Can we trolls complain now?

[Quesci]

It's like getting conquered by the French - we the trolls, the hands down toughest race on Norath, have been tossed out by @#$% fishing bait?!?!?!?

It might mot have made much sense that Trolls were defeated by frogs, but there is plenty of precedent in human history. Think of all the heavily populated warrior peoples who were defeated by smaller numbers of invaders.

Trolls suffered from tribal infighting -- think Scottish clans being defeated by the pale Englishmen. In lots of cases, tribes that we think of as nearly identical saw themselves are completely different. Think of how many Native American tribes helped the early Americans against rival tribes, without realizing that they were next.

Frogloks have clerics. I know that Trolls are tough and have dark magic and healers, but they don't have clerics. No clerics means no resurrections. You can call clerics a "technological advantage." Note that the races with clerics are the "civilized" ones. The Ogres and Iksar fell back from a higher civilization. Barbarians are, well, barbarous. And the Wood Elves are living alongside their more refined siblings in Felwithe. There are hundreds of examples of a high tech invader defeating a larger nation of fierce warriors -- look at the colonialization of Africa, for many.

Frogloks had a GOD directly involved in the fight. While Innoruuk and Cazic Thule were watching with glee, Mithaniel Marr was actively helping the Frogloks in their invasion. Think of the Spanish conquistadors versus the Aztecs. While it isn't really parallel, the Aztecs thought that the Spaniards were gods and thus basically allowed themselves to be conquered. Obviously I am not saying that a god was directly involved, but the Aztecs gave up their civilization because they believed.

So, suck it up, Cigarskunk. You can compare yourself to some of the toughest, fiercest warriors in history who were also thrown out and living like refugees.

[Cigarskunk]

Cigarskunk, switch to gnomes. Tastes great, lessing filling.

No good - me's on the Addkill diet - not permitted tah eats gnomes - too many carbs.

[Grenoble]

Gnomes leave a metallic aftertaste, too. All that tinkering, I guess.

[KyrosKrane]

I've been following Cigar's story (and his complaint about getting kicked out of Grobb) with some interest. Earlier today, I was browsing some sites on a completely unrelated tangent when I came across this image of a book in the game:

http://www.1stfistoflight.com/~fol/public_html/codex/images/tartonswheelbook4.jpg

I'm not sure what the book is about, but it sounds like it's describing a research combine. At any rate, I thought Cigar would be interested in the left page (page 7). It indicates that this is in fact the second time that the frogs (or someone) have kicked the trolls out of a home. The place being described (the "well of water / upside down") sounds like the Hand room in Lower Guk.

For reference, the page I found this at is:

http://www.1stfistoflight.com/~fol/public_html/codex/

It's chapter 14, The Secrets of Tarton's Wheel.

In the intro, the author writes, "On Page 7 of the book gives a clue about the war of the Teir'Dal against the Trolls in their search for Truthbringer, and the battle that ended Nalikor and sent Guk to ruin." (sic)

I'll read up some more of this later on and see if I can figure out whether it was the frogs, or whether they simply moved in afterwards.

On a separate note, the author of that site claims that a whopping 3/4 of the quests in EQ have never been completed even once, and he suggests there may be alternate ways of completing known quests (such as epics) that don't require guild-sized raids to complete.

Something to think about.

[Quesci]

This quest is for the wizard "mini-epic" Staff of the Wheel (10/100, 10 int, 10 mana, 10 hp). It can be completed by wizards in their early 20s nowadays (and I'm sure someone will come and say that they did it when they were 5 or something...) but when I was growing up it was a challenge at 30. You have to collect 10 ground spawn rods from watery resting places across the world and combine them into Tarton's Wheel, which is handed in for the Staff of the Wheel. I carried it until I got my epic.

The Ena rod is indeed found in Lower Guk in the Reanimated Hand room. It wasn't too hard to get solo, but that was back when a level 1 could walk from one end of the dungeon to the other unmolested and the lifespan of a frog was measured in seconds. Back when 100 people in the zone was an ordinary Friday night. Nowadays it would be harder.

[Itzena]

Be very careful if you're using 1FoL as a reference for EQ Lore - it's a mix of actual (SOE/Verant released) lore, fanfiction masquerading as lore, and the 1FoL guildleader's ideas of how EQ should be (i.e. extremely non-canon).

[Cigarskunk]

It might mot have made much sense that Trolls were defeated by frogs, but there is plenty of precedent in human history. Think of all the heavily populated warrior peoples who were defeated by smaller numbers of invaders.

