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Frostfell

To all members of Raging Fury (former and present), to all our friends from other guilds or other games than EverQuest and of course all the people who just like to read about Raging Fury:

I wish you all a happy Frostfell 2013

Enjoy the season of the year with your families and friends, be Merry, celebrate and overall have a wonderful time!

For myself I can only say that while being grateful for all my friends living close by, I am also indebted to EverQuest forever, as it has brought me some new friends from around the world (many of whom I had the pleasure to meet face to face) without whom my life would be so much poorer.

People who don't share our hobby often look down upon us because "it is only a game" and "you should interact with real people more than being in the virtual world", but all I can say is that I am truly grateful for having met so many great people, some of whom I consider among my closest friends. Does it really matter if you live in the same city or even the same country? Being there when you need someone to talk to, cheering you up when you are down and in the same way letting you yourself participate in their lives - that's what friendship is about in my book!

The internet brings possibiLities to our generation that none before has had and from my point of view what could be better than to try to learn about different cultures by the people themselves? Aren't all those "internet relations are not real"-sayers closing their eyes to the new oppotunities we have?

There is a whole world of people to meet out there and during times like these I would like to express my gratitude for all the precious memories I have gotten by starting EverQuest 13 years ago.

Yes, this is a bit sentimental, but what more appropriate time to reflect upon all the great people we have been priviliged to meet over the years? EverQuest still has people playing not alone because it is such a great game, but mostly because of all the bonds which have been built over the years. Some people may leave, but many still stay in contact even years later and that is what counts.

So from the bottom of my heart I wish you all a great time, may you have a splendid finish of 2013 and a great start into 2014!




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.

Doomscale Horde

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!

Xulous Prime

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!

Saving Jacyll

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:

Pulv has a cage

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:

Rainbow Warrior

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!




Just a small little update before I go to bed: tonight Raging Fury has beaten the newest addition to the 19th expansion, which has been given the ominous name Shadow of Fear.

While this is not a new expansion, but only the next tier to the previously released Rain of Fear, I still would like to congratulate every member of RF for finishing it as first guild on Antonius Bayle and sixth serverwide.

Considering the fact that it consists of only two raids which aren't particularly challenging the bragging rights are rather tiny, but nonetheless it feels always good to be the first again after a break.

Let me congratulate all who finished before us (sometimes the timetable isn't in favor of the Euro guilds) as well as Shadows of Doom, who finished about half an hour after us.

As usual a "Thank You" is in order to those who got the necessary tasks and missions done to get us the raids as well as our raid leaders and members of the strategy team to get the events pinned down fast.

Let me finish with a picture of the victorious force and Luclin herself:

RF + Luclin on her Throne

Let the farming continue until tier 4 comes out!




Just a small update: today Raging Fury has beaten the ruler of the Corrupted Temple of Veeshan, the mighty Vulak'Aerr himself as first guild on AB and fourth serverwide

Mighty Vulak

After our victory over King Xorbb we finally had our hands free to turn towards the revamped version of the old Northern Temple of Veeshan, which brought back many memories to the old raid players. Although one could clearly see, that raiding back then was far simpler (tank and spank), nonetheless it felt relaxing just beating stuff up and not having to worry too much.

Vulak himself though proved to be quite a bit more challenging and so the fight was indeed complex enough to get a feeling of accomplishment after downing him and being able to call ourselves "Vanquisher of Rain of Fear":

Vanquisher of Rain of Fear

I guess we will add NToV to our farming plan now and then, was OK to do :)




What a start into the new year: today Raging Fury defeated the The Return of King Xorbb, the final event in Rain of Fear, the latest expansion of EverQuest.

Before I come to anything else, here is the traditional picture of the victorious Raging Fury force:

RF victory

This is another shot, including the Evil Eye King Xorbb himself - not so evil anymore:

Xorbb is dead

And here is the loot we got from Xorbb (sadly no Bag of Sewn Evil-Eye, that would have rocked!):

Robe/BP Brutal Frostbite of the Valley Master Xorbbs Rod of Retribution

So this was the final event, beaten one month after the release of the expansion, including a time of reduced raiding for the holidays? Well, at least this is the status of that event for now, but there are strong hints towards some additional content before the next expansion comes out (you may have noticed the additional three portals getting raised in Shard's Landing if you play the game) and most certainly we in Raging Fury are looking forward to additional content, more specifically raid content, because otherwise this will have been the shortest expansion raidwise since LoY...

Seriously, the first guild (Realm of Insanity) finished the last event one week after the release of RoF with the second (Machin Shin) only a week behind, followed by 4 other guilds before christmas - kudos to all of them.

And what about Raging Fury? As usual RF started a bit slower than other high end guilds, but got into gear pretty well in the end. Sadly, given the fact that this expansion was more a sprint than anything else, we couldn't make up for that slow start and thus finished it only after our small christmas break as the seventh guild serverwide, still quite a respectable result I would say. Nonetheless I hope for additional raid tiers so that maybe in the end we can still maintain our spot among the top #5 once RoF is really finished...

