A Sarnak, a Goblin and a Burynai walked into a bar, and seeing all were of an adventuring type, decided to form a guild together. They went on many adventures, and after awhile, realized that though they really liked each other, they had different goals. The Sarnak loved exploring and seeing new places. The Goblin loved battle, and would fight anything. They Burynai liked finding shiny things. And so each would make excuses not to do things together, so they could do more of the things each loved best.
Kind of feeling the same way about my guild. The guild leader quit the guild day before yesterday; probably to go to the PvP server full time. The guild news page, when it was updated, was often updated to show how he was doing over there, instead of any of the guild’s accomplishments, of which we had few. But then, he did blaze to level 80 and buy all his masters, so maybe he’s just left to join a lot of the old hardcore EC people over in Deus Ex Machina.
All this came up yesterday while I was in Unrest, desperately trying to level (and I did, Ding 75!), when we had a guild meeting in Ventrilo. What it basically came down to, was we weren’t being hardcore enough about leveling, or logging in to do KoS zones. I immediately brought up the soul-killing seven day a week raiding schedule; no person with a real life could ever do that, and I hadn’t been for a long time. EQ2 is not my life, and four-five hours a night, every night, is not “hardcore”, it’s crying for an intervention.
I mentioned that only kids have that kind of time, and was immediately jumped on by a kid who said he didn’t have that kind of time EITHER.
They reluctantly agreed to perhaps consider that at some time (this has been an issue for a lot of people leaving the guild, and I’ve considered leaving as well because though I don’t raid 7 days a week, playing an alt to avoid being required to raid when I would like to play my main for fun for once can’t be a good thing).
The leadership (what remains of it) seems to think we are the Eternal Chaos of two years back; the top guild on the server and one of the top guilds server-wide. We aren’t. Those people all burned out. And those who DID eventually return to the game, mostly joined other guilds. Those of us in the guild now like to raid, but EQ2 is not the core of our lives — we want to see everything, but it doesn’t have to be tomorrow. We like to work on hard content, but not every day.
That was the guild I was looking for when I joined. The constant turmoil of people leaving because we’re not hardcore, or because the raid schedule is unrealistic, or for other reasons…
Sigh. In other (game) news, Dera, my cleric, dinged 73 and picked up some new spells. The night before last, I did my first raid two boxing troubadour and cleric, and, as expected, I ended up focusing largely on healing, with my bard just plinking arrows from a distance. I’m not sure I want to make that my regular way to play.
I also finished the three language quests in Kylong Plains and Fens of Nathsar and got my action figures 🙂 Placed them on my bed stand table, where the cat will probably knock them over. The cat, or the mantis, or the naga, or the flying clockwork, or the harpy, or the…
8 thoughts on “EQ2: Okay, a Sarnak, a Goblin and a Burynai walk into a bar…”
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Heh, welcome to how I raided with my bard in T7 *sighs* As soon as the guild found out that I had 5 level 70 characters, and three were healers (even though they claimed to need a troub, not a healer) they’d beg me to stick the bard on AF and play the healer. It was depressing. I started making a habit of not letting guilds know I had the other level 70’s, and tried to refuse to box on raids. I hated the whole “a bard is an auto-follow class, you don’t actually need to PLAY one to have one on a raid” persona that floated (and still does) on my server. If you need a healer, recruit a healer. If you need a bard, recruit a bard. Don’t recruit someone then have them play something else because they have the capability to box.
Sorry to hear about the guild issues as well. There’s no way I’d be able to handle that many raids, and I’ve got the time. I just simply would burn out and crash, and end up skulking off to alts and hiding. That’s no way to play a game you pay for.
I would like to join pickup groups to finish SoD and stuff, but just can’t because we’re always raiding! Or rather, always trying to raid! And ending up doing soul-crushing KoS raids, which were already trivial and now will become more so. Well, Winterwing is always there for some fun.
All the problems you spoke of above are why I finally walked away from EQ1 for good. The last guild I joined was a hard-core raiding guild. They wanted to raid every single day and would get pissy if anyone either didn’t show up or left a raid early. They didn’t understand that at 36 years of age, I can no longer raid until 3 in the morning and then get up and go to work at 8. They also didn’t understand why I wouldn’t just skip lunches so that I could get off an hour earlier and get on to raid. And taking a few nights off a week to have an actual life? You would have thought that I had said I needed time off to date their mothers.
From the day I came back to EQ2, I have been fearful of falling into some routine like that again. That has been one of the reasons why I have just taken my time leveling. I love raiding, but my gaming enjoyment doesn’t revolve strictly around raiding. I need breaks between raids.
Next week, my guild is going to begin their first push into Kunark raiding and someone last night finally stated flat out that I needed to hurry up and level. I let them know in no uncertain terms that demands on how and at what pace I played was the fastest way to receive an invite to kiss my ass.
Hold on. That overgrown badger with man boobs–the Burynai–is a playable race? If so, it might be time for me to finally give EQ2 a shot. I usually like playing outlandish looking races–gnomes, goblins, etc. but that thing takes the cake. It’s like some creepy combo of a character from “Wind in the Willows” and that guy in the Dune movie who drinks his own sweat.
No, alas, the Burynai isn’t a playable race. Too bad! I would have DEFINITELY played one. So fluffy! Those are the dolls you get from some of the language quests in Kunark, on display in the bedroom of my home in South Freeport.
The Sarnak over on the left is the only playable race there.
And, um, all the Fremen in Dune drink their own sweat… you’re thinking of the Baron Harkonnen, I bet. In the Lynch movie, he drank the blood of his underlings. Yuk.
Oops. I’m a little lax in the Herbert department. It was Baron Harkonnen, though. EQ2’s graphics are just amazing.
Just wanted to say I enjoyed reading your blog. Some very true points made. Enjoyed your little story at the beginning. Sorry to hear about the breakdown in leadership and all that. It’s always an interesting experience some way or another. And congrats on 75!
Thanks, Drum! Nice to meet ya 🙂 Oh cool, you’re a UI modder!!!