Tales of Hyboria

[droch-aon]

Hello Exiles, Have you a fun story to tell about your adventures, but didn’t capture it for posterity?
Well here you can share with the rest of us anything you thought was fun or amusing.

Only a few rules

No naming names, or calling people out. Changing the names to protect the other people involved in the story, is Ok.

No Hacks or exploits, All straight up honest fun. No Cheat stories. except where the cheater got what was coming to them. DO NOT tell HOW to do a cheat EVER.

(if you know a cheat or exploit, tell funcom through proper channels so it can be patched)

No Casting of Blame on others, whether reagonial, social, or any other.

This is for fun, so keep things civil.

I’ll start things off.

I was playing on testlive and things had been slow, I hadn’t seen another player in a while.
I built a small outpost, to test making it difficult to raid with explosive jars. The outpost had a few benches, a few T3 crafters, I don’t bother with less than T3, a T4 blacksmith, an Entertainer and a bed, that’s all. I logged out in this outpost.

When I came back someone had raided me using a trebuchet.
Testlive had no raid restriction or ping limit.

I was feeling kinda down, and thought about just letting it slide. But I remembered something my Grandmother said, A proud Scottish woman she was, she was fond of quoting the Motto of the Black Watch “Nemo Me Impune Lacessit” (No one provokes me with impunity)

So I sat about finding the culprits and seeking reparation. (this was before the event log)
I got the name from the trebuchet, and started looking.

Three days later I found their base, It was up high on a pillar encircled by anti climb fencing, with a half dozen archers. I studied their layout until I saw away around their defence.

I offline raided them, because they offline raided me first.

(Redacted to preserve my secrets)

But this allowed me climb around the fence onto the top of their base. I had killed their archers without aggroing them by shooting from a distance. I used explosive jars to blow a hole into the base, and retrieved my things and whatever I wanted of theirs as reparation.

No sooner had I left their base, another small clan from the same part of the world arrived and attacked me. I escaped with the loot, but the newcomers must have thought it was my base. They spent a great deal of time and effort building four different trebuchets to crack open this empty base.

I waited and watched as they wasted their time. But because they attacked me I followed them without being seen back to where they were hiding supplies, and took all of their explosives.

The next day they had all quit.

So now it’s your turn, whats your story?

[Gavinrad]

Cool idea that you have here ! I don’t have stories to tell but I may have later (in a few weeks or months haha). In my single player save, I’m actually building a giant fortress that my friend will have to besiege ! I’ve put bosses, mini-bosses etc… and I’m really looking forward to how they’ll handle it !

Anyway, Bookmarking this topic right now !

[droch-aon]

Ok I guess I’ll go again.
This time I’ll share a mistake I made.

I built a cliff side base, built an elevator to ground level a bit away from the main building.
One day I left the base, got on the elevator, the character stumbled, and fell to its death.
I thought I had just foibled the controls, and ran out to retrieve my gear.

At the bottom of the elevator two players were looting my body.
They had hidden near the wall, came up behind me and used a two handed hammer to knock me off the elevator.

I just turned around and went back in my base for spare gear. When I got back out, they were gone.
I looked for them, but never found them.

So they got a full set of armor, my tools and weapons, But I learned a lesson that day.
Well played my unknown assailant, well played.

[Barnes]

I like this. An OP with Latin, a paean to his Nan, this is probably the raw fabric to why @droch-aon and I stitched out a friendship during the dark days of EA, and TestLive. After weeks of playing alongside many a Marlon Rando with little more than a desultory shrug to the chat, I realized there was another solid, peaceful tester out there. It gets you through tough times, just having another faithful player doing his thing while I hammered at whatever I thought was important to test.

It was during a chat when I stated “I don’t really steal from people.”
dro’s answer, in jinx to my follow-on: “I’ve got all the best stuff anyway!”

From that point on we were server friends. A sort of tacit understanding of another classic gamer.

---

It was my post-launch server, romantically chosen due to the year of my university’s founding: 1809.

What my rose-colored glasses filtered out was the IP Address of this place came pre-loaded with 2 dozen of the skulkiest scoundrels you ever met. In other words, I came there in sanguine hope of a fresh start, and they all returned with their old grudges and sheer xenophobia.

I was playing simply as Barnes then, having reserved my sacred name Tascowat – bestowed on me by my mother’s mother – until much later in my Conan Exiles experience. In other words, 1809 was predestined to be dust in the wind, with the wisdom of the succeeding 18 months.

At some point I decided to become saucy and claim the hill slope that climbs from Devil’s Squat up to the Nord camps on the southern fringe of Asagarth. Once I’d built my hideout, I set about building a very phallic 3-wheel tower dead on that spot. It had a 4-seater up top, and one extra 1-seater in the base, so I could crank out Nords all day long.

