Engineer Professional Voting Thread (RESULTS WITHIN)!

[Kintaii]

Alright guys - It's been a long road from there to here, but we're finally ready to get the ball rolling on the final phase of the new Professionals process - The vote!

Engineers, your candidates for Professional are:

Xyphos - http://forums.anarchyonline.com/member.php?u=691042
-Stage- - http://forums.anarchy-online.com/member.php?u=672710
Ellarisa - http://forums.anarchy-online.com/member.php?u=690853
Technogen - http://forums.anarchy-online.com/member.php?u=662515
Takun - http://forums.anarchy-online.com/member.php?u=683723
Majoroutage_ - http://forums.anarchy-online.com/member.php?u=690818

This thread will also contain campaign speeches from the candidates who choose to write one, posted as separate replies beneath this one. More will be appearing as the week goes on, so feel free to wait, debate, discuss and take your time deciding who you think will best represent you and your vision of how Engineers should be.

In one week's time, this poll will close and the results will be made publicly available, announcing for the first time who your final Professional choices will be. To all the candidates, I wish you the best of luck - May the best candidates win!

[Kintaii]

Campaign Speech from: Ellarisa

ok so they finally got around to playing with the professional program again.
in the stuff that kintaii posted it said that you have to write some kind of "campaign speech". after spamming him in PM's a lil he said it could be anything ya want to "motivate" people.
so i figured i'd write a little history about myself.

here goes.

i started playing on the 2nd of june in 2006 on rimor. I rolled a soli NT and got her to 11 in 3 days (awesome, i know)
on the 5th of june i switched to Atlantean and once again rolled an NT (ellarisa) which i played for quite a while. my NT on rimor hasn't done any leveling since.
2-3 weeks later my engineer (darkellarisa) was born (22nd of june if i remember correctly).
i dont remember the exact reason why i rolled her, but i think it was cause it looked quite fun.
over the next few months i rolled various alts while leveling most of em a bit.

pic of my engi somewhere in july, leveling: http://users.telenet.be/Gabber0666/scrn0009.png

the next change was somewhere mid november of 2006, when i finally decided to get the expansions. my engineer was around level 110 at the time.
about a week after i got expansions i set foot in SL for the first time, guided by my friend Irna.

on the 3rd of december i did my first AI raid on my engineer and got my first ai level!
on the 8th of december i got picked off of LFT for an ai raid by an alt of fixalated and bitsmack in Aristocracy's city.
i raided with em for quite some time (3.5 months) till i finally decided to level up some more.

at this point i was using a bathrobe, T1 armor, a CR, a 200ish VTS and a set of untyped kyr pistols (ql 89/170ish). symbs werent all that bad, but not all that great either (didnt do any real big twinking).

picture of me at 153: http://users.telenet.be/Gabber0666/scrn0046.png

on my road to higher levels i also started looking around the forums and ofcourse started reading the forums.
it is at this point that i started caring a lot more about DD and twinking (i blame muhandes )

at 180 i did my very first solo ground raid, i remember dying 3 times, but i did get a gen!
after a lot of unsuccesfull ai raids i decided to level up to 185 and buy myself sotos to help manage the agro (borrowed creds for this)
stayed at 185 for 2-3 weeks and got lucky when i got 2 supple bots in 1 weekend.
at this point i also managed to twink on a ql 210 eye and leg symbiant (not all that impressive, but a big accomplishment for me)
it is at this level that i also got a set of 175 ofab armor (except head) and a 175 pregrine. (BS actually ran at this level back then )

next stop was 201 on the 19th of may 2007. at this level i got in a few ql 220 symbs and i got myself to ai 20.
while leveling up from 185 to 220 i kept soloing groundraids.

at level 205 i got in a bunsh of 230-240 symbs and upgraded my main hand weapon to a 250 peregrine mk6 (ql 175 in off hand)

next major stop is level 210, where i stayed for about 2 months.
at this level i got myself another 3 ai levels, upgraded my symbs to mostly 250s, got myself my first piece of ql 300 CC (a chest) and also got various things from pande with hellcom.

