The Great Race
Pursuing prized payouts
Invasions R Us, famed Delosian defenders against the Corruption’s attacks on our settlements, hosted an adventure race across the island of Aeternum this Friday evening. The prizes were enticing, with the top five finishers plus the best-dressed racer all receiving a share of the 200,000 gold prize pool. Read on for all the action and an exclusive interview with Gma below.
The contestants gathered in Corinth City, awaiting the first clue, then shot out the gate in pursuit of the prize money.
Head towards the territory named after a glowing erection,
Find someone called Beatle at the main intersection,
Then travel up North as fast as you can,
Beating all others is the overall plan.
It didn’t take too long to figure out that meant Brightwood. The road from Windsward to Brightwood wasn’t too complicated, so at this point the racers were still close.
Travel to where the ground is all sand,
No cheating now or you will be banned,
Find a Left gated Sea Coconut drinking cordial,
Hanging out at a Hawaiin-sounding portal.
The only sandy place is Brimstone, so that was obvious, but the actual checkpoint location threw a few people. It was at this point that the pack got confused and started to widen. Spoiler, it was Wikala al-Waha.
Now race quickly to cross the map,
To MD and look for that Beatle chap,
Money is to be had the faster you go,
There is no reward if you go slow.
The next stretch was a long, horizontal run across the map, with no easy road to choose. Some went north, through Ebonscale and others chose to go through Brightwood and Weaver’s Fen. This is where the choice of mount charm and route started to make a big difference. We can see racers hitting the Mourningdale checkpoint in the video below:
Now another long ride are you having fun?
Gma awaits down at Sirens Run,
From here you need to go to To a shrine called Iron Rose,
In what town this lies only some will know.
Next, the race headed south toward Reekwater. Some got confused about the Siren’s Run clue, and headed to the Siren’s elite chest run area instead of the shrine. There were great dangers lurking in the fog and some racers fell to their deaths.
Dr Hoon was called away to war after hitting the Siren’s Run checkpoint, which serendipitously coincided with Stuggy finishing a different war, so they tagged out and shared the run.
From there, it was a quick pivot across to the newbie homelands for the Iron Rose shrine checkpoint.
The race is nearly over so head to the land of the Gong,
Stick to the roads you can’t go wrong,
Race onwards to the Imperial Shrine,
Look for Tali she’ll be sipping on wine.
The pack had split considerably by this point, with some forging ahead to Ebonscale while others still wandered the wilds of Reekwater.
Now the the end is near so head back to town,
Where you’ll find Gma wearing the crown,
The first 5 will win the gold,
And the best dressed will too if the truth be told.
The final stretch saw racers passing one another back and forth along the beaches of Ebonscale, until they finally arrived in Fortune’s Crossing to claim their prizes.
The winner was Allak Hazaam, followed by Landi, then Stuggy brought it home for himself and Dr Hoon. Next was Merkavar and the final winner was Chatz01.
Photo Finish
Once everyone had arrived, the racers all lined up for a fashion contest, which you can see in the video below. There was a fantastic turnout of well-designed costumes and it was very difficult to choose a winner. The group had one vote each and gave the prize to Horizonzz for his white knight look with showy mount banners.
Congratulations to everyone involved and huge thanks to Gma, Beatlee Juice, Sea Coconut, and Tali Monk for organising the event and patiently standing at the checkpoints waiting for everyone to come through.
Fashion Parade
Interview with Gma
We spoke with the esteemed Gma, leader of Invasions R Us and famed commander of the fight against the Corruption to protect our towns from Invasions, to find out more about the planning and execution of the Race.
What was your motivation to organise the event?
So, what happened when we originally made the company, lots of us came from PVP companies prior. I was one of the leaders at Salty Seaman and I’d always run their Invasions. We always got sort of overwhelmed by toxic PvP content, so to speak. Other people in other companies were feeling the same, so I decided to make the company just to do Invasions and if Salty wanted us for theirs, we’d still do them. But we were going to run just on our own.
Then we decided to open a branch in every colour. Because we’re not colour-orientated, it didn’t matter and that way we could help out anybody. So then we thought, well, really we should get something for our work because we were filling most of the invasion and doing all the work. So I approached the other war companies that don’t do Invasions. And said, how would you like us to do your Invasions for you at a fee?
So we didn’t start off wanting to be mercs. But it was just a way of paying us to go in and help them because it was cheaper for them to pay us than let their territories be downgraded.
To reward our company members, we’ve been running events, like we had a naked race, a scavenger hunt, trivia night, and poker night. All the money earned from Invasions, we gave back to the people via prizes.
So the first prize was 200,000. Then 150,000 and so we’ve just done it like that. But we’re not reach all our members and because the game’s population is declining, we need to have more people come to the Invasions. So what we’ve decided to do is we’re going to go to salary from this month onwards.
But we’ll still run events and we’ll keep aside 100,000 or 200,000 gold. Maybe we’ll just decide on a figure and we’ll still run fun events, but we’ll probably open it up to the whole Invasion community like last night.
The clues were really fun and funny and it seems like quite a difficult thing to come up with. What was your process and did other members of the company contribute ideas?
I just like poetry, as in I love the rhyming thing, and a lot of the clues are things we’ve joked about before in Invasions. So that was a memory trigger for people, you know, like, if they remembered what we said about it. Cordial is always brought up in our invasion, so that’s why I use it, because Merk always jokes about having cordial and milk together. So that’s why that was in it and I think when you’ve got a little bit of, I don’t know, the banter with sexual innuendo gets a good laugh in invasions.
Was there anything you would do differently after seeing how it played out?
I’d like to advertise more, but I think the event itself is fun. I love the confusion and I love it when people get lost. But if I advertised it a bit better maybe and made a poster, I think it would be a bit better.
You are well-known for being able to co-ordinate groups, especially during invasions. Do you have any plans for more events like this one in the future?
Yes, we’re hoping to run more events with prizes that are open to the Invasion community. So make sure you come along to Invasions to find out about them.
2 Comments
So wholesome article! And it was fun getting lost in a church last night Q^Q
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