Fist de Yuma - May 21, 2002

I had a lead in to the below but it kept growing and growing as I wrote it. I decided to move it to the end and give a warning that it is not totally AC related. It is called Reasonable Expectations. It deals with a hard subject so please skip it if you are offended by such. Smirking Revenge Smirking Revenge created a program to spam a grief player. This program did not go very far. Smirking claims only eight people downloaded it. It was quickly squashed by Turbine and Smirking promised not to release the code or create anything like it in the future. The consequences to Smirking have been far greater than anything he could imagine. He has been removed from several boards dealing with Decal programming. Despite support by other programmers and the limited effect of his program the powers that be have decided he is to be ostracized from the rest of the decal community. Smirking Revenge has created a great plug in called Big Brother. I don't use it with my slow connection but several people I know praise it. When Smirking posted on the third party board at COD he was slammed because of Vengeance. Yes it was a childish thing to write and had the potential of killing off Decal. It is clear that he understands the potential damage and that is was a mistake. It is time for a little forgiveness here. I have seen total grief players get away with cursing, stealing, bigotry, slander, and sundry other anguish causing actions with no penalty whatsoever. One error from someone who is not a grief player and it is unforgivable. Why people have to overreact to events I'll never know. Thoughtful action will always win in the end. I hope that the decal boards rescind their ban on Smirking Revenge and understand that one mistake should be forgiven. It is a reasonable expectation that people will be willing to forgive an admitted error in judgment. Archer's surprise On my way to the Grotto with my archer I ran into something I had never seen before, Small Golems! They were on the ridgeline between EVL and the Grotto, very close to EVL. This was before the patch so I had the ability to draw them out one at a time. At 350+ level I was sure more than one would make short work of my 45lv archer. The first thing I noted was they were very slow. This made them an ideal target for a range weapon. Their "Blood" call when I got close cracked me up, their death cry even more so. Using deadly blunts I was able to hit for fair damage. I would wait until it got within 10 feet or so away before running. Using this tactic I was able to kill all but one. Each had a key, mote and diamond heart on it, along with sundry other loot. I killed one that was too close to the last one to loot. I figured to kill the last one and then loot them both. Ever so often one would send out a shockwave. With bludgeoning VI on me I was sure I did not want that to hit. They were easily avoided but I still should have got smart and put on my bludgeoning protection. The last one was half dead. I was sure the battle was about over. What I did not count on was lag. There are times when lag prevents you from seeing a spell. You go from full health to being in trouble and only the text lets you know why. I went from full health to dead in an instance. With around 150 health it is easy to be one shot with a vuln and blast. By the time I ran back someone had killed the last one and got the loot from the other one. It is easy to clear vit with an Archer so I did that and moved on. Quite and adventure. Patch day What a day. I really did not expect as much as I got. While I was disappointed that the spell times were not extended I knew that was tied to the other changes I did not expect to see. What I ended up doing is trying to work on two quests. Before I start I want so say one thing about this patch. They have changed a base part of the game that more effected Melee than any other class. Melee's, especially low levels, need to draw out monsters. With no range weapon the ability to draw them out for a one on one battle has always been a key part of a melee's game. I remember spending minutes drawing out a Hunter Sluth on the road to Baishi one day. I could not fight three and even one was iffy. My mages and archers have always depended on drawing when faced with hard monsters. Why Turbine made this change I don't really know. Maybe the exploiters were using this to level lower players too much. All they have done is hurt the solo player who does not use outside buffs and over help. The exploiters will have a way to cheat so this will only inconvenience them. Broken Amulets I started out trying to get some broken amulets for mage. I'm still not up on this quest as I have not checked the boards. I'm getting more and more away from board checking on quests and really try to complete them on my own. I knew from someone that the Mosswarts on V Islands dropped the magic ones. Which Mosswarts dropped what I did not know. I knew from when I hunted the Islands with Cliff Bowman (now a mule) that there was a packs of them in four spawns and a dungeon I had never gone into. The run to the Islands is not hard but dull. I got there in about 15 minutes because I stopped to kill anything on the monster list the guard gave me. I did find a Throw weapon amulet, my mage really needs that one. Being ignorant about the quest I made the error of tossing it to a crier. I got to the spot I wanted to hunt and cleared the four spawns without finding anything. I moved into the dungeon and started down. After a few kills I found one for Item, after a lot more another one for Item. I was at the exit portal and had not found anything more. Next to the exit portal was a pit. I decided to jump down there instead of leaving. There I found a