Legacy of Oblivion

Night had finally settled completely over the land, meaning the fire in Stonard was finally out. Arachne did not care about the calamity either way; the darkness simply pleased her.

She was riding hard through the swamp, heading away from the military outpost. The usual sounds of travel were muffled by the soft mud and she bent over her horse’s neck to avoid low hanging branches. Though she urged her demonic mount onward, it was not with a sense of urgency or panic, but one of steadfastness – her tasks would always be accomplished as long as she was diligent.

Earlier that evening, Caulbraen had sent her to find their missing companions and retrieve them. Locating them had been the easy part. Most of the missing party had indeed reached Stonard as they had intended, but never made it inside. Emberchill had been taken captive by a group who had set fire to the Stonard Inn and Sabe and Arcadi, in no condition to attempt a rescue, were, in fact, attempting a rescue. The only one missing was Thundrax, but she simply could not be bothered with him now; a new group had appeared and were pursuing Sabe and Arcadi. She did not know who this new group was, but found it curious that all of them were trolls. Though one of them was a hunter, they left a trail even a warlock could follow. Each group was unknowingly being pursued by another, and Arachne was playing the predator sneaking up on the rear.

As soon as they were away from Stonard, they had avoided the main road and cut west through the swamp. Despite the wild terrain, they were making good time. When the deep and clear imprints of domesticated mounts crossed the road that led south, she knew they would be heading to Deadwind Pass. Eventually the procession turned northwest, back toward the road, as if they intended to circle around by the old wooden bridge. She continued to follow, making sure to keep her unflagging demonic mount from gaining ground.

When she finally reached the road, she was treated to a surprise: The old bridge was no longer there. Debris had been scattered everywhere as if the Old Gods had struck the land in their wrath, trees were unearthed and scorched and large craters were embedded in the terrain. Native lifeforms of the swamp had been sacrificed in the assault and their innocent corpses littered the scape.

It was beautiful work. Unfortunately, Arachne had no time to admire the artistry. (more…)

 I can’t figure out a way to make this embed (there’s a link that says “embed” but it doesn’t work) so I have to use a hack. Click the link to see the latest LoO update - it will pop to a new window.

I have so many screenshots that I don’t know where to start. In fact, I started three different posts and none of them made me happy. I guess the third time isn’t a charm! Stupid math! Math is hard! And I’m not the only one having problems.

The latest raid schedule is up and posted in the Member Forum. It is my regret that, out of a seven-day week, there are four nights of scheduled raids - but since nothing is mandatory, there is plenty of time for everyone to pick and choose what they would like to do. If you don’t want to go anywhere for whatever reason, then it’s no big deal. Remember, it’s your playtime and we respect that. Mostly.

A lot of us are working on honor grinding and some are leveling twinks. For those individuals who have been helping out with twink instance runs, thank you so much.

Of course, some of us are better at it than others.

And not just once, but twice.

If you have a twink that needs an invitation, don’t be shy in asking. We usually allow those in with little trouble.

Usually. If I suspect you’re Biggerbeef, you’re going to have a small task in order to get in.

Come on! It’s not like I ask for a lot.

FAIL! I invited him anyway though, because he threatened to autofollow me. Like he doesn’t do that anyway.

Anyway, if any of those non-raiding type options don’t strike your fancy, you can always work on your tradeskills. That’s what Biggerbeef does when he’s not getting smacked on the head by bosses. It’s soothing.

I experienced his skill ups first hand. He’s kind of like that favorite pet who kills rodents and birds and leaves them on your doorstep. But hey, at least I can say this about our newest tank: He knows how to use the mailbox a lot better than Zug.

And that was just the first four pages.

Retribution followed shortly after. I have connections.

Of course I paid! Only the best for you, BB, because I’m such a good friend. But what do you know? Arcadi gave me a freebie!

Sweet!