Geoffrey was special though. He’d been through the thick and thin with me. He’d become my chief bonker thrall – I’d gather berries and ironstone, and before my first cup of coffee he and I’d put up seven in the wheels. Oh those were glorious days.

We were so insouciant that I equipped Geoffrey with knives and a celebratory suit of Hyperborean to trek to Sepermeru, or Set City as we called it then. I had a personal need for clearing up a bad case of
– ahem – corruption, so we headed first for the city centre. I swam, nude, in the crystal blue pools of Set while Geoffrey watched the shoreline. To the east across a spit of land, two clans were fighting a pitched battle of misspelled cursewords and distant glassy explosions. To the west, a tribe was conquering the city and taking prisoners. I did the backstroke and enjoyed the sun.

The fighting drew nearer on both sides. I slowly reequipped my armor and we sauntered off to the tavern. I can still recall, me in my best Royal Armor, unarmed, with Geoffrey right behind. With every step he seethed, and his knives glinted in the afternoon light, and the tribes just stopped. In their tracks. And in silence, while the bodies of the people of Set congealed in the heat, I strode into the bar to meet Conan himself.

[Lleilwin]

One of my most intense experiences in CE was a war back on my first EA-server in 2017, where I lead a clan named ‘Amazons’ under the name Skara. As it befits the nature of an RP server, I give you:

The Battle of Dark Mountain

From the books of Atemides, Royal Librarian, “Chronicles the Lands of the Exiles”

In the first year of Queen Skara’s reign of the Amazonian lands the sisterhood was beset by challenges. The casting down of the Setite Priestlord who claimed sovereignty of the lands, when the Amazons first arrived, the cunning machinations of the Twelve Leagues and the impending threat of the rise of the Shadow.

But none other brought about as much bloodshed as that of the Thousand Maws, a group of slavers who through terror dominated the eastern part of the Exiled Territories.

The Thousand Maws was led by two soldiers, Kargorath and Frejya, who had left the service of the Western Sorceress, Nepthys, to carve out their own piece of land.
Initially Queen Skara aided the two renegades with donations as they pledged their aid in securing her borders.

But when the renegades established themselves as the Thousand Maws they started a rule of terror where they enslaved and killed with impunity, openly insulting and defying the Amazons and their goddess, The Morrigan. When the Maws killed the wife and unborn child of an Amazon ally, Skara knew, she would have to deal with the Maws.

But the task was not an easy one. The Maws had great number through both slavers and slaves and their fortress was a maze to which they could easily retreat. A siege upon the Maws would likely carry a price of blood that Skara was unwilling to let her sisterhood pay.

So Queen Skara planned a ruse and in a very public argument she called off her alliance with Cromheim, a clan of northerners, who also had a feud with the Thousand Maws.
Present at the argument was also Marcus Silanus, a mercenary ally of Cromheim whose loyalty was questionable at best. Queen Skara counted on Marcus Silanus, acting out of self-preservation, would approach the Thousand Maws and reveal the news of the broken alliance to her enemies.
Her song and dance done, she secretly approached Cromheim a few days later to reaffirm their alliance, explaining her actions to Rhonan, the King of Cromheim
It was not long before Queen Skara received confirmation that Marcus Silanus indeed had tried to gain favour with the Maws by revealing the broken alliance and the Maws prepared to leave the safety of their walls to besiege Cromheim, who they now thought vulnerable.

The days up to the battle that later became known as The Battle of Dark Mountain was a flurry of diplomacy as Queen Skara visited Exiles across the lands, entreating many to join her fight, threatening others not to side with the Thousand Maws and instead pointing them towards what seemed an easier target, the Fortress of the Maws which would stand empty during battle, ready for plunder.

Constant vigilance was kept by the Amazon scouts, Naria and Ryelsha, upon the lands of Cromheim and this was how Queen Skara was alerted to an increased activity in the Dark Temple, a mountain fortress belonging to a mysterious clan, that had kept themselves to the shadows. A mountain fortress that Cromheim had been erected in the shadow of. War machines were constructed in great numbers and pointed towards Cromheim and the intent seemed clear; to rain death and destruction down upon Cromheim from a superior elevated position before engaging in battle.

Skara ordered attention shifted to the Dark Temple Mountain and through meticulous scouting, the Amazons discovered a northern gate into the fortress, well hidden away from public paths.
When her scouts reported that the Thousand Maws had entered the Dark Temple fortress in numbers, she summoned her allies to meet at the Dark Hand and march to war. Through a huge stockpiling of explosives and and war gear, made by her Master Builder and Champion, Lucan, the plan was to penetrate the Dark Temple Fortress and take the artillery support by surprise before engaging the Maws’ melee force.

