Cav's Place

Considering how useless the United Nations Security Council often proves to be, particularly when it comes to events that require an immediate response, not to mention a forceful one, I really think that a new security organism needs to be set up, replacing all the others that currently exist. Yes, that means it’d also replace NATO and any other such organization currently in existence, as having any other such bodies would no longer serve any reasonable purpose. For lack of a better idea, I’ll call this new organization I’m proposing the United Earth Security Force, or UESF.

UESF’s role will be a very complex one, essentially handling anything and everything that could require military action. That means interventions if one of its member states is attacked, if a regime badly oppresses its subjects anywhere in the world, if a non-member state becomes a clear threat or if there’s a menace from space, which includes the hypothetical alien attack but mainly refers to the asteroids we know we’ll need to destroy or at least deflect sooner or later. It will also be the only body allowed to own or use weapons of mass destruction, so member states will need to hand over any such weapons they may have to the organization and non-member states will need to destroy any stocks they may have according to a certain schedule.
At the same time, though this may seem hard to believe, UESF’s primary role will be to maintain peace and promote, and even enforce, demilitarization. As such, on top of forbidding any other body from possessing or manufacturing anything that might be considered a weapon of mass destruction unless the UESF itself would commission said device, it will set limits, both directly and indirectly, on its member states’ military forces. It will do that by limiting the total military spending of its member states, demanding a certain portion of any such spending, hiring the best military personnel and likely also purchasing the best military technology and equipment available.

I’ll go into some details now, but the more specific parts should be seen more as just examples than proposals in themselves. A lot of work is required before such numbers will really make sense and achieve the desired results, not to mention that a lot of things may well happen during the decades this will take to fully implement, including events that could dramatically change the global state of affairs, requiring major changes in any such project as well. Note that I’m taking 2020 as the year when the UESF will be founded.
As stated before, member states must hand over anything that could be deemed a weapon of mass destruction, starting obviously from nuclear warheads, to the UESF. Countries that hid such weapons prior to joining UESF will not be sanctioned in any way if they hand over all the secret stocks within one year of joining. Stocks that were not secret must also be handed over, but the transfer may be gradual, completing up to five years after joining UESF or in the year 2040, whichever comes first. Countries found to still have secret stocks more than one year after joining, those that do not hand over all known stocks within five years of joining, as well as those found to still manufacture such weapons after joining without them being directly commissioned by the UESF, will be dealt with immediately and ruthlessly. At the same time, the UESF will analyze any such weapons it receives, safely destroying the stocks that exceed its potential needs or have no obvious use in case of a threat from space and are too terrible to use against other humans under any circumstances.
The UESF will also limit member states’ military spending, the total not being allowed to exceed 5% of each member state’s GDP in 2020 and that maximum being reduced by 0.1% every other year until 2040, when it will reach 4%, and then by 0.1% per year until 2050, when it will reach 3%. The 5% limit would currently rule out no more than ten countries, but then more and more would need to cut down on such spending in order to be accepted. Yet, considering the fact that the UESF will also require its member states to hand over a certain amount of their military budget to it, national security expenses will need to drop even more. This tax will start at 5% in 2020 and grow by 1% per year until 2040, when it’d reach 25%, 2% per year until 2045, reaching 35%, and 3% per year until 2050, reaching 50%. In effect, with a properly functioning UESF there will be little need for any member state to still have a national army, as any hostile action taken against a member state would immediately result in a lethal response from the entire Force, but I’ll leave it at an even split for now.

