Back in 1999, when I was still trying desperately to kill people in UO with my Explosion/Ebolt/Warhammer combo, and the Cookie Chef Clan was trying to war every guild on the Catskills server, there were rumblings of a game called Shadowbane. The rumblings were small, and mostly annoying, not quite loud enough to sound like a fly buzzing in your ear, but rumblings nevertheless. This new game promised to be the pinnacle of PvP combat, the Holy Grail even. At a time when people were beginning to become disenchanted with UO, a fresh face was needed. So here it was small rumblings that turned into the biggest fucking hype machine EVER. I mean damn! EVERYONE who was remotely interested in PvP was talking about this game, people were leaving UO crying out that they would see us all in Shadowbane. Everyone was excited, it was a time of innocence, this is when only 2 games were on the market, but AC was in the near future. Fast forward to December when I have met Ronald Mcdonald after he moved here to Columbus, and after he hooked me up with a beta invite to Shadowbane that was extended to the WTFMen and friends.

At this time I was firmly ensconced in AC, this was around December or so, Nighthawk had only been playing a month or so and the Ronald McDonald Monarchy was flourishing. Those were the good ol' days. The days of the Stonehold wars, the days of fighting over the Monouga Tents with SiN, the days where Ron shot me in the face at point blank range, then calling me on the phone laughing his fool ass off at me saying "Dude that was so fuckin funny, you should have seen it." Well I did see it, it looked like the purple bunghole of love followed by the shiny blue image of a lifestone. Those were the days, AC was a great game in it's time, it required healthy amounts of skill from the player to compete properly in PvP. This is a definite good thing. AC and UO are the only 2 games thus far that have a sort of First Person Shooter element to them, in regards to the amount of impact player skill had on PvP. More on that later. As I said, things were fine and dandy in AC, but there was always the little voice in the back of my head saying "You're only playing this game until Shadowbane comes out". See what hype does to people??

Throughout the next year or so I was playing AC pretty much exclusively. Blood was exploiting their way to the top of the leveling chain, and Speedhacking was at it's absolute worst. Clienthacking, gay-assed plugins that auto targeted weapons, and pretty much every other exploit/hack/homosexuality that you can think of went on unchecked. Turbine's policy at the time was to just sit back and not do a damn thing about it. I got frustrated, I left. I went back to UO with the hopes that it was still possible to have as much fun as before. As we all know, it just wasn't possible, with the introduction of Trammel, UO made it's death cry for me. Ron and I spent a few months in EQ, that was pretty fun, but he was so far ahead of me in levels, and my job was taking up a large portion of my life at the time, it just wasn't satisfying, plus there was no PvP. One of the most frustrating things about most games today, is that when someone is a complete cockmaster to you, there isn't a damned thing you can do about it. Someone stealing your kills? Well too bad, all you can do is call a GM and hope that they rectify the situation, but this leaves a nasty tatse in my mouth. I would much rather kill the person and send them a tell politely saying "Stop stealing my fucking kills". AC was great for this, at least on Darktide. All of these gaming endevors were very unsatisfying, but Shadowbane was coming soon right?

I take you forward in time again, this time, to June of 2002. That beta email I received in December of 1999? Well it finally materialized into an actual beta account, with a username and password, and a client to download and everything! I was excited, Shadowbane by this time, had kind of fallen off my radar because of the incessant delays. So, I downloaded the client, got it installed and tried to login. No luck. I figured, hey it's beta, at least there is an actual game, unlike the cries of "Vaporware!" had been suggesting. I would try again the next day.

Once I finally got in, I created a Dwarf Warrior, first of all the Dwarves looked like they were built out of Legos. Blocky as all hell and just plain ugly, but a certain charm to them nevertheless. I logged in and was unimpressed with the interface, but this is beta right, that kind of aesthetic stuff is taken care of last! Then, I tried to move forward, no go, I tried to move to the right or the left, I just spun in circles. What in the holy fuck was wrong with this damned game? Then it hit me, much like a bus hits you when you're not looking, you have to use the mouse to move, a la Diablo. I groaned, I cried, I screamed to the gaming gods, I did it all. I mean c'mon, this has got to be the most assinine thing I've ever seen in my life right? Right?? What happened to the UO-esque PvP experience, how was player skill going to come into play in combat at all when movement was so restricted?? I was mad, REALLY mad, I just couldn't believe it. I had waited all this time, for THIS?

