The beginning of a “gaming career”
On March
15, 2011, during my spring break, I discovered a game called “Dead Frontier”, a
MMORPG revolving around a post-apocalyptic world over run with the undead.
Now, back
in this time, I was nothing more than a “Child” when it came to the Internet
and MMO’s. I was only fifteen; yet, I acted in the way most “Noobs” would when
it came to how I conducted myself in the game.
The game
was full of adult and young teens players, and gave off the sense of maturity.
At least, when they were out in the actual game. However, on the forums where
most people spent their time, they were very different.
Scamming
was the biggest problem of this game, because the admin’s and mods would not do
anything to stop it other than ban the person who scammed, who was usually just
an alt, or a secondary account for someone.
An even
bigger problem was hacking, and the owners of the game had a very cruel way of
dealing with this. Which was usually banning both the hacker, and the player
who was hacked. To ensure they banned the right person.
However,
the worst part of the game was not hackers or scammers, it was the admin’s
themselves. The game mostly revolved around who bought membership, and who
bought items off the “Shop” for real money. This caused normal players to stay
at low levels or not advance at all.
In my one
year playing the game, I could only achieve level 62 out of 200 before
quitting.
The game
put me off of MMO’s for a while, before I came across another game, one called
Runescape.
I started
playing the game on May 2, 2012.
I played
this game for only six months, and reached level 134, but I never actually
learned a thing about the game.
After
hitting level 130, I started thinking about what I was doing, playing a game
that held little reward, and only gave me players wanting to steal my account
or curse me out for no reason. A common problem with most MMO’s.
So, I
dropped the game and all MMO’s, again.
At this
time, I was more mature in my personality and how I handled people. I no longer
talked in text, and actually knew how to handle a “troll”. Which is to
basically not pay them any attention.
After
leaving PC gaming, I moved back to Console gaming, mainly the Xbox 360.
Spending my hours playing games like Fallout 3 and Dragon Age origins. Both of
them appealed to me because of their open world environment.
Now, in the
beginning of the year 2013, I was still holding to console gaming and holding
down a life. At the age of 17, everything was going the way it had been for the
past five years for me.
During
February, I came across an Anime called “Sword Art Online”. Google it if you
want more information on it, but to simply put it; it’s an anime about a
VRMMORPG (Virtual Reality Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game
<Whew> that’s a mouth full) where the gamers get trapped in the game by
the Game Master, and must fight to survive, because dying in the game equals
dying in real life.
While I was
watching this, I came across a kid in my school. This kid is someone who I’ve
seen every now and again during my school career, dating back to first grade. I
usually disregarded him, but after being put in a group with him, I found we
had common interest. After showing him the Anime, he told me about a game he’s
been playing. A game called, “World of Warcraft”.
My first
response was, “this game is just like every other”. However, he reassured me
that it didn’t follow the guidelines that every other game had.
So, after
some convicting, I bought the Battle Chest for World of Warcraft, and entered
the game.
I joined
the Blackhand US server, which at the time was a medium populated realm.
Now, when I
entered the game, I entered it with knowledge of how to act in a MMO. And
within moments of making my character and going to the starting area, I was
assaulted with Guild Request. I turned all down due to my friend wanting me to
join the one he was in.
My first
character I made was a Human Paladin, however, I only could reach level 6 on
him before I grew bored of the life of a paladin.
So, this
lead to the creation of my first main character, a Worgen Fury Warrior. Upon
entering the game as a Worgen, I instantly took a liking to the race, and the
class.
I easily
leveled to ten and selected the furry talent, mainly due to the prospect of
duel wielding two large two handed swords in each hand.
By the time
I left the starting area for the Worgen, I was a level 15. And within ten
minutes, I was sent a request from the guild my friend was apart of.
“The Flock”.
This guild had around 600 members, and at the time, I
thought that was a good thing. However, as I soon learned, most of it’s members
were alts and low levels who didn’t seem to play that much.
The forming of a new guild
I had only been playing the game
three days before me and my friend, who plays a character named “Alexanderias”,
a Human Death Knight, level 83 at the time, started talking about starting a
guild of our own.
The Flock
was a nice guild, but we wanted more from a guild than just the perks a level
25 guild provided.
So, this
train of thought led us to start “Royalty Elite”.
Gaining
signatures was the easy part, as the guild leader from the Flock on a alt and
two random players signed it within five minutes of starting the guild charter.
Now, since
I was a leader of a “Clan” on Dead Frontier, and a clan on Runescape, I thought
I would make for the best guild master. However, that job fell to Alex instead.
The guild
consisted of only him and me, the others were just alts who helped start the
guild. So, a level 21 Worgen Fury Warrior, and a level 83 Human Death Knight
are all who made up our new guild.
The thought
of mass recruiting did pass our minds, but we quickly dismissed this, remember
the roster for the Flock, which was full of greyed out names, and the low
amount of colored names. (Meaning offline for grey and online for color)
We wanted a
guild with only active members, who’s main was apart of the guild, and not
their alt. So, this lead to both many problems with the guild, and the many accomplishments
we made along the way.
Realm problems
The
Blackhand server was a great place to be, except for one small detail. You
almost never saw a player on your realm outside of the larger cities.
Most
players would have a (*) next to their name, and were usually disregarded by
players that saw the (*), since you wouldn’t be able to sell anything to them
or go to capital cities with them.
Our realm
was so short on actual players, that it soon became a “New Player Realm”, but
that story is for later on in this blog.
All of this
was the main reason our guild never grew from the two members it already had.
(Alex and I)