Any country that desires to join the UESF will need to prove that they are meeting all the criteria for three whole years before being accepted. Said criteria include, but are not limited to, no longer manufacturing weapons of mass destruction, not oppressing their population, permitting the UESF to use its military bases when requested to do so, maintaining their military spending within the limits currently set for UESF member states and not taking any hostile action against another country without the UESF’s approval. Countries that apply before 2020 may be able to join starting in 2020 even if less than three years have passed since their application was submitted and obviously will not need to have taken no hostile action without the UESF’s approval within the past three years as at that point there’d be no fully formed UESF to judge their actions. Additionally, countries that are involved in a war accepted as just by the UESF may not need to reduce their military expenses before being allowed to join, though they will need to do so immediately afterwards.
The UESF’s stance towards the countries that are not and express no desire to become members will be determined according to a clear set of criteria that evolve at certain set points in time. Any country that takes any hostile action against an UESF member state or the UESF itself, as well as any country that oppresses its population, will be considered an enemy and will be dealt with swiftly and harshly. Countries that respect all other criteria but set aside a too large portion of their GDP for military expenses without being involved in a war accepted as just by the UESF, as well as those that do not permit the UESF to use their military bases when requested to do so, will have a moderate amount of pressure applied on them to conform to these requirements, but will not be considered hostile before 2051 solely because of this. Up to and including the year 2030, a moderate amount of pressure will also be applied on countries that still possess, though they no longer manufacture, weapons of mass destruction. The pressure will be increased more and more as time passes past the year 2030, and the same increased pressure will be applied from the very moment the UESF is formed on countries that still do manufacture such weapons. Countries that still manufacture weapons of mass destruction in the year 2031, those that no longer manufacture but still possess any such weapons in the year 2041, as well as any country that’s still not an UESF member in the year 2051, will automatically be considered hostile, though they will not necessarily be attacked solely because of this.

The UESF will be a force completely independent from the governments of all existing countries, employing the best military personnel from all over the world, including from non-member states, and allowing all those who serve within its ranks, as well as their spouses or life partners and immediate families, to live within its own bases, built on land bought from its member states, and gain “international” citizenship, possibly also renouncing their former citizenship at any point during their service if they desire to do so. Still, when the UESF will take action against a country, none of those who are still citizens of said country will be sent on missions during the first 24 hours and they will have between 24 and 72 hours, depending on how swift the response needs to be, to completely opt out of participating in any part of said mission without fear of reprisals.
It will operate according to a very strict, clear and specific set of rules outlined from the beginning and only changed when strictly necessary and with great difficulty, so there will be little to no need for interpretation, debates or votes when it comes to deciding a course of action. This should serve to prevent having it turn from a guardian of peace and security into the ultimate tyrant, as would otherwise likely happen if people, instead of clear and strict rules, would be allowed to make such calls. It should also serve to ensure that it will respond swiftly whenever needed, that no country will be spared of its watchful eye and that various interests won’t come into play when it comes to making such decisions.
In the end, it will be the true and rightful “global cop” that the world apparently needs and has needed all along, though of course one only dealing with the major conflicts, those that generally affect entire nations. It will keep a close eye on its member states, offering complete protection to those who fully respect its rules and dealing swiftly and decisively with those who do not, while also being watchful at all times for situations that require its intervention in non-member states. World peace will be its ultimate goal, but it will act with the knowledge that peace may sometimes be just another word for surrender, in which case it often is only short-term peace, while long-term peace is often the result of victory over those who desire war.

When I went on LiveJournal yesterday to see if there were any new posts to read, I noticed this “writer’s block” question: “If you arrived at your front door and saw your first love standing there, what would you do or say?” Found it oddly fitting, because first loves somehow came up during a recent chat with Tiel and that made me try to glance at Rose’s profile on Facebook, only to see that she no longer showed up on a search. Wondered if she got married and changed her last name, so I searched for her e-mail, but still came up empty. Then I searched on Google and her Facebook profile was the first match, but when I clicked it I got a message saying the page doesn’t exist. At which point I figured out what happened, logged off Facebook and clicked that search result again. Sure enough, there was the profile. So, if that were to happen, I’d ask her why the hell did she put me on ignore. I mean, the last time I sent her something, and probably also the last time I looked her up, was on her birthday, last year, when I just sent her my usual birthday message. She just replied to say thanks and that was that. So I’m really curious now, wondering what exactly happened during these past several months to cause this to happen, since I’m quite sure I didn’t send her anything else since then.

