redefining poosae in the 21st century - bow down~

And how totally anti-climatic was the AoE?

I literally laughed with memories of Vyemm-Vulak. The closest thing I can compare this encounter to is like a bad fireworks show where the grande finale goes over like a turd in the punch bowl. So anyhow, you work your ass off on and then own the ring in what's actually a pretty fun bit of coordination - yay! We win! Err... no, actually you get charged with a big gaping pussy, and some where deep in Kael, the Statue is crying someone's stole his gig with such a wuss. I'm not sure what the point is really, but the Evil Empire was more than happy to oblige his request for a beat down after a record setting 2 dramatic weeks sparked by lunch counter sit-ins at the cave to protest any other event and everyone's favorite post-wipe past time - The Blame Game!

Actually it is funny now, in retrospect, but I wouldn' want to go through that shit again. You need massive prep time, not only in-game, but off line, cajoling your guildmates to log in. Then you have to deal with the ganned flag system, first forming up in PoEa, smuggling in your unflagged, having them click into PoEb and then camp.

Mo fish done right

Repeat ad nausem, but throw in a liberal dose of bitching, moaning and boredom. Then you have to en mass zone again to PoEb, reform your, of course, bugged raid, and hope and pray no one gets booted out lest you force EVERYONE back out again to retrieve a person. God, so fucking painful - I play EQ for fun, not to do advanced studies in logistics. Without even killing one mob, we've pissed away an hour, easy - hoo yah, EverQuest, you're in our world now - well thanks, I always wondered what retarded people were looking at through their 1000 yard stare, and now I know. Oh but don't worry, the best part is a head, because once you're in place, you need massive coordination and communication - this part, is fine - MMORPGS *should* require such, that's a least half the fun working in concert with your guildmates. But where it breaks down is with the recent obsession VI's been fostering to swell 'required' raid sizes - I'm not sure what the magic number is, but with the current game, its interface and our means of communication, 72 is doable, but certainly not enjoyable.

...has left the building.

Oh well, I am glad VI's putting new models in the game for armor and equipment in PoTime, thanks to my guild for the new Mecha flight suit!

No Rocket Man jokes, hot dammit

And in other news, Jesus Christ - I've had this rant built up for a while, and I held off as long as I could: do you guys in San Diego listen to nothing in the volumes of feedback you receive? You took the one redeeming quality from the gannfest known as POEA, knowing the status of the rings, and willfully removed it - and not your normal "Oops! I Did It Again" fuck up, which is about as cute as Britney with no make up on. How fucking sadistic are you guys to put a guild through those events only to gyp them on the loot? Again, I'm forced to ask what exactly is the risk of those rings being farmed night after night, because if you haven't noticed, it's not exactly a quick and easy thing to spawn/kill Arbitor... or it was, I should say. Now once the rings are down, any ahole can walk in there, kill a single ring and spawn the Arbitor. And do so every 2 hours. So, like - please explain? The whole point to these ring events - remember all the PR you guys spun about the AC RoF one? - was it would always be up for a guild to try with only a small penalty for failure. Now you can fucking WIN and still lose. I'm here to help though, so let's back up and I'll give a little refresher on basic game design: WIN = LOOT. We spend 90 minutes fighting a non trivial ring and win, we get rewarded. Rat-Leaver-Pellet.

Before I uncoil with more of the pissing and moaning, let me say I agree with VI's intent: too many guilds are in the Tier IV planes too soon and got there too easily. RZ wasn't the throttling point they'd hoped he would be - at least not in the face of spoilted pathing, 3-4 days respawn (what the fuck were you guys thinking?), 280 member joint raids and other shit that wasn't supposed to happen, but did. The only way to slow down the progression of guilds not intended to be in the upper planes yet and not fuck those who've legitimately earned access was to make it unprofitable and untenable for those not up to the challenge, and, surprisingly, VI did a good job of imposing a bit of self-selection on guilds by increasing the difficulty the mini-bosses in PoFire and PoWater such that farming elemental armor isn't the candy land of before. To this point, things are fine - for a guild 'intended' to be in Tier IV, adding 5 mins more to killing Hydro or losing a few tanks on the suxpheonii really isn't a big deal, but again, let me remind you how uncool it is dilute the value of skill with unnecessarily random unresistable elements - we get it, believe me, you hate MT's. We do, too - but you a better fix. Anyhow, what, however, is rotten lies in the bosses were not buffed up - so now you're in the curiously gay position of having guilds give up on killing fucking PYRONIS and yet go off to ganking Fennin Ro - you know... the GOD OF FUCKING FIRE. Oh hey, let's do Nagafen but I hope Stone Spider isn't up or we're fucked.

