Yesterday, I had one of the best social experiences in Guild Wars 2 that will be etched in my memory’s hall of fame.
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On a social level, it matched the first time I ever encountered the Font of Rhand mini-dungeon while leveling with the first wave of GW2 fans.
That was the time when six of us met, seemingly by chance, and in truth due to cunning dynamic event design, and explored it together, steadily solving all the puzzles until we reached the final boss.
Where upon we endured wave after wave of death by roasting, one last survivor swimming out to the outer chamber to break aggro and stealthily swim back to manually rez the others, trying to free Rhendak the Crazed from his glitchy insistence on swimming into the ceiling, blowing up repeatedly from his steam/fire bubbles which no one had a clue then how to read and dodge/advoid, and FINALLY, wearing down his hp and defeating him.
To be surrounded by a sea of chests, one for each person that was present, collecting with glee all the blues and greens until our bags were overloaded and amazed by the bountiful haul.
(Oh, how times have changed now.)
There was mass love and bromance by everyone present, excitedly friending each other. They were the first people I put on my friends list in GW2.
(I still see one or two of them around to this day. One is ironically in the same SEA guild that I joined. The other is a massive achievement hound, too hardcore for me to feel comfortable socializing with – but is also in a TTS guild – who mostly serves as my distant barometer of how high the bar is now for maximum possible AP.)
It matched the most memorable and social WvW experiences I would ever have, coming in to Tarnished Coast as a wide-eyed newbie, getting educated in all manner of tactics during the age of celebrity commanders and siege masters.
Fer instance, there were the multiple times people would lemming off a cliff following Commander Jadon and laugh uproariously at the aftermath. The intensively detailed siege placement and mortar usage trainings of Theongreyjoy, the ‘balls deep’ charges and ‘playing zombies’ zerg vs zerg learn-by-doing trainings of EP’s Odinzu and CERN’s Nightlight. The defiantly masterful map-hopping and outmanned last stands utilizing chokepoints during offpeak hours of the then PiNK’s Deyja.
Deyja, especially, provided some of the best times I would ever have. As far as I know, he’s gone now, having seemingly gotten burned out PUGmandering and first spending a lot of time enjoying more individual style PvP on the WvW maps, then joining KH and maybe moving with them to another server or having quit the game entirely. Completely understandable and natural attrition over time.
The guy deserves a tribute for the good times regardless.
Notoriously foul-mouthed and with a drill sergeant style of commanding that no doubt got him at odds with certain more thin-skinned people, he had a great sense of wry humor and a good heart that was audible in his tone, despite the expletives peppering every other word.
He had also an UNCANNY knack of reading the enemy, making fantastic tactical calls, and was a natural leader, knowing how to keep morale going in the darkest of hours when 10-20 lone stalwarts faced the teeming hordes of other servers outmanned.
We would hide in corners that most zergs would naturally fail to check with their eyes focused ahead on the prize, and plow them over from behind before they even knew what hit them. When all else was lost, instead of crawling away with our tails between our legs, Deyja would lead his ragtag group and set up defiant camp in the lord room of hills keep, spamming AoE and siege with such fury in the chokepoint that whole 80 man zergs would bog down for 1-2 crucial hours, stuck outside, trying and escalating one siege tactic after another to break the encampment.
And there was the crowning classic moment which etched into my heart how to never give up if you don’t want to.
Our zerg, such as it was, had dwindled down to a mere five people.
This was in the days when during late Aussie/SEA hours, you were lucky if there were ten people on all the maps. Deyja switched tactics without hesitation and took us skirmishing. We’d swipe a supply camp, try a ninja here and there, and when the opposing zerg came upon us with righteous fury, we ran.
But did we run like chickens?
Hell, no. His voice kept us together. Paraphrasing, it was something like “Ahhhhhh, fuck, FUCK, run, run, you bastards, run! Follow me, keep up! You get caught, yer screwed. Run like the wind!” But said with a grin in his voice that you had to be there to hear.
We ran like fucking SAMURAI.
We strung the enemy out.
