As much as I'm smitten with Star Citizen, there isn't enough content for me to play on a regular basis. I'm also cautious about burning out by starting the journey so far in advance of a completed game. Thus far, I enjoy playing the information game. Cloud Imperium Games puts out a metric ton of information on a regular basis. There's always more to know and learn. That said, I do feel the hole of having a MMO in my gaming life. I considered but rejected returning to former haunts - no motivation or interest. I need new maps, classes, skills... A whole new world... sung in my best imitation of Jasmine.
The past few weeks, I've been watching former ArcheAge streamers play Black Desert Online on Twitch. I've known about the game for quite some time but my heartbreak over the cash shop implementation of AA has left me very wary of Asian imports with them. Many of the features I enjoyed in AA are somewhat present in BDO. Lots more content available than you actually need to level, player housing, trade professions, commerce that involves delivering goods to NPCs, lots of classes to choose from, a gorgeous world, etc. BUT it also has things I'm not fond of such as a hellish Asian grind, energy consumption mechanic tied to trade activities and ... a cash shop.
Knowing that SC is my main focus I've decided to CASUALLY play BDO and enjoy whatever it is I like about the game and ignore the rest. No serious end-game plans or goals to have the best of this, that or some other thing. I just miss frolicking around a virtual world with scenic locations, oceanic travel and messing with crafting.
My first opportunity to play will be in the next closed beta for NA/EU, which should be some time this month, given that the game is supposed to release this quarter. I've already decided on the Wizard/Witch which is a caster that can also heal. Hopefully the female version, the witch, will actually be available. I'm not a huge fan of playing male characters. If not, I'll have to deal with playing as Gandalf. The game has no shame about the inspiration for this class. The default face for the class looks EXACTLY LIKE the character version we know from the movies. I mean, exactly!
I have no plans to participate in the end-game which is PVP and GVG focused. That removes the need to have good gear, min/max abilities, optimize spell rotations and master combat mechanics. The PVP is also Free-for-All at max level, which is where I'll depart. Assuming I even I make it that far. *smile*
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The past few days have been interesting as I contrast and compare playing ArcheAge and World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor. When I’m in AA I marvel at how gorgeous the world is and that even at my new casual pace, I feel part of a breathing world and economy. In WOW, I’m impressed by the graphic update and how they’ve been able to breathe new life into old art assets and add more visual depth. I’m logging into both of these games for different reasons and find them equally fulfilling.
Sub On
My intention in WOW is to focus on the Garrison mini-game. So far, it has not disappointed me. Wow’s questing model and combat mechanics feel very old school to me after playing GW2 and AA’s level how u wanna. And the more active combat styles of GW2, Terra and WildStar. I really dislike having to stand still taking it to the face as a caster. It’s not something I’m used to doing anymore. I knew what I was getting into going back to WOW and for that reason, don’t want to focus on doing a lot of questing content.
From the features I saw, I felt as though the Garrison would have enough to occupy me for an hour a day – at least. Watching max level players managing their garrisons at level 3, it was apparent that I could spend even more time by collecting and managing followers, harvesting resources, doing invasions, etc. Enough so, that if I did nothing more than that, it would be worth a monthly subscription.
Oh My!
To get my garrison I had to play along and complete a quest series to unlock it. At first I was like “Ugh. Really?” But they’ve done an excellent job with the opening quest series. It took me right back to the cinematic feel of the opening experience in GW2 and when the Death Knight was introduced to WOW. Using Blizzard’s phasing technology, you’re actively involved in the story playing out, not a secondary participant running alongside 100 other players. It’s much more solo RPG-esk and I noticed the introduction of new objective completion mechanics. Nothing ground breaking mind you. There’s only so many different ways of getting a player to complete a quest task. Still, it was enough to make me notice the change. In under an hour, I had achieved my goal of unlocking my garrison.
Woot, this garrison is mine!
