Fist de Yuma - June 18, 2002

Being Wrong All of us are wrong about things at one time or another. Being wrong is mostly a product of ignorance. Given that no one can get all the information about everything we are all ignorant about something. For most of human history it was thought that the sun revolved around the earth. For most of our history it was thought that blood did not flow around the body. Most think that Columbus was a great man because he thought the world was round and everyone else thought it was flat. Reality is that Columbus was a moron who thought the world was much smaller than it really is. The circumference of the earth was calculated over 1000 years before Columbus was born but he thought he knew better. The debate in Columbus's time was not that people would fall of the earth but that they would starve before reaching China. Given that if America was not there he would have starved we can safely say Columbus was more lucky than great. Being ignorant is not a problem unless you stay stuck to an idea when proven wrong or refuse to try to solve your ignorance. Not all ignorance is fixable. Either the information is not there or not available. Many governments feel that ignorance of the population serves their purpose and deliberately strives to only give out information that servers government, it not the truth. Having a capture audience of children for a generation can create an army of people who only believe what the government has told them. A top environments one said that they must balance truth and effectiveness. In other words ignorance servers them better. When proven wrong by more facts or a change of view admitting you are wrong is not easy. There are those in this life who will never admit they are wrong even when they know they are. I hope that never happens to me. I find that reading what the other side has to say on a subject can be very helpful. There has been times I changed my mind do to more data or personal observation. I never smoked weed but knew many who did. I did not think it was any worse than someone who drank. Over the years that view changed. I saw people go downhill when moving from places where weed was hard to get to where it was easy to get. The problem is that it is too easy to say someone is wrong or that they don't know what they are talking about but a lot harder to prove. Being that most people are lazy as well as ignorant they can say. "Fist knows nothing about Dagger." And leave it at that. You have to back up what you say. Ok I admit I have never played a dagger ppl. So point out where I was wrong? Is 100 coodi and 100 quick not the best melee defense stats? Is triple dagger not stronger than any other melee weapons other than Sword? Is it not possible to spec Dagger, Melee, Life and Lore and then pick up Item, Mana conversion and Creature by 75? Show me where I'm wrong and then I'll admit it. If you are going to make an accusation you should be prepared to back it up. Just saying it will not convince anyone but those to lazy to think. If you think I'm ignorant then help me fix it. Calling me ignorant solves nothing. Stuff like this is upsetting but worse is out right lies. When this debate was going on someone pop'ed up with something that was a pure lie. I don't know it was jealousy, resentment, envy or meanness that had people lying about me but I got very angry over it. Those that backed me up on the boards I think you from the bottom of my heart. Upset people There are a lot of upset people in the game right now. One of them wrote on several points. He did a great job of shutting down some of the griefer arguments. Read it at http://ac.warcry.com/columns/showarticle.php?id=68 Turbine's letter Turbine did something very strange. The made a letter saying they were going to change several things. Dagger, Drain and UA were three things mentioned. The problem is they gave us no hint of what those changes are. I'm assuming this is because they are not sure what option they will go with. This let everyone assume the worst and immediately start ranting over their assumption. I admit that doing away with Drain would be devastating to mages. Because of that I doubt very much they would. Lowering the range or making it only heal you would be two options. The bottom line on this is to wait until they tell you what changes are coming before getting upset over them. Turbine is keeping us informed and that is good. This was kind of a strange way to do it and I hope more information gets posted soon. Day of ups and downs. We had a Queen quest planned for a while so Nappa Firesun could get the kill. There are a lot of problems with the quest right now but careful planning will get by most of them. In fact only one unavoidable problem is the hold up. This problem is a killer and out of the players hands. We met on the plateau at 5pm EST. The bells were being handed in and we were just talking. Sword Blade logged and said that the Skill Credit guy was right by the pillars and had chased away his bell man. It just so happened that Deadeye Fist is the only player I have who has not got the skill credit. I had not worried about it to much as Creature is several levels a way and Life a lot more. This would kill two birds with one stone. I quickly logged Deadeye and ran him to the Plateau. With a few buffs from Mage Deadeye was off to fight him. With a few Elder