Great Guild, or GREATEST guild? I'm the Judge

[Llewndyn]

Best Guild on the Server, Nay, on ANY server

I wanna share a story. A story with love, intrigue, resourcefulness, blind faith, and the determination to see something through.A story of one's trials and tribulations, of a long, arduous road with nary a sight of the promised land, a journey fraught with danger, usually death, but this time ending in sweet victory.

A story, my friends, about the Shroud.

The Shroud, a raid near and dear to our hearts, a cruel mistress that you must visit again and again in order to attain the nirvana that is greensteel, a tight lipped, unwavering bastion of happiness that is both a digital Mecca to new players and the darkest depths of Mordor, the very face of the term "grind" to hardened veterans. To those who can 1 or 2 or even 6 or 7 man this quest, this may come as a shock.

My son loves DDO. LOVES it. He has gotten in trouble for logging into it at 3 in the morning on school days, he has very strictly imposed time limits on how long he can play that he constantly protests and attempts to circumvent ( we have to do that or he would not know what the sun was), when he gets into trouble that is the most severe punishment he gets, and to him the most inhumane.

My son is also a terrible player. This is a constant source of entertainment to everyone that sees him play, including himself. I have tried to help him, he likes his build and used the lesser heart I gave him TP for something else, because he hasn't changed. He enjoys that he annoys people with his antics and unorthodox build. He is running a halfling wizard that usually wears full plate armor, wields either a bastard sword and a mace or a quarterstaff, usually no other armor whatsoever, and has 140 HP fully buffed. He is not rude, I am usually nearby when he is on there and dont allow that, but he is well known on Ghallanda and in my guild for his LFGs and disdain for other people's perfect runs. My favorite is a couple guildies joined a group he was in, he greased them into a lava pit, they were like "***?!" and he said something like "cry, cry, cry" and then jumped in with them, effectively causing a wipe. This was before they knew he was my demon spawn.

Anyway, enough back story, the Shroud. My son has been trying to get through the Shroud for about 2 months now. He has never made it past part 2. I have sat there many a night while he gets blamed, over and over, for ruining the entire raid, and he is not lying, apparently ONE little gimped wizard is enough to completely fail the entire raid. I have also seen him on numerous times ask for help finding the crystal or asking what to do only to be insulted or outright ignored, and then when no one is on crystal or banging portals down fast enough or what have you, blame it on him and then ragequit. This is not one or two times. This has been going on for 2 months. Now before I go on and place the blame on everyone else, he is gimped. 100% so. He loves his toon. He is always courteous and listens when told to do something. That being said, in a mission where a caster is critical, he is not the caster you are looking for.

Anyway, he puts up an LFg looking for Shroudies, and says in said LFG he is new, even though I am willing to bet he has done more shrouds than me at this point. One of my guildies, who I don't think knows he is my kid, says something like "Uh oh, <mykid> has a group up :P" to which I reply glumly the aforementioned paragraphs. And this, my friends and raptured listeners, is where this story turns inspirational.

All of the upper level guys not on timer in my guild drop what they are doing and join his group that had no one in it because of his reputation. I am out of town on business, but his mom said he was grinning from ear to ear when he saw all of us coming. Long story short (too late) we completed his first Shroud ever for him. Did he die? NUMEROUS times. Did we still finish with him standing alive and well after part 5? Yep. My wife told me he had been acting glum because I was out of town and usually we nerd it up on DDO or Nazi Zombies (what can I say, I'm a great father figure) and he had no one to talk to really because his brothers dont care for DDO, and she said he was talking excitedly the rest of the night about how cool Aerritrikos was and how awesome that mission was and how he couldn't wait to to tell me about it and how cool my guild was because no one called him stupid or a noob or insulted his family heritage because he dared to die. To me, that is the sign of a great guild, nay, the greatest guild: one that not only still has me as a member even after I show that I am in no way a competent player, but one that is willing to be patient, willing to help someone out at the drop of a hat. Sure we don't have the reknown a lot of bigger guilds have, and probably due to my playstyle maybe not the best reputation when it comes to zerging or completing without idiot deaths (though I will point out I am the only one that does that, STILL cannot do relic of a sovereing past without falling into that lava pit just around the first bend), but in my mind they are still the classiest guild on this server, and I have been in a few different guilds so I can make blanket statements like that.

Blackmoor Defenders, I salute you.

[Gauthaag]

cool story,

salute to your guildies

[Kalibano]

gz to ur son for his first shroud completions

it's time to move to amrath for tod now....

