Being "POOR" is a relative term :)

[jart]

Hi Guys,

Just felt the need to have a little bit of a rant, so feel free to ignore this post or bear with me a bit. The feeling expressed in the title has been building up for about a month now due to a number of experiences.

Background:

I am not poor and neither am I filthy rich. I remember what it was like to be poor when I first started ladder. The first 2 weeks were hard with few decent items, but fun. I was up to about level 30 with my FO sorc and wearing cheap, but effective, equip.

Bone Helm with 2 psaph for the mana (couldn't bear the look of wearing a mask)
Stealth Studded Leather
A necro wand with 20% fast cast and 31 mana
Ancients Pledge large shield for the resists
Rare rings and ammy that I had found or gambled
Hsaru's belt and Boots
Magefist (hooray - my first uniq).

I met a guy in game who helped me through part of act5 and he must have had MH, cause he commented on my gear. He laughed and said come to game "xxx". He donated to me a Duriels Shell (love that armour), Infernostride boots and a Peasant Crown. Woohoo. That got me really started and within another month I was on my way to where I am now.

Since then, I have been lucky enough to have found a few decent tradeable items and hell hellforge once gave me an IST, so I have enough good --> excellent gear to build about 3 chars on ladder. I don't MF (hate the repetition) and like to try slightly unusual builds (currently a glacial spike sorc) :)

Experiences:

1) Talked to a guy in channel who thought an UM rune was worth more than an IST. Explained some general trading values and during this conversation he stated - "I am POOR and I hatet". I offered to donate some gear and we met in a game. He showed me his gear and he was wearing the following:

Shako (ptopaz)
Skullder (ptopaz)
Occy
Rhyme Grim Shield
Ammy +2 fire skills with 2nd mod
Rings: 23% and 27% nagels
Goldwrap
Tearhaunch

LOL - his gear was almost better than mine! Now, this was not what I expected to see from someone claiming to be "POOR". He did state that he had worked hard for these items, and I don't begrudge him that, but to me he is not "POOR".

2) I generally keep all the decent items I find and stash them on a mule to give away. About once a week, when the mule is full, I make a norm game called "Free Stuff" or something and give it all away. The method that I use to distribute them is slightly different. I approach each player individually and they can pick any 1-3 pieces that they need. This works well and generally people are happy and satisfied.

The other day I was abused and called a NOOB idiot for doing things this way. Conversation went something like this (all one way traffic):

xxx: I need f$&*( free stuff
xxx: Give me f@$#$ free stuff
xxx: Who has f$#@* free stuff
yyy: JHS_Newbie (that's me) does
xxx: Give me free stuff
xxx: Damn noob idiot. Just be a dropper!!
xxx: Your f$)!*$ so slow

And so it went. So much for being nice.

3) Met a guy who was begging for gear. We made a game and I donated some stuff. I enter the game to find the guy has brought a friend. While I give the guy some gear, his friend is running around saying "I need stuff too".

The guy really wanted to collect Mav's set. I had a pair of the gloves and so donated them. He asked me to whisper him if I found any more. I don't have a ladder zon, so I asked him to friends list me and touch base every once in a while.

2 hours later..."Got any more Mav's? I really need"
Next day (x3-4)..."Got any more Mav's? I really need"
And so it went. 3 days later he whispered me to say he had collected all of Mav's set for himself. I met him in a public game to "see" it and congratulate him. He was then running around, complete with the set aura, begging for free IK items from all the people in the game!

4) Forum posts similar to the following:

My damage sucks, please help. My meteor is only doing 10K dmg and I keep dying! My gear is as follows. Please help me.

Shako
Occy/CTA on switch
Enigma
SOJ/BK
Arach
etc, etc

5) With the power of many of the runewords and uniq items, most people write off rares for anything other than jewellery or circlets. Eg. for a long time I was stuck trying to give away a rare axe with mods like 274%ed, 7%life leech, ar, lightning dmg and cold dmg. Now it might not compare to an eth zerker 415% BOTD, but it is still a good weap, and doesn't "SUX" like some people tried to tell me. N.B. It eventually found a good home with someone who appreciated it. :)

Well that's my rant. Apologies for the long post..just had to let off some steam. Take care.

