by Jason Cheek
“Actually that makes a certain kind of sense, my lord. I will talk with Klaern once we are finished unless you’d like to discuss the issue with him yourself.” Chiara said officiously as if our conversation was over.
“No, please discuss the issue with Klaern in my stead and come up with an appropriate training schedule for our people. One more thing before you go. How far away is Delonshire and do you have a map I could use?”
“Delonshire is a half day’s travel away. Unfortunately, we have no cartographers for maps, but if you head directly southwest, you will run into the city without issue.” Chiara said with a knowing smile.
“Thanks, Chiara. Then I’ll head out now.” I said seeing Alanah on her way back.
“Be safe, my lord.” Chiara respectfully said, before turning and walking back towards the new longhouses.
I let Alanah know I was off to see if I could find something to help save Rayne in Delonshire and headed out of the refugee camp. I stopped by Mariona who gave me some travel rations for the trip and then picked up the rest of the gear I was planning on taking. Giving Eriladar who was currently on watch at the barricade a quick wave, I headed southwest across the meadow at a run.
As soon as I entered the forest, the light faded to a murky darkness of something like Twilight. I could see well enough to dodge around the trees as I ran, but forty feet ahead and the visibility was null. Surprisingly the immediate terrain seemed devoid of wolves, and I ran for nearly half an hour before I started seeing rabbits and foxes. In the darker shadows, I started seeing the flittering shapes of wolves, but none of them seemed particularly interested in me. I imagined it was due to my new levels. Typically in most MMORPGs, if your level was about the same as the mobs in the area, your aggro radius tended to be greatly reduced. You’re usually safe from fighting unless you stumble right on top of the mob. If you’re several levels below the mobs level, like I’d been when I was chopping wood and hunting the day before, then your aggro radius to the mob is much higher, which was why I’d attracted the wolf packs from all around the area to come after me.
In real life when you’re running long distances, the physical effort is intense and you tend to clear your mind as you focus on breathing and putting one foot in front of the other. In-game when you’re running for hours at a time it’s a completely different feeling or at least it was when your stamina was as high as mine. There was no physical exertion that required you to hold your mental focus like there was in the real world, so after about forty-five minutes I was bored out of my skull and started going through my interface. Opening my quest window, I swore as I suddenly realized I’d forgotten to complete my quest from Chiara “Rescuing House of Kayden and driving out the invaders (Evolving-Quest)!” Oh well- I looked at the current quest details in surprise. What the hell, my quest was updated!
New Quest! Rescuing House of Kayden and driving out the invaders (Evolving-Quest)!
Monster tribes of the north have joined forces and invaded BrokenFang Hold. Part 1: Scout the current strength of the invading force residing in BrokenFang Hold. Part 2: Rescue any House of Kayden survivors you find.
Warning! This quest is timed! Six days remaining!
Objective: Scout invaders strength and rescue any survivors.
Difficulty: Nightmare.
Reward: Experience and Reputation with House of Kayden.
Momentarily confused, I started searching through my system windows until I found the quest update in the message log along with a four-level increase. When did that happen? Looking through the log files, I silently whistled as I read the experience the second part of the quest had given. Immediately I smiled. There went any concern I might have had about not leveling while was learning the game’s crafting system. Well, at least as long as the crafting in question was quest based. I went ahead and brought my Agility up to a 100 and my strength up to 90, which left me 20 points in reserve until I discovered what my first profession was going to be and what it needed for attributes. Basically, my stats were looking more balanced then I was used to seeing them in most MMORPGs.
Statistics:
Hit Points: 1,155
Mana: 1020
Endurance: 1050
Attributes:
Strength: 90
Intelligence: 102
Spirit: 80
Agility: 100
Stamina: 105
Charisma: 78
Not that this was a problem for me. Although, I was sure it would change somewhat in the near future as I teamed up with other players and began focusing on more specific skills but only up to a point. I had a history of playing characters that were Jacks of all Trades. Call me a Red Mage, a Druid, Paladin or Metaphysicist, I loved it when games gave me the power to switch between roles within a group to fill whatever position was needed or that I wanted to play at the time. Being able to switch roles between a tank, healer or damage dealer in mid-battle took skill and was to me the sign of a great player.
A lot of gamers I’d met over the years would disagree with this idea of a Jack of all Trades type of character being any good. Most gamers tended to stick to one or two specific playing styles, which they tried to enforce on everyone else they met in-game. I couldn’t tell you how many time I’d been playing a Paladin or Druid in World of Warcraft and had been told I couldn’t tank, heal or do damage for a raid. It wasn’t just players in World of Warcraft, but from every MMORPG I’d ever played. I couldn’t count how many times I’d picked up PuG for our raid only to have some idiot begin screaming and cursing that there was no way we could run the instance with the class configuration we had available for the instance.
In general, you’d think that most gamers would be more open-minded but unfortunately, that typically wasn’t the case. No matter where you were, people were people. The truth of the matter was that the PuG player’s issue was twofold. The first was that it wasn’t an issue with the raid’s configuration, but an issue with the PuG player’s ability to play their own class. The second issue was the PuG player’s false belief that they knew how to play another person’s class better than the person that had leveled up playing their class, even though that player had never played the class before in their life.