Episode IV: A New Hope

With all our thanks to Bzul for kick starting us out of a rut and successfully working very hard to get us back in fighting form, we bid him congratulations and best of luck in his new job.

LoS's last great Troll Gawd has passed the baton and mantle to Razumihin - our new Guildleader!

Actually that heading got me to thinking, and oh how I'd love to rip on SW:G here, but no, not this time. Anyhow, it got me to think of the most recent chapter in the adventurous journey which is Tork's life. A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far, away - specifically, near the tampon area in Wal-Mart - a Rebel spy...

As you all know, I really am a big fan of keeping everything silky smooth below the belt - I mean really, just the aerodynamic savings alone merit significant consideration, not to mention all the hygienic benefits, but if one were to hypothetically flex out in the mirror some mornings after a shower then it's simply more aesthetically pleasing rather than some Pomeranian-esque patch of fur inexplicably erupting from no wear. Once I was all flexed out and hit a Hercules pose and I heard the siren song, and for a split second, for the briefest of instants I considered shaving my arm pits like all the wrestlers do - but I quickly discarded it.

It never happened.

What?

NOT GAY.

But I widely digress - so anyhow, in my personal grooming, I've always used the razor (yes, I have 2, one for my face the other for downstairs needs), but like - well the end result is great but it comes with a host of problems, not the least of which is the fact I'm tooling around an extremely sharp object around the area I could least afford to fuck up - I always imagined I'd sneeze right as I was coming around the horn and wind up with a red racing stripe in the worst kinda way. But assuming everything goes well there, you have to contended with the stubble, which believe me, after 3 days, every time you roll over in bed it feels like millions of hornets have beset your cack, sack literally a prickle pair (tee hee!) swinging low, and you end up curled in the fetal position, clutching a pillow to your groin and rocking yourself in a feeble effort to assuage the firestorm all 50 million nerves are enveloped in.

There has to be a better way - so the clipper incident aside, I am always on the look out and a few days ago I thought I have found my answer while watching a monster truck rally on TV: new Nair Vanilla Smoothie Bikini Crème, which claims,

Now, the obvious question aside, that of who exactly was able to sell Nair a spot during a monster truck jam, because that dude is going to go far in this world as a scummy ad executive, I had to try this stuff.

But how to get it discreetly?

I didn't wanna look like a huge perv so I figured I'd go to Wal-Mart after a late night of raiding, and conveniently enough the guild obliged, so while they were doing loot or some shit, I ninja logged and made my way out to the store boldly. Rolling to a stop, I noticed it was 2:40AM or so, and looking around the nearly vacant parking lot I smiled in sly triumph at how incredibly brilliant my plan was. I hopped out and strolled into the store, eschewing any notion of getting a cart or basket and headed straight to the pharmacy area.

After a brief tour down the aisles strew with the detritus and debris of the past day's stampede, I found the Nair, three different varieties none the less. I dunno why but curiosity got the better of me and I popped the top to smell it, gently squeezing it to express a little of its oder - and of course despite my care, it wound up farting some Nair out in a wet gasp. I wiped a few tiny spattered drops off my glasses and drug my cuff by my temple to clean up and headed for the checkout counter eagerly with my bottle of genital joy. I stopped however as I passed the aftershave - hey, I needed some because while I only have to shave a couple times per week, keeping my face moisturized is essential - plus I really love how Gillette aftershave gel (alcohol based of course, I'm no wuss) smells.

So anyhow, I see ONE register open (funny that at nearly 3AM) and I head to it, only to wait while this woman in front of me plods along at an infuriating slow pace transferring her goods from the cart to the cashier. 'Hurry the FUCK UP,' I silently thought as I calmly lied the delay was, 'no problem.' The lady and the cashier then both noticed I had placed the Nair and Gillette up on the conveyor belt behind the smiling yellow face of a plastic divider. Again I calmly lied while kicking my feet to and fro a bit, 'oh it's for my wife.' And then my oh-so-surreptitious plans, scant yards from the sweet smell of freedom outside the double doors, collapsed under the weight of one small indiscretion in word choice, et tu diction?

Somehow someone had sidled up behind me unawares, and a too-familiar voice raised up to ask, 'You're married now? Congratulations!' I blanched and turned slowly on my heel to face one of the sweetest elderly ladies in the world who attends my church. FUCK... MOTHERFUCK I cried out inside as the world spun in sicken hues of a punctured hubris. I never answered one way or the other, fumbling with half assed word fragments and completely unconvincing back peddling that reduced me to a fit of babbling and blushing. God, cocky fool that I am, if only I had picked up the basket or cart I could have played it off or abandoned the Nair as clearly, 'not mine - dunno how that got in there.' If only... if only I hadn't been so distracted by the varied array of female grooming products, and WHY WHY WHY did I stop and get Gillette??

