot. Fist was fighting Hollows this week and many times the second one ended up at his back. Jr is fighting Olthoi and really depends on his heavily buffed shield to stay alive. Melee d is getting there but he is still being hit. If I have that shield in front I get hit for 0 damage.
So if there is no corner to run to how do you get then in front? The answer is simple, you back up. As you do the one in front moves forward and the one at your back just turns and ends up in front. Of course if there is a monster directly in back you have to back up to its left or right.
Against a lot of monsters you may have to switch to a different one. The one your fighting may not move right away when you back up. Other monster will fill the gap you make. If you try to start swinging you will find yourself running forward and not hitting anything.
I also hit the middle one of three. After it dies I back up a step or two to draw other two together. If you hit one on the end you have a good chance of having the other end hitting around the shield.
There is a lag problem where you cannot hit another monster. You have picked one started hitting and for one reason or another you have to switch. You hit the swing key and nothing happens or you turn to the last one you targeted. This is very common. The answer is a short jump. This will clear whatever the problem is and allow you to hit again. I have seen players have to log out before learning this.
There are times when fighting Olthoi that you have a pack that gets around you. Two or three deep there is little chance of doing the kill and run move. The best you can do is cut down on the number your facing. This means moving to the wall. Not the best but it may allow you to keep in the fight or port out as the case may be.
This is a tactic used in both the Nest and Citadel. Last week I explained how a corner can save you. You can run to it and cut down on the numbers that can reach you. Well there are two types of corners. You have the ones you can put your back to and the ones you can run around. An elbow in a passage will give you a corner you can work with.
The idea is to stay close to the wall as you run for it. You run around the corner and turn to fight. If you do this right the mob chasing you will line up at the wall. Only one or two can get to you at a time. The danger of this move is other players. A smart player will move next to you and take on one your not fighting. A powerful and smart player will run to the end of that line and start working forward towards you. If a mob turns on him he can use the wall to cut down on numbers.
The danger is from stupid players. Unfortunately this is nine out of ten of our current players. They will run around the corner and stand in the middle of the passage. Quickly overwhelmed they run, dragging the whole mob around you. Very quickly you find yourself in the center of a pack of pissed off monsters. All you can do is watch for them. If you see it be ready to run.
This last one is not used much any more so many have never seen it. I first saw it in LOD. A long time ago we did not have patrons handing out great armor and items. We fought with some really crappy stuff back them. This meant we fought smarter.
At 25 most of use could not fight an Olthoi Worker, let alone a Soldier. We needed an edge. This edge was supplied by walling.
A group of players would line up with the wall at one or both ends. One player would draw. In LOD this meant going to the bottom and getting the Soldier to chase him. A player could run through the player wall but the monster could not. The monster will run against the player wall trying to get at its target.
The players on the wall were careful not to swing or get the monster pissed at them. With sticky you can easily break the wall if you try to fight. We did not have the sticky problem then. The players behind the wall would shoot, spell and hit with safety. Melee's could be hit but if damaged just had to back up and heal.
So if this is not needed today why bring it up? Well there is times this is needed. I have not been in it yet but I've read about the Vinney Amulet quest. Jr will do that one soon. This is a time when a wall will keep everyone alive.
The monsters are a bit smarter now but the wall still works. The walling people just have to be disciplined enough to hold and heal, hard to do with a Tusker Guard beating on you. If you break the line or don't have one, chances of having deaths are all too real.
Smart play keeps this from being a big danger. The wall people need protections buffs. Someone should be assigned to heal them if needed. Mages should have imperil set so the melee's can take out the monsters fast. Everyone not walling should be sliding. Too many one shot deaths there. A de-buff and a high level spell will take out anyone who is not protected from the spells. Even with protects you can die from chain casters.
A good group that can walls can survive where more powerful but disorganized groups are wiped out. Teamwork means just that. Too many think teamwork is a group of individuals fighting the same monster.
Everyone should know how to slide. It is a simple task. You hit the X and Z key for left and the X and C key for right. Sliding left and right will send war spells off to nowhere. With long-range spells this is easy and obvious. It is places like the Amulet quest where people forget this. They cannot see the spell coming. Lag or just a lot of players hide what is happening. By sliding all the time, even if not being attacked, any spell sent your way will not hit you.
Practice this! Knowing how to slide without thinking will save your life over and over again.
Hell of a battle II
My vassal Bleu Sky has expressed an interest in doing some adventuring with me. Sky is a 75lv Swordsman without much magic. I know from experience that a fighter hits a wall on what he can fight without a mage.
We can fight most anything but it takes forever, especially a drainer. After a while anything worth fighting takes to long to fight to be worth fighting. Fist de Yuma only fights Hollows now for keys unless he is with a mage. With a mage we are both about unbeatable.
I almost missed Bleu Sky this morning. I was to go on a bike ride and would have been on later. My tire was flat and the tube was too bad to be patched. All my spare tubes were the wrong type.
So I was on when Sky was. He said he had never seen a Coral Golem. Figured I'd kill to birds with one stone and take him to see the Corals.
