Fist de Yuma - July 9, 2002

Between Patch blues I truly hope there is some grand adventure coming up. While I'm having fun playing all my PPL's I'm not doing anything worth writing about. I can only hope something comes up before Sunday. If not I might have to do a meet the Fist's or something. Sadly this looks on going. As of Monday night there as been no teaser posted. I have never seen a teaser posted later than Monday the week of the patch. Looks like another week of saving Flawless+ stuff and hoping tinkering is not lame. Something bad, something good I'm not going to put the guys name in this because he is embarrass enough over it. After having a few 4th of July adult beverages he logged on to play. A guy called "Da Archer", a well-known thief, sent him a tell. Da Archer said he was his patron doing a new player. The thief had done his homework and had a lot of information about the victim's patron. After swearing to him he gave the victim his passport log in information, dummy information of course. That was to show trust. He then asked the victim for the same information. Being just drunk enough to have lost his sense of danger he gave the information away. He was thinking his patron would want to duel log to buff the new player. Shortly after he was booted. This woke up the victim and he tried to change his account information. That has already been changed so he was SOL. About all he could do was repeatedly log into his account to boot the thief off. As long as he did not close this window we could stay on his passport log in. Friends did what they could. They loaded up Da Archer with junk so he would have a hard time removing the items from his victim. The thief deleted the stolen players, losing the alliance information and apartment. The victim undeleted and got some friends to off load the good gear he had left. The thief got most of it. He then started getting into a conversation with the thief. The thief said he would release the account if given a set of GSA. He was quite belligerent and arrogant about the whole thing. I guess he thinks he is really smart. He is so smart that when several people expressed his anger at him he made a threat. He said he was going to stay on the account for 24 hours and keep deleted it. He could outlast the real owner and get it deleted entirely. He was so smart that he made this threat in open chat. Of course by this time an Admin was there. It seems that stealing an account is grounds for permanent banning. Bam "Da Archer" is banned for three days, the max time and Admin can do on his own. A report was filed by the Admin that should result in the permanent ban of "Da Archer's" account. We can only hope that this was Da Archers only account and that he has a high level player on it. Whatever he has on the account and what he stole will be gone. The victim cursed the Admin to get a one day ban so the thief could not use his account. I believe the account is safely recovered now. So while the guy lost his apartment and a lot of items the results were good for the game. Of course someone tried the same scam on a guy a few days later. Archa Arc was the thief's name. You would think as well known as he is he would change his naming scheme. The three days were up and I guess the permanent ban is not in place. He might also be using another account. We can hope all his accounts are on the came credit card so they can get all of them. We also had a thief slime his way into Elder the other day. Most Elders spotted him right off but had no proof. Sassy called me to the Mansion to check him out. Unfortunately he got some GSA leggings and a Q-bow before we could get any proof. If any monarch finds Mage Reaper (aka Golden Bow) in their alliance I should boot him asap. Not sure of his level but he might keep the player and try the scam another alliance. I posted this advice on our board and I encourage all alliances to inform their members. Use the below template if you want. There is no reason to give anyone your stuff. They may know a lot about you, your friends and your patron. It means nothing. There is no reason on earth to give anyone your stuff to; see, look at, see burden, get a picture of or model. If your patron makes a new player and needs an item from you he will tell you, as your patron, in vassal chat. The reason for using vassal chat is some names can have transposed letters and be very close. A thief might send you a tell as "Markroded the Master" when your patron is "Markeroded the Master" You may miss it. So only vassal chats. Lastly never ever give your e-mail/password to anyone. If they give you theirs ask them not to. Most likely it is a thief trying to fool you. In any case it is a violation of the CoC and grounds for banning, don't do it. Beta Scam There is a scam being sent to some players. I did not get it, only a report about it. It said she has been accepted into Beta and asked for her passport log information. Nabata noted that the address was wrong and some of the information was misspell. Nabata is a smart girl and would not have given out her passport information in any case. Neither the Zone, Turbine nor MS would ever ask you for this information. If you get anyone asking for it, they're a thief. Wasteland Hive With the timing problems on sprays and the lower spawn of spraying Olthoi in the Dam I figured splitting up a group and getting sprayed in both places might be a good idea. I needed to learn the switches in the Wasteland Hive if were going to do that. We cannot keep asking William the Bat to do it for us. So far every time I have gone William the Bat did the switches and we just wanted at the doors. I decided to use Jr. He is versatile and hard to hit. His ability to imperil stuff before fighting makes for short sharp battles. As his melee defense improves, currently a base 305, he will stop getting wiped in big battles when he pulls the wand. When his Life skills improve, currently a base 255, he will stop getting resisted as much. Getting to Wasteland was no trouble. I did the side step trick so I did not fall into the pit. This does not always work and is a pain if you miss. You have to go back up the top and try again. I was not sure which pit I was to use. I tried the east one first. I imperiled