After calming down, I logged back in, thinking, I can get used to the movement for such a supposedly awesome game. I spent a few minutes getting my bearings and started killing the newbie things, I got to about level 5 and decided I just couldn't take it anymore. I didn't log back in for months, I kept up on the beta boards at work. Posted a few ideas, but just couldn't bring myself to log in. I was sorely disappointed and after a few months completely lost interest. Now some of you will say, c'mon man, level 5? You didn't give them a chance, to which I will reply, read the rest of this post before sending me hatemail you turds. Anyhow, fast forward to December, Ron called me one day and said that he had been playing the Shadowbane beta and that he was really enjoying it. I thought maybe my friend had converted to the homosexual dark side, but he assured me that he, in fact, still liked boobies. He persuaded me to try the game once again, telling me that he would tell me where to go to level and whatnot, and explaining that it was very very easy to level in this game. So off I went, I created an Irekei Assassin named Devourment and logged in to powerlevel to level 18 only to have the server wiped on the folowing Monday. I was pissed, but all was good as Ron assured me that on the next build we would level together.

I recreated Devourment after the next build was placed on the live server. Ron created a Minotaur Barbarian who was the admiral of asskicking, hitting in the neighborhood of 300 points of damage around level 25 or 30. It was fairly amazing and I was jealous of his huge minotaur peen. We leveled very quickly, hitting level 50 in 8 days. Ron and I were part of the DHL guild, who were quite uber and had a huge ass city with all the class trainers and merchants you could ever need. It was a time of much love and joy and killing and making fun of CoS. I was actually enjoying the game, I couldn't believe it, it was actually fun! I thought well, here it is, finally, a game that can make me happy. I had played every goddamned MMO that had hit the market thus far. And this might finally be the one! The only major problem at the time were ninja raids on towns. You know, the kind that occur at 5am EST when pretty much EVERYONE who is not a catassing fucking moron is in bed! If you can't beat me during primetime, and you have to resort to using the fact that I have to get up and go to work every morning against me, then you, my friend, are a raving, man-ass slamming, poopy head, and lots of other bad names!

All this leveling and I still had yet to fight anyone, it was amazing, I was so caught up in trying to get to a PvP ready level that I hadn't even noticed. I mean we had been attacked while we were leveling but pretty much every time they caught us by surprise and we were dead in seconds. So I decided to take it upon myself to try and kill some people, it was then that I realized that a Rogue-based assassin was the gimpiest of the gimps. Wow I was terrible, utterly fucking horrible even, I couldn't do NEARLY enough damage to anyone to be able to kill them, except mages if they were sitting down when I first attacked them. I once snuck up on a scout while he was sitting, I was Rank 5, he was Rank 3, I hit him while he was sitting, he stood up, hit his run buff and took off before I could kill him. Then he came back, shot me in the leg, snaring me, then proceeded to shoot me to death from about 100 yards. Gayyyyy. Here we go again, no skill involved in that exchange, for him it was stand up, run away, come back, hit special snare attack of doom, hit the attack button, go get a soda, come back and loot my body. In AC you could dodge the arrows, in UO you could make it damned difficult for mages to target you by moving around like a maniac. Not here, it was point, click, get soda, loot body. Goddamnit, the gaming industry did it to me AGAIN. I did not want another DAoC clone where it was a Rock, Paper, Scissors game. I wanted to say to myself, well a Scout should beat me, but if I am competent in my class and a good PvPer I can have a good chance of beating that Scout. Shadowbane leaves very little room for Player Skill to enter into the equation.

In spite of all this, I still enjoyed the game, I made lots of suggestions on the beta boards on how to make Rogue-based Assassins a better class in PvP. And continued to play in the beta right up to release. They introduced the new siege system, which is the one that is in release now. This seemed to solve the Ninja Raiding problem, however it was not tested nearly enough, and as many can tell you, Ninja Raiding is still very much alive in the game today.