escorts I got there before anyone else found him. The biggest problem with this quest is when your group locates him others will kill him before you arrive. Someone imperiled him so it was over fast. I got the loot. Glad to get that out of the way. The bow quest is the only one I need to finish with Deadeye now. We then headed off to the Dam. A few charged forward to the dam while Sword and Miss Smurfette and I waited for The Crippler. Crip got there and we buffed up. I used my EVL setup and added Cold and Fire protection. This later proved to be an error on my part. The Crippler wanted me to point out how good his black armor looks. In truth it is good but the horns have to go. Ok the horns to let him stand out from the crowd but I have a more conservative taste. William the bat worked the switches while the rest of us moved to the door. In the dam there is a split where you can go through an acid pit, pick a door, fight a horde of Olthoi to a gate the switch puller opens. Then you can be sprayed. Or you can to the other direction to a door the switch puller opens. Most people go where they know so even a harder route can be the most popular if that is what the leaders learn. We all fall into that trap, especially as you get older. Good lesson there. The popular route may not be the best route. So to make a long story short I was the only one at that spot. Both routes lead to the same place on opposites sides of an acid pit. The door was opened and I was in. I rushed to get sprayed and started my desk timer. We wanted to do a two pass kill so we had to get everything done on the first pass before the spray timer expired. I moved to the door and held it. Others were coming so I needed to hold the door. If you have ever been on that spot you will know that one person is far too few. Being very buffed I was not taking a lot of damage but I was not keeping up with the spawn rate either. Finally after what seemed a very long time the rest of the group got there. They all got sprayed and we were off to the Royal Hive. I led a group to the Hive and showed them the run through Mount E. This is a short intense run with spectacular jumps. Between being chased by the Chaos Wisps and the Olthoi it is hard to admire this place. I think Turbine needs to do more with it. Miss Smurfette lagged out and the anti-macro code sent her back to the LS. The rest of us pushed forward with William the Bat doing the switches and me leading the group. With the doors held William and the holders got to the Den with 20 minutes on our spray. I explained what we were going to do and it was very smooth. We cleared the Guards and other Olthoi and gathered by the portal. I de-buffed the Queen while the other mages blasted. She fell quick and we rushed the portal. No deaths or even damage so it was going great. William went to the switches and we set the doors again. At the jump we buffed up and banned the hell of out of Nappa's armor. After we cleared the top I de-buff the Queen. When doing this with a melee you almost have to start re-debuffing as soon you're done. The spells are very short and even one dropping will have us starting over. The loss of Miss Smurfette was showing. I would have to find Nappa in all that mess and shoot him stamina, something I really did not have time for. The Broods on top were being fought by melee's, something quite futile. I had to help William the Bat defeat a Brood twice. Still it was going ok. The Queen was about half dead and I was about to finish her off. Then the killer lag set in. This happened the last time we tried to get a melee the kill. This is lag on our end but most of us had it. Even moving the mouse was a slow painful experience. Nappa was calling for stamina and heals. I hoped to start blasting as Shockwave is on my hot key. First I had to find Nappa and shoot him some stamina. In hindsight that was an error. After recharging Nappa I was about out of mana. I tried to move my mouse to the stama2mana key. When the arrow was over that spell I clicked. The arrow then jumped to heal self. Now I was not trying to rush things, the arrow was over the spell for a full second or more before I hit the key. I tried again. The arrow was on the stamina to mana key. I clicked and it jumped to Sanctuary recall. Well that sucked. I saw The Crippler and Isana Nodotai die. It looked bad for Nappa but he was able to port out. At this point I was back into recovery mode. Until they fix this lagging problem trying to get a melee the kill is just not worth it. William the Bat had to leave but we picked Miss Smurfette back up. William's loss hurt as that left me as the only lock picker. Back to the Dam for spraying. Nappa Firesun and The Crippler went to the switches. I thought I was the only one with lockpick so I was there as well. They said they had it so I went over to the other ramp and opened the door there. I led the group to the split with half of us going to the door and the other half to the acid pit. We got the doors open and I was sprayed. Then another problem popped up. Nappa Firesun and The Crippler did not have lockpick after all. They could not get through the Olthoi gate or back to the switches. The door was not held so I could not backtrack to get them. They could not open the door as the gate to the switches was also locked. I have no idea how they got through the gate the first time. I ported to