This is an account of my weekend, which I spent playing EQ. Lots of stuff
happened. =)
Friday nights I don't always play Everquest. I'll go down to Canterbury
Park and play poker, or go out and see a movie, or other semi-social
activities. But *this* Friday is different; Coirnav is due.
Our guild is *so* close to the Plane of Time. We've killed everyone but
Coirnav, and on our last attempt we got Coirnav down to 60% before the timer
went off. And because of a GM-enforced rotation, we will get this Coirnav
pop all to ourselves. So we have the luxury of waiting to get everyone
online and prepared, which is a very significant advantage over racing.
I had camped the night before in Water, so I log right into a midst of other
people at the zone-in, all LFG. Good, they're still Call-of-the-Heroing
people down to Coirnav. I had worried that I would miss Coirnav because I
work until 7pm Eastern and often don't get home until 8pm, and Coirnav is a
viciously short encounter unlike any of the other planar mobs.
As I settle into guildchat, it turns out the CotH link isn't set up yet.
Our guild officers once tried to tell people just to invis and swim to
Coirnav, but with 70 people swimming all over and random invis drops, we
ended up spending a lot of time recovering corpses and fighting off adds.
After that, we always set up a CotH which means a lot of tedious summoning
for our mages but no trains.
I decide to save the mages a CotH and swim down. I invis and plunge into
the water. Now, it would be useful if I knew the layout of the zone or had
a map, but I forge on regardless. I swim through tunnels, down tunnels,
past monsters that are yellow and red but can't see invis, and finally find
the place where we usually fight Hydrotha. I then ask in the guild channel
how to get to Coirnav from there; an SK officer volunteers to come get me.
He gets held up, though, so I decide to try and find my own way. I swim
into a larger room with named red mobs that can't see me. I try creeping
along the walls and end up running right into the SK officer, who had
finally come looking for me. He invites me into his group and I accept. He
sees that I'm full-sized, so he decides to shrink me. It completely slips
his mind that shrinking me will cause his invisibility to drop. One of the
red named mobs begins to attack. I decide to try and heal him, but I can't
keep up with a red unslowed mobs damage output. The SK dies and I die. He
sends me profuse apologies, but I tell him not to worry. I wasn't even
annoyed at all - heck, it was my fault for trying to find my way down
instead of waiting patiently for a CotH.
Eventually I get dragged and rezzed. After looting up, I look around and
notice quite a few people around me. I do a /who and there are 80 people in
the zone. Like, wow. Amazing how the numbers go up in situations like
this.
We clerics have our duties. We're each assigned a chanter to look over and
I cast Divine Intervention on mine. The clerics also join the AE channel
and we get our AE nukes loaded. This is exciting for us because we rarely
get a chance to do anything other than heal on a raid; many clerics are
repressed wizards and love the opportunity to nuke.
Finally, the trigger is pulled. I feel a little thrill run through me; it's
begun. In the next few minutes we'll find out if we can get into Time or
not. The trigger goes down easy, and soon after the first wave of adds is
spawned. They get pulled, and we AE nuke them. Joyfully I cast my AE nuke
and watch my screen get flooded with nuke messages. I had memorized two AE
nukes so I chain-cast them until the first wave is dead. That goes pretty
well, and we repeat the process for the second and third waves. All the
adds die, and now it's time to take on the mini-nameds. One gets pulled and
tanked, and as I'm healing the tank on that one another named wanders into
tank. There's plenty of confusion, and a fair number of people switch from
the first named to the second named. I creep forward and continue healing
the tank on the first named. After casting a Supernal Light - a relatively
fast spell that heals loads more than Supernal Remedy - I get summoned,
attacked, and killed.
I slump back into my chair after finding myself back in the Plane of
Tranquility. As I'm typing "Dead" into the cleric channel, I get a rez box.
I take it, zone back into Water, and loot my corpse. I get up and notice
that everyone is attacking Coirnav now - evidently the nameds are all dead.