It’s an Integral Part of the Journey
Inside my lowly garrison, I immediately had things I could achieve – mini game tasks to complete. I started a work order to place my first building, sent followers on a mission and collected goodies from a crate. Simple stuff like that. Not a lot to do. But enough to wet your whistle and appetite for more.
To get more however, I had to venture forth and … quest. Here’s where I had to decide if I was going to turn that it a positive or negative. I decided that I would do what I felt like doing and no more than that. Although WOW isn’t designed as much to level in that fashion, my goal isn’t to hit max level. it’s to play with garrison features. And I might as well explore since I can’t fly past things. So off I went, out into the wilderness of Shadowmoon Valley.
Blizzard couldn’t have designed a better themed environment for sucking me into wanting to run around. Abundant, vibrant, fanciful and pretty zones are the bees-knees to me. It’s my style of fantasy MMO! It felt natural to do this and that, from the list in the upper right hand corner, while I was out exploring. We won’t mention the name of that “thing”, it’s pure evil. One by one, I got objectives done that unlocked more activities in my garrison. *Sahweet!*
Mine unlocked after reaching Garrison level 2
Even when I did stuff I wasn’t sure was directly tied to giving me new garrison features, they were ate least, directly related to the story playing out in WoD. It was still about me and the garrison I’m maintaining for the war effort. I wasn’t asked to go get pig ears for some dumbass farmer standing less than two feet from the blasted pigs. I was out doing serious business! Little by little, over the course of a few play sessions my Garrison hit level two, I’d added more buildings and unlocked a mine. Color me happy. Color it fabulous.
Hello there. My very own Paladin. She's mine ALL mine!
Jury is out
The jury is still out on how much PVE content I intend to do in WoD. My first priority is completing quests that award/unlock garrison features. What else I do along the way remains to be seen. I know that once mine hits level 3, I want to dig into the nuances for the benefits of having certain buildings versus others, collecting all the followers, gearing up my followers and doing garrison invasions. With all that at hand, I don’t know that I have the time for much more in WOW. I haven’t given up on AA yet and have farms and properties to manage there. I may see some dungeons here and there but only time will tell.
Yep, I’ve joined the 9,999,999 gamers playing the newest World of Warcraft expansion, Warlords of Draenor. Once I decided to unsubscribe from ArcheAge, I handed my money to Blizzard. I need to have a reliable MMO for the winter. I’ve not given up on AA. I’m holding out hope that Trion and XL Games can turn the ship around. However, I felt the need to voice my displeasure by withdrawing monetary support.
Sub Off
I’ve neatly downsized my operations in AA. My large farm plot is being used exclusively to craft and house Aged Cheese. I can’t fit 7 Aged Cheese larders down at a time, 2 cows for the milk required and 2 sheep to continue supporting my tailoring profession. Larders take 3 days to mature and do not require any attention in between. On my small farm I have another 2 cows and 2 lemon trees which also go toward supporting my Aged Cheese business. This change reduces my effort down to visiting those locations twice a day to feed livestock, draw milk and pick lemons.
I've become the Aged Cheese Lady
At my two houses, I’ve reduced the effort of harvesting and replanting yams and lotus multiple times a day, by raising chickens - nuttin’ but chickens. This serves to eliminate my peace time trade runs from Halcyona to Gwenoid. I’m harvesting eggs from chickens purely to remove the more time consuming effort of harvesting/gathering/butchering one thing to replace it again. Eggs sell at a decent price and were always part of my farming portfolio. The difference is they’re the sole focus of my Lilyhut operation, replacing the more profitable but consuming Yam Pasta trade.
Less Effort + Less Profit + F2P = Holding Pattern
My farming and trade operation used to require 3 hours per day minimum for farm management + 1.5 hours to do trade runs. I was routinely producing enough raw materials to support crafting 15 - 20 packs per day. My habit was to do at least two trade runs per day. When I was feeling more motivated and/or there weren't any guild activities taking place, I would do 3 or 4 runs.