“Wait for it… wait for it…” he said, as we dashed into the outskirts of the hylek camp. Just as we cleared the second exit, “NOW,” he said, “TURN AROUND.”
And the three of us that remained ganked the three fastest pursuers that had thought they were going to get easy outmanned kills.
Not at all being a professional PvPer by ANY stretch of the imagination, and being scared to death that I would let the other two down, it was one of the most adrenaline charged experiences (and victories) of my GW2 life.
Of course, we booked it out of there before the rest of the zerg caught up. And broke up shortly after as there was nothing more he could do for us. But I learned a hell of a lot that fateful day about keeping morale up and ending on a high note.
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Yesterday’s social experience was also all about morale.
And a great leader.
Ironically, it was during one of the times I dread most. Playing the WAITING game.
Y’see, it starts with dance offs.
There are three teams that deal with each of the jungle wurms. Crimson, Cobalt and Amber.
In certain TTS runs, a crazy asura named Merforga (he of the Tequatl pre-flight briefing fame) leads the Crimson team.
Every time Amber and Crimson meet up to take down the first wurm, there is a small waiting period while the poor Cobalt team walks their long scenic beachfront route with an NPC who loves to sidetrek off crabs, risen and anything red within his sights.
During this time, Crimson and Amber face off with each other and DANCE. In a zerg, then in lines, and then with synchronized /dance * and even /rank offs.
Things soon evolved during the one and a half hour long wait in between jungle wurm spawns, when one team commander (I have no idea who first came up with the idea) decided to take his zerg on a showy synchronized movement display in circles around the other two stationary teams.
You know, the sort of thing all WvW zerg commanders do – “stay on my tag and follow.” Easily performed by anyone not AFK.
So, very soon, each team was taking it in turns to orbit each of the other two stationary teams, everyone cackling madly.
In all good nuclear escalation scenarios, princess doll tonics are involved.
Crimson popped a trading post and members gleefully spent 16 silver on a belated Wintersday celebration. I’m sure you can guess what happened next.
Circular orbits with jumping princess dolls!
(If you’ve never heard them screaming, you can check out a sample in this video here. Now imagine about 20 of those running around in circles.)
Then yesterday, Merforga decided to bring a music bot into the Crimson team’s teamspeak channel. Where a gleeful half hour was spent in intra-team trolling of fairly ridiculous songs pilfered off Youtube. (Yes, there were rickrolls.)
And then there was Hodor.
Before you know it, a brilliant plan was hatched to rename the music bot Hodor and send it into the other team’s channels, merrily singing Hodor!
While they suffered a stampede of dolyaks.
(And a naked tiger charr whose only excuse was that yours truly couldn’t open the trading post. It was down for my client. Much sadness. Still, on fours and hairy…)
I haven’t laughed as hard for a very very long time. I’m sure I’m not the only one.
It’s gotten me thinking very hard about the pros and cons of wait time, and creating experiences meant for very organized groups as opposed to the general majority. I’ll try to cover that in my next post – The Needs of the Many, The Needs of the Few (coming soonTM). (Update: Post is now here.)
Why I Game 
Awesome post! And I think you hit on something.
In the rush to make games more casual friendly, with more low hanging fruit raids/instances/events/achieves to do, the designers have missed something important. In all my almost 15 year of online gaming time and time again its during the down time that the real socialising happens.
In GW1 it was during the vanquishing runs (kill everything on a map). It was during the wall hugging map completion tedium. It was during the ecto farms, etc, that the social friendships and the chatting happened.
Where am i meeting people in GW2? Sometimes helping others (newbies mainly) leveling or explaining how WvW or Living Story events work. Sometimes regulars in WvW/teamspeak, but mostly its as you say, groups of people waiting, with nothing much to do, for events to start.
I’m not saying I want games with more grinds, but maybe there is something to not being so busy all the time.
Gobble gobble.
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Ello!
Merf here. Someone linked me this and I’ve just had the chance to read. I’d just like to say that I’m glad that you had a great time! At the end of the day, TTS is all about having fun while doing this sort of content, so it looks like we’re meeting that goal =).
-Merf
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