Curse

Ado · Feb 14, 2008, 11:26 AM // 11:26

When HA was still Tombs you could:

- try virtually every build you wanted, even with pugs
- form a pugteam in less than 10 minutes
- visit 8 to 12 international districts nearly the whole day
- meet lots of openminded players
- actually find a team if you were unranked
- most ppl were playing for fun instead of fame.

FotM's were of course around at that time also, but there were 6 or 7 of them and they were played roughly equally among players.
Regarding IWAY and spike, it weren't the builds themselves that were the biggest problem IMO. The problem was the effect those builds had on many players. With the introduction of those 2 builds, the mentality of many players changed from being inventive etc to how to get as much fame as quickly and easy as possible.
Most of the FotM's invented after IWAY and spike were based on the fastfameprinciple (especially after NF) so it was bye bye inventivity and versatility.

deluxe · Feb 15, 2008, 04:46 AM // 04:46

The Tombs days, those were the times...

When looking at my skillbars then, i'm clueless how I managed, oh well

July 2005; I didn't even have eviscerate unlocked

ceolstan · Feb 15, 2008, 07:58 PM // 19:58

lol deluxe!

I have an old FRAPs video of my team winning HoH. I was on a monk at the time. I had very little unlocked. Looking at my team then and the way I played, I wonder how we won.

But that's the point, surely. It wasn't that the players were really great. It was that Tombs was the only way to get a Celestial Sigil. They were selling on eBay for about $75, so the only real way to get one was to win HA. All the really good teams at the time played Tombs, and even inexperienced PvPers had a shot at it.

Tombs was a serious time commitment, too, what with all the multi-team maps. At the time, I was a grad student. I'd start playing at about 9am local time, and if we were winning, we'd still be playing 3 hours later. You first started with unlocking Tombs, guarding the Ghostly against an undead onslaught (Remember the Rift Wardens!). Story-wise, this was fun. From a pure PvP perspective, it was a bit silly, but you did have to be able to deal with hexes, conditions, etc. Like the current Zaishen, the point was that if your team was totally disorganized, you'd lose.

Scarred Earth was a 6-way map. First, you'd be paired off against another team in a deathmatch. Then the gate would open and the winners of the first match would meet in the middle for a 3-way deathmatch. This was a lot of fun, but it was really time consuming! Burial Mounds was a 6-way priest deathmatch. Standard strategy was to send one or two people to the other teams' shrines to gank their priests.

Fame rewards were crummy. I spent a fair amount of time in Tombs that first summer, and with 1 fame per win, you crawled up the fame ladder fairly slowly. At the same time, rank discrimination was already part of the Tombs scene, and r3 was the bare minimum. Also, Faction for unlocks was pretty poor, too. I pretty much stopped playing Tombs at that time, though I thought it was a lot of fun.

For a lot of players, Tombs was harder than GvG because you'd meet really good teams in Tombs, whereas in GvG, you'd meet teams at your rating. If you had a newbie group, you'd be dead at the first mistake you made. In GvG, in those days of 1-hour matches before VoD, if you made a mistake, you had time to recover from it. Also, Faction rewards were so much better in GvG that you were wasting your time in Tombs, especially if you were new.

I've returned to HA, and I have to admit that I do miss those multi-team maps of the old Tombs!

--ceolstan

shoogi · Feb 15, 2008, 08:08 PM // 20:08

pugs dominated tombs, that's why it was fun. Now pugs are a piece of crap, they rarely get more than 3 consecs.

deluxe · Feb 16, 2008, 05:57 AM // 05:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by ceolstan

I've returned to HA, and I have to admit that I do miss those multi-team maps of the old Tombs!

Back then koreans were always holding the HoH, so at the 6way maps it was always the korean teams that were getting ganked...

Fey · Feb 16, 2008, 08:53 AM // 08:53

Tombs.....loved it.......lots of players, you could get decent PUGS, and was great fun and you learned something new everyday which i guess has progressed to the stage HA is in now, where builds are so tight and guild teams/organised teams cant be beaten with a PUG.

Zerstörer · Feb 18, 2008, 02:29 AM // 02:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by deluxe

Back then koreans were always holding the HoH, so at the 6way maps it was always the korean teams that were getting ganked...

back in the old old old days, all I would see is:

Power Of My Rangers has won blah blah blah

All freaking day.

deluxe · Feb 18, 2008, 06:23 AM // 06:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zerstörer

back in the old old old days, all I would see is:

Power Of My Rangers has won blah blah blah

All freaking day.

