It’s called the circle of life, that all and everything has a start and an end.

For the guild Raging Fury all started 17 years ago as it was founded on “The Rathe” server in February 2001, but moved to AnTonius Bayle immediately after the server was launched. None of these first heroes is still active but some of their names are still whispered in stories told on the campfires and halls.

Fast the guild grown up to compete against Mortalis and Darkwind to become a known raid force over all the EverQuest severs. The biggest achievement for Raging Fury was the Serverfirst 1st kill of Mayong Mistmoore in January 2006 and for a long time Raging Fury finished the expansion as one of the best 5 guilds in EverQuest.

The competition on AnTonius Bayle with Darkwind and Tide are long over and many of the former rivals became a good friend and guild member after they joined into the service of Raging Fury.

Over the last years Raging Fury suffered like many other guilds over the decline of the player base in EverQuest. AnTonius Bayle as an European Server has an even harder stand compared to the US severs looking for new raiders.

We all hope that the new founded guild will follow up the history of successful raiding of their predecessors.

Many Thanks to all former and current members of Raging Fury that made this guild something special.

While many of the members of Raging Fury will join Age of Unity, the guild will still keep up the banner on AnTonius Bayle.

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After a short delay now the official news: Raging Fury has finished the latest EverQuest expansion named "Empires of Kunark" (EoK)!

This is a picture of the victorious raid force on that specific evening in all their glory:

The kill itself happened on the fifth of July, but I have only found time to post a short update until now. Anyway, enough of the lame excuses, let's start with the news!

Given the name of the expansion one had to assume that the theme of it would be based on the mysterious continent of Kunark with its Sarnaks, Dragons and Iksars. In that regard the expansion did not disappoint, in tier one we got a raid in Droga fighting Goblins and the other brought us to another clash with an old acquaintance from the ancient past:

While the Droga raid is laughably easy, Gorenaire at least proved a bit more challenging, although still not really hard. The idea of the raid is basically to defend the city against invading forces including Mrs. Flappy herself, but some parts of the raid make it slightly annoying without really raising the difficulty bar...

A powerful lady like Gorenaire can sometimes have certain effects on males though:

Anyway, after we had collected the necessary number of flags we moved on to Tier 2, in which all 3 raids had to be done in order in the old Sarnak home of Chardok. Once again the first raid against the Prince is a free loot event unworthy of getting acknowledged with a screenshot (so, you see, this is deliberate, not because I am lazy as hell!)

The second event in contrary was a bit more challenging, the Queen and her associates showing quite some effort to keep us from grabbing their precious treasure chests. The event from my point of view is pretty well thought out, just the influence of the element of luck regarding the spawn of adds can be slightly irritating while learning. Still, a solid event well worth a screenshot (which I didn't really get a good one of, so there is my slackness again!)

The third event in Chardok after Prince and Queen was... no, not the King! Instead the fight happenedto be about something called "Atrebe's Vault" and as someone not bothering much with the story around such things, I have no clue where this comes from (WRU Lorehelmet Imothep?)

This event is pretty nasty, it needs good coordination and everyone must be well aware of their surroundings. The coordination started to get really difficult almost half a year ago though, because on our server AnTonius Bayle a channel lag of 30 or more seconds is to be expected on raid evenings. Add to this a high number of LDs, zones denying entrance and sometimes scripts hanging and you might understand why sometimes we had the feeling to fight with one hand tied to our back - unpleasant! Nonetheless we managed to beat this event, thus opening the door to the final Tier of Empires of Kunark:

The first event in this zone was about handling an amount of hard hitting Sarnaks and this event took us far longer than it should have. Admittedly, with the aforementioned server issues we had to cancel raids early more than once, but still it took us longer than it should have considering we have been downing it with relative ease after that first win. Now, raiding in Tier 3 gets easier with each win there, because more members get protected against a nasty debuff that prevents them from critting, but overall I think we all can agree that we made it harder on ourselves (and especially our poor raid leaders) than necessary.

The second event had a dragon once more and even his eggs (or her eggs?):

While this event didn't tolerate mistakes because of the lag issues very much, we still downed it in a reasonable time:

See what I did there? I gave you two screenshots from one event, makes up for my lack on other events, doesn't it? Well, OK, maybe not, I might add some pictures later if I take them...

