Another person leaving DAOC - Kemor

[Cami]

Good luck in the future Kemor.


Now all we can do, is hope to get someone just as dedicated as you


Take care.

[Vesania]

Aye, a hearty thanks and good luck, Kemor.

Hard to sum up what you did for the community, as there was so much, though Jupitus' post says it best.

/salute

[Kemor]

Ok, you either got the long, probably boring, semi-philosophical part, or you go straight down to “bye bye” and move on, up to you. This is no “uber revelations” or whatever related to GOA, I loved working there for more than 2 years and it was a real pleasure to go through all the ups & downs with the team and without a sudden will of a complete change of lifestyle, I’d still be there enjoying every minute of it. It’s just some “stuff” (I’ll call it stuff, can’t find any other name for it) that came to my mind and felt like posting before fading to black.





I wasn’t planning to post any specific “goodbye” at first, mostly because I didn’t think I had any right to (I was leaving a job and never liked goodbyes parties and speeches). Now, after a couple weeks (even though I left officially only last week), I decided to write down a few words, thoughts and stuff. It’ll probably not be well ordered and you will surely notice the same old “frog” accent, but since you are here, might as well read on…

…might be long though, get a cup of tea or something


I joined GOA 2 years, 3 months and 22 days ago exactly and since then lived one of the best working (and bit more) experience I ever had so far in my life (that being 28 years for the ones wondering, about 9 of them working through in quite a few companies.). As some of you do now, I was expecting this to be the “dream job”, combination of a work (money, money) and gaming. Not only that, it was also a chance to put into something concrete all these dreams and ideas that have been going through my brain for years, be them from role-playing, reading, watching movies, chatting with friends. I thought it would be a dream job and it certainly was.
From the European beta and the first massive events (end of beta event, keep take, etc), from meeting with the players, not only as one of them, but as someone who could potentially enhance their fun, to being with the team at GOA and sharing their “passion”; There is nothing better in the world I think than creating stories and giving fun to other people (maybe solving their problems, that’s a great kick too). For more than two years, this has kept me going and even now, I can’t think of any better way I could have spent these 2 years than doing what I did with you guys and the folks at GOA.

Of course, dreams turn into nightmares once in a while and I can’t say that these two years have gone by without problems.
The main problem, and this I realised quite fast trust me, was that we (everyone working at GOA and you too) are human: a friggin weird mix of good and bad, strength and weakness, love and hate. If there is a flaw, it’s never in the concept, in the ideas, the machines or whatever, it’s always human and it’s not really easy to deal with it (but is sure always interesting). Mistakes, lies, lack of sleep, lack of trust, lack of care as well as too much passion or too much dedication, all this we’ve seen and will always see, not only from us (at GOA), but also from you, players.
Along the way that has been mine for many months; I’ve seen really nasty stuff. From us, because I think we feared your reaction and from some of you, for too many reasons to list. It always made me laugh, in a sad way, how many amazing things we couldn’t do, just because we had to be prepared for all the abuse and exploits that these ideas would have to go through once live. After a while, I realised that no matter what we did, it nearly always came down to protecting ourselves from you and this, trust me, can bring down a man’s passion really fast and slow down a lot of projects. Of course, nothing is perfect and bugs and problems happened (and will always happen), we had our share of responsibilities in many of them, from the stupidest to the worst.
Through all these problems however, still remained the passion: passion for a game that never ceased to amazed us and passion for you, players, interacting in a virtual world, but using very real words, emotions, joys and frustrations. We are not against you guys, we never were; we were and are doing the best possible, poor men and women that we are, to give you the best experience and good time possible (and there is no best without worst, otherwise the concept just loses it’s meaning).

Now, to cut down on some rumours and before going on a more “player-side” aspect (told ya would be long):
- I’m not leaving for any other gaming company and would have no reason to. Dark Age of Camelot is I think the best MMORPG and will be for a long time, even though some marketing machines or massive licences lure some players away, this game holds concepts that make it superior to many I’ve seen or heard about. It’s not perfect of course, nothing can be, but, and this as a player, Mythic offered me hundreds of hours of pleasure, fun and all kind of emotions that, again as a player, lead me to only one thing: respect.



