History Revised: Enraptured

[Fael]

Because the history of Enraptured has been brought into issue within the raid discussion forum, I thought I might clear up some confusion: Enraptured was not a guild created by TMO. Enraptured was not created auspiciously to circumvent a 2 week suspension by TMO that would occur months later.

Instead, Enraptured was one of the premier guilds on Stromm server, at least for the first six months or so of that server's life. Jagganath and Xerovash and several others intended to establish the guild on p99 to provide a third option for raiding.

For whatever reason, TMO decided to foster a relationship with Enraptured. I don't claim to know what DD and Zeelot ultimately intended by reaching out to Enraptured leadership, but I figured it had more to do with TMO’s spite for BDA than some sort of grand merger plan. It certainly had nothing to do with circumventing TMO's suspension that would occur a month or two later.

BDA felt threatened in some small way by Enraptured (at that time there was no real contender for 2nd best (a title they seem to covet). Accordingly they executed a several month long smear campaign against Enraptured in an attempt to brand it as nothing more than an agent of TMO, alt guild, feeder guild, etc. –Asgard can probably identify, although BDA’s campaign against Enraptured was quite a bit more focused.

BDA’s campaign was fairly successful, as Enraptured had difficulty recruiting and growing. We never really got more than 20 active players. Ultimately, when TMO got suspended Enraptured became an opportunity for DD and Zeelot to try to circumvent the suspension.

Nevertheless, it is not true that Enraptured was a creation of TMO. If anything the fact pattern involved with the Enraptured / TMO merger has a lot more in common with this present merger between 75% of IB and A-Team; albeit there are some notable differences.

[Big_Japan]

i literally can't imagine who would read such a post. like seriously do you even see yourself

[arsenalpow]

Smear campaign? Lol.

Enraptured may have started off with pure intentions but they were in bed with TMO for a long time and eventually most of the playerbase got absorbed into TMO. Sirken is off by saying that Enraptured was created for the sole purpose of circumventing a suspension but TMO did attempt to try that strategy. That's not a smear campaign, that's facts.

Also, BDA never wanted to be some primary competition for TMO. IB RMTed off the server, VD folded into us after a very deliberate smear campaign from TMO (that's a true smear campaign, complete with RL pictures of VD members in RnF) and there was a vacuum at the top. Being the only other guild left that could kill Gore we became a target for TMO to go after.

[Fael]

That all may be true. I always felt that TMO's alignment with Enraptured was more about poking at BDA.

I also felt that the server's reaction to enraptured isolated them, prevented them from maturing, and ultimately lead to the eventual merger.

I have also noticed that completely new guilds (not made up of long time p99 players) are regularly ostracized by long standing guilds. Just an observation.

[Big_Japan]

^o, right [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[bouncerr 2.0]

realm of insanity rip

[Arteker]

Originally Posted by arsenalpow [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Smear campaign? Lol.

Enraptured may have started off with pure intentions but they were in bed with TMO for a long time and eventually most of the playerbase got absorbed into TMO. Sirken is off by saying that Enraptured was created for the sole purpose of circumventing a suspension but TMO did attempt to try that strategy. That's not a smear campaign, that's facts.

Also, BDA never wanted to be some primary competition for TMO. IB RMTed off the server, VD folded into us after a very deliberate smear campaign from TMO (that's a true smear campaign, complete with RL pictures of VD members in RnF) and there was a vacuum at the top. Being the only other guild left that could kill Gore we became a target for TMO to go after.

bda did not killed gore alone untill E.species politic. Bda was able to kill their first Gore with Assitance of Certain ex bda members in tmo.Namely alarti and Acillaterm.

[KagatobLuvsAnimu]

WTF is an Enraptured?

[arsenalpow]

Originally Posted by Fael [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

That all may be true. I always felt that TMO's alignment with Enraptured was more about poking at BDA.

I also felt that the server's reaction to enraptured isolated them, prevented them from maturing, and ultimately lead to the eventual merger.

I have also noticed that completely new guilds (not made up of long time p99 players) are regularly ostracized by long standing guilds. Just an observation.

I don't think that was TMO's intent. If anything I'm sure their intent was to bolster their raid force. That's always how the high end raid scene has been, it's an arms race, and the best way to get ahead is to have the willing bodies. As far as the server not being receptive to Enraptured, well that's what happens when you ally directly with the guild that had actively been killing every piece of raid content simply because they could and because it kept pixels out of the "competitions" hands.

If Enraptured was to mature it would have helped to stand on their own two feet. I don't blame them, working with TMO was the easier path to loot, and if loot matters more than the principle of doing it on your own then why not take the easy route.

New guilds typically aren't ostracized, the class R rotation was a good example of that not being case as long as the guild played ball. GT and Dolj are two examples of guilds that decided they didn't want to rotate and ultimately fell apart. Moonlight Crusaders, Omni, and Anonymous are examples of guilds that were willing to work within that structure (although Anonymous wasn't able to officially make that work before the rotation fell apart) that flourished.

The problem with being a new guild on this server is that there's only a finite amount of content and 12+ capable raiding entities. Even securing Hate/Fear these days is a pain in the ass. Plus the goal of every hardcore raid guild is to take a player, exhaust them, then find a new player. This server has a stupid high attrition rate because the raid scene is so goddamn taxing. BDA doesn't necessarily chew through members, if anything they just stop playing but are still a part of the community via our forums, other games we play, and meetups; but for the TMO/Rampages of the world I'm sure turnover is very high. The joke in BDA is that we can't keep shamans, we get them torpor and they ghost. I'm sure there's something similiar to that in class C with crowns of rile or PD robes or whatever.

The TLDR is that the raid scene is fucked up. It's not conducive to allowing new guilds to grow. That's the root of the problem.

[arsenalpow]

Originally Posted by Arteker [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

bda did not killed gore alone untill E.species politic. Bda was able to kill their first Gore with Assitance of Certain ex bda members in tmo.Namely alarti and Acillaterm.

You're incorrect.

We killed Gore for the first time early like March/April 2012, VD folded in late May 2012.