bunch more and got a War amulet. I hit the exit and found another spawn site I did not know about. This gave me five groups I could hunt. They were far enough apart that I could run to each and have a re-spawn by the time I got back around. After several trips I found another Item and a Life. I wanted a Creature but I was tried of hunting them and a Life was all I really wanted. Of course I found out later that the Life amulet had nothing to do with Life magic. From there I heard rumors that I needed to go to the underground desert town. In the first portal I hit there was a statue spawn. After killing them I someone opened up a door under the main statue. There was nothing underneath it so I moved on. The town was easy to find as there was a stream of people going there. I got a key to open the statues and had no idea what to do next. Statues I I ported to Nanto to restock. I found a spawn of Reedshark statues there. Strange finding two spawns, I had found very few in the month prior and then only late at night. I used my key to open up the statue and found a portal. The portal was 20 to 50 restricted, my 106 being a touch over that. I figured the higher portal would be where the higher statues are. The highest I knew of was in AB. I lifestoned to AB and ran to town. There I found a group under the statue hoping a portal would spawn. A short time later the Virindi Statues spawned and I got the have the fun of killing a few. This was the first time I ran into the general greed I had heard about. As I killed one a horde of players would run up and wait for the body to open. I was still fighting and did not have time to loot. As it turned out I was lucky to get even one body open with these lame jerks around. Their attitude was, "I'm not stealing, you should have got to it in time." This was from one who could not loot it anyway because of the timer. He was holding it until someone else could get it. I like this town raiding. I think they should give the xp for the kill and just use the weapons for trophy items. This brings out the worst in people. Most of the players hanging around AB for the spawns could not fight the Statues. At least they removed the ability to give it to someone. After hanging around with some friends I decided to load my archer and get into the statue portal that was available. This turned out to be the best decision I had made in a while. Deadeye was at the mansion and one of the members gave him a ride to the Subway. I had heard that a group was forming to go into the portal at Hebian-to. As I hit Hebian-to there was another statue spawn. By this time I had the idea that these spawns were happening far faster than before. Selling and restocking was going to be an adventure for a while. I found that acid arrows really worked well on these statues. I found out later that other statues were not as affected by acid as these. At 19k a pop the Bens became my main target in battle. We waited for someone to arrive with a key and open the statue up. We got that done and we headed in. I had a two protects on, piercing and acid. I had only been hunting Olthoi so I had not bothered with collecting more protects. We got inside and had no idea what to do. There were statues of all types but the big ones on very fast spawn. We kept killing them and moving around hoping to find a clue as to what our goal was. The lag was atrociousness. Combined with a decal problem I have it was approaching unplayable. I had to log off and disable decal to have any chance. With decal off it was still bad but the system freeze every minute was gone. I'm not sure what is causing the freeze but it might be a system write or read. I found the problem was less after defragging. I got into a fellow and we were holding a few rooms. I found a coil on the ground but had no idea what to do with it. While killing in a center room I got the below message on the screen. Terazzo IV has penetrated the dark recesses beneath the cities of the world, and has destroyed the native cast from which all Zharalim were created! The statues in Zaikhal have been nullified and will threaten the citizens no more! I asked Terazzo IV what he had done. Terazo IV was confused. In the battle I was the only one in the fellow to see the message. After I pointed it out to him he said he had no idea, he was just killing. After a bit of this I leveled and was getting tired. I was short of arrows and had big trouble making more in battle. It seems like when in a safe place I never fail, in a place filled with danger I would fail three times for each success. I ported out and logged off for a while. Statues II Later that night I logged back in. Ur III was at the mansion and wanted to fight the statues. I pointed out that he was over 50 so until the other portals started spawning he was out of luck. As a handful of Golem statues killed Fist and the Virindi ones might be even stronger I'm not sure a 53lv archer wants to go to a bigger one. Knowing UR him and Sissy will be there. If it is not upper level restricted I'll support them with Mage. (When it turned out to be PK only so we took a pass.) I found that the portal to the same dungeon was in the Lin statue. Someone had the door open so I could get in. I stocked up on arrows and headed out. This time there was fewer people and not as high a level. The restriction is 20 to 50 but anyone not in the upper 40's was leaving a lot of bodies. In fact there was bodies were all over the place. I had several close calls that afternoon. Grabbing a health Elixir with under 5 hit points was all to common. With less people to clear it out I was under more pressure than before. Finally my luck ran out and while trying to heal with 40 hit points I was hit by a spell and killed. Bad, I lost my