I had a terrible error in judgment today and I’m hoping that my tale of woe and sadness can both entertain and educate others so that they can benefit from my mistakes.
So I’m happily xp’ing with my Halfling Paladin experiment in the Savored Sands on my way to the smoke shack when I get a party invite from some guy named something like “Mister Picksyourpocketmaster”. I think to myself “why not, I want to know who is playing a toon with that name anyway so I can watch out for him” and click accept. I click on the person’s picture and find out it’s Velocite, or something like that. Now, for those of you who don’t know, that’s the new name of Dragon Ledak. I instantly regret accepting the invite but decide to ride out the storm. I mean, how bad could it be, right?
When I accept the party invite the first thing I notice is that my companion is in the savored sands as well and has 2 hp. I discovered that we’re both level 8, so there shouldn’t be any problems with the creatures here. I was making a bee-line to Bane for the extra Xp; I didn’t really care about the harp or the armor. I get to him and realize that Ledak is nowhere to be seen. He’s off fighting some other spawn, which didn’t overly concern me as I was fairly confident that I could handle Bane on my own. I begin fighting him and see Ledak running towards me trailed by 2 Kobolds. At this point I begin to get a little concerned. Some of them can cast spells that can be bothersome at this level, and the thugs can actually do some damage if they get lucky. I continue fighting Bane and while we both almost died, we (meaning “I”) were able to kill all 3 of the enemies.
Shaking my head at Ledaks stupidity, I use a healing kit and head towards the gate, leaving the armor and harp in the corpse. I didn’t need the money and if Ledak did, he could have it. However, as I killed 2 more kobolds and got close to the gate I noticed that he wasn’t following. I get a party chat saying “Stay” and then “I’m Encumbered”. So, I wait for him. He comes up to me and “offers” (using the trade tool) me the armor I just left behind. Now, I might be playing a Paladin, but there are limits to how gracious I am willing to be. This jackass expects me to carry his loot, the same loot that was rightfully mine that I left for him? Shaking my head again, I decide to accept, thinking that if this build wasn’t a Paladin it would just keep it. Anyway, we go through the gate (which he shut on me while I was trying to go through…moron) and I stop and buy some Bark Skin and Negative Energy Protection potions. Ledak doesn’t, he goes right into the tombs. Shaking my head again, I follow him in.
It doesn’t take long for me to figure out that his build sucks. I’m shocked to the core of my being to find that Ledak didn’t make a good build, but it’s unfortunately true. He can’t hit a thing, and when the planets do all align properly and he gets a hit he does under 10 damage. Resigning myself to the fact that this is just another pathetic installation in the pattern of Ledak leeching xp off of me, I soldier on. We get to one fight where he is forced to run for his life, leaving me to fight all 3 of the undead myself, which I dutifully kill. It then dawns upon me that I haven’t seen him use a healing kit yet. Every time he gets damaged he rests. (BTW, this is making for some SLOW progress through the tombs). I ask him “You don’t have any healing kits?” and he responds “no.” This time I cant even shake my head. I just stare at the screen slack jawed and stupefied. I manage to type in “Adventuring with no way of healing yourself isn’t very smart” but get no response. Having recovered from the shocking lack of intelligence displayed by someone who’s IQ I already would have compared with that of a common garden slug, I shake my head and continue on to the next fight.
It’s at this point that Ledak stops fighting. It’s not like he’s been doing much to begin with, but at least he was trying. He starts saying something about his AC being 15 and his AB “for the 1st axe being +3 and the second axe being -3”. Again, I just stare at the screen. Now, I know it’s possible to have a build with 15 AC, but you have to try REALLY hard. I mean, let’s think about this. If the person has put ANY effort into upgrading his equipment, he should have gotten +1 from armor, helmet, amulet and boots. That’s a 14 AC right there, with no armor. Even if it’s a Str build, ANY armor would have put him well over 15, but I’m assuming that he’s not playing a Strength build because he was encumbered by the Leather Armor from Bane, wich means he’s some sort of a Dex build. How can a Dex Build NOT have more than 15 AC???? My mind boggling from this realization, I’m then overcome by the even greater stupidity of Dual Wielding axes at level 8. I’ll just let that speak for itself.
I’m starting to get irritated because Ledak is just standing back and not attacking. I’m doing all the work for someone who invited ME into HIS group. As the leader of the group, he should be doing SOMETHING, right? The final straw was when I ran into a room and started fighting 3 undead myself, 2 of which were Tyranfog Zombies, which at level 8 can be quite a challenge. Ledak didn’t just come into the room and hang back, he hugged the wall and went around to the other side of the room close to the door, supposedly so he would be ready to run to the next leach session. I typed in “You need to help me fight and stop leaching xp from me.” He replied “When we get to the smoke shack I will”. Not the response I was looking for. I typed “No, now. Do what you can” to which he replied “yes mother”.
