I accidentally deleted the pictures I had while cleaning out my Fraps folder. So instead, I have this one of Dera at level fifteen or so, betraying Qeynos to join Freeport — after a very harrowing trip (it took me hours to find the Thundering Steppes zone in Antonica, more hours to find the docks in Thundering Steppes, and though the path through Nektulos was pretty well-defined, it was surrounded on all sides by monsters hungry for halfling). After a trip with no maps and only vague directions from people she met on the way, she made it to the Commonlands and caught this first glimpse of the city that would — after 500 orcs and five uncommon nameds == become her new home.
She turned 74 last night, and has nearly caught up to Dina, who is 60% through 75.
Dera started out on the Antonia Bayle server, and betraying on a roleplay server can really make people angry with you. I was supposed to be one of my guild’s templars, but after becoming an inquisitor, members of my guild wouldn’t even group with me. Dera remained guildless until I transferred her to Befallen.
Even now, people are far more interested in getting my troub to join their guild than my cleric. Not that they want to group with a troub, mind, but they’re somewhat handy in raids, difficult to play well, and widely considered (falsely) to be underpowered, so what guilds are really saying is — we want you to show up for raids. Other scouts will get priority on the nice weapons. Casters will get priority for the spell enhancement stuff. We just want you to log in and spam jesters/maestro/bladedance on raids. Between raids, please go off and leave us alone — oh, and could we get your cleric to heal for our group?
Anyway, my guild is embroiled in drama. Four people leave, two return. Then SIX people leave, and it sounds like it was because real life spilled into the game. I don’t know what’s going to happen. Drama has kept people from logging in, as well as general boredom and difficulty for some people with soloing.
I’m too lazy to look up who insisted RoK would go down as the expansion that killed EQ2, with its mechanics that tear people apart by insisting they must solo. Someone told someone else that EQ2 should be more like WoW; difference is, WoW gives WAY more experience from doing quests, and is also a far easier game — so fewer quests that you do more quickly. (Note: I left before Burning Crusade; those quests might be harder).
Sure, there are people who are 80 and have been for weeks; but there are lots of people who are still struggling slowly through the levels, unable to find people at the same spot in their quests as they, and every day finding it harder to log in. I did Sebilis with my troub and Crypt of Agony with my cleric; per-kill experience still sucks (in a group though, you’re killing faster, so you make it up somewhat in volume, but dungeons STILL aren’t giving enough experience to level solely through xp groups).
Rise of Kunark is carving a new place for itself through the endgame players. Kylong and Fens are no longer in multiple instances on Befallen; groups for CoA and Charasis are still always looking for tanks and healers and are fine-thank-you on every other class; but there has been a healthy resurgence of people playing low level characters… level 40s and 50s chat channels are busy as anything now.
14 thoughts on “EQ2: Guild drama — I love it!”
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I wish you nothing but good luck on finding a better guild. I know how hard it is…. I am very thankfull that I have found the perfect one for me.
Yeesh! Sounds like a healthy helping of “not much fun” going on over there on Befallen. Befallen was my first server, but after server transferring my original toon, I no longer have any toons there at all. From everything I have heard in guild chat, my guild mates have all adapted very well to the Kunark model. I have yet to hear any griping about the new method for leveling and everyone seems to be progressing nicely.
If you played on Unrest, I would suggest you look us up. We have a few troubs in the guild, but troubs, assassins and dirges are by far our lowest numbers and none of those classes have any difficulty finding a spot in a guild group. Of course, my guild tends to take the approach of “group those who ask for a group regardless of what class they are.” I can’t wait to catch up in levels because I think that most of the few gripes I have about playing a dirge will vanish once I reach the level of everyone else.
It may be a matter of (and I hate to use this term) “hard-core-ness”. Those people who dedicated themselves to leveling to 80, played many, many hours a night, found groups when needed with like-minded people, and are now at 80 and farming the high level instances for gear.
I am not a hardcore player. I’m a raider, but I prefer to spend my time in various ways — last night, for instance, I spent mostly playing Rock Band with my son and various random people from Xbox Live and only got on to EQ2 late. A hardcore person would just focus on EQ2 and get that leveling done, but I’ve missed that wave. I was able to make a group with a conjurer for a couple of heroic groups last night, and lucked into a group for a third one that I was about to attempt alone.
I have to be honest and admit I don’t mind soloing as much as I say. I took a break to watch Heroes, kept ducking back into the band on drums or vocals or guitar (and oh my god… Rock Band has its own drama…), so I’m moving at my own pace, helped out by the fact that my guild is dying and isn’t demanding that I raid. It’s just SO BORING. And I am so grateful that I am leveling both my high level characters at once because I cannot IMAGINE doing this again.
Being a dirge is a lot of fun, though having tried one in beta, I realize that I can’t play one. My playstyle is very much designed around the things troubadors do that dirges can’t, and being so similar yet different makes them impossible for me to play. I feel lost without mez…
Well..
I happen to be the opposite here…as I have not been playing EQ2 for very long…but, I have played so MANY MMO’s, that I know the guild issues…over and over…the drama has killed my opinion of ever being in one. I may just solo until the end of the game, and leave…
I had joined a guild with one alt (in EQ2) …then one time I logged in…and after 5 minutes saw a “kicked from guild” message…out of the blue…no reason…and another alt is in one that has been level 6 for about a month now, with no growth…and no one speaks either…just bizarre…
But, as I said…I really just do not feel like a guild anymore. I have my 3rd alt who will just refuse any guild down the road…and I am NOT anti-social…just MMO guilds really drive me to drinking with the sob stories, and the issues with character types needed, etc…
Anyways…good luck in your endeavors…
Cheers!