Nanto to run back and pick them up. One hour buffs are great and for adventures like this vital. I hit the dam and jumped into the waterfall. This is where my lack of foresight jumped up and bite me. I had not bane for bludgeoning or have bludgeoning protection on. Three Vapor golem are normally no trouble for me. I killed one fast but the other two beat me to a pulp before I had a chance to hit heal. It was one of those battles were you know you're dieing but also know there is nothing you can do about it. I apologized to The Crippler for my stupidly and started the run back. They had killed enough to clear 2 point of vit before I got to the Dam and had my vit clear before I finished buffing. This time I had the proper banes and protections. I got my body and move to help Crip. We needed to hit the switch first to get the door open. I picked that lock and Crip and I cleared the lightning monsters. A quick switch and we were set. Other than having to back track a little bit to pick up Nappa we had no trouble from there. Imperil and one swing from Crip took care of anything that got on our way. From there they showed me a way to get out of the Dam I had never seen before. This would have saved me a long run if I had known about it. We rushed through it so I did not get a good look around. I would like to go back and explore that someday. To bad that so many parts to this quest are rushed just to get to the main one. We got everyone to the Hive and were ready to go. A new problem. Not one of us had ever even seen the switches, let alone knew which one was what. The Crippler found the switches and stayed to hit them. We set a hold on the lock pick door as Crip does not have LP. That took us back to where we could recover the bodies and try another shot at the Queen. I was for letting Miss Smurfette kill the Queen as I was sure the lag would be back. The lag seems to be a product of long battles overloading some buffer. It was Nappa's quest and this was one of his life goals so I, reluctantly, agreed to give him a shot. We bane his armor and I de-buffed the Queen. Overall it was a carbon copy of the last time. The lag hit about at the same time. This time I ignored repeated pleads to kill the Brood on the upper ledge and Nappa's demand for stamina. I tried to select the Queen with the ";" key. I got her once but the lag had one more switch in it. I ended up blasting another Olthoi instead. I prayed and repeated my attempt to find the Queen. It was frustrating to say the least. I would hit the switch and wait for the screen to update, if not the Queen I would repeat. Otherwise I would overshoot. I had to ignore everything, stay calm and pray Nappa stayed alive long enough for me to blast the Queen. I got her and she was at half health. I started blasting and called on Miss Smurfette to blast as well. We lucked out. I got the final blast on her before the lag got us killed and with only a few points of mana left. When the Queen died let lag let up. That tells me the lag problem has something to do with the Queen. We collected loot and the head. I got another Queen Olthoi armor piece. Overall it was a lot of fun. With the setbacks and all I thought it would be more work than fun but somehow, when it was over, we all agreed we had a blast. From Ups to Down. The Elders had another Queen quest set to go right after ours. I decided to go hunt broods. I hope to luck out and get a War item. At 43 million a point it is a long time before I can raise it. I have made up 2 of the 6 point drop. I thought I was only going to lose 5 but ended up losing 6. Still at 382 only the biggest stuff resist me. Unfortunately Broods are one of those. In case I found the Bow Hea I parked Deadeye Fist by the river and logged him. He was still buffed so even a full spawn should not hurt him much. I had waited a bit before moving back to the Plateau to give the group a chance to get the bells in. For some reason the spawns were not triggered. I moved to the set of last pillars and found the bell breaker there. He had been told to wait for the group to be sprayed before turning in the bell. The reason for this was to make it safer to run to the Royal Hive. I sent a tell to the leader explaining that the Brood hunters would like to get the show on the road. He agreed and told the breaker to turn in the last bell. It still took a while to get some spawns going. I ended up burning the hour buff without triggering the first spawn. After rebuffing I finally killed the right Olthoi and got stage two. I was killing EV left and right when I saw the Hea Bow guy. The only nice thing about this is I can kill him with my mage and have Deadeye grab the bow parts. I was fairly close to where I parked Deadeye. I quickly killed all the stuff around it and then the Hea. If I had not been so tired I would have got Deadeye there before killing him. The error cost me. I logged Deadeye Fist and ran. I had a few Olthoi chase me but nothing bad. I got there and started picking up the parts. Three EV spawned close to me and attacked. I was trying to find the bow parts in all the other loot when my health fell to far. I ran after sucking down a heal elixir. I had one part and needed to grab the other one. I felt that it would be best to let Mage clear the Evs. I ran over next to Mage and logged. I have two computers working so I had both players on at the same time. Mage