Whatever, we were now only one event away from finishing the expansion and with us being invigorated by the latest success we stomped over it in short time (yes, the third event is the easiest in Tier 3)

So, the expansion has been finished, the farming can begin and that is good, because now the summertime with vacations etc. starts. So everything is good?

I am afraid, but no, not everything is good. The technical issues on our server have been going on for far too long, first it took months to even get an official acknowledgment that there even ARE issues, but since then we are still waiting for a real improvement. Add to the already mentioned problems that all major guilds on AB have had their Grand Guild Hall swept clean of every item at least once and you may understand why many people feel frustrated, ignored and outright appalled by the lack of support from Daybreak. A game for which you pay every month needs to work properly, if that is not the case then people won't pay for it anymore, plain and simple. I have said before and I will not change my mind: if these issues aren't solved when my account runs out later this year, then my time in Norrath will finally come to an end.

Before I finish I want to thank those responsible for keeping Raging Fury still raiding after all these years, first of all our raidleaders Jarasil, Nilzera and Odysias. Without you guys there would be no successful raiding from this guild and you guys only rarely get the appreciation which you deserve! I also want to thank the other officers of the team Vmas for still doing RFP snaps and loot after all those years (when he is there and not jumping around with beautiful girls ;)) and Washu, the cuddliest Bunny-Shadowknight on the server!

Of course I also want to thank all the others who are helping one way or another, be it by helping in the strategy channel, by working on audio triggers (lots needed in EoK), making tank lines or just being there and doing their job focused and efficiently without complaints about the umpteenth death - in short: the core of Raging Fury.

For now I will finish off by telling all you online gamers out there that there are other things than just gaming, so keep your priorities straight!

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It has been a while since I have posted any news (as Jolene was so kind to remind me every other week *sigh*). While I have to admit that part of this lack of inspiring words from the fearless leader of Raging Fury (aka. me) is due to my own sloth (there is a reason why I get called Slackrahil by some), that is not the only cause. More about that in the second part of these news, at first I want to get the important information out: Raging Fury is back on track by downing Tower of Rot (the first and only event in Tier 2a) finally!

OK, so why is this important? I mean, RF has been a high end guild for so many years and now we are happy about beating an event more than a month after two other guilds on AB (grats to them!)?

The answer is: yes, we are happy because we have recently been able to welcome a considerable amount of new friends into our guild which for the first time gave us the possibility to attempt this with a full raid (on most tries before we were 45 people on average). I won't even complain about the insane lag some people experienced in this event, that was the same for every guild, although it might be easier to overcome such obstacles with a full raid. Even after the lag issues were fixed, we never really had a complete evening of trying this event with even 8 groups, so people got a bit frustrated. Even certain attempts to motivate people didn't work:

Anyway, coming there with a full raid was invigorating and apparently lead a certain Shadowknight to premature... death:

After that everyone was awake though and it was easy to see that the difference it makes when trying an event with a balanced full raid force versus missing almost 2 groups and having people bringing in bots for certain classes is tremendous. So we got the event down on the very first attempt yesterday, which I found really impressive considering quite a large number of the new guild members had never even seen this event before - great job everyone!

To prove how totally smooth it all went, a cleric got the killshot:

There is a reason, why Illandra is called the "paladin classleader" in RF!

As we were on a roll we went and had a first short look at the first event in Tier 2b with the proper name "Burn Out". Once again a Shadowknight was the first one down:

Seriously guys, we know your class is nothing compared to the shining knight, the epitome of chivalry and greatness (and mostly curing) known as the paladin, but no need to commit suicide - it's OK, we like you anyway!

I am pretty sure we will be able to beat the two last remaining raid events in reasonable time and I might actually post another update then (no promises!), but for now I would like to explain why RF had to struggle the last months (and why I fear that this might be the same for some other guilds too).

With the change in the release strategy by SOE from releasing an expansion once a year (or twice for those who remember the REALLY old times) to releasing tiny bits of expansion parts all over the year the whole attitude has changed. This is at least as I myself perceive it. In former times a new expansion came out and the high end guilds rushed forward to get the lower tier raids beaten to proceed steadily through the tiers to finally get into the end zone, where (depending on the expansion) they would either find candyland (like during PoP) or the final true challenges (GoD anyone?)