I swim into the pen and target the Main Tank. I don't have much mana yet,
so I do a /who and find that most everyone is alive still. I take heart;
with few people dead and Coirnav under attack, we should be able to win.
I've generated enough mana for a Complete Heal and cast it, then quickly
toggle between the Main Tank and Coirnav. Coirnav is now down to 50%, and
at this point I'm positive we'll win. I get enough mana for another
Complete Heal, and by the time I finish casting it Coirnav is dead.
There is much cheering in the raid and guild channels. I scream "TIME" into
the serverwide.age channel, then swim towards the Planar Essence. I hail
it... nothing happens. Quickly I check; I'm still in the raid. I swim a
little closer and hail it... nothing happens. In full panic mode, I nudge
closer and hail it again... and this time I get a response and a new shield.
Yay!
I have some work to do, so I equip my epic and get to work. I swim around
looking for corpses and rez them. I then swim outside the pen to find more
corpses. Although most everyone gets flagged, a few people who died early
and whose corpses I rezzed last missed out on the flag. Darnit.
There's loot but I don't care. I TL out and run to the bank in Tranquility.
Quite a few of my guildmates are already there, including my guildleader. I
grab the other three shields out of the bank, then ask my guildleader if I
can have the Plane of Time keymaker. He responds by announcing in guildchat
that everyone who wants to have a key made should head to the Time zone-in
marker. So I run there, to find quite a few of my guildmates have formed a
line. I run to the end of the line, which is as straight and neat as you
can imagine, some forty people long. One guy comments in guildchat that
it's amazing that we could form something so perfect given our problems
following raid instructions sometimes, and I am forced to agree.
Our guildleader hands the Plane of Time keymaker to the first person in
line, who makes her key then turns around and gives it to the next person in
line. The keymaker is thus passed from person to person. I realize that
I'm about to lose my one and only chance to look at the Coirnav shield, so I
equip it and spend about ten seconds admiring it. It actually does look
nice. Still, getting into Time is ever so much more exciting than a new
shield graphic, so when the keymaker is handed to me I quickly shove all
four shields into it and hit combine. I get a new Essence that is, alas,
not a shield. I pass the keymaker to the next person behind me.
Meanwhile people are asking what to do after getting their Plane of Time
key. Someone responds that you have to zone into the Plane of Innovation
and head to the factory. Now, some of my guildmates enjoy tormenting people
with false information, and this sounds like a fabrication to me. Someone
else responds that you then have to beat the Behemoth five times in a row,
furthering the fabrication. So I say into guildchat, "Do you really need to
go to PoI?" "Yes," one of the officers says. No one contradicts that, so
instead of trying to click on the Time marker in Tranquility, I head to the
windmill and zone into PoI.
Fortunately a group is XP-ing at the zone-in, so the way to the factory is
clear. I still invis myself as a precaution. I run up to the factory door,
which is being held open by someone with a key. I'm told to turn left and
talk to the robot. So I turn to the left, enter a room with a large
machine, and talk to a nearby robot. He has a conversation tree but it
seems to be going in the wrong direction. Then I notice that there's
*another* robot. I talk to it, and this time the conversation seems right.
Finally, I get TL'd to a tiny little zone - and graphically it's neat. A
huge clock looms over you. I run up the path to a gnome and have another
conversation with him. Then I click on something - and get the message,
"Entering the Plane of Time."
Like, wow.
After I zone-in, I let out an /ooc "Woo hoo!". A bunch of my guildmates are
here, as are a couple of people from the server uber-guild. One of them
comments, "It's like watching a bunch of five-year-olds on a ferris wheel."
To which I reply, "Like you didn't do the same thing yourself." He
responds, a little to my surprise, "Of course I did. :)". I guess I'm so
used to taunting from the uber-guild that a genuinely understanding and
appreciative remark is unexpected.