quickly cleared the Olthoi. Humm, what is that body over there? Deadeye Fist. I guess I did not log out fast enough. I logged Deadeye back in and he as at the LS sans his upper armor. I had a cheap piece of armor I had grabbed trying to clear the bow parts. I put that on but it left my lower arms uncovered. My idea was to run and grab the other bow part without fighting. I knew that I had to hurry. The bow part was going to rot very soon. After crossing the river I found myself blocked by two large spawns with a small gap between them. I took a chance and tried to split the gap. This worked for the most part. Only one EV was on my tail and I was sure I could shake it. I ran right over the pile of loot with the bow part on it but could not stop. Bam, the EV one shot me. I guess it got my lower arm and with no buffs whatsoever that was all it took. Seconds later the loot rotted. So I got one useless part that I cannot drop because I'm on the timer. If I do find another Bow Hea I need to keep this part to combine with the one I did not get. To help clear the vit I parked Deadeye on the river. I had Mage loot his stuff and bring it to him. I then fellowed with him while I hunted Broods. Despite killing hundreds of Olthoi I never did spawn the Broods. I did find a group of Broods on the other side of the river and got a Deception item. Really will be really useful, not. So you would think my bad luck would end. I went to the guy who gives you the skill point with Deadeye Fist the next day. For some reason I was not flagged as killing it. Instead of giving me the Credit he hit me with Harm. This is despite the fact I had looting rights so it was a bug. If I had not had looting rights I would have thought someone else had put damage on it before I got there. Some day's I think if it were not for bad luck I would have no luck at all. Maybe I should quit for a week and let someone else get the Wi flag. Good Luck at last. The next day I was off to hunt Broods again. Someone had sparked two of the spawns so I just had to find the right Noble. I hunted for a long time and finally got the Noble who spawns Broods. I had ten minutes left on my buff. I killed a lot of Broods. The main thing I hate about fighting Broods are the Nobles. The Nobles are a lot easier to kill but they hit the hands too much. Broods hit hard but seem to hit my double buffed armor more than hands. Whatever the reason I seem to take more damage from Nobles than Broods. The hardest part of killing Broods is getting the Yield to land. Creature has dropped back to 387. This means a lot of resists. One resisted me 7 times in a row before I could land. Even with the Yield applied my 382 War will be resisted a lot. It takes 3 to 5 shock waves to land before they die. I was tired and decided to leave after that buff ran out. I saw three Broods off to one side and decided to make that my last fight. I had one minute on my timer and very little time after that before I'm buff-less. The first two were hard but no harder than any other Brood fight. The last was different. That was the one that resisted seven times before I landed my Yield. Even then I had a lot of resists before finally killing it. My timer started beeping right before it fell. I don't know if the key Brood is harder than the others normally but that Brood was the key. The others died off and I was safe to loot. Aaaa a Life Item! While I don't need Life I know a lot of spec'd War or Four-school mages would kill for one. With luck I'll be able to trade the Life for a War. Perceptions. This might go with the ignorance lead in. Perceptions are more important than facts. A commonly held ignorance might as well be true. The reason I say that is people will react as if their perception are true no matter that the facts are. Many have the perception that my column is mostly about rants and grief players. I have that yes and a lot of it. Nevertheless the majority of this column is always about adventure and having fun. That is true but truth does not always overcome perception. The same can be said about AC. I read a lot about the other games on the market right now. I did this a great deal before choosing AC years ago. I felt then and still feel today that AC is the best of the lot. For an independent thinker it is the only game. Despite this AC is below the other games in players. It has been an awful long time since a new server opened up and I doubt there will be one in the near future. If Turbines statement that AC is growing were true then we would have seen a growth in servers. I'm not sure of DAoC's numbers but I know we are far behind EQ. So what is the perception of AC among the gaming public? Bradshaw of Wintersebb had this experience when he was at a gaming store. Remember I'm quoting someone in the next paragraph. "Well, I went to Electronics Boutique last weekend with my son and the manager had been to E3. I asked him if he had seen AC2 there. He laughed and told me not to bother with AC, it was full of cheaters - and then pointed me to EQ and DAoC." I know we suffer from a lack of marketing. Why that is I cannot say. To also have this cheater label really hurts. To the outside gaming public macros, exploits and chains is cheating. Those that do these don't think so but it is the perception that matters. Until this is turned around AC will always be an also ran with the gaming public.