Where to begin where to begin... (be warned, a very long read)
Once upon a time a very young and naive warrior named Goldheart. This was at the end of 2002 when the name was still called Dransik. This warrior was born in a part of the world called Magic and Mystery but his life was short. He died to a terrible disease called "pay to play" roughly estimated in December 2002. That was only after 2-3 months of adventures. The evil gods Asylumsoft was the cause of this disease and poor young Goldheart had no chance to survive.
The world of Dransik lived on though, so did the part Magic and Mystery. In the beginning of 2004 the gods called out for a *cough* Ok whats this? Both you and me know I cant do this roleplaying stuff so Ill just quit that.
So... As you may have understood I did play this game at the end of 2002 but quit, couldnt afford to pay. In January 2004 I picked up the game again though. I discovered that a new company, TKO, owned the game and it was free again. Living on my old memories of the game I decided to give it a try. My old account and my old character Goldheart was still there so I jumped right back in. Was playing Goldheart to May 2004, made some friends in the meanwhile and just went on with my business.
For a reason I dont remember anymore I decided to kill Goldheart though. That character doesnt exist anymore.. I created Dragonslayer in May 2004 and continued to play. What I did exactly is very vauge..
I know that I was standing for weeks upon weeks at an old Rock Troll spawn close to Desprail. Why? Because I needed a Holy Plate. Holy Plate was back then the very best plate there was, top of the notch, leet. Along with Black Plate . I maxed Bows and got Xbows to level 60 before the DS update was implemented a year later. Spring of 2005 that is. At this point of time Xbows really sucked too. Did I get a Holy plate? Of course not.
Magic & Mystery was a pvp server. My part of the pvp, as the newbie that I was, mostly contained getting spanked and looted by highlevels. I quickly learned to NOT happily announce in the public channel that I just got a nice shiny drop.. I quickly learned to run back to back as soon as possible instead. I hated it. PvP contained no fun for me. It was just griefing and nothing else in my eyes..
I remember when I was able to solo Scalo the first time. I remember me, cocky as hell going for Hugla just after. I had just bought a Frost shield for a mil gold and felt more leet than ever! That was, ALL my gold. Yes, Frostshield was worth a mil gold back then. Holy shield was worth around 3-5m. Anyhow, I got to Hugla and I of course got spanked. Really bad. I had no chance. And guess what? I dropped my Frost shield. Paper doll drop its called. When you died there was a risk to lose an item you had equiped. I ran back to get back my shield only to get spanked again. And again...
I remember standing for hours upon days upon weeks upon months with my Wood Working. The Fozzie update brought Fboxes, I wanted to be able to craft my own. So what to do? Level Lumberjacking, Milling and Carpentry of course.
By now I got LJing 80+ and the other two maxed.
I remember the VF runs. Those was hunts with a group of people in Valekars Fortress in the purpose of killing Meklor. The very badest boss there was back then. He dropped the Symboled Blade of Destruction. Everybody wanted it. Expensive as hell. If anyone sold it, it went for insane amounts of money. But it was THE sword. Now it sucks of course with all the other stuff...
I think it was in April 2004 that loki approched me, he asked me to join his guild and I was thrilled! Yay! A guild! This game is very boring after a couple of months without a guild Ill tell you that... I joined the guild and have stayed ever since, there is no better guild. The guild was called, and is still called, The Lords of Dransik. Its my first and only guild. LoD was already back then 2-3 years old but sadly the history of LoD before me is lost. I have no contact anymore with any old members. Today Ive been a member for four years and is the longest staying member.
AE was slowly dieing though. Ever since I came back to the game the population had been dropping. At the end of 2004 it was a deserted game. At any given time you could find maybe 5 people online on M&M. Five. How it was on the other servers P, S, T and KI Ive no idea actually. For months and months I was alone with my tag, everybody quit.. loki popped in now and then but eventually he was gone too. He quit in the early 2005 and gave the leadership to me. The only still active member.
So.. What to do as a new leader in a dieing guild on a completly new server? Because by this time IWG had bought the game from TKO, only hours before TKO pulling the plug on the game.. Rebuild it of course! Uhm.... How? I didnt know how to lead a guild or anything! I had been happy to just be a part of it, to do stuff and have fun. I accepted the lead because i didnt want my precious tag to die.
Heck.. Why not give it a try then? So naive as I was I started to ask around for new members. Ive by now learned to not do that though... That is to ask for problems with assholes. I was extremly lucky though, among the few first I asked to join we can find Huklebuc. Hes one of my best friends in this game. Others was Iaello Silivren, Raziel and Ravenlord. Those are the very oldest names I still remember.
This post is streching out to be very long though and its time to wrap it up. Ive been in this game for over 4 years and Ive only been telling you a little something about the first, roughly. Time went on, I experienced both good stuff and bad stuff. Made my mistakes as a leader and learned from most of them. I still do mistakes of course but Im a tad more experienced now.. As time went on Huk was brought in to co lead. So was a couple of others but for different reasons those have been dropping as time went on.
Ill tell you this though, the Lords of Dransik is the best thing ever happend to me in this game. People that know me way back know what Ive been through, with good help of others, to keep it alive. But it have been worth it. I would have quit the game a long time ago if it wasnt for the guild and my very good friends.
If you got any questions about anything, just ask me. Im able to answer most of it.
Happy hunting.
/DM.