[ChumpChimp]

Sounds familiar to another post ranting about horrible players in the strategy forum. Well, my favorites are giving sorc items to needy sorcs, zon items to zons, etc. while they moan about needing an BOTD and my crushflange isn't good enough. Also, I have officially protested teleing with my sorc and no longer force this task upon others, I just run. This is due to punks who sit in town while I tele around with MH and they say "WTF...this dud is slow, i could run fastr" Then, I get to throne room, set up a portal and then lag for a sec while a champion pack of claw vipers close in. I tele away from the portal to make it clear for them but die in the process. Suddenly, "Fool1-5 was slain by claw viper" etc. Well, they all left except for a barb and a pally who helped me grab corpse and actually thanked me for teleing. So, that's enough of that :rant:

Chump

[Stormcryer]

It's all my fault.

I've been one of those players who stockpiles all the low and mid lvl uniques I mf then hit the free stuff games and drop them. I've probably single handedly taught al the moochers out there that it's OK to mooch.

I figure that in 2 years of playing I've probably filled and emptied close to 1000 mules this way. So it's probably all my fault.

On the serious side I find my charitable side is better served by choosing to help someone who doesn't necessarily ask for help. It is rewarding (IMO) to "watch" their reaction when they receive the stuff.....just ask emmyangel. She didn't ask for help..I offered it, and her appreciation was apparent.

I lay down only 1 rule before offering good EQ to someone who needs it and it's this.

The elite/excceptional stuff I give away cannot be traded away, horded or sold. Once the player is finished with it, he/she must find another player who REALLY needs and DESERVES the EQ and donate it to them. Hence the cycle continues.

You want to know really the funny thing about this..it actually came back arround once. I donated a retired pally's personalized SS to a polite and needy kid, and about 6 months later I had a mule in a free stuuf game (I was actually there to drop not pick up) and this guy I didn't recognize comes into the game, comes over to my pally mule, requests a tradeing window and dropped my old char's SS on me. He gave me the same conditions that I gave the original recipient.

I couldn't help it. I brought in the retired char to show him who I was, gave the shield back to him and told to find another more deserving player. It was a gas to see that the thing was still kicking arround....it's probably still out there....I hope.

Storm

[jart]

That's a very cool story Stormcryer and a good rule. If you don't mind, I may adopt it as a principle of my future donating :)

You philosophy makes sense b/c I too have found that the most appreciative players are those whom I have played with in a game and then iniated the giveaways.

Must have been a real buzz to see your old shield again. I am not yet at the stage where I can afford to donate items of the calibre of a SS, but the quality of the items is gradually climbing as I get more game time on ladder.

[memememe173]

that's a great story storm :thumbsup: I'll drop some stuff occasionally when a mule gets too full...but I'm a pack rat...so that happens a lot

[ChumpChimp]

Not bad. That is a good theory for donating. Mine is that since I do a helpful deed I ask the person to do the same.

[spencert]

It's all my fault.

I've been one of those players who stockpiles all the low and mid lvl uniques I mf then hit the free stuff games and drop them. I've probably single handedly taught al the moochers out there that it's OK to mooch.

I figure that in 2 years of playing I've probably filled and emptied close to 1000 mules this way. So it's probably all my fault.

On the serious side I find my charitable side is better served by choosing to help someone who doesn't necessarily ask for help. It is rewarding (IMO) to "watch" their reaction when they receive the stuff.....just ask emmyangel. She didn't ask for help..I offered it, and her appreciation was apparent.

I lay down only 1 rule before offering good EQ to someone who needs it and it's this.

The elite/excceptional stuff I give away cannot be traded away, horded or sold. Once the player is finished with it, he/she must find another player who REALLY needs and DESERVES the EQ and donate it to them. Hence the cycle continues.

You want to know really the funny thing about this..it actually came back arround once. I donated a retired pally's personalized SS to a polite and needy kid, and about 6 months later I had a mule in a free stuuf game (I was actually there to drop not pick up) and this guy I didn't recognize comes into the game, comes over to my pally mule, requests a tradeing window and dropped my old char's SS on me. He gave me the same conditions that I gave the original recipient.

I couldn't help it. I brought in the retired char to show him who I was, gave the shield back to him and told to find another more deserving player. It was a gas to see that the thing was still kicking arround....it's probably still out there....I hope.

