Chapter V The Final Chapter-part 1 You know who

It was well into the spring season. The snow gmap had been replaced with a green lush greener looking tile set. A newly released Vip Island known as Oasis had just came out and there had been other changes to classic as well. The Madder hatter got nuked and the Dragon morph was removed along with a nice collection of furniture. Also gone was the Rail road system,3/4's of DeadWood,Azrael's Secret Treehouse,and 90% of the rps npc's. Ufo was still going on a strong steady pace.

I Still had traces of noobiness. I didn't yet know about the secret bug shop in Mod just south of the tower,and a few other rooms I had missed. I also didn't know the npc names or things the admins referred to in the clues for event warpers. But thanks to exploring and help from my fellow guild members I learned them quickly. I also learned to lock my gralats in my farm quickly too,but only after I had some of them stolen from me.

As with all things there are bound to be bumps in the road. You just have to live,learn,get over it,and move on. More and more problems started surfacing with a certain member of the guild that was becoming far to disruptive,and counter productive. With their constant brbing,and excuses to why they are "afk" or unable to help attack/defend a tower all the time. Aside from that there was constant bickering with other members,they had to go. There where problems with a couple other members that ended up kicked from the guild as well.

With that we had a new goup of perms or regulars come in that we like to refer to as ufo version 3.0. Some would come and go,some are still in the group right now,and some we had lost along the way came back. We had hit the half way to 1k mark with 500 hours,we picked up a new lead that was helping to drive the guild to get more hours than we had gotten before. Unfortunately the problematic member was given yet another chance,and started yet more bickering with the new lead which caused the new lead to leave it was a blow to the guild but we would recover.

I had managed to recruit a couple pros who liked active guilds. Sadly with the new lead gone the hours slowed dramatically,and they where growing discontent with groups lack of tower time. You know who would surface in the group again. With the pros all ready building frustration a little unwarranted poking and bickering by You know who. Whom I should add had just been brought back and was in the guild again for all of 10 minutes. Cost us not only a very valuable active pro,but he would take several other members with him upon his exit from the guild. I have to admit I myself was frustrated with the current situation.

However long before that I had decided to not be a hat chaser,and stick with my guild and earn my 1k hat the right way. Not to long after that one of our leads Oreo decided to take some personal time away from graal which lead to an open lead spot. I had all ready been pushed into a lead position when a member had to leave graal because of that whole real life thing. So we had to find a replacement,and we would or so we thought we did.

Things where starting to go smoothly again. That was until one morning when I got up to find myself,and everybody from the guild except the leader of course had been kicked. I'm sure it wasn't the first time nor will it be the last time that's happend to a guild. Puzzled I decided the best thing to do would be to put on a sub tag,and wait for the others to come on and find out what happened....

Coming soon part 2-the epic conclusion
(I decided this was getting to long and to break it down into a two parts)  

Just wanted to post an update. final part is nearly done. Now that we are finally closing in on 1k and there is hat chaser drama in abundance I will have a lot to write about.  

So this is why you hate son?  

hmm I think I know that problematic person you speak of xD  

Posted by Hadzz

So this is why you hate son?

At first yes that's why I hated them. Then I was fine with them for quiet awhile but then We crossed paths when towering in UFO again. Basically we where supposed to be truced with them,but Kate would still attack our tower with her noob minions if she saw us as an easy mark. Then I heard a bunch of rumors about her and how she does stuff. 1 of which is that she truces with guilds to keep them from attacking her castle at the time then breaking the truce like she did with us. Mostly I get annoyied that they always have a castle and it doesn't seem like they are gonna stop anytime soon. I would rather see towers changing hands than one guild camping at a tower all day. IMO and its only an opinion it would be funner to have a bunch of guilds competing for 1k all the time than a hand full of guilds dominating towers just to keep their spot on a list.

Posted by Zinnia

hmm I think I know that problematic person you speak of xD

I bet you can ZIN. I would think anybody who has been in UFO more than a day could guess who I am referring to. I will not name names tho.  

Part 2 the epic conclusion

So there I was idling on the cliff by the Air Asia balloon waiting on a sub tag for my fellow guild mates to come on and find out what the heck had gone on. It didn't take long for the others to start coming online,and to sort out what happened. Apparently our newly appointed prime (lead) had been the culprit. He claims that somebody else got on his account and did it,but who knows. It was maybe 30 minutes later when the leader got on and recruited all the primes and perms back and restored everything to how it was minus a lead of course.

So with the guild back in order it was back to business as usual taking towers,but we where still short a lead. In a month or so later we had a promising noob join us who would later become that lead,and be one of the loyalest,most active,and best members UFO would ever have. We would also have a couple old friends come back and join us in towering for awhile one of which came back under a new player nickname with her bf and they would both go on to become admins(both of which are some of the nicest and coolest people I've had the pleasure of playing with in graal). The other friend would leave and return later and help us get to 1k.

A long the way through hours of towering You know who would disappear and join another guild closing in on 1k. So all was peaceful until another problematic player would join ufo. It didn't take him long to get on everyone's nerves. Fortunately the guy called out leads openly on the gc which you should never do and got himself banned. He did try to return to UFO but was not allowed.