Based on how things have been going in AA lately, I’m no longer willing to commit that much time or energy into a game I’m not sure is heading in a sound direction. My new line-up only requires a couple of hours a day tops but only yields 28 trade packs per week (14 Aged Cheese and 14 Milk Soap = 4 trade runs). That’s a huge reduction in production and the time required to execute it. Aged Cheese, Milk Soap and eggs will translate into more than enough money per month to cover using in game gold to retain my Patron status while waiting things out. I no longer have immediately goals to upgrade my armor, weapons or acquire a trade ship until I’m certain that I’m staying.
I will measure the success of this transition. I want it to stand on its own feet and not eat up the gold I’ve already earned. I removed gold from my character and placed it in the Warehouse, only seeding this experiment with 25G. I will no longer be purchasing Labor Potion from the AH either. All funds and LP earned will be kept to support on-going production, paying for APEX each month and acquiring Tax Certificates.
I don’t know what to say about MMO players these days. I’m all for PVP and pirating. I don’t consider ganking people in PVP zones “bad”. Sure, it’s lame and annoying to have players many times your level attack you while you’re questing but it’s par for the course. The same goes for pirating. It’s a fundamental mechanic of AA and an extension of PVP. I don’t like having my items stolen from me any more than the next person but I recognize it has a valid play style. And in those circumstance, even when outnumbered, you at least have the opportunity to defend yourself and your property.
What I can’t abide are hackers, exploiters and griefers who misuse game mechanics in a way where you can’t attack them. Where you are powerless in preventing them from initiating an incident is such a sucker’s route. Recently, we’re seeing an increase in two forms of grief attacks against trade pack haulers.
Case #1 – Dance Your Packs Away
Case one uses an in game item that forces a player to dance with the initiator. You’re not given an option – no warning or confirmation is required. If this occurs when you’re driving a farm vehicle, you will stand up from the seat, which allows another player to take it over. Even if you have Owner’s Mark on which prevents another player from taking control, they can make you dance until the Owner’s Mark wears off AND THEN take your shit. In order to steal your packs they drive the vehicle into a pack of mobs that will destroy it, thereby dropping your packs on the ground for the taking.
Trion has said that this is an exploit and a bannable offense. Too bad it wasn’t removed from the game back in Alpha when it supposedly was taken out. Or the item's dance feature disable - something that was also said to have been done. To date the game's track record on banning exploiters and keeping them banned isn’t that stellar, leaving their threats to ban people weak.
The most you can do is to spam Owner’s Mark anytime you’re near other players. If this happens to you take screenshots and report the participants. Don’t give up on trying to get the cart back. I’d drop the pack on my back and follow the offender, killing mobs they’re trying to have target the cart. Jump back on top of the cart and keep spamming “mount” so that you can disengage them and reapply Owner’s Mark.
I had a red player steal my farm wagon once in Halycona. The area was very crowded and I had trouble making it back and forth to my cart to load up the trade packs. The OM ran out before I noticed and someone started driving off. As a ranged class, I glided on to the top of the wagon and kept killing mobs they were heading toward while banging OM for dear life. Eventually, I unseated them and was back in control. Whew! It was a close call. If they’d made it to the roving Centaur pack it would have been lights out for my cart and trade packs.
Case #2 – Click to Your Death
Another ploy that can only be done by players of the opposite faction is to block the trade pack turn-in NPC with their bodies or carts. Doing so may cause you to accidently click (auto-attack) them or their cart which will cause the Neutral Guards to annihilate you and your cart. BOOM, your packs are now on the ground as free loot.
I'm front/left (ChittyChittyBangBang), inching closer each time they try a counter move.
At some points they had people standing all on top of me and hood of wagon.
