This will probably come back to bite me in the ass, but I suspect that Malse, being one of the more committed not-specifically-sexist misogynists I know (and for that matter misanthropes, but he particularly relishes grinding women into the dirt ;) ) had it in for Dashmoo largely because she was a reasonably successful, non-deferential, female guild leader, and an older female mommy guild leader, in addition to her being an insufferable narcissist and in some ways his direct competition. Beyond that I can't speculate, but I suspect that alone was enough to make her a target in his eyes ;)....

Regards,
Nydia

This will probably come back to bite me in the ass, but I suspect that Malse, being one of the more committed not-specifically-sexist misogynists I know (and for that matter misanthropes, but he particularly relishes grinding women into the dirt ;) ) had it in for Dashmoo largely because she was a reasonably successful, non-deferential, female guild leader, and an older female mommy guild leader, in addition to her being an insufferable narcissist and in some ways his direct competition. Beyond that I can't speculate, but I suspect that alone was enough to make her a target in his eyes ;)....


I'm not sure what planet you're on today, but I never hated Dashmoo nor considered her "competition" except in the annoyance sense. I spent years between speaking or thinking about her until she tried to make life miserable for the lot of us over everyone's favorite trainwreck zone, and largely succeeded on her end of it. I subsequently rarely spoke to her again after that six-ish month period. Also, by your description, I assume you never spent any time talking to her.

I doubt I'm alone in having some variation on this experience, and I'm curious if you'd ascribe the same vag-hate to other guilds that had to put up with FD over the years (say, Palimax? I don't remember who else that would have been anymore but there were other guilds). I'm also curious to your explanation to why I didn't hate Lliani or Kaerila, both of whom "competed for authority," I guess you could phrase it in academic-crazy land, within RiP.

There's little point in rehashing my personal opinion thereof as I'm sure several other people here spent years more dealing with 'shmoo than I did, and could spill beans I've blissfully forgotten.

I tried to post in response to Rover's original reply to me last night, but routing issues prevented me getting back to A Ro from home last night - it's still inaccessible from there, but I *can* access the board from work, oddly enough.

Like many, I found Dashmoo both haughty and difficult to work with - her guild seemed very much a culture, as opposed to expediency, driven outfit that you either loved or hated, although many of my guild members who decided they wanted to do larger scale raiding chose Final Destiny over what to me would have been more palatable choices for that, and were fiercely loyal to both her and the guild. FD had an operational model that was fundamentally different from RiP's, or for that matter VAs, and yet was trying to swim with the sharks, and I suspect that may have generated an additional bit of antipathy as well...

While I don't know to what degree her gender specifically played a role in it, you've admitted that you took a particular pleasure in humiliating and crushing her and her guild as competition when she got 'uppity' as it were with regard to Ssra Temple, and I'd wager to a greater degree than when you guys ran up against VA.

Kaerila, bless her soul, could also be difficult to work with (I remember her well from the CoFE days and considered her a friend); I think the difference was that, while frequently both irrational and emotional, Kae was essentially honest, human, and intensely loyal, and I'll never forget one night in the old Hate, back when she was in CoFE, in tears over some drama-heavy moment going up there saying "We're CoFE, we take care of each other" or something like that. Also, there's a big difference between competing with, or having friction with, someone who is *within* your guild than with someone who is without - and I'd submit that neither of those individuals, based on what I know about them, were 'real' competition, either.

In any case, this has gone far afield, but it is interesting how the direct competition that existed in EQ both brought the worst in people and added spice to the game. The combination of the fact that A Ro was a transfer server of people/guilds who opted for the Wild West/Law of the Jungle model, and the fact that MMORPGs were new and the anonymity one had in them meant that normal power and status hierarchies were often completely upended (see: 16 year old Drizzen and EW) resulted in a particularly interesting, and sometimes disturbing, social experiment. Some loved it, and some hated it; many of the CoFE'ers that made the transfer from Sol Ro rated it as the worst thing they'd ever done, that 'the dregs of three servers' had come to A Ro and if they'd only stayed put, Sol Ro was a 'paradice' after all the 'assholes' (read: would strangle their mothers to beat someone to a spawn hard charging competition types) left ;)...