The rest of the spring was fairly uneventful aside from me joined the forums on Graalians.com and spamming every thread I could find and creating 5 threads to many of my own with mostly bad ideas. Driving many a forum regular nuts I'm sure and ticking off a few admins while I was at it.

The end of spring came and we where over 600 hrs it seemed like it had taken for ever to get that many hours. Atleast probably 5 guilds had passed us and where closing in on 1k. We would slump for a bit then have a good run then slack off and have next to no hrs for a week. People where going on vacation and coming back from vacation. We had a new couple join us but they wouldn't stay long as problems arose with them and other members over lack of hrs and how things where being done.

Then after the summer gst at the end of July the leader had announced he was going to be leaving on Vacation for 4 weeks so there was a mad push to get hours before he left. We had managed to get right around 750 hours before he did. Thats when the hat chasers started to trickle in. The first week the leader was gone we did good the second week was complete crap. SO at the end of the second week and begging of the third week My 2 co-leads and I had decided to make some changes. They had brought in a couple of their friends from other guilds to help.

Two of them would become leads and the other a perm. With new leads,a few new members,a couple old ones and the removal of all perm spots we had one of our best hour total weeks ever. Averaging almost 10 hours a day for almost the whole week. By the end of the next week the hours where dipping again but we had reached nearly 850 and where getting a whole host of hat chasers. Which would be the start of non stop bickering and drama all the way till 1k.

There was constant fighting,butt kissing,and complaining for perm spots so just before the leader came back the temporary leader brought back perms which I was against. We had so many people coming and going and asking to join it was hard to keep up with. There was never enough space for everybody and often times perms had to be kicked to make room. Maybe this is normal stuff for guilds in the ladder stages of 1k hours.

Then the leader had come back from vacation right after we hit 900 hours. Then things would change again and I had figured they would upon his return. He didn't know these new leads that had been brought in,or many of the ppl that had joined after he had left on vacation. He had added 2 more perms. Which again I was strongly against purely because we just didn't have room for perms with so many hat chasers coming and "helping".

There was a Ton of bickering and drama everyday,but we where finally getting the hours we should have been getting all along. Finally just this last week we made a final big push and had one of our other best hour week totals. We had people on towering all day Saturday well into Sunday including myself. Sadly (against my will) we had to stop Sunday morning (USA am hours) at 999 to wait for the leader to come on to finish up with the last hour.

I unfortunately had to get some sleep,and meet family time obligations so I was unable to be their when we finally after what 2 years had hit 1k. After a rather large protest by me, along with bitching and pleading they finished with out me. They did try to pm me and let me know as well as by other means but I was passed out and unaware they where towering at the time. When I found out lets just say I wasn't happy in the least to have missed out out on the accomplishment and the celebration with my Friends.

I know with all the time zones cause problems for people and things in the game,but I still think after putting in all that time and effort they could have stopped within 5-10 minutes of 1k and given me some time to get on before finishing. Maybe I am just butthurt and being selfish but it sucks when 1 or more people have to miss out on something you've worked on for months and put so much time and effort into just so one person can be there when you reach that goal.

Either way it was an incredible journey and I learned a lot. Made new friends,and probably several enemies along the way. As for post 1k plans who knows what the future holds. I am still undecided as to where I want to go next. I am not in a big hurry to get back into the monotony that is towering everyday. Besides it's nice to have the freedom to go to events or do whatever I want when ever I want with out the worry of being kicked or getting yelled at to come help.

In closing I would just like to give a big thank you to everybody who took the time to read my ramblings about my noobish beggings all the way to the 1k mark in ufo. (btw I am now approaching 1.6k hours of online time if you where wondering). I would also like to give a big thanks to all of those who helped and supported UFO over the last year and helped us reach 1k.

P.S. I almost forgot You know who came back and managed to make it onto the hat list.  

A simple fix.
Drop the perm rank entirely. It's a bad hairstyle, not a rank.
4 leads and a leader. 5 Elites. Done.

And where for you next? Consider moving to iZone.  

"claps slowly"

Posted by kou

A simple fix.
Drop the perm rank entirely. It's a bad hairstyle, not a rank.
4 leads and a leader. 5 Elites. Done.

And where for you next? Consider moving to iZone.

Zone towering system is nowere near as good as classics version  

Posted by kou

A simple fix.
Drop the perm rank entirely. It's a bad hairstyle, not a rank.
4 leads and a leader. 5 Elites. Done.

And where for you next? Consider moving to iZone.

I completely agree. Things where so much easier with a lot more space when there where no perms. But IMO it seemed people where begging and fighting for "perm" spots because it means there on main tag all the time and it pretty much locks them into the hat list. We only had like 3 people that didn't mind helping on a sub tag. Everybody else wined to be on main tag. Imo if your willing to go on sub to help and free up a spot on the main tag it makes you more of a team player and more deserving of a hat spot.

You really think just 5 leads is enough? We had 9 leads 8 not counting the guild leade. The main reason being that our leads where not active enough so we needed more. I would think 8 leads and 2 perms would be fine. With 6-8 leads your more likely to have at least 1 lead on 24/7.