Cheers

[Llewndyn]

gz to ur son for his first shroud completions

it's time to move to amrath for tod now....

Cheers

We will see you to help flag him this weekend.

Cheers! :P

[Caine33]

Congratz to your son and Props (thats right: Props!!) to your guildies for having the patience to go through the Shroud with him.

[Seikojin]

I won't quote it, but I will +1 one the whole thing!

I know exactly how you feel! I am in a very similar situation and I can see many paralells between your experience and mine.

[elixer1]

Sorry Llew, you're out of the guild, we discussed it, and we thought this was the best place to tell you.

We mailed you all the masterwork rapiers you left in our guild chest.

[Llewndyn]

Sorry Llew, you're out of the guild, we discussed it, and we thought this was the best place to tell you.

We mailed you all the masterwork rapiers you left in our guild chest.

How about if I admit I died more often on my capped rogue with 399 HP than he did?! And while I am sad about being kicked out, if I get those rapiers I can't see getting into groups being tough anymore since I usually link a pair of regular handwraps :P

My favorite story about him is we went into the orchard tap farming. The Caravan was up, I was on Llew as my cleric, had 252 hp unbuffed with heavy fort PG weaps holy burst etc etc... he is on his wizzy who at that point did not have 100 HP... we go in, he lays down a fw and starts hopping around like mad. I am like "That little scamp" and set up some BBs and glitterdust and watch, in horror, as he not only kills more than me, but as I get held and then killed while he hops around like a cockroach on steroids. I learned a lesson that day.

[MatrimDaved]

+1 Great Story

[WeaselKing]

I am confused as to why a thread about the greatest guild in DDO, AoK is on the Ghallanda forums instead of the Argonnessen forums and does not even seem to mention the Smurf or any of us cronies. Puzzling.

[THAC0]

I wish I was in game to help out. But....glad your son got thru it finally.

Though...not sure why he didnt shout out on guild chat first....or did you drop the ball and not get him in the family.... :-)

T.

[Llewndyn]

I wish I was in game to help out. But....glad your son got thru it finally.

Though...not sure why he didnt shout out on guild chat first....or did you drop the ball and not get him in the family.... :-)

T.

He asked, I will PM names later, I think his altoholism is over and he has a few solid prospects

[Junkpile]

It was a great run.
Dibbo broke even.
2 deaths.....2 kills.....

[Thrudh]

I couldn't tell from your story if they knew he was your son... If they did, they're a still a great guild...

But if they took him through without knowing he was your son, and without bagging on him the whole time, then I'll agree they have a solid claim to the title of "Greatest" Guild

[Cardtrick]

My favorite is a couple guildies joined a group he was in, he greased them into a lava pit, they were like "***?!" and he said something like "cry, cry, cry" and then jumped in with them, effectively causing a wipe.

I can't stop laughing at this. It's jumping in after them that makes it genius.

[THAC0]

I can't stop laughing at this. It's jumping in after them that makes it genius.

...the funny part about this is... this wasn't the first time he greased a group. Just that it was new to those who got to take a warm swim.

[Lemanchot]

My favorite is a couple guildies joined a group he was in, he greased them into a lava pit, they were like "***?!" and he said something like "cry, cry, cry" and then jumped in with them, effectively causing a wipe. This was before they knew he was my demon spawn.

This is just so laughable! Sometimes we do forget it's a game overall. Grinding time consuming makes us forget how some of these stuff still can be fun sometimes.

Thanks for sharing.

[Superspeed_Hi5]

He is running a halfling wizard that usually wears full plate armor... That being said, in a mission where a caster is critical, he is not the caster you are looking for..

I think I have some twilight mithral full plate he can have.

[Llewndyn]

I think I have some twilight mithral full plate he can have.

He just got off and then back on timer, had 0 issues filling either, our next goal is to have him live past part 4.. I think a bunch of forumites know who my kid is :P

And don't even play about mithral armor, he would be all over that in a heartbeat.

As for the guild, not sure if the guy who said that knew he was my kid, to me doesn't matter, and those two guildies he greased didn't think it was funny when he did it but later when I told them it was him while they were talking about it in guild chat thought it was hilarious and went out of their way to run stuff with him... that's total class.

Who's AoK? :P

[haku-ba]

Honestly, I think all of us with kids that play can relate. The grease into the lava is a sign that he is gonna be a kick ass player in the future. However, the jumping into it as well causing a party wipe, well, that is just awesome. I wish my kids were as cool as yours.

I salute your son, your guildies and yourself on a nice story.