The force that marched upon the Thousand Maws and the Dark Temple was vastly superior in numbers, but the lack of military dicipline that the Amazons had practiced almost spelled disaster for the Alliance as half the force broke off to charge forward to where Cromheim was being bombarded, rather than towards the source of the bombardment.

Rather than spending precious time in trying to regroup, Queen Skara led the remaining force to the North gates of the Dark Mountain, which they found open and unguarded. This allowed them to fall both Maws and Dark Templars in the back as they were raining artillery fire down upon Cromheim.
To Queen Skara’s surprise she did not face just an artillery crew, however, but what seemed to be the combined forces of the Maws and the Templars. With her own forces divided, it was anyones guess, what the outcome would be.

One can only imagine the chaos that ensued as night fell upon the battlefield and foes were hard to distinguish from friends. Who fell to enemy blades and who fell to friendly fire can only be surmised, but when the day broke Amazons and their allies stood victorious.

Frejya was slain in battle, the death stroke delivered by Queen Skara herself
Kargorath was slain after the trial where he was sentenced to hang; a mercy killing delivered by Nero, advisor to Queen Skara
Skara herself suffered severe injuries in the battle, her left eye torn from its socket and the left side of her face disfigured by scar tissue.

Peace laid a fragile hand upon the lands of the Exiles

(A picture from the aftermath and trial, where most participants were present (except the clans that were busy looting ). A shout-out of respect and gratitude goes out to all who had a part and made such an awesome story! While the server is long gone, I remember it most fondly)

[Barnes]

After aeons of holding mastery of his domain, and a century of deep understanding of his physical place in the universe, Mankind is unique for fostering many things, but none so odd as Mercy.

On the farm we learn that a tender mercy one day can result in an infestation next month: a half-caught mouse released from a trap won’t soon be found near any of man’s machinations. A neighbor from many towns away contracted what was eventually identified as Hanta virus, and the word went out to poison and kill without mercy.

A hole in a pen no larger than my quadriceps can admit a fox, and if you’ve had mercy with their burrows, you can pretty much give them a written invitation to your birds. Mercy with a wounded neighbor horse can end up dealing out a broken foot, or worse, as some predecessors at our ranch found out the hard way.

The Exiled Lands, necessarily have the same ruleset, and consequences that feel just as real.

You learn, in both places, that the best fence will never stop a determined invader; only presence – Presence – can save your fortress, your face, your place on the server.

In a duo you defer to your clan leader, especially if he’s the one who invited you to the server. We lived like brothers, and he effortlessly carved out space for my body, and peculiar habits. I sleep nude, for instance. Most men aren’t happy about that, especially if you run a male toon, like me. He took it all in stride. He’d given me carte blanche, and I hadn’t slain too many people in return.

One day we were out scouting and my killer sense started tingling. We zapped back close to our base, then ran directly to our map room, and then boomeranged back out to the Sinkhole. Sure enough, not 30 seconds later, another character appeared, nude, female. Let’s call him Wes. Seeing as he was level 60, and notoriously from a raiding clan, I started off after him. My boss called me back, and I returned.

A month later, the dust having settled from the ruination handed out by Wes, he said openly in chat that my turning away had sealed the deal. We were raided relentlessly in the weeks that followed. Some of the most glorious and heartbreaking times imaginable. The lesson of Mercy was clear, though. I carry it wherever I go.

[Barnes]

My running route began at the southeastern base of Chaosmouth. Even then I was careful to remove Geoffrey from Follow, and I hand-carried him to the top of the ruin’s stairsteps. Pausing as we rounded the corner to the open sandy plain filled with iron and a dabbling of furnaces, my tower with the slender neck had not yet rendered.

That bodily thrill, that rendering thrill, that perhaps the tower no longer existed, began with an icy chill in my stomach.

The tower was a paper tiger to be sure: a tier 2 neck, supporting a tier 3 platform that cupped a Wheel of Pain, high enough in the sky to shadow the Nord tower at Stormwatch. Some clear nights I would stand on the bony hub of my 4-seat Wheel and look out over the area, including all of Asagarth, and onto the shadowy ruins that house Chaosmouth. One evening while I stood there atop my wheel atop my tower, I was struck by arrows shot from the oasis at Asagarth. This was early May of 2018, earth time.

This day, Geoffrey and I were returning from a quick jaunt in Sepermeru: Conan met, Corruption Journey Step completed, other players parting before us like dun-colored beetles wearing florid Kambujan headpieces. We exited the city much the same way we came in: no weapon or shield deployed on my person, while Geoffrey followed, knives at the ready.

At that time, followers would gimbal while enemies were about, so Geoffrey turned like a menacing compass toward threats as we proceeded out of the city. We were unmolested even as we left Chaosmouth, after a night’s stay deep in enemy territory.

