Life in a chaos city: Ottenhal, Kraken killing strategy and Andruk raid

As I explained in my last entry, some guys left Coldblooded to form a new clan, 'Wanted', which I joined. This involves having no player controlled holdings to live in and no alliances. As such, we moved from Mar Shral to the chaos city of Ottenhal, near the centre of Agon.

I had never lived for a prolonged time in a chaos city and the thought of it was a bit daunting. I mean... will we be in constant PvP and in fear of being killed by random travellers all the time?

New clan change |||| Tu...ghri, or not Tu...ghri, Devil runs and going red! [analepsis #2]

On current events: This will be the end of the analepsis and a change of my casual blog adventures (no, I am not going to cancel). I went away for the Easter weekend and when I came back, some guys had left Coldblooded to form a new clan: Wanted. I like everyone in both clans but as I had more friends (including ex-azure members) in the new "Wanted" clan, I also moved out. Best of luck to the guys that stay with Coldblooded though.

Now, getting back to the last adventures from my time with Coldblooded: I have been PvPing more since I joined Coldblooded and this included a few PvP trips to my homeland: Elf country, after we had moved to Mar Shral. I participated in 2 of them and they invariably included a stop by Moradar hamlet and Tughri city which belongs to Greece clan (a friendly group of people who are very liberal on who can bind at their city).

Move to Mar Shral [analepsis #1]

The timeline in this blog is getting screwed up, but I had this post already drafted and would be a waste to trash it :( The objective is to report the location shift in my clan's base of operations which took place on a sunday, after I had joined them on friday. The story goes as follows:

We have moved to Mar Shral city, which is located on the border of alfar and human lands. Most people would just teleport from one place to the other, but not me!

Zaghuroth and Mehatil: Proof of the evil zerg machinations - TEH HORROR!

Alluding to my other post about the boat trip: proof has been found of how the mighty zerg planned and prepared for weeks and months to go do asset damage on the poor "10 man clan" who lives in Zaghuroth. And of the mighty subsequent battle on the outskirts of Mehatil...

May this be a warning of the unspeakable horror that shall be unleashed for the sorrow of millions!

Zarghuroth and Mehatil... knock knock... who's there?

Just for future reference, I want to make 2 other posts besides this one regarding our clan's attempt to go kill the Devil for 2 times now (and how High Dro and his gang are the luckiest bunch around!) and the 2 raids I participated in, to Greece's city of Tughri.

For now, I'll go back to the topic at hand, which took place yesterday night (Monday) and began by very naughty actions! Around 8 of Coldblooded were just practising 4vs4 near Mar Shral, when we are declared Weary by Ultimatum and Elders of Agon (I think). Well, we take this to heart and while all the women are crying in desperation, drowning their newborn babies and I'm crawled up in a corner, someone has the brilliant idea to go check Elders of Agon's city, in a cruise-type voyage.

Sunday Events: Sieges by SUN

Since my last post, I have rode all the way from Aerngardh in Niflheim to Mar Shral in Human Lands. There were a lot of PvP encounters and other stories to tell but so as not to lose the timeframe of current events, I'll write about yesterday's sieges instead.

There isn't much to talk about really as I got pissed off at the whole thing and hadn't planned properly to get me trough the evening.

First things first: 6PM: around 7 of Coldblooded ride out from Mar Shral. Objective: reach Tiquiya or Western Tlaloc (can't remember exactly now). We first go to the city of Alberworth, to the east, killing just a few humans and passing by some allies who we initially attack by mistake. When we arrive, we notice the portal chamber is destroyed, so we kindly repair it only to find out it had a 1 hour timer until it was back online.

Around the world [=Niflheim] in 60 days: there and back [=dead] again!

Another beautiful day starts in the white subcontinent, when I login to Darkfall. Birds are chirping, snowflakes are falling, city fauna is running around happily but my luck is still controlled by the 2-horned devil himself as I get myself killed yet again!!!!!