Every LoO raid has received a slight overhaul in some regard. Wednesday Night Fites have been set to “kill”, with more challenging targets. Kara raids have continued with great success, many badges, and upgrades for all. As you’ve already read, we’re taking away the “imposed stop time” and we’re going to play every night by ear. Most of us have done enough online gaming to know that raiding is a commitment - not just to an instance, but to each other. It’s a social thing. Shadow said it best on the forums: We don’t really like to have rules, but when we have so many people involved in an event, we have to at least have a loose set of guidelines so we don’t step on each other’s toes. To be honest, we really only have the rule for one reason only. Since I’m such a nice person, I’d never point this reason out.

I don’t have to. They do it for me.

At any rate, we’re doing amazingly well on every raiding front. We’re having a fun time getting badges and upgrades - just remember it’s a game and we shouldn’t try delving into deeper meanings.

We’re continuing to face new challenges and learning to die in new and unspeakable ways. My therapy bill is in the mail.

No need to thank me for that visual. Hot pokers for eye gouging will be going on sale at the end of this post. Act now and get a set of matching egg cups for only $19.99!

We’ve also brought back the guild PvP Night. Because we’ve cleared the weekend for Kara, we’re moving this to Thursday. There’s not a whole lot to say about the PvP nights that you don’t already know. We get into groups and head into a bg together. Your behavior in the guild PvP group should be the same respectful behavior you exercise alone in the battleground.

Please be advised that someone is going to need a cave or bush for Lunachik. Or maybe he can hide behind a fat tauren who he can autofollow. Something tells me BB isn’t going to volunteer for the job.

At first I thought this was a joke.

Every time I read the above screenshot, my reaction is always the same: “WTF? You what?”

At this point, I was still in disbelief that we actually have a battleground afker in our guild. I wasn’t really sure how to react, to be quite honest! I was stunned, and not in a good way.

But alas, it’s true. We have a battleground afker, people.

The only way I know how to deal with it is screenshot the hell out of it and allow everyone else to have a good laugh about it too. I guarantee this will not be the last time you see this on the front page.

Apparently pretty well, because he was in AV and he never responded, even though I kept talking to him for the next few minutes.

But he’s not the only one at fault in the battlegrounds. You know what I’m talking about:

The Last Days of Urassmyfoot

I guarantee it had little to do with his offensive name. Let me say this: If you’ve known for a while now that someone is going to eventually petition your name, calling the battlegroup nasty names isn’t going to keep you under the radar.

Yeah. This is what NOT to do in the battleground while you wear the LoO tag next to your name.

I’m not a huge fan of that word (go figure) so I probably would have lodged a complaint as well, if I hadn’t been so busy trying to defend something.

That’s all? I figured it would have been for the other thing he said. But whatever.

I screenshotted this dude’s server, but I can’t find it now. Anyway, a couple of days later, Zug logged in and was immediately taken to a screen that politely informed him of his offensive character name, and a text window allowed him to select a new name.

So hey, why not go with a name that had previously been petitioned on another character? It’s the smart thing to do! The only reason I don’t mind it is because of the great acronym.

Fitting. Nice. I like it.

And now for your moment of Zug.

The last time we checked in on the front page, we had decided to head back over to the Alliance side on Wednesday nights. It was fun for a while.

And that pretty much ended our stint on Alliance.

Back on the Horde, we welcomed aboard a lot of Soul’s friends and coworkers who seemed to be worn out from their pvp server. We need an org chart. I can’t keep everyone straight.

New recruits were pouring in with mentions that there were even more who were interested. We were excited for some fresh blood and were willing to welcome everyone in with open arms. LoO does not discriminate against race, gender, or sexual orientation.

Then we were outnumbered. For a few LoOnies, the novelty of being on voice chat with our new members has not yet worn off.

Before we started to gel, social gatherings were awkward, so we’ve been putting a lot of our focus on forming a sense of community. I don’t think it’s so much the new members as it is the old timers.

But it’s going well overall. Raid format has not changed much - 10man raids will continue on the weekends with 5-man groups on weeknights. Please be advised that use of the forums will be enforced.

If anyone wants to participate in groups and raids, they must sign up. Groups are scheduled in advance for convenience. If you don’t sign up on the boards, you won’t get to go. Period. I don’t care if it’s a freaking panty raid - you won’t get to go. (Okay, if it’s a Tom Cruise panty raid, we’ll let Matelda go without signing up. But that’s the only exception.)