upper armor. I knew there was no way to recover without armor. An Elder, who name I did not write down, said he would buff me. I was looking in the Lin armory to see if there was anything worth buying. He offered me his Mattie but I declined. I did not want to take the chance of losing it. With nothing worth buying and not wanting to bother someone to put costly buffs on me I told him I would have Mage there soon with armor and he would do the buffing. I logged the other computer and ran Mage to Lin. I gave Deadeye Mages Pre-GSA and piled him with buffs. Even with banes on the GSA, full life protects and vastly better skills body recovery was hard. For one it took me ten minutes to even find the body. When I did find it there was no one there to help me clear. I shot down Statue after Statue but they seemed to re-spawn as fast as killed. I was trapped with around 10 statues around me and it was not getting any better. Without the buffs I had no way to live. Even with the buffs I was in trouble. It was very frustrating to see the body only feet away and no way to get to it. The armor on the body is very valuable as it has great spells and is light. Until he gets creature at 115 he will need that armor. To bad it has such a high value that holding on to it in death is a problem. Finally a group showed up and took the pressure off me. I got the body and ported out. I brought Fist there and gave Deadeye his GSA. I then logged Mage and got his armor back. Fist hunts less and I can live without his armor for a while. Mage on the other hand needs his armor for body recover and other vassal help. I was 1.4 million away from leveling the second time that day. We may not have a clear objective but it was great xp. I think I was pulling down 3 million plus an hour when fighting in there. I rebuffed him so he could level. The fighting there is getting repetitive so I might not do it much longer. He did make 49. Making 50 so I can get a pincer is one of my goals. The other is getting by skill high enough to string my new bow. I had one close call. I had logged in under the statue with no buffs. The Skeletons had spawned. It seems they can shoot their arrows underneath the statue. I was taking arrows hits just as I decided to log. As logged out I saw me taking hit after hit. Health was dropping fast and I finally hit the full log out with 5 hit points. If I had not died before logging out I was sure to die when I logged back in, if the Skeletons were not killed. I logged back in Mage and cleared the Skeletons. I logged Deadeye fully expecting to be at the LS with Vit. I was lucky and still had the 5 hit points I saw myself log out with. A fast heal got him back to full health so I could log out and not be in danger of dieing when I logged in again. Later after the statues had all been neutralized the portals opened up to all levels. This was a big mistake. Every room had an 80+ archer in it, one shoting every spawn. Amulet Quest I had gone through the boring maze with three of my players and voted to save the lady. I had done hours of hunting to get the Broken Amulets. I had run all over the place trying to find information and get all the parts done. Finally I was ready. I had three Elixirs, summer, autumn and spring. I turned them in and took the portal. I figured out from the guards that the center portal led to the highest part. It may not matter much which one I got as all I'm really looking for is the +15 magic defense. A V item is the maximum that this comes in and I can toss VII's without buffs. I really did not know what I was looking for. From what I guessed there was an object at the very end I would need. The monsters were strong but I am far stronger. I had little trouble making the jumps across the pit with my Fire Stone training. Finally I decided that jumping into the pit was the best way to get to the end. I found a room with a bunch of monsters and cleared it with some difficulty. There was nothing there. Finally I got tired of wondering around and hit the boards. I got the name of the object and plugged it into Decal. I found it on the floor a bit away from the end and the exit portal. I got the Red one and headed off to turn it in. There is a portal to the desert near Lin so it was not a long run. I turned it in and the guy said I needed to talk to the guard first. Dam I ported back to Lin and give him the item. Then back to the agent. He returned the red one with a green of the same name. I was confused. I tried to put my Elixirs on it but it did nothing. I read on the boards that there was a bug. The fix was to get a green one and turn that in. Then you could infuse the Red. Another thing they said was you needed to pick up a lot of reds. Confused again because it sounded from the guards that you could on only enter once a week. So back to Lin. I got a green one and another red. I guess the once a week part is broken as well. I let the guard look at them and then ran back to the agent. He complained that he could only infuse once a month. In the town someone said you had to infuse it with a Creature Elixir before a Life. I did not have a Creature one. I decided to go hunt one up. I ported to the subway and ran to the Mountain shortcut. I hunted there for a while with no luck. Then I took the Bandit portal and did a buff there. Then ported to my house in the far north and hunted there. I finally found a Broken Sword Amulet. I retuned to Lin and give that to the guard. He returned one and it was another life. Blade is a Life spell so I guess I need another amulet. This is really getting old. There is not much information being given out. The drop rate is far to low on the Broken Amulets and the monsters not worth my while to hunt. I read that there are a lot of bugs in this