Overnight I’d parked Geoffrey in a safe spot, and climbed onto the rocky pier at Chaosmouth to spy for torches and easy kills. We don’t use lights in my tribe unless we’re willing to illuminate the path of our own demise. You become used to it, over time, and just wait for that spark of a torch popping – throughout the night no players passed, nor did my tower render on the opposite knoll.

The plains leading to Devil’s Squat were bright and almost humid in the early morning sun. Geoffrey killed the wolves, then the King Elk. I gathered the meat for our homecoming celebration. Halfway through the iron patch on the slope leading to Stormwatch, my tower appeared, first as a wheel in the sky – an omen – and then the tower itself. Base, skin, doors intact. I was thrilled. A small patch of dew appeared at the base of my neck, in equal measure of shock and relief.

Down the stairs to the small rocky platform on which my workshop stood, at the base of the tower, was a modest closed door. Behind that was a sham of a workshop with low-tier thralls chiming and clanging and sawing away. In truth, the only valuable thrall at that location was Geoffrey, who followed me eagerly through the door.

“Hoopf,” he said. I turned. He’d disappeared.

“Whoompf,” he cried. I ran out the door, instantly understanding my mistake, and completely forgetting I had actual booty still on my body.

“No!” I yelled, as I saw his crumpled form on the rocky hill down below, halfway to the small wolf cave. His glinty Hyperborean suit of armor gave him away, there in the grass. Oddly, on my descent there were no wolves to greet me, and I shook my head while approaching his body.

His corpse was empty.

In utter disbelief and shock, I ran to the wolf cave and past, to leave render distance. I returned to Geoffrey’s body, and it was still empty. Resigned to double-victimhood, I retrieved my Set blade and went to work on my now-dead companion.

In the time it took for him to die, and for me to cry, the enemy had even stolen Geoffrey’s heart.

[Abomineer]

The dragonbone blade hissed as the clutter of the heavy chest closed in around it. The greatsword was a rite of passage, a bond of trust with each warrior.

This is precious, as is your valor. Past strife is behind us, let us be allies forevermore.

Now black ice carried the same pledge, but was there still truth to it? Was loyalty worth as much as a tool outgrown?

The throne and desk braced a hall of treasures and tapestries, entertainers, servants, and armsmen. Did power rest in the iron command, or in the wine-stained pages of ledgers lit by endless candles?

Before either, the same room once held an older, crueller kind of power, the slow turning wheel.

Siduri had only just come to this oasis in the shadow of the Stygian outcasts. Her island stronghold had become a sandstone prison, leagues from the resources needed to rise from sustinance and survival. A mining hut came next and had served well, far above the reach of the cannibal tribes, but there had been no rest; not now, with a blue-eyed rock demon was at the door.

The distance from the river to Set’s town was long, and when not scourged by the sands, the hyenas would cackle and chase. She was sure there was an easier path to be found by taking a shortcut through the ruins of the great city. Safer.

She’d been wrong about so many things. Laden with a pack of iron from the furnace, daylight failed before the first dusty bones started to rattle. They lacked the persistence of the hyenas, but the dead rose from every shadowed ruin and crumbled tower. The winds of yet another sandstorm started to rise. Finally, out of the stinging sand and darkness she heard its breath, then felt the flames.

Dragon.

Siduri should have run. Her Kush-ite bodyguard, a once and sometimes brigand, shrieked an alarm.

In the torchlight, she decided how to die. It wouldn’t be to the choking sands, a blade in the back, or teeth in her ankle.

Death would have to wait a little while for glory. Their simple steel blades rang.

Somehow, through the storm and fury, they lived.

There weren’t many of her warriors left from that time, a plague had ravaged the land. Broad furs concealed their withering shoulders; feeble, weak, suited more to tending the firelight than the parapet. Setting them to find their own fortune was no better than sending them to die. They’d been there with her when they found out how big a real dragon was, and shared mirth as the mead flowed freely after.

The biggest monster is the one you can’t see.

She watched as the Kush-ite tended the fire, her cup at hand as she measured the thread of his life. His eyes never strayed long from the dancing entertainers.

The biggest monster is the one you can’t see.

[droch-aon]

I’m not as eloquent as some of the people who have responded.
But I’ll try to relate another tale of the early days of my Conan gaming.

I had only been playing a month or so, I started EA day one, so the game had only been out for that time.

But I had first made a character on a PVE server, I was fresh off a PVP centric MMO and wanted a break from PVP.

After two weeks of the only other people I saw running from me, And never a word in chat, I moved to a PVP server, which was very active.

But I was now two weeks behind everyone else, with only my solo experience on the PVE server.

