It's not my guild, I'm just a member. I don't handle recruitment or make any major decisions.
In the relative order to answer the points you've made:
I've yet to see dragon loot decide the outcome of a PvP battle.
Half of Holo isn't logging on because of biased treatment, to be sure they've shunned the server. If you can get a hold of some of them, they'll go through the fine details with you. It's very unfortunate, and I do understand their reservations regarding more time investment here. Others legitimately stated very early on that they didn't actually have the time to keep up with the pack due to RL responsibilities.
I know who's good and who's bad, there's a few floating still on the good list. Nihilum does have a few decent people - Hughman and Nerfed stand out right now. Nerfed can be counted on to routinely show up for PvP and assist his guild and not do bone headed things. Moreso if they do get taken down, I don't ever expect to see an entire chat log of tears and RL threats from them. I'm sure people on both sides can attest.
Scary Bad Guys - aka I think just Darwoth and Daefuin at this point - don't care to be held to any standard (for some reason) to contest raid mobs. They've been very good at what they want to do here, kill other players. They're not interested in joining us or vice versa right now or really ever. They've decided to avoid pissing contests and guild posturing/drama and have succeeded there as well. In fact, I believe if you're a solid enough PvPer, they'd app you. Dirty D feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on any of this.
Truth be told, you don't have to tell me we need to bulk up our numbers to contest dragons as the numbers stand right now. You think I don't know that :P? I can tell you something else too, we don't need any more members in our guild for me to fill that Nihilum kill shot thread up with lulzies or back up our claims to dominance on the open fields. We don't need to indiscriminately invite members either and we do recruit, we picked up Oraculus. He was in my guild on Rallos and knows his ogre shaman forwards and backwards. We're in no rush to fill our roster with trash, the server is young and some people will learn along the way and maybe meet standards I had to meet when I joined. The last thing we need is 40 people joining us who need their hand held, ass wiped and are publicly humiliated on a daily basis. If guild chat pops up with "hey I'm dealing with 5 others" somewhere, I can show up knowing that I'm not going to be fighting alongside some halfwit who doesn't know EQ PvP from training a decaying skeleton to the guards or being lost in lower guk live side. This is not to say things always go exactly as expected or perfectly, but joining them in PvP is never a chore and I'd certainly never ignore them or tell them to just log out or plug until the occupying force leaves.
I don't feel like I'm in any way deprived of being in the best PvP guild right now, come pay us a visit in Norrath and decide for yourself.
Despite likely popular opinion, our guild chat and vent are good times. We've spoken to Smedy about the other side, he was happy to share his stories of their greed and rage. I'm sure it's pictured as some hacker underground with 1's and 0's flying and new exploits thought of every ten seconds with plans to destroy the server. Our bad stigma likely comes from the fact that we we very actively PvP and people feel the need to have a temper tantrum about whatever happens. These same people (cough Reiker) continue to call us out every time to come get a piece of them.... and continue to end up on the business end of a harsh and well documented ass kicking for all to see.
We're the asshole griefers right? We are what you say we are. Shame on us for PvPing the fuck out of people who can't help but throw their little pebbles at our hornet's nest. It's like Ron White said in a stand up routine. "Here in Texas... we have the death penalty... and we uuuuuuuuse it". Same goes here, we're on a red server and we absolutely are here to kill other players as a primary mission objective.
I'm yet to see anyone have more fun than us here, except maybe Ames and Casey. These two guys have the right attitude, although I think the grind and population have been major issues for them like most. But they're still here. As far as I'm concerned, all hard times and effort rest upon the shoulders of the players raiding competitively every day of the week on two servers or farming gear for the next batch of 10-15 people coming from blue. Our guys farm their own shit and we certainly hand each other things we don't need rather than guild banking or RMTing it. I don't have time for that shit and certainly wouldn't rate it as something I'd do as a leisure activity. I don't think guys like Ames or Casey will tell you their play time is 15+ days of PvE and rage filled evenings of being shamed on the battlefields. They'll tell you about coming up in the strug on a low pop pvp server and beating down wannabes and big mouths.
I came to red to PvP. I had no affiliations with Holocaust other than having played a few games with Kringe before. In fact, I fought against some of the guys in this guild for a while. Given the choice of guilds here, I picked Holo for obvious reasons matching my interests. I'd make the same choice today. I played on blue and was ripping my hair out when people would be camping the specter island or FBSS 24-7 and I had to "sit in line" - wtf or get suspended. That's great for some people, and as much of a pain in the neck "starting over is" I was happier than a motherfucker to roll up a level 1 on red with just a 1ac robe and rusty dagger. There's epics and Kunark on blue, gear is easier to come by, you can roll a melee very easily, trading is all in game and very centralized, and there's tons of other people to play and group w/. If I really wanted PvE, I'd go there, there's more content. I can't imagine only doing the same PvE over and over on two servers let alone just one or not being able to kill people I dislike - guilded or not!
The truth is, on the other side of the table, they don't protect or support their members (successfully) with few exceptions. We took notice to it very quickly and it's a glaring flaw that doesn't exist with us. It's also something we're never willing to trade for dragon loot.
Hope that sets the record straight for you homes and I appreciate your concern for PvP on this server.
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