We will not be attacking Blood members unless attacked for at least 1 week. I know it's hard to get the news of "we're not allied" through the ranks and I don't want any trust killing. We also will not be raiding AB - period. Breaking an alliance with a guild that has several friends is touchy enough...

Standings page changed to reflect this change.

- Nighthawk


Battlecom and Zaikhal Fighting
Tuesday May 29, 2001
Couple of things to note about the new Danby's Outpost portal near Zaikhal located at 16.7N, 1.6W. First, if you need a place to sell and don't want to go to AB or you're not high enough level, that is convenient for most of your selling needs. Second and most important, this has brought HoS to our little town. This is both good and bad. Good because they have recently passed a no-Gear rule, so the fights are fun as hell. Bad because they have more people than us and like to lifestone camp. So, keep your buffs up and don't expect town or lifestone to be safe.

I suggest we start using voice communication to more effectively fight as a group. So, if you plan on fighting around Zaikhal or raiding in general (which should be ALL of you), go download Battlecom from the Shadow Factor website. If you don't have a mic, they're like $5 - splurge a little.

I'll setup a server that we can all connect to 24/7. Bear in mind that this is not for idle chitchat, but for vital information to be shared with guildmates who are in game and may miss "4 HoS in Town" type messages in IRC. This will be used to coordinate buffing, attack, regrouping, and calls for help. Although we will certainly hear how goofy Bren's aussie voice or Devs "aboot, eh?" is, lets try to keep the com channel for important talk only. =P

- Nighthawk


Updated the Update
Thursday May 17, 2001
Turbine re-patched today, so I re-hacked the client for Dual Logging/Windowed Mode.

- Nighthawk


Dual Logging/Windowed Mode Updated
Wednesday May 16, 2001
I just updated the Dual Logging/Windowed Mode client for the May patch. Enjoy.

- Nighthawk


ACGM
Thursday May 10, 2001
I have posted a section for ACGM Info so that you know what information I need to be able to effectively figure out where missing people are. If everyone would go update their Number of Followers and their direct vassals, I would greatly appreciate it.

- Nighthawk


My Status
Thursday May 3, 2001
With the evasive "we're working on it" the dev team gave when asked about Gear/Speedhack last night in the Dev Chat, I've decided that AC is no longer worth playing for pvp. Add onto that the frustration of me and half my raiding party losing connection (and me dying to players because of it), I'm less than pleased with the game right now. A couple of days ago, I had someone drain/harm me to death when I was just trying to get out of drain range to heal, but I couldn't thanks to Gear (even at a full run with a lvl 79 Spec Run character). Pretty damn cheesy... and I'll have nothing to do with it.

The primary reason I play is for pvp, so this puts a serious cut into how I feel about the game as a whole. I'd hoped that AC would never get to the point where the development team let me down, but it has. All of them (except Jesse) don't have any concept of how game-ruining Gear is, because if they did they would have put as much effort into it that they did for the plat scarab bug and hotfixed the fucker the same day.

So, I will only be playing a reroll of mine that I enjoy playing just for PVM. I will be turning on /notells on Patryn since I'll only be logging on to buff the reroll and logging off. If the May patch brings something that I find interesting (GEAR FIX, Creature VIIs or some neat quest), then I may bring Patryn out of his buff-mule role. If not, I'll only be playing the newbie until he gets boring and then I'll be cancelling all of my accounts that are not played by other people.

Since I won't be playing Patryn in a guildmaster type role for a while, I'd like a JoV volunteer to be a point of contact for people who want to join. If you want to help handle recruiting since I've been handling most of it by myself for a while now, let me know in IRC - it would be appreciated.

Here's to hoping that the devs finally figure out how horrible Gear is to pvp...

- Nighthawk


Logging and @Lifestoning
Saturday April 21, 2001
Both are illegal in JoV. If you want instructions on how to screenshot exactly what I need to boot someone for those offenses, please check out this link. Thanks to those of you who have helped us find out who's doing the logging so we can have them removed.

- Nighthawk


Guildtree Updating
Tuesday April 17, 2001
The Allegiance Tree has been sorely neglected. We are having trouble finding people's patrons to drop them and that's a bad thing. Yesterday I couldn't find Phantasma and now today I can't find Mac Grim or his patron Mariuss. We have to bring this under control quickly. So, here's the deal.

1. Updating the Guildtree is now mandatory.
   
   
2. You are responsible for updating who is under you.
   
   
3. If there is a chain of people pledging to you, you are responsible for mapping out and updating the names for the whole tree. Then the owner(s) of the characters can update their specific info.
   
   
4. Make sure you have Accept Allegiance Requests turned off so you don't get unexpected vassals.
   
   
5. If someone is discovered to be under you without being indicated in the Guildtree, you may be put on probation or kicked.

