Saturday night grouping was interrupted by a call to the guild that our Raid Force was setting up for a pull. The intended target was a contested mob, Dominus Atrebe The Architect of Life Level 83 ^^^ X4 Epic, in Kylong Plains.

Our raid force assembled with astonishing speed, something that I have never witnessed before, and within 5 minutes we were approaching our target. Next thing we knew, a charmed Sathirian was charging toward the mob and stole it from under us.

24 stunned people followed Dominus to a set of ruins and displayed a locked icon above his name. Set in the ruins a lone Wizard and Coercer had the mob engaged in battle. Dominus was placed on one side of the ruined wall while the Wizard did AoE damage. The Coercer keeps the mob stunned and stifled to prevent Dominus from casting while charming lesser mobs in the area to beat on it. The Wizard was protected by line of sight by the wall from the epic mob’s nukes and the pathing script that the developers put into place rooted Dominus in place. Very slowly but surely the mobs strength was decreasing.

After 15 minutes into the battle the mob is was at 98% health.

In frustration guild members began to train mobs on to the Wizard while others put in petitions for exploiting and for disrupting the zone. I just sat in awe of how these 2 were taking down a mob meant for a full raid force.

I had all but figured the raid was lost and grew bored of the whole situation. That was until a GM popped into the scene. And then another GM. And then 2 more. I had never even seen a GM in game before and here were 4 of them.

Dominus was insta-killed and the Wizard and Coercer were frozen. After not too long the Wizard and Coercer duo went link dead and I later learned that they had received a 7 day ban for exploiting. I also learned that the 2 players were actually being played by the same person.

The GMs then reset the Dominus and we promptly killed it, getting mediocre loot.

This issue caused a lot of controversy on our server. If you actually want names and places it’s really easy to track down on EQ2Flames. As of writing this it’s up to 20 pages.

A number of arguments came to light.

My view on this matter is: It’s a contested mob. This is all fair. If the player that pulled this off did it by following the rules that Sony put in place, the more power to him. I do not think that this was worthy of a ban. Sure I was miffed that we got a mob pulled away from us by a group of 2, but that is the nature of contested mobs. How sweet would it have been if this guy had been camped for a week waiting for Dominus and we came along and pulled it from him.

Most in my guild thought justice was served that he got banned. They were vocal about it too. Too vocal in my opinion. They brought our guild into yet another drama on EQ2Flames and most on the server were in support of the banned player. The server channel was full of comments for almost 2 hours after the incident. I logged in the next morning and someone gave me the bird just because I had a guild tag over my name.

I totally support my guild and generally stick up for them but in this scenario the “Pirate” in me just loves the way we were owned. It’s part of the game. Contested = contest.

I wonder if the general population would have been on our side if the Wizard and Coercer were a known plat farmer? Do you think that attitudes would have been different if the duo were not from a highly respected uber guild? He is also the second most richest person in EQ2 worldwide. How is he better than the plat farmers who ninja loots or steals named mobs just to sell the drops for plat. Yes I realize he is not taking real money for the plat but he is taking away an opportunity for those that have never killed an epic mob before.

The player involved has also been involved in past exploiting, details in which I am not familiar with. Perhaps his ban was due to his past activity. My last question was why is he wasting his time on this mob designated for casual guilds? The guys and girls in his guild are routinely killing stuff I only dream of seeing. I know I wouldn’t be slumming in Kylong Plains if I had experienced the things he has experienced in the game.

I’ve had it with the crap performance, and lacking support of my current host lately so I’m moving Timesink to another host.  This will occur over the next week or two as I figure out all the pains involved with moving a WordPress installation.  I’ll post another message here once the server transfer and DNS changes are complete, in the meantime, I apologize for any server slowness and timeouts you experience.

Out of curiousity, I’m wondering if any of my readers have any suggestions for a web host?  I’ve tried researching it for the past little while but I’ve found it very hard to get a concrete picture as to whether a particular host is good or not.  I’m looking for a “shared” solution; I don’t want to spend a pile of money on this, but I also have other needs which prevent me from using the free WordPress hosting.  Just leave a comment if you have any names to try.  The new host I signed up with seems to get favourable reviews and they have a forgiving money-back guarantee so I figured it was worth a shot, but I’m open to other suggestions.

Here lies Chipdouglas, level 30 Mage.  He will forever be remembered as my first PvP kill, as well as my second.  I was questing around Mystral Lake in Ashenvale, killing some mobs in the water when I stumbled upon Chipdouglas, swimming around not too far from me.  I hesitated at first, seeing that he was five levels above me, but ultimately decided to just go for it, and started to swim towards him.  I opened up with a Frost Shock so that I could keep him close and proceeded to wail on him with my staff, casting Earth Shock (a Shaman’s best friend) whenever it was available.  Finally free from my Frost Shock, poor little Chipdouglas tried to flee, but I wasn’t having any of that.  I followed him up on to the land, dropped an Earth Bind totem to put an end to his cowardly run, and finished him off with another Earth Shock.  I finally had my first PvP kill.  I continued with my questing, minding my own business, when just a few minutes later I saw a freshly resurrected Chipdouglas heading towards me.  Without thinking I immediately cast Earth Shock, dropped an Earth Bind totem and killed him once again.  Not wanting to tempt fate I quickly finished up my quest and headed back to Astranaar.