Regards,
Nydia

So, basically, you're just inventing terrible motivations for things you have absolutely no real information about or involvement in. Alrighty then, thanks ThoughtCrime Division.

Cut a little close to home, perhaps, for water so far under the bridge? But anytime... :)

Regards,
Nydia

No, it doesn't make any sense at all. I am however offended you think you can accuse and judge me not based on anything I did, but on your own invented motivations for it. Must have been motivated by your deep-seated hatred of all men that comes through in every post you make, probably while you fail so many of your male students ...

If Rover wants to come here and say I was a dick to 'shmoo, sure, he's got a case. But he would have equally nonexistant basis for doing so because I hated Star Trek.

Rofl! You can try to sell that as serious umbrage, but it seems rather implausible, and if it is then well, I've got some cream for that sand :). Where I speculated, I said so, and what I stated more directly was on the basis of actual conversations I had either with you directly you or where you admitted such motivations publicly to others. I hadn't meant to 'smear' anyone, although to tease you a bit (about the amount of gender based crap you give me largely outside the confines of this board) and me thinks thou doth protest too much... :)

Off to attend to work, need to repress some more students on the basis of their defective plumbing. I apologize if I've truly offended, but I think this also goes to some of my earlier comments about the relative thick-or-thin-skinnedness of the mods (and thus their suitability to be such) over what was not even really an insult...

Regards,
Nydia

I wasn't offended because apparently I consider any female guild leaders beneath contempt. Or however this makes sense inside your head, because I don't think anyone else is following.

True story: Malse has never baked his own muffins or knitted his own sweaters.

Does that mean he is a sweater wearing "muff"-n eater?

Feel free to continue to harp on the point of (non)contention and attempt to negate my, and its validity, via attacks to my credibility and/or perception (clearly I must be crazy, and *great* juxtaposition of the two sentences there btw ;) ) - not that it makes a huge hill of beans to me one way or another, but yes, I stand by my original statement that I believe gender played *some* part in why you took particular relish in grinding Dashmoo and FD down as opposed to other guilds that you engaged in competition with.

Regards,
Nydia

True story: Malse has never baked his own muffins or knitted his own sweaters.

Bro, you had me worried about if you were going to hit your derail quota!!

From what i know about Malse, which is limited to sporadic ingame and more forum interaction, i would categorize him as you have Nydia. An Elitist Holier than thou guy, yes.

Ya not really sure where you are going with this Nydia. But still <3 ya.

I'd wager to say anyone who had to deal with Dashmoo didn't like her. She was blindly arrogant and not suprisingly, a fucking moron.

I didn't know Malse in game, we didn't run the same circles, but from reading the historical archives of RiP I don't see any info that would have me believe he's gender biased or such.

He was rough as sandpaper if you ran counter to his goals however he was fair as hell to his guildmates. Pretty much par for anyone in a game where you could compete for targets.

Talk about digging up old bones. Why is this an issue now. Oh well. Perhaps I can lend some light.

First off, I don't think this had all that much to do with Dash having a vagina and boobs as the basis for how things ran in FD. It had more to do with how it was "her" guild in the same sense that anyone can claim 100% ownership of any particular thing. Many guilds endure as an entity removed from any particular leader or member and thus are still around today since they are cooperative efforts and represent a concept.

Not so with FD. Shmoo called all the shots. Officers, while they did exist, were typically over-ruled on most all decision making, even if Shmoo, bless her heart, didn't have a fucking iota of a clue. Be it for raiding or whatever. She micromanaged every facet and ultimately made alot of poor decisions because she did not utilize the assets at her disposal. Be it ego or whatever, she crafted what she wanted even if it was the wings of Icarus. Thus, alot of officers got frustrated, quit the guild/game etc.

Which was often. It sucked to be an officer in FD. The guild was always having to rebuild.