That’s when I logged off and left him in the middle of a zone he couldn’t handle on his own. I wish I had thought to scroll up and take some screen shots of the dialogue but I was too irritated. My fondest wish is that the undead set upon him and messily devoured him in a manner befitting “Night of the Living Dead”.
So, that’s my story. It’s official; Ledak has added his name to the very small but prestigious list of people who are on my Shit List.
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21 comments:
Lol, I know that some chars can have a hard time killing stuff at ST at lvl 8. But those're usually also the kinda chars that are impossible to hit so they don't die either and make for a nice tank while the rest of the party sneaks the enemies to death.
Just search around the blog. Surely, you'll find a few epic stories like this one.
And everyone who's being around Badlands RPG for at least a semester.. hmm, maybe a bit more, had a chance to be in Deurack's shoes.
Long time ago, there were the alleged Ledak "brothers" (which I always suspected was only one dumb kid trying to be a smartass) and mickles.
Players so clueless that one evening grouping with these kids was full of *facepalms all over the place (Deurack should change the *shake my head for *facepalm, its more hilarious this way :D )
After or before, my memory is hazy there, came the "okis". Polish dudes who were dumb.. no, dumb is still a compliment to them.. they were by far a combination of ledak + mickles + dark in every single one of them. A terrifying abomination, right?
I know the game is supposed to be fun and all, but playing with these morons can prove to be a test even for the most patient guy on earth.
I mean, most of the people who play online have a little bit of experience in D&D. Sure, knowing old school pen & paper D&D helps but it's kinda easy to get the hang of it after a while. Not at the skill level of making a powerful build at first. That you'll get by exploring the place and talking to the veterans to see which one works and what's a waste of time. But at least make a decent build to start with.. that ain't much to hope for, is it?
Yes, it is. If you hope to get anything worth grouping with from these guys, you are expecting too much.
I remember writng a few lines that summarized these fine specimen:
"They make shit builds. Usually weird melee builds that can't buff, often running around with large weapons and of course, can't heal themselves so their 'r' buttom is almost gone from their keyboards as they hit it as much as 1000 times in 10 minutes (lol?).
They can't hit anything. Sometimes they keep trying but most of the time, they just hug the wall, waiting til you're done and they can move on to the next area where they can sit back, relax, drink some beer while you work your ass off to carry the his damn leecher ass..."It doesn't take long til everyone starts to avoid these fellas so they end up getting bored at their own lack of skill and leave.. or they get lucky and find someone "clever" enough to willingly carry their worthless toons around...
I haven't played much this year but I do have a nice story like yours, Deurack.
There I was with my Mary something, a cleric, bashing some druids at slide when I get a party invitation from some guy I didn't know. It turned out to be shadow251988.
And along with him, Pyro.
I asked for their levels. They were around mine.. 22-27 at the time.
I suggested Sheelo and they agreed.
Of course, shadow didn't have pipes.
So we began our long journey to those cold and dangerous mountains.
We got to the spider area. We proceeded carefully, taking every couple of spawns since more than 2 could prove to be fatal at our level.
We finally made to the ethercap. I said to stay in one place while pyro igms spammed it to oblivion. I didn't want to trigger any more spawns.
But the assclown started chasing the monster and a few more spiders spawned behind us. Since I was behind the mage, they all went for my head.. my armor... my shield.
I killed one and died not long after that.
After Pyro was done with the ethercap and the remaining spiders, he rezed me and logged off. I rested while the assclown harassed me to move on cause he was afraid of spawning more spiders.
Seconds after I finished my resting, he moved around and some spiders were there with us. I quickly casted invis on both of us and said "let's go! don't attack any.." too late.. what did he do? He bashed the first one and ran like a scared little girl to deserted cavern, where he was followed by them spiders and greeted by two sahuagins.
Fearing for his life, our mighty hero ported back to dozo..
He asked for cash and dark was on with his Slade character and out of boredom he helped the poor assclown.
Me? Well, after 1k facepalms and a "wait, I upgrade my equips and we go back to sheelo.." said nothing more and logged off.. had a few horses to stab in the face... grrr
You know, Ignorance I can understand and deal with. I was certainly ignorant when I first started playing Badlands. Stupidity I can deal with, as long as the person is willing to try. Arrogance I really dislike, but I'm willing to deal with it if the person can contribute in a meaningful way. But when you combine all 3 into one cluster-fuck of incompetence and irritation, that's where I write people off the "Help Them" list and put them on the "Ignore them when they talk to you and Kill them when you get a chance" list.
"Get over here and fight with the group or I will kill you myself!, so said Skullcrusher to more than one noob leeching XP. Most didn't believe me until I killed them. A few needed to be killed more than once before they got learned.
