Alkterrandorn
01-22-2009, 07:09 PM
Birth - Everquest II
On November 11, 2004, a small group of Everquest 1 players, having Beta tested Everquest 2, would join together, on the server Antonia Bayle and forge a guild from nothing. Imagine the beginning... 6 people in a group, standing in Qeynos Harbor on a roleplay server, signing a paper that would do nothing more that put a tag over their heads. The name was confusing to most, and though they all shared a dedicated play style and schedule, who could have guessed that the name of the guild they created that day would become synonymous with online gaming excellence?
Enter Halcyon Affinity, a collection of players leveling faster than the rest of the server, taking on mobs that no one else would, exploring, forging ahead. Soon they became accustomed to being the first people to set foot in the new zones that Sony scrambled to add after release, they became familiar with the message "You Have Discovered (blank)." Online gaming was more fun for them when they were pioneering, pushing themselves and leaving others behind. The old EQ1 achiever mentality served them well as raid mobs began to appear peppered across the landscape. As others reached max level ahead of their current guild's curve, they too realized that what they wanted was more... to go further, to achieve beyond just the highest number in level. A pathological desire to continue to better their character through degrees with gear and achievement arose within them and it attracted them to Halcyon Affinity. Our small guild grew, our small guild raided, our small guild triumphed. Claiming server firsts on virtually every raid at lvl 50. The Spirit of Vox, Venekor, Lord Nagalic, The Krathuk, Darathar, King Drayek, to name a small fraction of the server firsts they claimed. As such they reaped the rewards: gear no one else had, titles no one had seen, maximum guild rank and it's various benefits. Of course controversy follows success fo such magnitude as is evident by our Aggro-me award. HERE
Time passed and their domination became more than just a phenomenon, it was a way of life. Having brought with them the Everquest 1 DKP system, distribution of loot in the guild was flowing smoothly and it wasn't long before the server noticed that Halcyon's grass was indeed much greener than the ferns in the Roleplay tavern. People wanted what we had, and there were two ways for them to try and get it...
The first was simple, apply. And apply they did, by the dozens, ultimately the hundreds. So many were turned away and yet more requested to stay on file indefinitely should something open up. Those that were accepted as recruits went through a grueling 6 week initiation period that not all would survive. Through these 6 weeks a recruit would need to maintain nearly perfect raid attendance, be quiet professional and follow instruction well in combat situations. All values were parsed religiously, so that all initiates would have to preform to the best of their ability in DPS, healing, or whatever their charge. They would have no right to loot what-so-ever, nor would they ask. At the end of the 6 weeks, the DKP they had earned from their constant raiding would be wiped to zero, their reward... membership... Enter the narrator.
However, what of those that did not make the cut or refused to apply to HA? Well, there is always another way of trying to get what you want... take it! HA had begun completely without real competition, as they tested mobs, no one could even keep up with their levels, let alone field a raid force of max level characters, but it wasn't long before guilds sprang up all over the server chanting their warcries, charging in with raid forces looking for the raid mobs... oddly though there seemed to be none. While they were still leveling they had seen dragons and giants perched atop temples, mountains and stewing in lakes of magma, but they seemed almost as though they were removed game. One look at Halcyon's members told them all they needed to know. Fabled gear from head to toe could have only come from one place... the missing mobs. The fight was on.
Guild after guild would step up only to find that HA's apparent lack of competition had not dulled their skills. For the rest of that year, HA would not lose a single contested raid mob to it's competition. HA continued to monopolize fabled loot, continued to be the only people on the server to have their prismatic weapons and boast an ever-expanding list of accomplishments. Curing the plague on our server marked the completion of a world event and the Bloodlines expansion. Unlocking the Frogloks as a playable race on our server marked another world event, only the second in the game, both ours. Those 24 people would have the exclusive "Hero of Kugup" title, and all 24 of them wore it just above their HA title. Thus the server continued to watch as HA reached further and further up the world ladder, ranked #3 in SOE magazine and arguably beyond that in the expansion to come. However, as they say necessity is the mother of invention and this is the part where our competitors got inventive...
In secrecy, guild leaders and officers from 7 hopeful raiding guilds would meet, and there they would have to come to terms that none of their guilds alone could ever topple HA off it's throne. In those gathering shadows they would break apart their individual guilds and take their raid worthy players to create a super-guild. A conglomeration of players with more than 200 members in hopes to overwhelm HA with numbers, a last desperate attempt to stake some claim to what we had and they all wanted. It was too little too late, Halcyon would continue to dominate Antonia Bayle into the coming expansions, taking world first in not only level progression and raid mob kills but discoveries and future world events. For well over 2 years Halcyon Affinity rebuked competitors and strove for the very top.
Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
All good things come to an end, as HA grew weary of the changes being made in EQ2. The game was no longer what they had come to know and love, leading them to seek greener pastures. Sigil games was promising the world in it's own successor to Everquest with Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. HA heard the call and rallied to hit the launch with all our usual gusto. We beta tested this game as well, and needless to say it was NOT ready for launch. Regardless, we would not be denied. We moved the guild there to enjoy a taste of what was to be something new and grand. Upon its release we took the Florendyl(RP), now Seradon, server by storm. Our members hit world firsts to max level in many class categories as well as most of the server firsts belong to us. HA was featured on Vanguard Radio and our commercial can be heard even today.
HA claimed the first level 50 character on the server, our own Alkterrandorn, the first worldwide 50 diplomacy / 50 crafter / 50 adventurer character in game, Ecarion, interviewed by Warcry. Halcyon's readiness to begin crushing raid content was tangible as we gathered the first 24 man max level raid force of any guild in game. We were ready... but all too quickly. We proceeded to down mobs intended to be official raid targets in the coming months with even as few as 4 people (Wavecrasher) at times just for show. Certainly most were place-holders, others were supposed to get loot tables. We raided mobs that no one intended for us to kill and they dropped anything from nothing at all to Lobsters... long story. One member attained the Title "Tournament Champion", Strykr, by winning the Best of the Best on Seradon server.
Vanguard was not everything it was cracked up to be, to put it mildly. We held countless server and world firsts, but to what end? Everyone else was leaving. All the guilds that had promised to knock us off our high horse dispersed, as the server populations dwindled and the game went from it's 13 launch servers to 4 consolidated servers in 7 months. Though some stayed behind to carry on our legacy and claim many kills until the time of this writing. HA would divide, some scattered to the winds of online gaming, others remaining steadfast in Vanguard, fighting the good fight, to remain in the top 3 on the server jockeying back and forth for top slots for months to come.
World of Warcraft
We had avoided it... dreaded it... some of us even played it in secret, but one MMO was out there that we had yet to prove ourselves at. An MMO that was rapidly dominating the market, growing to 9 million players, some of them actually not Chinese. There was no denying it, if you wanted a stage for competition there was none bigger than WoW. We thought it at first cartoony, filled with children, and though that was pretty much true, it was also filled with RAID CONTENT! Tons of the stuff, the very thing we thrived on. So we made the inevitable move to World of Warcraft, on a PVP server called Dark Iron, August 2007. This completed our transformation to a multi-gaming platform guild. Our acceptance into the Uberguild's Network (part of Gamer DNA) cemented our gaming community status.
This game would be different for our heroes, in terms of working our way to the top. In the past we had been in games at launch and simply outpaced everyone else, reaching the top first and holding onto it like an indomitable King of the Hill game. However, WoW was well established, our server very old. We were slightly intimidated by the task, being so far behind, recruiting would be hard, as everyone was already spoken for it seemed. In actuality, it would turn out that WoW would not only prove to us the power of the reputation we had already earned but give us another chance to show the world what we were made of.
News spread quickly, HA was coming to World of Warcraft, no quarter would be asked, none to be given. As we leveled our raid force up from ungeared, broke, level 1 niblets, we kept our extremely high leveling pace, walking into Karazan with the first 10 people we could muster in a couple weeks. As the others leveled, little did we know that many people acorss the WoW community watched us with bated breath. We did not disappoint, as our raid force grew ever larger and moved into bigger and bigger content. Those people that had been watching us for so long from afar made their move when they realized that we were the real deal all over again. Server transfers came rolling in from far and wide, filling our ranks with much needed classes on a server that was so difficult to recruit. Were it not for these experienced, sometimes already geared players heeding our call and adding their strength to our raid force we could not have succeeded.
HA did succeed however, going through all the present raid content up to T6, downing Illidan Stormrage approximately 5 months after picking up the game from scratch. We had outpaced the other guilds on the server, and begun the farming they had already had time to do. They had nothing to look forward to, except falling behind us in the next expansion, the fate of all our competitors.
Warhammer: Age of Reckoning
reck·on·ing (rk-nng)
n.
1. The act of counting or computing.
2. An itemized bill or statement of a sum due.
3. A settlement of accounts
Statement of what's due? As settling of accounts? Sound about right, since HA is due for another blockbuster launch. Due for brand new enemies to add of our long list of the vanquished, new worlds to expand into and conquer. The machine grows and the machine needs new fuel. New blood must be added to the gears, new members, and new chapter in our glorious legacy of domination. By all accounts we've been kicking ass for a very long time, and by my calculations, that's not about to stop anytime soon. What's done is done, history fades into legend, memory... forgotten. HA will never be forgotten because HA will never stop, it is hard to forget the present and that is what we will always be, the premiere, and even the future. Let the next verse begin here.