Ultimately, she got busy with life or bored or frustrated. All of the above more than likely and lost interest in EQ long enough to allow the guild to die. The leadership left, which was never allowed to lead, didn't have a clue how to go on or even a real desire as the guild had hemoraged enough player base to be a non-raiding chat room. Thus about 30% went to VA and the rest server moved or quit the game. Ultimately it went back to Dash on FD always being her baby and in the ultimate selfish act, allowed it to die when she got bored of it.

That approuch rubbed many people the wrong way, which might go far to explain Malse's general distaste for Shmoo. Although he might not admit it, Malse was a member of FD for a time, and during his stay it seemed like he would be a strong force to set FD on a good track to success through his knowledge and motivation. Shmoo would have none of that, though. The two butted heads because Malse was not one to just want to bob his head yes and smile. Thus Malse departed, took some friends with him and went to RiP. And so began a rivalry. Ultimately, RiP, being far more flexible and focused, moved on while FD did whatever Shmoo's moods and whims at the time dictated. I had some spite for Malse for quite a while, because the drama later continued that he was trying to spy or bring FD down or whatever bullshit was going on. I just played along. It all seems so stupid now.

What does make the most sense, is once FD folded and no one wanted to follow her to where ever she ended up, is that she felt betrayed that none of us wanted to just blindly follow her any more. Well, I doubt it ever dawned on her that her selfish acts killed off what we felt was "our" guild and that maybe FD was more than just her pet project, extension of her ego or whatever.


Hopefully that puts alot to rest.

Hey Lummus :)

Re the 'why' of this thread in NAG, this bit was split from the 'I remember when'... thread after I responded with my bit of speculation in response to Rover's mention of the enmity between them. It was originally (on my part) a bit of idle gossip based on my fairly superficial knowledge of the parties involved, a bit of a tease to our newest mod and one of the server's on occasion more notorious bastards when it came to competition, and wasn't in any way meant to be, hm, perjorative to him or anyone else. He and Shmoo were both strong personalities on our server and it was evident to a lot of people that there was no love lost between them - I was merely offering some somewhat cheeky speculation as to part of the cause, and in any case am done commenting on the matter. That piece of history adds a bit of context to that particularly rivalry though...

Sincerely,
Nydia

BTW, just a last bit (damn no edit), Shmoo was not some iron fisted tyrant. LOL, she did have a very passive aggressive style, pretty much like a very strong willed mom. She is a very nice lady and being in FD did yield alot of good times and memories, much of it was due to Shmoo and her rather erratic methods. Plenty of people left FD knowing that they just oculd not be guilded with her, but I doubt few actually hated her. She did make alot of people enjoy the game and that is what really counts. She lives near my house now (when I am actually in the States) as well and we have gone out to the pub and to the movies and then all differences about the game were put aside. She will to this day though always defend that what she did as being what she wanted because the decisions were hers to make and that when she grew tired of EQ, FD was going to fade away. She stuck to her word.

Don't take this add on post as back peddling, because its not. She would even tell anyone that I speak my mind and some of the stuff she pulled really pissed me of fin an in game sense. I just didn't want what I had posted to over-shadow all the good that was there or in some way negate what was over all, a good experience.

You guys are so silly... still arguing about EQ after how many goddamn years? Man that game rocked our worlds!

*kicks it back with some popcorn*

Hit him with a chair, Nydia!

I like kittens... That is all.

:club

*kicks it back with some popcorn*

Hit him with a chair, Nydia!

Nyd does not resort to such brutish tactics. Nay. She'll verbally berate Malse until he hits himself with a chair.

And he'll look forward to it!

'Nyd does not resort to such brutish tactics. Nay. She'll verbally berate Malse until he hits himself with a chair.'

- Rofl, so true.

Nydia > anyone in a fight of intellectual, linguistic and grammatical powers.

Talk about digging up old bones. Why is this an issue now. Oh well. Perhaps I can lend some light.

First off, I don't think this had all that much to do with Dash having a vagina and boobs as the basis for how things ran in FD. It had more to do with how it was "her" guild in the same sense that anyone can claim 100% ownership of any particular thing. Many guilds endure as an entity removed from any particular leader or member and thus are still around today since they are cooperative efforts and represent a concept.