Whatever it was, everyone knew that this process would take a bit of time to get through and that even if the expansion was released on a Wednesday it would not be a huge disadvantage to have your first raid day after that on Sunday. 3 days more or less wouldn't make or break the success in total, it was something between an 800 to a 10000 meter race until you finally beat the expansion and felt something like accomplishment (well, not so much after beating Lord Brekkt, what a poor excuse of an endboss, he must be the laughing stock of his colleagues Tunat, OMM or Triunity, heck even Vishimtar).

After beating this you knew that you would have a break from learning and struggling for a time, simply farming around. As long as it wasn't as long as during SoD (11 months of farming was really a bit TOO much relaxation), some things just take long...

Nonetheless having a farm time was OK, especially during the summer months when people were on vacation, enjoyed an evening with friends or watched the football worldcup (yes, I did my part for the victory of Germany, drinking and cheering with friends! *feels like a world champion himself, almost like Naedion:)

Anyway, fast forward to the current state of the game... expansion release was October 8th 2013, all available raid content was beaten by the very first (RoI and MS) the same day. Pretty much the same picture with the releases of tier 1b, 2a and now 2b. First day out - finished. Feels like 4 50 m dashes instead of the race length described before. Don't get me wrong, I am sure RoI and MS would be the first two to finish also if all content was released at once and if some sort of flagging would be involved, stopping them from finishing all on the very first night.

The way though it is now is simply a bit demotivating for many people used to a different setup. Add to this the general attrition during summer and you get a dangerous mix for many raid guilds who cannot relax during the summer by farming known content with low numbers as they used to. They need to beat newly released content (hey, they consider themselves high end after all), but have issues getting enough people online because people do other things during summertime too, not only EQ (see above). So now they can't beat the new content, thus people who are still online get frustrated and don't log in, others leave for greener grasses (as even some of those finishing earlier now face number issues) and the end result is that a former high end guild is struggling.

This is something which could be totally avoidable by not bringing out new raid content during the summer months and I really hope SOE can rethink their strategy on releases, because the current course is dangerous.

And now, the final quote for those who have actually taken the time to read till the end, I hope you enjoyed some of it:

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OK, it is hot in Europe! Hot, hot, hot, hot, hot! The perfect time to go into the pool/sea/lake to cool off or go and have a BBQ and some beers with friends. Also it is the Worldcup and with lots of football afficionados we actually had to delay our raid schedule for 3 hours on the day Germany played against England, but apart from that, we raided constantly with full raids. Sometimes certain classes were a bit short, but we continued to work on the next event and refine our strategies and on Thursday it paid off as we managed to beat the event A Cunning Plan in Lichen Creep as fifth guild serverwide!

As usual I suck with pictures of the event itself, since we don't have any corpses after victories anymore, so instead I give you a shot of the happy crew that downed the Taskmaster Yeorick and his legions of minions, keyholders and miners and spoiled the "Cunning Plan":

How did we manage to get our members online every raid day in times like these? Let me show you in this awesome movie:

OK, I admit it, I stumbled across this little gem when I was looking for a movie scene about a taskmaster and his vicious whip, because that is precisely, what made "A Cunning Plan" a challenge. The Taskmaster Yeorick with his nasty bullwhip, who was responsible for the loss of much XP during the last weeks for many a Raging Fury member. Nonetheless we stayed focused on this event while still downing all the farm targets until we managed to get all the pieces into place to overcome the Taskmaster and his whip - where there's a whip, there's a way after all!

So in the end we could finally say "Alas, poor Yeorick! We knew him well." (some Shakespeare FTW for all those illiterates out there - I promised Qujam I would quote this, after all he IS a teacher IRL)

So, what did we get for our work? Apart from the usual 2 armor pieces we got us these nice new shinies:

We also have shown once again that as usual RF starts slower than some others, but once we roll, we are hard to stop - so expect some more news soon! Finally a little quote which shows that RF has some strange people in the guild (as if you hadn't noticed before):

So, if you aren't easily embarassed, we might be the right guild for you! We are filling open spots pretty well at the moment, so don't wait too long to apply! We are still looking for

We do accept applications from exceptional players from most of the other classes as well, so speak to our recruiters Brilhasti, Illandra, or Nalelini or talk to an officer.