Now, as a player, I’m not what you could call a power-gamer, but I did play my fair share (and more) and enjoyed every bits of it. My idea behind it was simple: I have fun I play, I don’t have fun, well then I don’t play. Fun however isn’t something constant; I think it’s more like a general mood: it can be relaxing, “funny” in the literal sense or even thrilling. It was always fun, sometimes more than others of course

Some very early Prydweneers might remember me as Venge. This was my only character on Prydwen for quite a long time. I won’t come back too much on it as it was long ago, the ones who knew me, as this character, will hopefully remember in good (and bad for some of course). Because of too much involvement (as I said, I did play my share and no, I never ever played during work hours) and because of the risk to mix the Kemor ("Sorry, gotta log off" coming out of nowhere as soon as there was a problem to fix) and the “me” as a player of a character, I had to give up Venge. It was a personal choice, for professional (but still personal) reasons. I never stopped playing though; mostly on Prydwen (I just like little servers, matter of taste, can’t discuss it). I won’t come back on the other characters I played, but I was much less involved after that, even though I always had a lot of fun and could enjoy the simple act of playing.

I’ve always been interested in the PvP/RvR aspect of MMORPGs and Dark Age, to this date and for a long time still I think, holds the crown of the best game out there in this regard. I’m not a “power-gamer” however as I said above and I believe in what some players call “zergs” (even though I’m a huge fan of soloing and group based fights, but not pushed to the extreme). I despise the concept of optimisation and I sincerely hope that the folks at Mythic, in their path to perfect this game, will find ways to make it easier for more “casual players (and this has nothing to do with your “skill” in a game or the time you spend online) and more players in general to enjoy this aspect of the game without making it futile. It wouldn’t take much and personally I don’t think that there is anything preventing it for now. I don’t think it comes down to the rules or the specs of the game, but more to the organisation of the players and goals. Maybe a new chat system to ease more important gatherings management, maybe lessening the “reward” (realm points, so good and however so bad) and focusing on the fun (longer battles, to give a chance to do more), maybe lessening also the differences (without making everyone identical but tuning down the level requirements and the buffs impact). Easy to say, hard to do, but they’ll figure it out.

Another aspect I hold dear is of course the role-playing one. Some will remember my words, back from the days: “all servers are role-playing servers; we don’t want a zoo of role-players”. I still hold true to these words and don’t think that the art and the pleasure of “acting” a character should be put into some kind of zoo as I said. I’m not a hardcore role-player however, even though I respect them immensely (and here goes my kudos to ones of the best role-player organisations I got to know a little: The Order of the Knights Templar, the Artisans of Willow and the Darkblade Mercs. Sorry to all the ones I don’t know about or didn’t list, on Prydwen and other servers), but I always did “think” of the character before I created it: His name, the story behind him and his (or her) overall way to be. I very rarely “role-played” 100% of the time, but always respected both the ones doing so and the ones not doing so and, as long as everyone was a wee-bit open-minded, it never caused problems.

The last and of course best (and worst at the same time) aspect of these hours spent in and around Dark Age (as a player and GM) is the community, or communities.
Internet in general is to me one of the greatest inventions made by man. Quite cheap and not too complex, it seems to be the perfect tool against ignorance (which always lead to things like fanaticism, racism and the usual crap). You can learn everything there is to learn and it’s not coming from one guy, lecturing you with some kind of “divine truth”, but from all sides and you can make up your own ideas based on what you read and experience then find people interested in discussing it. Nobody cares if you are white, purple or black; nobody cares if you are good looking or the brother of elephant man, if you are old or young, rich or poor, nobody gives much of a damn, once online, only one thing matters: you, expressing yourself. This is one of the main reasons I was “hooked” by the online activities. No sorry jokes about myself, I’m not the unknown brother of elephant man, I just do have more faith in typing words than in talking with someone face to face. Don’t ask me why, and no, it’s not some speech disorder, I’m pretty good with words and chatting in general, it’s just the way it is. Little wonder therefore that I moved to MMORPGs, good place to share words and ideas with hundreds of people, especially when you got a strong roleplay background behind you.
Through the time spent online as a GM or as a player, I’ve seen so many different people, coming from totally different backgrounds, having totally different lives, playing the same game in so many different ways that sometimes it was scary. All these (me included) interacting together, gathering together, forging bonds and breaking them, having fun together or going through frustrating moments together. If you take a step back, it’s hard to believe that this is a simple game. This isn’t unique to Dark Age of course, there are many MMORPGs out there, and I experienced it already before Dark Age with other online games, but during the time here, I could somehow take a step back and have a brief look at the whole picture. Think about it, you are, when you play, incarnating a particular representation of yourself (has to be a part of you in a way, you are playing it after all) in a virtual world and are having emotions, sharing ideas, making friends or enemies and thousands of other people doing the same with you. I mean, this is pretty far off (not in a bad way, it’s great, cutting down distances and differences in many ways) and I truly think that this is somehow a major step in human relations (online communication in general but especially MMORPGs since you actually simulate a character and have graphical representation of it). Witnessing this (with a step back) for more than 2 years was, for some reasons I can’t really explain, a great experience and I’m quite sure that this will evolve and become more and more important as the years pass and technology evolves(not only games, but this kind of relations between people).