Otherwise, people sure seem to be following the usual routine and no longer talking to me after a little while. Actually, in most cases it looks like it’s the more and more common routine of no longer even logging on anywhere, apparently due to being too busy with “real life” to make time for such things anymore. Andreea is, as usual, busy with school and, more recently, work as well, which is something I’d be at her throat over if I could actually get to talk to her, or talk to her more than once every other week or so, as it seems to be the case lately. The last time Shiri sent something was a month ago, saying that she’s terribly busy with school and can’t figure out how she’ll handle everything, and she hasn’t even logged on since, or at least she hasn’t logged on to OkCupid and I haven’t seen her on messenger. I haven’t seen Ria log on in two weeks, which is rather worrying since she was there on most days before and it seemed like we were actually starting to talk more, not to mention that I just checked her blog now and I see no new entries in over a month, which makes just these last two weeks be the problem because she seems to normally be averaging about one entry every other week. As for Alina, ever since switching our conversations from OkCupid to Yahoo! Messenger, we just chatted a few times, over a month ago, when she kept saying that she’s really busy and is trying to get herself organized and stop giving in to distractions, by which she mainly meant chatting and browsing, and the only thing I saw from her since was a brief message a few days ago, to say a joke I sent her was funny. And then you have that former classmate of mine who looked me up a while back, who at first seemed to make a fair bit of effort to keep talking to me and then all of a sudden gave up on that idea completely, but I don’t mind that since she’s just someone I don’t mind talking to, not someone I particularly care to keep in touch with, so if she no longer wants to talk that’s fine by me.
The only partial exception seems to be Tiel, who at least is frequently busy with pretty nice things, namely her boyfriend and gaming, which also make for interesting conversations when she is actually able to talk. Unfortunately, “real life” things pop up more and more frequently with her as well and I only see that getting much worse as time passes. And, either way, there’s still the really annoying fact that she’s on-line all the time, sometimes leaving it like that even while she’s sleeping or not at home, so I never know when she actually is available and when I’d be better off trying to strike up a conversation with a wall.

At least, between actually playing and keeping up with posting bug reports and suggestions, Forsaken World is still keeping me busy. Since I’m not a social creature, it’s getting more and more frustrating, but parts of it are still nice enough. Unfortunately, there are the other parts, such as the fact that you need to do certain instances in order to complete quests or, perhaps more importantly, obtain any decent gear for yourself. Since those instances are getting more and more complex, they require more and more knowledge and coordination, therefore resulting in lots of awkward issues.
Actually, just tried the second gear instance, Emperor’s Canyon, yesterday. Yes, my mage entered the instance meant for obtaining level 20 to 29 gear for the first time at level 37. My vampire, also level 37 right now and soon to be 38, didn’t even enter it yet. I mainly went there to complete the quests that sent me there and to get some achievements, though it’d be nice if I’d find a weapon as well, as it’d be better than what I currently have. I’ll need to go there five times on each character to get one achievement, for example, but this is a very scary prospect at the moment, considering how things went the first two times. But the next step is the Lost Lighthouse, which is known to be a quite difficult and long instance, so I really get cold feet at even the thought of trying that. Not to mention that I really should do Nightmare Carnival as well whenever possible, but never did so far because it can be quite tricky and people keep specifying that they only want those who know what they’re doing while searching for groups, which certainly rules me out.
I do feel significantly less awkward on my vampire, as she can actually be useful in several ways and, most importantly from my point of view, can hold her own and take care of herself if things go wrong, but that also means there are certain expectations when she ends up in a group and I’d rather first learn the ropes and get her in only once I know what to do. On the other hand, all the mage can do is basically sit there and hit stuff, hoping for a quick rescue if any enemy decides to target him, but that’s pretty much all anyone expects a mage to do, so nobody has any real reason to complain if I’m just sitting back and watching what everyone else is doing. Hence he gets sent in first, but that only makes me feel even more inadequate, knowing that I couldn’t do anything in there on my own.
I do my best to play my part and also plug any holes I see in the group, but that’s hard to do when I don’t know what part I’m supposed to be playing. Now I’m usually a very fast learner, but feel terribly awkward in a group, even a virtual one, and just sort of end up curled up in a ball and just wishing for it to end so I’ll be able to get back to doing stuff on my own and at my own pace, which sometimes prevents me from acting on what I’m learning and quite certainly prevents me from asking or saying anything. I mean, as soon as I figure out how things are supposed to be going, I have the whole strategy in my mind and keep meaning to spell it out when I see people not following it, but almost never say anything…