I dropped my shoulders and signed in capitulated resignation as the cashier pursed her lips at me, tilted her head and sounded out, 'ummmm hum' in knowing tones though a sick smile of enforced congeniality that passes for customer service. I paid up, turned and stammered a good bye, though I'm certain the back pew in church will be abuzz with activity next time I walk in.

After all that fiasco, I must say I wasn't expecting anything less than a complete bout of self injury resulting from use of the Nair, but remarkably the stuff *works* - after marinating (thx e.) an eternity of 5 minutes or so, I began to wipe things down, and yes, admittedly, after the initial shock of coming back with a wad of hairs on each pass, I got into it. Next time I'm going to try a pattern I think. Anyhow, I was left - as the bottle claimed! - silky smooth, and that's even more impressive on the sack, arguably the most painstaking area to shave on the entire human body. It sure beat stretching it out like a tri-corner wind sail and dragging a razor over it - at times I felt like I was an old time barber with one foot up on the toilet and scrotum pulled out well past my knee, stropping my blade on a leather strap. I finished up wiping things down and gave a quick rinse as no matter what the product indications say, I'm not leaving something that can burn hair off the body on my cack all night. All was wonderful as I proceeded to check out my handiwork in the mirror, but as I looked up to give myself a self-congratulatory nod I noticed I was missing a quarter of my eye brow, a thin sheen of Nair still gracing my brow. Do you realize how fucking slow eyebrows go back? And just try explaining that one at work, go ahead, if you do better than a mysterious gas grill incident which leaves you looking like a cross between Boy George and MC Hammer with a silky soft forehead, let me know.

Anyhow - I'm completely sold and if Nair wants to hire me as a spokesman, I'm game~ email me! Really the only hard part of the whole process is standing there legs spread, all lubed up down there with a vanilla and coconut scented lotion and but yet having to resist the temptation to unleash a flurry of spankage as you sqat sumo style. But don't say I've never done anything for you people, because while it might be too late for me, the fine folks at Nair are giving away free samples via the glorious anonymity of the internet! So what are you waiting for? Go, my hairy little flying monkeys, go! It has been pointed out to me the bottle specifically warns against using on the junks, so remember kids, leave the experimentation to the professionals and use only as directed!

Stalkers, Wanna-be's and Unoriginal Bastards

Quotes of the Day

Sorry, the headline was impossible to resist. Actually this was a hell of an epic fight for us - it's exactly what EQ is supposed to be with its challenge, pressure cooker timer and a surprising lack of homosexuality. Compare and contrast to PoAir, discuss specific instances in the space allotted below. I really loved the fashion in which we pulled off a textbook LoS kill - undermanned and down to the wire, with 7 left standing as Coirnav finally went down in a beautiful 14 minutes and 56 seconds. The only thing that sucked, really, was the loot,

Third Shield: check.

I can excuse all that shit tho - I got other things to bitch about. Like Air. Jesus Christ, it's not bad enough you actually have to do the Islands to spawns the Avatars to get up the stairs in the highest room in the tallest tower to find true love and true love's first kiss... or something like that.

No, what's truly bad is that there's no way to tell if the God-awful rings are up. Do you know how fucking debilitating it is to guild moral to do something like Sigi Island and end up getting fucked in the ass by some insulting yellow con ph trash? Who, exactly, is going to farm those rings that it needs to be even on anything but a token respawn timer? At least in Earth, for all its many (many, many, many) problems, the cacksucker who finished it was a decent enough human being to make the ring status knowable by something other than a 3rd party cheat program. Seriously, fix that shit - there's simply no reason to waste everyone's time on poorly scripted encounters any more than is necessary to stall us until PoTime is finished.

Oh yah, speaking of that... everyone wants me to rant about the PoTime rumors we've been hearing, but the truth is I don't have enough information to go shooting off my mouth. Instead, I'll just talk about the facts. After some great discussions, what it boils down to is there's no reason to be first anymore - with each enforced choke point the gap between 1, 2 and everyone else narrows. By way of history, in the past there have been significant advantages to going first, not only in terms of better gear collectively, but in that you're in competition with only the game itself. In PoP, we're seeing guilds leapfrog former number leaders despite getting kills 1, 2 and even 3 months removed - repeatedly banging your head against the glass ceiling isn't motivational, believe me, and farming is something you come back to when nothing else is left to do. Jaded is what the playerbase is like right now, and seemingly endless pieces of leather elemental armor (hint: 3 fucking classes use leather but it drops twice as much as plate that 5 classes share) hasn't been a good trade.