While looking for iron ore I found the cave behind the waterfall, on this server people had built stairs everywhere, climbing wasn’t introduced until much later. So I decided to build a stair to give me a bit of room, with the base itself behind the falls.

I didn’t know anyway to tell who built what, or that there was a natural ramp just down from the falls. I thought people would just think it was just another stair. And sure enough another player ran into the area, didn’t see me, paused a second then just ran up the stair. I thought it was working

Then I logged out in the open, when I logged back in…

Yeah, character was naked with nothing, I said in chat, I didn’t know about staying in the world while logged out. The response was “I shouldn’t have fallen asleep under the bridge”. I just laughed it off.

My stair / waterfall base was raided while I was there. Bed broken and sent to the desert, I laughed that off too.

Recovered as much as I could and started looking for a new place. I then learned my secret location was all over youtube.

This taught me if you know something other people don’t seem to know, keep your mouth shut.

(unless it’s an exploit, report those to Funcom)

Now I share anything and everything I know, except a few legit mistakes people make while building bases. I keep those to myself because people still make them. If I made those mistakes common knowledge. I would be unable to use them to my advantage.

If I ever quit for good, and people still make those goofs, I’ll try to remember to leave them in a parting gift post.

I got raided again and again, each time I found a new spot, rinse repeat, always just laughing it off and moving.

Then one day someone ran up to me, I pulled out my Iron sword ready to defend myself. But they just dropped a bunch of stuff and said, I’m one of the people who have been raiding you, here is better than we’ve been taking, We’re sorry, we didn’t know you were cool.

I guess not getting upset about a setback in a game all about setbacks was “cool”

They invited me to build on a pillar in the area where their bases were. They said don’t worry no one will raid you here.

When the server was attacked by exploiters, I fought shoulder to shoulder with these guys, and we drove the exploiters off the server.

When all the servers got wiped we all went our separate ways.

I wish I had added them to my Steam Friends, but I didn’t, c’est la vie.

[Eutus]

Fun stories!! Ive sat down and wrote a few narratives for some of my conan exiles adventures. I wantted to turn them into a branching cosmic horror arc … or an erotica series, I never really made up my mind on that, but with most of my written projects it remains as rough drafts cause life is way busy. shrug id offer a link or repost but there might be saucey parts. So as to not incite anyone that might not like it then blame me cause they clicked a link imma not do that.

Quick recap tho. We were going after the dragon bone recipes on official pve. Outside of the river basin entrance someone had built a zoo full of elephants. So we tried kiteing the boss back to the menagerie to use them as cover, it was our first crack at the bone dragon so we were kinda winging it. Battle was epic. Elephants stampeded, my party got whipped, my dire panther Qyzen sacrificed himself to kill the boss. I watched Qyzens fly past my left shoulder and land with a ragged thud into the norther river bank. He didnt get back up … but i did. Ran right up into that dragons coller bone and jammed my spear right into that son of a female dog used for breeding. Felt good, then profoundly sad, then we went and had a “victory celebration” ya know wine, women, and food. That was the night i really fell in love with what Conan Exiles could be. Then I went and wrote Qyzens memorial narrative.

[Abomineer]

Siduri had never raised an Animal Pen before, but she was pretty sure they weren’t supposed to meow when empty.

A jaguar cub had been nosing around, which was why she built the pen in the first place… but now he was nowhere to be seen.

mew

The silly creature was trapped under the building.

She tore the whole building down, picked up the cub, and rebuilt a second pen. She named him Fidelis, to show her commitment, and he grew quickly to full length.

Not long after, a Stygian slavetaker cut him down as she watched, and her blood ran hot at the memory. The slavetaker then knew the lash, knew slow suffering, and finally knew obedience, and she was called Fidelis ever after, to remember what she had destroyed.

Later, after a long bloodstained journey from the western ghost fence to the eastern ghost fence, facing Lemurian pirates, jungle beasts, and sand demons, Fidelis finally earned her name as a reward, instead of a curse.

[Barnes]

A recent tale of grey-knighting on our official server.

It’s a provocative clan that’s just descended onto our lands, fun, chaotic and young. I’ve been enjoying my time conversing with them during this time of server anonymity. Like Montresor in the oft-quoted tale of Poe, I’ve suffered various indignities and minor insults, taking each with a measure of class and resolve to not sink beneath myself in discourse or action.

Their nascent, boxy fortress was in a picturesque location, certainly, but in a PvP server too provocatively close to my Highlands holdings. Any other server, I should have reacted negatively, but it all seemed too provocative. Instead I showered them with praise, and continued assistance. I also respecced, and buffed up.

As a pleasant Saturday afternoon unfolded into evening and their purge meter surged, it became obvious they would be hit. Only two out of five clan members were now on and it was well past Raid. I warned them the purge would be coming next hour. At 10 minutes to Purge, their leader logged off to leave for a dinner date.

