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Gorek! Whats your name in there?

Either "Caelen" (bear shaman) or "Demar" (demonologist), both pretty lowlevel though, don't have much time because of RL-work and splitting it between two chars because I can't decide which one I like more doesn't help either

Well, it's most likely not a big deal for you since I had connection problems over the last month and was pretty inactive for some time now, but I hereby "officially" leave the tribe. WoW was just not as much fun anymore after I had my forced 1 month break, and now with AoC out I am not going to renew my subscription.

If anyone wants to keep up the contact in AoC feel free to send me a pm and we can tell each other where we play.

There is one last thing I have to ask of you though.

I wanted to say farewell ingame and leave the guild, but I did not remember correctly when my subscription ended... to cut a long story short... I'm an idiot and my playtime has already ran out yesterday, so please remove me from the guild, I won't be able to login anymore and do it myself.

And one last thing... although my time with the tribe was relatively short, it was the most immersive and RP-active race-specific guild I encountered in WoW so far, and I played both factions on a lot of different RP servers before I came to defias brotherhood.

Hmmm... I have to admit I have never considered myself an "active" part of the tribe. For me there have always been too many things that "come and go" since I moved to Ireland to involve myself too much in onlinegaming communities. My RL responsibilities, my crappy internet connection, my Job, my interests. I always knew that my presence in onlinegames was unsteady and I often had to take breaks for several months ( may it be a new girlfriend, the internet line broken or a more demanding shiftplan at work ), there was ALWAYS the possibility of something happening that would force me or make me want a break. And so for me it has been "join, take part in everything but don't take responsibility, because you possibly have to desert your position sooner or later".

But before my life has become so unpredictable I used to be guildleader/officer for several RP guilds in WoW and other onlinegames. And I know the situation all too well. Some guilds just NEED somebody to stir things up, to organize events to keep the guild alife. Not because the guild only consists of lazy sluggarts, but because people don't have the energy, are too shy or simply prefer to react instead of acting. And it is really a nasty situation when this person is you but you want/have to leave.

My advise is to take a break to see if you like AoC and pass leadership temporarely. Even if it seems that there is no one but you doing anything, this might change. There is always someone who will do something when "there is nobody else doing it". I think most gioldleaders did not step up and say "I want to lead", from my experience it is more something like "if nobody else can do it... okeeeee... *sigh*" and these people somehow manage to enjoy the job after some time

To disband the tribe is a too hasty descision in my oppinion, you should try to see if you can continue somehow first.

It is not a trial like in WoW where you don't have to select any payment method. It's more like opening a fully oparable account with the first 30 days free. So you need to select a payment method for what happens after your 30 days. But you won't get charged until your 30 days are over, no matter what payment method you select. You should however select a working one. When I signed up they checked my credit card, although they did not charge it. So i suppose it won't work when you just enter some bogus payment method.

And I play it too right now. I just rented a VPN tunnel for one month to connect to the "mainland" without going over the crappy internet line of my irish provider and can play without latency problems now. I'm on the same server like Lanii I suppose, the only RP-PvE server with the strange name ( "Hykkeria" or something like that ).

I planned to play it but unfortunately I am part of the "9k latency-lagspike sufferer community", meaning the game is technically impossible to play for me. I just hope it gets fixed at some point.  The "lagspike treads" in the european forums are quite heaviely used ( 200 pages long in eng forum and 400 pages in german forum) so I suppose the problem is spread whide enough for funcom/responsible ISP to care about fixing it.

My characters are all on Auillonia, but I don't know yet which class I am going to play or the names of my final characters. I just couldn't do much class testing yet with a 15+ second lagspike every 30 seconds (you basically die because of lag every second or third fight)


I am also considering to stop online gaming alltogether. Since I couldn't log into wow for more then a month my addiction for this game is pretty much broken although I can play it again right now my last logins were just *shrug* not as much fun as I remember playing wow used to be. And with AoC being unplayable my motivation for playing onlinegames is pretty low at the moment. I might as well just continue writing my book, "Word" never has any lag, does not require server maintenance and the login process is pretty fast. I also never need to update addons, since the original UI is decent

Just wanted to let you know whatever issue it was (routingproblem of my provider, or server issue), it seems to be solved and I can login again... just right 1 day before AoC launch. if God really exists, she must be a woman and passionately hate me

How active I'll be depends on how much I like Age of Concan, but I'll definately be around again now that I am technically able to play WoW again.

Hello!

Since i haven't been online for almost a week I just wanted to let you know I'm still alife

Since last friday I am no longer able to log into the game, I always get stuck at loading the realmlist. I don't get any error message, ther's just nothing happening anymore, the gameclient stays in this "retrieving realm list" state forever or until I cancel. I already did everything I can (check router, firewalls, flushdns, change IP settings), my internet provider says the line works without problems and WoW tech support was as "helpful" as always.

