Thread: A little insight.

Seeing as most of you dont know me from a bar of soap, i thought id just throw down a little history about myself and where im coming from in the great MMO world.

To begin, i started palying MMO's about 15 years ago, started off with the great and classic D&D following up with Balduurs Gate series and the likes, while these werent exactally MMO's and more a standard RPG type game, they were still great games for there time as many of you will agree. A few years later, i then came across a game a friend used to play called Ultima Online, not sure how many of you guys would of heard of it, but also, for its time a great game, pity i didnt hear about the game sooner or i would of stayed playing it for alot longer.

Following this was the release of Diablo, now for a great game, the only thing that let it down was it was hacker city, was a shocker for hackers and was near impossible to find real RPGamers, i then took a break from the MMO scene and headed over to the likes of Stratergy games like Star Craft and War Craft, but again, hackers city all over again, which was about the only thing that let Blizzard down, but what can u expect for free?

Once Diablo 2 was released it became my home for the next year, until a friend i met in the D2 world put me onto EverQuest at the very end of 1999 where it became my home for the next almost 5 years solid. In about 2003, a freind from EQ, mentioned Lineage 2, i had also heard alot of others speak of it, and was curious as what it had to offer in all aspects of game play, wether it be solo, group and raid content and many other features that game designers try to lure you in with, so i decided to give it a crack, well.....i must say, it was a terrific game, and back then i think only C1 was released, or had it been, geez i cant remeber, i think me and Ten started just before C1 was released. I used to play L2 on and off when ever i wasnt playing EQ which wasnt very often as i just treated the game as a get away bascially from the very polilitcal and frustrating life that comes with high end raiding / gaming in a huge MMO like EQ, as for those of you who have been there, will know too well what i speak off.

In that 5 years that i played EQ, i managed to lodge myself into the Top 5 monks on the Luclin server, one of 3 raid organizers for the Guild Five Rings and one of 2 main pullers for all major raid content upto Citadel of Anquish where i finally took my leave at close to the end of 2004, RELENTLESSLY i might add, to EverQuest 2 and tryed my hand at the new and improved EverQuest.
Leaving behind a lvl 70 monk with 500+aa Fully GoD flagged and CoA Flagged was no easy task, he and the game had been a huge part of the last 5 years of my life, plus the friends that i had made, watching them come and go, and the oppurtunties i had in the game to be part of something that roughly only 20- 30% of the people that play get to experience was no easy task to stop playing, but the game had grown old, and SoE were slowly beating a dead horse, and with the release of EverQuest 2, it helped me make the decision that little bit easier, not much easier, but just a little. Please dont take me as the bragging type cause Ten will tell you i aint like that in the least, just EQ, for those who played it loyally and didnt cheat by buying Plat offline or any form of cheats, this was quite a feat to be proud of, and i for one am very proud of it, maybe a little modest, but that never hurt no one 8- ). But even upto now, i havent had to buy game money offline yetm been playing these games long enough to pick up how to make money fast in more ways then one, and the strat all works in each and every game, thats another thing i have been very proud off, although i will admit, i have contemplated buying adena here offline simply because the chinese farmers are just hiking the prices sky high, but i doubt ill do it, i havent before, cant see why i would now, but back to the story. Dont see any reasoning in buying ingame money offline when we already pay to play the game to start with, ill never understand it myself....

After playing a Monk for almost 4 years solid in EQ i decided to try my hand at a Monk in EQ2, to see where they took the class as some of the ideas they orginally held back for monks in EQ, were used in EQ2 instead, so i gave it a shoot and lvled a Monk to lvl 30 with in the first month of release, which i wasnt real happy with, it just didnt feel right after playing a monk in EQ for so long and the direction they were going with monks in EQ2 just wasnt my style, so i jumped over into the Tanking scene and created a Berserker which i maxed him out at lvl 50 also lodging myself into the top 5 Berserkers on the Everfrost server with at the time over 700 quests completed which was quite a large accomplishment, and MA for one out of two of the best guilds on the server which at the time was Blood and Ice. Raid content in EQ2 needed some serious work, and raiding in general needed some serious work, even though SoE said they would never make EQ2 such a raid orientated game like EQ was, they basically had no choice but to make more raid material as the 8 months i played went on, and more often then not found SoE competing with WoW for subcribers and rushing material and content out the door which for me was the death of the game because of the amount of bugs and ingame flaws and problems they were creating on a monthly basis with content patchs, they could never get ontop of things and found themselves nerfing and buffing class's trying to balance things out and changing major core game mechanics more then 3 times in a period of 8 months which mind you majority of Beta bugs and problems still exsisted upon release and still did exsist till 1 month ago, very sloppy in my eyes and wasnt good for buisness and sent alot of loyal and proud SoE customers to the likes of WoW. So after all that mind numbing experience with EQ2, i decided to check out the hype that exsisted with WoW and give it a shoot even though i swore to god after playing so many hackers paradise Blizzard games i wouldnt play it because i feared that it would follow the same footsteps every other Blizzard game had encountered. So i bit the biscuit and gave it a whack and leveled a 45 Warrior with in the month on the Durotan server and for the most i was acually quite impressed, very smooth gameplay, easy on the comp, a hell of alot easier then EQ2 was on the comp thats for sure, a crap load of solo content, same as EQ2 really, both had a very good aspects going there for them and it was solo game play. Loot and quests were easily come by and easy to do, alot easier then EQ2, which was good in a way but also bad in another, for the player economy.

After playing WoW for a bit over a month, and deciding that the game itself was quite nice, it was a tad too easy for me, and i needed that challenge back, wether it was in the form of grinding, hard quests, or PvP that acually meant i had to think about what i was doing and not senselessly running in weilding what ever in my aresinal i had at my disposal, so i came back to L2 the moment Ten told me about this aussie clan called Smoking Buckets, which i thought was right up my alley, only to find out later it was Screaming Buckets rofl, but its all good, its just great to be amoung other country foke who know each other and understand each other, especially when it comes to weet bix and vegemite. . Would love to get into some raid material here, for im a big fan of hard core gameplay, i hate to dilly daddle and sit idle for too long. :p .

I understand not everyone is like that, but when a clans player base starts to reach the high levels you really have to ask yourself, what do i acually want out of the game, do i want to play alts for the rest of my game life or see more of what the game has to offer, its only a choice you can make, and i would never force that choice upon people, but i for one would love to see more of what L2 has to offer and i know alot of you would also.

So thats a small and quick run down on the life of me, i could be a little more descriptive but i think ill leave it at that. Hope u dont fall asleep reading it, i almost did typing it i know that.

Nice wrap up , good to know we have quite a few folks with raiding experience.