patch and there should be a hot fix next week. At the mansion the next day I got a focus elixir. That worked! The red one was infused with focus and blade. Both are useless as I buff with VII's but the +15 to magic defense puts me at 309. Without the +15 I was resisting Diamond and Plasma golems. I'm looking forward to using this in a hard battle. I might even start resisting Virindi. Sad goodbye, for now Another long time player and columnists is leaving the game. Life is changing for him and he had to make a choice between doing well with those changes and AC. He made the right choice and AC is no longer a part of his life. Zenaph's column has been around for some time and I have read it when the boards post the link. I also read all but one of the current columnists. That columnist uses fractured English and with my dyslexia it is far to hard for me to comprehend. When I started the only other columnist was Pyreal Rat. I have seen a lot of columns come and go in that time. This is the great thing about the internet, anyone can publish. There are a lot of people who would like to see that end. They had control over what we saw and would like to regain that control. I hope they fail but with deep pockets they will have politicians behind them. I hope we do see Zenaph reborn in AC2. We will see. The hold of the game. Zenaph pointed out in this last column that the game did not have the hold on him it did before. I'm lucky in that the game is still fun for me. It has changed a lot of course. I remember having my hands shake after a battle. I thought it was just me until I saw the same thing happen to Jeff one day. While my hands do not shake anymore it is more a factor of confidence and knowledge that prevents it. I'm guessing that someday I'll have a break with AC. I have a history of sticking with something for a long time and then making an abrupt break. This happened with the Internet Chess Club. I was a well know member who was on every day for hours. Even if I did not play I talked. I read chess, I taught chess, I studied chess and I lived chess. When I got AC I made a total break from ICC. It was a big surprise to my friends and myself. I had just paid for a two-year subscription. I'm guessing AC2 will be the one thing that pulls me away from AC. Only time will tell. Chains revisited One of the arguments for chains is it does not hurt anyone. The disagreement with that argument is that chains push up the content to the point only two-year full time players can complete with chain members. This patch seems to confirm the theory. The skill check for new weapons is through the roof. Some of the support skills needed would require far more skill than a normal mule can attain. The final skill check my 118lv UA is hard pressed to match. It might be Turbines way of nerfing mules but the results are only chains have the ability to do many of these skills. The new Trade skills might be the same. I predicted we will need 400+ skill to be useful. It is looking like I'm right. This will mean only players like myself or chains will benefit. I play far more than most and have two and a half years behind me. There are not many with my time or dedication. Chain members with far less time will be ok but no one else will. If there were no chains would the skill requirements be this high? We will never know for sure but I think not. It is to bad but the exploiters seem to be driving the game at this time. There are parts in this where a 95lv sword fighter cannot survive. I have a vassal forming a party right now to recover his body. I have a commitment so I cannot go. That a high level like The Crippler has so much trouble that is it impossible to recover without help is a shame. It is so bad that The Crippler is leaving Elder next month to join a chain. He finds that even at his level he cannot complete and has to join a chain to have any chance at all. There is a mule on FF that has played a grand total of 13 days. It has over 4.5 billion xp and 125lv. The current content is geared for that type of player. The people who don't exploit need not apply. Old Friends Another friend returned to the game. He sold his last player or gave it away, not sure. That one is called Chain Effect. After a time he has returned to the game with new players. He was asking my advice on a subject. And I was able to give him some items I had just found while hunting. I had found the Reedshark guy a few times on one buff before. This time no matter where I went I ran into him. In one buff I had killed him 5 times. So I was stocked with death items and necklaces to give away. Sadly he is not in Elder this time as his friend and patron left Elder a while back. Who knows, he might convince his patron to return to Elder someday. At only 20lv I did not feel he was ready to solo the Statue dungeon but he wanted to give it a shot. I supplied him with a few buffs and sent him into the portal. Later at the mansion I got a tell from him. A 95th and an 80th level were hunting there. Why people have to ruin the experiences of others for their own greed I will never know. They were there killing so fast the 20lv UA could not even get a hit in. Reasonable expectations (Please don't read if you only want AC stuff.) I am an optimist most of the time. I always expect people to do the right thing for the right reason. Sometimes their reasons are wrong due to wrong data or ignorance. To me a bigot is someone who has been taught lies about other people. They may have had a bad contact with someone and from then on feel all who look like that person are bad. This can be repaired with reasoned thought and education. Over the years I have found that not everyone is reasonable. Even when faced with incontrovertible facts they will stick