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Strategus General Discussion / That was fun

« on: September 10, 2011, 07:13:05 am »

Despite all of the exploiting, backstabbing, whining, and trash talking, I thought this round of strategus was a lot of fun.  I'm happy that FCC was at war since pretty much day 1; it definitely made us a lot of enemies, but it allowed us to battle an excessive amount of times, and that is where all the fun is, in my opinion.  I suspect we weren't the only ones that had a kick-ass time.

I'm excited to see what the next round of strategus will bring -- I'm hoping there will be some new alliances (unexpected even) forming so we can mix up the battles a bit, but I guess only time will tell.

Anyway, thanks for the fights.  I'm looking forward to seeing you all in the field again in a week or so.

2

General Discussion / Archers

« on: June 30, 2011, 10:55:38 pm »

Archers are a fundamental part of Mount&Blade that are absolutely necessary to counter-balance what could otherwise be ridiculously overpowered classes/builds.  I take a lot of flak for being an archer pretty much every single day since I started playing in April; I thought that if I treated people with some respect and got better playing my class that I would stop being bitched at day-in and day-out, but I have found that the exact opposite has happened.  It seems as if the only thing people hate more than the archer class itself is dying to an archer.

At some point in the recent past, a mental switch occurred that helped me deal with, if not benefit from the constant harassment about playing as an archer: I started to actually enjoy when I killed people and they got angry about it.  So the better I played, the more people bitched, and the more enjoyment I got out of the game.  I'm sure you've all been in a similar situation -- this is the internet after all.  The problem is, that isn't the type of player I want to be.  I didn't start playing Mount&Blade because I wanted to troll a bunch of people; I started playing this game because it seemed like a cool community built around a pretty sweet game, and I figured you all would be a pretty fun bunch to fight with some swords and arrows.  Despite there being a lot of truly shitty human beings that play this game, I still think my original assumptions about this community are not entirely unfounded.  Quite frankly, some of you guys rock, and it is hard to find that in gaming communities these days.

In my opinion, everyone that plays this game owes it to their teammates to attempt to contribute something meaningful, and that is the philosophy surrounding my play style (along with extremely healthy doses of liquid-encouragement): I hate not being up in the enemies' faces alongside my team.  I figure that just because I have a projectile doesn't mean that my job should be somehow easier or less dangerous than that of my teammates.  I also find that when you're shooting arrows at people's faces from 10 feet away, you tend to hit more of the enemies and less of your teammates, and that's a win-win for everyone (well, except for the enemies, but F' them).  I've seen time and time again a single well-placed arrow result in a solid victory for a melee teammate in battle, and I feel like that is probably the biggest contribution I can give to the team.  I can't do that reliably if I'm not half-way across the map.  Some people might, but I can't.

Plus, standing really far away from the battle is just so god damn boring

All of that said, I put it to you, my non-archer, bow-hating, level-headed fellow gamers: What do you want from the archers on your team?  What makes an archer valuable to you?  Would you prefer that archers keep their distance, raining in arrows from afar?  Would you prefer that archers are close enough to have your back in close combat?  What can I do, as an archer, to contribute more to our team?