Tomb of Thuuga. The boss fight is hard to take screenshots of because of positioning.
Yes, yes, I know I don’t have time for raiding, nor the desire to have some group of strangers have control over how I spend my evenings. Hardcore raid guilds have always seemed at odds with modern life. You mean, you actually raid seven days a week? You seriously expect that every single night of their lives, people will want nothing better than to sit in front of the computer and
I love raiding, but there is no way that hardcore raiding is good for you in any sense at all. I quit that self-destructive lifestyle last Spring and will never go back. And, I consider any game that encourages or requires such dedication (see: EverQuest, World of Warcraft) as encouraging a really psychotic playstyle. WoW is even giving out a unique title for the first person to hit level 80 in the expansion. They even used to have a PvP ladder system that required you to do nothing but battlegrounds 24/7 — with little or no sleep — to reach the top. They did finally change that.
When I quit raiding, I quit EQ2. It was when we were starting the Nostalgia guild in EQ1 (a game I had quit under similar circumstances a year before), and getting that going required a lot of time anyway. I didn’t log back into EQ2 for about a month. My guild there kicked me out. But I felt great. I was getting plenty of sleep. I stopped worrying about how I was ever going to finish my mythical epic. I absolutely stopped caring about EQ2 at all. Not because the game isn’t fun, but because it was taking up too much of my life.
Stargrace eventually got me to pick up EQ2 again with her EQ2 Nostalgia branch, but even with that, I haven’t been playing EQ2 much. I have way more fun playing a variety of games casually than one game to the exclusion of all others.
So, given ALL THAT…
Yesterday was my EQ2 crafting day (or was going to be). I did some writs to hit level 60 tailoring, logged on to my jeweler and made a couple of rings for a guildy and a set of tier 4 jewelry for a random stranger, and was trying to decide between starting up tier 7 tailoring or to betray my necro to a conjurer when I was invited to a Tomb of Thuuga raid. This is the tier 1 Kunark raid where you kill a spider who spawns cocoons and more spiders, similar to the EQ1 Volkara raid in Dragons of Norrath.
There are some very nice scout boots that drop from there, so what the heck… it is an easy raid, and it had been awhile…
After two tries with different strategies, we took her down. That didn’t finish the night… we rolled to the Shard of Hate, where we easily killed the two easy bosses, Dreadlord D’Somni and Demetrius Crane (getting me a master spell, Countersong, along the way, YAY!), and then, amazingly and astonishingly, Master P’Tasa, the first time I have ever been part of a raid that killed him. (And it was a pickup raid! Imagine!)
He dropped the ring Signet of Betrayal, and I won the roll. Winning loot is the Scooby snack of raiding. It’s easy to be all blasé about raiding. Then you win something and it’s all like, “oh, what’s this on my finger? Just a bauble really. I’m sure nobody is interested in this old ***—> SIGNET. OF. BETRAYAAAAAAAAAAAL <---***". And now you need more. You start looking up strategies for raids you haven't seen yet, and whittle a carving of Trakanon into your desk with a pen-knife, leaving the blade stuck quivering in his little wooden heart. Yesssssss fear me, Trak. Your death is coming......
Huh? Oh, wait. That's right. I gave up raiding.
Tonight, Nocturnal Wrath, the guild that hosted the pickup raid, plans to finish off the Shard of Hate, and they invited those of us who hitched a ride on last night's raid to stick out a thumb for this one.
I've at least tried Master P'Tasa before, but the rest of the Shard of Hate I have never even seen. I wonder where I'll be tonight. 7 PM Eastern time. Najena server.
Hmm.
*snicker* Oh how I know the feeling all too well. I’d be right there raiding too! =) When I’m in a raiding guild, I reeeaaally enjoy nonraid days, but when I’m not in a raiding guild, I yearn to raid every day. *sigh*