At Tui's request (warning: wall of text)
Witch King Witch King Obtaurian, Dark Lord of the Sith, Dark Lord of the Sith wrote:
I will be telling this tale from the perspective of an omniscient god-being. The name of this god-being is Witch King Witch King Witch King Obtaurian, Dark Lord of the Sith, Dark Lord of the Sith, Dark Lord of the Sith.
Sometime before February 2011.
Once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away, there existed two or three groups of dungeoneering enthusiasts. The majority of these players were part of the Tip.it community, and it is there that our clan can trace its humble beginnings. The first of these groups consisted of several friends and Tipiters who often DG'd together in world 148: myself, Low_C, Cheeesy, Trollgazer, Green Rect, Trey, Jacks0n, Gwynrwyn, Bro Pal, Enaid Anwen, IHasChicken, and a few others that I may have forgotten. I say "two or three" because Cheeesy, Trollgazer, and Low_C were in SODB (Slayers of Dangerous Beasts) alongside Tui and Polarcup, and they organized their own floors. Cheeesy used to drag me and Michael to w148 where he'd key 30 minute floors consistently; 30 minutes was considered the standard at the time, and averaging 30 with randoms was quite impressive. Most of us used Skype as often as possible.
Fun Fact: Buying a hood?
Cheeesy and Trollgazer trolled me once by pretending to get a hood drop when I was still hoodless. They got a real hood drop two minutes later.
The second of these groups was Grimy's perm dungeoneering team: Grimy Bunyip, Rocked, A Final Name, The Ancient, and Shelby Polo. When Shelby went on hiatus, Grimy asked me to replace him. I was maybe ~85 dungeoneering at the time, Ancient was around 107, and the other three were 113+. Needless to say, I was very intimidated. They immediately began teaching me to DG, and my first ever floor with them was an 18 minute abandoned 2. 18 minutes was godly in a time when anything faster than 30 was considered good. Shortly after joining, we named ourselves The Hex Hunters (THH). Matt Marche was invited to be the sixth member a week or two later, and Enaid also joined, but she was more like a team mom than an actual member.
Fun fact: Skype groups and The Nex Hunters (TNH).
The Hex Hunters had a skype group that became the joint Hex Hunters/Nex Hunters group, and eventually the DGS ranks skype group that we still use today.
Mini-fun fact: The Nex Hunters was a PVM clan founded by Ancient, Soma, and Stringcheze. It was the "other" XPW clan before Stev's clan replaced it.
It is worth mentioning that Grimy and Ancient had actually tried to start a friends chat similar in concept to DGS quite awhile before any of this. The chat was called L2DG. Unfortunately it did not work out due to IRL obligations, but it some ways it can be considered the precursor to DGS. Discussion of a Tip.it-based dungeoneering clan began when Low_C consulted Grimy regarding rules, requirements, and his experiences with L2DG. He then ironed out the details with Cheeesy, Trollgazer, and myself. With the concept finalized, the Tip.it thread written, the friends chat created, and the name coined, Dungeonsweepers was born.
Fun fact: The name.
The name 'Dungeonsweepers' comes from a hilarious post on Tip.it written by Golvellius, the self-styled Original Dungeonsweeper and Anti-Clown. Behold, your namesake:
Fun fact: Tui's perspective and early DG history.
Tui wrote:
My first floor was with a couple friends of mine. We split off combat triangle roles and I was proclaimed a ranger due to my stats. My friends had already done a few dngs, and I was pretty overwhelmed. I got some helpful stegoleather vambraces bound, achieved level 5 dg, and was done with it. Who could've foreseen the tragedy to unfold!
I was low total, into pvm, and used tip.it h&a a lot, so I was in SoDB. I spent my time doing barrows and going on boss hunts mostly. I am competitive and crafty, so I went around beating bosses at relatively low combat for fun. I also would experiment with game mechanics; I even wrote a guide on how to safespot kill long-range monsters like waterfiends during this time. Since I was a ranger I would do my dngs brutally slow, safespotting almost every enemy, usually without an actual safespot, until around 35 dg. Sick of the monotony I finally tried out my lower melees and was instantly sold, and very annoyed at how underpowered ranged was in dg. I had no clear goal at this time though, so only got mid 40s dg. As I continued to raise my stats and pvm, I would read tif's h&a, to pick up tricks and learn other people's advice. One day in sodb someone was looking for a duo partner in dg so we partied up. I had high farming and fishing, so I'd always make melee pots and fish a bit to be prepared while gummy, concerned with efficiency, would keep us moving. Together, we managed to get into the low 60s, but I was sick of the skill, so I went back to barrows.
