Goodbye IRONFollow

so does that mean your no longer holding my sig for ransom? :)

It seems to me that a combination of factors lead to the disbanding of the ls. Loss of veterans, new blood, new leadership not fully supported, etc. Whatever the cause is such is life. There will be new groups and old ones dying naturally.

leave it to moonpie to **** something up

Isn't this kind of old news by now?

I don't blame Moonpie for IRON falling apart but I dislike Fuukochan for lieing to me.

If anyone killed IRON I'd have to say Fuuko had a good hand in it.

Back up off Fuukochan, he didn't do a thing wrong, he tried to save IRON. Old leadership was tired or bored and old guard members were bleeding off long before the EH/IRON merger. IRON lost Sendo, Zaelael, Exoduso, Cheryll, Resetx, Battosi, Winraf, Infest, Dalulu, Gabano, and many others (including me) for various reasons long before even considering a merge with EH. Old guard members and the elite players were playing less and less and/or leaving in droves already. For many it was simply boredom with the game itself. That wasn't my reason, but it's a valid one. Square's support of this game is garbage, and has been SINCE THE AMERICAN RELEASE (i.e. RoZ).

Regardless of the cause, a shell can't bleed off years of experience, camaraderie, and gear and remain at the top without radical change...and that radical change is not always going to work. Myself and others tried basically the same thing with Aurora > Eclipse and it went poorly too. Hindsight is 20/20, isn't it? Seemed like a good idea at the time.

Without the efforts of Fuukochan and Moonpie you probably have this scenario playing out months in advance, so I'd give them a thank you instead. Running any online guild crap is a thankless, stressful job with zero pay unless you cash out at the end (and in that case, the hourly wage is depressing, let me tell you). My limited dealings with Moonpie were positive (though the merger wasn't even a spec on the horizon when I left), and I can say from personal experience that Fuukochan is one of the best people you could hope to play this game with. If anything he is TOO nice; a lot of being authoritative and respectable as a leader is the willingness to be a steadfast stubborn jerk sometimes (jerk isn't the right word, but the right word will get filtered), and whether Fuukochan can do that convincingly, I don't know. But that's to his credit, not his detriment.

If anything started IRON downhill it was Sendo's departure. I'm way too apathetic to check when that was, but it was long, long before any of this. Sendo was the rock that held every person and clique in IRON together; after he left the same sort of stratification that ended Aurora began happening in IRON.

This is all splitting hairs now. Doesn't make a bit of difference to me. But back up off Fuuko and Moonpie, anyone who thinks this was their desired outcome is a tool. Your dream of a Ridill or whatever worthless damn thing isn't more important than the not inconsiderable sweat they dumped into EH and IRON.

Luminaire

Hmm... I had to guess a few passwords before I could figure out the login for this ancient account.

Keleios(blm, rdm) is actually still active though I guess I need to figure out what to do with my taru now. Iron has been my shell since the NA release. I helped to cobble together the gil used to buy the original Iron Pearl. The last event I attended was Iron's last Vrtra attempt.

Most of the people posting here, derailing Moonpie and Fuukochan or whoever, it doesn't really matter, do not understand what Iron was really about. The ethos of Iron's leadership was challenge based. We weren't ego based, or greed based, or really socially based. We didn't care about gear in and of itself, it was a means to an end. We didn't care about being pimp. We cared about doing what we do to the best of our ability, as smoothly, and as accurately as possible. We demanded skill, adaptation, and ability.

So what does what such a shell do when all challenges are met? When it boils down to it, SE killed Iron. Time after time, updates came as too little, too late. Vast new tiers of challenge never emerged while devices such as merits were added to reduce the skill needed to defeat present content. Each update was looked at with desperation for a new world of challenge. Challenge that was never truly delivered. The type of personality that formed the core of the Iron spirit withers in such a situation and the old guard wandered looking for greater challenges.

Iron was dying for content previous to Treasures due to the weakness of the Sea expansion but at least holding on to its core members. Due to no small amount of hope from for the future ToUA expansion. Shortly after the release of Treasures it became quickly apparent that there was not enough. We could not sustain interest in this new area and Iron began to hemorrhage our members at a fairly violent rate that eventually ended up with the merger with EH. Most of you know the story from here.

Anyhow to summarize, no leader is responsible for Iron disbanding. Iron disbanded cause it was done here. It is extremely shortsighted to blame any player on the current state of the shell. Many of our members are still together, we are just looking for our challenges in different lands.

Its late, and I have a bit of a wall of text here, but I just felt that a few things need to be said. And, cause it seems so appropriate... Iron is dead! Long live Iron!

Also, props to Invoky for being all anti drama!

Edited, Feb 6th 2007 2:32am by Keleios

Edited, Feb 6th 2007 2:34am by Keleios

Besides, everyone should join X's shell:

http://www.ffxi-bismarck.com/forum/

W00t, SectaVictoriae FTW!!

Nothing lasts forever they say~

As long as IRON lived,it was an example to other shells in terms of their great teamwork, skills, accomplishments and determination. So with those good memories in the mind of all the Bismarckans(And other servers :p), we bid the IRON legacy farewell and hope for the best for all those that was a part of it.

The shell did go down in a downward spiral, it could be seen starting in the late fall/early winter. That's not to say though, that IRON did not have its own time where it could probably be (easily) considered the best shell on Bismarck. However, many of the people that gave the shell its name left the game months ago... that's probably what should be considered the real death of the shell.

Jawas pointed out to major issue for any linkshell though, a lack of content. The game itself is fun, I enjoyed it for the 3 years that I played. But you can only go to so many king camps, do sky for so many months, and go without AF in dynamis for so long. For all of you still playing, I hope that ToAU comes out with something new and enjoyable that will keep you busy enough for long enough for them to create more content.

party people in the house say hoooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
party people in the house say ho, ho
party people in the house say hoooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
now screaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam

d(°o°d)