on the 5th of august 2007 i finally continued leveling until i hit 215 on the 11th.
here i stayed for 5 months and did quite a lot of things.
i got myself up to ai 26, finished all lvl 9 research and 2 or 3 level 10s.
i also upgraded my equipment.
i got another piece of ql 300 CC (pants) and 2 pieces of ql 223 CC (sleeve and helmet).
i upgraded my symbiants to all ql 270s except a 250 head symb.
i upgraded my weapons to a 300/250 peregrine combination.
i also managed to get my hands on a few intel symbs and some alba toys
at this level i also got myself up to 2.5k tokens (95% RK mishs )

picture of me during a huge lag spike while grinding tokens: http://users.telenet.be/Gabber0666/darkellarisa.JPG

on the 30th of december of 2007 i decided to finally start leveling again and clean out my 7mil SK pool.
after a 40ish hour grind (with a small break here and there ofc) i managed to hit 220 on the 1st of january 2008 at 1 am european time

somewhere in the first part of 2008 i switched from dual peregrines to peregrine/bigburger (could be imep or amep combined with bigburger, not 100% sure)
on the 13th of april 2008 i put in a full set of ql 300 symbs after finally getting the aquarius gloves (i bid 500 points, paid 200ish for it )
somewhere during the summer of 2008 i switched to an extermination occular (starting with a 256 one)

on the 9th of november 2008 i finally hit ai 30 after a small break.

at the start of this year after some drama i decided to create my own org and played without org beni's until instanced cities were released (not advised tbh)
i also trolled around test for a bit in the first part of this year and took a small break from ao just after LoX got released.
when i came back in got myself all the beta symbs and upgraded my intels to alphas and i upgraded my eoe to a ql 290. (was way too easy)

a recent screenshot: http://users.telenet.be/Gabber0666/scrn0141.png

ok now the stuff that matters for the professional position:
- i love my engineer and it's imo the most fun profession of em all
- unlike what my reputation says and what people think, i do actually enjoy pvp once in a while and i'd love to have a pvp-viable setup without all the current drawbacks.
- i give most people a chance to prove themselves before they get classified as idiots or retards
- my pets think that solja legs are a delicacy
- i dont like TSkill monkeys
- one wall of text per day makes all frustrations go away!

enough rambling from me, time to get back to work
Greetings,



Ellarisa

edit: i outdid myself, extreme wall o.o

[Kintaii]

Campaign Speech for: Takun

O hai! Well.. here's my propaganda!

Greetings Fellow Grenade Enthusiasts!

-History
Although I ended up rerolling quite a few times (I messed up on IP and didn't know you could reset it...) the current Takun was born on a friday morning in the summer of 2005. I started playing AO after two of my friends had already had some success in the game and invited me to join in. After reading the character descriptions I was sold on the engineer. Robots? crafting..? beacon warping madness..? Rock on. I'm a total support class whore, I love being the guy who keeps the team running or enables you to do your job better. (Some of my favorite other chars: crat, meta, trader, dawk) From those humble beginnings I mostly ended up running around RK killing mobs to see if what they dropped could be made into something. Ever since wandering into athens shire in an attempt to find higher level animals that dropped mob parts, I have been sold on blood plasma. I collect the stuff religiously.. why? I can not really say. I just remember running around OA looking for that meta for mochies to get my big bad gladiatorbot out to go kill those bloodred rhinomen in newland desert to get plasma for creds to buy my nanos.

As I believe most everyone does, I got picked up by an older player (and engineer for that matter) who taught me all the basics of implant twinking, IP spending and knowledge of the fabled red line. Jump ahead a few years and we have a level 208 engineer grinding in inf to get 209 for the last tier of his demolitions perkline to get bacam-xum on. Ever since I have been sold on grenade, I remember spending weekends trying to farm spirit pitchers and was a very sad panda when I figured out that bigots was social armour. :[

After dinging 220 I have continued to play my engineer through most content (the once mystic AI 30 was a goal!) and mostly started working on alts to learn the other professions. Somewhere around the summer of 2008 I quit the game out of frustration and a mass exodus of friends. During that time I picked up world of warcraft and have since become rather bored with WoW and have reactivated both of my AO accounts.