Cue Band

We're so glad to see so many of you lovely people here tonight, and we would especially like to welcome all the representatives of Illinois' law enforcement community who have chosen to join us here in the Palace Hotel Ballroom at this time. We sincerely hope that you all enjoy the show. And please remember people, no matter who you are, and what you do to live, thrive and survive, there are still some things that make us all the same:

It hit me rather suddenly you see, we were killing Xegony a few days ago and I got up to get a drink of water, but as I was walking towards the kitchen I noticed my world had an uncertain gravity about it, a fluidity washed over my limbs reducing all sense of granularity in my movements as I blinked my eyes forcefully in an effort to reconstitute my balance from the odd eruption of misinformation my body was being feed from uncertain sources. I slowly drew my glass of water and tried to drink but the smell of detergent residue gagged my now hyper-activated sense of smell, and a sense of general doom down south gave me pause. I tried mightily to pull it together but my head felt as if where balanced on the head of a pin, teetering and tottering, precarious in its perch atop my now pallored frame.

Huntched over, my hands and arms in a reversed embrace to the wheel to keep me erect, I managed to keep it between the ditches and scurried into the ER dizzy as a coot and with a sudden urge to shit my brains out. I'd just cleared the front desk triage station when the first wave hit, a powerful gastric revolt which jarred my body and unfortunately my bowels to motion. I made a valiant leap towards the waiting room bathroom, but in vain as a wave of liquid shit audibly exploded in my pants, a stream of liquid hot magma perforating my pants leaving them spackled with debris. In this shining moment of my life, I thought it only right to give a speech to all those present, 'FUCK. MOTHERFUUUUUUUUCK-' and then the seemingly innocuous fart given to me as a peace offering by my bowels to relieve my suffering turned Trojan on me, more shit and several Greeks spilling out uncontrollably in a froth of filth.

Needless to say, I quickly found myself in a hospital gown, shivering my ass off on one of those supposedly sterile hospital beds after being literally hosed off in the shower, an entirely separate tale for later. Beyond the thin veil of linens, I could hear the whirl of the floor polisher and smiled a little in fecund pride, which was quickly dashed when I also heard the titter of the female nursing students as they walked by my bed accompanied by the resigned spectre of professionalism, a med student in his first rotation. To his credit, he managed to break the news to me gently that while he hadn't intended upon checking for gastric bleeding when he reported for work, that was none the less the unenviable position we were now both in. I say 'we', and I really mean three people - the doctor, me and my ass. You see, there's really only one good way to check for gastric bleeding, and when the words roll over are accompanied with the snapping of latex examination gloves, quite simply, 'This will be a little uncomfortable.' is a bit lacking.

To add insult to injury (the order may be a bit confused, I admit), not only was something attempting to go in through the out door, but my guts had decided exactly now was a great time to deliver yet another strike package. I was puckered all up, violently contracting to stave off shitting on myself again and here he was poking at the back door. I was gripping the metal bed rails and my ass cheeks started to tremble, my knees broken into sweat and hearing Dr. Stangelove back there asking his assistant for more lubrication was not boding well in the least. Amazingly I didn't pop like a pierced balloon as he began his exam, but I was squeezing so hard I think heard his knuckle pop as his defiling finger made it's wearly egress, but I think I could have done without such a chipper, 'Your prostate seems okay, too!'

I drifted off for a bit, but again was awoken in the night, this time to shit with a vengeance, but now I was confronted with a different set of problems. You see, I was forced to use the ER bathroom. I'm no germ freak, but Jesus Lord, I don't wanna know what was in there before me. I threw down a quick coating of clearly protective toilet paper and dropped down, careful to swaddle my cack in my gown lest he accidently touch the rim.

All this was secondary to that last great insult to be visited upon me that night... have you ever tried to wipe your ass with the off hand? I had an IV line in for fluids and had to rely on the other hand to clean up what even under the best of circumstances would have been a chore. It really was the perfect ending to my adventures in food poisoning and yet more proof for "no good deed goes unpunished" as the offending agent turned out to be a cake I received as a thank you for helping someone out. I'd love say something witty or pithy to sum this who experience up, but I'm just at a loss to explain how my life stays so interesting, it's like trying to explain to your co-worker why you have 4 hospital gowns covering the seats in your truck, somehow the truth, 'so I wouldn't shit on them' is a bit inadequate.

Stalkers, Wanna-be's and Unoriginal Bastards

Sorry, I am so fucking tired, I'll have to update this tomorrow.