Some clanmates invited me to a large one day, and it was very different. The group gatestone had just been released, and I could no longer alch sag arrows or make air runes for cash. Before then, I had never used gates, simply because the dngs were small and it used too many runes. I mostly randomly explored that dng, but when I made it to a far-off door that needed doing, I realized that I needed teleports now, an important piece of information I'd keep with me for the rest of my life.
Now that I could do some larges I decided to get my rapier for pvm and slayer. I went off to the themed world and contributed as little as possible without leeching. I gtgd'd or gated a door if asked, but otherwise I was watching tv or reading h&a on the side. One time on a team that had no keyer I begrudgingly agreed to key, and was completely overwhelmed. Cursed with the memory of a goldfish, and not having enough food/armour or supportive teammates, I gave up, destined to be a mere drone. Except for that dreadful experience, it was pretty painless, and I got my first chaotic late august 2010.
As more and more people in SoDB started dging, fls were frequent, and I got suckered into dging with friends, which turned out to be a lot more fun. I became the farmer and potion maker, while also being a standard gd clearer & able to follow commands. I was through with themed worlds; I didn't care much about the other chaotics so I only would join cc fls. It was this period that I first dged with some of the founders of dgs; Cheeesy, Mc (Trollgazer), and Low_C, and others simply important to my dg career; Prov, and Motto. The latter 2 would sometimes take me to the 3bo world, and I grew to really respect the two; Prov being a great keyer and Motto a carrier. Unfortunately they soon quit, and I was stuck in the same boat with Chee and Mc, among others. Having respected good dgers and being competitive, I decided to learn to key. Chee, Mc, and I went off to the themed world, where Chee and I would learn to suicide key, and Mc to xp whore.. while being a good carrier and maxed tool. I reached 100 dg using 330k tokens and bound a platebody at last.
Spoiler:
^ Mc being a tool
Spoiler:
Cheesy and I doing a sodb floor. (Note the prom baxe for tank.)
After achieving 100 dg I was gone from rs for a month.
When I got back, I browsed tif's h&a as usual and saw a Dungeonsweepers thread posted that day. It was fate! As I looked at it, I was shocked to find out that mc and chee had started a dg clan with low_c (a clanmate whom I did not get along with) and Witch King Witch King Witch King Obtaurian, Dark Lord of the Sith, Dark Lord of the Sith, Dark Lord of the Sith. I recognized Obt's name, but that was all. I only really dged with mchee anyway, so I joined the fc and Chee vouched I was a keyer. I then did a floor with Obt, who was the so-called judge, at 95 dg. Despite nerves and not having dged recently I managed an impressive ~33 mins floor, and I was ranked as one of the first keyers.
February 2011.
The friends chat was "Dungeonsweep," and the first order of business was recruiting ranked keyers (silver stars); they were Grimy Bunyip, Rocked, A Final Name, Ancient, Tui, Trey, and Polarcup. The original DGS followed the traditional 'one keyer; four carriers' setup, but with an emphasis on dishing out DPS as efficiently and effectively as possible. We were going for 25-30 minute floors, and we invented a number of tricks and strategies that allowed us to net these floor times pretty consistently. Some of these tricks included near-lossless dino-hunting and "snaping" - the fine art of gathering potion supplies as losslessly as possible.
Professor Severus Snape wrote:
I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach.
The first couple weeks of the clan felt like balancing on the edge of a knife (I'm deep, I know). Our Tip.it thread was in their Help & Advice sub-forum - one of their most popular - and thus gained plenty of attention. Our plan was to present the project as a service rather than a clan so that it could remain in the H&A section; had the thread been in Tip.it's clan section, DGS would've died almost instantly.