I run around the zone, which is full of non-KOS untargetable mobs. It's an
interesting but not spectacular layout; kind of an amalgamation of some of
the other PoP zones. After perhaps thirty minutes of exploring, I decide to
zone out. I try to find the zoneout, and in clicking on things I zone into
PoTimeB. I quickly zone out; the uber-guild is in the middle of one of the
phases and I don't want to do anything to screw it up. We and the
uber-guild have already worked out a Plane of Time rotation. They're being
surprisingly accommodating about it, although I suspect mostly that's
because without a rotation we could really screw things up for them.
I still can't figure out how to leave the Plane of Time, so I finally cave
in and ask. Turns out you can't; you have to gate or be TL'd. So I gate
myself out.
Normally we would still be raiding, but the excitement over getting into
Time has definitely not put us in the mood for any more raiding. We're too
busy celebrating. =) So I ask if anyone wants to do some Guk LDoN
adventures. I want the cleric spell Bulwark of Vie, which is sort of like a
Rune spell except it absorbs 10% of incoming damage rather than 100%. I'm
three normal adventures away from it - or one hard and one normal. People
usually aren't too keen about Guk, though, since the rewards at other camps
are greater. I finally cajole a group together, and we get two normal
adventures done before everyone has to log.
Saturday I log on. We're planning on Rathe again; we're gonna kind of hold
off on doing anything other than trials in PoTime until we get more people
flagged, and a few still need Rathe and more still need Coirnav. As soon as
I log in I get two separate invites for groups from people in my guild, but
I turn them down saying that I want to get a Guk group together. Again with
some cajoling (the polite word for whining), I get a group together. We run
through it and complete it. I finally have Bulwark of Vie, only the third
cleric with that spell in the guild.
Oh, and at the same time I dinged my 100th AA. I am woefully behind on
AA's; I've been spending my free time on odd projects like, say, working on
becoming a Grandmaster Smith or developing Marrtuk, who is now 53. But
lately I've put Marrtuk on the back burner and focused on AA's. This was
prompted by the fact that I always had to defer on casting Divine
Intervention because I didn't have Unfailing Divinity 3, which greatly
increases the spell's chance for success. I got sick of that, so finally
bore down and got UD3. Then I decided I really needed to beef up my AA's.
Heck, I didn't even have Healing Gift 2 or Healing Adept 2, being about the
only cleric with his third AA title without having maxed those two AA's out.
I have Innate Invisibility to Undead but I don't have HA3. I've finally
maxed HA and am now working on Advanced Healing Adept, after which I'll go
back and finish up HG3 and AHG3. And *then* I need to work on Celestial
Regeneration, which is suddenly a very useful and important AA. So I have
to start bearing down and getting XP rather than doing other fun stuff.
After my LDoN, the officers call for a Rallos Zek raid as a way of passing
time until we get enough on to try Rathe Council. I zone in and immediately
start casting BoV on everyone. I have no idea how useful the spell is and
am trying to gauge results using a scattershot approach.
The script goes badly for us. RZ just isn't an important encounter for us
any more, and we really aren't putting our full effort into it. Tallon Zek
and Vallon Zek go very messily, and with time running out we have to rush
fake Rallos Zek. Alas, he wipes us, and the officers give us a good chewing
out.
During this first attempt, some anonymous person sends one of our rogues the
channel name and password of the uber-guild's raid channel. The rogue
shares it in guildchat and, curious, I try it out. Indeed, the channel is
filled with uber-guild people who are quite surprised by - and angry at -
the sudden influx of people from my guild. I type /wave, then leave. I
join and leave the channel a few more times (as quick as that, bang-bang
join and leave), wondering how long it will take them to change the
password. It takes them a surprisingly long time to do. I get a tell from
a friend I used to be guilded with who is now a member of the uber-guild.
She comments on my entering and leaving the channel constantly, and I
apologize. We chat for a bit, friendly-like. Been a while since we gabbed.
I'm curious why someone from her guild would give us their raid channel
password and she's stupefied as well.