Everyone knows how I love more rules. :/ We need to keep up on this so we can get people out of our guild as quickly as possible. Thanks much for your help with this.

- Nighthawk


Votes are in - Don't use Gear
Monday April 16, 2001
Its official. Voting for booting for Gear/Speedhack usage went 24-2-1. So, don't use it. I have no idea how we'd prove such usage since it's not something you can screenshot, but we expect members to be honorable and all that, so just don't use it.

You also may want to check out this petition on getting lvl VII spells re-named.

- Nighthawk


Gear/Speedhack Part II
Wednesday April 11, 2001
Well, it's coming down to a vote. After people have said "I guess it's ok to cheat in JoV now", I started to take another look at my stance on Gear/Speedhack. Dev and Ainvar wanted to have a vote on it, so we are. If you're a voting member, PM devestate whether you want to have people kicked for Gear use or not. Voting will end tomorrow night, so don't wait.

Also, Aeris is organizing a trip to Frore. Do the standing stones and tell him, so he can get a date set for this.

- Nighthawk


Gear/Speedhack
Monday April 9, 2001
Here is my personal position on Gear and Speedhack (both I normally refer to as Gear since they have the same basic effect on gameplay). I personally will not use it and I don't encourage JoV members to use it. I will not provide links on where to get it. I am completely and utterly opposed to it since I think it destroys PvP in AC.

However, since it's use is so widespread thanks to it "going public" in D's postings on CoD, the playing field is badly unlevel for those of us who don't want to use hacks and 3rd party programs to compete. We will not be booting anyone from JoV for using Gear although it's use is frowned upon. The reason for that is that so many of our enemies from the GEN uber guild to the Matus peon guild use this god-forsaken program.

I'd like to take a moment to thank Jesse (again) for his and Turbine's acknowledgement of this plague on our server. Hopefully they will be able to hotfix this quick or make it part of the April patch upcoming. I personally have a cutoff date that I will continue to play the game in this condition, so since I enjoy the game without all these annoying hacks and cheats, I certainly hope they can fix it before then. Godspeed Turbine... I hope you fix this quickly.

In an IRC Topic clearing side note, if you have Leadership and want to get involved in the JoV exp chain, make sure you ask in channel who to talk to. Most of us know and will point you in the right direction.

- Nighthawk


General Topics
Sunday April 1, 2001

1. Please update your portion of the Allegiance Tree (the server is the same as that link). Just fill out the "Basic Info" tab as well as the Number of Followers on the Allegiance Info tab. For Main Character Name, please put your IRC name.
   
   To log in, download the ACGM Client, log in with your character name and password. If you need your password or have any other trouble, ask me in IRC.
   
   
2. Don't post anything in the IRC topic you don't want enemies see to see since they can come into the room and get a peek as they're banned.
   
   
3. The AB war has begun... but it's against Virindi. All of the vendors have been taken and replaced by virindi. Expect more raids in town now that there is a tieable dungeon nearby.
   
   
4. We're starting to get pretty big which is not something I'm interested in. Yesterday we were at 261 people in the guild - that's getting out of control.
   
   If we get to 300 members and the Allegiance Tree isn't mostly complete AND gives me the feeling that our increasing numbers aren't coming from our mules/rerolls, then we're going to stop this recruiting spree. I want us to lock down our recruiting much tighter else we're going to go back to voting for all new members.
   
   
5. We're again getting away from our roots and not raiding as much. I know I personally am a lot less available since I'm working on my own projects, but less available than "always" is still pretty available. If you have a gate to somewhere raid-worthy, ask in IRC... I'm sure you'll find a couple of people who want to go with ya.
   
   
6. If you use Internet Explorer 5.1+, check this out. There is a serious security hazard so you will want to update/upgrade your browser.

The end of Blood's domination of the server is coming. I state here and now that most of the Blood core and others will quit and claim they were "bored" of the game as soon as they can see they are headed down. We will see them "claiming" to go to other places because they are tired of the game. The endless spewing of excuses will be legendary.

Mark my words you heard it here first.

My response :

Well Aerious, quite frankly we ARE bored. You guys said three months ago you were going to be coming and well.... you haven't. You wanna take your time, reroll up your uber templates, whore out 3000 people, etc... don't expect us to be waiting for months on end in anxious anticipation. I logged in for a total of an hour over past couple of days - that's about 1/5th of my normal time I used to spend DAILY. The entire time I was online I was like "if I go raiding all thats going to happen is people are going to recall, die and whine about my level or bring 40 friends". I don't know why I log in anymore and to be blunt, it's because of your guild saying they were gonna do this or that while you're not doing a thing except whoring.