Storm

Nice.... :thumbsup: reminds me of the show... "Pass it on" (or something of the same, not sure if I get name right). Something abt a kid who does good deeds and get ppl to pass it on....

[Superhal]

i give nothing but advice. if they aren't willing to take advice, that tells me how much they would have appreciated the eq.

sometimes though i feel sorry for people.

but only those people who are actually trying.

that's why i miss the gem trading rooms. i didn't mind giving a soj or two to somebody just starting out who was willing to collect gems to trade. once i even gave a tal's set to somebody who got popped.

i know that if i give something to somebody willing to work hard, they can turn that one item into a huge stash. and then, maybe help somebody else starting out.

public game beggars are the lowest form of life, imho. they choose the worst possible forum at the worst possible time and make the most unreasonable demands.

[High Lord Bunbun]

Nice.... :thumbsup: reminds me of the show... "Pass it on" (or something of the same, not sure if I get name right). Something abt a kid who does good deeds and get ppl to pass it on....


I think you mean "Pay It Forward".

I do the same whenever I give out really good gear, although that doesn't happen much. I finally got my first of those expensive runewords, a chains of honor archon, so I'll probably start giving away better stuff than I have been. I still consider myself pretty poor, mainly because I really only have enough to equip a single dueler, which require good equipment, and not even more than a couple of skill charms. I have very little I can spare for trading, but I guess I'm wealthy in that I have enough for just about the best equipment for one character (except ebotd's or multiple runewords).

Just one question though, is a 32 resist hoto and a gul rune worth more/equal/less than a coh archon 884 def (almost perf non-superior) on west ladder softcore?

[Fray]

I too have gotten tired of Teleporting on a Ball run. People yell at me when I don't do it and call me names if "I say let's walk it". I die too much and then people will not help me get my body back. It isn't worth it. Not to mention you get more XP if everyone walks it. (I don't use Map Hack, so people ***** that I go "too slow".)

I'm not poor I have several cahracters in the high 70's low 80's. I'm not rich either. My sorc is wearing a Lore warhat, Vampire Skin, Occy (which I just traded for with 2 SOJ a friend gave me), Lidless, Ghoulhide gloves, the Disiple set boots (can't remember the name), rare ammy and rare rings that have a couple of good resists +mana. I only found the ammy, rings, glove, and I made the Lore hat myself. I am trying to make a MF sorc, and I am lucky/thanksful to have friends that play/MF more than I do willing to help me out.

I have made the 'free stuff' games and given things away. I get varied response from 'thanks' to 'wtf is this crap?'... <sigh> It's good to get the 'thanks' responses and the other responses make me wonder why I even bother.

I love that idea of giving away a personalized item! I have a couple personalized items from people. I wear them proudly. I'm making a char with all personalized gear that have my other character's names on it. <hehe>

Ok, I vented and shared... now I got to get back to work.

[Stormcryer]

If tired of the same old responses from the freebiee grabbers, make em work for it.

Every once and a while I have a little fun with the give aways....well it's fun by my twisted standards.

I open freebie game then head off with my full mule account dropping items all over the field leading up to the Pit. Then I teleport back to the rogue village(Do not open TP, just tele back and walk into town), and let all the guys looking for free stuff that there a really good itmes out there in field and that the easter egg hunt is on!

Man what a scene. Usually you get the odd one calling you a %$#@^$%, but most head straight out and start running around trying to find the items.
Then there's the constant parade of of TPs as they come back to town to ID and store stuff.

While they are doing this I send my second mule (usually do give aways with both accounts and 2 mules) to the cold plains and do the same thing.

For the most part, considering I'm giving away decent unid uniques I can keep the Easter Egg hunt going for a fair while. (I once got lucy on re-entering and kept the hunt going for 6 mules and was dropping stuff as far away as the black marsh. At least the guys finding the stuff had to kill one or two nasties for their gear so in a way I geuess they eraned the stuff they got.

But it IS a hoot to watch them go....

Storm

Storm

[Nathanjk]

I just tried that storm and it was fun. Also since everyone was cool about it I just started finding things that fit their char and gave it to them. It was fun watching them run around searching for stuff saying "OMG THX".

[Fray]

Stormcryer - that rocks!
LOL!

