Train to ZoneFollow

ok people, come on. Give me all the stories an crazy trains you've seen..and experienced =-).

You'd think he'd have learned the first time... ;)


You know. I've seen some goodly trains on raids, but for some reason they don't stick in my head as much (wiping to "goofs" is common enough that they tend to blur after awile). Honestly, my most memorable train wasn't on a raid, but going to a stupid little "quick kill". It was the burrower cycle in AC a couple years ago IIRC. Easy right? Not far from zonein. Not terribly hard. Just one of those targets of opportunity you take out as part of a raid day (or at least used to back then). Well. I somehow got separated from the group heading in. And for some bizaaro reason I'd mixed up which caves we were heading into. I had this strong mental image of the entrance to the caves being this short little run past some mobs. To this day, I don't know what caves I was thinking about, but basically I ran in past some mobs, turned a corner expecting to hit a zoneline and ran into... more caves. It was just one of those total mental blanks where I suddenly couldn't remember where I was supposed to be going or how to get there (no maps then either!). I was used to just navigating by memory but just brain farted.


Needless to say, I managed to make every single wrong turn trying to "remember" the correct route to the zonein. All the while with a growing horde of grimlings running after me. Eventually, I did get my bearings and find the zonin, but by then pretty much everyone around had cleared out, seeing and knowing the massive train I had behind me. When I finally did zone in, there was a crowd of people all kinda standing around laughing at me. The funniest thing was that they were just low enough level to not be a "huge" threat, but still high enough that if I'd stopped, I could potentially be in trouble. Most of the people actually hunting in the caves would have been anhilated by the train, but I managed to take soooo much time running around in circles inside those caves that everyone had plenty of time to get out of the way.

Wasn't the most dangerous train, but was by far the longest in duration (and most embarassing!). Good times...

One that sticks in my mind was in Crushbone with my druid, circa level 14 or 15 or so.

Grouped in the throne room, late at night, group we getting ready to log shortly.

Had the TR cleared out at the moment, then I decided out of sheer curiosity to take a peek through that door behind the throne.

At the sime time I realized this was a mistake, a new spawn cycle popped up in the TR itself.

SoW, don't fail me now, I just BOOKED man. Right past my perplexed groupmates, D'Vinn breathing down my neck and by now I have picked up about 3 leggos or so.

Out through the door.. heart beating like a drum because I am so worried about falling into that hole by the castle door, knowing that if that happened now it's curtains. I make it out the door and run along the wall, having picked up a few more leggos and emissaries on the way out.

I whirl around as I get down near the end of the wall and I see what is the biggest train I personally have ever SEEN in all my time playing EQ. D/Vinn, Emperor Crush (2 fabled mobs at the same time, I had never seen them both up before) plus a whole host of Legionaires, Emisaries, and few Centurians thrown in for good measure.. over 10-12 mobs easy.

Hit Num-Lock so I can auto-run.. thinking if there ever was a train that people would appreciate being warned about, this was it. Curiousity kept wanting to get me to look back, but I knew better.

No matter how hard I tried, I messed up the /ooc train to zone message every time...whether forgetting to press enter so I am not typing... typing "ooc" without the "/".. because I am all nervous I never get it right until finally right as I am heading intothe zone tunner I manage an "/ooc train".. short but too the point.

As I pass by I see a whole group sitting by the zone line medding... I can imagine what it mustve looked like.. because they all zoned so fast, they hit the zone before I did actually...

Right before I get to the zone line, I have about 40 percent health left and I have been sowed the whole time so I am probably at least a few yards ahead, (I can't help that curiosity) so I stop just for a second and turn around... I see what I can honestly say is the largest congregation of mobs I have ever personaly seen in EQ is coming around the corner.. bigger train than I had ever seen in blackburrow in the olden days. I press my down arrow and step backwards through the zoneline with feet to spare.

I am actually not to bad off, but I know if one of those mobs had landed a hit on me and stunned me, at least my death would have been quick and painless.

My groupmates somehow ended up right outside the castle over to the left by the bridges, without having much aggro at all. They told me they had to fight off a few centurians that peeled off my train, but for the most part the mobs followed me. /shrug

That is the one train that sticks in my mind... I have seen afew doozies in Unrest, too....