-Playing the game
I've always been a tradeskill fan, not to the extreme but also not to the extent that I can't kill a level 1 reet with out backup. I like tradeskills, I think they fit the profession well.. however there combat use is lacking and tends to 'gimp' us on IP. This is why I think grenade fits the class well.. it is a rather low IP investment which tends to have decent damage and mods. I have always been a competitive player and like to play rather aggressively. During 2008 prior to my quitting I had what some called "the optimal grenade setup" I tried to push the weapon line as far as it would go and got rather frustrated by my limitations while pistol seemed to sail on past.

-Goals
In terms of goals I would like to see grenade weapons viable again. I think engineers and all pet classes in general need a lot better synergy with their pets none of this (I'm a gimp soldier with pets) nonsense. Likewise while a support class we are not a nano class. Most of our nanos are buffing / pass auras.. most of the current nanos have very high requirements which I believe funcom needs to tone down. Engineers are a damage dealing / tradeskilling / support class, we are not nukers or debuffers... I don't need 2000+ nanoskill requirements on my nanos. I really found the AMEP and meta creation items interesting and wonder if there is a hybrid weapon in there somewhere which can be the saving grace for grenade.

-So why vote for takun?
If you believe me the right mortar man for the job, then by all means go ahead and do so. If you agree with me that pistols are heresy and should be removed from the game then go ahead and buy yourself something nice and vote for me. If you don't believe I'm the best guy for the job you're most likely a pistol carebear. Regardless, I'll still be here pushing my grenade agenda as usual.. either to the delight or dismay of you.

Grenadineer,
Takun

P.S Kintaii you noob you didn't answer my grenade questions from my last PM :[

[Kintaii]

Campaign Speech from: -Stage-

I am Stage.

I will not even attempt to compete with Ella's staggering wall'o'text.

If voted in as Engineer Professional, I intend to efficiently aid communication between FC and the engineer community, whether or not I agree with said community. I accepted my nomination because during the last round of professional selection, people told me I should have run, and I didn't, and I believe we as engineers suffered from poor communication with FC, thanks to professionals with personal agendas and bizarre ideas which clash with the community's. Muha's shoes were too big for me to fill, but I can absolutely guarentee I'll do better than the last guys.

I will put your words ahead of my own agendas. It's a simple task, and I intend to do it well.

While being skilled in and commited to communication is I think the only real requirement for a good professional, solid understanding of AO game mechanics and the Engineer profession is an obvious advantage, and I have those.

Lordstage is my engineer, my main, and the first toon I rolled in a MMO. I rolled him in late 2005, and I'm approaching 1 year of played time on him. Scary!

I levelled slowly and inefficiently, sniffing the flowers on the path towards 220. I've rebuilt my engineer more times than I can recall, to change weapons, or just re-allocate IP, yet somehow every build I've done ended up with tradeskills in it. At about TL5 I became aware of the engineer's potential as a DD machine, and started to focus my setup on DD, taking great delight in embaressing soldiers (as have most of us), and doing my part to improve our image, while lamenting the difficulty of getting a team as an engineer. I dinged 220 in late 2006 (because everybody was doing it, I just wanted to be part of something!). When LE was released, I did a lot of my research in teams to which I was invited because they needed a tank, and everyone knows neutral nanomage engineers make the best tanks.

I didn't roll an alt, nor level one far, until fairly late in the game, which I regret. I've found that playing other professions gives important insights into the Engineers' place in the game. I now have a 220 adventurer, and a 220 enforcer, neither of which have seen more than a small fraction of the time, effort and care go into them as my engineer has.

I gained an appetite for 220 PvP after LE was released, and I went to BS in pursuit of peregrines. After trying a variety of weapons, I eventually settled on the Arbalest (which Rocker gave me for christmas!), and for quite a while used a multi-purpose pistol/PvP/tradeskill setup, before resetting pistol related skills to focus solely on PvP. For a long time, I then used a Kyr'Ozch Energy Carbine, before the rigid requirements that weapon imposes on its users' setups drove me back to the Arbalest. My current setup uses the Sloth of the Xan for quite decent PvM DD, and Arbalest with dimach and brawl for PvP. It's an interesting setup which lets you do very unexpected things. I'd reset to pistol again if it wasn't for the upcoming rebalancing.

Yes, the rebalancing. Big changes are about to come, and things look fairly bleak for us. In the upcoming months, we may get solutions to major issues which have been hampering us since before I started playing, or we may get strange ineffective things which imply that the developers do not understand our profession. Again. Which professionals are selected may determine which of these possibilities occurs.