I had made up my mind that I was going to buy the game, even though Ron had long since lost interest. March 26th I believe that date was, I went and picked up my Pre-ordered copy from EB, came home and installed it. Hooked up with my brother and a guild I was in while I was playing DAoC on Andred, as JoV would not be taking part in Shadowbane because Nighthawk hated the game. We started on the Dread server, and leveled very quickly as a lot of us had been in the Beta. Suddenly, as Trees of Life began springing up it was apparent that they had DRASTICALLY increased the build times on all city buildings. It would take weeks and LOTS of gold to have a fully functioning city, at first everyone was MIGHTY pissed, and with good reason. This had NOT been tested, AT ALL, I mean fuck, a week ago when the last day of beta happened, the build times were hunky dory. WTF were they thinking? After settling down I had just resigned myself to thinking, well, this will make losing your city hurt a lot more. If I only knew how MUCH more. Everything was going ok, we were one of the first 5 ToLs to be placed on the server, which was fairly impressive for a guild that was as small as ours. We had very little trouble with other people on the server, we had one other ToL that was placed very close to ours but we were on pretty good terms with them and we shared the Bog area for leveling. Then the first snag came, a rather large guild called The Black Watch popped up and pretty much got 75% of the server to become their subguilds. This just goes to prove that people as a general rule do NOT want a challenge at all, they just want to dominate. Obviously we were outmatched, but we fought anyway, a guild on the server lost their town and their ToL. It was then, that the increased build times came back and bit the game in the ass. Hear me now, you can NOT make a comeback after your city is destroyed unless you have some generosity from the people who killed you. This is bad, very very bad. This guild that was destroyed simply took their ball and went to another server. Our server was pretty low in population to begin with, so this definitely was NOT a good thing. Plus this guild was the only other "big" guild on the server at the time. So now there goes the main competition to TBW. And we sit back and just wait our turn to be killed.

People saw that this was hurting the game, so they tried to impliment rules that buildings weren't going to be destroyed unless the city was Baned. Obviously people being people, AKA fucking idiots, they would not listen and would ninja raid cities in the middle of the night destroying everything that the ToL did not protect. The ToL only protects 10 buildings, this is a bad thing. People would just come along and destroy all extra barracks, walls, merchant buildings, high rank vendors, and whatever else could be killed in the middle of the night, then place a bane on your town. You would then wake up the next morning to a smoldering ruin of a town with no chance of even putting up a fight when the Bane went live because of the increased buildtimes. Most people would just delete their Tree to avoid giving satisfaction to those homosexual enough to launch an assault at 3 in the morning. More people gone from the server, or the game entirely, as I've said before, this is a bad thing.

I'm sure you're all saying, Ok what is the fucking point already? That is if you even read this far, which I doubt most of you will. I'm not so sure I even really have a point, I am just expressing my lamentations at not having a good PvP game to play. I suppose if Wolfpack were to fix the things wrong with Shadowbane(Long ass build times, ToL should protect the entire city to avoid ninja raiding, etc.) I would play it and all would be good. But, in it's current incarnation, it is just not fun, not to mention all the thechnical problems they have with their Login and Game servers. When will it happen? When will someone do it right? When will someone take the good parts of UO and AC and throw them all together in the perfect PvP game? Will it be Darkfall? Possibly, but Shadowbane has taught me not to believe in anything, until at the very least there is a box on the shelves to be purchased, and even then, hype should NEVER be trusted. So game developers, I ask you, when will you deliver my hero?

Just a little disclaimer, I know this post is long, there may even be some misspellings, I apologize in advance for all grammatical wrongdoings and possible mistakes on timelines. I also apologize for having an extremely long post take up most of the page. :/

-Joe

09.20.03

A Little Pointless Entertainment

I tend to go through the referrer list on any site that I'm running/posting on, and rather frequently. Call it a vanity thing, call it a self defense thing.

While doing so today, I came across this message board thread. Granted, at first glance, it looks like just another piece of shit "PVP DOESN'T BELONG IN MMORPGS!" thread, and to be honest, the first two pages of the thread were a boring waste of time that I won't bother responding to. Or reading, for that matter.. I skimmed over it, but that's about it. Quite frankly, JoeCarebear23's opinion on why Trammel is the best just doesn't interest me too much. Yeah, I know where you stand, I've heard it before.

Things start to get somewhat more interesting on the third page, though. Seems someone decided to cut&paste my UX:O post into the thread, which is nothing new, but this time it was on on a STRATICS messageboard. If you're not up on the gaming-related website community, Stratics is reknowned for it's absolutely astounding carebearishness, both of the mods and the community in general.