I'll explain better. As I was saying, I login during the evening and go out with Galfurien to do some PvE (warthanes and vile gaunts). I think they are great mobs as they are easy to kill and give good gold/mats/r50 GS, which we direly need as one is poorer than the other. Two guys approach on horses and as we are a bit low on health and stamina we step away to recharge but they don't even follow us.

From Cairn [NOT YSSAM] to Niflheim: first day in Aerngardh and Angfrost

I'm not typing these entries fast enough as events are moving forward quickly: I'll post this entry and a next regarding Niflheim but we have already moved back to Dayar (I can see that I'm gonna need to start begging for portal shards in the slums of Sanguine soon).

As I was saying in the previous entry, I logged in on Sunday, in Dayar, just to find out the clan had relocated to Aerngardh in the north-western subcontinent of Niflheim. God damn it... spend 2 more portal shards and puff... there I am. The city seems to be well populated by the way, at least there are always a few people in it (not a whole lot but some). I am kind of happy to be here as I remember the nice mob spawns from when I had been here for Equilibrium's Qiqatak hamlet siege.

New life in Yssam and Dayar city: first impressions

Would just like to thank once again everyone at Equilibrium. Talked with a lot of friends on Friday and everyone was very nice.

So this past Wednesday I had moved to Charybdis, gathered a bit and logged off. On Thursday, I had moved to Iriendir and waited for a bit until I was accepted into Coldbooded. I then proceeded to Hal'Kali city, south of Greece's Tughri, so I could use their portal chamber, to teleport to Dayar, my future home in Yssam, the arid subcontinent of Cairn (where my old mate Mage DNA was).

When I get off loading screen, I see I'm on top of a hill, inside a cave, overlooking a very shadowy and maze-like city, full of dark walls and dark buildings which from atop, seem to mix with the cave walls. First things first, let's get bound to the city before anything else... but wait I don't see any shining light connecting heaven and earth... I call for help in mumble and sure enough, I am led to it (it is located in an adjacent cave or something like that).

Changing clan: Sad goodbye, Hopeful future

It is with great sadness that I have quit Equilibrium. And I say sadness because I had gotten to know a lot of cool and friendly people with whom I've had a great and funny time.

To give a bit of context, I had joined this clan in the beginning of January 2011 (on the same day I resubscribed to Darkfall - after a 6 months break) and I quit on the 6th of April, which totals around 3 full months of membership. I was a captain and member of the clan's council, so I felt I was trusted, like I belonged and had a great time.

New blog functionality: page breaks

That's right distinguished readers and scholars of Darkfall, high tech progress and development have swept through this blog, just like the IMF will sweep through debt-ridden Portugal.

My posts are a bit too long and take too much space on the main page, so it would be interesting to have a "read more" option and just a teaser introduction (those things that have existed for decades now...). It would also enable me to understand which posts people find more interesting as I think I will be able to see which posts get chosen more, in statistics.

But my feeble brain, the same which doesn't seem to be able to handle posting screenshots very well (this will be progress #2) hadn't had time to digest this idea and put it to practise. Of course it isn't hard at all and it was just a question of going to "Design" -> Edit "Blog Posts" -> press on the question mark next to "Read more".

Apparently this wasn't so simple and I screwed up this message's first publication. Apparently, I was using the old editor and the "page break" button didn't exist. Apparently google solves all world problems.

So, going back to the...

To zerg or not to zerg! Practical examples: EoA and NO-SUN War

Following the last post which described the siege on Darkmoore (and my brutal and heroic slaughter of a SUN SG of course :D alongside my clan friend by mistake :( ), I would like to talk about zerging, nutcupping and other related urban dictionary terms.

I'm not going to invent the wheel or change the spirit of this topic as there is no way of having what people like to call a "fair fight". Which standard should be used to judge if a fight is fair? By the same amount of people? By the skill of people involved? How do you measure skill and how do you compare it in terms of players?

