Hi all, please let me introduce myself :
I am Zerathule, an Orc monk on Gelenia.
In my past lives, i was Zerathule, Iksar Monk on EQ's Tholuxe Paells and later Antonius Bayle Server, for more than 5 years (from kurnark to pre GoD).
I was also Starhack, Troll Skald in Daoc, Flamycogyre a Fire Blaster in CoH, Tyler a dwarven warrior in WoW, and many more.
I started my mmorpg "career" with a barbarian rogue in EQ, and by my level 13 i was exploring the depth of Blackburrow. Exploring the place, i fell through a hidden pit in some unknown place. Anyway i started to kill some gnolls wondering how i could manage to come out. Then from the top of the pit, i saw a naked human jumping down taking allmost no damage, he aggroed 5 mobs, and started to kill them with his bare fists. So with courage, i rushed in the battle thinking i could help. But before he could see me, i miserably died, letting me with 5 mobs on me.
At that moment i knew i would be dead, but to my biggest surprise, the man stood up and started punching and kicking, but eventually they where too many and i died.
He sent me a message beging for forgivness, but i did not understood : i knew the risks, but died. He told me he could have FD before and thus i would not have taken the train. I didnt understood everything at that time, but basicaly, this guy could just kick some arses, literally, and when things would go bad, just fake his own death.
This is when i created, Zerathule Milleetunemorts (a Thousand and one Deaths in french), an Iksar monk.
For monthes i explored norath, made the trip to freeport and Qeynos at level 14, learning how to bank in a KoS town, exploring most of norath's dungeon. I choosed my surname at level 20, and i'm pretty sure i had already died more than 1001 times ...
Anyway, my first true monkly experience came from grouping 3 times in a row with the same Pick up group.
In Cazic Thule (before the revamp), we where clearing th 4C area (or pyramid, 4C standing for 4 corners).
We were killing stuff. Yep that's it. I had no idea where i was, what i had to do, or just what other did. Until that day, the game was just to kill stuff.
But someone said at some point "Hey you're the monk, go pull !". After a few questions (i'm french, and i'm not totaly fluent in english) i understood i had to bring mobs to the group.
Easy !
We did the 4 corners quickly and easyly (and we had an amazing enchy because at these levels chain mezzing 4 or 5 yellow/red mobs was awesome) until we ran out of mobs.
We waited, but then i said, brb, i'll get mobs.
So i went to the top of the pyramid, flip flopping my way up (i had no grouping experience but soloed in dungeons, i learned this quickly), and once at the top, aggroed a guard, ran and jumped over the pyramid's walls ...
So we got like 20 mobs on our arses and died.
I learned that day what pulling meant.
I mean "true" pulling.(i'm not pretending to be an expert, just meaning that i learned the principles).
Anyway, i had monthes of experience practicing (all around norath) until as i approached the level 45.
My guild (yeah i was guilded in the only french speaking guild of the server, allied to the only german speaking guild) was regulary talking about "raids". I imagined this was some kind of race or something (because they where quite speedy on the guild chat) but never truely imagined what it was.
So on a morning before such a raid, and before going to work, i dingued 46. The guild leader applauded and said "great ! our monk wont be there tonight, make some exp so that you dont delevel in PoH and you'll pull for us."
Ok that was chineese for me, but as usual i replied "Ok ! Np !"
During that work day, i recieved a mail of a friend linking me to some website (allakhazam) and he told me how great it was (he was even more clueless about EQ than i was at the time ^^).
So i spent my whole day on the web (i love my work ^^), until i found monkly-business ...
That was a shock !
I read everything i could on raid pulling, and printed everything on PoH, and realised that i was in a trouble.
I left at 4 pm (i really love my job ^^) so i could make a few bubs of exp.
That night changed my gaming experience : with 23 fellow raiders, we cleared the first floor (we had 1 level 60 mind you ^^) up to 1 am. We wiped once due to a wall aggro bug (DON'T JUMP !!! DON'T TOUCH THE WALLS !!! ^^) but i finished with just a half blue bub of exp in my level 46 (one more death and i would have been stuck and could not get my corpse back).
From that day, i went from a clueless casual monk, to a hardcore wannabe aware of his limits monk.
To remind me, and i hope to remind you readers all those moments, lets have a quick tour of what was the best game experience i had as a monk.
Killing contests : running with my pull team (my "disciple" monk in training, a rogue and a druid) and playing who'll kill who during raid downtimes.
Vindic races, building your aggro with javelins on vindic while the raid was buffing.
Old content rushing, going with a few friends in ToV, sleeper's or Trakky giving the loot to a newbie guild chain wiping.
The netiquette and reputation in EQ, where everyone could know everyone through various contacts, knowing that bad players would not last long since they would be flagged instantly agter a scam attempt.
Corpse runs in the old planes, be it when we where lowbies, or later when i was paid to do CRs for small guilds.
The whistling fists quest run on the MB boards, when everyone was progressing as fast as they could to finish the quest but still giving all their infos and thus having the greatest community experience i ever witness as we solved the quest in just a few days.
Vex Thal chicken runs to camp mage alts for CoHs all over the place.
Vindic/AoW ogre/barb checkers with stupid names (Icheck, Vindiccheck, Aowcheck, Mychecker etc ...) level ones running naked all over Vindic/AoW spawn places.
Camping Raster ! err no that wasnt so good
(well it took me 2 housr for raster, 2 weeks for targin the rock, but 6 monthes for the pawduster !!!)
Ok that was good memories.
If Vanguard can provide me as much as 50% as much fun, i'll really be satisfied
Zerathule Encoremort, Orcish Monk of Gallenia.
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