[PsychoticEwok1]

well... i quit d2 about 3 1/2 months ago wen bliz deleted my account for "maphacking" (although they just randomly deleted accts to scare ppl).. i was fed up of being poor and seeing all these games like 3/20/20 4 eth gfather
and IST occy 4 ur doom and crap. through about a year and a half of playing, i had amassed an "ok" outiftted MF sorc that STILL couldnt kill meph hell easily, or pindle,(even tho she had shako, occy, skulders, chancies, and that runeword for a sheild with 25% mf) and a dual claw assassin, as well as some other crappy chars... Im like... "no way im restartin"

then my disc got scratched and i quit forever.

my friend gave me his disc, and now im on 1.10 with a lvl 65 blade fury assn and a lvl 6 blizzard sorc. my asn cant even do act 1 NM cuz my gear is crap and well, being poor is fun again

:D

[flu0xetine]

Man being poor is fun, I do MF runs and see gold and green stuff and get all excited. I must have three full angelic sets. I've even started collecting Jade Tan Do's because the idea of a unique kris makes me laugh.

-zac

[Nathanjk]

It was fun when you didn't know what an item is and you look over the stats to find out if you like it or not. Then finding new uniques was very cool.

[Stormcryer]

The real reason I started doing the Easter Egg Hunt,was that I got tired of one player being grabby and the other guys complaining that they got nothing.

By spreading the booty out over an entire screen (or two if I fell particularly evil that night) no one player can grab u all teh goodies.

One other variant that I sometimes use is to set a char limit on the game. This helps to keep teh "rich" but greedy palyers out of teh game. (Mule accounts do get through, but I can't cover ALL the bases.)

I did an elite Easter egg Hunt the other night and set the limit to players that were lvl 18 or less (based of course on the mule that I used). You should have seen the reaction when all these beginners started finding the items.

I'm thinking of doing a really big 1.09 non ladder hunt as I've got at least 30 mules stocked to the brim but I have yet to come up with a new twist so I'm still waiting.

Anyways, it still a hoot and it gives me a reason to do those MF runs...LOL

Storm

[mathil]

what if you ate fire while sitting on a spike, or better yet, make them do it. wait, that would interfere with the reception the spikes get from the intersteller comsat station posted in the northeastern region of the grugen nebula on the 3rd planet from the only hospitible sun out there, so that is out. there is always the option of watching them dance, or making them sing the "knifin around" song. then again if we can't have corn on the cob that attacks people, doing that is pointless. the key is in the talking trees. make them talk to the talking trees and when the fonz comes out and says
'ay', then they are ready to recieve the bounty. the one true quilted quicker picker upper. because everyone should wear flannel, even bending units. because when life gives you lemons, you clone those lemons and make super lemons. then you dress them in flannel like a real american hero.

this horrific collage of animated television references brought to you by sleep deprivation.

[melianor]

Those hunts are a great idea Stormcryer and there are still people out there appreaciating stuff like that.

About Telebaal games: If people get real *****y i simply quit the game. The Baalruns you usually stay in and stay over several games are always only those with decent people willing to wiat until you tele down or walk.
Either of those are the most fun and profitting runs anyway.

Once i felt particular nasty since the whole group was yelling about me beiing to slow so i open the next to a pack of Souls, let them all come down and quit the game :p Some groups ujst ask for countermeasures. If they are so fast and good they can gladly do the Teleporting themselves :)

Rich or Poor. The whole issue gets simply irrelevant once you have been able to get the gear you want. For me i saw that once i had all that i was actually back to playing untwinked and just finding items along the way, which then was more fun, since you are not focused on trying to get this and that and actually forget that killing monsters just because you can is fun too.

[Superhal]

see "useless party member rant" in the general forum. :)

[jart]

A variation on your idea Storm might be to drop your stuff in an area where rushed chars can't easily get to. This might be an issue depending on what wp's your mules have, but could be fun.

In my experience, if people are poor, but are enjoying the game and willing to put in the effort, they tend to do all quests, collect all wps etc. Putting level restrictions on the game, and dropping things in say the middle of act3, would be fun. Those people willing to work their way through act3 to find them would be nicely rewarded. :)

Another earlier possibility would be the inner cloister or jail.

Take care everyone and keep looking out for those needy, but grateful people :) You are all restoring my faith in the goodness of people.

