Memories

Contrary to Azuno's post, I've been working on updating the blog in my spare time at work for like a week now... and I'm too lazy to work on posts at home >.<

It's really hard to believe it's been one year. I find myself slowly drifting into the more casual-player category; but I'm okay with that. I've worked hard for everything I've done, and it was always at my own pace. There's no point in being hardcore about anything when my main doesn't gain XP anymore and we're still waiting on content updates. I spend most of my days hunting the field bosses in Shinjuku Docks, soloing 4 Kings for a challenge, making new demons, testing new ideas and theories out, and of course the occasional PvP match here and there. Last night I decided to start up a swordsmith for fun (I have an old level 57 synther on another account with a macca-hourglass still on it, might as well use it), so we'll see how that goes. Anyway, this entry isn't about anything that's happening now; I wanted to share some memories and pay tribute to some long lost friends as we wrap up our 1st year of Megaten.

Note: I have pictures to add, but I need to upload them when I get home.

When Imagine was announced that it was being brought to the US, I knew absolutely nothing about MMORPGs. I'd never played one in my life, nor did I have any intentions of playing one. However I never pass up a Shin Megami Tensei game, so I felt obligated to at the very least try it. I only logged in a few times during closed beta, knowing that my character would be wiped I just tested the game out to see if it was even enjoyable. My laptop at the time caused the game to lag a lot (go go Vista), and dungeons were virtually unplayable for me. However I found myself enjoying the game nonetheless. I realized with my current computer there was no way I was getting far, so I wrote it off as something to play if I got a new computer. In the meantime I tried WoW, only to quit after merely 3 days into my 10 day trial (that game is awful), and saw that every preconcieved thought I had about the game was 100% true.

In Februrary I managed to finally get myself a killer desktop for a new DAW (digital audio workstation), and shortly after installing all my recording software I remembered SMT, so I figured I'd give it another run. I forgot my password for my original username, so I started up a new account, made a character, and dove face first into the world of Imagine.

I don't know how many of you know, but Royce is not my original character; originally I was known as Iwata, and actually played a male character *gasp*

I wanted to keep to myself and had no real interest in joining a clan, but I got a random clan invite in the middle of killing Cait Siths for Act III. I can't really say much about them, I was in the clan for like an hour? No one talked the entire time I was there, so I left figuring I'd be better off alone.

I didn't talk to a soul until I ran Act IV, where a Dutch girl named Syardis who was looking for a group of people to run Act IV's Grey plate as well. I offered to come since I needed to do it to, and ended up making my first friend in Megaten. We ended up talking for a long time, running a couple Sugi Bronzes and just overall had fun. Later on that evening I recieved another random clan invitation, this time to Clan Cruxifer, which ended up being my home for the next several months. 15 year-old Ceruben was the leader, who gave me a submaster position based on the fact I was the 2nd highest level in the clan because I "obviously knew what I was doing," which was a total lie... I had every expertise turned on! 18,000 points? No way I'm ever maxing all that out! I had stats in strength, magic and speed because I wanted to be a "jack-of-all-trades"...

Cruxifer ran like pretty much every other clan back in early February; you see a random clanless noob, invite first and ask questions later. Ironically this method wasn't that bad back then, as we got several people that didn't have their head up their ass completely, like Lorant, Ayaki, Senlan, Xerdrick, Nakea, Miyazuki, Kagusashi, Churumelos, Kisarabi and Andraen. We actually had a decent team of people for just a bunch of random invites. We actually started to get a little serious about the game. Around this time is when I retired Iwata at level 34, and decided to try a new class. I had made Royce as my mule (that's right, Royce was initially a storage mule), so I decided to give mage a try. I had a gut feeling that females would get better gear than males, since this is a Japanese MMO after all, and boy was I right. I ended up being a hybrid of mage and melee in the beginning, due to the fact we had no tanks in the clan, plus we had no idea what builds worked and what didn't back in these times. Syardis actually joined the clan around this time on her new character RazorRamon (this time male, playing my opposite again)... 5 bonus points to anyone who gets that reference. EdwinRhys also joined our ranks, who was possibly the best random noob invite ever. Lorant, Edwin and myself were like the Rat Pack of Cruxifer; we did everything together. I still miss those days :/