As you can see from the screenshot above, I was in a stand-off with a bunch of jerks while trying to deliver packs in Two Crowns. The incident lasted almost 30 minutes. Players from my own faction tried to help but ended up being killed. And because the collision detection isn’t working as intended on the farm vehicles yet…still, you can’t push them out of your way. Players unware of this fact tried spawning their carts to help push the reds off the vendor but to no avail. It was heartening to see others come to the defense of a stranger. *GO KYRIOS*
I was so busy spamming Owner’s Mark and trying to edge forward anytime they moved an inch trying to out flank me, that I didn’t have time to warn others who tried to turn theirs in during the midst of the stand-off. Two players died and had their farm carts destroyed because they accidently clicked the red players instead of the NPC which is the goal of the griefers.
I can be very evil and stubborn when my buttons are pushed. I refused to give an inch or leave! I wasn’t going to retreat to turn in elsewhere for less money. Nah, I had as much time to waste as these idiots did. I turned ALL OF MY PACKS IN, one at a time by spamming OM and always having one pack on my back. The instant I saw an opening where my cursor could interact with the NPC through their bodies I turned it in. Rinse. Repeat. Thwart. After my cart was empty and unsummoned, I danced around them and threw them flowers while they portaled out empty handed. MUAHAHA
Sandbox games with PVP can attract a different breed of player. You need to be aware of the current exploits and grief mechanics being used to stay as safe as is reasonably possible. Knowledge is power. Landlubbers beware and good luck out there!
RIP Praetorian
It ended with a sudden and resounding finality. Praetorian, the dominant PVP naval guild in alpha and on Kyrios US, is no more. The membership was stunned and confused. I was out of town on business when the first announcement was made. There’s the public story of why this occurred and then there’s the behind the scenes and 2+2=4 story.
The last couple of PVP operations yielded few targets. I think two factors contributed to this situation. First there are fewer people playing ArcheAge. All of the exploit and hacker drama aside, normal gamer attrition would have dropped the numbers by now. Secondly, Praetorian was indisputably the strongest naval PVP presence on Kyrios. If you had any sense, you’d avoid the waters once we were seen gathering for our twice weekly operations.
Even so, the membership was still very active, excited and ready to turn out. For me, it was the highlight of the week and only consistent group content I was doing. It was a major factor in selecting Praetorian when the number of NA players in my former guild started disappearing.
Praetorian out doing guild trade run
The Story and the Story
The story being told is that a couple of key members – not the guild master mind you, decided that they wanted to go pirate. Being a pirate means both of the other factions are “red” targets. Two of these people happened to be the owners of the guild website and the TeamSpeak server. There were others that were going to go with them but not that many by my count. Going pirate means losing access to your current faction assets, as you can’t safely go into PVE areas where you have property or use your former faction’s cities. That means you have to have an alt account in family to access those assets AND also has a ship, donkey and very expensive farm vehicles. That’s not going to be many people. That being the case I doubt 5% of the guild was hopping on the pirate bandwagon.
Hrm…
Oddly enough, just before I left town there was an incident where many guild trade packs were stolen off of a guild farm. As guild members, we donate packs or materials for packs to support large trade runs for gold and resources to further our collective goals. There was some suspicion about who was involved and that the guild master was going to have to speak to them to address it. This is not speculation as it was openly discussed in TS with all members during a naval ops debriefing.
Guild turning in donated trade packs at Freedich
After I come to grips with the fact that this very organized, friendly and highly functional guild is about to RIP, I speak with the guild master one-on-one. He informs me that he demoted the people suspected of the trade pack thefts down to members. In retaliation, they locked him out of the TS server and the website. These are the same people that suddenly want to go pirate. Okay, so we’re not really breaking up because a large group want to go pirate. It’s a few people who happen to own website/forum and TS service being used and are holding that hostage with the guild name. Got it.
Why not Move On?