On November 11, 2004, a small group of Everquest 1 players, having Beta tested Everquest 2, would join together, on the server Antonia Bayle and forge a guild from nothing. Imagine the beginning... 6 people in a group, standing in Qeynos Harbor on a roleplay server, signing a paper that would do nothing more that put a tag over their heads. The name was confusing to most, and though they all shared a dedicated play style and schedule, who could have guessed that the name of the guild they created that day would become synonymous with online gaming excellence?
Enter Halcyon Affinity, a collection of players leveling faster than the rest of the server, taking on mobs that no one else would, exploring, forging ahead. Soon they became accustomed to being the first people to set foot in the new zones that Sony scrambled to add after release, they became familiar with the message "You Have Discovered (blank)." Online gaming was more fun for them when they were pioneering, pushing themselves and leaving others behind. The old EQ1 achiever mentality served them well as raid mobs began to appear peppered across the landscape. As others reached max level ahead of their current guild's curve, they too realized that what they wanted was more... to go further, to achieve beyond just the highest number in level. A pathological desire to continue to better their character through degrees with gear and achievement arose within them and it attracted them to Halcyon Affinity. Our small guild grew, our small guild raided, our small guild triumphed. Claiming server firsts on virtually every raid at lvl 50. The Spirit of Vox, Venekor, Lord Nagalic, The Krathuk, Darathar, King Drayek, to name a small fraction of the server firsts they claimed. As such they reaped the rewards: gear no one else had, titles no one had seen, maximum guild rank and it's various benefits. Of course controversy follows success fo such magnitude as is evident by our Aggro-me award. HERE
Time passed and their domination became more than just a phenomenon, it was a way of life. Having brought with them the Everquest 1 DKP system, distribution of loot in the guild was flowing smoothly and it wasn't long before the server noticed that Halcyon's grass was indeed much greener than the ferns in the Roleplay tavern. People wanted what we had, and there were two ways for them to try and get it...
The first was simple, apply. And apply they did, by the dozens, ultimately the hundreds. So many were turned away and yet more requested to stay on file indefinitely should something open up. Those that were accepted as recruits went through a grueling 6 week initiation period that not all would survive. Through these 6 weeks a recruit would need to maintain nearly perfect raid attendance, be quiet professional and follow instruction well in combat situations. All values were parsed religiously, so that all initiates would have to preform to the best of their ability in DPS, healing, or whatever their charge. They would have no right to loot what-so-ever, nor would they ask. At the end of the 6 weeks, the DKP they had earned from their constant raiding would be wiped to zero, their reward... membership... Enter the narrator.
However, what of those that did not make the cut or refused to apply to HA? Well, there is always another way of trying to get what you want... take it! HA had begun completely without real competition, as they tested mobs, no one could even keep up with their levels, let alone field a raid force of max level characters, but it wasn't long before guilds sprang up all over the server chanting their warcries, charging in with raid forces looking for the raid mobs... oddly though there seemed to be none. While they were still leveling they had seen dragons and giants perched atop temples, mountains and stewing in lakes of magma, but they seemed almost as though they were removed game. One look at Halcyon's members told them all they needed to know. Fabled gear from head to toe could have only come from one place... the missing mobs. The fight was on.
Guild after guild would step up only to find that HA's apparent lack of competition had not dulled their skills. For the rest of that year, HA would not lose a single contested raid mob to it's competition. HA continued to monopolize fabled loot, continued to be the only people on the server to have their prismatic weapons and boast an ever-expanding list of accomplishments. Curing the plague on our server marked the completion of a world event and the Bloodlines expansion. Unlocking the Frogloks as a playable race on our server marked another world event, only the second in the game, both ours. Those 24 people would have the exclusive "Hero of Kugup" title, and all 24 of them wore it just above their HA title. Thus the server continued to watch as HA reached further and further up the world ladder, ranked #3 in SOE magazine and arguably beyond that in the expansion to come. However, as they say necessity is the mother of invention and this is the part where our competitors got inventive...
In secrecy, guild leaders and officers from 7 hopeful raiding guilds would meet, and there they would have to come to terms that none of their guilds alone could ever topple HA off it's throne. In those gathering shadows they would break apart their individual guilds and take their raid worthy players to create a super-guild. A conglomeration of players with more than 200 members in hopes to overwhelm HA with numbers, a last desperate attempt to stake some claim to what we had and they all wanted. It was too little too late, Halcyon would continue to dominate Antonia Bayle into the coming expansions, taking world first in not only level progression and raid mob kills but discoveries and future world events. For well over 2 years Halcyon Affinity rebuked competitors and strove for the very top.
Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
All good things come to an end, as HA grew weary of the changes being made in EQ2. The game was no longer what they had come to know and love, leading them to seek greener pastures. Sigil games was promising the world in it's own successor to Everquest with Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. HA heard the call and rallied to hit the launch with all our usual gusto. We beta tested this game as well, and needless to say it was NOT ready for launch. Regardless, we would not be denied. We moved the guild there to enjoy a taste of what was to be something new and grand. Upon its release we took the Florendyl(RP), now Seradon, server by storm. Our members hit world firsts to max level in many class categories as well as most of the server firsts belong to us. HA was featured on Vanguard Radio and our commercial can be heard even today.
HA claimed the first level 50 character on the server, our own Alkterrandorn, the first worldwide 50 diplomacy / 50 crafter / 50 adventurer character in game, Ecarion, interviewed by Warcry. Halcyon's readiness to begin crushing raid content was tangible as we gathered the first 24 man max level raid force of any guild in game. We were ready... but all too quickly. We proceeded to down mobs intended to be official raid targets in the coming months with even as few as 4 people (Wavecrasher) at times just for show. Certainly most were place-holders, others were supposed to get loot tables. We raided mobs that no one intended for us to kill and they dropped anything from nothing at all to Lobsters... long story. One member attained the Title "Tournament Champion", Strykr, by winning the Best of the Best on Seradon server.
Vanguard was not everything it was cracked up to be, to put it mildly. We held countless server and world firsts, but to what end? Everyone else was leaving. All the guilds that had promised to knock us off our high horse dispersed, as the server populations dwindled and the game went from it's 13 launch servers to 4 consolidated servers in 7 months. Though some stayed behind to carry on our legacy and claim many kills until the time of this writing. HA would divide, some scattered to the winds of online gaming, others remaining steadfast in Vanguard, fighting the good fight, to remain in the top 3 on the server jockeying back and forth for top slots for months to come.
World of Warcraft
We had avoided it... dreaded it... some of us even played it in secret, but one MMO was out there that we had yet to prove ourselves at. An MMO that was rapidly dominating the market, growing to 9 million players, some of them actually not Chinese. There was no denying it, if you wanted a stage for competition there was none bigger than WoW. We thought it at first cartoony, filled with children, and though that was pretty much true, it was also filled with RAID CONTENT! Tons of the stuff, the very thing we thrived on. So we made the inevitable move to World of Warcraft, on a PVP server called Dark Iron, August 2007. This completed our transformation to a multi-gaming platform guild. Our acceptance into the Uberguild's Network (part of Gamer DNA) cemented our gaming community status.
This game would be different for our heroes, in terms of working our way to the top. In the past we had been in games at launch and simply outpaced everyone else, reaching the top first and holding onto it like an indomitable King of the Hill game. However, WoW was well established, our server very old. We were slightly intimidated by the task, being so far behind, recruiting would be hard, as everyone was already spoken for it seemed. In actuality, it would turn out that WoW would not only prove to us the power of the reputation we had already earned but give us another chance to show the world what we were made of.
News spread quickly, HA was coming to World of Warcraft, no quarter would be asked, none to be given. As we leveled our raid force up from ungeared, broke, level 1 niblets, we kept our extremely high leveling pace, walking into Karazan with the first 10 people we could muster in a couple weeks. As the others leveled, little did we know that many people acorss the WoW community watched us with bated breath. We did not disappoint, as our raid force grew ever larger and moved into bigger and bigger content. Those people that had been watching us for so long from afar made their move when they realized that we were the real deal all over again. Server transfers came rolling in from far and wide, filling our ranks with much needed classes on a server that was so difficult to recruit. Were it not for these experienced, sometimes already geared players heeding our call and adding their strength to our raid force we could not have succeeded.
HA did succeed however, going through all the present raid content up to T6, downing Illidan Stormrage approximately 5 months after picking up the game from scratch. We had outpaced the other guilds on the server, and begun the farming they had already had time to do. They had nothing to look forward to, except falling behind us in the next expansion, the fate of all our competitors.
Warhammer: Age of Reckoning
reck·on·ing (rk-nng)
n.
1. The act of counting or computing.
2. An itemized bill or statement of a sum due.
3. A settlement of accounts
Statement of what's due? As settling of accounts? Sound about right, since HA is due for another blockbuster launch. Due for brand new enemies to add of our long list of the vanquished, new worlds to expand into and conquer. The machine grows and the machine needs new fuel. New blood must be added to the gears, new members, and new chapter in our glorious legacy of domination. By all accounts we've been kicking ass for a very long time, and by my calculations, that's not about to stop anytime soon. What's done is done, history fades into legend, memory... forgotten. HA will never be forgotten because HA will never stop, it is hard to forget the present and that is what we will always be, the premiere, and even the future. Let the next verse begin here.