As the clan grew more serious about actually working together, expanding our clanbase and overall being good at the game, several clan members felt that Ceruben wasn't really fit to be clan master anymore; all he did was ask for people's Jack Frost cards and steal all the loot in dungeons by turning FFA on. I got picked by all the submasters to be the new clanmaster, but asking Cerbuen to step down wasn't something I wanted to do. We didn't want to make it seem like some coup d`etat, but Senlan ended up stonewalling him and Ceruben sort of freaked out, passed master, left the clan, and his 3 irl-friends followed. Cerbuben ended up quitting the game because of this, which was never anyone's intentions. I think we just learned a very valueable lesson that day-- you can't maturely reason with a 15 year old boy.

Outside of Cruxifer, I'll never forget the other fellow channel 5 people; Clan Arcana people like the perverted Jherek (who was convinced I was a girl irl, even though countless times I said I was a man...), AIice and of course Sekushi. There was also the Clan Aria crew-- Gainshard, Sekh, Eone and shoon (who all ended up helping create Destiny), the Clan Touhou crew-- Looms and Zlito, and the Clan DaraTen crew-- Yreal, Seppoku, and Mewie. Then there's the clanless people where you wonder where they mysteriously vanished, like Verdeman, who seemed to be the only swordsmith for the longest time, then was gone for good in the blink of an eye. There was also Alesa, the clanless enhancer who used to bother Jherek with me. She vanished completely after she unlocked class 5 enhancement, which was all she did at the fountain for weeks; grind expertise and chat.

I was always trying to push the envelope as far as what mages were capable of doing. At the end of April I was the second person (that I know of, at least) to have soloed Tokisada and farmed my own cards for B108 Ichi Gold, the first being Pearz.

I ended up leading Cruxifer from March until the beginning of June, when every just stopped getting along and started being too dramatic and overbearing. SuperBuu3 systematically tried to destroy the clan from the inside by spreading lies about everyone and planting seeds of doubt in everyone's heads... much like he'd done in Clan Trinity and Clan Aria beforehand (this was not some new trend). I couldn't paty with anyone non-clan without being guilt-tripped by the submasters for at least 45 minutes. The fact I was outleveling everyone in the guild by over 10 levels meant that I was "unfaithful to the clan" and "should be helping with newbies on acts" and "powerleveling the clan." I ended up just straight up leaving the clan, as everything I'd worked hard for months to achieve blew up in my face due to other people's jealousy. I'd already felt Lorant and a few others giving me the cold shoulder for like a month, and they moved on to help with SuperBuu3's newly-founded Clan Raziel, and I ended up joining Desire upon the invite from my friends Raid0uKuzunoha and ShinHitoshura.

The Desire-era was short for me (only 2 months), but a strange and interesting one; the clan was almost always dead silent. From what I hear the clan was pretty much already dead when I joined; all the old players had already quit the game. It almost seemed as though no one really liked each other, which was weird coming from Cruxifer where everyone had bonded so well. There were some good times in Desire, like running Ichis with Petrovich and Takemoro, running around Babel acting silly with Sachira, and the crazy 8-10 hour grind sessions I had with Xay. Eventually the clan split into 3 entirely new clans, which brings us to now. Destiny is starting it's 6th month of existence and as strong as ever.

So will it be time for me to hang up my gears and join the ranks of the other retired veterans? Or will I stick it out another year? I can't really say for sure, but I have a feeling I'll be here for awhile still. Perhaps Celu Gold will bring some new life into the game for me. I'm still anxiously awaiting Ueno Snake Cave too. Who knows, maybe the level cap will get raised soon. The past year has been a blast, and it's been really great to meet the friends I have today. It's sad to look at my friends list and see all the old friends I've had who have moved on; it's more like an obituary than a list of active players... and I refuse to delete a single one of them in hopes of them coming back someday.

Even though leveling is a total joke now, it's good to be an older veteran; I actually got to experience the game without hearing words like "sponsor" or "powerleveling" until I was 80+. You really miss out on a lot when you confine yourself to only running Ichi Golds. I wouldn't trade off any these memories for all the 10x in the world.