One of the problems with AA is that ships are untradeable and owned by a single person. It doesn’t matter that a whole guild contributes to the effort by funding that person with the massive amounts of resources necessary to purchase the designs and then obtain all the building components, it’s wholly owned by that ONE PERSON. So when that person gets their shit on their shoulders and leaves, the ship goes with them. At the core of our naval PVP operations are very large ships, notably, Praetorian had the server’s first Black Pearl. The owner of that was going with the pirate gang.
RIP one of AA's best naval PVP guilds
From the guild master’s perspective, he’d rebuilt guild once already after an amiable split from The White Order, now notorious griefers that he didn’t want to associate with. He was feeling extremely betrayed albeit probably naive in not having control of those assets himself as the guild master. However, people often complain when everything done as a guild is in the guild master’s name, since he/she as a single person can quit or leave. We’ve already seen that drama play out in AA multiple times where unscrupulous guild masters have actually sold their accounts after gaining castles, a feat that is IMPOSSIBLE to do alone but is attributed to and awarded to only the guild leader. Praetorian’s practice was to spread the wealth by splitting that activity and contributions to those effort across different people instead. Unfortunately, those people banded together and took their toys with them. Oh well.
The guild master decided to exit stage right, returning to League of Legends. The remaining officers tried to handle things with grace, bringing in other big guilds to give members options instead of abandoning everyone to fend for themselves. I decided to simply exit stage left on my own.
RIP Former Guild
Although there was a standing offer to return to my former guild where I was an officer, doing so wouldn’t resolve the reason I left. Of the NA players only 4 of us were playing with any regularity and because of time zone differences, rarely more than two of us on at a time. AA end game requires bodies and lots of ‘em. Going back would put me into the bosom of people that I enjoyed immensely but would leave me little more than a solo player in all but name. In fact, the Aussie players who made up the majority of the guild were MIA too. I had them all in my friends list and they were never on either. When I asked what was going on, I was told that they’d basically started playing other games and might be in TS but not in AA for the most part.
So lesson learned in this whole affair is that small guilds are social and fun but often inadequate for end game content. At least, the end game content in AA. Conversely, big guilds may have the numbers but are more prone to big drama, something I have zero patience for in what is supposed to be my entertainment. That in mind, I’m staying without a guild for the moment. I don’t like guild hopping. For other reasons, I’m toning down my game play which will exclude end game anyway so being in a guild isn’t necessary. I’m waiting to see if Trion/XL Games can turn this ship around before investing any more money or a lot more time. I’ve dropped by subscription and have gone F2P. More on that later.
RIP Kyrios NA Server
Because things can’t get much worse in AA, the servers have been down for more than 24 hours in an unscheduled maintenance. For a few hours 3 of the servers were back online with multi-hour queues. When I saw my server had a 2 hour wait I decided I had better things to do with my time. Fast forward to later that evening and all the servers are down again. The next morning only two servers are up, the others in maintenance and 4 missing from the list all together. My server, Kyrios, is among the missing.
According to some Reddit posts, when a couple of the servers went back online the property zones where empty. As in player houses and farms GONE. For the servers that are up there's a rash of players being able to place farms and houses directly on top of existing properties! Putting a house on someone’s farm, in effect, blocks them from getting to their farm. Like wah?? Supposedly, those servers were then taken back offline and haven’t come back again.
There has been NO WORD from Trion since 2 hour unscheduled maintenance moved beyond the expected completion time. More than 24 hours has passed and no updates on WTF is going on isn’t not a good sign and it’s definitely not good customer service. I can't recall a game server being offline for more than 24 hours. Certainly not one I've ever been on.
Lots of tinfoil hat speculation and rumors like “someone who knows someone says, the AC shut down over the long weekend and server data was damaged before the servers shut themselves down.” Uh whatever the case is it can’t be worse than the damage being done by speculation and not knowing. Trion’s silence is deafening in the face of so many other issues, this is just a kick in the nuts. I want to hold on. I’m trying to hold on. But OMG it’s one thing after the other.
When I named my farm wagon Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, I never dreamed it would fly.