True, but there are also plenty of examples of high tech invaders and civilisations getting romped by the primatives.

In the ancient world, it was just as often the barbarian tribes as it was a neighbor of equal strength and tech that brought down an empire - think the Romans conquering the Greeks and then the barbarians conquering the Roman Empire.

The Italine army was owned by the Ethopian tribesmen during WW2 even though it was tanks vs spears (most extreme modern example).

Reguarding the book - yes, the official game lore does confirm that Guk used to be a trollish city till the nomadic frogs came along and conquered it - ironically, you've basically got a case of nomads tossing city dwellers out, thus supporting the concept of the primitives being able to handle those with the technology.

[Gargazon]

Cigar, I think you and I will have to take concession in the fact that the frogs couldn't win the fight fairly. They had to have their god come down and fight us for them because they are too weak to do it themselves. Weak and puny, and devoid of the talent to do it on their own. And lazy, way too lazy. Kinda makes you think of the dev team. They SHOULD have created a starting city for the frogs, but they were too lazy, and devoid of talent to do it. (ok, I HAD to, sorry).

Funny thing is, it could have been done SO much better if they had created a new city. For example, the undead tower in the swamp could have been changed to where it became the entrance to an underground froggy city. The undead would have had to have been adjusted/removed, but this would have left 2 rival races sharing city entrances in the same zone. This would have been awesome, imagine how much fun that could be. Little kermit finally drops his tail off and starts bouncing around outside the Gukta they SHOULD have made. /shout TROLL INVASION!!!!!!!! RUN!!!!!!!!!!!

Up run 50 Troll NPC invaders and start whacking the frogs, and of course, the frogs would retaliate and go for Grobb. This would enhance the storyline, add content, add a sense of danger, and would really add focus to innothule swamp and surrounding areas so much more than as newbie zone_09 or whatever. Dynamic (or content with the illusion of being dynamic) content owns.

[Itzena]

It's the trolls' fault for letting some of their number abandon the worship of their creator and starting cults to that jumped-up demigod of pique, anyway.

[Quesci]

True, but there are also plenty of examples of high tech invaders and civilisations getting romped by the primatives.

Of course, but I was trying to make you feel better.

[Cigarskunk]

Cigar, I think you and I will have to take concession in the fact that the frogs couldn't win the fight fairly. They had to have their god come down and fight us for them because they are too weak to do it themselves. Weak and puny, and devoid of the talent to do it on their own. And lazy, way too lazy. Kinda makes you think of the dev team. They SHOULD have created a starting city for the frogs, but they were too lazy, and devoid of talent to do it. (ok, I HAD to, sorry).

LOL - don't forget that in addition to them needing a god to back them up, they still had to wait till after all of the tanks had left in search of the stolen stone - that's why I keep refering to Myth Marr as the wuss god - he's only capable of defeating women and children via surprise attack in the dead of night.

Funny thing is, it could have been done SO much better if they had created a new city. For example, the undead tower in the swamp could have been changed to where it became the entrance to an underground froggy city. The undead would have had to have been adjusted/removed, but this would have left 2 rival races sharing city entrances in the same zone. This would have been awesome, imagine how much fun that could be. Little kermit finally drops his tail off and starts bouncing around outside the Gukta they SHOULD have made. /shout TROLL INVASION!!!!!!!! RUN!!!!!!!!!!![

Up run 50 Troll NPC invaders and start whacking the frogs, and of course, the frogs would retaliate and go for Grobb. This would enhance the storyline, add content, add a sense of danger, and would really add focus to innothule swamp and surrounding areas so much more than as newbie zone_09 or whatever. Dynamic (or content with the illusion of being dynamic) content owns.

Now something like that would be neat as all heck - have a running war between the two that was low key every four hours or so - say 20 low to mid-teen NPCs attack the newby areas and are pathed to all eventually suicide on the enemy guards after 15 minutes or so - then have a dynamic quest that's a smaller version of the Coldain ring war that can be done once every X days (so that no race is constantly getting thier merchants wiped out) with simular progressive rewards along the same lines.

Heck, they could have even made a refuge camp out in the swamp at the tower and then let the two races do the mini-ring war idea indefinately against each other to determine who owns Grobb and who gets stuck in the refugee camp - now something like that I wouldn't mind in the least bit - give me half a chance and I promise the frogs on Xev would never see the inside of Grobb again.