I was lying in bed after waking up today, trying to think of something to write, when this old annoyance started creeping up on me again: Why do webmasters insist on making sites more and more complicated all the time? Why do they overload them, and particularly the front page, with all sorts of scripts, slideshows, movies and anything else you could possibly think of, often stuffing content into three columns, giving details that usually only take up space without really helping anyone decide whether they want to read more or not and cramming all sorts of menus everywhere? Why do they force you to have a fast connection and plenty of available processing power and memory if you want to even load that front page? Shouldn’t they want everyone to be able to access at least the main parts of the site? And, if so, wouldn’t that “everyone” also include those who still have slow connections and those who use old computers, somewhat newer netbooks or even newer tablets?

Interestingly, as soon as I tried to get on-line today I noticed that my connection was almost down. By that I mean that during the first roughly ten minutes it just barely managed to partially load a couple of sites. Then it recovered for about 15 minutes, then crashed completely for nearly one hour before once again recovering right now as I’m writing this, but that’s besides the point. What is the point is that it acted as a reminder of how much webmasters automatically assume that everyone has a solid broadband connection when that’s really not the case, plenty of people even still being on dial-up and as a result quite frankly unable to load plenty of sites!
Now I’m obviously not talking about sites specifically made to provide multimedia content, as anyone who visits such a site is assumed to have the connection required to display said content, but about all the others. There is no reason to stuff video content or slideshows on the front page of any site not specifically meant for multimedia content. If people go to a news site, they want to immediately see the headlines, with breaking news at the top and then everything else nicely ordered with the newest first, so they’ll immediately know what was posted since they last checked. If they go to a company’s site, they want to see some basic information about that company and the services it provides. If they go to a site dedicated to a certain issue or cause, they want to see some fast facts and the latest related news. Any videos or slideshows should stay on separate pages, those that people who want more detailed information will go to, and even there webmasters shoud make sure that visitors are able to read all the text while everything else is loading, in case it takes significantly longer for that to happen.

And then there’s Flash… Using Flash when it’s not absolutely required is by far one of the worst things you could do to your site, especially now when you have HTML5 and SVG available to do more or less the same things while preserving your site’s usability and accessibility and likely also using fewer resources. Yet some webmasters insist on using Flash for large sections of their sites, or in some cases even build entire sites in Flash!
What does Flash do to a site? Firstly, it makes it load slowly and often requires every part of it to load before anything is displayed, not allowing people to look through some things while others are still loading. Secondly, it significantly reduces the site’s usability, making it very difficult or often even impossible to do simple things like opening a link in a new tab, using the forward and back buttons, saving plain text in a file or posting links to specific sections. Thirdly, it ruins accessibility, as people who, for example, need to use certain fonts and colors and have their browsers set to override those specified by sites, not to mention those who are completely blind and require the use of text to speech software, pretty much get left out in the cold.

On top of all of that, you have scripts and other active content that tries to run constantly while you’re on a certain page. I’m not talking about malware, but about animations, slideshows that start by default, perhaps not even allowing you to stop them from constantly flipping through images, little boxes that constantly display updates without allowing you to turn them off, or utterly idiotic things like snowflakes falling, music playing by default or mouse trails! Especially since a user can and often does have multiple sites open, or perhaps just multiple pages from one site, all these things quickly add up and end up using a fair amount of processing power and memory, slowing down even decent computers, not to mention old ones, netbooks or tablets.
I have a decent computer and even I had problems with certain sites, particularly while opening multiple tabs or when having something else running at the same time. But others have to make do with far weaker systems, not to mention those who actually want to use simpler devices, such as the ones I mentioned above. As a result, I really don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that browsing a site shouldn’t have system requirements! In fact, I’d recommend this little test for professional webmasters: Get the weakest netbook available on the market, install Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome on it, open your site in all three of them at once and see what happens.