Disclaimer: All rights reserved to their specific owners.

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On the 16th of March 1999 a new game was launched: EverQuest!

10 years later tens of thousands of players all around the globe are still wandering the lands of Norrath, so a celebration was indeed appropriate

10 years of EverQuest - this means almost 10 years of raids, from those first feeble attempts on Naggy and Vox over the really massive raids during PoP (sometimes 100+ players) till today.

For me (as for most members of raid guilds probably) raids (and of course my friends) are what keeps me playing this game after all these years, a game which certainly doesn't look as good as some of the newer rivals or attract the mass media - when did you last read an article about EQ in a games magazine, even when a new expansion has come out? Seriously, SOE, you guys need to make some advertising for this game, some hot girls are always good for ads, and we in RF have some ladies who would probably be suited very well:

Well, anyway, coming back to raids: What raids do stick out in your memory? Those that were attempted and won on the first or second go, or those that made you swear and scream in front of your PC, because you wiped again, until you finally were able to win after numerous tries? For me certainly the second part is what raiding is about - that exhilaration when everything falls into places, when on that one evening after endless tries you just reap the reward for all the hard work and your 'brothers in arms' cheer together with you in joy over a well-deserved victory.

Raids that brought that feeling to me were numerous over all those years, but some will always stick to my mind: bringing down the Rathe Council in PoP, finishing Uqua in GoD, beating the performer (pre-nerf) in DoDH or Aprosis in TBS. For other people certainly OMM in OoW will stand out, a mob Raging Fury had over 70 tries on until it finally went down.I can only imagine the great feeling of accomplishment at that moment, as I wasn't in a bleeding edge guild at that time and we struggled with the Jelvan-script. All those raids had one thing in common: they were hard and challenging and needed a full and focused raid force to finally see the loot chest:

Fast forward to the current expansion: all the raids in SoD were simply too easy, the only mildly challenging event being the Zek brothers in the Earth Theme - and the trains of our leet puller team. Listen to Yakha teaching a new app the secrets of the trade:

The Devs have admitted at the Fan Fair that raids in SoD were undertuned, and promised us that the next expansion would see more of a challenge to raid guilds. How much this is needed can be easily seen by the 'solution' they provided for the lack of content and challenge in SoD: they simply took those all-to-easy raids, cut the maximum number of players by one third and VOILA: SoD raids in 'Hard Mode' were created. How 'hard' those raids even with only 36 people are, can easily be seen when you look at the fact that the same day they were patched in, Raging Fury went ahead and cleared the complete tower as 'First guild serverwide' (yay us and the time zone advantage!) and grab the fat loot:

And here are the stats of the charm:

While it was nice to link those first new items and get tells from people from other guilds from numerous servers, nonetheless I myself wasn't overjoyed. This had mainly two reasons: first it didn't feel like such an achievement, as it just showed that the Tower of Discord with 54 people was indeed the Special Olympics of endzone raiding (after being handicapped by 1/3 it was still comfortably doable), second and much more important: I felt with those people who had to sit outside on the bench. Those people had brought us to that point where we were actually in the endzone, they had worked as hard (or farmed as long) as those who were inside on that evening. Our guild (as most successful guilds) has full or close to full raids most of the time, even in the summer period and after 6 months of farming the same content.

All those who were now only cheering from the side would have had a much better chance to be inside the raid, participating actively and working towards the common goal, if instead of an arbitrary cut of participants the difficulty of the raids themselves would have been raised.

The Devs assured us during the Fan Fair that this change of the raid size was merely a fast patch for the obvious lack of challenge and content and that raids in the next expansion 'Underfoot' would still have the size of 54 (and would be tuned more appropriately). Let's hope they stick to their words, the big raids are what makes EverQuest unique among all those MMORPGs on the market. Speaking of the new expansion (the 16th since the release of EQ back in 1999): during Fan Fair a few very early zones were shown, as the name suggests it will be set in the realm of Brell Serilis, so I certainly hope we get the chance to kill some dorfs (maybe even unDead dorfs? A paladin's dream!). It is supposed to have 13 new zones and one entrance will be through 'The Hole'.