Let’s face it, there’s a vested interest in someone else’s purge, especially if XP, booty and thrallable humans are in the offing. In this instance, my desire was to strike a balance between them being completely wrecked off the server, and succeeding too well myself. Thus I committed to becoming an HP sponge, and took my spongiest thrall, Sally. Parked her at the ring of ruins where the bear ghost spawns, and ran to meet the newish player at his Tavern down the river from the main base. He was being followed by a Berserker in full Legion.

The tavern itself is nice, like an intimate diner in Chicago’s east side, comfortable in there. Nowhere near as luxurious, or well-designed as some. But still my praise kept flowing. Then I walked outside.

In slow motion I saw the new player turn to his Berserker, and then it was like lightning – Heavy - Light strikes from a greatsword BANG BANG – I reeled, tossed a crippler, rolled and ran. Maybe 1/3 of my health left. Once I was in safety from the aggro, I asked him if he’d deliberately taken the zerk off follow. “Yep,” was his reply.

A probe. What, I thought, he figured I’d drop to some kind of cheese like that? Later, after the Yeti purge and the rest of the clan had returned, I spent the evening playfully taunting their weak Berserker in chat. By Sunday morning they were planning a move to the western outskirts of the map.

Sun Tzu says make one’s tactics like water. The unsteady enemy will pass through it after pausing for a drink.

[droch-aon]

I recently was raided, the clan that did it I was told are under-meshers.
I was only playing on that server because of my good friend @Barnes

He had decided to leave the server because of personal reasons.
I planed to leave as well. so the raid came at an opportune time.

First, the raiders missed my secret stash

I had enough explosives to reciprocate (if they weren’t cheaters, I don’t know for certain.)
Legendary weapons, stacks of metal, and T4 thralls all stashed away, I did, however, get a bit lax and they got two T4 armorers, and a T4 Beri Blacksmith but I had spares.

So the only real harm was the loss of my trained thralls and building damage.

Because we planned to leave the server I did nothing.

Now I can’t shake the feeling that I should have gone after them, If they were cheaters I could do nothing but be a nuisance to them, and my things would be unretrievable.
I will not stoop to their level.

But my grandmother’s ghost still tells me I should have made them pay.
but reason tells me I did the right thing because we had already decided to leave.

What do you think?
Was abandoning everything the right thing?
Or should I have unleashed the dogs of war, even though I would have left just after?

[droch-aon]

@Berserk

The only thing I would have done differently is find a small clan just starting out and give them as much of the remaining stuff as possible and warn them of the possible cheaters

We tried to keep tabs on everyone and help new people as much as possible, I tried anyway.

edit: I want to note @Barnes did much more for people than I did.

I think everyone knew, and was well established.

So I just made sure none of my remaining things could be used against my friends. then I left.

[Barnes]

@droch-aon

He had decided to leave the server because of personal reasons.
I planed to leave as well. so the raid came at an opportune time.

In another life, before and after we barbarians learned to climb, I was irascible. Volatile. I went by another name and the ground trembled beneath my mighty feet. If I appeared on TestLive, players would ask if we were cool. Other YouTubers who would gank-kill peaceful players on TL would be chased down by yours truly. To pay them back, I started fights that ended badly for them and their pals. I hurt entire clans who’d dumped on my earliest friends.

During my travels, I was also a semi-religious adherent to the newer DOOM game. My DOOM guild already possessed a member of the same name, so I went for my nickname. People had already known me as Barnes, and as my contract with a Take-Two subsidiary for guidemaking and exploit finding was coming to an end, it was a natural choice. As it turned out we as a Community were transitioning away from Steam, so tent pegs were officially pulled up.

I’ve never officially exposed my Reddit handle. In the early days, my wife started it so that she could get informed on the game as there were few resources then. After she dropped out, I took it over, and tried my best to be the salty little Exile with his finger in the Great Dam. That’s another story for another giant cup of Earl Grey, tips kitty mug to Dro.

Nothing softened me though, in fact I spent most of my time trying to break the game because I loved it so. Conan Exiles had come at a point in my life where the therapy I was prescribed was worse than the disease, and a natural path was to do the work at home, with rehab goals and targets.

I was born with a special immune system. My grandmother said it’s because the world is so very toxic, and that my armor is finer and more complete than most. And it’s true. My system fights hard. But as I got older, my autoimmune disorder made things worse and worse, to the point where my system kills off the invader but overreacts and starts to attack good tissue.

This causes damage, then more attacking, then all of a sudden you’re taking actual damage. In a particularly ugly wave of attacks, my right lens was permanently damaged. The tissue left over from the inflammation ended up as ugly black meshes floating through my vision.

