User talk:Shard/Career

still playing. Currently "downscaling" my characters into lowbies. Much Fun! Also check your e-mail. --Boro 20:27, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Waxing personal up in this piece

I haven’t checked this site since I posted an ad for a guild in GW2 about two years ago, when I was still trying to give the game a chance (an effort it neither rewarded nor deserved). It’s funny, the way life leads acquaintances to re-encounter each other, a curious and satisfying syzygy of time and former interests.

I remember the feeling you described as “flow,” and I recall experiencing it much later in the game’s life cycle. I bought Guild Wars when I was fourteen or fifteen, living in an unstable household, going into my first year of high school, and dancing the border between neurotic and clinically insane. An absence of any reflective or emotional education and (semi-justifiable) delusions of persecution left me quite certain that concepts like “rank” and various exclusionary mentalities were the result of some conspiracy, an attempt to keep me from enjoying the game in the way I chose.

This sounds ridiculous in retrospect, and it is, but it was enough to keep me from getting into organized PvP until well after the release of Nightfall. Nightfall came out in 2006, only 18 months or so after the release of (what would come to be called) Prophecies, and the window of time in which GW felt like “old GW” is staggeringly short.

The point is, GW was the first game I ever took seriously, to play for anything beyond entertainment value or to advance the storyline, but I lacked the mentality to improve my gameplay. “Just play more and get better” would be sound advice for the typical person, who knows how to learn, but, for me, the concept was foreign. People are as baffled by my failure to initially grasp such fundamental concepts as they are by the rapidity by which I absorbed them once instructed. Video games have affected my life in so many ways: analyzing my own actions, accepting responsibility, finding and correcting flaws—all eventually found their way into my personal life, initially learned to improve my gamaeplay. Now, as I tell friends how to get better at games like StarCraft 2, they tell me to start a podcast or blog to record the principles, but I lack the time and enthusiasm.

Guild Wars will always hold a special place in my withered, blackened heart, because my childhood came to an end sometime while I was playing it. I still have some of the tracks on my playlist, and the ones from pre-searing Ascalon still manage to tie a gentle little knot in my stomach as I recall the wonderment I felt playing around in the game for the very first time. It isn’t as strong as the games I played when I was much younger—hearing the music from Legend of Legaia, for instance, still wracks my entire body with quakes of nostalgia—but it’s still strong, still noticeable, still something that very, very few recent video games can inspire (interestingly, the only part of any track I liked from StarCraft 2 was in the titular track, “Wings of Liberty,” when they play “Dearest Helena” for about fifty seconds).

Sadly, my later memories of the game are considerably less fond than yours, due in part to an abusive relationship I got myself into around ’08 or so, which, in combination with the plethora of vibrant, yet ineffective medications I was taking, was likely the cause of my aberrant behavior on this and other websites. Nothing quite exacerbates depression quite the way a friend with narcissistic BPD can, and I'm still scrubbing at the scars that ordeal left me, much of which focused around my (supposedly) sub-par gameplay (in truth, it had nothing to do with the game, it had to do with his insecurity and need to find fault in others to protect his own ego, but he expressed that through his criticism of my gameplay, so I thought it was the game).

There was a point in mind when I started writing this, but I think it’s evaporated by now, and turned into some nauseating personal drama that no one will ever read.

In conclusion: hi, it’s nice to see you haven't been murdered. I liked Guild Wars, too.

And, for what it’s worth, if you ever need a writer for your flow-inspiring (*snigger*) video game, and you can put up with a chain-smoking alcoholic who doesn’t understand the meaning of words like “deadline” or “ESRB rating,” I’d prolly be willing to help. –Jette 06:37, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

edit: also, contact me at a6a486b2 (@) opayq (.) com if you wanna say hi or something. –Jette 06:41, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

A comment from an officer in the Zaishen

Shard, first off, I personally remember you having a very outspoken personality in game at the time. It probably was something that I didn't mind but it definitely rubbed the senior members the wrong way if I remember. Meaning Dan, Tyler and Lauren. That said I LOVE that you wrote this article and still have a passion for Guild Wars, it is honestly the best video game I have ever played (with many close seconds). There is no game with a more fun and deep multiplayer. Maybe LoL now has that secret sauce but my god I think GW would strive in the world of E Sports today.. Anyways digressing. If you don't mind I'd also love to reminisce a little bit and maybe counterpoint a little.

