Day 27 – Most memorable moment
I have been fortunate enough to have my extended relationship with games be filled with many wonderful memories. These have only been enhanced by the great friends I have made playing games.
But that’s not what I’m going to share here today, because the memory that pops into my head when quizzed about most memorable is never any of the happy fuzzy bunny memories. Nope, it’s the traumatic ones. And this one is my favorite. =)
Back in the early days of EverQuest – yes this is an EQ story and anyone who played knows well how many traumatic stories were birthed from the torture trap that EQ was. So, back in the earlier days, raids consisted of up to 72 players. At one point in my illustrious EQ career, my quest for better loot brought me to join a high level raiding guild with my Enchanter. (Stupid idea, but a lesson I had to learn the hard way.)
Because all the high level boss mobs were randomly timed world spawns, it was a huge scramble to get the entire raid up and ready as fast as possible once the chosen boss spawned. Didn’t want anyone else to get the kill and the loot after all.
My story starts with a two am phone call that Emperor Ssraeshza had spawned and I needed to get online NOW. Yes 2 am, yes log in now. For anyone who doesn’t remember, this was an enchanter required raid.
So I log in and get summoned and all buffed and finally get my assigned target. Thankfully we didn’t have another guild to compete with as our guild was camping the guy. Oh the days of camping.
Anyway, I go to sit down. Yes, my character sat down to wait, old school! But instead of clicking my sit button, I fatfinger my Tash button, which was an incredibly fast cast debuff spell. Meaning I had no time to cancel the cast. Meaning I died very quickly due to a rather angry Emperor Sscraeshza and his eight minions barreling down on me (sitting in the middle of a large raid) to let me know how unhappy they were with my being there.
I wiped the entire fully buffed raid of 72 people at 3am in the morning. People were….upset.
It is certainly a moment I will never forget.
Tags: 30 days of video games, everquest, fail, loot, medieval, mmog, raid
August 27th, 2012 at 10:00 am
i recall one encounter in ssra, where the boss was at the very top of some temple, and it required like two hours of continuous fighting to get to said boss. so we were pretty close to pulling, and i was on my wizard, and for some unknown reason all the mages in the raid were in my party.
i may have accidentally pressed my evac button.
August 27th, 2012 at 10:52 am
I remember when that happened TFG. You were so shocked! Excellent story.
Quack: LOL!
I think we all have EQ stories…
August 27th, 2012 at 11:05 am
I am so glad I never got into raiding hardcore.
But! Shocker of all shockers – we’re going to go with the same game here. Everquest really did crank out those memories, huh? This is sort of a rehash of my previous answer for personally significant game, and perhaps a bit of flattery but my best video game memory is … meeting you!!
Actually it was forming The Fourth Wall – and all the memories that go along with it, but meeting TFG is a huge part of it because of the goofy stuff we did together.
Some of the more specific memories:
* Running to Mistmoore and training your bard with that dark elf camp and then watching Isabo and her high level friends port in and be, well, high level badasses.
* Nekkid crushbone raid!
* Halfling brawl. Oh god that was one of the best events ever. We created a buttload of level 1 Halflings, turned in our PvP books and had an epic brawl in Misty Thicket.
* Tols dragging me under water for the cyberz. :D
* Running into a zone and /yell’ing “HUZZAAAAAAAAAH” and having half the zone yell it right back. :)
* And of course, me going over to TGF’s work and using her office mate’s computer to participate in our friends’ in-game wedding, only to have me, unused to the default key bindings of her office mate, turn on auto-attack and punch the GM officiating the wedding.
One of the best stories as well, non-4W specific was when I was leveling Gaedan in Erud’s Crossing, hunting wisps. Someone started asking zone-wide for help getting their corpse – they had fallen off the boat and lost all of their twink gear. I volunteered to help – this was before corpse summoning (or not? I don’t know, it wasn’t an option.) I think it was perhaps also before you could drag corpses, or maybe I didn’t know how. But I used the corpse location song and had a druid give me a water breathing buff. I went out a LOOONG way but found the corpse at the bottom of the ocean, loaded with more loot than I had ever dreamed of. But I was a nice guy, reported back to the person that I found the corpse, got permission to loot it, and …. sank like a rock when I was terribly overburdened.
I managed to get moving again, trying to swim up to the surface before the water breathing spell ran out. This was before I had my own water breathing song, so panic was starting to set in. I was able to twist strength song and endurance song but soon lost my bearings and couldn’t even find up! Panic was definitely growing, so in desperation, I tried the corpse song again, knowing there was a body on the beach where I left. It worked, and I was able to drag myself up to shore as water breaking faded, and a grateful twink was expectant.
August 27th, 2012 at 12:35 pm
I had soooo many moments in EQ1, but the one that stands out is my first journey to Freeport to meet up with everyone else. I was so excited to finally meet up with everyone, especially after that ridiculous technical delay. :p You guys were pulling Lucan out for Kharlyn (most likely). After the battle, I got all twinked out. Once we parted ways, I decided to set sail through the aptly named Ocean of Tears. The boat made its first stop and this island of wood elves. While on the boat, I con’d them. They were very red, but indifferent. I stepped off and I start getting wailed on. In a panic, I run back on the boat, where I die.
I spent the next half hour searching the zone for my body, not knowing it was lost for good the moment the boat zoned. :p I tried swimming across the zone line from Butcherblock to OOT, thinking I could find my body right on the other side. I got warped into the middle of BB and then a new chase began with those dwarf guards. Of course, they eventually caught up with me and I would somehow find my way off that evil land. I made sure I would eventually return and kill all those who caused me trouble.
August 27th, 2012 at 12:57 pm
Those boats were the absolute worst. Maybe they qualify for the most annoying character.
August 27th, 2012 at 1:28 pm
LOL! Oh EverQuest and the trauma it has left us all with. So many great memories, so many terrible memories.
August 27th, 2012 at 6:03 pm
I think you’re right, Gaed. They had HP bars and funky pathing, so I think they count as an NPC.
August 30th, 2012 at 8:34 pm
All the bad memories get erased whenever we send Dumar to eat the Death Touch.
August 31st, 2012 at 9:19 am
LOL! Well said. =P
Poor Dumar.