The next day, after killing some Harpies in the Charred Vale in Stonetalon Mountains I was jumped by a Tauren Hunter.  Low on health and mana, I decided to run.  The Hunter’s pet was hot on my heels as I sprinted out of the valley in Ghost Wolf form only to run smack dab into an Orc Warrior.  He started giving chase as well, but neither of the Horde players were able to keep up and I managed to escape.  Unable to just let their brazen attacks upon me go unpunished, I recharged my health and mana and headed back to hunt down the Horde dogs.  I came upon the Warrior first and made quick work of him; it was no contest.  After a minute or two of searching, I found the Hunter and sprinted towards him.  I popped out of Ghost Wolf form, dropped a bunch of totems, and before he could even turn around to face me he was at half of his health.  He didn’t even try and fight, opting to run instead, except my Earth Bind totem kept him nice and close.  Just a few seconds later he lay dead at my feet.

I also had my fair share of deaths this weekend as well, in particular at the hands of a Horde Shaman, one level below me, who obviously knows more about the class than I do.  He killed me the first time by surprise when I was out of mana, and when I came back for revenge he made quick work of me again.  I obviously still have a lot to learn, but I’m slowly getting there.  To this point I’m really enjoying playing on a PvP server, I find it adds a lot to the experience.  Venturing into contested zones adds that extra bit of danger that wouldn’t otherwise be there on a PvE server, and it can be quite a rush seeing that red name hovering over another player off in the distance.  Fun stuff.

Taking a break from questing the other day, I decided to do some exploring and uncover some flight paths. I left Auberdine in Darkshore and headed south towards Astranaar in Ashenvale. Ashenvale is contested territory but I wasn’t really too worried about running into any Horde players around Astranaar, and sure enough, the short trip was uneventful. I then headed east, Forest Song being my new destination. I was a little more on edge for this trip because it would take me past Splintertree Post, one of the Horde flight path outposts. In all honesty, I was actually hoping to run into a Horde player and to this end I made sure to stick to the roads, out in the open, nice and vulnerable. I veered off the path as I approached Warsong Lumber Camp to mine a node and just a few seconds after doing so, I saw a level 27 Troll Mage running by along the path. Given that I was level 22 at the time, and admittedly, a complete World of Warcraft newbie, I assumed I wouldn’t stand much chance against him, so I let him pass by, hoping he didn’t see me. He continued to run, so I figured I was in the clear, and I timidly creeped back toward the path, keeping the Troll well within my sights. He stopped. I stopped.

For what felt like a minute, we stood motionless, sizing each other up. It’s moments like this where heroes are born, where an underdog can rise up and overcome the odds. I chose to panic. I punched my Ghost Wolf spell, and the Troll started towards me as I leapt into the forest, running as fast as I could go, never to look back again. The Troll apparently had other plans and *poof*, I was transformed into a sheep. No longer able to control my character I waddled aimlessly around, with a “baa baa” here and a “baa baa” there. The instant the sheep spell wore I off I tried to run away again, only to get stuck against a hill I was unable to climb up. More panic sunk in. I was trapped, I had nowhere to go. I turned to run another way and could just barely make out the Troll licking his lips before a giant fireball arose from his fingers and hurtled through the air towards me. Faster than you could say “learn 2 play” I was killed, my cowardly corpse slumped on the ground. My first PvP death came at the hands of a Troll Mage named… Firekhroch. All fear the Firekhroch.

I knew there was a reason SOE purchased Vanguard, I just never would have anticipated this. It was revealed today that the worlds of EverQuest II and Vanguard will be merged into one, creating the largest Massively Multiplayer Online game on the market. A press release announcing the merge was prematurely released by SOE’s director of product development, Loof Lirpa, and has since been taken off the web. The press release stated that this merging of worlds was the primary reason behind Sony’s purchase of the Vanguard assets from Sigil. Only now, after extensive performance improvements, has it become feasible to remake all of the EverQuest II zones in Vanguard’s engine; work which has been underway for several months now. The screenshot above shows a Barbarian Berzerker standing in the remade Enchanted Lands.

All of Vanguard’s character models are being scrapped in favour of the EQII ones, while the world geometry will be handled by the Vanguard engine. While light on details, the press release did state that some of the mechanics will obviously have to change in order to meld the two games together, most notably a consolidation of classes. However, the majority of the content will remain untouched, aside from the engine changes.

The press release stated that no additional purchase will be required by current subscribers to EQII or Vanguard, and the content will be pushed down through multiple, smaller patches as the “go-live” date approaches. The release date wasn’t specified, although it was said an in-game world event will commence sometime in the fall of 2008. It’s assumed the world event will help explain how the worlds of Norrath and Telon will become one.

Obviously I wish I could tell you more, but there really was not a lot of detail in the press release. To say I’m excited for this change would be an understatement. I was always really impressed with the world in Vanguard and often wondered to myself what it would be like to see a seamless EverQuest II world. The logistics of this announcement are mind-boggling, but if anyone can pull it off, it’s the hard working people at SOE. I can’t wait, but until then, enjoy April 1st.