So yesterday night I pq’d with a few people. Only a couple times. 3 inexperienced, 1 moderate, and 2 experienced. My friend, jdatu, I call him Joey, has been my ZPQ buddy for a while now.

FLASHBACK.

So, when I first learned how to zpq, it was with IcyMints. That was my first zpq. Him as leader. He wasn’t the greatest leader, but he was alright. He knew the basics. I thought he was great at the time, though. His ZPQs were done through tracks. I used to always PQ with him and him only for about 1x times.

One day he wasn’t on, and I just logged on from room of tragedy. I saw a party there. Mizy was in that party- I recognized her from Ludi pqing before but didn’t really know her. She asked if I wanted a ZPQ. I agreed but this would be my first ZPQ without Icy. Their party was really pro. At first it was kind of weird though. They did this system, assigning. It was really new to me at first and I didn’t get it, partly because I didnt know where every single door was yet and where everything was. Don’t get me wrong I knew the key rooms and where they were but that was pretty much it. After a few PQ’s with them, it really impressed me. They knew EVERYTHING. The pqs were always quick. Everyone was so nice. So ever since that day, I decided I would also assign instead of track.

FLASH-MID.

At the time, I was in the guild STFUandCC[ORIGINAL]. I began making millions off ZPQ and improved my skills imensely. I started telling people in my guild about it because they asked how did I get my money. Well, I soon converted half the guild into ZPQ’ers. At the time, we were 60+ and Driftster and I were the only one that was under that level limit. Ironicly though I was junior master- partly because I was in that guild since 2x when it was first made and the leader was a friend of mine.

Anyway I soon converted half the high level trainers into PQers. Before you knew it, whenever i logged on I’d get tons of requests for ZPQ in guild. The leader himself, HolyPally, wasn’t too thrilled with ZPQ but he tolerated it- grudgingly. Out of the whole PQ group, my usual PQ party would consist of Bonezman, ShadowLuk, Darrenshan, Drifster, me, and a random person or another person from guild. Those were my usual buddies though. I’m proud to say I taught ALL of them how to ZPQ [=

They soon became really good and knew where everything was as well. Since I didn’t track and assigned instead, everyone knew what their usual rooms were and it’s like we all have an unchanging role that we continually follow. I mean the only phrase that was needed was, “the usual,” and everyone would know EXACTLY what doors to do first, where to drop keys, and what was in the rooms. No explanation, track list, or anything was necessary for us. It was simply amazing.

Out of those 4, Bonezman was my favorite to PQ with. He was on the most and loved pqing with me the most. He was very nice, a little quiet, but always friendly. He was the guy who always did EVERY SINGLE 16 room. [exept 16-1 `cause there’s nothing in there]. He always did it in about under eight minutes. Highly impressive. He was always there when I asked him to ZPQ, he was never busy. Seriously, being my ZPQ buddy is a BAD thing. I ZPQ’d so much back in the day, everyone who was in my guild eventually got sick of it and only did it once in a while with me, exept Bonezman. While we ZPQ’d our levels remained unchanging because ZPQ exp sucks. We didn’t mind too much though. After a few months of everyday ZPQ runs, I could sense that Bonezman was getting sick of it; however, he was just too polite to say anything or say, ‘no’ to me. That’s the kind of person he was. He soon started taking up training again, since he kind of stopped ever since we started ZPQ`ing. At the time, I think he was 6x. He eventually got to 7x, and the day of his 3rd job advancement, I knew I couldn’t “keep” him anymore. I had a talk with him on MSN and said that he was no longer my ZPQ buddy anymore and doesn’t have to ZPQ with me every single minutehourday I`m on. He asked me if I was sure and I, of course, said yes, though a bit reluctently. We were still friends and still are, we’ve just grown further apart.

I know it sounds pretty stupid and all, but that’s how it was. Shortly after I began ZPQ`ing with random people. It wasn’t that bad, because at the time ZPQ was a little more popular then usual because prices were going up on DM scrolls. I met a lot of people through ZPQ whom I’ve added and kept in contact with to ZPQ again. Pifftacular, DataznCB, Shoubox, xangkorsin2x, Jdatu, and a lot of others. The people I’ve added were of course, experienced to some extent, and became even more experienced through my massive ZPQ`ing addiction. Shoubox became my next favorite buddy. He was also really nice and friendly, and tolerated my PMS`ing because lately I’ve become really PMS`y towards non literate, non experienced, ignorant ZPQers. Shou was funny and we joked around a lot and had a good time ZPQ`ing, although he wasn’t nearly as good as Bonezman was. It didn’t matter though, I liked his company. We ZPQ’d a lot- I’ve done more with Pifftacular, DataznCB, Jdatu and xangkorsin2x, too. After getting hacked and all though, I lost pretty much all of my buddies exept the ones I’ve listed. However, xangkorsin2x, jdatu, and pifftacular didn’t ZPQ with me that much anymore, though we’ve wanted to, one was always too busy or not online.