I have been mentioning the Fan Fair a few times in this posting, this has a fairly simple reason: Raging Fury attended it this year in even bigger number than in 2008: eight Furies assembled in hot Las Vegas this June, six of them from Europe!.

OK, one of the persons on the picture is actually not from RF (Vilianna had to leave early), but nonethelss I think this shows the enthusiasm and passion for this old game which many of us share, being able to pay for such a trip or not. It also shows the friendship one can achieve across borders and time zones with fellow players from around the globe, a friendship people who call it 'only a game' can hardly understand. This is why people like us take this game so seriously, debate with passion and criticize changes we dislike so harshly.

So let's hope that indeed the chant celebrating the tenth anniversary of EQ from this year's Fan Fair will become true: '10 more years!'

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The Buried Sea expansion is nearing an end. Finally we can see the light at the end of a long and dark tunnel as we take yet another step through Solteris. We do so by walking all over Commodus, the Solar Construct. Once again an encouter that fits our guild composition as a very balanced, allround guild and once again an amazing performance after working on the event for some days. We are definitely looking forward to going back and see what new challenges this event has in store for us after the upcoming patch. For now, we take pride in the fact that we have beaten all but the last event in the zone

Once again I was slacking on my tankduties and running around taking pictures instead, just to present you with some of the coolest endgame mobs in the game. But don't tell anyone!

Even though Commodus fell at our feet at such a time where we would normally call it a night aferwards, we decided to go take a look at the final encounter in the zone. Thankfully there wasnt as many mobs towards Mayong as I had feared, so I managed to stay awake even during the trashclearing and snap a picture or two of one of the nicer models and eventually we reached the final event with Solusek Ro and Mayong Mistmoore facing each other. Actually we even took a quick testrun on the event, but I think will save those snapshots for the update when we kill them and finish the expansion. So look forward to seeing that here

Once again the progression rings get a nice upgrade in stats

We even managed to rake in a couple of other pieces of loot with Kikthin getting new greaves and Darx getting a new neck. Also Tamarea aquired a fancy new shield: Bulwark of the Firebringer

So the stage is set and hopefully we will have the needed turnout to finish off the last 2 bad guys despite summer holidays being upon us and we will have another update ready for you very soon

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Less than 20 hours post our slaying of the Rathe Council, we found ourselves engaging Coirnav The Avatar of Water with a vast prepared raid force. We all knew exactly what needed to be done, but in known style nameds roamed freely through our main camp, obliterating everything in their way. Seemingly on the brink of failing yet again, control was re obtained, and as Coirnav himself was engaged, nothing but certainty of success remained.

With all four elemental gods dissipated, access to the plane of time was granted to the majority of the guild today, though prior to commencing upon the final challenges of the Planes of Power expansion, basic reflagging necessities, i.e. one more round of the Rathe Council, will be prioritized.

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As most have probably noticed, these pages have remained rather idle as of late. There comes a time in every guilds planar progression where certain obstacles have a tendency to halt motivation and the jovial aspects of the game, and those of you who have faced the Rathe Council know for a fact how disconsolate this particular encounter is.

On our fourth day of attempting to successfully control all twelve council members we finally managed to spawn the illusive Avatar of Earth himself, and whilst preparing the mob decided to blithely roam into our camp where a totally unprepared, unbuffed raidforce was caught haughtily off guard. Nevertheless, this mob is neither known for his area effect or his melee damage output, thus the final minutes passed with ease as the realization of victory dawned upon those present in the stronghold of the twelve.

Words can hardly describe the feeling of relief experienced once seeing such an encounter beaten, fairly certain I can safely assume an ubiquitous enraptured feeling had the entire guild ceased for a few moments after succeeding. The Coirnav encounter bested us at 40% on our closest attempt so far, but boosted with confidence and knowing the last obstacle on our way to time lies within the plane of water, I fear having to write another update rather soon.

