The Herald's Guild Wars AB Marathon The Herald ('Luke' to his mum) attempts a 24 hour none stop Alliance Battle marathon on Guild Wars. Attempted being the word though... The Night Before Luke Guild Wars news! Put out a warning to the rest of the Guild (well, Alliance, Tom's getting this message too) I'm going to do something REALLY stupid tomorrow. I'm going to do an all day Alliance Battle marathon. When I get up I'm going to buy all the supplies I need from Alde, then play right through. Using multiple characters (I'm going to prepare 2 more tonight) to help keep it, I'm going to just go nuts. It will be made into an article, with pictures of in game and the state I'm in, all are welcome to jump in and help keep me going/point and laugh. FOR THE GLORY OF THE OGC ALLIANCE! Mike Put it up on OGChat and then see a doctor maybe? Luke Doctor schmoctor. What do they know? I'll put it on but I'm AFK in the run up to work. Luke Can you tell Simon, and by extension OGC Leeds, what I'm up to? I don't have his number :p Charlie Lol c u tomoz The Next Day Luke 1pm GMT is zero hour. I'm getting my first meal and going the toilet at my own pace, then going for 24 hours. Mike Oh dear... What was I thinking? To be fair, the original plan was to just play all day long which I DID manage to pull off. The problems started when I was running around telling everyone it would be a 24 hour marathon. Things didn't quite go that well... which I'll get on to shortly. Sorry to anyone I disappointed but it was a good run and considering it was a snap decision made the night before I didn't do too badly, even if I did manage to burn out before the full target. I plan to redeem myself in January with a similar stunt but this one will actually be PLANNED. My planning for this extended all the way too "Hey! No work tomorrow, I just had a great idea what to do too!" and I was even less prepared for how tiring the game would be. Staying up is easy, but repeating the same thing over and over ground me down more then I was expecting. All I had to do was sit down and click, that should have been easy dammit! On with the article. Supplies Oh God no.... £20.02p in Alde, plus £1.09p in B&M Bargains because I forgot toilet roll. My housemate SJ also came to the rescue with a sandwich and scone brought back from work to help keep me going. But all these supplies and the idea of sealing myself in my room to play a MMORPG seemed strangely familiar. Has anyone seen that South Park episode Make Love, Not Warcraft? There where even cheesy poofs! The Multiple Personality Disorder of OGC My usual handle for them there internets is The Herald of OGC (in various internet friendly grammatical anomalies) and this translated into The Herald Of Ogc on Guild Wars, my primary PvE character. I didn't use them in the event, although I was going to for a photo opportunity but I burned out before I had the chance. The suspense getting to anyone yet? No? Not even a little? :( Meh, even if it was you could just scroll down to the results. Anyway, But once I started making new characters, I started making them all The <something> of OGC to the point where I have filled all eight of my standard slots with split personalities of OGC. I now refer to them as a whole as The MPD of OGC. In the end I ran three PvP only characters. From left to right; The Warden of OGC, a Shrine Taker Elementalist. The Temp of OGC, a Minion Master Necromancer (I have a PvE MM, but they aren't lvl 20 so a made the 'Temp' to stand in :p The Judge of OGC, a Smiting Prayers Monk I've dubbed the Judge build in a fit of ego. Since this article alone is getting quite large and image heavy, I'll write separate articles about these characters and their builds for the site with the full eight to make an appearance over time. The Temp of OGC and a temporary character James/Laharl made to try out Guild Wars are being deleted to make way for two more MPD's of OGC so the full final roster will run The Herald, The Warden, The Envoy, The Defender, The Necro, The Judge, The Scourge, and The Ninja of OGC. That should keep me busy for a while and flesh out the Guild Wars side of the site a bit. The Honour Roll Those Who Stood With Me There was a fair turnout out of the Alliance to keep me company. From the Ogc Guild Mike as Shepherd Brandon (Mo/Rt) and James as Kiku Fujiyabashi, (A/Me) and the head of the White Dragon Elite Guard Tom as Jimbo Burn (E) all kept me company. Tom's Shrine Taker Elementalist (he can normally be found as Kolgrim Deathsythe) Mike, James, and another Assassin dancing. The Warden not dancing, anyone who has seen a male Ele dance will know why. Me, Mike, and a mostly minion pile of Kurzicks pushing the Luxons off an Ancestral Lands res shrine. Those numbers flying all over the place show a Shrine Taker Ele in action. Individually small they add up to one hell of a DPS per second, with interrupts, off multiple AoE spells.  