So it was usually just Shou, DataznCB, me, and some other random people we recruit. It lasted pretty nicely and was fun as usual. I stopped ZPQ`ing immensely though; school was catching up to me and if I don’t maintain a 4.0- well, you know how asian parents are. When I stopped going on as much, so did shou, who was my favorite ZPQ buddy. I felt another sense of loss for a buddy, but not as great at Bonezman.

Just recently, since OPQ came out, DataznCB stopped ZPQ`ing with me too. Even though I’ve been reduced to logging on MS for only like once a month on my ZPQ char and have put my concentration and game time into my kerning and ludi pqers, Jdatu and xangkorsin2x had still not removed me from their buddy list because we were old ZPQ friends. So I tried ZPQ`ing with them again, just for old times sake. It was great and the party was great and we usually got a lot of ZPQ runs together. Angkor soon became busy with college and stuff so I didn’t ZPQ with him nearly as much- but I started to ZPQ with Jdatu much much more.

I soon came to call him Joey- Josef was his real name, but I liked to call him Joey. [= Joey was really experienced too and we felt the same way about inexperienced people. He was easy to talk whenever I felt like ranting, and he hated unexperienced ZPQ’ers who are ignorant and don’t listen to you when you tell them to do something. I hate that. People who ignore you completely and don’t know what to do. My patience started growing really thin for those type of people and I noticed myself getting more and more aggressive and stressed when ZPQ’s go wrong. Joey felt the same way though. That’s what I liked about him. I could really relate. He helped me on other stuff too, and sometimes we would just hang out or something. At the time, I really felt like he liked me as much as I liked him. As a friend of course. One day we got a party together, they were pretty good too. They were kind of confused and a little reluctant to assign instead of track PQ though. I was used to it. Pretty much everyone I ZPQ with is used to the tracking system instead of the assigning system. I usually talk them into it though and after the first round, everyone would agree assigning is better. Joey liked it when I lead because I was kind of good at assigning. I put together rooms so people can managably do them.

*NOTE. YOU ARE ABOUT TO READ MY ZPQ STYLE & HOW I ZPQ. IF YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND, SKIP THIS PARAGRAPH*
For instance, I don’t just say “take 1, 3, 16-2”. That would be kind of stupid because 1 and 3 are kind of long rooms, each consisting a follow up room, which would take a few minutes to complete them. Furthermore, 16-2 was in the 16’s, which meant you had to go through 7 or 10 to get to 16s, and then 16-2 was one of the harder rooms, too. It was harder because it contained 1 force and was all the way in the 16 rooms, so if you got forced out you’d have to walk all the way back. That would take forever. Also, I would never give a person with room 9 another hard room, or another key room because that would also be stupid. room 9-2 has either 2 or 3 forces, I tend to forget, I think it’s two though. There are many chests and it takes a while to get the key if you’re unlucky. Some people who assign don’t realize that. Some who assign, they go like, “take top, mid, bottom.” I think that’s stupid because the bottom rooms are 9, 10, 11, and 12. Now 9 and 11 are BOTH key rooms and both have forces in them. That would take like 10 minutes just to do. Furthermore I’ve come to realize that having people walk all the way to 16-5 to give me the key takes too long, so I just have them do key rooms first, drop at Aura the NPC, and then continue with their rooms after telling me in party that they’ve dropped the key. I would then proceed to finish MY room and come pick up the key at Aura and walk to 16-5 myself. That way, I save people walking time because I know everyone hates going to 16-5. It also saves time and shortens your PQ immensely. I notice at about 3-4 minutes into the PQ is when everyone has finished getting their keys and dropping it at Aura in the main room. So I’d be doing my rooms and from when the first person says “key dropped” in party, I time myself and make sure I get to that key before 3 minutes. Some people always say they think the key would dissapear- that’s why I time myself and make sure I get to it in 3 minutes or less. Then, I’d have whoever doing the 16 key rooms just drop the key in front of room 16-5 or come in and give it to me since its closer. With a really good party of 5, my record was doing the ZPQ in 7 minutes flat. Imagine what it would be like with a really good party of 6! I think 7 minutes is pretty good though, and most party of 6’s don’t even go that fast. I’ve had parties of 6 take 15 minutes+. That stuff really irritates me and Joey. Wasting time like that with a party of 6. Joey really reminded me of Bonezman who did room 16s [ALL] in 7-8 minutes at most all the time. Joey could almost do that, too. I liked Joey better though. He talked more and I think we were closer friends. Bonezman and I never really talked much about anything outside of ZPQ.
*END*