Not all is peaches and cream in the uber-guild, evidently. Some of their
members are disgusted with their guild's behavior this past week. Like
killing the Coirnav trigger then TL-ing out, or inviting non-guild members
to come join them on a Coirnav raid in order to beat my guild in a race
(which turned out to be unnecessary when the GM forced a rotation). Lots of
people are angry about that. One of our Beastlord recruits was lured away
from us with heavy promises of loot and preferential treatment, and he took
it. After joining, he was quickly disillusioned by their behavior, and they
quickly forgot all about their promises to him. After a week or so he left,
and then asked some of our officers if he could get back into our guild.
Personally, I feel some sympathy for him; it's terrible to be lured away
with lies, find yourself in a bad place, then leave and find all the bridges
to the good place have been burned. And they have been; the response from
our members was an overwhelming "No" when asked if he should be let back in.
One person commented that if we allowed him back in, others may get the idea
that they can leave us for the uber-guild and if they don't like it they can
quit and rejoin us. I'm forced to admit that's a good point. While I have
a bit of empathy for the beastlord, he has to sleep in the bed he's made.
Back to the Rallos Zek raid. We reform and try again, and as we begin to
fight our way up, a huge train comes running down the stairs. And I do mean
huge; there must be 20 Decorin Elites mowing down our raid; evidently we
didn't wait for the script to reset. Most everyone runs screaming for the
zone. I cast Divine Barrier and press myself flat against the wall, hoping
I don't get aggro. Alas, as DB runs out I see big mobs running at me. I
cast Divine Aura and jump down into the pit. I run to the zone-out in the
pit, reach it, then turn around and scan the arena, waiting for the Elites
to show up. They don't, and after a minute I decide to rez a couple of
corpses I passed on the way - guildies who got blasted into the pit. After
rezzing them, I zone out.
We try a third time. This time we do better, although only marginally so.
TZ and VZ are still messy, but we finish them in time to give RZ a serious
try. When he despawns, we gate out and reform. I suddenly realize this is
an opportunity to get Marrtuk a flag, so I open up a second EQ window and
run him to Tactics. I then get my group to make me groupleader and zone out
and invite Marrtuk. Marrtuk then zones in and I park him there at the
zone-line. The guild moves up, drops into the pit, and beyond all
expectations performs one of the fastest and smoothest RZtW kills I've ever
seen. We even kill all the adds afterwards. I gate out, then zone back in.
Marrtuk and Monual move to the edge of the pit. I cast Target Divine Aura
on Marrtuk and he drops down, finds the Planar Projection, hails it, and
gets a flag. Neat; Marrtuk doesn't have so much as a Plane of Justice trial
to his name, but he has his Rallos Zek flag. =)
Turns out we don't have enough people to give Rathe a good try, and on this
Saturday with more guilds than ever Elemental flagged, many of our other
targets are already engaged. The officers call another early night, and I
log off right away, pretty tired.
Sunday we log in. Some people report that the mobs in the Plane of Time are
now targetable, which evidently indicates that the uber-guild killed Quarm.
Someone also wonders whether the fact that we are flagged for Time means
that *we* are now uber. We decide that it does, although I'm sure many
would disagree. The officers tell us to head for EarthB, we'll try the
Rathe Council again. I get there and we clear down with a minimum of fuss.
As they begin pulling mezzable Rathes, I cast BoV on the tanks. I'm grouped
with a tank, and when it's his turn to tank I ask him to keep me appraised
when BoV goes down. It turns out to go down pretty quickly against mobs
that hit for 3K. I end up re-casting it about every thirty seconds. I ask
the tank what effect it has, and he says minimal. I ask him if the thinks
it's worth it, or should I just concentrate on heals, and he says every
little bit helps and it's probably worth it to keep casting. Good enough
for me.
While pulling the second mezzable Rathe, suddenly all eleven remaining
Rathes flood the raid. Nothing wipes a raid faster than 11 unresistable 1K
AE's. We reform, pull again, get six Rathes mezzed, begin to pull the
unmezzables, and wipe when CC falls apart on the mezzables. We try again.
