On October the 8th the newest expansion of EverQuest was officially released with the ominous name Call of the Forsaken. With this expansion SOE is continuing down the road they have started to walk upon with the last expansion <8>Rain of Fear (RoF), meaning that they are splitting up the content and releasing it during the following year. A huge difference lies in the even smaller initial part of the expansion compared to RoF. People last year were already complaining about the small number of raids available after the release, but this year it really doesn't feel like an expansion, considering that a total of four (!) new raids is available - the lowest number of available new raids since LoY, which wasn't even officially named an expansion when it was released (it was called a content pack and later changed to expansion).

To be honest, from my point of view such a title would be more appropriate for CotF also in its current state, because quite frankly this is NOT an expansion yet, neither from the number of raids, nor the new zones, new AA or the number of missions and quests. You can see that this isn't even a full tier of an expansion by the fact that only half of the visible gear is actually dropping in the currently available raids, the rest will be on future events which hopefully will come out soon (rumors talk about January).

With that little new raid content under the current paradigm to make raids accessible for almost every guild it can't really be surprising that all events were beaten on the release day by the usual trailblazer guilds who did put in the extra work to learn everything about the raids in Beta and how to optimize in getting the needed quests done to request the raids - kudos to them.

Talking about Beta - it seems that with this sort of content releases there is no real "race" anymore, because it is already over, before it even started, but IF you really have the ambition to finish among the very first, then getting knowledge in Beta might be the only option. This is something we in RF have not done for quite some time and personally I have always thought that learning everything on the life servers without previous knowledge is more fulfilling - we will have to decide how RF will handle this in the future. Despite our lack of Beta infos we were able to beat the first event "Against the Doomscale Horde" as first guild serverwide, which was definitely nice.

Sadly the servers had come up pretty much at the start of our raid time, so we didn't have the needed quests finished for another raid, so we had to come back the next day for more - as our own group trailblazers had done a great work on getting us raidable we were able to start working on the second event "Xulous Prime" until we finally downed it as first guild on AB just 30 minutes before midnight - was a nice feeling!

On Thursday the servers were brought down during the afternoon only to come back up 2 hours after our normal raid start. Now normally we would have said "whatever, we just take a day off", but with the new raids enough people were motivated to make raiding possible to a certain degree and we managed to work on the bixie raid (officially called "Saving Jacyll") a bit, although the overall number of raiders was not remotely close to normal due to people doing other stuff on an evening with such a late raid start.

So far, RF had done pretty well, but now the dreaded weekend arose - the bane of raid participation in Raging Fury for a long time (which is actually the reason why RF never raids on Saturdays EVER). Nonetheless our raid leader Insaneox was brave and tried to get the show going, but there is only so much you can do with more than 2 full groups missing - all those pesky folks who have to do other stuff on a Friday evening than playing EQ - how dare you!

The Bixie raid was actually a bit more challenging than the others as it brought one or two surprises, altogether I think it is actually a well-balanced raid with a new idea - not bad!

Anyway, we finally finished the last raid called "The Houses of Thex" 1 week after the release including a second flag run on "Xulous Prime" and now the farming starts yet again...

Normally I conclude the first news update after all current raids of a newly released expansion have been beaten with a personal verdict on the raid game. This time though I can't do that, because obviously the miniscule addition of new raids is simply too small to judge the whole expansion yet. All I can say currently is that SOE will have to fulfill their promises regarding more content or this might very well be the last expansion I myself have paid 40$ for - what we have gotten so far would only be worth a quarter of this amount in my book and I think quite a few people share this point of view. People have in a way "prepaid" for a complete expansion and we all hope, that we will get what we paid for in the end...

I am deeply sorry if these news aren't as elaborate or witty as previous news might have been (at least I hope, some people enjoyed them), I simply adapt to the current trend in EverQuest itself - smaller bits with less interesting content garnered with the hope for more soon (tm).

Finishing off with 2 little quotes:

First of all, the invention of collections you can assemble in EQ brought some new items with funny names which make up for a few laughs:

Second, RF has the most manly warriors EVAH! I mean, generally our "Rainbow Warrior" (OMG, will the French Secret Service now try to sink us?) is normally Daze, but this time it appears that Swordweaver wants to be one too:

Now imagine that hat on a rather big and ugly troll warrior and you have a fearsome picture indeed!

PS: Even the quotes seem to be less, I blame SOE for that lack too!