Not so with FD. Shmoo called all the shots. Officers, while they did exist, were typically over-ruled on most all decision making, even if Shmoo, bless her heart, didn't have a fucking iota of a clue. Be it for raiding or whatever. She micromanaged every facet and ultimately made alot of poor decisions because she did not utilize the assets at her disposal. Be it ego or whatever, she crafted what she wanted even if it was the wings of Icarus. Thus, alot of officers got frustrated, quit the guild/game etc.

Which was often. It sucked to be an officer in FD. The guild was always having to rebuild.

Ultimately, she got busy with life or bored or frustrated. All of the above more than likely and lost interest in EQ long enough to allow the guild to die. The leadership left, which was never allowed to lead, didn't have a clue how to go on or even a real desire as the guild had hemoraged enough player base to be a non-raiding chat room. Thus about 30% went to VA and the rest server moved or quit the game. Ultimately it went back to Dash on FD always being her baby and in the ultimate selfish act, allowed it to die when she got bored of it.

That approuch rubbed many people the wrong way, which might go far to explain Malse's general distaste for Shmoo. Although he might not admit it, Malse was a member of FD for a time, and during his stay it seemed like he would be a strong force to set FD on a good track to success through his knowledge and motivation. Shmoo would have none of that, though. The two butted heads because Malse was not one to just want to bob his head yes and smile. Thus Malse departed, took some friends with him and went to RiP. And so began a rivalry. Ultimately, RiP, being far more flexible and focused, moved on while FD did whatever Shmoo's moods and whims at the time dictated. I had some spite for Malse for quite a while, because the drama later continued that he was trying to spy or bring FD down or whatever bullshit was going on. I just played along. It all seems so stupid now.

What does make the most sense, is once FD folded and no one wanted to follow her to where ever she ended up, is that she felt betrayed that none of us wanted to just blindly follow her any more. Well, I doubt it ever dawned on her that her selfish acts killed off what we felt was "our" guild and that maybe FD was more than just her pet project, extension of her ego or whatever.


Hopefully that puts alot to rest.

:spade

BTW, just a last bit (damn no edit), Shmoo was not some iron fisted tyrant. LOL, she did have a very passive aggressive style, pretty much like a very strong willed mom. She is a very nice lady and being in FD did yield alot of good times and memories, much of it was due to Shmoo and her rather erratic methods. Plenty of people left FD knowing that they just oculd not be guilded with her, but I doubt few actually hated her. She did make alot of people enjoy the game and that is what really counts. She lives near my house now (when I am actually in the States) as well and we have gone out to the pub and to the movies and then all differences about the game were put aside. She will to this day though always defend that what she did as being what she wanted because the decisions were hers to make and that when she grew tired of EQ, FD was going to fade away. She stuck to her word.

Don't take this add on post as back peddling, because its not. She would even tell anyone that I speak my mind and some of the stuff she pulled really pissed me of fin an in game sense. I just didn't want what I had posted to over-shadow all the good that was there or in some way negate what was over all, a good experience.


Both of your posts regarding this are an accurate assesment. This started because of my time in FD I knew there was a clear rivalry almost hatred that I saw between Malse and Dashmoo and I never knew why. I left FD and left the guild and Dashmoo alone and I left for the reasons you stated above as with most every FD officer.

My question was because Malse seemed to go way out of his way, even raiding zones that his guild had long left in what seemed a bid to grief FD and Dashmoo. She did have a way of making you have either a really good night or a complete shit heap that made you want to not login ever again.

I remember calling raids and everyone would be just ready to start and Dash would log in and suddenly things moved at a crawl and ultimately the raid wouldn't go on, but as Lummus said...we now know why.

Why on earth you guys put up with that I will never know.

omg wait... Lummus were you a dark elf warrior?

ya and then he made his better half Jettsett the dead druid! That poor druid is the walking dead :(

Yes Lummus was...also a Cleric if I remember right.


Why on earth you guys put up with that I will never know.

Put up with what? Dashmoo or Malse?