There was some contention about the thread. Most active Tipiters seemed very interested in the idea of the clan, but those who weren't expressed their distaste for our "special treatment" pretty vehemently. I believe it was during the second week that a random Tip.it mod moved our thread to the clan sub-forum without warning. I immediately wrote an essay-length appeal to Das, who was a Tip.it administrator at the time. He saw the wisdom in keeping the thread where it would remain visible, and that's where it stayed thereafter. I always got the impression that the other Tip.it mods and admins were unhappy about that.
Tui wrote:
The beginning of dgs was interesting. On one hand, Witch King Witch King Witch King Obtaurian, Dark Lord of the Sith, Dark Lord of the Sith, Dark Lord of the Sith's essay negotiations with tif staff let us advertise in help & advice which meant a lot of activity for a new clan, without any chances for clan drama or splinter clans to arise. We were the tip.it dg clan, here to serve your goals and help you improve. On the other hand, we didn't have anyone to teach us. The vast majority of 3bo was god-awful too, but there are always a select few private teams that are good. Anyway, the norm was 1 keyer 4 keelers, and we weren't about to debate that. The strong base of ranks were largely interested in efficiency, and most were arrogant and stubborn, so the h&a thread was full of arguments. In the early days we learnt what soulgazers were, how to quickcast a gate, how to do book rooms, and that a final name's numbers were about as accurate as grimy bunyip's.
Our early explorations:
Spoiler:
Blink Fort
We were a group of friends with a passion for dashin'. Naturally being a group of intelligent people we experimented with responsibilities a second keyer on the team should take, and what type of skilling is efficient. Most notably those with hex binds learnt to craft leather-armour quickly to deal with the lack of a plate, and Cheeesy popularized the farming of melee pots & pot-door pots during idle time. While the standard of 1 keyer 4 gd'ers is outdated, these methods are about as efficient as you can get without everyone pathing. Grimy bunyip had spreadsheets and formulas, which were brought up in discussions of prom 2h, pba, prim rapier, and hex, but without having any defence rating data yet, dps was mostly just speculations at this point. However, Dgs did discover early on that desperado did not in fact work with hex, to 3bo's disbelief.
In the good ol' days I did most of my floors with Mc. He was a keyer/admin, but he was my wing. He'd open all the skill doors for me, mine me 30 prom ores for ragers, and fell all the spiders. When he got his first hex drop, he gave it to Chee (I wasn't there). He was the motherfucking Wingsnapeminer. He was an xp-whore, so he got 120 long before I did, but he basically defined my early dgs days.
Motherfucking Michael, on top of DyingSilent's head:
Spoiler:
The Wingman rank and the origin of pathing. At the time, 3bo called secondary keyers 'carriers', usually in the “I carried your floor so hard, man” tense. We didn't like 3bo much. Some of it was justified, but we were pretty ignorant about 3bo at the time. It was obvious that having multiple keyers on a team sped things up, so inevitably the Wing rank was formed, as players who specialize in assisting the keyer as an alternative to the keyer rank. There is no origin of multiple people pathing, it's fucking obvious. It just took a guide, word of mouth, and some self-reflection for a paradigm shift of the metagame to slowly become standard practice.
The biggest reasons why 1 keyer 4 gd'ers maintained popularity for so long is because of the general ineptitude of rs players and the difficulty of organization. If others pathed, you couldn't really trust them to gate, communication was seen as superfluous, and others pathing only made your organization of the floor more difficult. You relied on memory for everything. DGSweeper didn't exist - and trust me, keyers reran doors tons of times. I remember one day I started writing doors down and it changed my average time from 30 minutes to 25.