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We are currently looking for an additional 4-5 members to fill our ranks, check the recruitment section for further details, Magicians do not hesitate to apply!

On the drawing board, Zi-Thuuli must have seemed like a highly original event, the live version is sadly a total reciprocal. Having a named mob spawn randomly from clearing trash mobs is nothing novel, albeit having the boss encounter literally spawn amid the raidforce was somewhat of a surprise the first time it occurred, and it is definitely one of the most efficient methods of ascertaining that the raidforce stays totally focused for the duration of the clearing.

However, forcing a guild to constantly clear respawns in an instanced zone in hopes of spawning their desired target is all but extremely disconsolate. Our endeavour tonight lasted for aproximately two hours, where 75% of that time was monotone, repetitive clearing of respawns. When Zi-Thuuli finally decided to make an appearance, he reassured us of the fact that the next time he graced us with his fleeing presence, would thankfully be the last. Gargoyles are known to be deceptive however, and surprisingly enough, a fourth meeting was deemed a necessity.

I am fairly certain that the original intent of this encounter was that any guild facing Zi-Thuuli should be forced to fight him at their present location, which is why it seems rather redundant to add an ability to that mob which renders any fight spot bar one or two all but useless.

While players have demanded challenging and enjoyable content for some time now, encounters that take close to two hours to complete combined with the risk of raidmembers being tossed down into Stoneroot Mountains amid kill on sight mobs is hardly the type of challenge that makes this game enjoyable. The fleeing aspect of this encounter is pretty pointless, the novelty wears off after having completed it once, post that it merely becomes an annoyance.

Hopefully, what is left of the Demi-Plane will be somewhat more enjoyable, what we have seen so far is pretty disappointing.

Following the trend of our nostalgy video releases, this update will feature our very first video ever made, namely a compilation from a Tacvi clearing in mid April or May if I recall correctly. You can download the video by clicking here.

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Master Vule the Silent Tear was slain tonight in what can only be described as the epitome of execution. The vampiric guardian of the Demi-Plane offered little to no resistance to an amply prepared raidforce, and through Vule's eyes Raging Fury obtained access to the equivalent of Tacvi, Anguish and the Plane of Time, namely the final raiding zone of the Depths of Darkhollow expansion.

Flitzer was chosen for the mandatory scouting of our new raiding territory and managed to secure the following screenshots prior to calling it a night. While the majority of the latest expansion has offered new models and unique encounters I must utter my disappointment in regards to seeing the exact same model that was utilized in the endgame stage of the Omens of War expansion grace the final raiding frontier in the Darkhollow expansion.

Some of us are still hoping to see Mayong Mistmoore step forth to announce himself as the true master of Dreadspire Keep, and truth be told, seeing a 400 ton Warcraft tauren copy amid vampiric nobility is all but appalling.

Completing an encounter more than once has a tendency to render it somewhat trivial, thus I am able to offer you proper coverage of the Hive Queen Event, which is without a doubt one of the most enjoyable encounters in Everquest at this time. Stay tuned for further updates from the Demi Plane.

A few months back we thought it would be an idea to make some movies that covered the encounters we were currently doing. Unfortunately, so did most of the other guilds out there, thus we decided to withhold our videos until they had ripened properly, in other words, until they had become vintage. Our two first videos document an Anguish round and a fight against Vishimtar. My trial version of SwishMAX sadly expired, otherwise I would have fixed the Anguish clearing time to 2 hours and 29 minutes, a time we have yet to beat. Download the videos here:

Raging Fury Movies

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Our second trip to Anguish proved to be a prosperous one, the citadel having recently been subject to an itemization post a corrupt database, initially yielding merely rubies in place of the augments listed below. However the pathing was most definitely overlooked as many a lightning warrior projected itself randomly across the zone, admittedly aiding us rather significantly in regards to pulling, though still an issue that could easily have been corrected in todays patch. Chimeras appear to be a trendy addition to Omens of War, and in a fight highly reminiscent of Chailak, Ture fell tonight in what can only be described as a surprisingly easy encounter.

During the weekend we paid the royalty of Riftseekers a visit, and nothing but regicide aptly describes the aftermath of our visit there. One has to wonder whether or not Sony Online Entertainment has drawn inspiration from the Riftwar saga when creating this zone, none the less, both the royal blood lines were relentlessly left heirless.

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