Anyway, time to move on now, this turned out to be way too long and the tea is probably cold now. Thanks to everyone I came to play with (and all the adepts of pet pond) or against during these fun-filled hours of gaming, to everyone I came to work with and thanks to Mythic for an awesome experience, best of luck to GOA and Mythic, have fun everyone and be careful in the frontiers!

On to something completely different now, take care…

K, signing off.





Random sorry’s and thanks:

Sorry to some for all the “stop bloody AFKing”, the “stop bloody LDing”, the “friggin move it” and all other various yelling and barking I did. Sorry to some for the “weird schedules” happening from time to time (let’s call it that) and thanks to the same for understanding the why. Thanks to some for all the proofreading. Thanks to a lot for playing with me during events and going through all the “frigging script not working as it should”. Sorry to a lot for not doing more and thanks to some for understanding why I couldn’t. Sorry to some for not fixing their problem and to some for not having the answer. Thanks to some others for not asking ten times the same question. Thanks to some for actually asking the questions. Thanks to a lot for not just playing a game but enjoying it. Sorry to some for not believeing your "my cat stole my password" stories and thanks to a lot for not trying. Sorry to a lot for totally wasting you in the frontiers. Thanks to an insane lot for wiping the floor with me. Thanks to a lot I forget and sorry to the same for forgetting…

[Brynn]

Take care Kemor - never met you, but from what a friend of mine says is that you are a really nice guy. You even ported him about

You even met him in the fronteirs and told him what mobs to attack, you sound like the best person to be a gm.

Does that mean you will be coming back to playing the game?

Ooo question i have always wanted to know what realm did you play , doubt you would reply but its just good knowing i did ask

Hope your take care kemor, and hope to see you as a player in another mmorpg

[Addlcove]

Originally Posted by Kemor

get a cup of tea or something
<SNIP>
Anyway, time to move on now, this turned out to be way too long and the tea is probably cold now.

ever heard of multitasking? drink while reading

take care K, and if I ever did play with you, it was a pleasure I´m sure <grin>

[wittor]

Originally Posted by Kemor

Sorry to some for not believeing your "my cat stole my password" stories and thanks to a lot for not trying.

lol

Take care Kemor.

[Night]

Take care Kemor

[PJS]

E-Bay: Daoc Account for sale on Excal/Pryd

various lvl 100 Invincible guys

Opening bid $10,000

[Roo Stercogburn]

Bit late coming to this thread, wasn't sure if was going to as I don't post much any more.

Only encountered Kemor in game a few times. I think the first time was after we took down the dragon with over 300 of us and the loot fell through the floor. E & E got in touch with him and the very next morning a disembodied voice was asking me if I had enough space in my backpack. Very spooky. Ok it was disembodied text on a computer screen but that doesn't sound as good.

I have given GOA some pastings in the past as the thing that I bothered about the most is the community and their track record in this regard hasn't been fantastic. Kemor's feedback on that one and his care for the community really did show though in my mind it had never really been in question, even if GOA as a whole needed the occasional nudge.

Good luck wherever you end up Kemor. Whoever comes after you has big boots to fill.

Oh and I reckon the real reason for leaving is the xp grind at lvl100 must be horrendus

[Pin]

Thankyou.

And it was a nice cup of tea.

[Belomar]

See you, Kemor. You da man.

[Sydien]

Good luck Kemor
You will be missed

[Morchaoron]

look what i found!!

Screenshot 1
Screenshot 2
Screenshot 3
Screenshot 4

[Talivar]

Goodbye and Goodluck Kemor, was fun helping with them toa raids for you

[Shike]

bb Kemor, almighty ruler of Prydwen!