Ahem so Shard spoke about the Zaishen and everything he said is pretty accurate. However Shard (and I say this in a non-demeaning way) was a *member* of the Zaishen, he was not a founding member. Just Friends which Shard alluded to was a SUPER AWESOME guild which was gaining up the ranks in GvG (probably broke the top 200) but the problem with JF was that it was never meant to be competitive. I personally joined JF in a similar way to Shard... I randomly walked into Tombs LOL. JF was at the time willing to fill their teams with pubs / randos and they taught me how to prot monk which was amazing. The thing is though I am naturally good at picking up video games (and so were the folks that left JF) so after a while we knew that were better than a lot of the folks in JF. We had a Warrior (Tyler) who was really good, a Ranger (Dan, Tyler's cousin) who was really good, another ranger/mesmer (Lauren) who was in iA and took a liking to Tyler :p who was good and myself an up and coming monk (who I'd also say was really good :P).

Remember now a big part of these games was teamspeak so we definitely had been talking about these things and we were all making friends. It's a little sad because I do think Tyler/Dan orchestrated the split and it genuinely hurt the leader of JF to see his guild who was building so much promise be split from within (as I think about it know I feel some guilt) but in the long run it was the right decision. We had the core group and then it was just a matter of finding players that had the motivation and wanted to win. Shard was one, Porkchop was another, Senkai (an absolute boss) was another and we had a few more but I don't think the Zaishen ever surpassed more than 12 members. We were a tight knit group and there was DEFINITELY a starting lineup.

Tyler - Shotcaller (top in shards build tree) Dan - Ranger (always) Myself - Infuse Necro or Monk (no offense Shard but I would argue my monk was better than yours but I liked spiking and you WERE a good monk also :P - I take offense to being termed a "backup" infuse) Lauren - Another Necro Shard - Monk Porkchop - Necro Senkai - Interupt necro

Other players I'm forgetting but they were there also. Anyhow the part about being dominant was so true and we did build quite a following. Also Lauren was definitely our champion on the GWG forums and got into many a public debate that sadly are now gone with the death of guru (I would read those every once in a while). Anyhow we did get VERY highly ranked in GVG (top 20 and we took a game off of iQ). After a while Tombs became warmup for GvG because the truth is the highest level Guild Wars was/is played in GvG bar none. Halls/Tombs/HA was honestly too easy

Anyhow there was another top ranked blood spike guild called VoR and sadly they had a superior build that countered ours and they were GvG vets. Without the details our loss to VoR when we were trying to make top #16 to qualify for worlds in Korea (i KNOW!) was what ended our guild. It was a #13 vs #17 matchup and my god did we all want to win. Sigh...

We all went on to more GW fun, I joined Gangstas in the Hood as their infuser and had another two awesome years of being a top level HoH team. rSpike unfortunately never had the staying power as nSpike for HoH but we won very regularly and I built a solid reputation for myself as a player.

It's funny the HoH community definitely had social circles which were mostly based on your rank as a player (fame wise). At the time I was rank 10 but super early before anyone ever got to r12. I remember eventually hanging out with | Debbie | (who was dating P O W E R) and meeting some of the elite euro players and monking in pick ups. God it was just so much fun all around and I was just this 13-15 year old kid who was good at the game.

Eventually I decided (in a very mature way) that I needed to give up guild wars as college applications were but two years away and needed to do well in school (I ended up going to an Ivy League :o / ok now I'm just sucking my own ****) but Guild Wars is a game i WILL NEVER forget. There is so much more to it also haha. We didn't even mention that when you crush HoH the game basically makes you rich via sigils. So on top of being good we all became ballers. I remember joking around with Rnub about how many sigils we need to sell to buy this or that. Folks had all the best weapon skins, best armor and it was just so much fun. Shard you can def relate to that I'm sure. GAH Guild Wars I MISS YOU SO MUCH!!!!

The memories are forever, my game of forever :).

"Maybe LoL now has that secret sauce"

God, no. Eww. Why would you say that? League is provably terrible.

Anyways, I was not a founding member in the sense that it was not my idea to form The Zaishen. I was invited within 24 hours of it forming, so I was there from the start (and eventually the Zaishen reformed with some of the members of Pi, but you missed that little adventure. It didn't last long, so you didn't miss much, but it was fun talking to Tyler and Lauren again).

"We didn't even mention that when you crush HoH the game basically makes you rich via sigils"

True. And now a math lesson for the people out there who didn't know this. Sigils used to be worth 100 plat. Then this happened:

This is how most top pvp players had multiple sets of FoW armor. We farmed it from the Halls chest.

One last note. I'm assuming you're Path, because Porkchop's ego isn't that big. I don't mean to sound demeaning, but you were the worst player in Rnub. I'm not calling you bad - That's a high bar to meet because everyone else was so good. I'm just saying you're not nearly as good as you think you are. I wouldn't even put you in the top 100 among monk players in the world. I'm not saying this because you kicked me from the guild, I honestly wasn't impressed with you. You were good, but not spectacular. My bullshit detector was going off the scales while I read your comments and I wanted to put your "I'm amazing" tone in line with reality, for old time's sake :)

~Shard 15:46, 4 July 2017 (UTC)