News

Azgalor is dead, and we put enough effort into learning him for a separate update instead of the mish-mash we had last time:



What a terrible picture. I’d like to know whose idea it was to give all these bosses such uninteresting death poses. Winterchill is a shiny ball, Anetheron is a breastplate similar to a level 9 quest reward in the Barrens, and the mighty pit lord Azgalor just kind of flops over. I personally think it would be far cooler if he was sprawled about, impaled on his own spear, the end sticking out of his mouth and dripping with blood, drool, and awesomeness. Or at least make it look like I ripped his arm off and beat him to death with it like in God of War. Too graphic for a Teen rated game? Fine then, maybe swing him around by his tail like Bowser in Super Mario, and have Thrall jump into the air and drop kick him in the jaw like some unholy combination of Chuck Norris and a bad Chinese martial arts film with the word "dragon" in the name.  
 
So to make up for Blizzard’s design shortcomings I supplement the above with an epic killshot of my own:



And in addition to this, we have been once again defeated by the most epic encounter of them all, the post-kill screenshot. "Okay guys, make a line, in front of him, where I’m standing. Blood elves and undead in front, tauren and mounted people in the back. Face the camera. Try not to stand on each other for the love of god." I say it every time, and every time we end up with some horrid monstrosity like the above, standing on a slope with the boss far away and out of focus, with some clown launching heart fireworks.

Take a look at this screenshot by Vis Maior, who was the world first guild to down the Sunwell boss Brutallus on the PTR:



See how they’re all lined up, spaced apart? Without retarded cows standing in the front facing the wrong way? Let’s work on that next time. Though it will be hard. Far harder than any boss positioning and movement Blizzard can think up. We have the problem-solving intelligence and capacity to learn new fights, but there are some that fail amazingly at the simplest things.

A few weeks ago, when a few of our members ran Naxxramas with Reckless Ambition, it was observed that some of their hunters were, to put it lightly, drooling mouthbreathers. They kept using Hunter’s Mark, which annoyed our own resident mouthbreather Mr. Kazajin (he was specced survival, and hence had the improved version of Hunter’s Mark). Saying this in vent did nothing, since an abundance of drool made it hard to speak, so he decided to take initiative and create a secret hunter channel. To discuss hunter things.

He named the channel "hunterzzzzz".

It didn’t last long, since he himself was unable to count the number of Zs in the name. Not letting himself be discouraged, he came up with a new, clever, and ingenious name: "hunterz". "With one Z".

I don’t know how that run and the disagreement over Hunter’s Mark ended, but I do know that two days later Kazajin gave the name of the channel to several Synergos hunters in an attempt to educate them. Those individuals proved to be spies. And before long their entire guild made the channel their home, and began discussing deep philosophical points such as "What Would Chuck Norris Do If He Was A Raptor Zombie And Kael’thas Was A Ninja Snake NOM NOM NOM".

It was time to found a new channel. But one day on vent Kazajin made a terrible mistake. He mumbled something to himself, but forgot to let go of push-to-talk. Normally I wouldn’t notice such a thing, but hours combing Danrax’s drunken commentary for potential clues about Scholomance taught me to listen, and think.

The words he said were "ooh, Althaea has joined huntercraft".

And that was the end:



Fail. Like I said: problem-solving intelligence, little common sense.

And one last thing - with Azgalor’s death, we were promised pictures of a different kind of mouthbreather, our very own Mr. Pezz. Sadly Rooraman, my associate in Seattle, has not posted these pictures due to entertaining special guests from across the country and having an unfortunate few weeks of Arena.

I did, however, manage to find a picture of Pezz - or at least what I personally imagine he looks like:

He’s the one on the right.

As bosses get harder the updates may come farther apart. Until next time.

Six bosses later, we finally have an update to the front page.

It’s late, I know.

Partially it’s because the early bosses are so easy that my stash of front page material that I have collected from across the internet would begin running thin if each got a separate post.

But mostly it’s because the spring semester at college has started, and my non-raid time has been consumed by sports betting.

Like the wrestling matches which I regularly hold in my apartment:



Ahem.

