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.

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:

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:

This is a fairly surprising move on our part. Although PvP has always been a substantial part of life in World of Warcraft, it hasn’t been a part of LoO’s corporate life. The majority of LoOnies preferred PvE, so those who wanted to add PvP content were encouraged to do so on an individual basis. This was primarily just Grimvalt, Iraas, and Arachne, with the rest of us being turned off by the kind of PvP we saw going on in the world.

Koryn has a way of putting things so eloquently, doesn’t he?

There was a short stint where a couple of us did try getting into PvP, and we ventured forth into the battlegrounds, lured by visions of brave and bold Horde warriors and the promises of glorious victories and phat lewts.

The reality of PvP life was far from the truth.

And that was that for a long time. At least it was for me.

When the Season 1 Arena Gear became available for battleground honor and marks, we were lured, once again, back into suckage battle. A poll was taken and the LoOnies spoke in one accord:

Give us some damn PvP on Sunday nights!

Lead by Arcadi, Team LoO has ventured forth into the glories of PvP. The first lesson he had to teach us has been the hardest, yet most valuable: Togetherness.

This is a first shot of a couple of us doing some Outland PvP quests, looking pretty pleased with ourselves. I managed to get a portrait of everyone looking quite nice – except Grimvalt, who looks like a tauntaun with his funky helmet and Rhuinn, who couldn’t figure out which way was forward. Autumnwolf is not in this shot because she was doing all the hard work while we stood around taking pictures.

Since then, we have learned some valuable lessons and we’re proud of where we are as a team. Staying together has been the backbone of our strategy, and it makes sense. If you’ve ever gone into the battlegrounds alone and have suddenly found yourself without a buddy or group, you know you won’t last long. Together, we continue to be a driving force to either take flags and resources, defend them, even divide and conquer.

Well, most of us have learned it…

The rest of us have learned that rogues are pointy.

Being the efficient little devil I am, I quickly figured out that if I did the pvp daily quest and then spent the rest of my time in AV, I could get approximately 2000 honor every night for one hour of effort. And 2000 honor every night roughly equals one upgraded item per week. Sure, it’s hard going in as the pvp noob – you’re sort of a novelty.

Thanks for pointing me out to the entire raid, jerk!

Still, I was determined. So this is what I did every night at about 8:30/9:00 pm Eastern. I logged in and started pvping to get my 2000 honor. For the price of some honor, marks, and my dignity, I was able to start getting some much needed upgrades. Sure, we’ve been pounding down Heroics like they’re going out of style, but it’s been a long time since anyone’s really had a substantial upgrade.

Thundrax and Arcadi wanted to get in on the action too, and they started to join me. Either that, or they wanted me to shut up about my nightly pvp and upgraded armor.

Sure enough, we realized the battlegrounds aren’t so bad when you were getting pwned with friends.

Then Zug started coming. Then Matelda. Then Iraas! It’s become a nightly quasi-event where we continue to learn pvp skills.

The nightly pvp grind is open to all. It’s a very flexible night, so anyone who wants to get online can do so at any time and leave whenever you have to. There’s no set time frame; we come and go as needed. Log in and say you would like to come. We queue up as a group and use the guild voice channel to talk during the matches. If you don’t have a microphone, at the very least you must be able to hear because Arcadi gives our instructions over voice chat.

Although it is not an official guild event, we treat it as if it were one, taking our battle orders from Arcadi so we can continue to learn and improve. And before you ask, yes there is a reason we take our orders only from Arcadi:

That’s why.

Through our various trials, we are becoming hardened, street-wise LoOnies who roam the battlegrounds like a group of gangstas.

Even Thundrax is developing a potty mouth.

For him, that’s pretty street, yo. He’s even keeping on top of his ho’s.

We’re going to continue to do this nightly, and it’s open to all guildies who want to come and join. Just remember, if you do join the group, you have to follow orders even if you don’t agree with them.

Learn from his zen-like wisdom.

This will be a big part of our lives for the next few months as we strive to get characters upgraded and, more importantly, learn to PvP. In a few months we may even feel strong enough to start getting creamed in the arena, but we’ll at least be doing it together.

LoOnies for life, yo. Looking forward to what lies ahead in 2008.

And now for your moment of Zug.

It’s always better to end on a big bang, rather than just two small bumps in the road. Of course, the only ones who disagree with that are those who were treated to Rachel Ray’s second wardrobe malfunction this year.

See what I did there?

However, as we look back over the year, we’ve learned some interesting things about each other that have brought us closer…

…some of us farther…

…and some of us really learned how to get behind one another.

Just recently, we attempted Kara. It started off really well.

I don’t understand why Matelda’s watching, but whatever. Mat likes to watch, but it’s cool. It takes all kinds to make a world. LoOnies are an accepting group, and when it’s your time to come out, we will embrace it with you.