I think most of us are familiar with the movie, "Dumb and Dumber" which has a sequel, "Dumb and Dumberer". The three-quel will be, "Dumberererer and Dumberest" staring, Rome Ledak and Dragon Ledak with co-stars such as "mickles" and a few others.
I fondly remember logging in as DM one day to here a shout, "What's wrong with this server? I can't a thing!"
Being in DM mode, I ported to the Dozo Warfields and took a peek at his noobs toon. I can't recall his name, but he was new to the server.
He had a pure level 10 monk, with nice wisdom, but no dex, no str and no con. Don't recall the cha, but it might have been high.
He had a Dwarven Waraxe in each hand and an AB of 0 and -6. Just for a laugh, I looked at his feats list. Weapon Finesse but no Ambidextrous or Two-Weapon Fighting.
Did I mention he was level 10 in a level 3 area?
I didn't even bother talking to him. I didn't see the point.
All that i can say is Flesh to Stone.
Trust me, if we had been in a PvP zone I would have killed him. I was thinking about it at the time and fondly imagining it later, but we werent.I'll just wait until I see him later...assuming he ever gets high enough level to enter a PvP zone...which is doubtful...
Hmm, I remember that evening very vagely. But these guys to me are the kind that if you're together with some other people that actually know what they're doing are a lot of fun.
I remember when opal came barging in badlands rpg saying he and all the DCN morons came from a big meanass pvp server. Once he got down to UD and we fought azers he kept nagging that he needed 'clarotines' real bad and dying on every umber bug that crossed our paths.
As annoying as he was even killing himself on my acid sheath a few times, simon and I in the meantime had the biggest laugh in months joking around and eventually dubbing opal the "royal court jester" and "our friendly little leech".
Now the best thing is, that most of em aren't smart enough to notice when you're making fun of them even on the party channel.
Heck, I recall opal trying to use his wiz/pm 27/13 trying to igms dark's 70 sr monk/cleric/sd.
So, I recommend teaming with these people if you have at least 1 other reliable teammate so the 2 of you can laugh at the pet you're carrying along for comic relief. It's good for the heart, trust me.
Sure Pyro, I know what you mean. I remember many NWN nights after work when grouping with these assclowns made me feel a bit relaxed. It's therapeutic to lol at their stupidity.
It's ok if you meet the guy around the place you are gonna grind some levels. You didn't waste time carrying the leecher and you get to see first-hand how "awesome" his build is.
You get some levels, chat a bit and make fun of his awesomeness..
But what Deurack pointed out is the annoying part, when you try to be a good sport and you ended up screwed for being nice. It sometimes makes you wanna solo only.
Hell, I still remember Jim's story about some dude who asked him to hold his gear, which was only common crap he could've bought in the shop for 1gp a piece.. took half an hour to remake the char and even complained about Jim not giving his gp back..
And after getting stuck at some point, buggin' him again.. dude wanted Jim to make a new toon to level with him.. wtf?
I remember bashing some of these players into oblivion but a few still hung around.. those ones I tried to avoid at all cost.
Oh my, I still remember my ogrillon demanding 1 million gp from Rome Ledak as payment for carrying his sorry ass through his legendary levels. The guy was 45 trogging with a weird monk/cle/sd with ab+35 and ac+60.. he didn't hit anything and wasn't effective as a tank.
He said no and I bashed his dwarf tool to next week. He whined and changed toons..
Yeah, that was a good night. :D
WOW
Pyro, I remember that night when Opal the Leech/Court Jester was our entertainment, funniest party I've been a part of in MONTHS. I was actually tired after laughing at him so much.
I agree that ignorance is definitely tolerable. I'd say 90% of new BL players get the "free pass" when it comes to doing questionable stuff. Such players are usually ready and willing to listen to advice that you give them.
Like the other night, there was a new player who logged in and started asking about gear, etc. Making it clear that he was new to the BL. I explained about fully upgraded equipment at lvl 21, and gave some other helpful hints. The guy was smart, he spent 10-15 minutes looking thru subraces, then logged off and rebuilt a toon with the information he had gathered. Now that was smart. Most people build something "balanced" or that worked in the solo game or on another server. The stubborn try to force a square peg into a round hole, and are *facepalming* in frustration by the time they hit the sewers.
What Deurack describes is, thankfully, the exception and not the norm. But Ledak's behavior was unacceptable in my book. My solution would've been to simply leave the party, but carry on with what I was doing. That ends his leeching. He might still follow along like Gollum, but he won't get any xp. The last straw with me would've been when Ledak went into smart-ass mode "Yes mother".
As far as hunting Ledak down later on in a PvP area: I've seen him with so many different builds the last week or so, I doubt he's got anything that can make it past the old forest to the coast! Plus, when players are as bad as Ledak, there's really no satisfaction for PKing them.