It's impossible, of course, and the reason why it creates so much drama in Forumfall (by the way, I like this term for Darkfall's forums... it has some distinctiveness to it). Even though people can troll and complain about everything, even that the earth is not flat, when it comes to scientific stuff, the trolling is easier to tone down. But as what one considers a zerg, is all but a precise science, posting counts in Forumfall get easily on the high thousands (well not easily... you do have to put some effort into it).

Coming back to the Darkmoore siege, we were attacked by what seemed like overall better players and characters (just like in the Qiqa siege when we were attacked by Malus Spiritus). When this happens, it is the job of the not so good players to try to counter their enemies' skills with numbers. And this shouldn't be called a zerg or nutcupping afterwards, because it was an even fight skill wise.

Also, if you rule out bringing in friends, allies or even mercs into fights, then you take away a big part of the game: diplomacy and political strategy. When someone attacks a clan, he shouldn't expect to face just that clan, but all the political might behind it. And this should be OK.

But then, the trolling wheels start to spin on the forums and people care about what others think of them ( which is indeed important). I'll give 2 practical examples, in which I had no involvement: Elders of Agon losing their city in Niflheim and the recent NO-SUN war.

When EoA were first sieged, some Equilibrium guys who were friendly with them, went to assist them. I guess that some other alliance members who had nothing better to do at the time, also went to have fun. This was promptly called out on the forums, by the attackers (who lost the first siege) as a hidden alliance and that sieging like this was impossible... They sieged again and this time, Equilibrium (or the equilibrium members who were friends with EoA) decided not to send any aid (also because I think EoA are ARAC and the attacking clan was RAC, and we are supposed not to deal with ARAC; and the leaders of EoA and the attacking clan decided it that way).

Nonetheless, the point I'm trying to make is that the propaganda spewed in the forums, really made us think if we should help out or not and I think that, eventually, made the leader of EoA abdicate their friends' help, so as not to seem like wimps. It shouldn't be this way.


Regarding the "NO-SUN War", there is a big alliance going against SUN. It fielded short of 300 members (according to Tsalarian Crystalshard's thread... you know who... just that SG from SUN, I VICIOUSLY KILLED just the other day) against 100+ on SUN's side (or similar numbers, don't really care... the point is SUN is heavily outnumbered). Is it fair? ...
SUN has had a good life and they have created a lot of antibodies, wether it be from screwing others or just because they are the most powerful clan in-game. The fact is, they should be able to get allies or friends to come help them in this most dire of times. If they are not able to, it's because their DF lifestyle hasn't been conducive to that possibility and begs to question if they shoudln't have prepared for this.

Diplomacy is important and you should always think about who your friends are or can be. Some like to play the "alone style" and just walk right in with melee pwning everyone. But they forget that others play the "strenght in numbers" game and someone help us if that gamestyle doesn't suit the loner type.

Simplistic conclusion would be: there are no zergs only lack of allies.

To recycle the purpose of this thread, brushing on the "NO-SUN" war (it would be fun if all the major wars had titles and their ownn entries in Darkfall wikipedia), I think that SUN will keep losing a few holdings. The self siege tactic can't last forever and I'm not seeing anyone coming to their aid in the short term (nor will SUN be desperate enough to get it in a serious manner). The Eclipse coallition won't try to take all of SUN's holdings and for those who say that they will just keep the best ones, don't forget that the coallition isn't one clan (like in the SUN-Zagenda war: how about naming it Zagenda-Zappear War? - as in disappear .p) and there are a lot of wants/needs/egos to soothe (I'm sure).

There are still a lot of powers who have not engaged in this conflict yet, so you might see them joining in +/- 2 weeks. If SUN manages to keep their memberbase, they will still be an excellent ally candidate and the coallition will have many good holdings to be conquered. If this doesn't happen, all European are pixel huggers! :)

Disclaimer 1 - In case irony and joking is not conveyed properly in my posts, I'm joking about me killing Tsalarian in a vicious and heroic manner. Myself and a friend caught him half health, semi-naked, in the middle of pve.
Disclaimer 2 - I talk a lot about things I am not involved with nor do I have specific knowledge about, so just take it as a superficial opinion on matters.

