A Villain's Life

Day 1
It's hard to find good, quick fights in this game.  When I heard about Orison, the MMO that Mobs Inc Software was putting out, I was thrilled.  When I started playing, I was less thrilled.  The whole design seems to push the fun stuff to the endgame.
I started off in one of the major cities, like everyone else.  One NPC walked up to me and asked me to kill an imp that had taken up residence in her house.  A starting quest, peh.  So I kill the imp, but the damned thing grabs me and says, 'come meet my family.'  And so I'm slogging through an underworld, stabbing imps for the next ten minutes.  I get a couple of levels.  Meh.
There's a cavern that I read about on the 'getting started' section of the wiki.  It's 'used as a training ground for those seeking to hone their combat skills.'  Well, I try it.  I get four different offers to group in there before I find the way to turn invites off.  Not my thing.  It takes a while going down until I find a place that hasn't been cleared out yet.  Why this place is not instanced baffles me.  Just a bad design decision in my opinion.  When I finally find some enemies, there are five of them in a group.  I run in, target, roll, stab.  One down.  And I start getting hit from the back and sides.  Roll away.  They start with this cackling laugh.  No.  Jumping attack, another down... and so am I.  Yeah, not your standard difficulty, but that's fine with me.  Grinding easy mobs gets boring.
So I'm back on the wiki looking up quick fights.  Turns out you can go to the tavern, rent a room for a bit of nothing, and get experience by dreaming about fighting.  Hah!  So I try it, and I battle through a few of their 'dreamscapes.'  Stupid crazy stuff, some of them.  Then I try talking to the glowing bug that is always next to me at the start of a dreamscape.  It says it is a dreamlinker.  Yes!  PvP!

Day 10
I'm still mostly playing the dreaming PvP.  I tried doing some non-dreaming stuff.  I escorted a trade caravan to a small town.  They said something about medicines and herbs for food or some such.  Useless flavor text.  And it wasn't even a well designed quest.  Most of the time was just walking from one place to another.  Three other players in the group and they are all in character, talking about the governor and the trademaster and so on, they said there is a group of goblins close to the town we are heading toward.  I suggest we take them out once we get there.
Kobolds attack the caravan.  These other guys rely on their equipment way too much.  I backstab four of the kobolds while the other three players are hacking away like this was World of Warcraft or something.  The caravan rolls into town, and the goods are sold.  I get my cut; nice to have some gold finally.  Maybe I'll get a real world longsword.  No exp for completing the run?  What is this 'prestige' junk?  I ask the others.  One offers his cut of the coin for the prestige I got.  Sure thing!  Good trade!
We go clear out the goblins.  More exp, more prestige, another trade of coin for prestige.  The one I'm trading to says that he is trying to usurp the mayor of this town.  Yeah, good for you, but who would want to be Mayor of a fake town?

Day 100
Most of my skill points have gone to my longsword skill, offhand shortsword, and combo crafting.  I've had to relocate to a city with a dojo so I can put combos together.  The GUI for combos shows you frames saved and endurance saved by stringing together different animations.  Of course, some animations don't go well together and there are extra transition frames and endurance cost.  Combos are really necessary for high level PvP (the city also has an arena, hello wagers) because of all the animations that the skills unlock, you can only map two to the combo slots.  So put two combos onto a weapon and put that setup into a weapon slot.  PvP pre-planning for the win!  Roll, Roll, see an opening, 1, 1, get blocked, roll out to break the combo, see another opening and start in on my 2 combo.  The only thing that really makes me mad about the arena are these no-talent mages.
I've got a sort of sponsor now.  All the prestige I get in the arena goes to him and he keeps my equipment up to par with my level.  He says that he gets his gold from trade goods and buys the equipment from adventurers or craftsmen.  I've done some of what he calls 'adventuring.'  There are always these items, 'gifts of the gods,' being put in ruins, down caverns, stolen by imps and hidden in demonic realms, etcetera.  Oracles, in cities whose leaders can afford to employ them, reveal the location of these gifts, and the race is on.  It sucks because except for crafting materials, the gift is all that drops.  And if you are in a group of five, you are not likely to roll it.  (you also get the gods-can-it-be-more-annoying prestige to trade away)  You can get more equipment by clearing out a group of NPC that have targeted a town or city, but most of that is just your basic trash loot.

Day 150
Time to get serious about top end PvP.  Heroes and Villains is where it is at.  You've got to be one of the two at endgame to get the extended level cap.  Heroes, now, they advance by grouping with non-Heroes, by protecting trade runs, and protecting cities.  Villains get their experience killing people.  Villain it is!  It's hardcore ironman mode, though.  If a Villain is killed, their character is deleted; with one important exception.  The quest to become a Villain involves entering one of the temples to the dark gods.  The outer door is open for only ten minutes out of an entire day.  (there are several temples with different times)  At the end of the run is a protected spot and a door that is only open for the same ten minutes of the day.  Needless to say, the run takes half an hour or so.  So you go back the next day, another run to the altar, and there you get a 'resurrection stone.'  You can only carry two, there are three types, and the better ones require three and four day runs.

Day 155
Hah!  That was awesome.  There were three Heroes camping the temple waiting to kill any Villain going for another res stone, but they couldn't touch me because I was not a Villain yet.  They just kept sending me messages: “Come on, you don't want to be a professional griefer,” “Be a Hero instead, it's fun,” “If you get through this, I will find you and kill you.”  Priceless.
Into the Villain town today.  A violent place, according to the forums.  It's on a separate plane, only accessible to Villains.  There are only 15 residences.  Ten of them are small, four larger, and the last one is the tower in the center of town.  Residences give combat bonuses based on their size and have portals leading to different parts of the world.  Thing is, when a Villain is killed (even if they have a res stone) they drop the key to their residence, if they own one.  Only another Villain can pick it up.  And yes, you can attack another Villain in town.
I hear that the Heroes have their own place as well, but that we can invade it.  They get their bonuses from a totem in the center of their town.  Well, if a Villain steals the totem, it becomes a powerful weapon and the Heroes lose their bonus until that Villain is killed.
So much PvP.  I think I will go ransack a village and kill some low level players to put myself on the Heroes' radar.