Quotes of the Day

This, too./huggles Berton.

03/27/03 - yah, I suck

Again even!

Good head, bad Gimblestan

I've been a bit distracted, but thankfully LoS has been focused, mowing through the blessed content - of course, we're keeping up the fine traditions of the Evil Empire in PoAir, much to the chagrin and consternation of more than few GMs~

Actually, killing Babs was pretty fun - or I should say learning the encounter was lots of fun and then actually doing it was "eh" - the point of the encounter could have been made in half the duration. I don't think I'm spoiling it too much when I say killing Xegony is only an after thought with this encounter, but while I applaud VI for trying to give us alternatives to straight up MT/CH rot fights, this one is waxes tedious and wanes fun very quickly. And I say this as a melee - a bard even, one who is an active participant in the fight. I sympathize with the rotation clerics, for whom this fight is akin to a VTesque 30-40 minutes worth of counting to 3 and pressing a hotkey. Keep trying, VI - at least you're headed in the right direction.

If you're looking for a fight that's clearly *not* the way to go, it's PoEB Warlord - call it shaky aggro or mem blur, whatever, it's gay. Memblur fights aren't fun or exciting, nor do they smack of innovation - more like desperation. They are frustrating in the sense no matter how well you and your guild might play, if the random number generator comes up bad, you've lost. Where's the incentive to be skillful? Anyhow, we killed him,

yay

and I am very proud of the perseverance it took to get here, let alone to down him, but I can't help but be disappointed knowing each subsequent fight is a crapshoot.

Ah now - Coirnav.

Now this is a honest to goodness fun fight (except it's in water - fucking annoying) which requires superb communication and coordination vice massive numbers and tons of clerics. I love the short timer, and I'd actually prefer it were always the min duration, as it leaves you scrambling for an exciting 15 mins. Forcing players to press themselves vice press their luck makes each phase of the script an accomplishment - the pace also fucks buffwhores. Getting the right buffs quickly is important, but given ample time to obsess, too often players stray to the wrong side of preparedness by fixating on the minutiae, as if ac and hp alone will stand in the stead of skill in the larger sense of winning. I can't tell you the number of times we've had despawn happen when many were paralyzed to inaction because 50 people required "just one more buff" to go. Res Effects and Acid Jet - those are a real man's buffs. Don't wear out ghetto ae or the fast timer, but more encounters that similarly test a guild would be good.

Anyhow, I'm not a MT hater, I think it's got a place, and I'm not a designer so you won't get words like negative player competition and enforced group dynamics, but since it becomes impractical to do any thing aside from MT/CH rot for the boss type mobs, I'd ask VI to consider some of the other twists to encounters - a Trial of Lashing writ large, withering archer fire or that find the rabbit one who's name escapes me - sending out a team of ninjas to locate and kill a particular mob or accomplish a specific goal while the rest of the guild takes on swarm. Oh - and no escort-the-gnome shit - I don't know about you, but if I were in a hurry and people were trying to kill me, I wouldn't be walking and I doubt it'd be lollygagging every 10 feet. I might spout nonsensical gibberish with lots of typos, so kudos to VI for getting some of it right.

Outwar Cocksuckers Please Stop Posting To Our Board

And that was asking nicely.

I think most boards get hit by miserably lackeys from this site every week or so with some deceptive, false or misleading post containing a tagged link to a site which borderlines on half a dozen counts of wirefraud (just my facetious opinion, I'm not a lawyer - tee hee). What I've heard, 'heard,' mind you, is some admins are adding outwar and similar to their bad word filters, thus rendering any link posted as garbage. I personally would encourage other admins to take a strict stance against scum like this - the occasional direct link I could care less about, but not epidemic and potentially disruptive spam at expense to my bandwidth and everyone else's time.

A good deal of them are EQ players are in the military and I have gotten mail from a number of you who read this page - something I'm honored by - thanking me for the laugh. To the contrary, I thank you, all of you, those servicemen and women who are in harm's way that I might wake up tomorrow in a world of unbridled possibility, one better than I left it when I went to sleep, safe in my bed.

Since the first murmurs of this country were borne in the hearts of Men, those hopelessly idealistic dreams have been cleft from a unyielding world by the terrible and awesome price of men and women who have died for principle; the very willingness of which such sacrifices have been stewarded, through the tumult of those would seek to suppress them, the voices of Man and the chorus of Men.

I mourn for those who have fallen, but I celebrate their lives by making mine one worth having died to live. Take care of yourselves that you, too, will come back home to live yours - God bless.

Stalkers, Wanna-be's and Unoriginal Bastards

Quotes of the Day