Deep in thought with a number of open semi-transparent windows blocking out half of my vision, my foot caught on something hard as I suddenly flopped to the ground. A mental swipe sent the windows closing back to their transparent interface as I threw myself into a forward roll, popping back up to my feet with axe and shield held at the ready. Seeing that I wasn’t under attack, I crouched down looking around intently as I tried to figure out what the hell had just happened.
I was at the edge of another meadow standing in a carpet of dead Large Gray Wolves strewn across the frozen ground. While that alone wasn’t particularly notable, what did stand out was the six headstones that were scattered throughout the corpses which were what I’d tripped over. Taking a closer look, I realized that all the names on the headstones were for a player named Yun Dazd, except for one which was for Mebrin Syndicate.
I felt a cold chill run down my spine as I read the second name. I immediately understood the basics of what was going on. A group of players was spawn-camping Yun Dazd, killing him every time he respawned and tried to loot the gear from his corpse. It was one of those unfortunate occurrences that happened on every PVP server. You’d always get some jacks that got off on spawn-camping. Good or bad, The World’s PVP options allowed for players to be asshats to a whole new level if they chose, since PVP was possible against every player in the game.
Normally players being spawn-camped would just respawn at the local graveyard to get away from the person or persons who were spawn-camping their body, which made me wonder what else was going on since the guy kept coming back and getting killed. Although, in truth, the bigger concern I had was seeing a player calling themselves Syndicate. It could have been just a coincidence, but the only problem with that was I didn’t believe in coincidences.
Inspecting the wolves’ bodies I saw that every corpse had numerous bloody gashes. Some had their fur burned down to the bone, while others were busted up into small oozing chunks of bloody meat. I frowned thoughtfully. Obviously, I was dealing with a group of players that were spawn-camping Mr. Dazd, and for some reason, Mr. Dazd felt like he had to spawn back in the same location even though he knew they were here waiting to kill him, so something else was going on. Evidence from the wolves’ wounds suggested that the PKers consisted of a fire and frost mage, a sword-wielding tank and probably a rogue. If the group was playing with these four, then they probably had someone focusing on healing, so make that a group of at least five or six players.
MMORPG groups normally fell within a range of four to six players. A standard group size leftover from the days of pen and paper Dungeons and Dragons and various online games. While D&D did this to make their parties move quicker and to make it easier for the Dungeon Master to manage the adventure, MMORPGs did this to make the teams more personal and as a way to generally balance out the game’s leveling and dungeons.
Groups had to have a specific number of players to kill the monsters quickly and still gain experience points, while the mob had to be programmed tough enough to take on a specific group size of level x characters to make decent experience points. Also, character class types usually followed a general layout that was referred to as the Holy Trinity for MMORPG players. Tank, Healer, and DPS or damage-taker, damage-reducer and damage-dealer. Typically in this mindset, every group required at least one Tank and Healer, while the DPS classes could be any type of damage dealing class which was dependent on the allowable group size.
The only thing that didn’t make any sense was why they weren’t bothering to at least collect the skins. It’s not like there were gold farmers available to buy in-game money and skinning was a good way for a low-level character to make money. Thoughtfully, I crept to the edge of the meadow. Well, not skinning didn’t make sense to me, but there were plenty of people who had no desire to waste their time on learning in-game professions even if it made them money at these lower levels.
Creeping forward low to the ground, I made my way closer to the group fighting in the center of the meadow. Their levels must have been super low because the wolf packs were attacking the players from almost every direction. Just as I thought, five players were battling it out with the mass of wolves. As they fought, I noticed a sixth player huddled on the ground in the center of the group. The back-arc of the group consisted of a healer, fire mage, and frost mage, while the front-arc of the group consisted of a fighter and a rogue battling for their lives. Strewn all around them were the bodies of wolves and more headstones of Mr. Dazd.
Another point of interest I was able to make out at this distance was the physical differences in race between the NPCs of House of Kayden and these players. Although they both had pointy ears and Asian-like features, these players were noticeably thinner with a smaller build and longer ears. No doubt these players were true Elves. Seeing the obvious physical differences helped to explain why Rayne had instantly called me a Halfling, aka Half-Elf.
Putting the thoughts of race aside, I continued creeping closer while trying to remain unseen. I’d made it about twenty feet away from the group before I was able to make out the names of the players: Mebrin Syndicate, Lamaraldor Syndicate, Glaildor Syndicate, Lamor Syndicate, Eowan Syndicate and Sarka Dazd. Sarka was the angry female lying on the snow-covered ground next to Mr. Dazd’s latest headstone glaring up at the five Syndicate players standing around her. She’d been pretty ruffed up, but instead of finishing her off, they’d kept her alive for some reason. Obviously, this was the source for Mr. Dazd’s suicidal respawns.
Yea, this was much worse than I’d initially thought it was going to be. Watching the scene before me, I felt my rage rising to the surface like a furnace being stroked to life. The game was rated M for Mature by the ESRB for a reason. Players could put their hands on you in a full immersion virtual reality environment, and that could get quite violent or sexual at times, depending upon who you were dealing with, but it wasn’t meant for shit like this.