That was much later than the korean holding though.

Akaraxle · Feb 18, 2008, 08:24 AM // 08:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zerstörer

back in the old old old days, all I would see is:

Power Of My Rangers has won blah blah blah

All freaking day.

3 2 1 PEW PEW!

If the f4g was in the "old old old" days, then what were RUS and Marvel holding halls? Mesozoic?

Sword · Feb 22, 2008, 04:28 AM // 04:28

anet is retarded and the people who added the new skills / new professions ruined the game. The new additions added uber defensive skills. Thus holding halls became way to easy for the top teams.
the 2 ranger 2 para 2 monk build in 6v6 was ridicolous.
By the end of 6v6 my guild had mastered our greater conflag holding build.. we were going 30-40 halls wins easy per run.
Unfortuantly anet knows that with the old system comes uber defensive builds. so they most likely change back.

However the changes anet made are horrible - so much ganking and bad **** that happens in hoh now. The developers really made a half - assed effort when they designed these changes.

Its not like im against going back to the old system. If it was old school holding my guild would just run a 3 monk backline defense build and hold for hours...

Qual · Feb 22, 2008, 02:04 PM // 14:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ray

There was never a golden age of HA.

Quoted for being true...

Alleji · Feb 26, 2008, 06:37 PM // 18:37

[skill]Dual Shot[/skill] [skill]Savage Shot[/skill]

[skill]Shadow Strike[/skill] [skill]Vampiric Gaze[/skill]

I miss old HA :'(

Killed u man · Feb 26, 2008, 08:04 PM // 20:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alleji

[skill]Dual Shot[/skill] [skill]Savage Shot[/skill]

[skill]Shadow Strike[/skill] [skill]Vampiric Gaze[/skill]

I miss old HA :'(

Rspike is still around, worse even, they still do retarded amounts of dmg, combined with pooping out savage and dshots, on top of the fact they have 3 monks and all hard targets... Rspike still is as overpowered as it was back then... (Nerf)

Bspike still gets to see HoH every now and then, they abuse Angorodon's + Vamp gaze tough... (Nerf)

Eldin · Feb 26, 2008, 08:06 PM // 20:06

HA golden age? HA HAD NO GOLDEN AGE!

You're thinking of back when it was all in the Tomb of the Primeval Kings...back during the Prophecies days...when things weren't stupid.

Randvek · Feb 28, 2008, 06:58 PM // 18:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by shoogi

pugs dominated tombs, that's why it was fun. Now pugs are a piece of crap, they rarely get more than 3 consecs.

Haha, yeah. I remember when HA pugs were fun!

Allanon754 · Feb 28, 2008, 07:18 PM // 19:18

Now in order to win you need to run a gimmick ... build wars ftl

ShadowsRequiem · Feb 28, 2008, 07:32 PM // 19:32

50+ fame runs with koreans that didnt use vent. Sniff sniff.

Kep · Feb 29, 2008, 06:03 AM // 06:03

Tombs was definately at its best around the end of 2005/beginning of 2006 in my opinion.

There was always 10+ Int districts full of players, finding a team at any time wasn't a problem.

From experience of when I was r6 every PuG I joined of that rank would go on a decent run, usually Halls.

There was alot of IWAY but it didnt really matter as there was alot of other teams too. You'd regurly face things like R/Spike, Smiters, Dual Mesmers, EuroSpike, Hex Heavy, ViM, EoE Bombs, Minion Factories. The variety made it much more fun. People didnt look to the nearest Spike build. IWAY was also beatable, I have some nasty experiences of IWAY but the majority of the time we would win.

Migrainers, Surgers, OoB Hexers, Spiteful Hexers, Smiters, Choking Gas Rangers, Warders, Spellbreaker WoH & RC Monks, Tainted Necros, Trappers, all I can name off the top of my head.

I certainly enjoyed the game loads back then, nothing better than playing a really good team on Scarred Earth for example where the game would go on forever & you'd really feel satisfied when you won.

It's kind of sad that the implements of 6v6, removal of Altar holding & changes in maps happened, but I'm just glad I got to play back then when it was so good, compared to what it is now.

The Savage I · Mar 27, 2008, 05:46 PM // 17:46

i think this was june 2006, lol this was a fun night we held most of the night

this was when there were only 3 or 4 r12's at the time and i was my first time with mordrid, lol we owned them they were mad

Ekelon · Mar 27, 2008, 05:51 PM // 17:51

I still miss SB/RI in the 6v6 days. Those were the most fun I had.