I got my hex on april 20th 2011. I was in a floor with Mc, Chee, Yyboy, and Gywn. A dark and stormy night. But the light of that alch etched into my memory would be brighter than any sun piercing the clouds. I was so high, man. Ok ok that didn't happen but I'm bored. I ruined the dramatic tension because this event isn't really that interesting. Cheeesy said “mc come north” followed by “yyboy don't come * 10”. Mc was off pathing in the stratosphere, so the rest of us went north. I was close, so as soon as I saw the gazer I darted back, dropped the gt, and said 'nvm' or something in a feeble attempt to not have yyboy kill it if he happened to decide to gt, since I thought it was yyboy obscuring some explored place, not mc. I then ran back north, expecting the potential hex to be given to me, since mc and chee had one and gywn didn't even want one. I was in the adjacent room as the gazer was dealt the fatal blow, and using my keyer-prowess I clicked the door! I then proceeded to click the general drop area, followed by clicking on a hexhunter bow, using my feeblenimble skills. Anyway, after being like “yay” a bit, I quickly realized it was in fact yyboy who had killed it, but he let me have it. Later on many would despise him, but I didn't get another hex drop until well after 120, so at least I got something out of his later scamming of members.
Me making use of my hex:
Spoiler:
Flesh Dress
I achieved my first sub 20 in march 2011, and my first sub 15 in may, both as the first in the clan's (occ/warp only), winning me limited edition grimy medals. It wouldn't be until november though that I'd get my first sub 10 which came along with the limited edition overall record medal (for about a month). With my first sub 20 I became much more arrogant, taking on discussions on the dgs thread and thinking I was better than everyone.
My medal etched into my sig:
Spoiler:
The origins of my old sig; Sneakerpeeperopalipse:
Spoiler:
Oh Cheeesy.
This isn't exactly dgs history, but here's Chee being a bamf:
Spoiler:
object
(I liked him better when his binds were full primal.)
The level of trust for teammates was really low. And communication non-existent. Even speeds with top players in may and june were so disorganized that 15 min fls were your goal. #keyers which started summer 2011 required 5 sub 15s 5:5 at first.
Tui the wise:
Spoiler:
With Toad and I spending much time together, we also discussed efficiency in dng, and began some elementary research on a couple puzzles to understand them better and for the weekly trivia. I had always liked experimenting, had written a guide and had always wanted to write a barrows guide, even though it would be redundant. I didn't think much of writing the map guide, I simply wanted to explain how I think as I do a floor so the other keyers would improve. I spent a couple days briefly reflecting upon what I actually do, and then tried to write all the general rules out, but was too overwhelming. So instead I went and forged an example floor, telling players where to go for map pics in a brutal hour-long floor with Toad and some dgs minions.
The original guide, released on jun 6th 2011:
Spoiler:
While it was mostly for the keyers, I realized that the recruits and wings alike could learn from it, so I did mention it on the h&a thread and in the cc a couple times, but xp-waste was blacklisted from tif, and we didn't require xp-waste usage yet. It was popular among wings/keyers, but it wasn't until I put it into picture version a few weeks later that most were able to read it. Even though the logic behind using the map for dg is blatantly obvious, reading a guide on it solidified knowledge and caused people to actually think about their actions, gradually shifting the metagame.
On June 1st, the frem sagas were released. And with that, a bearded legend was born.
Spoiler:
There would not be a household in Gielinor that would not recognize visage, that name!
The original dgs skype group was hectic. People discussed their daily lives among other trivial things, Grimy and Xpx argued for hours on end, and I couldn't really stand it. I always keep a bit of a personal distance online, so all the spam and disinterest in the metagame of dg was off-putting. As the ranks chat grew larger and the exploration of the metagame expanded, especially in may and june, the chat became unreasonable. We didn't want to read through hundreds of lines of chat to catch up and respond to discussions. So one day in June I added Usa to a skype group I lovingly dubbed 'pros'. I chatted with him for a few minutes and we agreed that Bladekill, who had been improving at an insane pace, will be just as good as us very soon, so we added him. Jettrider had occasionally posted on our tif thread, and he joined dgs around the end of may. Early July when we were convinced of Jettrider's commitment to dgs (he was from 3bo) and impressive skill, the chat was recreated with us four and named “Pathmasters”, the forefront discussion place for the metagame. It would not be until the end of november that a new metagame chat, open to all ranks, would be created. Mind you, discussions did happen in the mess that was dgs ranks chat, but infrequently and mostly between other ranks.
