While we have been waiting, everyone has shared many fantastic stories about what has made previous MMORPGs special to you. But without significant risk/reward, many of those great memories would never have felt as cool as they did. And when there is high risk, there's bound to be some stories of absolute catastrophic failure, right? And 10+ years on, some of those have to be at least a little funny to us now, right? So here's a quick trip down memory lane for me.
My very first raiding experience was by far the worst. To anyone who remembers the halcyon days of early EverQuest, planar rading was quite the adventure, and offered immense reward. Seeing a player in full planar gear was the very image of all that early EQ info that proposed we could become a powerful player in a world filled with thousands of others. Everyone wanted in. I was chasing that Vermiculated gear with a great deal of vigor.
At the time I was playing in a relatively small guild of first time MMORPG'ers (as most of us were at that point) with a couple of guild leaders who played twin High Elf casters named Brycelynne and Trycelynne. I mention that only to point out that the ridiculousness of the story goes well beyond this raid. We were all too small to raid the Plane of Fear on our own, and had been pretty invested in growing the server community and playing together with many other like minded players and guilds. To wit, we organized a community raid night for the PoF at around 8:00 PM on a week night. Nothing brings people together for fun and hijinx quite like a open-invite, community-wide pick-up raid. Right? I mean, in the history of MMO's, I can only think of a few ideas that were ever better....
We meet outside the incredibly awesome gate to Fear, hidden deep in the Feerott. No one really seems to be in control, but that's fine... there's like 100 of us, so what could go wrong? Everyone forms into groups and buffs up outside the gate, and after what seems like about an hour, the first group charges in. Now - many of us were smart enough to read through a lot of PoF guides and had prepared for the gate entry, dealing with roamers, knowing exactly where to go once we loaded in, etc. But there were 100 of us, so some were of the opinion that the info was probably just supplementary at best... because after all.... those other guys already read it, so we're good.
In what can only be described as "a matter of mere moments," those of us still outside the gate began to hear reports of players wiping... the terrible, bone crushing, gnashing-of-teeth style deaths that were happening on the inside of that gate were terrifying to think about... so the only proper response was for everyone to charge inside and rescue those involved. Every, single, loot-craving, un-informed, ill-prepared, yet enthusiastic gamer charged through that gate. It could lead to only one thing.
When the dust settled about 20 minutse later, we had 100 naked high level EQ players standing in front of the same gate, wondering how we were going to pull off 100 corpse runs using what was already a very loose coalition of gamers whose priorities had immediately shifted to "oh crap, I've got to get all of my stuff out of the PoF or all of my gear is going to decay."
I was a sophomore in college at the time. I spent the next 14 hours sitting in front of my computer with an accounting book in my lap, alternating between studying GAAP and looking up to see if it was my turn to give /consent to those brave souls who were inside trying to drag corpses. It was the EverQuest equivalent of a Chilean mine disaster, and everyone of us was sitting there now worried that we'd never see any of that hard earned gear again. Never mind the fact that we hadn't collectively killed any meaningful mobs in the raid itself yet. We just wanted out.
1 night of lost sleep and 2 skipped classes later, we did eventually drag all of the corposes to a point where they could be recovered, and I was able to recover my BCP, BCL, RMBs, GEBs, and so forth. We mutually agreed at that point that it might be best to consider a smaller raiding contingent with a bit stronger leadership model. It wasn't until much later on that I got a proper tour of the Planar regions. As an aside and testimony to the downfall of EverQuest in recent years... I was able to four box my way through the PoF on my own recently. It's quite a different and watered down experience compared to the terrible night where we let the door hit us in the rear on the way IN. It was pretty meaningless. But it was the initial difficulty and the harsh reality of Planar combat that stuck with me on that first night, and made the accomplishments of those who were able to do it that much more worthy, in my eyes. It made raiding something worth working towards, and not just a check list of things that I was entitled to because I was playing the game.
Here's to more failures in the future.
We had a very similar experience. We rolled in with 50 or so and got trained by the few who couldnt follow directions. We ended up calling for help from one of the top guilds on the server and they bailed us out. I laughed so hard at your post, LOL doesnt cover it.
Good times.
@Hannar sounds so familiar. As an enchanter it was always mass group buff kei, haste or visions of grandeur for you max haste melee. Finally it was waiting for incoming raid boss, tash then instant death. Of course this was because the other two enchanters always seemed to go ld on incoming.
I didn't raid much in EQ (chose to remain guildless or make my own guild). However, one time I was in a guild that thought they were raiders. We couldn't even break into SSRA Temple zone in. The guild didn't last long and I realized why I prefered to remain guildless.