I will share with you a memoir of my LAN days with some folks who were as crazy as me when it came to Ragnarok Online, when everyone would come over to my small apartment, in a 4º floor, with barely enough room for all of us with portable chairs and tables, and myriad of connectors so we all could connect our computers.
LONG STORY
(Some might not understand everything explained here: first of all, SHAME ON YOU :P, secondly, I shall be glad to answer any doubt if it helps to better understand it).
We friggin' loved the game (I still do, to this day, and still look for a server to play) but we had very specific requirements for servers or it was a no-go for most of us. This could be considered a "blood ritual" since anyone suggesting something beyond these standards was thoroughly trashed in PvP room.
Server must have a cap of 99 maximum level and 70 job level, maximum 195 attack speed value, no custom items, just those from original international ragnarok online database,no more than x100 on experience and skill gains, no more than 2% card drop rates but never below 1%, it was a must to have active Wars of Emperium (castle conquest modes that consist on breaking a crystal called Emperium to own the castle: whoever owns it at the end of the war keeps it for a whole week) during hours that would fit our Spanish schedule of studies and work.
And
we found it. Right before summer break, at that: we had the whole summer to enjoy it thoroughly!
10 dudes showed up on a brand new server day 1: 10 dudes that powerleveled to max level and job in a single afternoon and geared like madmen: A Lord Knight, A Paladin, two Biochemists (I was one of them), a Whitesmith, a Professor, a High Wizard, a High Priest, a Gunslinger and a Minstrel. Just picture a group of hard-arsed, mean looking veterans.
We picked the classes we'd start with and focus on, to cover as many areas as possible during War of Emperium Castle defences and make our slice of heaven impregnable, unassailable once we broke through. With our experience and coordination, Wars where glorious to play.
We ruled for weeks: War after war, we emerged victorious with minimal effort from all conflicts: A flag consisting of a black background, and a pirate-looking banana wielding a knife was ever waving on our walls at Kriemhild Castle.
We had fun, felt like kings. WE WERE KINGS.
And out of the blue, one day, a new guy showed up. Introduced himself on the forums, then showed up in Prontera.
HARDCORE was his name across all his characters, and HARDCORE was the name of his guild: he was alone, made the guild himself and put all his characters there, and with multi-boxing disabled, he was merely a 1-man-army.
Hardcore Lord Knight showed up right before our (soon to be) last War of Emperium, greeted everyone at the gates, and entered.
It was insane. Nobody ever went to parties with him, nobody that we knew (most by that time) talked to him, but he was geared as crazy, with stuff with 8,9 armor parts and a +10 (max refinement) weapon. Guy dived at us straightforward, pumped Berserk (doubles HP, maxes out attack speed, can't use skills) and mincemeat all 10 of us and the other guys that had the misfortune of being around him.
Searched some videos but this is the close it gets: Imagine something like this cavalry demon coming at you, with almost no reaction time in narrow pathways and stairs inside the castle and hearing those thud noises while seeing everyone drop flat in a second. Wizard and Minstrel could not freeze him, Gunslinger couldn't disarm him, Biochemists could not burn his gear with acid bombs or kill him by detonating our homunculus pets near him...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yb2Wjsib9fA Long story short: Some dude in clad in black armor and sunglasses broke in, killed everyone and then broke the emperium. From that point onwards, he sat on the portal entering the emperium room and killed everyone that teleported in with a skill that revealed invisibles [Sight], should a sneaky Assassin or Stalker slip through.
War of Emperium ended with Hardcore Lord Knight being the sovereign of
Kriemhild, Prontera (capital, main city) Castle.
My guild members could not believe it: got mad, blamed each other, and such a discussion broke out that they packed things, left my house and left the server altogether. They never played Ragnarok Online again.
Best days of my life playing Ragnarok Online ended that day with my guild's desertion in face of a single monster. LAN parties with our group fell apart that day as well, never to return.
Hardcore, I don't know what's been of you, but I remember your Lord Knight, you magnificent bastard. RO is just not the same since I (We) met you.
I do not know if this qualifies, but I certainly feel that this is a gaming memory to share and definitely my best gaming summer to this day.
TL;DR Buddies and I played an old as hell pvp based mmo, thought we were awesome, some random dude appeared and teared us a new one single-handedly so hard that my team ragequit and left the game for good. P.S: Apologies for a wall of text.
EDIT: Grammar, terms, basically fixing stuff.