everything I saw and jumped. A few swings each had all of them out of the way. A little exploring showed that this was the way to the doors and not the switches. I took the exit portal and started again. This time I choose the north pit. This was a layout I had never seen before so I figured it must be it. I killed a few Olthoi and found a ramp up. This led to a T and the exit portal in the T. I went left and fought my way past a room to a lake of acid. On the other side of the lake was a door. I ran across the acid and found there was a trigger that made some Olthoi spawn. The door was locked so I ran back, killed the Olthoi and prepared to unlock the door. For some reason Lock pick self was not on my bar. I put it there and buffed lock pick. Then I could not find my pick. /em Smacks head. This was Jr. and Jr. does not have lock pick. I would have to log Mage to do this. I logged off and got the other account up. I logged Mage and ran him to the Wasteland Hive. Following the same route I got to the lake of acid. I got the door unlocked, after delaying a bit and almost dieing. Running through the lake with 30 hit points and knowing that you average over 30 damage was not comforting. I made it but it was a shaky time. After getting the door open I came to a room with too twin triangle like formations pointing at each other, one up the other down. There were two sets with a little path between them. There was no exit from the room other than what I came in with. Hitting the "[" key showed no switches. Figuring there must be something I missed I fought my way back to the T. This time I took the right path. It was about the same as the left, other than direction, same lake and door. I tried to the "[" key again at the end. Nothing. I started running around to see if there was a hidden switch on the floor. "Click" Aaaa in between the two formations was a switch. As there are two doors I can bet you have to go to both sides to get them open. Of course I have no idea which one opens what door. This means I have a 50/50 shot of the wrong one. If I'm lucky I'll see William the Bat and find which direction to start with, right or left. Big battle and awful discovery I heard that a Crystal Lord was camping the AB drop off, a very nasty thing to happen. I was tied to AB so I figured I would load up Jr and see if he could help. After a long buffing, it takes a melee forever to buff, I did a lifestone. A fast run East got me to the AB drop off. I guess the golem was defeated as there was nothing much going on. I saw off to the north there were three Diamond Golems. I decided to take them on. Now one Diamond is no problem. Three were a little more than I wanted to take on at once. I figured I would Imperil all of them and engage one a distance away. The rest will normally return to the spawn site. Other than taking far to much damage from some shockwaves it worked. The problem was I had to do a short run to heal and they all started back. I was able to get close enough to one to attract it without the other coming as well. I took a few shockwaves from the others but they settled down and let the two of us battle on our own. I figured I got one that was not imperiled, I did have one resist while they charged me. It took a while to pound him down. I had to stop had heal several times. At one point a fast shockwave from him would have got me. Of course I had every de-buff in the book on me. De-buffing is one thing Diamond Golems love to do. I got an imperil on another one and it sent a shockwave at me. I slide out of the way. The one I did not imperil charged, just my luck. That battle was about like the first one. Both of them had no loot worth grabbing. That left the last one to fight. I just ran up to it as I had the Imperil VI on it already. Strangely I was not hitting for more than I was with the first two. It seems I really need to Imperil and Vuln to be really effective. After killing that one I gem'ed to clear the spells. As I did, another Diamond Golem spawns. I figured I would imperil and vuln that one. I check my spell list to add the vuln spells to my bar. Humm, I don't have any V or VI vulns learned. Somehow I had forget to learn then before the patch. This meant I would have to buy the spells. Being lifestoned in AB I could get the scrolls ok. The problem would be raising the cash. At 50k a pop it was going to cost me 350k just to get the VI vulns. After I get the V's it will be around 500k. I hate to overlook things like that. I took the last Golem down with no trouble. You would think that after four Diamond Golems I would have something. Not a single item work looting. On they way back to AB I ran into a few things. It is strange to have a melee player who can be so effective after playing Fist for so long. I ran into a Pan Shadow. This is a good fight for Fist. Nothing dangerous but many times I would have to wait for her mana to run out before defeating her. Not Jr. After a VI imperil I one shot her. Swing, dead. Shocked the hell out of me. Wasteland revisited. Rather than try and guess which way to go I asked William the Bat if the right or left was the first door switch. Seems I did not miss the switch when I was in the left room. There is no switch there. The left or West side leads to a switch. The north pit opens the second door so I would not have been close. You start on the South pit and take the West passage to the end. William said you can run past most of the Olthoi if you're not unlucky. After getting that switch you backtrack to the exit portal at the T. Then back into the Hive to do the North side. Again the West route is the way to go. Remember that you need to cross an acid pit and unlock a door. You will have Olthoi on you, especially if you hit the spawn switch. Well buffed and lock pick in hand is a must. Doing this twice is not fun. You can do this three people and with luck two. With three, two hold the doors, while the third opens them. There is a floor switch at the end of the ramps that open the doors. It might be possible to do this with two powerful players. After getting to the end, and a lot of fast spawning Olthoi later, you can have the switch puller get to the first door. The guy at the end can then rush up the ramp, which will open the door