Some do seem to get the idea, making simple, and possibly even customizable, front pages and sites that are quick to load and easy to use, but most apparently do not. If a site has articles, the front page and/or the main category pages will feature a whole lot of them piled up, usually with a picture and the first 100 or 150 characters of some of them showing up as well, which often tells the user all too little about the article itself and therefore serves only to take up space. If the site has pictures, you’ll have them as a slideshow, possibly not even giving you the option to stop it from constantly flipping through them all. If the site has video or audio content, you’ll have the player thrown there along with everything else, and sometimes even have multiple players on the same page! And let’s not even mention the sites made in Flash or even those that just have Flash intros… This just needs to stop. Now.

Picked this up from Gabi a little while ago. Actually, picked up the things to say from there, as the original asked people to ask for one or more of these things in the comments and the poster would have to answer each time. But it struck me that, since I did that “ten to one” thing a while back and I have five things here, I could do this one like that as well. Especially since the order they were listed in seems to favor such an approach, at least from my point of view. So let’s get to it, shall we?

I. Five things that turn me on.
Let me not go through what I already wrote in the turnons section of the “ten to one” post all over again, instead pointing out some individual turnons, things either less important than anything written there or details not quite covered well enough in that section. Note that I’ll likely get carried away while writing this, going through scenarios in my mind.
5. Chokers, and I don’t recall ever telling anyone this before. Certainly not in a “heavy” BDSM sense, those are serious turnoffs, but anything starting from plain bands of some relatively hard material that cover about half of the girl’s neck and going through all sorts of more delicate designs usually makes for a very arousing look. Note that I go with full nudity during sex and the neck certainly must be accessible, seeing as I like to kiss that area quite a lot, so there’d be no place for any such thing once we’d really get to it, but before that point…
4. Warrior women. Of course, this is pure fantasy, but there you have it. Just to be clear, I certainly don’t mean the “hot chick in plated lingerie” stereotype. What I mean is a woman who of course doesn’t have any physical features that’d really bother me but otherwise looks like she could at least hold her own in a serious fight with medieval weapons and is wearing something that would actually protect her body. No helmet though, because I want to be able to see that she’s a woman… Naturally, being turned on by her ability to fight, preferably with swords and related slashing weapons, means I’d want to see her get out of that armor and anything else she may be wearing underneath it, but that comes afterwards.
3. Long, healthy and straight or slightly curly hair. There is something to be said about color too, but my response to that is related to body type as well. In general, if it reaches at least halfway down the back, isn’t too curly and looks healthy, a certain part of my body will react, at least until I’ll notice any other details. Yes, if not somehow hidden, hair is quite certainly the first thing I notice when I look at a girl from any direction other than the front, and sometimes, depending on the distance and what other features stand out, possibly even from the front. Still, if it goes past the butt it’s too much even for me and can quickly become a turnoff.
2. A woman with large, soft breasts, lying on her back. Obviously naked, or at the very least naked from the waist up, and not having any of the physical features that’d really bother me. Certainly without having them spill on the side or otherwise getting all out of place, but just sort of flattening themselves under their own weight. And then it’d obviously be even better if I’d get past looking and also play with them, feeling the softness. Significant bonus points if her hair would also be as described above and it’d be spread on the bed around her. Saying again, this doesn’t apply if they’re large and hard, which can be achieved either through surgery or perhaps though rigorous exercise of a very specific kind. Yes, this means that they’d hang when she’s not lying down, but I really don’t see that as a problem at all, in fact I quite like it, as long as that doesn’t mean they’d threaten to reach her waist or something like that, of course.
1. Watching my girlfriend have sex with someone else. Yes, that includes another guy. In fact, that could even be recommended, as in that case I’d completely ignore him and focus on her actions and, more importantly, reactions. Would be unpleasant if I’d be in the same room and just watch though, as in not do something with her as well at the end at least. If she’d just get me to orgasm once they’re done, which at that point would most likely require a mere touch, it’d be great. Still, it could perhaps be better if they’d do it without me around but somehow film themselves, in very good quality, so then I could watch the film with her, starting to play while watching and then really going at it once it’s over.