BACK TO THE PRESENT. [like half a year later?]

Okay, that was a little rewind. Now it’s time for some fast forward. Today Joey and I were supposed to do some ZPQ runs to get more scrolls since I just sold all 300 of my scrolls and Joey had only one left. We got a party together, and Joey and I find out that everyone in it, exept me and him, were unexperienced. Great. Then some girl comes by, 8x bandit [she was wearing piretta outfit], and says she’s looking for two more for ZPQ. Joey and I buddy chat each other and agree to leave the party and join theirs. Since our parties today weren’t as experienced as we would have liked, we’ve taken to tracking because that’s the only thing they know. Sure it was a lot slower, and people could be a lot more lazier without you really knowing, but whatever. We didn’t mind as much I guess.

That’s our rule when we ZPQ; or, mine at least. If there are two people who are inexperienced or don’t know where all the rooms are at and where keys are at, then we just track. If not, we assign. Joey never really understands how to decide what rooms people should get or how to deal with an unexperienced person so he always makes me lead. It kind of annoys me a bit because leading can be VERY stressing and annoying if you have to deal with people like that. I’ve noticed that usually more high levels are unexperienced [as in 7x+] and more 5x-6x are experienced. [Usually because the 7x+’s are hackers and stuff…]

We soon go into the PQ, and NO ONE was tracking or anything. Everyone just went off and did their own little thing. We weren’t leaders, that other girl was. [They said they were experienced]. Joey and I asked, “who’s tracking” at the exact same time. One member responds, “what’s track?” & another member responds “I’m only getting docs I don’t know where keys are.” That was it for Joey. He hated unexperienced people. He left the party and I, not wanting to ditch him, came with him. I actually thought I could kind of teach them and stuff. I found their party kind of capable of PQing with if you teach them a little because they all were, more or less, literate. I left with Joey and we got a party together. We got this guy from our guild who we’ve PQ’d with once or twice before, his brother, this badit guy who is experienced for sure, and some random DK guy who said he was experienced and stuff. I thought this was going to be a pretty good PQ. When we got there, everyone was just spamming “GOGOGO” and everyone was getting impatient and stuff. Joey usually at least tries to help me with the people and explain to them, but he never does anymore.

Even when he’s leading [because that new patch says u can only lead 3 times for one day] whenever someone doesn’t know what to do, I explain. I already told him that I hated doing that and since he’s leader and about as experienced as I am, he should explain once in a while too. He never does. When he leads, he NEVER assigns either. I have to make the assigns, and it’s different every time depending on what type of people are in our party and how experienced we are- and most importantly, how many people are in our PQ. He absolutely hates leading, too. That kind of annoyed me about him- how hes always making me go through the stress of explanations and everything. Trust me, once you’ve explained something about ninety or so times to different people, it gets really annoying. I mean, if you want to PQ [any kind], at least read a guide on it so you know the basics, right? I’ve always done that. Even for Ludi, Kerning, and Orbis. I at least try to understand it more or less and get a good outline of it before trying it out to prevent annoyance from other PQ’ers. Then I have to explain to everyone what things are in what rooms and what rooms to do first, where they are, and what to do next. TRUST ME, IT CAN GET ON YOUR NERVES. I just think it’d be nice if he at least tried to do these things once in a while, that’s all.