I don't know when the problem will be fixed, all that is left to me is to hope it is a screwup of blizards loginserver that will be recognized and fixed soon. Until then please don't throw me out of the guild, I'll be back online as soon as it is technically possible

((This is the long version of the story Gorek told at the Kosh'harg. it is about the first orc of his old tribe that was born bearing the mark of the Spirit Aronuk. ))


As long the stories of the Bleeding Moon Pack reach into the fog of past, my kinsmen were guided by the spirits of the wilderness. Like the elemental spirits most shamans worship now, they are aspects. But not aspects of what the world is made of, they are aspects of the wilderness and nature, aspects of the untamed land, for my kin as always considered the taming of our land, the growth of cities and civilization as a kind of degeneration.

Whenever a child is born it has it’s mortal parents, who gave it flesh and bone, but also the parents of it’s soul. The true mother is the land, while the true father is one of our guardian spirits. And each child’s soul is shaped according to it’s true parents.

The story I am about to tell took part to a time my kin thought they knew all of our guarding spirits, long ago when Orcs still dwelled on our ancient home long before we came to Azeroth. It is the Story of Unod, the first Son of Aronuk.

Unod was born during a stormy night, when it seemed the world itself has decided to give the child a harsh and cruel welcome. His mortal mother was Zarki, daughter of Xirax, the cunning Lynx, and the mortal father was Groban, son of Xirax, both of them good hunters. But something was strange about this child. Cern, Prime Lorekeeper, Son of Manu, the Wise Owl, was not able to tell who the true father of the child was. Every ritual was prepared, every story of relevance recalled, every Lorekeeper asked for advise, but the nature of the child seemed hidden from the wise eyes of the pack leader.

And so Unod grew up without a proper name, only known as “Unod”. When he was old enough to seek the company of other children they soon started to mock him for not having a Spirit Guide or a full name. And he replied to harsh words with violence. Mouths speaking foul words were beaten and kicked to silence. It did not take long until the Child was known as the most savage, ferocious, violent and reckless Orc the pack has ever given birth to. But he was too hostile to get respect for his strength. It seemed that the boy was just not meant to get along with the pack. Every attempt to form bonds with other orcs ended in disaster.

As Unod was old enough to care for women the situation became unbearable. Cern’s own son, Karek, Prime Hunter and son of Drumar, the Enduring Clefthoof, and Unod decided to take the same woman and fight for her. When Karek lost the fight and the Girl was doomed by tradition to be taken by Unod she fled into the wilderness to be never seen again. Karek blamed Unod for the loss and the hatred between the two Orcs became a menace too dangerous to ignore. Unwilling to stand aside while everything indicated there would soon be a fight to the death, a fight his son would lose, Cern banished Unod.

Years and Years passed and the pack continued to travel the world, following the Great Hunt. When word reached the pack that a pack of vicious beasts was seen, so dangerous no hunter sent to bring them down returned, it was clear the pack had to seek them out.

And so the Bleeding Moon arrived in the barren lands inhabited by the unknown predator. Black creatures, covered with black scales as hard as steel, teeth sharp as razors and claws that could cut an orc in two with just one strike. The Pack soon realized it had met a stronger foe. The Arrows of their bows could hardly penetrate the thick armour of the creatures, they moved too fast for Orcish feet to follow and they were cunning enough to use the rough land to their advantage, ambushing the Orcs who had to explore the unknown land first. Yet the Bleeding Moon Pack remained strong. They fortified their camp and even after several vicious assaults the black beasts could not overcome the packs defences. An uneasy truce was bought with blood. The predators could not overcome the defiant Orcs, but the Bleeding Moon pack could not leave their encampment, for every hunter sent out became easy prey for the beasts.

Soon the Orcs found themselves short of supplies and food was running out. Mothers started starving themselves to keep their children fed and despair could be seen in every Hunter’s eye. And then, when everything seemed lost something strange happened. A package of tubers and the body of a Thorngrazer was found just outside the camp, both just recently foraged. Nobody knew who could have been the hunter who dared to forage for food while the black scaled menace hung over them like a dark cloud, threatening every hunt with certain death.

But night after night more food was left for the pack. Some nights more, some nights less. It was barely enough for the pack to survive, but death spread out his cold grasp in vein, no child, no woman and no hunter starved.

Weeks and weeks the pack could survive this way, until one morning no food was found, and Cern himself felt that something terrible had happened, and no more food would come. And so it was. But the Wilderness was kind to the Hunters and on the same day help arrived. A neighbouring tribe wanted to see the predators removed and sent a huge hunting party to help the Bleeding Moon. Within mere hours the den of the black scaled creatures was attacked and their breed put to the blade.
The mysterious hunter who kept the pack alive was almost forgotten in the cheer of victory, until a hunting party found a flayed body in the wilderness. On his shoulder was the sign of the Bleeding Moon, the red tattoo, but no mark of his true father. Only the broken bow found at the corpse was familiar to the Lorekeepers, Unod’s bow.
Soon the Lorekeepers were in disarray. How could this be? How could the one orc without a true father have saved them all? How could somebody who argued with everyone, who seemed to hate everyone, sacrifice himself to save the Orcs he was beating every day? And when Cern had enough of all the talking and left the Lorekeeper’s tent to have a walk and clear his head, he saw him... Aronuk. The grey Spirit Wolf was sitting directly in the Elder’s path, as if he was waiting for him. And his glowing eyes spoke without using words.

