Francis

It is over. Blue has been defeated. I wish I could've been there to see it. At least there's the video.

(Edit: I was going to make a brief description, but it somehow evolved into a dramatic retelling...)

The Helix was down for the final match. The Fonz soon followed. Venomoth had battled defiantly, surviving an attack that killed Bird Jesus. Yet, his valiant attempts to poison Blastoise somehow failed him.

With everything to prove, Zapdos was sent out. The souls of the nine pokemon whose deaths he had been the cause of still haunted him. He heard the distant cries of Dux and Cabbage and Bigdig. Will he be able to do it? Will he fail them? The tension was wrenching at his soul. Alas, he summoned the manifestation of all his grief and once-pleasant dreams into a bolt of electricity so strong that it filled the stadium with a blinding light powerful enough to silence all the voices within Red's head, and let it loose on Blastoise. The rest was a blur.

As the smoke cleared, Blastoise was dead. Blue was stunned.

"Is...is it over?" Venomoth weakly asked in pokemon clicking noises.

"Yes. It is over." Zapdos replied in his own pokemon squawks, still glowing with residual sparks.

Silence hung in the air for a few seconds.

"I was just crowned the League Champion, and now it's over...?" Blue said to his rival, "Red, you son of a--!"

"Blue!" he was interrupted. Professor Oak appeared through the doorway, apparently having watched the scene.

Both trainers hinged on his every word.

"You have done well, Red. You are now the Pokemon League Champion." he said. "Blue, you didn't love your pokemon enough, and now Blastoise is dead. I am disappointed in you."

The collective voices of thousands cheered within the mind of Red.

"You have done a good job. Come with me." Professor Oak told to Red.

The names of Red's pokemon and Red himself were inducted into the Pokemon Hall of Fame that day. A montage of their images flashed before the eyes of the voices. Then, slowly, everything faded to black.

Red woke up in Pallet town. He stood still. Slowly, inevitably, it dawned on him. He was no longer being controlled. The voices were silenced. He was free. He stood at the door of his home for another minute before starting to cry. Finally, after sixteen days, he was free...

Everything was going to be alright.

Yep.

I don't suppose you knew about the Beta client, did you? It's 30 gigabytes.

But, sure, I trust you do. I'll PM you a spare key I just won.

Woah. Thanks for the heads up. And I was gonna play ESO Beta...

I can't believe they're almost finished with the game. Democracy, what a killjoy.

A Guild Moderator... Sorry, David, I think I'll have to pass on this one.

I pretty much look at everything but the guild forums, and, in retrospect, I'm more or less the only Ebonheart guy on this site, which is a terrible statistic to be enthusiastic about guilds on.

I have 8 extra keys to the people who PM me links to the hottest nude or clothed female they can find. If you send me multiple links you'll be disqualified. Only the 8 hottest girls will win, so choose wisely.

Heck, I'll join in for fun.

As an exemplary member of Eldersouls.com, I shall try to win at all costs.

Musclemagic, I have sent you a PM. You will give me one of those keys, or you will never see the sexy video of this woman.

You couldn't have found a better place to find some of the most obsessive theorycrafters, man. Talk to this guy.

do you guys think our chars are wiped ?

Nope. I'm positive.

No invitation to me this time (((((((

Hey, just wait. Don't worry. Zenimax is looking for as many people as possible. The invites trickle in, and some people get their invites late. It seems Gmail users take longer to get theirs.

One sure indication that you got in is the Beta forums. If you can log in to them with the account holding your email address, you are in.

Brodo was right. Here's Tuesday's Beta announcement.

http://elderscrollsonline.com/en-uk/news/post/2014/02/25/new-beta-invites--february-25th

As for this session, we will be receiving the obligatory free monkey. Happy testing, everyone.

They're getting the shit poisoned out of them in the Pokemon Mansion right now. The Helix has been raised, but has been dying repeatedly.

I see you have a Dark Elf for a picture. Yep. See you in-game, probable Ebonheart.

Hey, you're right. I hadn't thought of that. Was too preoccupied with the fact that Serana couldn't be in the game, because she was trapped in the first era. Yeah, I hope it happens.

I think it's for the Beta testers that aren't limited to Beta weekends. Josh from the ShoddyCast has hit level 50. Or was it Kyle, I forget.

"Added an option to turn off quest-giver indicators, which is located under the Interface portion of the Settings menu. This will turn off the indicators both in-world and on the compass."

They should've gotten rid of them altogether. Not knowing where to go is part of the fun.

Holy shit. And what do you mean "we"? Man, you actually participate?

*Checks Dorkly site.*

Dux, no!

But I get bored watching democracy. Anarchy is more fun. The only thing wrong with it is the populus.

Wow, I sure do hope so. Thanks, Brodo.

Interesting. Good luck on that. Here's a build calculator design for inspiration.

http://esohead.com/calculator/skills#zzVz

I like the concept anyway, but the problem with that calculator is that it's not accurate. It's probably just not finished though. The level sliders are a good idea, but they don't seem to modify skill outputs properly. Ask Thal, he seems to have a formula for the magicka cost of skills per level. As for other things, you should ask the local theorycrafters. I'm more of the lore guy.

I suppose you could use this if you wanted to:

http://teso.mmorpg-life.com/lorebooks-locations-map/

Yeah, I knew you didn't really bother to give them that much. But I did see it happen a few other times on the older TRR threads. If I'm not mistaken, as a result, Eric took on the Basilisk persona for a while, and you plastered Blake's bad pun about Elder Soles onto his profile. Haha.

It could've been a cool tradition if you guys did it more. But I'm just curious, I don't really mind.

I though it was kinda neat that we had unofficial unique member titles bestowed upon us by ElderSouls mods and admins after reaching a certain post count. (That's what you guys do, right?) Just wondering, were they, like, removed while I was away? I don't see them anymore.

Hey, you're right. Play to have fun.

Actually sound advice. Thanks. 

We all know that every time we advance a level, it gets progressively harder to advance to the next one. Down in Coldharbour, it takes us five minutes to get to level 2. I'd suppose getting from 48 to 49 would take us weeks.

Apparently, there are lore books in the game that instantly boost skill lines by one level the same way they do in Skyrim. For example: say a certain crafting skill line is level 5, and has made 60% progress towards level 6. If you find a lore book that boosts that skill line, it immediately gets boosted to level 6 with 60% progress towards level 7.

I have arrived at the stark realization that, unless this is changed, it will be most efficient to never even attempt pick up a book until you've hit the late stages of level 40.

God dammit.