to their unfounded beliefs. Most people are in between the two extremes but the examples of the stubborn are seen daily. The Middle East is a classic example. The people are fed lies so hateful that children dream of killing Jews. The biggest lie is that they live in an occupied country. "There can be no peace until we have our country back", they say. This makes no sense until you look at their textbooks. There is no Israel in their books or maps. So all of Israel is their occupied country. Until all the Jews are dead or have fled there can be no peace. It is strange how the press never picked up on that. The answer to bigotry to some is more bigotry under a new name. Somehow highly educated people think it is a good thing to discriminate without understanding the damage that does. To me a bigot with a pointed white hat and sheet is no different than a bigot with a black board, tassel and robe. Every day I see examples of people who point out how different they are than others, and then complain if someone treats them different. I see them gain with the help of others and then proclaim victory for their race, saying nothing about those worked to helped them. Strangely those who disagree with their bigotry are called bigots. Of course with nothing but empty rhetoric behind them attacking the character of the debater is all they have. To me a litmus test of the ignorant debater is attacking the character of the opposite side. If they cannot stick to the subject at hand they have lost. "You are only saying that because", is a great comeback for those with the ability to read minds. Everyone else is making it up, which is polite for lying. I is a reasonable expectation that those say they hate bigotry would not practice it. It is a reasonable expectation that supporters of a White only college fund would be condemned as bigots. It is also a reasonable expectation that the same standards would be placed on any other race. It is a reasonable expectation that if it is ok for one race to have a college fund without condemnation then all other races can expect the same ability. To do otherwise promotes resentment and continues the cycle of hate. The reason I bring this up is I see more and more people in AC who make racist comments. For my entire lifetime I have never seen as much racism as I see today and I grew up in the 60's. I put this entirely on the shoulders of the people who's intent is to give one race an advantage over another in the name of diversity. In the 60's we fought against government sponsored racism. Racism is bad but with the support of government it is hideous. I was called a Liberal pinky and worst for fighting racism then. Today I fight against government sponsored racism and I'm called a Right wing extremist. I wish they would get the name straight. People understand bigotry. They know that someone who gets and advantage over others because of skin color they are getting that advantage because of racism, even if they use a different name. When they see that same group put out a victim card at every opportunity they lose respect for the individuals in that group. This is despite the fact that most never take advantage of the bigotry and may even stand against it. We don't stand for racism in AC and shouldn't accept it anywhere else. Racism is giving one race and advantage over another. All the smoke, mirrors and miss labeling will not change that fact. Racism hurts everyone, especially those getting the advantage and being made to think that all their failures and success are the result of others. What is worst is it give bigots of the other race something to point out. If a few people get ahead because of quotas those who worked hard to advance are accused to have had it given to them. Years ago I was on a plane with a woman pilot. I was happy to have a woman pilot as I have a small fear of flying. I knew that a woman would have a harder time getting to that position and therefore would be the best of the best. Today I might feel different. Did she get the position because of ability or to keep from being taken into court? My friends who happened to be black would condemn the racism from both sides. We could not understand how someone could hate others because of skin color. Of course we were like-minded and debated openly. There is a funny story from the Marines many years ago. This was in the 70's and there was a lot of racial tension in the Marines. I had a friend who worked in a big open room with a lot of high-level officers coming and going. We got into a debate on race. We had had this debate several times and it was on an intellectual level. What I did not know at the time was Smitty was one of the leaders of a movement seeking change. People feared him, especially officers. To me he was just Smitty. Smitty told me that the officers behind my back were going white as sheets as we talked. The very next day I was given a job, miles away from Smitty. He told me about it over poker and beer a few days later and we both had a grand laugh. "The next day, you were gone!" he laughed. I don't know what happened to Smitty after that. We lost contact as many do in the Marines. I'm sure he is doing well as he was one of the smartest guys I had never met. I would take him over some over-educated PHD in a heartbeat. The way to fight racism in AC is to not tolerate it. Explain that what they are saying is not only hateful but plain wrong. If they persist report it. This not being a "Fink" or other words that support free grief play but teaching the bigot there are consequences to their actions. It is a reasonable expectation that violations of the COC will result in a boot and possible ban. To expect others to stand by and let the grief player sprout is not reasonable.