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Merely tossing up a pair of images from the gathering upon request. I know they are somewhat limited in regards to size, but until Darladir sends me the original ones, there is not much I can do

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Translation by Nineveh

Below you will find a translation of a danish article written about our guild about two months ago in the magazine PcPlayer, older news can be found below the rather lengthy text update

For several years, Everquest has set the standard amongst the diverse selection of available massive multimedia online role playing games. Though at times it seems somewhat hard to comprehend how such a game manages to keep a constant player base with the continuous stream of newer games to the marked. Perhaps there are more to games than merely graphics and revolutionary gaming concepts?

Entering a net caf is for the blissfully ignorant often associated with inaccurate prejudice, depicted through the following urban legend.

Entering a cave dimly illumined by glimmering lights of monitors, hunchbacked youth glaring aimlessly into an alternate reality, apparently without aim whatsoever. As an outsider the sole feeling of being totally ignored reduces you to an analog footnote amidst a digital universe, immune to alien entry from the outside world. Accompanied by the repulsive bodily odors such as unwashed hair, cigarette smoke and dry sweat, captivating merely half of these scents would more than suffice for an arsenal of chemical warfare utiLities. Even an experienced gamer might have trouble familiarizing themselves in the middle of seemingly endless aisles of Counterstrike and Diablo II playing machines.

Though the most pleasant surprise of them all, was encountering an arrangement which dissipated all these rumors and thoroughly inverted any existing tales

Raging Fury

The Everquest guild Raging Fury originated in the beginning of 2001, when a small group of players abandoned a larger guild due to differences with the residing management of the guild Gathering Storm.

The thirty players founded a new guild in February the game year with the name Raging Fury, led by Eberan and Rani. After moving from the American Rathe server to the European Antonius Bayle server the guild got properly settled through an established group of devoted players gathering during the same timeframe. The guild then consisted of 50-60 members, and one of the trademarks of the guild, even at such an early stage, was that the dominating part were considered older people than those one usually found in similar online games. Most of the members had lives outside the boundaries of the game, limiting their online time accordingly. Despite not being able to compete with other leading guilds playing times, Raging Fury has experienced great success through basing recruitment on quality instead of quantity, and during the creating of this article; they hold the position as second highest guild on Antonius Bayle, with Darkwind occupying the pole position.

Raging Fury has 73 active members and 34 non active members. Activity is measured through raid attendance, in other words how many raids each member participates in, compared to the total amount of raids held during a specific period of time. Also, the Hall of Honor was created to recognize those people who do no longer have time to play the game, but have in some way greatly contributed to the guild.

Read more about the guild at http://www.raging-fury.org/

Arriving at the Boomtown net cafe an early Saturday morning in March, it is with somewhat limited expectations as to whether or not we would see anything out of the ordinary. A group of gamers staring into their monitors left hand resting over the keyboard with a firm grip around the mouse with the right hand, in addition to the necessities of soda supplies and cigarette packages within reach. Based on these assumptions it is therefore with great pleasure we enter a gaming scene vivid with personal relations, laughter and an ambiance none of us would have expected.

Jesper Angelo of PcPlayers has along with his American girlfriend Kianna arrived several hours ago and are already deeply involved in the game. They are borrowing two characters from Raging Fury, as a certain level along with equipment is required to actively participate at the level of todays raid. Kianna appears not to bother much with the actual playing, but is instead striding around the room making different acquaintances, within short time, she has gotten to know ten times the amount of people Jesper has.

Jesper and Kiannas characters, named Humakt and Zarria Truesword respectively, met each other within Everquest in November 2000, a meeting which triggered sparks in both ends, resulting in a real life meeting which again has made them into a couple who are moving in together in a newly bought house in Amager, where they will be living with Kiannas two children.