As far as Dashmoo...we didn't...we would just leave after a very frustrating few months...as far as Malse goes...I think most would just wonder, at least I would, as to what Dashmoo had done to piss him off to the point of almost making it his in game mission to grief FD...or so it seemed at the time.

yes the bastard known as summul and i say that with a large amount of brotherly love ... the kinda love 2 men can say they have for one another but not the brokeback village people love that people confuse it with! I must say Dash is an interesting person at times. It killed her when the rest of us got fed up with FD and left and then she moved on to another server and a larger guild. Yes I have been drinking tonight!

Hmm... I was in FD for a few days back in the day... Lummus was the one with the light sabers right?

I wonder how things went in the new guild as a peon? lol

Hmm... I was in FD for a few days back in the day... Lummus was the one with the light sabers right?

Yeah. He was the dark elf warrior in FD. Pretty sure he had his epics.

Damn, I remember him being a pretty nice guy!

Yeah he was cool. I never really had much problem with FD . I was either behind them or ahead of them in progression so really only had to race them 1 time that I can recall.

Oh and Sophitae was the bomb.

I wonder how things went in the new guild as a peon? lol

Last I heard, which was quite a while ago she was doing ok from the aspect of there was no stress from being a GL anymore. She also probably had to "relearn" her toon as well. She tended to always be in tells or distracted. It really impacted her ability to be a good healer at times.

As for Lummus, I still have that account active, but he is seldom played. He still has Itchy and Scratchy, the lightsabers and even has a 1.5. I had thought about maybe giving him a try again, but he is so behind on AA and gear and there just isn't enough free time to make him raid worthy. Still a fun time just to log him in and goof off.

Main is the cleric and yes, his sidekick the druid is dead most of the time =P, although no account has been logged on for almost a month now. Been too busy being out and about in China as the weather is getting nice and spring is one of the best times of year here. Summer is hot, humid, rainy and pollution = maxed, so thats when its time to get back into it.

LOL, I guess I must have missed all the drama in FD. To me it was just a guild. Although I do have a bit of an issue with Dash asking me to give up Inny's throwing star drop that I won. She promised me I would get the next one. However we never went back to PoT....

My question was because Malse seemed to go way out of his way, even raiding zones that his guild had long left in what seemed a bid to grief FD and Dashmoo.
I don't recall this happening, at least as of when I joined RiP (mid 2003). We raided whatever was in our best interests, which obviously conflicted with what other guilds wanted at times, but I don't think we ever tried to grief another guild at our own expense.

Er...Ssra might have been an exception, though again it was in our best interests to reduce competition for Vex Thal. Had Vex Thal been instanced we certainly wouldn't have tried to keep other guilds out.

Er...Ssra might have been an exception, though again it was in our best interests to reduce competition for Vex Thal. Had Vex Thal been instanced we certainly wouldn't have tried to keep other guilds out.

Strategically taking out targets to help your guild advance and keep the advantage for further targets was the best part of the game back then!!

aka awaken the Sleeper!!

Er...Ssra might have been an exception, though again it was in our best interests to reduce competition for Vex Thal. Had Vex Thal been instanced we certainly wouldn't have tried to keep other guilds out.

What people always forget is that prior to any particular animosity between the two guilds, I offered a sharing arrangement for the whole thing to Dashmoo, and she refused. No clue what she told people in FD about it, if anything. I don't think you were involved in RiP iron-fisted-repression at the time yet, Pal.

Having been in guild leadership for a fair amount of time and seeing the obvious disconnect between membership and leadership in some guilds, it has often struck me that small decision made by people behind closed doors did more to change people's opinions and activities than any of the events they later used to support their pre-existing reasoning.

What people always forget is that prior to any particular animosity between the two guilds, I offered a sharing arrangement for the whole thing to Dashmoo, and she refused. No clue what she told people in FD about it, if anything. I don't think you were involved in RiP iron-fisted-repression at the time yet, Pal.

Having been in guild leadership for a fair amount of time and seeing the obvious disconnect between membership and leadership in some guilds, it has often struck me that small decision made by people behind closed doors did more to change people's opinions and activities than any of the events they later used to support their pre-existing reasoning.