Houston, we have a problem!
Seriously WTF is going on?? It may be time for me to disembark.
I was more worried about the wagon falling over into the steam below in some awkard position. Although using Rider's Escape on bridges is sometimes dodgy, I didn't have much choice. Luckly, it summoned it on the other end, only partially embedded in the hillside. :-/
Post Auroria
In the aftermath of disappointment in the release of the NA Auroria content, our guild chatter slowed down considerably. Guild members logging into ArcheAge was light for a couple of days. For myself, I decided to restructure my existing properties as though they would be my only pieces of land for the long term. This meant dropping tertiary produce and livestock to focus on priority production elements. Less profitable and/or items whose pricing was very volatile were removed from the line-up. I also added a new product that would help move another set of Trade Packs (TP) into the consistent 130% pay out range.
Gliding to the frontlines of the the conflict during NA Auroria release
New Trade Pack Production
I recently hit 50K proficiency in Husbandry and Commerce which prompted me to begin crafting and selling Multipurpose Aging Larders (MAL). MALs are items that are produced and turned into TPs right on your property. Due to the cost involved in purchasing the larders if you can’t create them yourself, a much smaller percentage of the player base produce them which is why the payout stays at 130%.
MALs are also good if you want to decrease the amount of time you have to spend tending your property. MALs take 3 days to age and do not require any interaction or maintenance after assembly. I also added TP creation from two more PVP enable zones which because of the variability in safe access to produce and transport TPs out of the zones, also stay at maximum payout percentages.
Rearranging trees on my small scarecrow farm
Using Multipurpose Aging Larders
To create MALs you must have the prerequisite Husbandry and access to a Farmer’s Workstation. If not, you can buy them from the Auction House. Before placing down a MAL be sure that you have all of the necessary ingredients immediately available. MALs will disappear if not stocked with supplies within 5 minutes – I think. I know it’s a very short timer and they’re not cheap. I sell the empty larders on the AH for 11 to 15 gold each, depending on the day, time and # already listed.
Larders are about the size of the small bamboo coops which means they only fit on properties that are 16x16 or larger. After placing your larder, choose from the 3 sets of food items that can be created:
Although the larder displays multiple levels, it only produces a single TP. Since it take 3 days to mature and only produces a single TP, you should choose the longest turn in route to maximize your profit. For example, my 16x16 is in Gweonid Forrest, making Sandeep my furthest Gold Trader turn in point. At that distance and 130%, turn in, Aged Cheese pays is 20G each, Doing this x 5 using a Farm Wagon yeilds up to 100G every three days. Not bad for being my new secondary trade pack product. But what I was really after was more time to do other things, making larders an excellent option.
Multipurpose Aging Larder on my large scarecrow farm in Gweonid
Looking a Gift Horse in the Mouth
Convenient timing or semi genius, Trion has quelled the anger from the botched release of Auroria on the NA servers for a bit. Or at the very least, they’ve pushed the conversation to page two of the Times. For players who already own land, the biggest reason for wanting property in Auroria was to grow Archeum trees. Archeum trees produce the coveted and very expensive components needed to craft ALL gear in the game – armor, weapons and accessories, among other things. This new influx from Auroria property owners, would over time, lower the prices. The current state of prices was making crafted items exorbitantly expensive, putting them out of reach for most players and bankrupting crafters, who weren’t even breaking even.
The addition of one new item into the Market Place (cash shop) killed two birds with one stone. Enter stage left – a new chest that has a chance to include a Rumbling Archeum Sapling. An Archeum tree variant with a 10% chance to produce a Thunderstruck tree (another insanely expensive item needed for vehicles), doesn't require Archeum water found only in Auroria and it matures in an hour instead of days. This new item was introduced at the same time Patrons were given a retroactive 10% discount on all Market Place gems they'd purchased. Suddenly, thousands of players had gems to spend on the new chests. In turn, this made it rain Archeum trees in AA.