Couples

Jesper and Kianna are not the only couple present today however. In a remote corner resides another couple, named Carsten and Pernille, also known through the aliases Dimoe and Eppels. They appear to be playing the game as well, but are they really? Casting a quick glance over their shoulder most of the time actually seems to be spent chatting in the in game chat windows or enjoying a cup of coffee while waiting for something to happen. Carsten assures us though that a fair amount of concentration is required, and that this particular event is a ring event spawning several waves of enemies at specific times. Currently they are clearing the path to the point where the actual encounter will commence, and upon arriving, the actual preparation for the encounter will begin. This includes making groups, issuing special orders and buffing

One gets bewildered listening to the internal phraseology used amongst Everquest players, they assist, buff, loot and experience phenomena such as lag, trains and mobs which pop randomly after patches and similar. One could compare with watching an American football game without knowing any of the rules.

All of these expressions and terms seem to be a part of the everyday vocabulary for these players, and the initial impression is that they have spent far too much time playing the game, though that impression might be wrong. Carsten informs us that he is merely online due to it being a gathering, underlining the fact that there are more important things in life than playing eight hours a day, while glancing towards Pernille, being eight months pregnant. The desire to play lessens at a certain stage; the problem is that you have to invest a great amount of time to see the benefits in your character, especially if you are a member of a high end guild.

Carsten was already playing a great amount of Everquest when he met Pernille, and shortly after he told himself that he either had to get her involved in the game, or give it up himself. Shortly after creating her own character, Pernille found herself intrigued by the game, and shortly thereafter, they both found themselves playing for several hours each day. They both inform us that personally they see little difference in playing a game together in comparison to watching television or similar activities. Through Everquest they feel they are both actively participating in something, even though friends and family believe we are delirious, Carsten informs us. Even one of the speeches at their wedding contained elements from Everquest. Though it is not as abnormal as it might sound, as after a while one starts to think, breathe and live different aspects of the game on a daily basis. The most common thought is wondering what your guild is currently up to, but the most important thing is spending time together doing something both are comfortable with, and obviously being an influence in the gaming world.

Sense of reality

Pernille does not see any problems spending a huge amount of time within Everquest as long as it is with her husband. The fear of isolation and solitude applies more to younger players and not those already established with a place to live and a steady job. Currently we play when we find the time and want a break from everyday occurrences. Leveling your character to the next level is reward enough, even though attending raids has a tendency to procrastinate the progression. Quickly testing to see whether or not Carsten and Pernille have been deceiving us we are relieved to find out that their upcoming baby will be named either Christoffer or Rebecca, and not something originating in a fantasy game.

In the middle of the conversation, a large amount of activity arises on both Carsen and Pernilles monitors as the whole pack of Everquest adventurers suddenly move as one, and what seemed a calm environment is swiftly transformed into a myriad of graphical effects. Though the battle is won, it was a difficult victory as seemingly half of the guilds members were outside enjoying a beer.

Social Organizer

Raging Furys first gathering was held when the guild was formed and took place in the old Diablo net cafe, situated on Vrnedamsvej, Copenhagen. The next gathering was launched on Funen, but since then the remainders have been held in Copenhagen. The guild consists mostly of Danes, though French, German, English, Norwegian, Swedish, American and even a few Pakistani members complete the roster.

Post the 8th gathering, plans for the succeeding is already underway, and it promises to be one differing from the previous ones. It will be held in Dyrehavsparken, out in the analog world, and some of the plans consist of "rundbold", a game quite similar to baseball though without the role of the pitcher. Tim Jensen, responsible for arranging each of the gatherings, informs us that he would like to witness a gathering not involving Everquest to ascertain that the tone stays just as friendly even though a computer is not within the immediate vicinity of the gathering. Tim has been playing Everquest since a month post its release and has since day one been a member of different guilds. A close circle of 20-25 Danes have since the earliest days stuck together, and most of them are now members of Raging Fury.

Tim has never truly devoted himself to the amount of playing time as most of the players in his guild, shortly after Everquest went live, his daughter came into this world, and quality time with the family will always be treasured above the game he says. His role in the guild is therefore not a raiding one, but more of a social organizer making sure that gatherings occur frequently and that the ambivalence of the guild is a pleasant one. We are told it is mainly administrative work booking all the computers, negotiating prices and similar issues, though it is not done out of desire for respect or recognition, merely based on wanting to see people meet and enjoying each others company. Tim claims to be highly fascinated with the combination of communication through pixels and reality, and watching fellow guild members thoroughly enjoy themselves at a gathering he has spent close to 30 hours preparing, is ample reward.

