The Forum

[quote="LINNYI"]Following a discussion on Discord post your Esoma memories[/quote]

[quote="R3VERB"]Getting guild mates to blind me while tanking gvw stone so I didn't lagg out from all the magic lol[/quote]

[quote="OMUNRA"]Getting pk'd by luke666 then Whisper turning up (same guild) to only get griefed at the leo circle by luke666 too. 🤣[/quote]

[quote="RENOWN"]Ant666 eating pizza on cam[/quote]

[quote="ZYZZ"]Me and kingofsticks(ohhhh habibi days) dropping fleshtuh at valks then having titans chase us all night ;[[/quote]

[quote="SAPPER"]duping dragon pill at halloween event[/quote]

[quote="CRIXUS"]Bull horn metal event where the gms played devil moral chars, that was fun. Also when someone lured a stige into tyt and it murderized everyone stood at e wh.[/quote]

[quote="FLICKTHEBEAN"]The server going down perminantly and finally feeling i was finally free. #addict[/quote]

[quote="CHICKENLORD"]Pre-level 16 PK mode, when Basil and Constiwoman terrorised the world! I remember seeing Basil in the corner of my screen at raps... heart in my mouth I ran... Constiwoman is the otherside... I run back straight into Basil - 1 hit and I’m down. Basil’s response:“eeeek”. I think that’s all he used to say?? On this topic - are the current Redhearted guild all PKers? It brought back good memories seeing that guild name as the current GV winners. [/quote]

[quote="ALBION"]Genuinely one of my best memories was getting strong enough to hunt trolls. I felt like I spent months at kobs and raps and it was when merc chat was at its peak. This was probably 2003/4. Seeing the 'high levels' (probably about level 35) having pk wars and general banter at trolls made it seem like this magical place. When I finally got there I felt like I had made it. [/quote]

[quote="FOXTRCK"][quote="ALBION"]Genuinely one of my best memories was getting strong enough to hunt trolls. I felt like I spent months at kobs and raps and it was when merc chat was at its peak. This was probably 2003/4. Seeing the 'high levels' (probably about level 35) having pk wars and general banter at trolls made it seem like this magical place. When I finally got there I felt like I had made it. [/quote] They were good times. The game really felt at its best in merc. Trolls were the penultimate mob (aside the odd devil warrior) and hitting that 84 defence was a magical moment lol. The mobs were well spread out but pretty closely tiered, the pace of it was just starting to slow down enough that you was getting involved with PK/PVP and thinking about other things/2nd weapons/INT training. And was starting to really open up to you. The town was in the middle, so it was perfect (the missing north gate was a real pain though). Lots of things going on, the hardcore were already passed merc which mostly left alone casuals, so it was just nice. There was a lot of 'respect' for getting into Banded / Wizard tier of armors, being able to use a staff of wisdom was a "your a good committed mage", let alone Sorcery armor. I cant put my finger on a specific thing that happened for me but I loved being a public crafter and selling my gear for barr or even arguably wasting my time peddling pots to people in Abias and VoD. I had got to a point in my armor crafting where I was sick of making shoes and had stopped skilling, was just insane to carry on even though people like Mugglemind / Joelleski, Cryptochild and a few other "dedicated" crafters seemed to push through to 100 and maybe even 110. So I justified crafting actual items to sell by helping my skill, passively. Ended on around 74 armor skill, which was pretty respectable in Esoma. Still outweighed by talking to some great people. This was back when special repairs didn't exist (for 95% of people if not more?) and so you had an economy of wear and tear on items and things like shaman sets were sold repeatedly, night after night, even brought by the same people. Fairly sure it was said grind stones were rubbish at 70 skill and only at 100 skill did it come close to the success of the blacksmith, still don't know of any truth about that. Anyway. I know its been mocked in recent times about crafters even considering themselves as their own "class" but they kinda of were pigeon holed to be back then and could always be made to be that way again if some thought was put into it, although the game is too fast now to put some of that good stuff back in sadly. I enjoyed playing that role though - but as for training, there was no variety like hunting in Dungeon 2 for hours and I think the other options outside of it were part of what killed my enthusiasm later on in the game because by the time you was done in Dungeon 2 it was a steep incline of difficulty, game wise, especially for spear, which I didn't/don't recommend to train at slower rates/Esoma times. Thankfully skeleton bones and jewels were useful in my crafting and the odd large liver was a bonus. Dungeon 3 being too high a step and really was a "special place" that wasn't for training in, just way too difficult and probably only useful for glory hunting a rare m tag / Dark armor parts.. Still I repeatedly went to the Great Devil Guard and competed against Blacknights (Evil_Ryu and others) mostly for drops, usually to end my training/session for the evening and go back to town before logging off, or even camping back in D2. The lead up / fighting and spawns around GDG were awesome, they were not easy at all and only by going every day did it get a little easier as you got stronger (obviously, he says) and then you start getting the last hits :D I think Titans and Nightblades. Rebirth and other guilds had moved passed it though they occasionally showed up but other wise they trained in VoD. Weird to think that having an M-tag was almost a must have to let you hunt without slowing down / changing weapons to cure/heal and that those tag items had great dura. Really enjoyed bumping into people up and down those floors and contending for the drop. Only when you go to the Dungeon (From D1 and down, not from D3) so many times do you realise how much thought went into it, the theme, music and atmosphere and even layout - combined it is pretty spectacular. And thats the same for other parts of the game of course. Some I still love to do at times, always worth exploring if you havn't bothered, you can learn a lot. Beyond that time, I went to Sand valks, spear really was not the weapon to use in VoD where things like Palus/DF and above just simply hit way way too hard and not more controlled damage like things below them. Anyway, dungeon runs were the best of times, with guildees in Destroyers and other people. (In later years, can hand on heart say Soma was the most brutal of games in terms of lack of drop rates %, difficulty and grind,although Lineage 2 apparently was a lot worse for drops but they did drop 'parts' of weapons as well as the full item. Soma will always occupy a "nice spot" in certain respects that others didn't and I often refer back to it ... not for nostalgia but the game "wasnt too big", wasn't "thousands of people" with meaningless names/faces but 300-800 regulars that churned gradually, was quite homely in that sense. I look back at how there was a lot of different "types of guilds".... crafter guilds.... "RP" guilds (TheBlackRose,Harem), PVP/PK guilds and then just regular guilds that were just plain "PVE" because competing for GVW was 99% fruitless... but you was free to compete and no one took it personally or took it outside of GVW, in fact guild wars were prevalent to settle things. Was mostly pretty sporting. And they took place sometimes in TYT which was awesome to watch. A common pvp spell outside of SS/LS was the fire flute one (before WoTW patch) as well. There was every type of player in the game that the game allowed for and it had a great community.) [/quote]

[quote="BLIGHT"]Getting all ma bros devil bloods due to quitting when his soma girlfriend killed him in merc arena and broke up with him lolol.[/quote]

[quote="CH0PS"]Getting the fake magic hat at the Halloween event with evil brics[/quote]

[quote="CHOJINE"]Joining Genesis and hunting DF with sabre when he did int.[/quote]

[quote="LINNYI"][quote="CHOJINE"]Joining Genesis and hunting DF with sabre when he did int.[/quote] And meeting me lol [/quote]