J/A

I remember gimping people through Vxed trials, where the quest mob was spawned, but couldn't be bothered to re-clear to the top. So would train everything from top of Vxed down past ZI and up around. Rinse, repeat to clear everything and just keep running.

Eventually had it down to a fine art... and then it wasn't required for the KT flag anymore /sigh.

Ash

When it happened... Soule - Cazic-Thule - 49monk
Currently... Ssoulle - Stromm - 70monk

2001,A misty night in.. erm.. Mistmoore, the castle. I decided i needed a bit of fun. I made my way thru the graveyard, up the stairs, through the halls, until i reached Mayong Mistmoore's old spot point, i the tower near zone in.

I FD'd and went to the bathroom, got stuffz to eat. Came back the zone was empty except for 3 lvl 20-25s killing at the zone line.

My evilness kicked in and i decide i would agro the 4 mobs around me. I jumped off the bridge after agroing. The mobs proceeded to run the distance of the zone. Through the WHOLE castle. Agroing basically the whole castle/pit/GY and all came to meet me...

I had a total of 150-200 mobs when they got to me, i kited them around the tower and lake at zone line to allow time for others to catch up. I FD'd and they killed the group faster than Overlord mata'muram on a lvl 1 high elven chanter...

So, 150-200mob, top that...

Worst one is one that I pulled. The entire Vine Ring in earth aggroed while I was pulling a trash mob from beside the ring to make splits easier. One from the first wave was in camp and being killed guess the trash mob I had in tow was just in aggro range of the ring when it died because all 12 level 68 mobs came with him. I FDed on the ramp but a bard song hit me one second too soon. Damn it sucked watching everyone drop within 10 seconds. I felt so bad about that for a couple weeks after.

Another would be that same night in Earth when a 46 alt was running in to loot some piece of the random gear that drops off group nameds in zone while we were clearing to another ring and invis dropped. They got to the raid as we were doing a ring. Don't remember which, but it was nasty. We got about 20 of them dead/locked down but the mobs just kept coming. People held out as best they could, but in the end they just overwhelemed the raid with the sheer numbers and steady flow of mobs. It was like something out of a nightmare. Whoever pulled that train deserves a medal, but to this day it is unknown who was responsible.

level caps never been 55, ever

Trains mean different things to different people. If we agree that the broadest definition is "an enormous number of mobs following a PC", then we are still left with what makes them memorable. Heck, some people pull by training.

By far, the most memorable period in my EQ career was long before PoK books or the "ghetto gate" of lowbies under 10th. A friend and I decided that the stumpy, old, squat-block-of-muscle ogres would make the best tank and shaman for our friend's group of goody-goody elves, dwarves and humans. So, we did what any two 2nd level ogres would do... we ran.

We learned about the agro radius of jungle spiders before we even left the Feerott. Eventually, we even made 3rd level just killing singles while we waited for each other to gate back from dying, naked and laughing.

Then, along the zone edge in Innothule, where we learned to high-side a zone because the mobs seldom pathed up the edges. We ran, screaming like Fear Factor (tm) wash-outs, from the big, nasty alligators but we could generally make it across to South Desert of Ro.

Ah, South Ro... yes, such a treat. Not too wide, but like its Northern counterpart, tall as the Kael Drakkel basketball team. Many people used to hunt there... looking for some boots or something... we asked An Ancient Cyclops about 'em, but he just squished us.

Skipping ahead through the Oasis of Marr, where we learned about boats (and spectres) and how mobs don't consider the shoreline the "edge of the zone". Yeah, I don't thing even LDoN made as many naked folks run to Oasis as we racked up in those days.

Anyway, the real fun started in Northern Ro. After our first successful crossing to Freeport, we died to guards. Some kindly soul witnessed our deaths and told us about the secret path under Freeport to get to the docks. So, when we finally succeeded in getting back to North Ro (see above), we just sorta followed the left zone line like he told us.

Wow... look at all the toons in this tunnel! East Commonlands was like Plane of Knowledge and Shadow Haven, rolled into one. However, we were only 3rd level, so very few people would talk to us (much like Plane of Knowledge and Shadow Haven), and we were forced to simply continue into Freeport.

