So after a five-hour roadtrip and a big family dinner at my fiancée’s once I got home, I logged in (around midnight) to Skull Throne to check on my auctions and potentially hit up a scenario or two before bed. I’m tired, stuffed with a huge dinner, and had to attempt to push a car out of a ditch for a half-hour before sitting down to dinner. Bleh. For whatever reason, I find it relaxing to kill some folks before I hit the sack. Maybe I’m just odd that way. :)
First things first, though — to find a good grinding spot to wait out the scenario queues. So, I hop on over to my favourite snotling farming spot, queue up for the currently open scenarios — Blood of the Blackcairn, Reikland Hills, and Glomril Crossing — and start grinding away. As Order is lagging behind in numbers pretty heavily on Skull Throne, I haven’t seen Serpent’s Passage, the usual favourite, up for much of the winter break. I kinda miss it now, though I do like the Caledor Woods scenario quite a bit. The Eataine one doesn’t really do it for me, however.
Anyhow, as I’m closing in on rank 38 with my Warrior Priest, I figure the best way to pass the time mindlessly while waiting for scenarios to pop is just to keep farming for that damn backpack. I have nearly a week’s worth of rest XP, anyhow.
So all’s well, right? Yeah. All good.
I’m farming away, and like clockwork, the Elf pairing scenario pops (isn’t it always that way? at least it is on my server…), and I end up in Blood of the Blackcairn. It’s a close match, but we lose after holding our own for the first half of the scenario. I do pretty well, netting nearly 3,000 renown in a losing cause, and I’m perfectly satisfied to end up back at my snotling grinding spot. Life is good.
A few minutes pass, and the same scenario pops again. Not a big surprise there. I jump in, buff up, and notice we’re about three men short and most of the people on both sides are the same as the last run. We stay a few men short for the duration, we lose rather one-sidedly, but I still manage to eke out around 1,500 renown. Not too shabby considering I only wasted a few minutes in the process.
Boom, back at ye ole snotling ranch. Kill, explosion, snotling guts everywhere. More of the same. /yawn
Rinse, repeat, another time afterwards. Little less renown this time; not really worth my time anymore. I queue up one last time before bed, because… oh, I dunno. What the hell.
Blood of the Blackcairn pops again. And again, I’m in there with many of the same people. We lose badly, no communication, and this time most of the guys on the Order side charge the Destruction spawn point right off the bat, bypassing the Estate altogether (which normally opens up for capture first.) I scratch my head. What the hell is going on?
A minute or so in, most of the Order players who charged the other spawn point are dead, wiped out in a hurry. I notice scenario chat (which was empty until this point) going nuts, and it’s one guy talking, apparently to himself. I won’t quote the whole spiel, but the basic gist of it was:
- Shut up!
- No, shut up!
- The guys didn’t show up for the duels, so just play the scenario.
- Drop it!
- etc.
Okay, I figure at this point that I’ve got someone else in the scenario on ignore and that he’s talking to them. I have no idea what on earth the other side of the conversation looks like. I send the guy spamming scenario chat a tell, asking “who are you talking to?” — a few seconds later, I get a response:
“Everyone is in vent… except you.”
I utter a silent “meh”, finish off the scenario halfheartedly, and log out after farming a few more of those wretched snotlings.
Okay. I have Ventrilo, although I don’t use it that often except for guild-related stuff. I’ve never once joined into a scenario where everyone was in voice chat, including the Destruction players. I find this highly dubious — people are organizing duels (which by all rights aren’t 100% legit, although I can see the appeal) in instanced, queued scenarios, and everyone’s on voice chat to get this setup? How annoying is that to people who just want to run scenarios? I realize pick-up groups are generally crap, but that’s just ridiculous.
If you’re going to organize duels, do them somewhere in the oRvR lakes where you’re not screwing up scenarios for the rest of us, methinks.
So, am I an idiot here? I was really annoyed by the whole thing, but I’m mature enough to let it drop and do something else with my time when it’s a lost cause. It did make me want to stop running scenarios for the evening, however, which I’m sure isn’t Mythic’s goal. It’s definitely not doing the realm any good, and “realm pride” is something that’s severely lacking in WAR when you look back at Mythic’s previous game, Dark Age of Camelot. I’d love to know if anyone else has run into this situation, and if my frustration is justified. For now, though, I’m going to hit the sack and try not to dream of endless streams of snotlings flying past my head. Sigh.
