Through Good Times, Through Blood Times…

Posted August 15th, 2003 under AC1.

So, Darktide.

It’s this place, right, where basically every other person’s mission is to make you miserable. And folks? When I say they are good at their job, I really mean it. Sincerely.

The great thing about playing on Darktide is that I’ve got 40% vitae, no-drop armor and a no-drop bow. Oh, and a no-drop dagger. So, that whole death thing? Yeah – it doesn’t really come as a shock, you might say. What does come as a shock, however, is the fact that the most excellent guild, The Fremen Knights, are still around. Some of you REALLY old-timers that read my stuff back in the day might remember them from my almighty defense of Uziz.

Death says, “Wait a sec…Didn’t Kile call you ‘the worst thing to happen to Uziz since the sticky patch’?”
You say, “Uh…no… That was… erm… the other Kwip.”

TFK was one of the ‘good’ guilds. They didn’t just randomly attack people. They have this whole code thing they stick to, about not attacking someone that they’re not at war with or who didn’t attack them first or something. Anti (Randomly Player Killing), is what we called them back in the day. Which meant I couldn’t really join them. I didn’t randomly attack people, mind you. I just held it as perfectly acceptable grounds to attack someone for the offense of being Stupid in a No-Stupid Zone. Or if it would be funny. Or if I had the sudden urge to die. And you’d be amazed at how often I did.

However, some of my best memories of DT is long nights spent waiting for those naughty PK’ers to come charging into Uziz, where I waited in defense. Everyone else, of course, was out busy leveling. But hey man, I was level ten. I didn’t need that sissy leveling nonsense NO MORE! So of course, the evening would end about as you’d think. I’d spend two hours bored out of my melon, only to have PMS Rage and Isaac come charging in and kill me before I could get my bow out of my pants, where I’d been using it to scratch a very unusual itch…

But now I was BACK! And I was no mere child of level ten, by golly! Now I am a full-grown awesomeness of level FORTY-TWO! FEAR!

Granted, everyone else on the server is like 126, but there ya go…

The first thing I needed to do was to get to Uziz. Now many of you can no doubt plug in some nancy-boy decal thingy and know a shortcut, but for me, the only possible way to get there was that LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG-ass run from Al-Jalima. No problem! I figured I haven’t made that run in years, but come on – how bad could it be, right?

After my twelfth return to the Lifestone, I had a couple new observations:

I hate Skeleton Captains.
40% vitae REALLY screws up your melee defense.
I REALLY hate Skeleton Captains.
Armor Self IV isn’t really enough to keep a Skeleton Captain from shoving a spear up your keister if he’s really determined.
Skeleton. Captains. Hate. Got it?
An inch on the map is a looooooooooong-ass run.
Skeleton Captains tend to bring a lot of friends to their parties. And they bring a lot of pointy sticks. Sticks that just happen to be the perfect fit for your face.

It wouldn’t have been so bad if it weren’t for the fact that the Lifestone outside of Uziz was surrounded by bad-ass skellies. Yes, I know, I hear you muttering that they’re wimps, but remember who’s telling this story, okay? And to make matters even worse, there were some unattended combat macros running there. I would have reported them, but I figured I’d just tell Ken Karl when I saw him on ~~Tuesday~~ ~~Wednesday~~ ~~Tuesday~~ ~~Thursday~~ NEVER! Yeah, that’s right, Ken – we all know you were scared of the butt-kicking I was going to deliver unto you. Use whatever excuse lets you sleep soundly, bud. We all know the truth. I’ve already ass-hatted Asheron. You were next. You got out barely in time.

Normally I don’t mind UCMs on DT, because they’re usually higher level than me, and I can get some easy xp off them. And if I sit around killing them all night, that’s less hassle for anyone hunting in the area, right? Unfortunately, the people hunting in the area instead killed me. No sense of teamwork, I tell ya. Plus, with this uber vitae of mine, I was lucky if I could handle a Drudge Robber. In fact, I’m pretty sure one of them got me on the run down, too.

So yeah, it was time to bust out my ninja skills. Except there wasn’t really much I could ninja here. It wasn’t like I could hide from a macro. Not to mention those damn skeletons. Fortunately for me, one of the macros chose that very moment to go completely insane. For whatever reason, instead of charging the nearest target to die, the macro took off for town. I was perching on the Meeting Hall roof, so I figured this was as good a chance as I was gonna get. I leapt for the lifestone…

And bounced.

Here’s a fun little twist that Darktide has apparently adopted as its own: lagtastic fun! I’ve played on just about every server, and I’ve yet to see the amazing feats of lag that DT suffers. I think that they’ve given up on punishing UCMs and just decide to lag the hell out of the entire server as revenge. Like remember that time in second grade when Clyde threw that HUGE spitball at the substitute teacher, and she got really mad, but nobody would admit who did it, so the whole class had to sit inside during lunch? It’s kind of like that, only without Billy to steal lunch from.

So anyway, suddenly I find my shoes soled with that wonderful, magical invention of Flubber. I bounce all over the damn place, inventing all sorts of wonderful new physics whilst doing it

Kwipetian Theory of Relativity: A Kwip in motion will only come to a complete stop once there are sufficient skeletons to pound him to death before he can use the Lifestone. Then they will stand around and snicker.

Another trip to the Lifestone. But behold! A glitch! I have lifestoned HERE! AAAAaaaaaaahhhh! In your FACE, Skeleton guy! You can try and position that skull of your into whatever contemptible pose you’d like, but right now I’m making my flesh into an arrogant sneer. Also, I’m putting my tongue out. So THERE.

I think the real fun of Darktide comes from having friends visit you there that aren’t that familiar with it. They think it’s a crazy place full of childish immature people that would as soon kill you as look at you.

They’re right, of course. But the fun comes in showing them that.