aka [MEDx].
Scarlet and her crue had waltzed into Lions Arch and suckerpunched it in the jaw. We all knew it was coming. The buildup of Season 1 was leading to it. Sadly, we also had a pretty good idea what its reception was going to be like.
It was a typical time in meta-game terms. Farming for champ bags and watchwork boxes was the activity of the day, and Get Mine First was the rule. This was visible most during the emergency response events. Ostensibly players would coordinate to shut down cells of Scarlets followers all over a particular map, eventually defeating enough of each faction to garner a greater overall reward; in reality, too many players clustered on a few cells, overscaling them to generate champions and champ bags, and left the rest scrambling to cover for their lost power output. Generally, they failed.
The Escape from Lions Arch was more of the same. Too many players in too few spots, doing nothing but going after champ bags while the city turned to hell around them. If you wanted drops, there were plenty of vastly overleveled enemies to make it a painful (but possibly worthwhile) slog. If you wanted to stand around the map exit, do nothing, and get paid for it at the end of the event, ANet obliged you with a couple loot sacks based on everyone else’s performance. If you were after achievements, well, you were screwed if you showed up after the second day; support from fellow players was minimal. If you wanted to experience frustration and despair, GAME ON!
Also, this was back before the megaserver was instituted. With the Marionette, many players guested over to the larger servers in hopes of finding success when their home servers couldn’t put together a decent fighting force. This also happened during EfLA, which allowed you to choose your mode of failure: with lots of people not helping you, or no one around to help you at all! The standout exceptions here were the guilds of TTS and TxS – the Anti-Tequatl gangs that took large-scale fighting seriously. Unfortunately, they also had a reputation for being insular and not particularly helpful to the playerbase at large.
After several days of being on the wrong side of this Prisoner’s Dilemma, Uranium Lobster became fed up. He sent out a call on Reddit for like-minded individuals who were interested in reversing the body count. His mission was to form a team running counter to the farming zerg, escorting civilians and pushing for a better experience for everyone in the server.
The initial run was small – seven heroes standing between the slithering, gibbering, screaming and clanking hordes and the cowering unarmed citizens of LA. This meager band was still able to add two hundred hapless civvies to the ranks of the rescued. Each iteration brought in more members, and the successes began to stretch higher. 800. 1000. 1200. There were enough players wanting to join the MEDx banner that they could have commandeered an overflow of their own, but instead they spread out their numbers over 3-4 servers so that more people could benefit. Before the day was out, they had established a European branch and reached the 1500 saved milestone that was eluding everyone except #1 server Blackgate and the aforementioned Tequatl guilds.
The atmosphere within the guild was pure enthusiasm. Rather than grumble about a lack of cooperation, [MEDx] set out to make a difference, and they saw the impact immediately. Following the parameters of the event actually helped one to feel they were accomplishing something heroic for a change, as opposed to being a glorified bounty hunter or monster killer – that much ballyhooed feeling of immersion (emotional investment) that players like to talk about but never really seem to understand. And after the first day, “Is [MEDx] here?” became a common call. With LA Search and Rescue on the scene, other players knew they wouldn’t need to stress out too much in pursuing objectives throughout the warzone; friendly coverage was usually near-to-hand, and even if they couldn’t contribute a lot to the rescue effort, someone had their backs.
Shortly after the fall of LA, [MEDx] fell apart. The central mission fulfilled, the individual members returned to their other guilds to assault Scarlet’s minions, never really looking back. Today, with Lions Arch rising from its ashes, I look back at that two week period with a sense of pride I haven’t really felt since. Yes, it was all virtual; I didn’t really save 500 grandmothers, a handful of charr, or enough children to fill a few schools. But we came together and made a difference during a particularly difficult segment of the game. Not too many guilds get to say that.
Here’s to Uranium Lobster. Maybe we’ll be called together again.
tl;dr [MEDx] represent