Cerens Journey : Training for Grouping and Raiding in EQ2 an Introduction

My name is  JD Conrad and this is my Blog. I am also known as Ceren.

I play  Ceren a L72 Paladin in a digital world called Norrath..

Im starting this blog to record from day one my adventures in learning how to become a great team player and junior raider in EQ2 Live. 

The learning curve complexity and challenge of a high end multi million dollar MMO is daunting for many especially of my generation who played the original D@D with dice miniatures  maps on graph paper and a collection of dice.

The technological change that has happened since the 1970s is something we could only dream of when working out damage mitigation on Texas Instruments Scientific calcs and nerd raging at our friends when they did something stupid. 

Now we are in a complete world with its own economy society and memes with relationships that span age race and philosophy and are working together or solo to meet our goals : fun, new friendships new challenges

immersion in a fantasy world and a sense of a new type of group or co operative community.

I would like to explore in this blog my time spent in the persistent world of Norrath and how I as a older gamer learn the ways and arts of the grouping and raiding culture. I am nearly Fifty but have heard of Eighty year olds playing in our world of  Norrath.

I hope this will help both Newcomers  as well as experienced players and guilds who would like to share feedback  experience and support with us on our journey .

This should be a warm supportive  island of ideas experiences and support as well as challenge and laughter. The pressure is internal a pressure to be the best one can.

For me I would like to achieve the top tier of the Game and be valued by others and competent in what I see as a challenging difficult Goal. I perceive my barriers to be larger than most others within the player demographic. I suck at the button mashing frenzy of close combat EQ2 style, I am a three finger typer with a hunt and peck style I am strongly left brained making me favor strongly my right hand which makes a standard keyboard difficult for me to coordinate the 100s of key presses required per minute. I find the camera zoom effects make me sea sick much preferring the static view of older games such as Civilization. Finally the pace of a dungeon raid is determined by the Computer my avatar can only move at a set speed and this is set to appeal far more to a younger 12 -35 demographic. I have found like other grumpy middle aged that the world gets faster as I get slower. On the plus side I came into MMOs  with an interest in economics and communities, with the sociology of MMOs and my love for this side of the MMO culture has meant that I have built up an understanding of the underlining game engines and design parameters and as a High school  DD player in the seventies I have some idea about strategy and tactics.

My original character was Piyi a level 82 Templar a healer class  that heals others  and plays a supporting role. This year I am on a sabbatical with time on my hands so together with Peter( my nephew) I explored Norrath

I was invited to join my first guild Windwalkers and they gave me a great welcome helped me settle in a city and were there for me every step of the way. During this period I explored the world and spent most of my time Crafting or tradeskilling  making virtual items for use or sale to the community. In my case I made armor that protected people in battles sometimes called ( encounters. ) with monsters (mobs) designed to defeat you in pixilated  combat to the "death" . I did this as I was reluctant to suck badly with others hence I soloed alot (fighting singly without others support).

Over time this changed and I made Ceren  (rolled an alt) 

Ceren was my first real fighting avatar her role is  to be the group tank out in front moving and interacting  with the dynamic monster encounters and protecting less powerful avatars with different skill sets from damage.

 It is a challenging role to try to take on.

I teamed with one or tow others occasionally and often tagged along with more experienced players watching and learning while making basic errors and sucking badly ( losing targets  thrown against walls have the camera view swerve away and freeze for 10 -15 seconds when losing targets. 

I really suck at the button mashing frenzy of grouping which is second nature to Gen  X - Z. 

The lessons I can pass on may help anyone wishing to achieve mastery. Lev 90 Raiding is like a Black Belt in Judo it takes time commitment and energy it requires patience and strength of character. For me it will require an open mind and lots of practise with things that younger more digitally aware people find second nature.I need help and the support I have recieved so far has been overwhelmingly positive, if that kind of open hearted generosity which I experienced in Norrath could translate from pixels to reality we could build a new community in  this most difficult of centuries based on the spirit of cooperation  found in these game worlds.

 I hope we experience the fun laughter and joys of great people together creating their own challenging experiences.

It may also help anyone wanting to get the best out of their avatar as I hope to go from the absolute basics through to some advanced tactics.

For some people new to MMOs this next paragraph will be meaningless (and also a little to those who have just first landed in Norrath to finding themselves a tiny Lev 1 Noob ). Imagine the terrabytes of  information our brains need to process to go from total noob to mastery. The population of EQ2 at its height was huge and WOW is in the millions. Most of these people can understand exactly what this means:

Newcomers and outsiders would see a complex foreign language even if the words made sense :

Ceren's First Day in the Dojo Practising Combat Arts 

Pre Training Group Movement and CA Co Ordination

"Today I am working on targeting in the Windwalkers Dojo using training dummies and my keyboard trying to get combos right

Target Heroic Target Single Boss Detarget Retarget Pull away Save the Paper Dpsers Retarget Turn Back Retarget Heroic."

I hope that anyone  who may journey with Ceren and other new explorers of the art of group combat will provide feedback positive reinforcement and ideas 


Standing  alongside us
Walking next to us 
Not running ahead too far 
Making sure no one gets left behind 
The battle is within ourselves to shine and become resilient forthright and competent.

We can nurture and develop our newcomers to be the best that they can providing understanding help and support.

What she learns along the way about tactics and strategies, Guilds, groups, play styles and community I hope will be worthwhile stopping by and reading.

This small space is interactive so that all who wish may comment laugh joke criticise   adding to our knowledge in a spirit of compassion and support

Now back to Ceren

For some reason the heroic training dummy is causing me issues with the key combos and im getting frustrated trying to co ordinate movement keys targetting keys and rh mouse clicking for my little Paladins CAS...

30 minutes dojo then off to explore new realms 

J D Conrad September 2010.