TheRing

So last night I realized there was a link in that concoction of characters, and it wasn't just you trying to be a cute and emoticon-y.

Awesome!

Ace,

I CAN'T QUIT YOUR TT PROMO GRAPHICS! I've loved them since pixel zero.

I did join, I did!

Well, this end-of-the-game thing has made me nostalgic. I started looking back at all the screenshots I had, and trying to remember all the character names (I'm really really bad at that after 5 years) and I noticed I still had those. I thought it would be killer if someone who still had an active sub could find their hero in one of them, and tell us all a story about their experience in TT.

My story hasn't been relevant in a long time, but the last time I jumped in for a Tanker Tuesday, I noticed it hadn't changed much, which is AWESOME. I guess participation ebbed and flowed throughout the years, but the basic tenants seemed to have stuck around.

Tanker Tuesday was largely the result of 1 character, Fighting Irish. He was a great guy, and an SG mate of mine for some time. He was Inv/SS though in reality he was SS with random Inv powers. He couldn't hold aggro, hadn't taken invincibility well into his 30's, and was basically just a weak scrapper. Teams wiped with him a lot, and not the funny kind of "we are out of our league" wipes, but the frustrating sort of wipes. So I was in high demand in my SG, not because I was great, but because I wasn't as bad as he was in the role. Though we helped him, he what he really needed was an SS scrapper powerset.

The other problem we had in the early days, was rampant overblasting, and aggro-soaking defenderitis. As the game's challenge level increased, letting a blaster wipe himself started getting to be troublesome when DPS was needed. Running without a defender who had debuffed more than he could chew, made everything slower (and progress was slow enough back then). So it became obvious that people needed to know more about the tank on their team, even if they never intended to play one for real.

So I figured the best way to teach folks, would be practical application. To encourage first time rollers, and tanks of all levels, the meeting place was in KR by the IP Gate.

That was why tanker tuesday happened.

Even though it seemed to serve that primary purpose throughout it's run, it became way more than that. It was a celebration of the archetype, and a proving ground for what tanks could do, and how conceptual builds could be effective. Rather than fit all tanks into one methodology, it became a chance to explore the limits of alternate builds (no taunt tanking, provoke vs. taunt, perma-unstoppable, etc). It became a community unto itself where knowledge and skill were revered and disseminated.

Most of all, it was filled with really great players who were also really great people, and it was one of the most difficult only-kinda-virtual things I ever walked away from, and one of the few I comfortably regret.

It was a lot of work at first. And it I was always the last one to leave. As any of the emcee's that followed me can probably attest to, running a TT and participating in a TT are two wildly different experiences. In the early days, not everyone had a 50, so we had everyone hold up cards to indicate their level (<10 = 1, <20 = 2, <30 = 3, <40 = 4, and the final stretch held up a 5). Every team had 3-4 similarly levelled tanks within 4-5 levels of each other and room for sidekicks. It was a nightmare to kick off, and since it got popular quickly, I spent the first hour sending off teams as fast as I could. Some nights, I ended up duoing with a lowbie that showed up at the last minute, or didn't team at all until someone dropped. As more 50s hit the wall, it got easier. Other tanks like Kiloton, Dinah Might, Myrmydon, Pep Rally, AceMace, Key Moonpetal, and Ultraamann (hope I mispelled that right) helped out to get teams rolling faster. But it was real work, done by some amazing tankers, who were willing to volunteer and share experiences with people they never met.

Those were great days. Truly great. I'm really happy that so many people over the years have seen fit to do the work to honor the most heroic of all the archetypes this game offered. I guarantee it was appreciated.