*yawn*

It must be very exciting for you to log in and see however many million exp, but its not very exciting for your competition to sit around waiting for you to "have enough levels/xp" to finally show up on the battlefield.

Its called a self-fulfilling prophecy. Congrats. You bore us to death and then you predict we're gonna be bored. Very insightful. =(

- Nighthawk


Patch Day!
Wednesday March 21, 2001
So far reports coming in make me wonder if we even had a patch today. No lvl VII life OR creature spells and godmode is still in. Christ, even goddamn Sanctuary Recall is still bugged since last year! WTF are these guys doing with their time? On the upside, Jesse is doing some work on AC again :

<devilmouse> ok, sekrit hint: may is officially "make AC not suck" month
<devilmouse> my 4 weeks of AC work are gonna hit ya like a ton of bricks

Its two months away, but hopefully that's light at the end of the tunnel after this so-far disappointing patch.

BTW, I've decided to make it completely legit to portal log when you recall to the cathedral since when you get there you have to log out anyhow since you can't defend, heal, cast spells, etc.. I've been told that there is a way to avoid this fucking annoying bug, but since people won't share it, it's obvious they want to exploit that gay advantage on helpless opponents. Speaking of which, I also added a rule that JoV shall not camp the Sacnt Recall spot (that means no attacking anyone you see recall in because they're bugged and that's cheap as shit). These two rules have been updated in the Guild Guidelines.

- Nighthawk


Minimum Level Raised
Tuesday March 13, 2001
JoV's minimum level is now lvl 40 after a unanimous vote to raise it back to the old minimum. We will be allowing VERY select people in at lvl 30 still (like personal friends and rerolls), but in general if you don't know the person VERY well then he has to be lvl 40 to even be considered for recruiting.

Azile has come back to JoV under nearly a unanimous vote. Wanted to take a brief second to welcome him back.

Finally, we are hardcore updating our Allegiance Tree. If you have not updated your personal info and vassals, go download the client from the site linked at the bottom of the tree, then get ahold of me in IRC for instructions. Also, where it asks you for your "Main Character Name", please put your IRC name. Thanks. =)

- Nighthawk


Voting Needed and Other Stuff
Sunday March 11, 2001
All members who've been in JoV over a month (designated by the @ in the IRC channel) can vote on these - all input is appreciated. If you guys want to discuss it, please do so in our channel. When you have a concern for just me or you want to give me your vote, please PM me. If you have been in JoV over 1 month, now's the time to point out that you need your ops.

I'm proposing raising the guild level minimum back up to lvl 40. I think we should keep it at level 30 for our rerolls and personal friends (and I mean GOOD friends), but for people coming into the guild fresh I think need to be a bit higher level since we all pretty much agree that lvl 30 still needs to level before they're even remotely a factor. Get ahold of me in channel and I'll explain what the other thing that needs voting on.

Achillies has setup something so that we can keep the guild tree organized. Go here and download the client which you update your own info. Thanks Achillies.

I noticed I didn't have a link to the Blood/JoV Rules for AB, so now we have one in the upper part of the menu.

- Nighthawk


Focusing Stone Walkthrough
Wednesday March 7, 2001
I finally found a walkthrough for the Focusing Stone that explains how to open all the doors. It even has pictures to help you find your way. To clarify, all the people coming to four towers thinking they need to find the skull there aren't too bright since the beginning of the quest is at the THREE towers quest.

Also noteworthy is that Spinal/Shock and Seth' are on the KoC KOS list. So, regardless of them being in Blood, you are to KOS them since they're on our KOS list too.

- Nighthawk


Some lvl VII Info
Sunday March 4, 2001
If you've had a lvl VII Item buff put on something of yours, you know that it lasts for about 2 buff runs (including the buffing for the 2nd run). That's about 35 minutes. If you're anything like me, you're looking down the road to level VII inepts and vulns (creature/life VIIs) and are somewhat nervous about having to wait out such debuffs since we probably won't have the skill needed to dispell them. Again, Jesse to the rescue :

<Lawn-Gnome> Are we ever going to get level 7 dispells? =P
<Firestarter> what would you dispell?
<Lawn-Gnome> level 7 debuffs once they add the non item ones
<devilmouse> level 7 debuffs a) don't last long enough to bother dispelling and b) wouldn't be castable by any one sub 90 spec life/crit
<devilmouse> you haven't seen a lvl 7 item debuff?
<Lawn-Gnome> Nope
<devilmouse> they last like 3-5 minutes or so

Thank god.

- Nighthawk


Recruiting Suggestions
Friday March 2, 2001
Very quick update. Just wanted to clarify all the things I've posted in updates, so here's a list of my recruiting suggestions. Doing the things on that guide will help us as a guild have the fewest problems from recruiting. This has been linked in the upper part of the menu.

- Nighthawk