by Moorgard on 2001-10-30
First off: no, I am not going to post a link to the thread with the strategy on how to wipe out the last warder. I haven't gone to great lengths to disguise where this info is located, and so I leave it to you to decide whether you really want to seek it out. Because honestly, whether or not you read it isn't of great importance to the game, or to me. What some might choose to do with that knowledge, of course, is--but we'll come back to that later.One of the great thrills in EverQuest is discovery. I still remember evading lions in East Commonlands and stumbling upon the zoneline to Nektulos Forest. What a sense of wonder I felt as LOADING, PLEASE WAIT finally gave way to a dark, unknown landscape. Though I eventually became jaded by maps and spoiler sites, that same thrill crept into me again when first seeing Kunark and Velious... and I know I'll be feeling it again soon in Luclin.
Similar feelings surface when facing new mobs for the first time, too. Who doesn't remember your first Nagafen raid? The first time you rushed Trakanon in his lair? Hell, even the first time you saw Dragoon Zytl come charging at you?
Spoiler sites have existed since before EverQuest went gold. I, like many others, enjoyed reading them, and still do. Even when most challenges in the game seemed beyond my reach, I liked hearing what others had done, and marvelled at the wonderful treasures they had acquired. Far from ruining the game for me, these spoilers gave me goals to work toward, and only added to the mythical sense of wonder that the game held.
Tactics against high-end mobs have always been closely guarded secrets. Even relatively straightforward fights such as Nagafen had little tricks that could mean the difference between winning and losing. These strategies, devised by the earliest uberguilds, were often coveted by players on their way up, to the point where the guide program itself had to be changed. You see, people were becoming guides for the sole purpose of invisibly following uberguilds on raids and learning their strategies. These corrupt guides would then return to their home server and leak the techniques to their guildmates. This is why--to this day--guides are not allowed in certain zones without having the server GM present as well.
Little by little, strategies leak out, of course. That's not really a bad thing, as Verant has done a pretty good job of adding enough new content to keep the upper-tier guilds moving on to new things, thus opening the way for smaller guilds to step up to bigger targets.
What, then, is the big deal about publishing this strategy to defeat the final warder? Well, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth... for a couple reasons.
First of all, this is no ordinary mob. It is a trigger mob that can alter the game in a permanent way--assuming the other warders are also dead. If you've read Mobhunter for very long, you know the drill. The Sleeper wakes up and leaves his tomb. the warders never respawn, primal drops suck, some very nice loot never enters the server again... yada yada yada. Guild A can use the Sleeper script to screw over Guild B. More than a little animosity can be generated in this way--read the message board of any server with a wakened Sleeper on it for evidence. What Verant intended as a unique and fun event has often been the source of bitterness and ire.
Second, you have only to read the spoiler thread to see that this tactic wasn't posted to improve the game in any way, or to benefit other players. It was done, pretty much, out of boredom mixed with spite, as an off-the-cuff means to demean the game itself--and for the poster to thumb his nose at other guilds. If you read the responses in the thread, you see others trying desperately to cling onto the l337ness that the author of the thread throws away in such a deliberately callous fashion. You have to love all the "we thought of the same technique, only better" posts that follow, almost screaming "Hey, we're just as cool as you!"
Thus, I won't post a link to the spoiler thread. Not because it reveals some ultra-secret strategy I want to keep quiet, but because the very nature of the post is an insult to a game--and a community--I still care about. It has all the charm of a spoiled little brat who comes out from the first showing of The Empire Strikes Back and shouts to the hundreds of people in line that Vader is Luke's daddy.
So I'm sorry, infamous ex-leader of a certain infamous uberguild, you don't get to see your name in lights this time... though you can make your own marquee below, if you so desire. Because whether or not the link gets posted is less important than the honest enjoyment of the game that still exists in the EQ community.
Sour grapes, after all, are only bitter if you choose to eat them.