Fight on the Flag

I had work Saturday but imagine my surprise when I get home and Order was already pushing zones to get into the city.

Five members of FOTF got into a warband with V’los Vel’drin and a few other guilds. Bangrund did a fantastic job tanking. We worked with Run Like Hell to lock down an instance. Destro bodies were everywhere.

Fighting on the flag in a city assault is truly the best thing ever!

Teamwork among Order was great! For the instances that were losing the PUGs left and they were replaced by organized Order.

I think at least two king instances of Order got nice shiny Warlord/Sovereign pieces. Both Pylith and Truncheon are decked out in full Warlord. It was my first king instance and I also got a few pieces after breaking royals down. Next time I will be in full Warlord and will then be working on Sovereign.

Grats Order on our fantastic teamwork!

We had a very fun and productive weekend. First off, a few FOTF members got Warlord gear from the king captures over the weekend (myself excluded). This is great news for those of us who had tried 40 or 50 times to get Darkpromise breastplates.

We also had some really fun fights in BOs this weekend!

Here, the manor in Eataine (click to embiggen).

We were flipping zones like pros and almost made it to stage 2 on Sunday’s IC push for those of us unable to make the first king run. Unfortunately my WB was in the losing city instance. I think either a lot of Order left or a lot of Destro joined (or both) and we lost the last stage 2 event. D’oh! Maybe next time.

Destro was definitely out in force.

I was proud of how our realm did in almost defeating them during prime time. Destro must have been taking a break after beating our king Sunday morning or more would’ve shown up for that effort.

(more…)

For the longest time FOTF has avoided doing TOVL. There are many reasons, one of which is that PVE content tends to be buggy and we are too lazy to figure out the strats. We decided to start doing TOVL last weekend because the gear is too good to pass up. Our theory is that,  in the time it takes us to do Lost Vale, we can get really nice other loot, including talismans, cartouches and warlord-equivalent stats gear.

Last weekend we downed the first two bosses fairly easily (not bad for the first time in several months). On the third boss we wiped and five of us released. We asked for the sixth to release and when he did, the gates remained closed as if the boss were still in combat. We sent in a stuck appeal and we got no response. Destro owned the zone so we couldn’t just reset. Frustrated, most of us logged for the day.

This morning, we planned to wake up early and do TOVL. We wiped on the first boss and five of us released. The sixth released and yet again the gate was closed (maybe this is a trend?).

(Perle is on the flag, there are six people. Notice the door is closed?)

Again I sent in a stuck appeal and again we got bored after waiting for 30 minutes and getting no response. Finally about 30 minutes after we left the dungeon we got an automated message that they were “looking at the problem.” Pshaw!

Both days the bug prevented us from progressing further. Both days our time was wasted and we become more disenchanted with the game.

Maybe the solution is to release at the same time so we don’t get the bug? I really don’t know. Once everyone is dead the doors should open and that should be that. If someone knows the answer to this please let me know.

I guess this goes to show we will never be done fighting doors.

We had a lot of fun this weekend. Lots of fights, good scenario battles (so good that I didn’t take screenshots, doh!) and of course city defenses… OK the city defenses weren’t quite so fun.

Destro on Gorfang pushes the city on weekend mornings to farm our King. During those attacks, you’re either in the instance with the warlord/sov geared Destruction (I don’t care who you are, that hurts) or you’re getting in the instance with few or no Destro and left to ponder what we can do to end it all (the city PQ I mean):

Sadly killing the mob takes longer than playing hokey pokey on the objectives (another rant entirely).

What would be really awesome is a scenario that people could run in T4 instead of doing city defenses! It was great when Kegs End was active because those of us who dislike city defenses could run Black Fire Basin. I can’t tell you how many people I see log on during the day, see a city defense and then log out. There should be another option for those of us who don’t like being in the city for 2-4 hours a day.

This weekend was much like the others. Destruction were zerging and Order didn’t have many options other than to run scenarios to find even fights.

Even so, we tried to run in oRVR. Unfortunately I had limited play time this weekend but the rest of the crew hopefully had some fun. When I was online, here’s what we saw. I forget who said it but someone said it looked like Jurassic Park. I ran up to get a screenshot:

For a full-size version, click here!

This was the last thing I saw before the loading screen.

Owie! I guess they couldn’t refuse a chance at a royal.

We did have some good fights though! Saturday we held the manor for what seemed like forever. The Destro kept coming back again and again. FOTF and friends had 2-3 groups if I recall, and another group or two was in there with us.

Good times (and dead Destro) were had by all.

Now that Fight on the Flag has our mojo back, we’re recruiting. Yes, you too can be a member of a team that wins or dies trying!

Please read The Rules and the Recruitment post before contacting Perle (there is an alternative version of this post on the server forums here). She will barrage you with questions, and you might be invited into our Ventrilo channel to be barraged with more questions by other guildies who are on at the time. If you pass, you’ll then enter a two-week trial period to ensure we all can get along (you don’t want to be that annoying person everyone hates grouping with, or worse, all of us are annoying and you are the cool one).

We are a tight-knit team. We like to do things together and coordinate and use tactics. No, we are not the Borg. Not yet. Until they create cybernetic implants, Ventrilo will have to do.

Ezekheal did not say this in response anything FOTF had done. He said this during a city siege (when we are all very bored and have nothing to do but bitch in region chat). But his comment is so incredibly true. You cannot know what you are missing until you are in a good group. Fight on the Flag is like the first boyfriend or girlfriend you can’t stop thinking about. You wonder what they are doing and stalk them on Facebook.

I will say, since my time with FotF, no game has held any interest for me. It is amazing to me what a great guild can do to ones experience with an MMO. I am gameless right now and going fraking crazy. — A former guild mate

Mostly we are looking for good people to join our ranks. The class doesn’t matter so much as the attitude. If you have a good team-oriented attitude, we’d love to hear from you. Please contact Perle in game or PM her on the Warhammer Alliance forums.

Inspired to play or resubscribe to Warhammer after reading this blog? Send Perle a PM on the Warhammer Alliance forums with your first name and e-mail address. The message goes directly to her e-mail. She can then hook you up with a 10-day free trial of the game if you have been gone for 60 days or more.

Yesterday afternoon FOTF members were sitting around trying to figure out how to boost our guild rank quickly. We have tried this before, but it never worked as quickly as we hoped.

This time was different.

When a guildie went from 39 to 40 using the free level scroll, he noticed the corresponding jump in guild experience.

We decided to see if we could boost our guild rank using level 40 characters who had not yet done the quest. We first booted everyone from the guild except for the people who were doing the quest, while keeping six or fewer in the guild at all times.

The results were jaw dropping:

In just the span of an hour, we jumped two guild ranks (35-37, not all screenshots shown).

Later that night, we got rank 40.

I suggest anyone who is interested in doing this for your guild to take advantage of it this weekend. If Mythic is inclined to fix this it could be implemented into a future hot fix.

For each turn in at level 40, each player contributes 6,877,776 experience to guild rank. We tested this on the FOTF guild in Destro and on Order side.