II. Four weird things.
I’m going to assume that this is asking for weird things about me… Once again, I’ll avoid repeating what I already wrote in the section that asked for things about myself in that other post.
4. I started working out shortly after cutting contact with Andra the first time, after she had pretty much stopped telling me anything and then announced that she was going to stay on until her visa would expire. One could believe that it was in some sort of misguided attempt to end up looking better and become more attractive for her later on, but it had nothing to do with that. Had nothing to do with any good reasons for starting something like this either. I simply did it because I can’t stand working out and it was another way to punish myself for the mistakes I made that caused her to be open to the possibility of leaving me in the first place. Now I keep going mostly out of habit, but that original reason is still a significant part of the motivation even after all this time. It’s not like it’s enough for any real health benefits, so it can at least be just another part of the punishment…
3. Bondage has always been present in a significant portion of my sexual fantasies. And I’m not talking about me being tied up, nor about anything light! I’m talking about tying her hands above her head and her legs spread wide, and perhaps also gagging her, and “torturing” her until she just can’t take it anymore and then some. Sometimes said fantasies briefly include a little spanking or pulling her hair, but nothing else that could be associated with this. Instead, the basic idea is that I’d either arouse her until she’d just go crazy before even thinking of giving her any release or, quite the contrary, giving her way more than she can handle in every way that I can, quite often including all sorts of toys as well. Or perhaps first doing one and then the other. Why’s this weird? Because it’s coming from a guy who, in reality, would run away at the mere thought of anything but the lightest forms of bondage and prefers her to take the lead most of the time.
2. When I say my brain always works with numbers, I sure mean it. And it strongly prefers certain numbers, namely one, three, seven, twelve and any that can be divided by five. This is quite loose, as it may be that only the last two digits count, so 103 or 6512 would look “nice” to me, and sometimes it may even be just the last digit, so anything that doesn’t end in four, six, eight or nine can be all right, but I really try to avoid creating or keeping things in amounts that would be expressed by those numbers. This is most frequently noticed when I create music playlists, slice bread or grab certain small edible things, such as cookies.
1. I can’t cry when I’m alone. This is common knowledge for anyone who knows me, but it’s certainly weird enough. I need to have a person that I feel close to next to me, even if that person is just why I’m crying, otherwise I just can’t. Or, all right, it is sometimes possible, with difficulty, if triggered by something like a song or a massive battle scene in a movie, but that happens extremely rarely. It’s been years since I last cried… And seeing as I’d need such a release so much, it’s quite a problem… Among many others.

III. Three things about people I care about, without any names.
I’ll take this to mean saying something about three different people… Nothing confidential in any way, but could perhaps make for a little guessing game.
3. Though many perhaps didn’t realize it, seeing as she almost always kept it in a tight bun, her hair was at least waist-length almost constantly since her early teens, if not even longer than that.
2. She said a guy gave her flowers on the street on her birthday once, after apparently overhearing her talk about it on the phone. He simply wished her happy birthday, told her she was beautiful and then continued on his way, leaving her quite stunned.
1. For some reason, she seems to be extremely proud of her toes.

IV. Two things I dislike about myself.
2. Cowardice. No other explanation needed.
1. Being unable to properly express what I’m thinking in a way that others are likely to understand. The fact that my command of words proves completely inadequate when it comes to using them to express my thoughts, so what comes out, if anything comes out at all, is often quite different from what I actually meant to say, though I have no idea how I could possibly say it any differently. But even worse is the fact that all too often I don’t even start saying what I should be saying because I just can’t figure out how, or because I know it’ll come out too different and there’s no point in even trying. There’s so much that’s waiting to get out and can’t because, apparently, I’m not even good enough for my own mind…

V. One thing I like about myself.
1. I always think for myself and don’t bow down to what others say I should do, no matter who those others may be. I don’t care for what the current norms say I should do. If I can’t or am not allowed to do anything else, I simply do nothing at all, but I won’t give in if I disagree.