Well there you have it. Something that was never mentioned to anyone as far as I know.

Stupid no edit!

Strategically taking out targets to help your guild advance and keep the advantage for further targets was the best part of the game back then!!

aka awaken the Sleeper!!

That is what made EQ...EQ...but a game for a much younger more agressive Rover at this point in my life...hence my playing of WoW at my convenience.

yeah I doubt I'd have the same energy to wake up at all hours of the night to take out a dragon before DW/CN got to him. Or to take an entire day off of work to clear out NTOV as it popped on Europes time schedule so it'd hasten DW off the server. heh

Ug, I had happily forgotten about those 4am wakeup calls.

Something is wrong with you when you are part of a telephone tree to make sure you got to the targets!

No kidding Fanny :P

Hey I'm the first to agree I played far too much and invested far too much time/energy back in the day. However I really did enjoy those times and look upon most of them with fondness ;P

Totally. Play hard or go home (except, you're already home, but... whatever).

It was pretty fun and exciting to wake up, rush rush rush, and maybe succeed. That being said when I was living in Prague for those ~6 months and when our raids started 1 AM my time and went to ~5 AM, to be followed by class at ~8 AM ... that was a bit harsh :)

Heh, some of my fondest memories of EQ were falling asleep at the keyboard....

Heh, some of my fondest memories of EQ were falling asleep at the keyboard....

pppffft and here I thought it was your plat making talents that you enjoyed most! ;)

Ug, I had happily forgotten about those 4am wakeup calls.


During our two week Ragefire camp for our first cleric epic, most in the guild had turned over their phone numbers and many had even taken sick days from work, just to ensure that there was always an Lost Fires presence in the immediate spawn area.

And, we had fun with Carabella and a few others trying to disrupt things, either for their own guild or just for gits and shiggles.

Reveille and Ginny did a great job keeping all entertained with the zone wide /ooc Trivial Pursuit, when people were getting too bored.

And for some reason, there were almost daily resets of the server going on during that two weeks due to the exceptional job being done by the code writers with their friggin' patches, which than reset the spawn timers.


/hairpull

I remember I had just joined VV recently, and I was a new recruit when I was awoken at somewhere around 1am-3am ish, to steal Vulak from EW!!!!

Oh that was epic! I remember Rogrog sending me a tell saying we were the luckiest bitches ever to be there for VV's first Vulak kill.

I remember I had just joined VV recently, and I was a new recruit when I was awoken at somewhere around 1am-3am ish, to steal Vulak from EW!!!!

Oh that was epic! I remember Rogrog sending me a tell saying we were the luckiest bitches ever to be there for VV's first Vulak kill.

We , in EW, got 42 Vulak'err's in a row before IVM took over killing him.

I think you have another guild in mind Jedd, VV wasn't even a blip on the radar when we were doing Vulak some 8 years ago. You have the wrong guild.

We , in EW, got 42 Vulak'err's in a row before IVM took over killing him.

I think you have another guild in mind Jedd, VV wasn't even a blip on the radar when we were doing Vulak some 8 years ago. You have the wrong guild.

It was VV before they became IVM, the guild leaders were a couple and we got our first Vulak kill because for the first time EW either didn't or messed up on timing.

Guild leader of VV-> was Fantor as far as I can remember and he wasn't involved with anyone in game. Been many years so can't really remember.

I know we got as many Vulak'errs as we wanted when we wanted without fail. If you got one it's because we didn't want it anymore. Poor warriors, over 40 of those down and we failed to get the warrior sword ;(

Guild leader of IVM was Fantor

Guild leader of VV was not

It's been a long time, but I'm pretty sure the reason you got a tell about VV being lucky was that VV got a Jaelen's off their first Vulak.

The leader of VV was Nibble, and his girlfriend or wife was Natalia, Natalie, or something like that.

Ah I remember nibble and you're right San, that was a bitter pill for our warriors to swallow heh.

We , in EW, got 42 Vulak'err's in a row before IVM took over killing him.

How the hell do you remember that?

I remember quite a bit of crap throughout my life. Comes in handy with work and play ;P