Darkmoore sieged by Wired Chickens

This last Friday, at around 22pm if memory doesn't fail me (which it usually does), we were attacked in our friendly city of Darkmoore by around 10 guys pimped out in infernal. They were members of Wired Chicken, a neverheardofclanbefore and I think they had 1 SUN guy with them. A bit of shittalk in public but nothing extraordinary.

They make their way to the bank while killing everyone. In the meanwhile, a ship is spawned in our little church lake, to destroy the city walls. I manage to get onboard the ship (naked) and drive it for a bit, just for a laugh, before I am quickly killed of course.

With Qiqatak siege still fresh in our memories, we all bind south in Charybdis, the great Elven Capital city. On my way south, near the trolls area, I run into 3 Happybrawlers Inc guys who attack me. Just beyond them is 1 blue SUN guy who just makes 1 heal to my mount. At the time, Happybrawlers being there almost seemed coordinated to try and catch our guys fleeing south of Darkmoore. Either that or they were looking for newbs to kill as they usually populate that troll spawn (if they weren't newbs themselves and leveling on the trolls... but being red and all...).

Now, to provide some context of how I viewed the situation:

Overall, Equilibrium and the alliance tries to live an honourable life in Darkfall to the best of our habilities. We don't roam sieges (even though it sounds really fun), we stick with our RP policy of dealing only with well-aligned races and we try not to zerg or nutcup.

In the Qiqatak siege, we were sieged by Malus Spiritus who are much better PvP players than us. We didn't bind in any of the ARAC holdings, near Qiqa hamlet and we didn't accept any outside help. The hamlet wasn't worth us breaking any of the valours we strive to play by (although this is discussable and will be addressed in this post). Our alliance activity levels weren't exactly the best in that siege and we only managed to get 15 or so guys (I think we didn't reach the 20), which against the +/- 12 Malus Spiritus, we had very little chance of winning.

Now, it was our only holding and City that was in question. People might not love Darkmoore but we paied 700k for it and it has been our home for 1 or 2 months now. Even if we would like to change holdings, I would feel very enraged if we simply didn't do everything to try and win the siege. One thing is to lose the city because we sold it, another is to lose it because someone conquered it (obviously :)).

So I argue that we shouldn't take this siege like we did Qiqa's and that we should do the best to our ability to keep it. The decision isn't taken lightly or instantly but eventually, we accept the help of 2 clans outside the alliance. We didn't know who those Wired Chicken guys were nor if they had any outside help (specially with 1 SUN being there, which might of been just a friend or a coincidence of course).

Coming back to that friday night, we bind in Charybdis. In Darkmoore, the walls are being teared apart and after they are done and unspawn the ship, they log off. We find the siegestones: 1 medium on top of the western plateau and a small one, on the ground below, right next to the medium. As such, we mark some 30 runestones on the western plateau, thinking we will try to hold it before the siege goes live and use the bridge that leads up to it as a chokepoint.

BTW, during this friday night, me and Skuldlang rode south west to go kill some deathless mages. We approach the place and find a semi-naked Tsalarian Crystalshard, one of SUN's SG, pveing. We wait for him to kill the last mobs (I think he had 50% health at the time), and we ninja approach and proceed to attack him. Skul takes the offensive and I manage to hit him with an arrow, a ray and do a sacrifice heal on Tsalarian. So, my first 3 actions were all rubbish... When I see skul's health getting a bit low, I tell him to stepback and have me take over with the melee. Ofc when I am attacking Tsalarian, I kill skul by mistake but no matter... Tsalarian didn't really have a chance, semi-naked and with low health. I kill him, gank and rezz my clan mate who I had also killed :(