After banishing him while he was alive, have you decided to honour him now that my son is dead? But Cern was unable to answer the question. He could only ask the Spirit he had never seen or heard of before: “Who are you?”

I am the Wolf who roams alone. Was the spirit’s simple answer. And suddenly Cern understood. “Not all animals live in packs, herds or groups. Some are just too aggressive, too bloodthirsty for close communities. They are born to grow strong as individual. And this is your Aspect.” The Spirit Wolf just nodded.

“But why did you only appear now? The other aspects have been with us for more generations then I can remember.” And with an amused sneer the Spirit replied while it turned to disappear.

I have always been there, but your kin tends only to see the beneficial aspects of wilderness instead of embracing it as it is. And while he was already walking away he turned his ehad a last time to look in Cern’s eyes.


This changes now...

As the Hunter opened his eyes and saw the grey spirit wolf, he realized that he had forgotten to mutter the ritual’s phrase, that only a wordless sacrifice of some Alliance insignia he had kept as hunting trophy lured the Great Spirit to him. Like a child being caught at doing something forbidden he quickly lowered his head to avoid the Spirits angry gaze. What troubles Gorek, the Wolf-Lorekeeper so much he cannot even perform a simple ritual anymore?!

“I think I have lost the path, father.” The hunter said, his voice deep and more thoughtful and sad than usual. The Spirit Wolf’s gaze turned into something different, hard to classify. Do you no longer believe that the spirits have lain a path for each orc, a path they are destined to walk, a path they can only feel with their hearts but never see with their eyes, a path that only reveals it’s meaning once an orc comes to its end?

The hunter blinked in surprise and vehemently shook his head. “I always believed in the path, and will always do. But I am no longer sure my heart and instincts can feel the path anymore. All reason says that I have left the path I was destined to walk, that there is no purpose, no meaning in what I am doing, just foolishness.”

Suddenly the Spirit Wolfs look turned into something furious, it’s eyes almost glowing like burning coals. Since when does a Wolf listen to reason?!

Although a part of the hunter told him to soothe the Spirit’s fury, he could only meet him with fierce defiance. A Son of Aronuk never retreated from anyone’s anger, not even a Spirits. “Since the instincts started to lead him into embarrassment and failure!”

Aronuk, the lone Wolf started to growl in fury. I have watched you, Gorek the Wolf-Lorekeeper, and I have not seen any failure. You better explain what you are babbling about!

“A few days ago I was offered to bind myself with an oath to my new pack...” The Wolf-Lorekeeper explained. “... reason told me to accept, but my instincts warned me to take a vow on a pack I do not know and do not understand yet. So I refused...” The Wolf nodded. Like any Son of Aronuk should.

“... so to better understand the pack I challenged the Alpha, hoping the fight would make me understand him, and with him the pack.” The orc had to clear his throat before he could continue. “But I only made myself a fool, I did not have the right words, nor the required knowledge or wisdom. Now even being part of the pack is at stake, I doubt Kozgugore will offer me the oath again.” The Spirit Wolf’s anger seemed to be replaced by something else, by amusement. None of my Sons is good with this. We are the hunters who roam alone. We are born for the loneliness of the wilderness, not the company of others. And certainly not diplomacy.

Knowingly the hunter grinned. They WERE not good at this. “Unfortunately my folly runs deeper than that. Kozgugore talked about Akesha, the old Matriarch who he sees as the true leader of the pack. Again reason told me to focus on just taking the oath, but my instincts and my heart felt that this is the way I am supposed to walk. So I agreed to make it my mission to find and know her. For knowing her means to know the pack.”

Again the Wolf nodded. Then why are you uncertain? Why do you doubt the path that you started to walk instead of embracing it?

“Because Akesha is a spirit, and the mortal cannot track them down like we do with our prey...” The hunter replied grumpy. “... The Spirits approach us, but we cannot approach them. My mission seems to be a fool’s errand.”

The Wolf’s amusement seemed to become stronger with every word the hunter said, as if the solution was so plain even a child could see it. Do you remember the day everybody told you not to hunt in the part of the mountains we knew was claimed by that vicious bear which attacked any hunter on sight? The Hunter nodded.

And? Didn’t you still went out to hunt in this part of the mountains, knowing you will most likely provoke the wrath of this bear and still feeling it was the right thing to do, although all reason demanded to hunt at a different place?

Again the hunter nodded. And wasn’t your hunt successful?

Puzzled that the Spirit Wolf did not know this the Hunter shook his head. “I met Gera on the way and she was impressed by my recklessness. I spent the whole day with her... it was a good day, one of the few days we did not argue.” Knowingly the Spirit Wolf nodded. Had you listened to your reason, planned to hunt in a different area, you would have taken another way and missed her. Just because a path does not seem to lead to your goal, it does not have to mean it is wrong to walk it. You never know if you maybe find something far more important while travelling it.

Sighing the Hunter nodded. “How can I find Akesha then?”



But his Spirit Guide was already gone.