Needless to say, people didn't like it so much. And while I'm not particularly affected by the holier-than-thou opinions of ignorant, self-important makers of terrible web comics (should I be giving him hits? He might think he's more important than he already does if he gets more than six hits a day - at least the hits coming in from this site will only be people laughing their asses off at him), I did take the time to repond to one of his posts.

Why would I do such a thing? Why even reply to a post on Stratics messageboards, where I'm sure to get updwards of three hundred psuedo-intellectual geldings leeching themselves onto my ass the minute I show my face or express an opinion other than "Fuck! Does Trammel ever rock! I'm glad I'll be safe from any type of conflict or gameworld immersion in any MMORPG from now until the end of time! All people that PvP are fags LOL!"?. The only reason I can think of is to incite a bit of a furor, and make the carebears go lay down on the bed for awhile. And, of course, to entertain you for a minute.

-Azaroth

09.18.03

And the fourth seal opened

2 posts on one day? Sweet Jesus, someone alert the media. Actually this isnt much of a post, just stumbled across something today that I thought was pretty damn funny, and thought I would share it. Check out Why Darth Vader Made Me Cry. You dont have to be a star wars fan, but it helps. -Greybeard

A New Feature

Whats even more impressive than a fabulous New Feature, is the fact I have actually made two posts back to back. I think thats equvilent to someone opening the 3rd seal of the apocolypse or something. In any event, I figure I can keep the 6 of you that care informed about what I have been busy doing over the course of the last year, that I havent been posting. I proudly bring to you: Dumb Shit That I Blow Money On. Enjoy. Or not. -Greybeard

09.17.03

WTFMan Part Deux

Some of you may have noticed the smell of blood in the air lately. Either that, or those old sweatsocks and half eaten pizza slice that have been under your desk for five months. In either event, I am pleased to announce that we are once again one big happy family here at WTFMan. We have many changes to come, including a new site layout that Azaroth will be hard working on, and Joe will be taking credit for once its done. Also, Nighthawk and I have pledged to one another to conduct all of our cockwaving in the privacy of our own homes, or quite possibly on a Pay Per View to be announced later for only $79.95. Celebrity referee will be Randy "The Macho Man" Savage, and halftime entertainment will be Ron performing his rendition of "It's Raining Men." Stay tuned for more details. -Greybeard

09.15.03

Off the subject : WTFTrix

Well, while we all try to figure out what's going on around here,, I figure I might as well repost what I put on the messageboard earlier this week.

It may come as a huge shock to all of you, but the WTFTrix movie is not something I am planning on finishing anytime soon, if ever. I must apologize, but I have not the time nor the inclination to finish it within this next decade. At least I don't plan on it.

However, I have spent too much god damned time working on what I've worked on, and I am not going to just let this shit rot on my computer, even if I am not sticking around. So, in a shameless plug, and for your enjoyment, you can view what I do have done, as you might find it entertaining. Or not. Whatever.

Scene 1: http://www.wtfman.com/flash/inprogress.htm

With the exception of text graphics and other nonsense, this scene is completed. Ignore the "Scene Switch" text, as it's a note to self.

Scene 3, 4 something: http://www.wtfman.com/flash/inprog.htm

The sound is a little fucked up on this one, so turn it up a little louder before viewing.

As far as all of this other shit is concerned, I will give you my two cents at a later time. Everything else has already been misconstrued enough, so I am not going to add fuel to the fire.

Additionally, the new Perfect Circle album comes out tomorrow. This makes me happy.

-Ron

09.06.03

Message Board

I've made up a board for the enjoyment of all.

This board WILL be moderated. I'm going to do my best to trim away the fat and let the normal people post.

If at any time it becomes too much of a hassle for me to keep moderating this board, it will simply be taken down. If you've got such a small dick that your goal in life is to get this board taken down, it can be done rather easily.

This board is here for non-retarded people, and thus any spamming or stupid shit like goatse.cx will get you immediately banned.

Most of all - Get a life, people. If you're thinking about spending some time proving that you have the intelligence and genitalia of a small rodent, take a deep breath, go outside, and ask yourself if you've been put on this earth to post pictures of goatse.cx. If you decide that the answer is yes, please further the human race's possibility of flourishing in the future and blow your brains out with a twelve gauge shotgun.