For everyone else, if you want groups on the weeknights, sign up.

There are groups scheduled nearly every night of the week and, even though people sign up as “alt”, the same 6 - 7 people are attending the heroics, faction grinds and quest completions. To make things more frustrating, different individuals log in at the last minute and ask if they need anyone else for a scheduled group. If you want to go anywhere, check the boards and sign up. Last time: If you don’t sign up for a group, you won’t get to go. Period.

As was already shared on the forums, we’re still taking heroics very seriously. Those will continue to be a part of our weeknight repertoire and are sponsored by Thundrax. He’s hardcore.

There are still a small handful of heroics out there that we haven’t finished yet and I would like to wipe them off of the list. We have only attempted Heroic Shattered Balls once and, although we didn’t finish, we got pretty damn far considering we only had rogue cc — that was damn fine work and we should go back soon. That heroic is a bitch and a half, and I think most of us would like to have it on the borken list. It was a scarring experience and I think the best way to get over it is to discuss what happened.

No, not the tactics — the conversation.

I don’t even know how it started. Things were happening so fast and there was so much going on - I looked at the chat bar and Matelda had set his phaser to crazy. I couldn’t even screenshot the whole thing because it was happening so fast.

The sad part is, all I can think at this point is: With a surfboard? I don’t think that’s physically possible. I guess that’s the point.

Anyway, I missed something in the middle, because this was the next thing I was able to capture:

What is the prime directive, anyway?

You’d think it would stop here. But it didn’t - things were just getting warmed up.

Why do we know how a star destroyer was built? Anyway, leave it to Zug to make it worse. The funny part about it is that he hates both Star Trek and Star Wars, and is only participating in the conversation to agitate the nerds further.

And he won’t stop until people are frothing at the mouth.

And just when we thought everyone had gotten over it…

Then Soul logs in.

He doesn’t help the situation any, but knows enough to keep his tires from being slashed by a rabid Trekkie.

I guess it was only a matter of time before we devolved into the sci fi sex0r — but it bounced right back into the nerdery.

I’m still wondering how we made it through the zone as far as we did with all this going on. In fact, the instance probably didn’t suck as much as we thought - it was probably the conversation that was killing us.

I can’t read any more of this. Moving on.

Thanks to the skills and numbers of the new LoOnies and the efforts of the old LoOnies, we have been able to go back to Kara — and we’re rocking it. Shadow has been gracious enough to lead our raids and, after the first event, the motion to make him a Raid Leader was sent to the floor. I didn’t see the point.

As far as I was concerned, we had a team of top notch gamers, specialized and ready to take on anything! We’ve been around, man. We know shit, too!

Or maybe that’s just Thundrax who knows stuff. At any rate, I agreed. With the unanimous vote secured, Koryn went ahead and promoted him.

We’re taking a break from pvp. I know we said it’s because we’re using Sunday nights to finish Kara, but the real reason is we’re all feeling a bit inadequate next to Kalenedral’s mace.

I’ve been trying to at least fit the PvP Faily in, so if anyone wants to join me, let me know. (I’m not an expert at pvp, but I’m quite hopeful that I won’t embarrass anyone.) Eventually I’d like to put pvp back on the schedule for a one night per week event, but there’s so much going on right now that it would clutter up things. For now let’s just play it by ear.

And now, for your moment of Zug.

Because my last post had a duplicate screenshot, here’s a bonus moment of Zug, courtesy of BB:

This week, my brochure was a little too big to fit on the forums.

Today is Iraas’ birthday. To celebrate, we give the one thing that brings him the most happiness…

Brett Favre pr0n:

Have a wonderful day!

Patch 2.4 is coming soon, and that will mean big changes in World of Warcraft. Remembering what a catastrophe patch 1.10 was and how difficult that was on the guild, I didn’t want us to end up stuck in an awkward position. So, Thundrax and I have been in constant discussion over what that will mean for Legacy of Oblivion. We’ve managed to pick out the most important bits and have developed a loose “go-forward” plan that will give everyone things to do while progressing the guild for more difficult content. Granted, we’re a small guild, but there is still plenty of stuff for us to do. We’ll talk about that in a second. Before we do that, let’s talk about the most important 2.4 changes and how that’s going to effect us.

