Obliteration and FOTF have been running King together for the past month or so. We’ve definitely got it down. Loot is rolling in and people are progressing. We have almost a full warband of Warlord geared people and we are bringing in people who are nearly high enough to wear Warlord as we can.

FOTF is also trying to run through VL but the darn thing is so buggy half the time we get frustrated and leave.

We have killed through boss six and only briefly saw boss seven last weekend. Not too bad for only trying for a couple of weeks I say.

Finally Sunday morning we were out and decided to stop the Destro zone flips. The Destro apparently gave up after we stopped them, a shame considering we were vastly outnumbered. I guess they just want their freenown (free renown) as fast as they can get it and it doesn’t occur to them to try to, oh I don’t know, fight people for it?

In any case we are still having fun and still trying to kill Destro at every turn. On another note we are not recruiting anymore. We got some fabulous new guildies and learned quite a bit about those who did not make it through the initiate phase.

Here’s a screen of a scen where we were horribly behind but we pulled it together against one of the better Destro teams. They have a few random people in there, but we had a full group of random people.

Finally the qotd, we haven’t had one of these in quite a while. FOTF was trying monolith PQ with some Oblit and other people. Order finally beat it at a later date. If you have ever done this PQ then you know why most people do not try it.

We did not win during this run, but many of us were finally getting the hang of it as the timer ran down.

Here is a pic at Chokethorn Bramble BO. That is just the front of the vast Destro zerg. (Click pic to embiggen)

FotF ran with our good friends in Obliteration. Since both guilds are fans of using assist, getting in vent and working together, we  wiped the Destro nearly every time we faced them.

We also ran scenarios together, although some people had trouble with Queue Queuer:

On another note, the 1.3.4 patch notes are here. There is a pretty long discussion on the Gorfang forums lamenting the loss of such scenarios as Serpent’s Passage, Caledor Woods and Logrin’s Forge. Really Mythic? This makes me a sad panda Why are these scenarios unpopular? I saw Serpents pop way more than Dragon’s Bane.

Here is the list of scenario offerings:

* The following Scenarios now make up the regularly-offered list: Nordenwatch, Gates of Ekrund, Mourkain Temple, Phoenix Gate, Highpass Cemetery and Battle for Praag. The breakdown of when these Scenarios are offered is as follows:

* Tier 1

- Nordenwatch

- Gates of Ekrund

* Tier 2

- Nordenwatch

- Gates of Ekrund

- Mourkain Temple

* Tier 3

- Nordenwatch

- Gates of Ekrund

- Mourkain Temple

- Phoenix Gate

- Highpass Cemetery

* Tier 4

- Nordenwatch

- Gates of Ekrund

- Mourkain Temple

- Phoenix Gate

- Highpass Cemetery

- Battle for Praag

With the possible exception of Phoenix Gate and Battle for Praag, your team can win every one of those scenarios by avoiding the fight. The scenarios that were removed seemed to favor single-point battles. The lower-tier scenarios that were removed were a rite of passage, as Mezirah stated on the Gorfang forums.

tor anroc was a rite of passage. isha introduced dynamic LOS pvp.

LOS pvp is incredibly important for strategic defenses and offenses. Why they removed Temple of Isha I will never know. It was one of my favorite scenarios leveling up, along with Tor Anroc. It is a shame they are removing these scenarios. (Here is a link to one of FOTF’s early reports from Tor Anroc. Here is a screenshot of Temple of Isha.)

But at least we won’t have to do Thunder Valley anymore.

On a positive note they are adding weapons that you can buy with new scenario currency. So when we are bored out of our minds doing the same scenarios over and over at least we will have something to look forward to.

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.

The unending complaints and excuses for why they are not winning bind them all together.

First, blame the other side for:

• Hacking
• Cheating
• Using cheap tactics and/or OP classes
• Alarm clock raids to avoid a fight
• Cross realming
• (This is contrasted with our side’s desire to play legit and get a good night’s rest)

Second, dehumanize the other side because:

• They are in school and have nothing better to do than play a video game during their ample free time
• They have no social lives and/or live with their parents
• They don’t have a girlfriend/boyfriend or spouse or are too fat to get one
• They don’t have a job or are on unemployment
• They have cancer or some other terminal disease that allows them to play so much
• (This is contrasted with our side’s ability to get jobs, have social lives and families, and we also don’t live with our parents, have good hygiene and work out)

Finally, criticize your own side, shift blame and minimize the helpful things that could cause you to perform better

• It’s everyone else’s fault but yours
• Class balance favors the other side
• Developers don’t play our side so the other side is OP
• The uber guild won’t let us join their warbands, therefore we can’t work together to win
• Perle is a big meanie and won’t let us join her warband because we don’t use Vent. Vent doesn’t really help anyway (actual conversation during a city defense):

Do you know of other excuses people use for why the underdogs lose? Feel free to post them below and I’ll add them to the list!