EQ2 values guilds — a lot of the things you do benefit a guild you’re in, people in guilds of a certain level get better mounts or cheaper ones, or can buy things the unguilded cannot; it is better to be in a guild, even if nobody talks, than to be guildless, and it for sure deters the random guild invites.
But a great guild is a wonderful thing. It’s a social game, after all, and being in a guild opens up more of the game — not only to raids, but also lets you build wonderful groups for running instances or dungeon crawls without having to play the LFG Lotto.
I like Befallen, drama and all. Faydark had its advantages over the merged server but we adjusted. Having a good guild and a good core group of friends definitely helps.
My Swashbuckler got to 80 in two weeks mostly duoed or trioed with a healer or two. We just did all the quest we could find and complete. I started working on my Troubador. I was going to try to solo and take it easy enjoying the content instead of rushing but found it’s a lot faster when you duo with someone, especially with someone that knows where to go.
The thing with RoK is that they upped the risk but when it comes to heroics I don’t feel like they upped the reward.
*grumbles and agrees under her breath before skulking off to another alt*
“but we adjusted” the sad part is that adjusment still isnt nearly as filling as the Faydark server was. that server seems to be in a class all it’s own and we were thrown into Befallen and it was like we lost our identity. I like alot on befallen but if there was another server move I would be out.
As far as the leveling part I got 80 mystic in little over a week and now basically had to back peddel waiting for others to catch up or help others with what was an easy solo quest for me. I do however think ROK is a good expansion it just needed both the solo and group aspec appernt to all equally it shouldnt of been a gring quest lvling spree. I enjoyed the quests on my main the first time I did it.. but I dont wanna lvl any alts past 70 becuase I did the quests and dont wanna do them again. there was nothing my main did that my alt must have, unlike say KOS where I was able to lvl all my alts form 60 to 70 working Hoo’loh, MOA, and Claymore quest lines. By the time I was done w/ hoo’loh i was 65 to 67 and MOA and claymore were at their 1/2 way marks or more when I hit 70. I loved the hardness of those quests and the rewards were worth the effort on every toon. How many times do I gotta work faction on ROK? well to many to really care and no faction worth sideing for out of comfort, not like velious days where you knew the Giants or dwars or dragons and worked your ass off to get good faction.
At the present Im gonna work on an alt and see where the game goes if epics are less then epic and my alts have no choice but to run the 100000000 quest to lvl 80 then I might end up taking a longer break. The really sad part is I seen more newbies come in on eq2 this expac then any others and they can lvl up even faster then I did back in the day but it just means they will lvl fast enough to relize their wow account still isnt expired and they are probly just gonna go back or move on. Here’s hopeing they relized their mistakes at SOE and some changes will be fixed becuase I dont pay 13$ a month to play a solo game it’s a waste of money.
You better be careful, EQ2 might break up the band! All in all, you are half-way to 80, and the expansion has only been out for a little more than 2 weeks? That seems a bit fast to me!
But I would rather do it in dungeon crawls than solo questing.
Getting one character to 80 is just the first step. I have two characters that need to be 80 — which means doing each quest twice, though I do two box them so that only causes issues for collection quests. Then I have a jeweler to get to 80, and tailoring as well — my two crafts. Only then can I really start to focus on the real work in RoK, which is (finally) grouping and working on the pre-raid armor and weapon sets, and then the real grist of RoK comes: the raids, and completing the epic quests when they are added.
It is vital that I have everyone to 80 that I need to be there so they don’t miss the initial wave of groups working on the epic quests, because it’s been my experience that if you come late to it, it’s much harder to find groups. The guild is usually too busy raiding to help anyone with non-raid things unless you can spend a considerable amount of time outside of raiding forming groups. My guild’s 7-day-a-week raid schedule made this sort of thing impossible to do.
My guild is dying, which means I will probably need to find a new guild, and I can’t do that without being level 80 and having all my spells and combat abilities at Adept III or better, which will take considerable harvesting and grouping, since the Troubador masters on the broker are stupidly 70p or greater even for abilities I almost never use, and silicate loams are horrendously priced on the broker (I have managed to harvest only two; I’ll need about thirty total). And it’s likely casual raiding guilds will suspect I only joined to get my epic, and then plan to leave for a higher level guild — this was endemic in EQ1.
So; it would be one thing if I had a year to level, but I don’t. I must get it done as soon as possible, and thanks to RoK, my troub will have to do it solo, while my cleric gets the loot-dropping instance groups. But because I hate soloing so much, I get distracted and do other fun things instead. Last night I wanted to start on the Kunzar Jungle quests, but instead ended up doing an instance with my cleric, which got my troub a new weapon, but didn’t get either character much closer to 80, since instances give very little experience on their own in RoK.
So yeah, I feel a little pressure to level :/
<__>
Psst don’t tell anyone but we’re raiding tier 8 with mostly tier 7 fabled stuff and masters.
Possibly, but you would want more from a recruit. Nobody wants to recruit someone if they aren’t sure they are serious about contributing, and being level 80 and at least Adept 3 spells/arts would be the minimum I’d expect a raid guild to require. Otherwise, how do you know someone isn’t just going to gear themselves up at your expense, then jump to another guild? You don’t.
It is a small world. Everyone has a past and if you have enough connections you can do some background checks even cross server. If there is someone in guild that is willing to vouch for you, that can count for a lot too. After all, abilities and gear can be easily acquired, good players that fit your guild are hard to come by.
I’d hire you tipa 🙂 sadly my guild is not raid and havent found a good guild since Revo went down hill :/ But yeah I think what you said make’s the most sence you should be lvl 80 w/ AD3’s to at least look like your willing to put forth the effort to raid new content. And if Zygwen is raiding T8 content w/ T7 fabeld and masters it just goes to show that soe put more effort into the solo content then anything else