I loaded Fist and he made a portal for us. That got us to the d-note spot and Sky LS'd there. I had asked Sky if he had a d-note before we left and he said he did. Must have misunderstood me as he only had M's. We found out that the undead will take a M note instead of a D. Bastard did not give change.
After getting to the island I tossed Armor, Bludgeoning, Cold, Fire, Lighting and Acid VII's on him. We headed out to the Corals. With a nice level VI imperil Corals fall fast. If I put a piercing vuln on top of that a fighter takes them down in two hits.
As per normal there were a lot of mage fighting them. Everyone was nice and was helping Sky out. Very pleasant when people work together instead of acting like it is a contest. We hit the end very quickly. With all the people fighting Corals I figured we could hunt the Wasps and Drudges around the bend.
My plan was to shoot down the Wasps and draw the Drudges to Sky. With an imperil Drudges will fall to with one to two hits. Sky is not use to this level of monsters. I was about to say, "hold up here", but Sky was attacking before I could type it.
He charged into two packs of Drudges, about six or seven Wasps, two Fire Wisps and two Greater Skeletons. I targeted him and was hitting heal. Did no good, he was dead before my spell went off.
So now I my first job was to clear this mess. I had gotten close enough that several attacked me. I cleared three Wasps, a Greater Skeleton and four Drudges before they stopped coming at me. After that it was a pick and shoot. Only ones that were a pain of course were Drudges. I kept dispelling their de-buffs and to keep in the game.
The four Corals were nice enough to wait until I cleared it all before spawning. Got a bit dicey but my good friend drain saved me. I got a tell from Sky. He was having problems getting to the undead. I ported back to the hall.
I was going to cash a M note and get a D. Gil, another, vassal heard the vassal tell when I informed Sky what I was doing. She gave me a D note. I had Fist make the portal and joined Sky at the D-note undead.
The Corals were not so nice this time. Bunch of other stuff was also joining in the battle. It took almost 10 minutes for Sky and me to get to the end where we could start on his body. Fortunately most of what I had killed had not come back. A few Drudges and Wasps and his body was clear.
By the time were done both of us had made over a million and a half points.
Just hell.
I was relaxing watching a very bad movie. I mean it was so bad it was funny. No plot, phony fights and nothing that made sense. It was the perfect movie to relax and laugh at.
The phone rang and it was to late to be someone advertising. It was Jeff, by brother and good friend. He was running to a new place to hunt with Jeff Sailor Bane and died. I asked him where he was going. He was not sure. He gave me the coodi of the body. 61.0s 62.6w.
I said, "This is not on the plains or somewhere really nasty?" He said no. Headed into my den and fired up ACE. HOLY MOTHER, he was in the center of the plains. There is nowhere nastier than that.
It could have been worse. He was in a side canyon and not in the center part itself, about a click from it. Still getting there and living to recover was going to be tricky.
I logged on and checked the hall. There were a lot of people there but only Nynaeve Sedai was high enough. I sent her a tell asking for help. No reply for a while, was AFK. D I E showed up and I asked if he could help. By this time Sedai came back and said she would go.
I logged Fist to make a portal. I figured a run north from the d-note place would get us there. Only problem is we were going to have to run over the center of the plains. I was not going to take Jeff but as we were buffing Rajan' Shen showed up. Fist made a level III portal and it lasts five minutes. Rajan' is only a handful of levels over Jeff so I re-logged Fist to pick Jeff up.
Overall we had a very powerful group. Of course the plan was not to fight until we had to. Nynaeve Sedai is a 71lv mage. Powerful and smart, she is a natural leader. D I E is a 71lv Og mage. Rajan' Shen is a 58lv UA. Jeff is a 51lv Swordsman. Of course Fist de Mage, 72lv Og mage rounded out the party.
I made a fellow called "Jeff's Debogal". I'm sure Jeff appreciated that name. Sedai tossed some buffs on Jeff and we were off on a hell run. It started out bad and kept getting worse. Vinnies, Tusker Guards and Lugies at first. Then Drudges, Shadows, Wasps added into the mix.
We stopped one time to replace buffs and dispel de-buffs. The last part was a run over the center of the plains. It is a dark bowl several click around, filled with the nastiest stuff this side of the island. Diamond Golems, Tuskers, Vinny's a load of duel-fragments and Shadows. There may have been more but I was to busy running to keep track.
You talk about being chased, the entire radar screen was filled with orange dots. I just kept my eye on the canyon opening that I knew contained Jeff's body somewhere. When we started we could see it off in the distance.
I think it was only a two or three minute run but it seemed like hours. Someone said, "Welcome to Hell." We hit the canyon and I was relived to see the walls coming up on both sides of us. We stopped to fight at this point.
This was where we showed out power. Tuskers and all the nastiness were sweep aside with little trouble. Of course this was a tenth what we had run from but a lot nevertheless. Jeff got his body and we ported back to the hall.
Despite it being and adventure that will stick with us for quite for time it took less than 30 minutes overall.
Side note Run Greg Run.
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