This map represents Friday night at about 6:30 p.m. Pacific time. FotF is headed into the fray!

As we slowly accumulate Annihilator and Conquerer gear, we are getting less squishy. We stood toe to toe with one of the better Bright Wizard bomb groups on the server. I am confident once we get equivalent gear that they won’t stand a chance.

Apparently our guild is getting a bit of a reputation (if only for the guild name). I discourage bragging on forums. It’s sometimes hard not to provide advice without seeming like you’re bragging. I don’t want to come off as arrogant (oh but on this server we did it this way and it worked).

But sometimes you really can’t help it. We had a keep defense that everyone thought we would lose. The tank wall was rather massive, though, and I had every confidence that we would prevail. That is, until the people on the tank wall left the wall to chase down people who got past /facepalm.

We steered them (in a not-so-nice way) to get back onto the wall and hold fast. We prevailed and chased them out of the keep!

I anticipate more fun today and Sunday.

Yes, I realize that the title is not actually in game yet, but I feel with coaxing, taking over a Warcamp will be recognized by Mythic in some fashion. A Warcamper title would be just the incentive!

Order also had some really pathetic Fortress pushes this weekend. No screenshots yet (we are working on a special project to be unveiled to Mythic after a team member makes a logo).

In other news, the PVP we found was fast and furious. We rolled with mostly FOTF members and Temporal Space.

Of course, other warbands tend to follow us when we are on a roll:

We left a trail of dead Destruction in our wake.

We didn’t win all of our fights, though. Many times when we fought twice our number or more, we did fail.

This was taken shortly before our death.

Of the memorable fights we had this weekend, I’d say the fights in Praag and Chaos Wastes were the best. Unfortunately I did not take many screenshots of them because I was making sure my team lived.

Usually when I take screenshots we are either on the verge of winning, just coming upon our enemy or have already miserably lost.

Destro put up a good fight this weekend, and I am hoping for more of the same this coming weekend.

]]> http://www.fightontheflag.com/2009/05/11/warcamper-title-fun-fights-and-more/feed/ 0 http://www.fightontheflag.com/2009/05/03/defend-the-gatehouse/ http://www.fightontheflag.com/2009/05/03/defend-the-gatehouse/#comments Sun, 03 May 2009 13:06:10 +0000 Perle http://www.fightontheflag.com/?p=150 Last night was easily the most fun I’ve ever had in an MMO to date. What began as an attempt to take Covenant of Flame became an epic battle that lasted more than an hour.

Earlier I started a group of people who wanted to play Nordenwatch. Then another Nordenwatch premade wanted to join us so we could RVR together. Soon I had a three-group warband. We went to Covenant of Flame and joined Bolimor’s warband (I think Deer had a small group also).

That’s when the fun started.

We soon discovered that Destro’s defenses were too great and the doors were too heavy to pound down in the short amount of time we had left before the outer door would close.

We retreated, killed some Destro, then advanced and opened the Center Keep door (all the while another group opened the door that just closed behind us). The tank wall was too solid, and Bolimor and I decided to bring our groups to the gatehouse. (About then our LV crew joined us.)

It took a while for Destro to break our tank walls, but not before many of us gained a realm rank or two (I gained something around 10 percent in 62).

Destro stride in over Order's dead corpses.

A view of the battle map shortly before the Gatehouse fell.

Surely this is what the game designers intended.

It was such a blast!

Fighting on the flag in Phoenix Gate

And on some occasions, we managed to get nine of our guildies in the same scenario! Sorry Order, I felt sorry for some of you guys. You definitely put up a great fight.

We ran into a formidable Slayer zerg in Stonetroll Crossing. They only frightened us for a second, though, until our two Sorceresses AOEd them to death.

Queues popped consistently every 10 minutes or so in the morning. Around dinnertime, it was every five minutes or so. We also mixed in a few keep and BO defenses.

If any Gorfangers are wondering, we did check now and then to see how the action was going.

Long story short, if Destro was evenly matched, we would not engage. We didn’t see any occasions where Order needed help, so we played on Skull Throne the entire time.

We are having fun on Skull Throne, but I think we would all prefer to play our RR50-60 characters Oh well. We go where the fun is, and this weekend was probably the most fun I’ve had in a really long time. Thanks Skull Throne T2 players!