Fucking Syndicate! Fucking bunch of bullies! They must have been planning to move over to The World the entire time they were griefing the player base in Chaos Online. The punishment that they’d received for their actions had probably only motivated them that much more to make the transition as a group. The smart move, for now, would have been to just pass the situation by and let these people play out their drama without my involvement but whoever said I was smart. Not to mention, if The Syndicate were really here, I’d have to deal with them one way or another. Might as well piss them off now and get it over with. Who knows, maybe I’d get some new friends out of the deal at the same time.
I couldn’t see anyone’s levels, only their Hit Point, and Mana bars. The five Syndicates players all had around a max 310 Hit Points if their health would have been maxed out, but they were all at around 100, except for the tank who was getting regular heals. Meaning, they weren’t part of the P&M exam program. Seeing that the remaining wolf pack was already down to the last ten wolves, I felt a savage grin split my lips as a plan flashed through my mind. “Fresh meat!'
Unless you’re doing tournaments, there are few things about PVP that are fair. Usually, it’s all about ganking other players who are either at low health while in a fight, lower level or are outnumbered. Any PVP’er will tell you that there are few things as fun as finding a bunch of spawn-camping asshats under attack by mobs and at low health. Even if they were at full health, it probably wouldn’t have helped them all that much. I was at least ten levels higher than them and had the bonus points from my P&M exam on top of that, which probably ended up making me around sixty to seventy levels higher. Shrugging my shield to my back, I pulled out the vile blade for my second hand as I sprinted the last twenty feet to my targets. Leaping into the air at the last second, I heard the solid thud of both weapons slamming home into their meaty sheaths as my body jerked to a sudden stop.
You Sneak Attacked Mebrin Syndicate with Jagged Bonesplitter axe for 550 points of damage.
You Sneak Attacked Lamaraldor Syndicate with Vile Blade for 320 points of damage.
I couldn’t help but laugh as both players immediately crumpled into a heap at my feet as each Sneak Attack hit them for more Hit Points then they’d have had at full health. Before the Frost mage could whip around at the unexpected assault, my Jagged Bonesplitter axe thudded home into the middle of his back for 220 points of damage. As the mage collapsed to the ground with a look of horror on his face, I was face-to-face with an incredulous Sarka Dazd. Giving the Elf woman a reassuring grin and a salute with the tip of my blade, I leaped over the stunned woman to Sneak Attack, the rogue with another one of my double-strikes. Again another lifeless body collapsed onto the snow. By then only Glaildor Syndicate, the warrior, was left standing.
He must have immediately realized something was horribly wrong with the rest of his party, but there wasn’t anything he could do to stop what had already happened. Not that there was much of anything he could have done either way to have stopped it, even if he wasn’t being attacked by eight level 15 Large Gray Wolves. As the warrior turned to face me, I casually batted aside his feeble strike and kicked him back into the slavering wolf pack. Instantly eight fangs-filled maws dragged him kicking and screaming to the ground. Before the last of Glaildor’s Hit Point reached zero, I stepped forward and split his head open like an overripe watermelon with my axe. I wanted him to see who’d killed him before being sent back to respawn.
Even though the PKers were down, I didn’t have any time to relax. The eight Large Gray Wolves immediately aggroed on me since I was the only one standing in-between them and Sarka. As I fought the wolves, I snorted in disgust as soon as I realized that they all had different levels of damage. Freaking bunch of newbs. You’d have thought that The Syndicate players would have played smarter than that. These guys must be a part
of the guild’s ‘B’ team.
Normally when taking on a group of mobs, especially against a group that’s higher than your own group’s level. The best strategy to use was ‘focused fire’ which meant focusing all of your attacks onto one mob at a time to burn them down as quickly as possible until the fight was over. Doing this reduced the amount of damage the tank would take, the amount of healing needed for the Priest to keep the team alive and allowed the tank to hold onto the mobs’ attention to take the damage for the group. These yahoos had spammed their attacks across all the mobs at once. Even though they managed to kill a number of wolves, it was bad practice and lead to future wipes in the harder dungeons.
The rest of the battle took a little longer to complete. Luckily, the first thing I did once I killed the warrior was switch from my Savage Fin Slasher to my Ironshod shield. Still, that first thirty seconds of the fight was ugly. The Elf woman tried to give me a hand, but screamed in pain as the wolves she attacked pounced on top of her going for her throat. Quickly, I leaped into the middle of the pack swinging my axe and shield around like a madman fighting to get the pack’s aggro focused solely back on me. Each hit with my axe dropped the wolves Hit Points by around 130 points of health while my shield bashes smashed the snarling mobs back, stunning them momentarily.
Unlike my previous run-ins with the Large Gray Wolves in the forest, I didn’t have the chance to back-up to a tree for protection. All that I could do was straddle Sarka as I fought for my life. There was no time to think or plan out the attack. Wolves leaped onto my back snarling and snapping as others rushed up under my shield or lunged at me from either side. All I could do was flail at the fang-filled maws like a manic as I ripped the wolves from my back and shoulders. The brutal savagery of it all was a complete adrenaline rush.