Anyway, after that it was pretty much all downhill and we spent the rest of the night being teabagged by Moroes. And worse.

The good news is that it can only get better. Or maybe just stay the same. But it definitely can’t get any worse.

Or maybe it can. Let’s hope for the best though, shall we?

In other news , Matelda is now being referred to as girl names because of Zug’s newfound love of the tv show, Scrubs.

Additionally, his guild note will still change like a revolving door, so be on your toes.

So, when addressing Mat, please plan accordingly.

In other news, I’m up to my same old assholery. This time, it wasn’t intentional, I swear. Let me explain.

There was a group scheduled to run Delinia and Naudria through Old Hillsbrad that I had signed up for. On the night of the group, I log in and hit the wind rider from Orgrimmar. Once I’m flying over Thousand Needles, I get a random whisper.

I don’t know this dude, and I don’t know why he’s talking to me. But what immediately springs to mind is that someone is screwing with me. The first person I think of is Thundrax because the dude’s name is Jeffreytroll, although I also knew that if Thundrax wanted to screw with me, he wouldn’t make a toon that had his own name in it. Either way, I’m convinced this is someone I know so I respond in my usual manner.

As you can see, I ran a /who and saw that he was some noob in some retarded guild who was questing in Thousand Needles. Maybe he saw me flying overhead and decided to send me a whisper. Maybe not.

With a response like that, I was absolutely convinced someone was screwing with me. I play along.

Although it was getting really annoying.

Okay, now I’m starting to have doubts. And I’m starting to sort of feel like an asshole, but I’m still not convinced. This could still be someone I know. Zug would totally do this to me.

With responses like this? Come on. Either way, the constant questioning is really beginning to annoy me and I will do anything just to get him to shut up and leave me alone.

Yeah, good luck with that hell in a handbasket quest, freak of whom I am convinced is someone I know. Sounds like a fun time.

And then he actually went to Ashenvale. Some noob, who I thought was someone screwing with me, went to Ashenvale to do an imaginary hell in a handbasket quest that I flippantly mentioned.

Yes, I am officially an asshole. If Santa leaves coal in my stocking this year, I will have deserved it for what gaming trauma I have inflicted on this kid, who probably really was 10 years old. I’m sorry, noob, whoever you were.

Who would have thought anyone would be so persistent about doing quests?

Except Koryn, who would probably love my hell in a handbasket quest. Gotta go to Ashenvale, though. Good luck finding that NPC.

Before I sign off, I want to wish you all a very happy holiday and a LoOny new year (wonk wonk wonk).

And now, for your moment of Zug.

Over the last couple of days the officers and veterans have been putting their heads together to discuss where we currently are as a group, and how we’re going to tackle the expansion. Back at home on the Horde, we find ourselves basically in the same boat we were in when Patch 1.10 was released. At this point in time, we do not even have the manpower (or womanpower) to split into two groups, and with most of the new instances that we need to dominate restricted to 5-man, this calls for a solution. Never fear, fellow LoOnies; impending doom has never stopped us before. Around here, we look Doom square in the eye – and then steal his lunch money and shove him into a locker. We put our heads together and did unspeakable things to come up with the best plan going forward.

Air Supply. That’s what you get for letting me play your priest.

Because the expansion is new, we’re still having issues with server crashes and long queue waits.

As Arcadi posted in the member forum, this week we will let people explore, make noobs, do quests, have fun. A formal guild raid will not be scheduled until the following weekend so we can get acclimated and maybe figure out where some of these instances are.

LoO is going to be changing our raid schedule. Because, as I said earlier, the instances we can get to now are all 5-man and we will not have 10 people to split down the middle into two neat groups, we will now have two raid nights every week when we raid Horde. Zug will take a group on Sunday nights, and Thundrax will take a group on a different night (that night is currently TBD). This will give people a chance to raid at least once a week, and those who would like to raid more than that can fill in the vacancies in the opposing group. We will not be assigning people to groups because that has a tendancy to evolve into cliques – and that’s a slippery slope. We will sign up for raids on the forums, just like we did before. Please only sign up for one group and when there are vacancies in groups, we’ll open it up for anyone else who would like an extra raid night. We also plan to try and use the LFG tool with some of our vacancies to find new recruits. As an aside, the Alliance raid will still take place every third week. If you have questions about the new raid night format, please post it in the members forum under Arcadi’s post and someone will answer your question.

But wait, there’s more! Because there are new races, we will be putting together a regular horde noob group for anyone who would like a group to level up a new character with. More information to come on the boards. We also will be reinstituting an old custom – LoO Quest Night. For those of you who are not familiar with this, it’s for anyone who has elite quests and needs help. Please keep in mind that these are for the one-off quest, and not for quests that require instances. If you have instance-related quests, we will handle that in the same way we did in the past by posting a group on the forums.

I’m looking forward to another successful year in LoO!