In 2017, without the benefit of medical-grade laser therapy and medical LED therapy, my only choice was painful eye exercises for 12 hours a day. Again, Conan Exiles became a natural choice. Got the sign-off from the special ophthalmologist, and the rest is history.

Continued in Part 2.

[Barnes]

I had become an Exile from the PS4, from the toxic morass. Self-banished from the world of the Impermanent, where generic characters float in an agar of ad hoc servers, fueled by a pectin of kill/death obeisance.

In Conan Exiles, and especially its PvP variants, the player is rewarded for mercilessness. The path of the Savage is beset on all sides by wealth and victory, in Set’s name be praised. After some time, this path became least appealing to me. I seek friction, or countercurrents, or new viewpoints, and Conan Exiles lets you do just that. I leapt at the chance to duo up with a pal from here.

Picture The Leatherstocking Tales or The Last of The Mohicans, and when he wasn’t out dutifully making my harvesting contribution look like dogsnot, he was next to me finding riches and intrigue. It was difficult being an XO to his vast wealth, I had to tone down my murders, and my uproars. I chose to flee from petty disagreements, for the better good.

We were eventually bombed, and it was glorious. We were attacked with vigor and glitches. I died almost killing the junior enemy, at the hands of our Cimmerian fighter. At this point my partner and I were bonded.

Time moves on, and so do servers, but your brothers never do. Eventually you cross paths again in the vast reaches of officialdom, and you make a plan. You zap into an established, sleepy world on invitation from another friend. And so we each set about making our way in this new world, 1742, individually, with this shadow always close by.

After a bit, I begin to seek a new source. First I shed Kratos for Barnes. Then I shed conquest for teamwork. Now I’d try to make a life in Peace. Unfortunately my shadow chose war.

I call them kids because they were a sweet and friendly four-man clan. Anyone could see their T3 was for show, a Potemkin Village oasis among a pack of wolves. Shadow hit them at dawn one day, well past raid. In chat he says “I don’t think they’re the counter-raid type.” Within a week, he’d lifted every last thing from their palaces.

By the end of the month, they were gone too.

You probably might not understand what it’s like on a PvP server that’s gone over to Peace. It’s long stretches of playing alone, or with a shadow, with occasional pop-ins from the Alpha. The guys he hit were trying to make their ways, in a savage land. Them’s the breaks.

When they left, it actually hurt me in my chest a little. And then when I lost my shadow too, and it was a stretch of playing alone the likes of which the Hyborian Age has ever seen. All that time I thought about those guys. My ill-gotten gains weighed very heavily.

Continued in Part 3, tomorrow

[Kapoteeni]

@droch-aon

But my grandmother’s ghost still tells me I should have made them pay.

Didn’t know your grandmother was a priestess of Kahooli.

[Barnes]

Peace in PvP is relaxing, especially when there are players with whom you can practice combat. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. In my time playing Conan Exiles, the Barnes ID has died to exactly two other enemy players, and to two friends. In total, 6 deaths in all of my PvP career, including during sandbox fights.

This day, I was sitting on a beautiful platform on a giant tree with a great friend. The kind of friend who wants to sit next to me and wait out the darkness as the beautiful music of the noob area plays. In silence.

His words during the earlier afternoon still rang in my ears. He’d never seen anything like my platform on PvP. I replied “That’s because it isn’t. PvP.”

Over my time on this server, seven human months, as faithfully as possible adhering to Raid window of 6pm to 12am, I’d seen all numbers and styles of players flow through. I was taciturn then, and over time only a few stayed past December. But recently there’d been a shift, and a coolness to the bay breeze around the Buccaneer’s places. As my friend and I admired the distant ruins to the north, I could feel my own starshine waning.

“Fundamentum artis est sol et euis umbra,” I typed into chat. Then backspaced over it. The basis of art is the sun and its shadow, I thought a bit wistfully.

The ill wind that I could perceive as a mild breeze was becoming steadily cooler, I had already begun my own preparations. Instead I said to my friend “one day we’ll need to go to General Quarters.” He agreed, rode the elevator down and charged off on his faithful mount. I watched until he disappeared, waving the whole time.

A Nexus he would not understand until this very minute was all coming to be, as predicted.

For the love of the game you stay through the lone times. For love of your friends, you keep their decay alive even long after they’re no longer responding in Steam chats. It happens. I suppose sometimes even a shadow realizes that if you stay around too long you become the thing you despise. My own playstyle had become refined, conscientious, pulling back from areas where my gluttonous buildings had stolen precious nodes. All of my best loot was well hid in three locations, only my shadow would’ve known them, truly. Everything vulnerable and new-ish was a monument to his amazing gathering, my Godsclaw two-vault castle, which his decay alone filled to bursting.

