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So last night was both a success and a failure.
It was a success because seven of us wrested three
hoary hides from the northern wastes around Neydissa Castle, battling
countless lessery mattys to take down no fewer than three Hoary
monsters. Actually it was more like five. Well in truth we saw six,
and attacked five but only got hides for three.
And that is why last night was also a failure.
Wen-Kai, a L32 archer, managed to bag the other three hides in each
case legitamately owning the kill. He did not gloat. He did not
yell at us to leave his spots. He did not threaten us or curse at
us. He simply showed up at the right time, aimed his shots well
and did enough damage to own the kill.
I'll try to briefly summarize the events and then
try to give my perspective on Wen-Kai and what happened.
I logged on at Neydissa about 10:30 and found most
of the party from the night before already there. In the next 15min
or so, everyone but Ping was there. Rhodry portaled to Holtburg
with all of our sh..., excuse me, extra gems and stuff, and Miko,
Rach' mann, Beryl and I fellowed and went to the hill just N of
Neydissa. Garurumon msgd that he was in the Dires and would run
up, estimating about 15min to get there.
As the four of us arrived on Hoary Hill, Hakeem
logged on. Hey Hakeem! Fellowed Hak and took stock of the situation.
We immediately began scouting the two spots around 73n between 17e
and 18e. Garurumon showed up soon after and Rhodry returned from
Holtburg so now we had four mages.
We decided that two mages were sufficient to take
out a Hoary (esp w/ Gar and Hak having L4 stuff) so Hak and I ran
over to the third and fourth spawn points he had seen further SE.
The remainder of the party stayed with Rhodry and Gar in our previous
nights spot.
We spent perhaps the next hour killing minor creatures
and seeing the occasional passer-by. I asked Hakeem if he were worried
about the traffic (i.e. kill stealing potential). But he said no
so I figured it would work itself out.
I spotted the first Hoary already engaged a couple
radar lengths away on the curve of the mountain. The person who
had engaged him had taken him all the way down to the forest line
and in amongst the trees. I was worried about LOS but I launched
a couple of bolts at him anyway. Nothing. I'm not sure exactly what
transpired thereafter but in the end, Hakeem was dead and so was
the Hoary and even though I had done a bit of damage (and I assume
Hak had as well) the kill was owned by one, Wen-Kai. I mumbled some
word of congratulations to Wen-Kai on his kill and cursed our bad
luck. I was really too irritated that we missed a Hoary to say anything
nice at all.
We spend a good deal of time cursing Wen-Kai. Of
course we'd been out for a couple hours and were now 0-1 because
of Wen-Kai so it was understandable. But in retrospect, if he had
just quit at this point or if he had just stayed in that one spot
then I have no problem with him. If at this point Wen-Kai says,
"You guys, I'm here to get X matty hides for my posse and I can
take them out faster than you all so why don't you find another
spawn point. To be fair though, I'm not going to just run to all
five and kill every Hoary that spawns on Harvestgain between 10pm
est and 2am est because that would make me a prick. Instead I'll
just stay here and take what comes and you all go to the other spawn
point, K?"
But of course he doesn't say that.
The problem of course was that Hak and I had been
sitting there for an hour, clearing out minor Mattys and Wen-Kai
came out of nowhere to take this Hoary down. There were a couple
others around too though, so in the end it was really just too busy
there.
Later Hak and I get a msg that Beryl has spotted
one, I believe it was at the 17.3e spot. But by the time our people
find it and get started, Wen-Kai has bagged a second kill.
I think at this point Hak or someone must have
started msg-ing him about stealing kills and all. He of course feigns
ignorance and pretends like he isn't an @#%$
We know otherwise.
I can't recal if we had alreay taken down our first
Hoary of the night or not by that time but the Rhodry/Garurumon
+ Miko, Bery, Rach'mann team did eventually take one down and get
a hide. I do know that we only had one hide when Wen-Kai managed
to get his third hide. That was particularly irritating to me because
the Hoary hide he was holding had, when animated, poked me till
I took the purple path to Neydissa. Hak was the first to lay into
him. Then Rhodry and perhaps Miko said something. I can't recall
if the others chimed in...the msg scroll was almost as fast as being
in the center of Soushi. Finally I had had too much. I had to tell
this guy what I thought.
I realized later how angry and frustrated I was
at this moment. I was tense and angry and ready to lash out.
.
I wish I had thought about what was happening enough
to take screen shots so I wouldn't have to rely on memory to reconstruct
the dialog. In fact I won't even attempt it because I'm sure it
wouldn't be accurate enough to be worthwhile, but suffice it to
say that Wen-Kai pleaded innocence to being an evil kill-stealing
bastard and we were busy telling him why he was being an @#%$
His argument was that he and Wylie (a L2x whatever)
were getting hides for their whole group and that he needed all
those hides--he wasn't hoarding them. He also claimed to have offered
assisstance to us and to being generally above blame. I just wanted
him to go to one spawn spot and stay there and leave a spawn or
two to us. I pointed out that the seven of us had one hide (and
plenty of vitae) for our three hours hunting. He had three. Right
there, its not fair. I still don't see why he can't understand that.
Wen-Kai is an awesome archer. For him to take down
the Hoary with a bow is no small feat. He definitely did plenty
of damage to it, more even than Garurumon who is an absolute beating.
I have no problem with Wen-Kai being powerful. I have no problem
with Wen-Kai using his hard earned abilities to win hides for his
clan.
I do have a problem with his being inconsiderate.
We were hunting. We were camping. He should have been considerate
of that. He should be considerate that there are a limited number
of Hoary spawns in Dereth and that its not fair for him to dominate
all of them. If it were a single chest at the bottom of a dungeon,
no one would tolerate him taking three straight treasures out of
it when there were ten or more people waiting there.
The silver-lining to this story is that while Rhordy,
Hakeem and I were keeping Wen-Kai busy by one spawn point, the others
had taken one down at the other. Awesome!
Well we stayed on for one more. Beryl spotted this
one again. Rhodry, Hak and I were a bit dissoriented but finally
got our bearings and headed toward it. The first message we got
was, "Your fellow Miko K-sun has died." Damn. Tank's outa gas. Quickly
the next message was "Your fellow Garurumon has died." @#%$ Beryl's
all alone out there. "Your fellow Beryl has died."
Alright, now we gotta take this guy down--before
Wen-Kai shows up! Us three mages finally spotted the Hoary beast.
When we ID'd him, he was around 25% and we three made quick work
of him.
I ID'd it half-fearing it wouldn't be one of ours.
It was Gars. Congrats Gar. (See, I told you he was a beating). I
ran up to the body.
Press 'R', press 'R', press 'R'.
The inventory screen pops up. YES! I yell something
about how the corpse was Gars and we have our third hide. *rush
of relief washes over me* We took some pics, hung out for a few
more minutes and finally logged.
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