Thanks.

- Azaroth

09.03.03

Star Wars Kid

For those that have been deprived both the pleasure and pain of seeing the Star Wars Kid in action, I figured I'd post the movie. I'm well aware that many of you have seen it repeatedly, but I'm convinced that the majority of people actually haven't seen it. In truth, I still wouldn't know what the hell it was if I hadn't caught a segment on the KTLA morning news a month or two ago.

I'm pretty sure KTLA picking up the story and airing the video in it's entirety didn't help any. I laughed for quite some time, but was left with a bitter taste in my mouth and the urge to punch the anchorman in the face. I, of course, then laughed some more and proceeded to download the video from the internet. Followed by some more laughing. Then I kicked a dog.

The story behind the movie is basically that this poor overweight highschool kid really enjoys him some Starwars, and one day he decided to tape himself flashing his moves in the school A/V room. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, some kids who happen to enjoy picking on fat, akward geeks, of which this fellow is a prime example, got ahold of the tape and promptly threw it up on Kazaa.

Watching it through to the end pays dividends. What he lacks in endurance he makes up in enthusiasm and girly-kicks. He's generally not too sure what he's doing, either, and the effort gets less coordinated as time goes on.

If you're interested in seeing remakes of this video, such as one with lightsaber graphics or farting noises, you can search Google for "fat Star Wars kid remix". I decided not to link the site, since they're actually selling t-shirts with this poor fucker's mug on them now.

The kid now goes for psychiatric counseling, and has, obviously, been forced to quit going to school where he was. You really can't blame him. However, in a lame gesture, some dumbasses have decided to buy him an iPod. I'm sure that'll make it all worth it. It's always good to have the feeling that you came out on top. 50 million people around the world laughed their asses off at you, but you ended up with an iPod. That's a feather in your cap.

Also, while we're having a jolly good time of it, I'll post this. If you're one of those people that need a description before downloading a file off of the internet, you're a pussy - and this is a techno-enhanced remix of some dumbass getting his ass kicked in a FPS while whining loudly about it. I find it even funnier than the Star Wars Kid, but probably only because I've seen the video so many times.

To complete the trio of hilarity, I would like to present you with the #1 Star Wars Kid lookalike. This little flamer decided to try his hand at ripping into me on the Darkfall boards, and in the midst of doing a very poor job of it, he got himself banned. He may have also forgotten that he posted his image in webcam form.

Note: Don't fuck around if you look like this. In real life, you'll get your ass kicked. On the internet, you'll get your picture posted. And then when someone recognizes you, you'll get your ass kicked.

- Azaroth

09.02.03

Internet People

I hate people. Granted, I don't hate all people, but definitely a vast majority. This would probably explain why so many people throughout my life have told me that I'm an asshole. Hell, its gotten to the point that I tell people that my middle inital A stands for that.

I started thinking about this after reading Joe's posts, some Maddox, and looking back at my older posts. What I've come up with is that the Internet is what has caused me to really not like the average person. While I'm just as likely as the next guy to get pissed at the stupid fucker on the highways that does something retarded and costs everyone else an extra 20 minutes of drive time, the biggest problem people are on the net. The problem is mainly that no matter what someone's position on a topic is, there is nothing that really guides people to the clue that they may be wrong. So they will argue forever that they are right no matter what and refuse to change their mind regardless of what factual information the other side of the arguement hold.

I like to think that I'm pretty quick to admit being wrong. It happens - I'm not infallible. As much as I would like to be, I'm not and I can live with that. Much like a bad poker hand I like to fold early and get past a mistake as quickly as possible. Christ I wish I could teach that to every idiot out there that (to my misfortune) has the ability to log on to an ISP and come across my virtual path.

I'll summarize. If I come at you with fact and somewhat intelligent opinion and you just come at me with opinion, you need to pack up camp and pick another fight. Admit failure and move on. No one is right 100% of the time and everyone hates people who think they are.

Dunno why... I just figured I'd share my thoughts on the topic for no particular reason.

BTW, yes I am aware that Planetside closed their 7-day trial accounts. People were getting on temp accounts and griefing/exploiting, so I'm guessing thats why they were discontinued. So, if you wanna try it you have to buy it. Sorry. :/

- Nighthawk