Usa is probably the ultimate success story. He joined dgs in late march with but a maul in his hands. If his first floor(s) had been with a keyer that cared or an admin, he surely would've been banned. He was a simple chaotic hunter who contributed very little to floors. But after getting some chaotics something sparked inside him, piquing his interest in the skill. Once he got started, he improved at a blinding pace, but was held back by the lack of available teaching. With Toad's arrival and the conceptions of the map brewing in my head, the resources necessary for Usa to achieve excellence were on the horizon. He would later become vital to the metagame, dgs, and possibly the best dger there ever was.
With the privitization of our meta chat, and our 'perm team' formed, we set out to practice, teach, and prove all things metagame related. [Expand]
The Pathing workshop originated in the summer. It started simply as duoing a med, pretending it was a large, with me teaching someone how to use the map.
During the summer we also all set out to get #keyers ranks for a source of income, a sense of achievement and to learn. We were interested in the other top dgers, were there other viable styles, and what do we have to learn. We got ranked fairly easily, which led to us having opportunities to do speeds with the so-called legends. After the initial novelty died off, we were frankly very disappointed. By late october we knew that they only cared for high apm and solve mistakes by rq'ing, rather than with pre-emptive communication.
On July 31st the clan moved away from tif's H&A to our current board, xp-waste. With the change to a small board, virtually no advertising, and the end of summer, september almost killed dgs. The steady revitalization and rise to fame would be slowly onset by Grimy's spreadsheets exclusive to xp-waste, word of mouth, the best dg guides, and dgsweeper's rise to popularity.
With the clan pretty inactive, dgs attempted to boost activity. Dgs attempted a dg competition which was a complete failure due to inactivity. Usa and I took over the application process, being more lenient on apps and unofficially abolishing the anti-plate law for non-keyer ranks, much to grimy's dismay.
With the completion of the puzzles guide in november, the main guides done, the overall record briefly ours, and having discussed and practiced every aspect of the metagame to death, our interest began to decline. With very little new to discuss, spawngazers opened as a means of us teaching the ranks.
Witch King Witch King Witch King Obtaurian, Dark Lord of the Sith, Dark Lord of the Sith, Dark Lord of the Sith was added to Pathmasters at the end of November, to facilitate a private discussion area for clan policies, while spawngazers, later renamed dgs metagame chat, replaced pathmasters as the primary discussion area of the metagame, with any ranks we deemed interested in the metagame added to said chat. Pathmasters was still used for private discussions of ranks and some discussions, but for the most part we tried to be more open to other ranks.
The floorgazer rank. The name was suggested by Aero Dreamz in this post:
[Omit]http://www.xp-waste.com/new-ranking-system-new-rank-t883.html#p12625[/omit]
The original recruitment flier, courtesy of Ricardo vandalizing Jagex's concept artwork.
Spoiler:
Additional resources
Occult record:
Spoiler:
After doing that, we got the occult record in under an hour.
Skele horde fort, and my current sig:
Spoiler:
(Except a HD closeup)
Things to discuss:
#Pathmasters, the ppl and floorgazer rank. V2 map. Other guides. #keyers/speeds, later records, leech fls. The pathing workshop thing and general teaching. my rise to power as a pseudo admin (idk).
rise to power for floorgazers.
Drama between admins and floorgazers. Gradually, but the conflicts were in dec I think? When we actually considered making our own clan.
I hardly remember clan policies
Platebody ban.
The resolution to the admin dispute, and the modern era of uneventfulness. I don't think much has really happened since then. Keybag update only made dg much easier, and idk even wtf eoc is like.
END: Now if you have any complaints about having to write a paragraph about your dg history in your app and actually answer the questions, fuck you.
So was it worth it? The hundreds of hours spent perfecting myself and others? Of course not.
do I have too many silly pics?
I don't know how much more thats relevant that I can write. The long weekend is over now so no promises on this history
Matt Marche wrote:
Once upon a time in January 2011, I was but a wee babby with 103 or so dungeoneering and an awesome hexhunter bow. I knew the sacred being Grimy Bunyip, but had no part in organized dungeoneering until that point. Grimy had dungeoneered with me before and was (presumably) impressed enough with my skills to invite me to his permanent team.