Please choose wisely. Thank you for your consideration.

[Kintaii]

Campaign Speech from: Technogen

Lines, I see lines and lots of lines see me
but not all lines see you
there is no spell check on this blasted planet that can deal with me

What, you thought I would talk about how I am some great super engineer and you should vote for me now or face the dark ages? Nah no darkages coming, no matter who becomes professional, while there have been ups and downs the funcom has done a solid overall job though and though for the game as a whole. You sit there going "OMG BUGZ!!!" but I'll point out to you that I said over all not every little thing. There are some gaping errors, and some whole WTF moments in life in AO but over all its a good life.

There's those of you that want more pistol damage, this leaves me scratching my head wondering WTF you are doing wrong. As it currently stands engineer is the top PvE damage class in AO, hell when we talk about our damage we compare it to each other not other classes because no other class matches us.

What is unique to us? hell I can hardly answer that myself, we're some jack of all trades class now, the only unique thing I can think of is beacon warp on RK, beyond that everyone else does everything else we do. With the changes planed we can even be support healers though perks, though I wouldn't go rampaging though the lands with only an engine to heal. Most of you on RK1 know I personally tank with my engineer and I'm not half bad at it, if I have one of my friends doctoring for me I can pretty much tank anyone in game, and have even kite killed the Xan. (eller was there to see that one happen)

So, why vote for me, what does it get you? Well for starters I've spent a good deal of time talking to the devs, both though IM, and in game on test. I'm good at seeing the game as a whole which translates over well in my request for changes and things for them to address.

My tip for whom ever becomes professional, do not throw a tantrum, for tantrums do not help. You know what, I cant do it, I honestly cant think of how to add Tantrum 5 times in this post, I'm sorry MstrBstrd its just not humanly possible to say 5 tantrums in one post, so please don't throw a tantrum about the lack of tantrums in this post.

Sincerely,
The Woodchuck Named Tantrum

[Kintaii]

Placeholder 5

[Kintaii]

Placeholder 6

[mangoes1]

stage ftw!



{edited by Ophyr: removed spam}

[Philty]

Xyphos and Takun named as professional candidates have given me good portion of laugh. I really like sick jokes.

However, thumbs up for Ella! Go, go, go!!!

[Ellarisa]

i'm kinda scared about the result of this poll.
some of the names on there are quite lol and imo questionable.

also: wall of text quotes ftw!
Greetings,



Ellarisa

[zartosht]

Oh! I forgot... And another big lol @ voting system because of the non-engineers who will come and vote for people they don't know or for people they know we don't like

I just voted for a total stranger in another Profession line, just because I can...

[Kintaii]

Oh! I forgot... And another big lol @ voting system because of the non-engineers who will come and vote for people they don't know or for people they know we don't like

I just voted for a total stranger in another Profession line, just because I can...

Much like in any other major election process. Posting is a privilege, not a right - Stop trolling, zarto. First, last, and only warning.

That goes for everyone else - Keep this thread clean. Any issues or concerns can be brought to me in PM; no need to troll this thread just because it's here.

[IHaveHugeNick]

This is rather amusing.

[MajorOutage]

75 votes already? Are there even that many active engis?

I kid, I kid. But I hear there's rather large and heavy footwear in the shadows just waiting for someone to try something really funny.

[Kintaii]

Nick himself was nominated, but turned the opportunity down.

[MajorOutage]

I'd like to encourage anyone who was going to vote for me to vote for Ella or Stage instead. They're much more suited for the job at the moment than I am.

[zartosht]

I have to say that after a private chat with Kintaii, I am now less concerned by vote rigging or any other funny stuff happening.

There may still be loose ends and we may end up with the wrong pair, but at least they are doing their best. So I am told.

I therefore withdraw my "lol@fc" comment.


PS: As Maj recommended, I'll vote for Ella and Stage.

[Solidstriker]

We must make this professionals thread get the most posts out of any!

[Technogen]

I'm not yet sure if I should assult everyone with a wall of text post or not... its not like you all don't know who I am.

[Chrys]

Part of me wanted to put down two votes for Technogen just to spite you nasty engies (dai IHHN), but instead my conscience took hold and I voted for Stage and Ella I'm losing my Touch of Troll