Entry 2: The Keren Run

Friday, June 13 2003 – 2:15PM (ScreenShot0047)

I started to understand things better. I was confident that I could lead a group into a fight. /tells were coming in from strangers, “we can use a scout, wanna group,” that sort of thing. Rumors of places like “Lok,” where the XP was supposedly big, had piqued my interest. I went to Naboo to get to Lok, but Theed’s Starport wasn’t working. Major problem, totally stuck on Naboo… or was I? I overheard a group of guys talking about “running to one of the other cities” to catch a ride off Naboo. That sounded like a plan and a half to me. I ended up being the leader, and we attempted to run from Theed to Keren.

Friday, June 13 2003 – 2:15PM (ScreenShot0051)

Doesn’t sound like that big of a deal now, but then… well let’s just say that there were no things like “player cities” to break up the mob spawns. None of us had broken out of the “novice” combat boxes, and things like Greater Shaupauts could wipe our whole group easily. The thing is, when given the choice of waiting around for the devs to fix the Starport, or seeing what was between Theed & Keren… well obviously there wasn’t much of a choice involved.

In a straight line, we made our best attempt to snake our way through spawns, only fighting when we had to. There was pretty much no chance of the six of us doing any damage on Naboo anyway. The goal was to get to Lok, try to squeeze into a 20-man group, and get bigtime XP… or so the rumor went. An hour later, either the grass was up to our belts… or we were sloshing through rivers… but we eventually made it to Keren in about two hours flat. We hopped the next “boat” to Lok… but when we arrived there was only two of us… the other guys couldn’t afford the ticket. Just goes to show how broke everyone was in beta.

Friday, June 13 2003 – 4:12PM (ScreenShot0052)

Lok. It was like Tatooine, but something much more menacing. I stepped off the “boat” as we jokingly called it, and the music was overwhelming. “This is where I’ll build my home at launch,” was the very first thought I had. A mess of blips were on my radar behind the Starport, so I ran over the hill and got absorbed into a group of almost 20 people. The rumors were true; this was where the action was.

At first glance I knew I was in over my head. What I learned was Chitin, Mabari & Ubese armor made me self conscious. My rusty bone armor was starting to look obsolete. The group leader, “Rock Forehead,” was easy going but completely respected. He told all of us wanna-be CH’s that there were “no harvest rules,” which meant that we needed to basically be quick to harvest when a mob dropped or we wouldn’t be harvesting at all.

And that was it. Rock moved, the group moved with him, and I was just trying to keep up. The group moved over a hill, and before I even made it to the top, I heard the blaster fire. When I finally got into range, I saw a slew of group members in a pile, with giant elephant looking creatures right on top of them. The ranged players were lined up to my right, but I couldn’t see that as being a smart move… because when the “Snorbal” died, I wouldn’t be near it to harvest. So, I took my chances, and ran into the mess of swinging staffs & swords. We cleared a few spawns, and then the shit went down for real.

Friday, June 13 2003 – 4:31PM (ScreenShot0054)

“A Giant Dune Kimogila.” WHAT? Okay remember when I said I was getting close to the action so I could harvest… well this was certainly NOT one of those times. The ground was shaking, people were all talking at once, at first it seemed like total chaos… until I saw Rock. He was just a born leader. I wished Rowa were here to meet this guy. He was just so sure of what his group was capable of. This Kimo thing was one hit DBing player after player, but Rock just kept telling us what to do, and in the end, in a giant crash, even the mighty Giant Dune Kimo was no match for a lowbie group of 20 players… if they were acting like a unit. And this group was a unit, because Rock made it that way.

Friday, June 13 2003 – 4:57PM (ScreenShot0062)

Hell, we even swam like a unit. Rock just had that effect on everyone. He wasn’t frantic, he wasn’t screaming in caps, he usually wouldn’t even say anything. He was just saying “here we go,” and we’d just go with him. We ran around Lok looking for trouble all day long. When Rock logged out, I added him to my friends list, but the group charged on. One of the other members, “Noxs Denosis,” took over the lead. Noxs had a few more ground rules then Rock did, but in the end, he was a good leader as well. We all capped on XP yet again, and I was getting close to having all the pre-requisites to become a Novice CH.

I spent all weekend on Lok. I grouped with Noxs & Rock as much as I could, and I felt like we were becoming good friends. Late Sunday night, I found myself on my way to Endor, and I gave everyone I knew a /tell to come along. The result was a well-rounded group. I had Rowa & Weema, the Transcendents guys I met on Rori, as well as Rock Forehead & Noxs Denosis, and some other guys we met when we got there.

Monday, June 16 2003 – 1:43AM (ScreenShot0093)

Master Squad Leader. In the beta world, Rock Forehead was the man, plain and simple. I don’t know why the guy enjoyed my company, but thank God he did, because man did he pull me out of trouble time and time again. And I suppose it was Noxs job to get me back into trouble, and so the cycle continued. Good thing we had Rowa to heal our stupid asses all over Endor. We covered as much ground as possible, walked with the Ewoks in the treetop village, you know the deal. The servers went down for a few days, and when they came back up that Thursday… our characters were gone. Good thing I took the AIM names of some of the guys, or I’d have lost um for good…

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