Blah blah blah, secret tunnel full of evils, blah blah blah... Yeah, I KNOW there's a PoK book there now and everybody and their pet knows about it but it was soooo cool back then. Sneaking through to the docks, jumping into the water and swimming out to get picked up as the boat (yes, the boat) pathed over you. Either that or big sharks ate you, depending on your timing.

Well, even those of you, like me, with an American public school education that rendered you "geography-challenged" know the rest of the path because, unlike American public school, you were challenged by EQ and have studied the maps. So, to review, boat to OoT, then Kaladim docks. <shudder> Oh, and we had to jump off the boat before it docked and swim for it.

Kaladim=worst place in Norrath for ogres. Let's review our tactics, so far. Follow the zone edge? Nope. Can't... too many "mountains" (actually rigid barriers that extend to the sky, preventing even eagles from crossing). Which leaves...

Yup, you guessed it. We ran. It was in this zone, so many years ago, that I discovered that jumping increases your movement rate. We began to race each other in the old "I don't have to outrun the dwarves, I just have to outrun you" bit. The dwarves would keep coming, of course, but they would pause to spit on the corpse of whoever died first. The goal was so close now, the prize, our destiny.

Ghetto Fay. Ahhh... the outdoor zone that you can bind in. We had arrived. Our friends flocked about us in amazement and wonder. Even the bigger, better equipped ogres wandering about fearlessly paused to congratulate us on arriving safely at such a young age. We were 3rd level when we got bound in Greater Faydark.

But this thread is about trains, right? What does all of the above have to do with trains? Well, aside from the fact that our "run" tactic resulted in many of them, which we tried to announce... nothing. Until the dark elves showed up, that is.

Like I said earlier, we were here to protect our softer, fairer friends from the big bad orcs that we would have to kill for weeks and weeks to gain experience and loot. Our gamble paid off, orcs went down like <edit>... <blush>, er... uh... well, that is, they fell faster than wheat before a reaper. We treated Orc Hill like kittie litter. Then, in wanders a party of dark elf "griefers". They start killing mobs right out from under us, make some lame excuses about "factioning" and devolve into swearing and "l33t sp33k" insults about us "n3wbs". In a prophetic remark, one of them actually said "what are you going to do, call the cops?" So we did.

Iandurie and Grishnak, our valiant ogres, "called the cops". Did I mention that the griefers were dark elves? Yep, you got it. We trained every guard in Kelethin right on top of 'em. Apparently, unlike us... they weren't bound in Greater Faydark.




Edited, Thu May 19 21:40:51 2005 by TerakhanTheDragon

no it wasnt 8(

Original EQ was 50, Kunark brought it to 60, PoP to 65 and OOW to 70.

This would have to be kurn's tower. I am lvl 59, and I pull trains in kurns to get bone chips. I pulled from all over the zone except the lower basement, and then pulled them to in front of the Zoneline. The train of greenies was so large and powerfull, that it was taking me down about 10% a tick. I then did the furious discipline (all riposte). I then killed almost all of the train in 6 seconds. I finished off the stragglers and collected my 254 bone chips.

I nominate the most impressive train I've ever seen....

This happened in the Plane of Tactics. A full group was fighting in the pit - when we were run over by a STAMPEDE of boars! 20 to be exact... somehow, I SURVIVED it (thanks to being in a corner of the hallway and their small aggro range). Yes, I was able to count them. I had Gate memorized and was ready to cast it when I realized that they hadn't seen me. Once the pigs had wandered off, I started rezzing the group, beginning with the other cleric. I might have a screenshot - it's on my old computer though (upgraded 3½ months ago).

Honorable mention: Same character. Plunging into The Hole (accidently fell in) and SURVIVING... at level 7 (cast Divine Aura immediately after zoning in from Paineel - it held). Was able to Gate out.

Sanmaren Emong, gnomish cleric
Legends of Westwood (guild I was in at the time)
Xev server (ceased to exist as of today - now Druzzil Ro)

No way I regularly pulled MM for faction ae the entire zone for RoS faction for new VP quest and there isn't that many mobs in MM. I would say around 70 or so no more then 100 at max.