Has anyone seen the Guild Description for Opalfish's guild?
"May the power of Dragons and power flow through your vains"
That's not at all redundant and it doesn't repeat itself either. Ande thanc gahd their arent eny speling mistaeks inn sumthing yu wil hav lots of poeple seaing, rite?
Jeez, I'm an asshole sometimes :P
I remember when Dragon Ledek and Rome Ledek first started playing here. That was a long time ago. About the time you (I, we) would get so pissed at him that you (or the entire party) wanted to kill him dead, he would log and relog as the other. Then claim they were brothers. But the style of play never changed. Soon you were all pissed again.
Once, early on in Ledek's career as a professional dope, I was in a party with Ledek and two others. We were level 38 or so and hunting beetles. Beetle hunting can be very deadly very quick at any level. The four of us were managing, but a pair of beetles would do us in and we all had to heal after each battle.
Ledek didn't have any heal kits and wanted to rest between each set of beetles. His solution to our frustration was that we should heal him. And he seemed to get hurt much easier than the rest of us.
It seemed to me that he would hang back and not fight much. Probably his solution so he wouldn't get hurt as much.
When he would get really hurt, which was all the time, he would run away to avoid death. I realize that avoiding death is a wise thing, but, he would never run back to where we had been. He would always run up ahead and trigger more beetles.
At this point he usually died, which was a good thing. If he didn't die from the new beetles, he would run some more and attract even more beetles and soon we were all dead. At this point we all had to respawn and lose XP. Except Ledek seemed to think we owed it to him to rez him after we all died to his ...... (what's the word?)
We finally didn't rez him. We rested, buffed, and moved on without him. After a bit of cry-baby-talk, he logged out. The other Ledek immediately logged on and ran as fast as he could to catch up to our party. Of course he brought a swarm of angry beetles with him and we all died.
He (or they) did eventually get some high-level toons. None that could ever travel alone, at any level. None that could ever offer support to the party.
I just don't get it. He couldn't heal, rez, take a hit or make a hit. Couldn't buff. It's like he spread all his attribute points evenly across all six stats, for the entire 60 level. And the same with his skill points.
"Look, I've got 15 str, dex, con and int now and I just made level 30 too. Oh boy! I have 5 points on every skill now. That way I can do a little bit of everything."
I can't tell that anything has changed since then. That was about two years ago I think.
Ledak used to literally WALK between EVERY area, WITHOUT using a port stone!!! It was so annoying, because everyone would sit and wait for him to catch up.
Finally when I asked him why he didn't use a port stone, Ledaks reply to me was "Because walking is fun."
GRrRrrR, thats when I realized how bad he really is.
Deurack said...Has anyone seen the Guild Description for Opalfish's guild?
"May the power of Dragons and power flow through your vains"
Blah blah blah.
Jeez, I'm an asshole sometimes :PYou're the perfect leader for the neutral guild Deurack. Then you can bust on both the other guilds, not just one.
Opalfish and his merry crew seem to be gone. When you're ready, let us DM's know and we will make it happen. A neutral guild for a neutral personality.
LMAO @ Deurack.
I saw opal fishes description when he started his guild. But even I didn't have the heart to point out how....uhhhhh....different it was.
Good thing we know asses like you, buddy. hahaha
Ihad a little running with dragon leday tonight (english time).
I was a mage and he was a weapon master in training. i was fighting some undead and rats in dozo ruins with my panther. And he just stood there, then he moaned about me using my panther as it takes XP and i pointed out that it takes 0.10% which isn't even 1%.
then he left the party which annoyed me the most because i wanted to tell him to either help or fuck off.
lol.. yeah, your panther was taking away the 0,1% xp that was rightfully his..
Anyways, chatting with extomorf today made me remember about ledak back in the days.. hmm
I remember after a while everyone was avoiding his ungrateful ass so he was pretty annoyed at his own lack of lucky.. and skill... his stupidity..
But he got lucky and found someone willing to group with him. I forgot the name of that person but he even made new chars to carry ledak through the tombs and crystal coast.. wow
Right around when the 1.69 patch was released, they had moved to other servers. That was the last time I saw or heard about ledak.
Til last year when there were both the 1.69 and 1.68 servers online.
Since everyone had swapped to 1.69, the 1.68 was left with no DMs and mostly eastern european dudes who didn't want to install the english only update.
That's when Ledak came back and out of boredom or just common sense.. the little brat made chars with tags like "Badlands Staff" and "Server Information".
Not sure why or what for.. or even if he was trying to pass as DM/beta..
Just a piece of information about this awesome player..
Isn't it just amazing? The guy who stands around doing nothing except leeching is upset that you need a pet to survive. And totally missing that YOU ARE HIS PET! He needs you to survive.
I think it was nubbie that teamed up with ledek. The blind leading the blind.
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