This permanent team consisted of myself, Bardems, Grimy, Ancient, Rocked and Final. The dungeons we did as a group were few and far between, but all of them were very fast for the era of dungeoneering. Who knows how fast they would have been if it weren't for Final wanting to solo shit. Enaid was our team mom and all was good.
Nex was released and the next thing you know Andrew DyingSilent and a bunch of other guys got added to our awesome skype group for the purpose of killing Nex. I didn't have overloads/turm (lolnoob) so I didn't participate, but I did talk to the new people in the chat anyway. The next month, DGS began and I idled in the friends chat during it's creation. I didn't really DG with the rest until the FC grew quite a bit, but once real ranks were introduced I quickly tried to get keyer rank. Prior to my attempt at keyer, I had done a few dungeons with most members and had already begun to see signs of bitter jealously from everyone else over my extremely high dungoneering level of 103. At the time, I had the highest dungeoneering level in DGS!. Andy Anderson and Bardems were the admins for my keyer review IIRC. We had two retards with us and we ended up with a floor of 28 minutes the first time around and 23 the second. The 3rd floor involved Jimi and Andy messing around and making me worried I wasn't going to get the rank, but I did anyway and became one of the first DGS keyers.
My last memory of early DGS was getting 105 dungeoneering with Michael and LowC congratulating me. I have the picture saved somewhere. After this, I think, is when serious dungeoneering began for me. Michael and I were racing to 120 at the time, with the race starting with me a 106 and him at 104. Needless to say, I lost, but the race accounts for the majority of my dungeoneering experience. He picked up ahead of me when we were at 109 or so, and I fell behind because I had things to do unlike that no-life motherfucker. Along the way to Michael's 120 dungeoneering, there were many fond memories made. SeXpX refusing wingman rank, the introduction of sexy people like Jettrider and Tui and many floors where Jimi and I duoed gravecreeper because hexes were so rare <3 Michael got 120 dungeoneering and we suicided the shit out of hope devourer for his 4th bind, a sagitarrian body. At this point, my motivation for rs was drifting strongly. I was around 2300 total and wanted to get max stats before "really" dungeoneering so my exp gains were abysmal.
During my skilling (around 111 dungeoneering for me) Tui got some floor time that i don't remember (17 mins?) which was, looking back, the start of DGS picking up it's pace from my point of view. I called that floor luck (lol) and even if it did involve quite a bit, Tui continued to impress the rest of the clan with awesome floor times. Meanwhile I'm grinding ZMI so I'm not so popular. Around this point my skill is trailing off in comparison to the other higher ranks and it neveerrrr catches back up.
Toad joins briefly. I do a bunch of floors with him, Tui and others. I get berated for being a survivalist frequently, something that became a sort of joke with the community and my own way of challenging myself in floors. Grimy's spreadsheets weren't much of a help either, dragging my average down to the best because I never died. People exaggerated how much time I spent surviving, but it still did slow down my progress quite a bit.
Fast forward a few more months and we have idiots like Obat, Mr. greens and Mr. Recci replacing Greg, Andrew, Sean and Michael. The enjoyable part of DGS, the community, had moved to the skype chat and I faded from DG existence at 114 DG. I still played Rs and got to 2450 total before quitting and coming back briefly several times to see how much DGS grew.
My return to DG in August 2012 was a shock, really. The average floor dropped from 25 to 15 minutes and the keybag was introduced. I heard legends of Jettrider, questioned how USA Hell Yes became anything more than a name to be made fun of and learned that we should all hate peeps. Btw Caleb is awesome. I didn't really intend to get serious with rs, but seeing how much DGS improved was really awesome. Being at least partially there for the entire DG metagame gives me a detailed vision of it's development. I can distinctly remember 60 minute floors with my maxed friend Ahsigh, 30 minute floors with randoms in 148 and 15 minute floors shortly before 2012. Now, people are cutting those times in half again and continue to impress me.
DGS has grown a lot and even if there are people like Brian in it, it is still an awesome place to be and I'm glad I could have been a part of its creation.
Statistics: Posted by Corrupt Idea — Tue Aug 26, 2014 6:07 pm