Me, James and a, er, Flamingo(!) in action. Brave Allies I played with a wide range of team mates. Some good, some who could do with some practice in Alliance Battles (capture shrines already!), and there where a lot of characters out there. Honor Isnt Black stood out on the battlefield and was a wiseass off it deciding The Warden of OGC = The Wizard of Oz (is that a compliment, or a really clever burn...?) and there was Rip Pvp, the Paragon who went into battle with their armour off then found out they can't put it back on until they went back to an outpost (so sorry I didn't get a picture of that :p they where doing really well nekkid too). But three people I played with made an impact. A special mention to these three who played on the same team of four as me.  Astalavista Babay [PoP], who played for a long time. They did really well as an Assassin that actually remembered they where supposed to kill people and got by with an all Factions skill bar. I was going to put their skill list up but can't access it properly so sorry Astalavista, but I'll be coming back to mention you in a later article when I put together my PvE Assassin runner The Ninja of OGC. Karim De Baabec [HMF], the quiet Wammo who actually turned out to be a good Warrior and not just a bad Monk (if you don't know the difference, you're probably the bad kind of W/Mo everyone makes jokes about). I was jumping the gun a little when I wrote "Let the whammo go first, there may be traps" over the Guild speak channel. They also came with an impressive Defender of the Kurzicks (7) title.  Caleb the Healer, who I forgot get a picture of but had a great time playing with. They're on my friends list now and they played with me when I was giving The Judge of OGC a trail by fire. They liked the smiting build enough to ask for it themselves, and as Caleb said we made a great good Monk/bad Monk team. Worthy Foes There where some great Luxon players out there, and some great Luxon teams who managed to give me a sound kicking, but unfortunately I didn't spend much time jotting their names down or taking pictures of them as we were far too busy trying to kill each other. One person got themselves noticed above all others for making me laugh out loud though. Tescumseh The Giant, was real fun to play against. While I may take some time to exchange insults and compliments where they are due before and after battles I had more fun exchanging dumb insults in the middle of the battle then with the actual game. He gets my Luxon of the Marathon award for standing out so much. No picture though, I was too busy trying to set him on fire as The Warden of OGC :p Some friendly (and possibly banworthy) banter at the start of a battle. Now, finally.... The Statistics Also known as what actually happened. First of all, the time. I was going to attempt a full 24 hours. I failed. I instead managed a total time of: 17 hours and 18 minutes I managed to get into the eighteenth hour of none stop Alliance battles but just burned out and could go no further. I was one more game away from another faction transfer, and the third rank of the Kurzick title track, and could just not go on. Not even for that last battle I needed to round everything off. I wouldn't say I was ashamed, it is only a game after all, but I am a little disappointed. Like I said at the start though, I plan to redeem myself this January and there will actually be some planning involved next time. Keep your eyes pealed, your ears open, and log into the OGChat forum to keep up to date with it. The redeemer is going to be good... At the start of the session, the Alliance had 153,675 Alliance Faction. While I wasn't the only one to add Faction that day, everyone in the Those Who Stood With Me section put at least one transfer through, I managed to add a total of 60,000 Faction. Including 10% Faction loss and three other contributors the Alliance ended on 230,808 Faction. Before and after the marathon. Alliance Battles Played Won Lost Deep Kurzick 18 13 5 Shallow Kurzick 27 18 9 Neutral 10 6 4 Total 55 37 18 Kurzick Luxon Greatest Victory 506 78 Worst Defeat 229 508 Closest Match 493 500 An Evolution of the Map The marathon started in Deep Kurzick and I spent the day and night helping push the border back. I think it had just changed to shallow Luxon (my favourite map) when I just had enough. I may be wrong though because I was pretty delusional by this point. Anyway, I would have liked to have taken the fight all the way to their doorstep but at least I helped drag it all the way back from the worst I had ever seen it. I take full credit, of course :p Battle! As a little bonus for anyone who squinted their way through the maps, here is a random collection of some of the battle cries I'm guilty of from over the course of the Marathon. Ranging from the offensive, to the actually funny, to the just plain stupid. * Die Turtleshaggers! * Your grandfather smells like elderberries! * I find your manner mildly offensive. Prepare to limp! * WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO THAT TURTLE!!! * Tonight, we dine in McDonald's! * FOR PONY! * It's over nine thousaaaaaaaaaaaand! * Kurzickstan is greatest nation on Cantha! I'll be back... Another marathon of even dumber proportions will be held in January next year (still working on that) and the builds from the assorted MPD of OGC will start making an appearance as articles. Until then, I'll see you around on Guild Wars! Good gaming everyone, even you Luxon's ;p