Two weeks, six bosses, no squid. Or no visible squid at least. The upcoming encounters I have a feeling will test the raid further, and the hidden cephalopods among us might rise to the surface to feed. As guilds progress natural selection has a tendency to weed out the drooling mouthbreathers - but natural selection can be tampered with:



So what I’m basically trying to say is this: if you even SUSPECT yourself of having squid-like tendencies at least tie a giant knife to your back, maybe then you’ll cut up the motherfucker and kill him before you inevitably fail to click a cube or blow up the raid or say classic things like "I had both mouse buttons down and was running, I didn’t think he would Flame Wreath immediately!". Ten MONTHS after Karazhan has been on farm, by the way.

Until next time.

On the night of January 18th, 2008, the Cloverfield Monster ravaged New York on it’s opening night, selling out in all theatres across Manhattan. And while half the country prepared for the midnight release, a small band of raiders assembled in Tempest Keep. And now, Kael’thas Sunstrider is dead at the hands of Addiction.



But there was something more exciting than all of this. But to understand this, let me tell you a story of man. A story that provides a glimpse of what this guild is about, of who our role models are and the behavior that its leaders encourage.

On a night similar to this one, roughly six years ago, the elevator stopped working at a particular dorm on the campus of the University of Michigan. For the better part of an hour it was stuck on the 12th floor, its doors opening and closing on the body of a naked man sprawled in the hallway.

The evening began with this individual pouring a coffee mug full of vodka, downing it, then smashing the mug on the floor and yelling a battle cry. He then undressed, and was forcibly dragged in a semi-conscious state up to the girls’ floor, where he proceeded to run from room to room and expose himself to those inside before finally collapsing in an open elevator and spending the rest of the night there.

The name of this man is Danrax, the Pride of Michigan. And though he no longer leads the same college lifestyle, he has in his advanced age found new hobbies. One of these is the infamous Secret of Scholomance, a rumored path to riches and fame that has had quite a few big names on Auchindoun talking.

The premise is simple: Scholomance, the pre-BC level 60 dungeon, was used in an unintended way to make 200-300g in about 20 minutes, repeatedly. It could be done by any class of any profession. It was impossible to do this before the expansion. It was not an exploit, it was in no way a bannable offense.

And then the Daily Clues started rolling in:

"It is NOT an item."

"You can easily discover this if you spend enough time in the instance."

"It is not the warlock or paladin mount quests."

And perhaps the most famous:

"There is a woman, deep within Scholomance…"

The Scholomance Mystery Secret Society was formed. The movements of Danrax were tracked across the world. The Society had agents positioned at the Bulwark in Tirisfal Glades with goggles looking far into the distance attempting to catch Danrax zoning in. One Society member went as far as gquitting his girlfriend’s character, a rogue, and using a camouflage elixir while stealthed to observe suspicious activity. This could have resulted in a serious repercussions, such as DKP loss or permanent removal from the guild, but the needs of the Society were greater.

And soon the other guilds learned of this. They wanted the knowledge for themselves. There were offers of thousands of gold for the secret. RA quoted a figure of 4000g from the guild bank for a demonstration… but Danrax only laughed. He could make that much in 2 hours, and did.

And it was promised that once Addiction kills Kael’thas the secret will be revealed. And so it shall.

One night Danrax was in Scholomance farming shards and making his way through a handle of Belvedere. He received an interesting tell, in badly written broken English, offering 300g for help killing the boss for the shaman epic quest in Scholomance. This tell was from a Chinese farmer who played from a LAN center where the expansion wasn’t installed. This farmer was the Woman.

Danrax agreed, and so pleased was the Woman with him that she brought all her friends - many in number, all from the LAN center, unable to access the items of Outland but having pockets lined with gold. Each run came with a tip, and when the dust settled Danrax was comfortably sitting on upwards of 10,000 gold.

This is the truth, and the truth hurts. If the death threats and attempts on Danrax’s life were bad before, they will surely be worse now. But notice that at no point did Danrax lie - there is indeed a woman, it is not an exploit, it is not an item. The more time you spend in Scholomance the likelier you are to discover it - i.e. have a farmer ask you to run them through the quest.  