So anyway, back tot he PQ. I “ATTEMPT” to tell everyone what rooms to do and when to drop the keys, where to drop the keys, and what’s in them. They don’t listen. They just kept saying “GO IN HURRY” and spam stuff like that. We get in after I tried to tell everyone what rooms to do, and then the guy from our guild that we PQ’d with before made a TRACK LIST. WOW. that kind of annoyed me. EVERYONE WAS EXPEREICNED WHAT THE -BLANK- DO WE NEED A TRACK LIST FOR?! It just annoyed me `cause he was doing the most spamming on telling me to click and NOT LISTENING at all. [Earlier I said those type of people really annoyed me, the ones that don’t listen]. So I leave the PQ and “ATTEMPT” again to tell everyone what rooms to do and when to drop the keys, and everyone’s just saying “GO HURRY UP GO IN” again. Joey just sits there. I get really annoyed at them, and Joey, for not even trying to help me. HE’S the one that hates tracking too. HE’S the one that prefers to assign because he KNOWS that assigning MY WAY can speed up the PQ MUCH MORE. HE KNOWS how stressed I get when people act like idiots. So, Ainlaypower and his brother SconaLord, and some random DK and bandit are just yelling at me to go in while I`m trying to tell them what to do. I only tell them what to do to speed things up and make things easier for them. Most importantly, to terminate all lazy people who don’t do anything and just sit there. I was pissed. I told Joey that I thought he said they were pro’s but I feel like I just got a bunch of noobs. [I use that term for high levels too. My deffenition of ‘noob’ is when people are ignorant and don’t listen]. He said no, and said they were all pro’s. I got really annoyed at his lack of helping me `cause HE was the one that left the other party that was “noob” [in his terms] even though I thought they had potential and were a lot better then the ones we had now. I left the party after that [I was leader], and said a comment that is, I’m sure, innapropriate to say here. I used a return scroll back to town and Joey just said “sheesh”. I guess that one word really bothered me because I’m always the one that has indure everyone because he absolutely refuses to help me. I then proceeded to leave the guild that I only joined because he was in it. Fairly decent guild, by the way. 60+ I believe. GPQ’s every so often, 7x out of 100 people. Decent on the outlook, yes, but nothing like my old gulid STFUandCC who is now disbanned. Thing is, STFUandCC was almost like a MS family. EVERYONE in that guild came to know each other really well and everyone was everyone’s friend in one way or another. Plus it didn’t have hackers. The one joey was in did. “Real”. I then told Joey that I advise him to deleate me from his Buddy List because that’s what I’m doing to him. The last response I got from him was, “why?” & that was it.

As I sit here and retype everything that’s happened only a few minutes ago, I feel a lot of regret. I know I shouldn’t have felt that annoyed at him and everyone else. I know that a lot of people now a days aren’t very cooperative anymore as they were back in the day. I feel kind of bad for getting annoyed at Joey because I believe he was my best MS friend. I know it’s just a game and all but “behind every character is a computer, and behind that computer is a person.” Or something like that. [LOL. I stole that quote off another MMO’er who wrote a blog a while ago. I appologize for not remembering your name, but I don’t take credit for this quote. :3] I feel like I acted like such a *B WORD* for being impatient and intollerable. I’ll probably miss Joey and hanging out with him and PQ`ing with him and everything. A game is nothing without friends and communication to others. I’ll probably just hang out with my boyfriend or something forever now. [boyfriend in real life also in game]. It’s just that Joey and I go kinda back and all. I really grew to like him as a friend. I was just kind of hurt when I realized he only liked me because I lead for ZPQ and he needed the money off the ZPQ. I’m sure now, that he doesn’t care whether or not I deleated him. I’ll just say this though. He always listened to me and he was always nice to me. He never did anything wrong and he never got on my nerves. That’s why I liked him and that’s why I regret this. Even though he probably didn’t like me as a friend at all. It’s just a weird feeling, yet oh-so firmiliar since I’ve felt the loss for another ZPQ buddy countless times before. It’s just that this time, unbelievably, the loss feels greater then that of my first buddy, Bonezman. Joey is ZPQ`ing at this very momment. I hope he’s doing okay and all, really.

One thing I’m glad of is that this was just a maple friend and none of my -REAL- friends. So it doesn’t really hurt or anything. Not nearly as much anyway. I just gotta say I’ll really miss his company & everything.

I realized this blog is too-too long and I sincerely apologize & find it hard to believe if anyone ever reads the whole thing through. I put it under “Bad experience” but really, I should put it under “Rant” because it really is just a bunch of ranting. Most of this stuff I’m sure would be incomprehendable, even to me, if I decide to re-read this later on.

Well thanks for reading, or clicking on this, if you have. That’s all I have to say.

-HellaNaughty

Really, MMO, I am in deep gratitude. I feel much better after ranting all that out. [=