[Tanatus]

I restarted all my chars in 1.10 from scratch. I just went usual road - first make sorc, second ASAP get stealth+lore and spend sometime doing norm baal w/o any MF gear untill I got so-so equip.. - never begged or asked for gear but some kind souls donated me during my exping/gearing some nice pieces like almost perfect eschuta (3/15/15), ok viper (24), liddless, peasant crown ect - so I follow pretty much same principle - if person nice and I see his/her gear arent really good I normally ask what person waring and then asking person to wait in game and empty some mules :bow:
I agree "poor" is relative terms but let me put this once person can afford something that worth Um rune (shako for example) - such person not already poor in my eyes

[acf_ddc_mules]

my opinion is:

i dont care about noobs enough to give away free
i dont care if u got a magefist ''yeii''...
at the end of all that, i think you are noober then when i started reading

the dude was right calling u noob when giving free,
10k meteor suxx and so did that sorc

just bcause u have shako occy and crap like that dont mean u are ok
u are still poor...

anyways fell free to be happy while u are noobie, you will laugh of this after sometime if you start playing better

[melianor]

my opinion is:

i dont care about noobs enough to give away free
i dont care if u got a magefist ''yeii''...
at the end of all that, i think you are noober then when i started reading

the dude was right calling u noob when giving free,
10k meteor suxx and so did that sorc

just bcause u have shako occy and crap like that dont mean u are ok
u are still poor...

anyways fell free to be happy while u are noobie, you will laugh of this after sometime if you start playing better
Oh, so there are still some completly ignorant people on this forums! *cheers*

[pedro11]

Storm that's a brilliant idea about the Easter Egg hunt, think I'm going to try it this weekend

[Tanatus]

Folks then ever you encount ignorant people always remeber old wisdom:
"Never wrestle with pig you will get dirty and pig will happy anyway"

[insenothepunk]

Storm: All I can say is you are by far the nicest person I have seen in a long time. I'm emmyangel's boyfriend. You remember the one passed out on the floor when you were dropping stuff. I just figured that I would give you a little update. Emmyangel is loving the gear. She does as many mf runs as she can now, and we are working on getting to the point of suriving hell. And because of your kindness she has adopted the same philosophy. In fact I have too. I give away a lot of stuff that I know I'm never going to be able to trade, or don't need. In fact just the other day I set a pally up with enough equipment to last him a while. Then helped him out with all the new 1.10 stuff (he had retired). I just wanted to say thank you again, and so did emmyangel, and let you know that your freebies are being much appreciated and will be donoted at a later time. Thanks Man. Keep the good people alive.

[dealcahill]

I wish I was as poor as that guy and I'm level 85. My sorcs equipment is still comically bad, but I survive. I'm still happy when I found a unique IK maul for a future barb and a unique Bec de Corbin for my merc. Im still waiting to find something big for my sorc, but so I can dump some of my junk gear, but I still have fun anyway.

[Eisirt]

my opinion is:

i dont care about noobs enough to give away free
i dont care if u got a magefist ''yeii''...
at the end of all that, i think you are noober then when i started reading

the dude was right calling u noob when giving free,
10k meteor suxx and so did that sorc

just bcause u have shako occy and crap like that dont mean u are ok
u are still poor...

anyways fell free to be happy while u are noobie, you will laugh of this after sometime if you start playing better
You know what they say....opinions are like a$$holes, everybody got one...and they always stink.

[Stormcryer]

Storm: All I can say is you are by far the nicest person I have seen in a long time. I'm emmyangel's boyfriend. You remember the one passed out on the floor when you were dropping stuff. I just figured that I would give you a little update. Emmyangel is loving the gear. She does as many mf runs as she can now, and we are working on getting to the point of suriving hell. And because of your kindness she has adopted the same philosophy. In fact I have too. I give away a lot of stuff that I know I'm never going to be able to trade, or don't need. In fact just the other day I set a pally up with enough equipment to last him a while. Then helped him out with all the new 1.10 stuff (he had retired). I just wanted to say thank you again, and so did emmyangel, and let you know that your freebies are being much appreciated and will be donoted at a later time. Thanks Man. Keep the good people alive.

You and emmyangel are more than welcome. Like I said in a earlier post, if I don't have a use for an item, and it's just sitting there collecting virtual dust, someone might as well get the use of it.

Once again you're very welcome.

Happy MFing

Storm