Within hours, Thunderstuck tree prices plummeted from 1.2K gold to under 300! And if the tree wasn’t hit by lightning to produce a TS, it dropped Archeum when you chopped it down. Double whammy drop in prices, as Archeum costs fell instantly. Suddenly, the two most expensive crafting materials in the game are within reach of the many more players. Both of the supporting systems – AH and CS almost buckled under the onslaught of players accessing them.
For myself, I sold everything I could to get my hands on to purchase the two TS trees needed to upgrade my 2 slot Farm Cart, to the 4 slot Farm Wagon introduced in the Auroria content patch. After getting the TS and other components, still relatively expensive for a vast majority of players, I was able to craft my ChittyChittyBangBang wagon. Once again, I was busted broke. Hrm, then it dawned on me to see how many gems I had in the CS from the patron refund. Uh huh, lots. YES!! I purchased chests, planted saplings and landed 2 TS which I immediately sold. Then I noticed the prices of the trees themselves were going for 35g each – a for sure amount versus planting yourself and hoping for TS to sell. I immediately changed tactics and sold my saplings and invested all the gold into purchasing the materials needed to craft my next set of armor. SCORE
Maiden voyage of my farm wagon - existing Marianople
Two efforts that were going to require weeks of grinding whatever means I had to make gold, were suddenly within reach in 24 hours. I spent all that evening into the wee hours of the morning playing the AH – watching prices on items I’d horded and selling anything not needed for tailoring or crafting a farm wagon. I’ve already been using the wagon but haven’t started crafting the next tier of armor yet. I need another 3K proficiency first. I might craft the plus 1K proficiency rug that can be placed in your home to make it happen sooner.
New Place to Call Home
In a bitter sweet decision, I decided to leave TIIL, the guild I’ve been playing with since Alpha. This was a very hard decision for me to make. They are a great group of people and I’ve enjoyed every minute of their company. However, they are mostly a guild of Oceanic players and over the past few weeks, there are fewer and fewer people playing in the NA time zone. Between changing work schedules, travel and people getting busy in real life, I was often one of only 3 people playing during the week in my time slot. The guild would be gaining critical mass just as I was logging off for the night. *Sad Panda*
I tried to stick it out because Friday and Saturday were good times. People playing extended hours, there would be at least a few hours where there were lots of people on when I was playing. In the end, I realized that I was at a point of being ready to do more in AA and more in AA requires bodies. This is not a solo friendly world for end game content other than farming and running trade packs. And I don’t want to PUG what there is to do – top tier instances, Hasla weapon grind and world PVP. That’s what being in a guild is for. Only time will tell if this was the right decision for me. I’ve moved from a very social but ultra-casual guild to one that is more formal in organizing group content which means there are roles and rules.
I joined Praetorian, the guild I’d acted as the liaison for to have TIIL invited to participate in weekly Naval PVP events. My departure while sad was understood. There’s just no denying that there are very few NA players in TIIL while Praetorian is all NA. I hope to still help to coordinate TIIL participation in Praetorian events in the future.
Last Event as TIIL
I remained in TIIL for 3 days after making my decision and accepting an invite from Praetorian. I wanted time to tell my fellow officers and the guild leader one-on-one and do a last group PVP as a member of their guild.
The weekend Naval PVP outing was a resounding success. Within the first 30 minutes we encountered and claimed two full trade ships. It got down and dirty but we did our thing, destroying both ships and recovering all of the trade packs. This was followed by several other skirmishes including destroying 2 war ships, multiple fishing boats, lots of clippers and an ocean of red players. A great time was had by all and it was a wonderful way to say goodbye to my now former guild mates but forever AA friends from The Immortal Imperial Legion.
Praetorian member carting a trade pack of Elephant Cookies we looted from "reds"
Full raid was loaded down with the spoils of war within 30 minutes
Oh nice, my Hallowtide costume matches the Praetorian colors. *smile*
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