First of all, some things will be changing during our raids. Mostly, there will be a price increase on all of Arcadi’s services.

It’s simple supply and demand. The new rates have not yet been determined yet, but we expect they will be announced on the first raid after the patch, when someone wants to do Zug in. And in case you’re wondering, that “someone” will probably be me. Daily quests are available to help you farm cash, and if you need a buddy to help, don’t be afraid to ask. Fortunately for me, I don’t need to farm cash for this service, because I’ll just use Zug’s money to pay for his own whacking. It’s a beautiful thing.

Moving on. We will be experiencing a bit of disappointment in the new patch, as repeated requests are still being unanswered: No mention yet of the in-game spellcheck.

No word yet on moron checker, either.

While they’re at it, some dev should check on the possibility of adding an in-game dictionary checker.

Unless I’m mistaken, and these people recon things. At dawn.

I suppose Blizzard has had other things to work on, so I guess I’ll let it go. For now. Instead, a new heroic will be added: Magister’s Terrace.

Photo courtesy wowwiki.

Note: There will be a quest to unlock the heroic mode. I don’t even need to ask Thund if he wants to go because I’m sure the answer is yes - so be prepared for that action.

Now for the housekeeping.

First, we need to talk about Matelda.

We’ve had a bit of confusion so I want to straighten out the Matelda/Mechtilde/Cato thing: Matelda is still in LoO, Mechtilde has been brought back to LoO, and Cato has gone to another server. I don’t know the name of the guild, but since it’s on another server entirely, it really doesn’t matter. No other moves will be made on his part until his “girlfriend” tells him what to do.

In related news, Matelda is still a gay geisha and, no matter what we do, likes to run off cliffs.

The guild feels smaller than ever, especially this week with so many people being on vacation. Don’t be discouraged. It really is the same amount of people who always play, we have just trimmed off some of the “fringe” players who were on, but didn’t participate.

The reason I’m bringing this up is that we’ve had more questions about going to Kara/ZA, even though I said in a previous message that we weren’t going. Just goes to show how much you listen to me! Maybe we’ll go. Maybe not. I’m not going to get your hopes up about it.

As far as I can see right now, we will not be inviting strangers of foreign guilds to do it. I’ve looked into the possibility, and it just isn’t an option. If we go, we will do it all in house. The problem with this is that there are exactly 10 of us, and if anyone has to bail for any reason, the night may be shot. Thund and I are still discussing this so it’s not ruled out, but it’s not in our reach right now simply because of the numbers. We also need an offtank. I’m working on one, but you know it’s going to take me a little bit before I can get Evoo leveled.

I definitely appreciate that you all still would really like to go and conquer, but we may need to just keep focusing on the heroics for now. The heroics are pretty cool, and we’ve accomplished some pretty awesome things. But again, we’ll keep you posted. If you still have questions or comments about this, please see either Thund or myself.

Awesome new PvE gear will be available after the patch, all purchasable for badges. Some of these things will cost a metric f00ktonlot of badges, so we’re starting our farming now. If you don’t start early, you’re going to be irritated and frustrated when you count up the amount of badges you need. Heroics are running Monday (Catastrophe Happens) and Friday (FNF) so do participate if you still need gear upgrades. This is where we will be focusing our attention for the most part.

Also, PvP will still be going on Sunday nights to farm honor and keep our skills fresh. We’ve spent so much time in the battlegrounds that it’s becoming like a second home.

We’re still having a lot of fun and doing very well. Sunday night PvP (formerly known as SNAW 2.0, now known as RICKROLL - ftw) will continue. If you need upgrades quickly, this is the best way to go. Come on out on Sunday night and we’ll farm some honor.

Any other questions, please feel free to see either Thund or myself, or post something in the forums.

And now for your moment of Zug, which comes courtesy of AW: