Fight on the Flag

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.

May your lewtz be phat, your battles be awesome and your enemies tears be many! Merry Christmas!

In every game the members of FOTF play, no matter what realm or race, we notice similar things about the underdog side.

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!

It is traditional to host a housewarming party when one takes up a new residence. According to Emily Post, the party is hosted by the homeowner to welcome friends and family to their new home. Schwenderhalle Manor is a prime piece of real estate with views of the river and within sight of the Reikwald Fortress. Fight on the Flag and some members of Knights of Valor and Obliteration took up residence. It was supposed to be a good time.

Unfortunately Destruction is not aware of the rules of etiquette. We had our King Keg out and they wanted to walk right in, completely uninvited! This outrage did not go unanswered. We repelled them for a good 10-20 minutes.

Alas, the beer ran dry and Destruction was able to make it into our new home.

They ransacked the place and had their way with the dwarves. I’ll never look at a beard the same way again.

It was a tough couple of weeks, but I think we’ve found our groove again! We hadn’t played Order for four months when we returned to Gorfang (we spent two months on Phoenix Throne and two in, er, Aion). The corpses piled up and we had a grand time in RVR, which is nearly constant these days.

We spent lots of quality time near flags (even if they weren’t owned by our realm).

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To kick off this post, I wanted to share a screenshot of the text message after Order kicks Destro out of Altdorf:

(Just in case you cannot read the text in the picture, “Altdorf stands strong! The city is Recovering. No mercy for the straggling Order.”)

For those who haven’t surfed the forums relentlessly, Istaflyiii on Gorfang discovered a bug that basically hands Destruction the keys to Altdorf three times a day. By just respirating oxygen into carbon dioxide, Destruction can flip zones and get to Altdorf.

And order can do nothing about it. In fact, if Order tries to do something, it actually works in Destruction’s favor.

Wow. What a disincentive for RVR if you have any shred of realm pride. Fortunately, Mythic says they are working on the bug, though the timeline for a fix is sketchy at best.

One player on Gorfang wanted to try to quantify the gear and renown haul due to the VP bug, and Destro of course, say it’s not a big deal (though there are the few who are calling attention to this).

Case in point: Cald noticed that Order owned one keep in Thunder Mountain. We claimed it, noticed we had about six people and called in T4 channel for help. Anyone who wanted to defend with Ventrilo could join our warband and we could try to prevent Destro from taking the keep.

I wish I had taken screenshots of what some said to me (and I would blur the names to prevent too much humiliation). I got several tells from people saying “Don’t defend it only flips to the city faster” who were actually ANGRY at me trying to defend our lands!

Of course I didn’t listen, and we led about three groups from TM to KV to try to defend. It was all in vain. We were up against 5 warbands at one point (90 on the keep and another warband defending BOs).

Morale on Order side is very low. Let’s hope they fix this bug soon.

That pain in my neck is not the new Pilates routine, it’s Destro stomping all over my about-to-be-dead corpse:

They got into our city at least two times Saturday, but it was probably more because they were pushing pretty hard to get there again when I logged to make dinner.

FOTF had a really fun time in scenarios though. It almost feels like we’re getting some of our groove back. After not playing Order side since July 4 or thereabouts, it’s a rough awakening going from best on the server (several of our guildies were #1 on the leaderboards) to complete nobodies.

Oddly enough the people who seem to remember us most are the new transfers from Phoenix Throne. They were some of the elite Order guilds that we fought against when we played Destro over there. I am glad to know we were more than just a speed bump to them!

Warhammer is a breath of fresh air to me after playing Aion. Several of our members have returned along with us, including Andora and Cald, who did not make the transition to Aion very well. It’s really good to see them and hear their voices in vent.

Now we need to get back to our previous state of pwn on this server. We’re basically handing out free crests at this point as we relearn our characters.

We definitely have a fight ahead of us though. Destro outnumbers us by a large margin. This is not the same server we left. The Destro are also more organized and higher RR than Order.

This screenshot cannot do justice. I wish I could do wide angle shots. The front of the north keep in KV was packed full of about four warbands at one point this weekend.

Destro is also in the city about three times a day. Sunday they did an alarm clock raid and pushed the city to stage 2. For those who have not been in the city during stage 2, it’s pretty boring, though there still are some Destro who remain to fight. Everyone else is in the Warlord PQs.

As a result of frequent city pushes, many of the high powered Destro are in full sets of Warlord gear.

FOTF is not the only group returning from Aion. Dooger made a post welcoming back those of us who are returning.

Do you want to return to Warhammer? I can hand out some 10-day free trials (as long as you’ve been gone for 60 days or more). Just reply in the comment using your real e-mail address. I can only send out one per day, though.