For Want of a Priest, the Kingdom was Lost

This week a former guildmate told me the old Star Wars Galaxies guild was disbanding … merging, being absorbed, scattering to the four winds. I won’t go into a whole Glory Days thing here, but as a ragtag PvP guild with a small membership, there was a time when we were the shit.

Not just in our own minds either, although we each had a healthy ego — we were regularly called hackers, stackers, bangers and motherf, well, you get the idea. We weren’t particularly skilled or talented. We were, however, extremely … how to say? … intense. Focused. Every guild and member activity was focused on improving team pvp activities.

That was our super secret strategy: exponential teamwork.

After Sony announced that the combat and pvp revamp was delayed until after the Jump to Lightspeed demon expansion, we decided it was time for a gaming vacation before the arrival of World of Warcraft.

The requisite timesink for a (maybe) ten-minute squirmish by the Coronet cantina became a burden: dancer + musician buffs several minutes, and heaven help you if someone was late in arriving for the buff rounds, doctor buffs another couple of minutes, check combat supplies (and there’s always some idiot that doesn’t have food, drink, med kits, needs repairs or what the fuck ever) — it was all so whacked.

Then YAY!! Thirty minutes later we were ready to ride out for the interplanetary hunt of any other players who weren’t whoring for a jedi unlock. We’d have our ten (maybe) minute fight, and about then it was time to watch the buff timers, repair bikes and armor, and juggle the food/drink timers.

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Punk’d

I had another one of those wickedly evil ideas the other day. As you may know, I’m a fan of gaming pranks … all flavors … even when I am the intended victim. Like last week when one of my World of Warcraft guildmates submitted my character name and stats to this rival guild (and they’re ALL rivals) as an applicant.

I suspected something was up as he would start giggling on TeamSpeak every time I’d say “I just got a weird tell” (and they’re ALL weird tells). After I’d share that it was just another BRD invite from a guild I’d never heard of before, he’d say, “oh”, kinda dejectedly. I know now that he was waiting for his little prank bomb to go off and could hardly contain himself.

Finally, it detonated and we all had a good laugh at their (and my) expense. The fake guild app is a classic and I never tire of it.

He’ll have to try harder than that to top the prank I pulled off almost a year ago in Star Wars Galaxies when I told this perennially-hard cyberbag that a guildmate was a woman (IRL!!), but somewhat shy until “warmed up”, if you know what I mean and I think you do, and then … LOOK OUT, because the dude was in for one wild cyber ride. Heh, took the guildie a good month or more to peel that dog off his leg.

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Still Looking for My Game Paycheck

I was talking to a Warcraft guildmate a few days ago about this IGE thing and selling ingame items for real world cold, hard cash. My way of thinking … when I run the numbers, people are making five bucks or so an hour by selling game items and gold.

That’s just not for me. I could do actual work and impress my boss with my dedication and extra production AND make a helluva lot more than 5 an hour. And, there’s that little thing where you could be fucking over e-friends by selling game shit they could use themselves, but that’s Advanced Gaming Ethics 201.

If IGE “consultants” solo all the time, doesn’t seem like they’re screwing anyone other than themselves (5 an hour? *spit*) and a faceless corporation.

So I asked if he had ever ebayed game shit and, to my great surprise, he said he had in EQ, and if he was soloing in Warcraft, he’d do the same again. Now, we had been guildmates in EQ also, but towards the end of the EQ years, when most of us had moved on to other things, he had stayed behind and, as I know now, 2-boxed the hell out of the upper zones and IGE’d the plat. Paid for his new computer with his earnings, as he tells it.

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