so i finally got a chance to hook up with nom and opti in game, for the first time in like a month.
we were milling around, i didn't want to drag everyone on a quest that i should be doing, solo and opti decided we should do raeta's necklace. had one that pandy gave me when i first started, and i gave it to a guy who had issues with healing. this was going to be easy, except that the tumerok dude had moved to a new location. that meant wandering around until we finally broke down and checked maggies to do the stupid quest. once we found him it was smooth sailing. we were at least 50 levels higher than all of the mosters in the dungeon, and we had a level 126 mage, so we were proabably pretty safe there.
then we had the brilliant idea to do the refulgent bracelet quest, only with two twists:
1) i would lead the quest
2) i would not have any preparation, not even knowing the name of the quest
so we set off for the plateau with crimson hellkite in tow, a level 100+. this puts us at 1 level 51, one level 56, one level 100+ and opti who is like level 140. we need to find the cultist shrine to begin the quest. this proved to be a challenge in itself since i can never find any sort of random spawn EVER.
so after wandering around for an hour the four of decide to split into two teams, one 50somethign matched with one 100something. this is cool, and rath and i continue our search. as we are racing about, more and more critters becgin chasing us and the lag is building up. soon i make a wrong turn and rath and i are separated. the entire plateau is chasing me now, including swarm nobles and other nasties. i get to a cliff of somce kind and i jump. since i survived, i figured i hadn't jumped off the plateau. as soon as i get free, ki and opti say they have found the shrine.
all i need to do is find a way round the mountains that i jumped off of and rejoin the group. after like 30 minutes of trying to find a way back up i figure that i had in fact jumped off the plateau and lived to tell the tale. now the big buffs that opti put on me are gone, and i have to recall to the lifestone and make the run to the plateau drop from rithwic.
to save time, since the whole group has been waiting for a half hour on me, i decide to just run to the coords for the shrine unbuffed. this isn't as crazy as it sounds since he has a set of 350 al bug armor and i wasn't planning on standing still. i came running for the group and right into a pack of eviscerators. with 4 of them on my my last use of me healing kit went and i ate it less than a click from the shrine.
so opti meets me at the platue drop and buffs me, i grab my bod and head for the shrine and we are inside within minutes, no thanks to me.
then we run around for hours trying to figure out the doors and crap. we finally just give up and log out right there, vowing to continue the next night.
the next night is even worse punishment. we can't find a missing phase of the lever hell, and ki and i both die at least once apiece. for some stupid reason i kept going... it was utterly miserable.
so cool as it is to "lead" (i wouldn't call it leading so much as being the final word on where the scrambling should be done) i think i would rahter just support a well run, and thruoughly prepared quest. and i won't be doing any quests i can't solo for some time.