We get the six mezzable and work on the mezzable. My job is to keep the
tank alive on the eleventh Rathe that we're off-tanking. My tank is one of
our better-equipped warriors, and I'm wondering why he's so far down the
list. I find out; with just me and a druid healing him, he can't keep aggro
off of me. I keep getting summoned and hit. I use DB, DA, and TDA very
quickly. Warrior taunt really does suck. =( Finally, I die. Fortunately
the twelfth Rathe was already approaching zero, and our guildleader calls
for everyone to kill the unmezzable. By the time I'm rezzed back, all the
unmezzable are dead. I end up consenting too many people, and comically I
chase my corpse all over the zone as well-intentioned people attempt to drag
it to various safe places. After I loot, I run to the mezzables, which is a
real mess. Half are dead but the remaining are loose and killing everyone.
Out of mana as I am, there's not much I can do. In fact, I'm in jeopardy
since I keep getting dotted by the AE. Fortunately I have a right-click
Remove Greater Curse item, which I use on myself. I heal myself one time, a
tank one time, and then all of the Rathe are dead with 80% of the raid also
dead. There's some mild panicking but the officers assure us we have 30
minutes to kill the Avatar of Earth. We rez up, buff, then pull the Avatar
and kill it quickly.
Loot is announced, and one of the item is the Chestplate of Enchanted
Marble, an awesome plate breastplate and one of the items I have really,
really wanted for a long time. I've had the same breastplate for over a
year - Skyshrine quested breastplate - and I've had almost no opportunities
to even go in on a replacement. I went in on an Ornate Mold that dropped
when we were doing the HoH trials, and lost out to a paladin. In all the
times we cleared Vex Thal, not one Mail of Judgment dropped. And I was only
a trial member when we killed the Burrower Parasite and it dropped that neat
Flowing Thought tunic. That's been it; I've been on a few pick-up Seru
raids and he has yet to drop one of his breastplates.
I checked Time loot drops to see when a Timeless Breastplate Mold would
drop, and it won't until we beat Rallos Zek in Phase V. And given that we
won't be farming the Rathe for loot, this will likely be my best chance for
a long time. My best chance, but not a *good* chance; I imagine half the
guild is in on this drop. Already I'm cursing the fact that I went in on a
plate boot mold two weeks ago. It was only a minor upgrade over my Spiked
Toe Boots but I figured I should in case I ever want to replace my
neckpiece, which also has the Preservation of Xegony focus effect. It's
working against me now, though, since I've had relatively recent loot.
I wait... and wait... and wait. The officers must be having quite a
discussion. I imagine it's a difficult decision. I wonder what it must be
like; I used to be an officer discussing loot decisions when I was with
Avengers of Honor, so I have some idea, but not with a guild this size
discussing loot a lot of people are in on. I run over my qualifications in
my head; itemwise it's a big upgrade, I've been in the guild over a year, I
got loot two weeks ago, and while my attendance has been strong the past
couple of weeks, before that it was spottier because I was practicing up for
a bridge tournament. So I don't feel great about my chances on the
Chestplate. I sit... and look... and wait... and finally the announcement
is made: grats SK officer on Chestplate.
I grats him, but still feel crushingly disappointed. Again, no question he
deserves it. But I wanted it *so* bad. =) I decide then and there not to
go in on any more loot until Phase 5 of Time. No more getting minor
upgrades; save up the karma until I can go in on something that will be a
major upgrade.
Some people are going to try a PoTime trial but I decide to log, still
depressed about not winning the Chestplate. After I log, I quickly get over
it; we're in Time after all. =) And I got a useful new spell. And, when I
think about it, the uber-loot will come. And soon. I just need to be
patient.
--
-Richard
Monual Lifegiver
Archon of Rodcet Nife
Silent Tempest
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This page is Copyright by Skaarak; Everquest (TM) is property of Sony Online Entertainment
All stories and art work are Copyright@ by the origial owner/writer.
Most, if not all stories, were taken from newsgroup alt.games.everquest (AGE), I recommend that anyone who gets a chance to read it should!