and rush to the next one. The two of them run to the end as soon as the door opens. If course it will take two strong players to clear the Olthoi out. We lost a 90+ player in there today. He thinks he was missing a buff but a lot of Olthoi can bring down the best if giving any shot. Why I think it works Right now there is far to much of this; [12:12] You were born on 01/24/02 03:27:20. - [12:12] You have played for 11d 17h 32m 9s. [12:14] Youve died 99 times. level = 126 Template = Grief OG (specd life/critter/resist) 50/60/10/10/100/100 Clan = Born and raised in Blood name = Ali From Cairo Ideally chains should not work. To be effective there has to be people at the bottom willing to create a bunch of xp for nothing but a promise. In effect a pyramid scheme that should soon fall apart. This has not happened and the reason is macros. With the ability of players to set up a low level macro the xp can be driven enough that people will flock to gain the "Free" xp. Even an ineffective macro can generate large amounts of xp over time. ply this by 10. Without this xp push from the bottom chains will not survive. Who would work hard to level someone else, someone you may have met just long enough to swear to. The bottom players would join a real alliance and the chains would slowly dissolve. If Microsoft will open their eyes and see the damage macros/chains have done to the game we might turn it around. It will take years to repaired the current damage. If it is stopped at least the drain to normal alliances will be eliminated and even reversed. Maybe someday we will not see a 90lv complaining that the subway portal you gave them was not the subway, it was Abandoned Mine. (This really happened. The portal was outside of the mine and the guy had never seen the outside. He came back and cursed out the portal sender for giving him the wrong portal and trying to get him killed.) At this time AC has a perception among the gaming public. That perception is that we are the home of Hacking/Marcoing/Cheating and that Turbine endorses it. So all we are currently attracting is those who want to cheat or those tossed from the other games. Most players would love AC far more than their current game but would never try it because of our reputation. The developers at Turbine understand this. Quoting Todd Berkebile: "Pretty much everyone here at Turbine wishes combat macros were against the CoC. I think its bad business to cater to folks who dont even like your game enough to play it themselves. " It is someone at MS who is causing the problem. Most assume it is one person but I cannot see that much power being in a single persons hands. In any case they are well on the way to killing our game. If it is in that single person hands it is hopeless. At this time the main MS person will not even look at macro questions. There is no one more closed minded than the convinced. I think the answer might be a well-organized campaign directed to someone at MS who can stop this madness. That might be something we have to try soon. Meanwhile lets give Turbine a shot at coding macros out of existence. I saw a great post on this subject by Perrin Goldeneys. This is a copy of a VN post. Osmethne PMed me about a quote in one of the threads I was discussing stuff in where I said Macros are not a design flaw but a character flaw. It was then that I realized that the problems AC faces are not something that will ever be cured. I dont know what it is but people just like to cheat. It does not pertain just to this game but to every game that has ever been made. I have been playing games since back in the Atari 2600 days. My first machine was a Commodore 64 and I work in a game shop. I have seen thousands of people buy Game Sharks. These are programs/machines which are designed for one sole purpose. To enter cheat codes. Some people might think that Macros/Chains are a design flaw of a leveling system that is far too rigid and takes too long to complete. To me that seems silly. Every other MMORPG has macros. None to the degree this game does because they outlaw it. I have seen people cheat in games from Warcraft to Interstate 76. Both games that require no leveling. There really is nothing that can be done to cure this. I guess its human nature to try and find the easiest way from point A to point B. To some I guess it doesnt matter how you get there just that you did. -------------------- On a deeper note the below post by Osmethne hits hard and is on target. Its like the guy that throws his cheeseburger wrapper on the ground and replies with "This neighborhood is a dump anyway" when asked to pick it up. Or, on a clean street, replies with "Dude, chill out. Its just one wrapper. Its not going to start the Plague." Conscience, consideration, and respect for others are denounced as tyranny and extremism by the inconsiderate as the put their personal gain well above all else. Theyll rationalize competition and survival of the fittest in one breath, and then complain about being forced to use Passport and the Zone in the next. They either do not care about the society or they are too ignorant to understand the long-term effect of their actions. Either way, they have NO GUIDELINES. There is no limit to what they will do at the expense of others. Perrins ONLY LIMIT is that you give a shit about the guy next to you. That is an unreasonable request to many. It is oppressive! Its appalling that he would have to audacity to force his thinking on others. They are too blind to see that it is they who force their views on others and force their play styles on others. When they drive up the content level, player level, and cost of tradables. When they make certain dungeons or quests unplayable. When they will willingly and knowingly inconvenience other people in the society for the sole purpose of their own personal fun. They are the ones who force things on the community. They are the ones that subject our particular usage of the lands of Dereth to certain restrictions and limits. But they will never see that. They will never understand that. There is no one else in the society but them. They have no concept of society or community, so it is impossible for them to ever fathom what Perrin has been saying repeatedly on these boards.