That’s it… Now I’ll go back to feeling like shit and panicking…

Let me make my Sunday post actually useful to someone and try to answer some of the questions that people who reach this place after searching for Forsaken World information seem to be having. It’s not like you couldn’t get much better answers quite easily in plenty of other places, but since you’re somehow ending up here and I need to write something today anyway…
Still, I will start by listing the places where you should go if you want more information. The first is, obviously, the forum, where a little searching really goes a long way. Not to mention that even the brief guides posted on the official site can help you get started, though they don’t really answer any of the important questions. But if you’re looking for other sources, sites that have some detailed information organized in a way that’s much easier to go through than a forum, I could point you to Forsaken World HQ and The Eyrdaian. (Just learned of the latter today, actually. It obviously should be named The Eyrdan if it’s supposed to mean “inhabitant of Eyrda”, but there you have it.) There really isn’t that much there at the moment, and what is there is written poorly, but these are the sites I know of and they can get you started in the game, so they may be worth a look.
Right. Enough with the free advertising and rants that you wouldn’t be ending up here if you cared for; let’s move on to actually answering those questions I see, and then giving a little more information that I think could be useful as well. That said, do keep in mind that at the moment I just have a level 32 vampire and a level 31 human mage, the only other class I played being marksman, up to level 20 during closed beta, so I had no reason to look into things that start happening at later levels yet, not to mention issues specific to other classes. Also keep in mind that I’m not a social creature, only doing what few instances I find myself needing to do and just wanting to get it over with as soon as possible, so don’t expect me to be of much help when it comes to that.

Seeing as the approach is uncommon, I should start by explaining how one obtains gear in Forsaken World: Don’t expect to be able to purchase it from regular merchants, because those only carry the most basic gear for levels 10 to 19, and don’t expect to be able to craft it or purchase it from crafters either, because artisan becomes available at level 30 and all other crafting jobs only at level 40. In Forsaken World, the regular way of obtaining gear is by purchasing it in exchange for gem shards, and some soul coins, from the Fleet of Myth merchants, which are located on the pier in Freedom Harbor, right in front of Charlie’s Tavern and next to Matthew the teleporter. While all the gear you get from doing parts of the main quest is of green quality, everything these merchants sell is of blue quality. However, their wares are of lower quality than what you can get from running gear instances, though having multiple pieces of the standard set will grant you bonuses. As for those gear instances, you’ll see them clearly labeled as such on the party screen and can apply to them in order to hopefully obtain blue quality gear that has additional attributes on top of what the standard blue gear has. However, the gear that drops while fighting in these instances seems completely random, so you can never know whether anything for your class will drop, not to mention exactly what gear slot could be filled if anything useful would indeed drop. Under those circumstances, it seems to be a good idea to just rely on gem shards to gear up at the lower levels, though you’ll still want to try to get a weapon from a gear instance, seeing as the Fleet of Myth merchants only sell armor.
Which gets me to what seems to be by far the most common question: What are these gem shards, particularly ruby shards and sapphire shards, and how do I obtain them? The answer to that is very simple: As stated above, they are used as a sort of “currency” to buy standard armor from the Fleet of Myth merchants. There are five pieces of armor available for levels 10 to 19, six for levels 20 to 29 and seven for each level group afterwards. The number and type of shards required for each single piece of armor is as follows: Four obsidian shards for level 10 to 19 gear, six ruby shards for 20 to 29, eight sapphire shards for 30 to 39, ten turquoise shards for 40 to 49, 12 amethyst shards for 50 to 59, 14 topaz shards for 60 to 64 and 16 aquamarine shards for 65 and over. You will get 12 obsidian shards and six ruby shards for free from your memento boxes once you reach the required level, but for the rest you’re on your own. Which, unless you want to buy the shards from others, means farming elite monsters, as each elite monster will drop a gem shard of the type required to get gear for the same level range it’s in, so for example an elite pale hunter will drop an obsidian shard and an elite hyena mage will drop a ruby shard. Yes, it’s a very tedious process, but you can speed it up by switching realm after each kill, hoping that the same elite monster would still be alive at that location on the new realm, so you won’t have to keep either looking for more or wait out the pretty significant amount of time between respawns. Personally, I’d recommend completely skipping over the types of gear you can get for obsidian and ruby shards, making do with what you get from quests, and only starting to bother with it at level 30, but that’s your choice.