And where is Danrax now? His last words in officer chat were "lol guys I gotta go after this attempt, replace me". He went to the midnight release of Cloverfield, betting on the fact that Kael wouldn’t die until Monday. Bad choice. He was seen this morning, but in a parking lot of a movie theater and not a dorm elevator:



But on a more serious note: grats on Kael, get ready for Hyjal and Black Temple. To those who are not keyed, it is your job to make sure you do - if you do not, you will be left behind like many others before you, begging on the streets for invites to other guilds’ raids. You will find yourself on the side of the road, in a ditch, passed out naked wearing crotchless panties. Backwards.

Or after years of soul-searching, end up married to this:

Until next time. Which by all indications will be quite soon. 

The elves captured me.
They took my eye.
I cut off my own arm to escape them.
And now, the elves fight alongside the Horde?! I spit on the Horde!

In the spirit of keeping the front page updated with significant new accomplishments, I present you with the server-second clear of Zul’aman, accomplished on the weekend after 2.3 was released, by the Jetpack Scissor Raptors division of Addiction.



It must be noted that this success was not shared by those outside the immediate Jetpack Raptors circle - other groups, expecting this to be another Karazhan, were in for a surprise when the Amani trolls proved to be far more cunning than the anthropomorphic snakes of Serpentshrine Cavern.

My associates and I have classified this as "problem-solving intelligent".

This goes hand-in-hand with other types of intelligence, such as "common sense intelligence". What is that? Well, it’s avoiding dark alleys when you’re a little girl with a flourescent light attached to your backpack. It’s not fighting a bear because you believe yourself more intelligent. It’s taking cover when you are told to instead of trying to outsmart a giant fish spouting water at you.

Let me illustrate what it’s NOT:



Kael’thas will be dead soon. When he is, I shall tell you the epic tale of the Vampire Squid.

On November 4th, 2007, at about 7:30 pm server time, twenty-five seasoned raiders assembled outside of Serpentshrine Cavern, like drain flies congregating above Danrax’s sink. There was excitement in the air - the previous record of 2% convinced us that a kill was not only possible, but likely - that the epics we dreamed of with glazed eyes and dribbling saliva were within reach.

And so, for a short time at least, we wiped the rivers of drool from our chins, used our eyes for spotting elementals, ears for listening to striders, and noses - surprisingly - for breathing. Even the severely handicapped stopped rolling their faces across the keyboard, instead fervently banging the general location of their win buttons with the sides of their heads, eyes glued to the screen, emitting guttural noises vaguely resembling the words "pfft I’m so RIGGED".



While some of the other encounters up to now forgave (and even WELCOMED) mouthbreathers and floor-moppers like Dan’s drain welcomes small dark fuzzy insects, Lady Vashj is a fight that requires the utmost concentration and coordination on the part of every member of the raid. And what is more, we repeated the kill the following week. Even drain flies can get lucky and accidentally lodge themselves in Dan’s trachea, leading to death and possible epics - but twice? Even the most fortunate of sewer insects would be hard-pressed to duplicate such a thing.

So it seems like we have found a winning formula:

2 Tanks + 7 Healers + 16 DPS - mouthbreathers + "Team Rigged" + nose-breathing + only 3 people dead in phase 3 + 1 battle res = Dead Bosses.

I have seen the math, and it’s sound.



Many of our colleagues in the field of end-game progression are genuinely surprised by this. Reckless Ambition paused in the middle of an epic Blackwing Lair, Instinct’s silence grew more profound, Synergos postponed their Internet War and Recurring Nightmare almost let another boss despawn. The collective response was "wow, that’s surprising".



And to those that ask how it happened, and what we can possibly do to ensure that we continue to succeed, the answer is simple - don’t be like this guy here:



Ahead lies patch 2.3, Zul’Aman, and Season 3. Only Kael’thas Sunstrider is left before we set foot into Hyjal.

Which I hear looks something like this:



Join me next time - for it is said that in the year 2038 the ravens will leave the Tower of London and all hell will break loose upon England.