You spend hours working in the game, crafting, learning, practicing. You work with the same HUD daily, but some things still get past you. A Purge Blacksmith was one of those. And so it came to pass that with her acquisition from the young guys, shadow became my source for rebar all day and all night. I got fat. My cup ranneth over. T3 flowed like wine.

One item I kept and looked at, made special trips north to view, just to deploy her, just to look at her. It was Frae Steelgrasp. She had come to my shadow by theft, by bombs and ruin, and had come to me by default. She was beautiful, powerful. Hollow.

Without her theft I’d be ignorant of her. It rang in my ears with her hammer.

The confluence of events was rushing onward. At the time my shadow left the server, Frae and all that wealth became mine, on about my real-life birthday in September. Now, in January, as I surged into my 50th year incarnated on this earth, my playing hurtled toward 5,000 hours. Conan’s own words rang out through the blows of the maul to anvil. What will you do, Exile?

The week earlier, a clan of five had accreted on the server, led by a friendly player from Manitoba. He’d played, and built, and slayed, and finally after several weeks he just left. Friended me and disappeared from the server. As I’d sat with my dear friend Sha and admired the view, a distant torch glowed menacingly near Nunu The Cannibal. A message popped through on Steam. Accompanied by an icon of a golden-haired Elf, my new friend revealed himself as a popular streamer: “You have passed the test, will you remain Galadriel?”

His next message: “they’re all yours now. You did great.”

Rather than a choice-laden elf I felt more akin to Arjuna on the plains of Kurukshetra: shall I seek glory in the death of my kinsmen, or do I wish to drink their blood and send them to their heavenly reward? After all, our game is one of reincarnation. Sadly I had no Krishna to guide me, no shadow either. There was no way I could ever lay this kind of trip on Sha.

I was perched in my chariot, bow at the ready, fat with wealth and accomplishment as the tide of countrymen filtered onto the battlefield of 1742.

[droch-aon]

In case anyone cares, I’m “Sha” I was trying to use different symbols to sound out “So What”
ß Ħ Æ ¥ Œ Ŧ, You see ß makes an S sound Ħ can stress Æ into an Oh sound, etc
But I messed it up, so it was actually “sigh wet” or “so wet”
depending on the pronunciation conformity imposed upon it.

A mess of a name made from different symbols ransacked from different languages.

So they took the S sound from ß and called me Sha.

I only have one Conan account, no different “Personas” no “Shadow” no matter what random Symbols show above the Pixel Puppet it’s just me at the controls.

And I don’t tend to speak in allegory, sometimes allegory can become too opaque.
I would rather try to be clear, too many bad things have happened in my life,
because my dyslexia has caused me to phrase things in a way deemed hurtful to others.

Now what I’ve gleaned from Barnes story I’ve interpreted in a way that saddens me,
He’s not who I thought he was, but I’m not who I thought I was either.

I’ve suffered great losses in this game, I’ve won great victories.
Barnes asked me once why I don’t share the latter stories here?
I said because they sound too boastful. He said it’s what you all want to hear.
But I am no great warrior, I’m just a guy fighting for his stuff.

The game has problems that tilt things in favor of those who fail to see the loss they incur by stooping to cheat.

Back years ago I was playing the first Duke Nukem I told a relative what level I had reached, he said he had “beat the game” but he also used IDKFA, that’s not a win.
no risk = no win.

There is an old parable about a gambler sent to heaven, he found he could not lose, every game he would win, over and over never losing, but when the element of chance was removed the games lost their appeal and after a time the man realized he was really in hell.

This is why people who cheat, are really only cheating themselves, they aren’t playing a game
they’re massaging their ego, they’re eating the wrapper and throwing away the candy.

my part of this story about 1742 is over

I’m not quitting the game or anything, But I might be retiring from PVP, I never took joy in the fighting.
I was only ever there for the thrill of outwitting the opponent.

[Barnes]

@droch-aon

And I don’t tend to speak in allegory, sometimes allegory can become too opaque.
I would rather try to be clear, too many bad things have happened in my life,
because my dyslexia has caused me to phrase things in a way deemed hurtful to others.

The reason why I write is so that I can express myself without self-censorship, or without others’ judgment. That day at the tree base, I wanted to tell you the Latin phrase, but as you know I’m already insufferable enough without resorting to old languages. We shut ourselves down in conversations because we don’t want to say the wrong thing, make the wrong prediction, connect the dots and be called “paranoid.”

I’ve also written professionally for almost 30 years as a journalist. Perhaps you should’ve called this thread “news stories written transparently,” and I would’ve typed plainly, with one meaning instead of many left to the reader. Apologies if I’ve overstayed my welcome.