The next common issue seems to have to do with updates. The idea is simple: Whenever you load the launcher, it will check for updates. If there are none, it will let you start the game. If there are some, it will start updating the game and only allow you to start it once it’s done updating. However, update issues seem rather common, so instead of complaining about them all the time only to be told to verify, know that it is very strongly advised to verify the installation every single time after a patch. Yes, it takes quite a bit of time, but it prevents a whole lot of problems later on. Currently, patches seem to come once per week, with patch day apparently being Wednesday, but that may vary in time, not to mention possibly according to your time zone as well.
If you’re asking about the manual patching, there are always two patches available for manual download on the download page. The first one listed is the actual last patch, taking the game from the previous stable version number to the current one, while the second takes the game from the client version, as in the version you’ll get when you actually download the client, since that’s only updated on major releases, to the current one. To install a patch manually, download the file somewhere, then open the launcher, click “Patches” and select the file you downloaded. Can’t get any simpler than that. Just make sure you have the correct patch, according to your current version number, as listed by the launcher.

Gear and patching were the actual common questions that people seemed to have when they arrived here, but there were also a few who asked about other things, so let me briefly go through those I know how to answer here as well: As far as I know, currently the European English server is PvE only and there are no known plans to change that. Personally, I’m very happy with that, but you probably aren’t since you’re searching for European PvP servers. (If you know either language, try the German or French ones, as those have PvP as well.) Mercury statuettes can only be bought from the World Tree, so with real money. Or, of course, from other players who have bought them with real money, but I mean there’s no way to obtain one by playing the game. And yes, that NPC who buys them for three gold coins each utterly destroys the game’s economy. And if you want to get to the Sea of Oblivion, or basically any other map area that you can’t walk to, you use the teleporters that show up in green on your map. Matthew is the name of the one in Freedom Harbor and he is on the pier, next to Charlie’s Tavern and the Fleet of Myth merchants.
As for classes, no I have no idea what the best build for a certain class is. I doubt anybody could answer that question because it depends on what you want to use your character for and what your playing style is. Different skill paths, different equipment and different pets are best suited for different things. Just know that there are expectations for each class, and I’m not just talking about priests healing, protectors tanking, bards providing support and mages, assassins and marksmen dealing damage. If you play a warrior and find no protector in your group, or your protector seems really bad at it, you’ll be expected to tank instead of just dealing damage. Also, bards are expected to help whenever they can with healing, and even take the place of the healer if no priest or vampire is in the group, and at the same time priests are expected to help with support as much as possible if they can get a break from healing.
As for vampires… Well, these deserve a special mention because they can do everything except provide support. Jacks of all trades, masters of none. They can heal well, though not as well as priests; they can tank, though far less well than protectors and even warriors; they can deal damage, but are somewhat less reliable than pretty much every class except the priest when it comes to that. Their ability to heal means that they’re always seen as secondary healers, and can quickly become primary healers if the group doesn’t have a priest or the priest is doing a bad job. That applies even if the group also has bards. Quite simply, a blood vampire played well can be a very good healer, especially after a certain level. Also keep in mind that, thanks to their healing abilities, vampires are usually thought to be able to look after themselves, so if you play a vampire and are not the tank, keep yourself alive, don’t expect the healer to look after you! But you can be the tank, if a group doesn’t have or has poor protectors and warriors, so be ready to take up that role as well if needed, keeping in mind that you need to stay very close to the enemy and attack it as much as possible, because you’ll need to do everything you can to keep it from moving on to others who deal more damage. Bottom line, if you play a vampire and end up in a group, look carefully at what the group is missing and, unless what’s missing is a bard, know that you’re expected to immediately fill that role to the best of your abilities, so do just that.

Finally, though nobody ended up here from a search about that, I do need to mention that the game, and apparently all of Perfect World Entertainment‘s games, have been under a constant and very strong DDoS attack for the past several days. The US east coast servers are the primary targets, so Eyrda and Storm for Forsaken World, but the problems can occasionally affect other servers as well. Yes, this means you’ll have a lot of lag, you’ll be frequently disconnected and can have the server crash and cause you to lose things. The official recommendation is, quite simply, not to start anything important until this issue is somehow resolved. They are promising some sort of compensation for those affected, once the problem itself will be solved, but currently you’ll just have to wait it out, since nobody knows when it will end and you need to keep in mind that, being a free-to-play game, they understandably don’t have best technology available to defend themselves against this sort of thing.