The work of organizing these events is made easier through Tim's job working as a concept manager with Jubii, a job consisting of commercials and a wide area of contacts, which again offer aid when it comes to securing reservations and events. Each reoccurrence adds to his experience and makes the next planning session easier than its predecessor. In addition to himself, Sren and Ricco, known in the game through their characters Faiar and Scoop, make up the gathering planning group of Raging Fury. Tim assures us that as long as people fly in from abroad to attend the gatherings, he will continue arranging them.

Blood sweat and tears,

Even though Raging Fury is a clan of considerable size and history, they have no ambitions of becoming the leading clan on Antonius Bayle, mainly due to the amount of stress and further devotion time wise it would involve. Tim Jensen informs us that the challenges of keeping the guild at its current level against mobs that are growing stronger and stronger in an environment that keeps everyone satisfied is more than enough. He feels that the guild is represented by pleasantry, seriousness and a fair amount of skills, which again is based in the average age amongst the members.

Raging Fury does not accept any members below the age of 16, and the age span of the current members is from 18 to 45. Each members individualism and ability to think for themselves is something that comes in handy during onerous times, and the guild also has a certain tone of communication which might be hard to comprehend at a younger age.

The guild structure is also important in regards to specific roles divided amongst the members during raids. As a guild you are constantly faced with the challenges of a newly created enemy, limited by the amount of resources available to you. Ambition and drive is also an important factor, how badly one wants to progress, in search of both new challenges and equipment.

The amount of time needed to accomplish all of this is one of the decisive factors as to why Everquest players have become so addicted to the game, and also one of the reasons why Tim Jensen does not believe the sequel will have an equivalent impact on the gaming marked.

Most of the older characters in Raging Fury have been developed over two to three years, and will not be easily abandoned for a fresh start within a new online game, Tim assures us. Raging Fury often experiences that some members take a leave of absence for some weeks whilst trying out a newly released game, but in most cases, they all return back within a month or so. Regardless of neater graphics or unique concepts, most will reside in Everquest as long as possible.

Timesink

Bo, playing the characters Rani and Timmok, is one of the older members of Raging Fury which originally founded the guild. He is one of the players in the guild who uses alot of time playing the game, both because he finds it fun, but also due to the challenge of keeping such a large amount of people in their reins during a raid. Bo informs us that the game is constantly becoming more and more time demanding as challenges grow harder and the general equipment base on the players improve, while trying to configure his keyboard into matching the setting he normally uses at home.

Bo studies computer science and spends about five hours a day playing Everquest when time permits, in addition to scanning a large amount of message boards for additional information, while drawing up new tactical ideas for the guild. He has been an online strategist since the early 90's through the role playing game DIKU-MUD, and openly admits to being one who snuck into databases merely to gain access to the game. Having gotten his interface satisfactorily configured, Bo returns to the game after removing a fair amount of labels and graphical effects in order to orientate through the assembly.

Christina is located merely a few feet away playing her character Trille. Her boyfriend Kasper is situated close by, but Christina is actually married to another character in the game. This even occurred when she suddenly received a backpack filled with roses, and such an offer is hard to resist. Kasper started playing Everquest shortly after he met Christina, and she was intrigued by the game, though somewhat nervous in the beginning, it soon adapted into her lifestyle. She, like Pernille, says that her family has hard to comprehend the addiction. Christina says that the cyber activity is an important part of the game for her, and has a theory that her particular class, the cleric, is a class popular amongst the female part of Everquest. Again she underlines the importance of the social aspect of the game, as she does not really consider herself a role player. A comparison she makes is to a virtual high school with little to no rules, challenged by each others personaLities and company.

Warmth

Our participation in the 8th Gathering of Raging Fury has come to an end, however the members of the guild are readying themselves for a night at the Bombay discotheque arranged by Tim Jensen. Nocturnal events have slowly begun to embrace Axeltorvet, and while leaving we understand more of the luring ability games such as Everquest possess. Jesper and Kianna appear oblivious to us leaving, and it is with a small feeling of envy we leave the net cafe for Copenhagens cold winter night.

Morten Skovgaard
morten.skovgaard@pcplayer.dk

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