I found this interesting as the new alignement system was already in place: skul attacks first and probably gets grey but as he dies in the end, he didnt lose alignement. When I jump in the fight, Tsalarian probably attacked me first so he got grey. So when I kill and gank him, I don't lose any alignement. Hurrah! :p

We loot everything we think is worthwhile but it is not much... he probably hadn't been there for a long time. There is a 5 dura justicebringer that will come handy in the siege on the following day. We leave because everytime we see SUN, we have the feeling that more of them are on the way .P


Sleep sleep, stuff to do, log in game 30 minutes before siege goes live. As I login late, I don't know the full story but our people are already on the plateau fighting and keeping the chickens away from it. It seems this is not like Qiqa siege and we probably have 20-25 guys from alliance logged in + 8 from helping clans (I think -> these are all rounded estimates). Me and 4 other guys from the clan who were in Iriendir get a runestone and port on the plateau, at the command of Master Owyn Cavall, who is already there.

From what I understand, most are on the plateau and a small group is on the ground. One of the outside clans who is helping us is by the clanbank which hadn't been disabled by the attacking clan.

When I get on the plateau there are fights going on around the plateau. I guess some have come through the bridge (where we tardly place a clanbox) and others have jumped up using magic. Heavy fighting going on...etc etc... I eventually get killed and I see a few others getting killed as well. I think that they are getting the upperhand but apparently they must not have been, as I see the surviving ones running away. People (me included) are rezzed and the graves are looted.

From there until siege start, we just had some sporadic attacks by 3(?) enemies, which were easily and obviously won. I found this last part more entertaining as there is nothing better than stickybacking a running enemy over and over... which happened with one of the enemies. Just as he was very close to dieing, he loads up a blast spell to get away and I manage to hit him with a ray or with a greatsword slash and I just see his dead boddy blasting away... friendlies on the ground ganked him, I think.

Siege starts and we just battlesike destroy the siegestones without being further interrupted and the day is saved. Hurrah! :)

I think they PMed us saying that we were too many and GG. Some might argue that we were and I said, previously in this post, when I say that we strive to play by good values, that I would explain what I mean better. But as this post has run long enough, I will make another post on the issues of zerging and nutcupping.

Anyways, at least, for now, you can rest assured that The Great City of Darkmoore, last bastion of defence against the Mahirrim selvatic hordes, still belongs and is the seat of the RAC, RP Alliance :)

Equilibrium's Darkmoore Jousting Tournament (Mounted Combat) - video link inside

After having our Mounted Tournament event cancelled on Sunday due to Qiqa's siege, I hosted it on the following Sunday.

Thane Solus, who was frapsing everything edited a video and uploaded it on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsSD5qe1CxM

I think it's great because it involves us, but it might not be so great for others :p

Just know that Mounted Combat is great fun and I think the event went well.

If anyone wants to know, here are the detailed Tournament results:

Round 1:

Yanick vs Tiax = Yanick Won
Daetas vs Satine = Daetas won
Thane vs Gugnir = Gugnir won
Carac vs Jack = Carac won
Clansman vs Ewenzy = Clans won
Owyn vs Meddea = Owyn won
Siulka vs Jack = Jack won

Round 2:

Yanick vs Satine = Yanick won
Daetas vs Gugnir = Daetas won
Thane vs Jack = Jack won
Carac vs Ewenzy = Carac won
Clansman vs Meddea = Meddea won
Owyn vs Siulka = Owyn won
Tiax vs Gugnir = Gugnir won

The 8 finalists and points:

With 2 points: Daetas, Yanick, Carac and Owyn
With 1,5 points: Jack and Gugnir (they had 3 duels instead of 2)
With 1 point: Clansman and Meddea

Sudden Death Phase:

Daetas vs Yanick = Yanick won

Carac vs Owyn = Carac won

Yanick vs Carac = Carac won


Jack vs Gugnir = Gugnir won

Clansman vs Meddea = Clansman won

Gugnir vs Clansman = Gugnir won

FINAL DUEL:

Carac vs Gugnir = Carac won!