It’s amazing how things drastically change from day to day, and seemingly minute to minute. In the world of online games, these changes are even more accelerated because there’s less risk, so we’re more agile in our decision-making.
Take today for example. My previous post talks about my wife’s dirge, and how I’m thinking about playing it, and so on. Well, today when I logged on Grabthar to get the wife’s dirge some AA, I saw a guild recruitment message that really intrigued me. I had been frustrated with my guild for quite some time because it felt like a dumping ground for new players and all their alts, and my requests for help and more complex answers fell on deaf ears. Thus, the guild recruitment announcement with promises of building up a raid guild came at the perfect time. I dropped out of my first real EQ2 guild and joined <Seven Deadly> on Unrest.
Now, bear in mind that I had all but abandoned Grabthar. He’s level 76, and it has taken me four months to get him from 72 to his current level. My singular goal has been to get him to 80 and use him as a farm bot. Granted, he has a lot of cool stuff: LoN loot card items, a five-room house, cool mounts, the Faydwer collection glasses, and so on. But in my old guild, I felt like Grabthar had nowhere to go. I never felt like I was going to be good enough to tank, and I had absolutely no guidance on what I should do as I approached 80.
With the new guild, all of that has changed. Almost immediately, my new guildies were explaining how Void Shards work, how to decide which spells to upgrade to Adept III, what the tier armors are and how they are upgraded, how to do the shard quests, and more. I joined the guild around 7:00 PM CST and by 10:30, I had gained almost an entire level, about 70k status, 2 AAs, and 6 void shards. And, I started laying the groundwork for my epic weapon, getting the Mysterious Black Tome collection done and starting the rep grind so I can get my epic timeline when I ding 80.
In all the time I spent in my previous guild, I only grouped with them once. Today, I did six instances with my new guildies!
Our guild is only level 24, but we’re rising up fast, and we’ll have our guild hall by this weekend. One of the neat things about the guild is that your rank increases as you gain status for the guild; this is to reward those people who are in the “startup” phase of the guild. You get a new rank at 5k status, 30k status, 100k status, and when you get your epic (or T2). Each rank gets better amenities, such as more access to the guild bank. This appeals to me because I really like to have something to work toward: a guild rank, a tier of gear, a special item, a mount.
I should have all ~40 shards for my tier 1 gear in about a week. When I logged in today, I thought I might have Legendary gear a year from now. I still plan to play the wife’s dirge–it’s so much fun–but I feel some closure with Grabthar. He’s not going to waste after all.
What a difference a day makes.