As the expansion was so short, I didn't post any news before, so I will give a few pictures of other raid events for you to enjoy:

This is from The Madness of King Tormax (and yes, that's Yelinak, I know)

Yelinak

Danella's Stand:

Danella

Zeixshi-Kar's Shard:

Zeixshi

The Queen's Decree:

Queen Grelleth

A Feast for Zalikor:

Zalikor

Guardian of the Gate:

Guardian of the Gate

That last event (also known as Xorbb #1) was actually the hardest in the expansion, not so much because of the complexity itself, but due to the fact that it is extremely poorly tuned and as such can only be beaten other than the obviously intended way.

Or to put it in other words:

Rambo

Aren't we all a bit like Rambo sometimes?

Well, I guess you can't be afraid of dieing when you do events like that, even when you try to avoid certain dangers:

Balls

The event brought evil ideas into people's minds (totally un-RF-like!)

Evil dots

Normally the members of Raging Fury are well known and respected across the server!

Daze is wellknown

But also some of the other events had surprises, especially for our RLs. I remember Insaneox asking Queen Grelleth happily to be sacrificed for her dinner table (sorry, I laughed so hard I forgot to take a screenshot), and also Odysias had an accident:

Ody triggers the event

Nonetheless I am very proud of my guild, because during the last few events I have once again seen the drive and passion which seemed a bit lost after such a long farming time (the fact that the first events were beaten that fast didn't help either, I guess).

I want to thank especially our raid leaders who have done a really great job together with our whole strategy team.

I also want to express my gratitude towards our recruiters for the excellent work they have done during the long months of farming to keep the guild in a healthy state, well done, Ladies!

Thanks also to the rest of the officer team as well as to all those trailblazers who got through the quests fast so we could request the raids - especially in such a short expansion people like you are a tremendous asset to any guild!

Last but not least I want to thank every member of Raging Fury for making this guild the way it is: a hardcore raiding guild with a generally relaxed and friendly atmosphere.

Congratulations, Raging Fury, well done again!




On Monday the 26th of March Raging Fury managed to defeat The Triune God, making us the fifth guild serverwide to finish Veil of Alaris, the 18th expansion of EverQuest. So our streak of staying among the top 5 in every expansion since Gates of Discord has continued once again, which I find quite an achievement. This success is even more remarkable considering the fact that Raging Fury has lost its main raid leader 2 times during the process of learning the final event, but with the help of our raid team we managed to overcome all obstacles while generally still keeping to our 5 raid days per week. I heard there was a guild on Drinal who raided 60 days out of 61 in a row without having beaten VoA yet - I give them an A for effort though.

While I am speaking about other guilds I would like to congratulate Realm of Insanity, Machin Shin, Shadows of Doom and Crimson Tempest for beating VoA before us. Also congrats to Triton who have finished the expansion only a few hours after us, very close race indeed.

Anyway, let's return to our own victory. The event is undoubtedly the most complex in all of EverQuest's history. I don't want to belittle events like Tunat Muram, OMM or Mayong Mistmoore, but the number of phases and mechanisms you have to learn to control is simply incredible. Imho every guild having to learn this event will at one point or another say "OMG, wasn't this already complex enough??"

On the other hand it most definitely was a challenge and beating it felt awesome (followed by a feeling of relieve not having to go here again for another week).

Let's come to some screenshots!

Here you can see a picture of our formidable adversary in his power:

The Triunity

And here he/she/it isn't as powerful anymore:

The Triunity dead

Of course we also have a picture of the victorious force inside the raid:

RF won VoA

As always upon such victories there are people who haven't been online/inside the raid when it finally happened, but who have played an important part during the learning phase of the event. This is especially true on an event like The Triune God which has taken us more than a month from the first attempts till finally beating it, so I would like to congratulate ALL members of Raging Fury upon this success, you guys have done a great job!

Of course it wouldn't have been possible without skilled players like our warrior class leader Xack, the ancient lizard (he has been in RF longer than anyone else who still plays) and his wisdom:

Wisdom of the Ancient Gecko

Anyway, as customary whenever I write news about the finish of an expansion I will add a few comments about the expansion itself. First of all the total number of raids is too low, there is no denying that 14 raids is pitiful considering the fact that when EQ moved to annually releasing expansions we were promised more developer time for content. With the current paradigm of "nothing matters, but the current expansion" every previous raid is more or less obsolete, especially since the decision to let spell foci decay, even from the endzone of the previous expansion. I still think this was a VERY bad move as it leaves the mid-tier guilds with only 4 raids (Argath, Sarith, Lunanyn, Beast's Domain) until they run into a brick wall (Rubak and Resplendent Temple).

On the other hand we have 8 tier 4 raids, so at least something to do for those few guilds who actually manage to beat the expansion. Is it arrogant and premature from my side to assume that there won't be more than a dozen guilds able to beat VoA in its current state, if that? Maybe, but I doubt it. There are simply not enough hardcore guilds left who will overcome the obstacles laid in their way. The complexity and unforgiving mechanisms of events like Pillars, Sepulcher #3 or Sepulcher #5 are simply too much for more than just a handful of guilds. I doubt there are many guilds left in this old game who just take it that they can have a maximum of 2 tries per evening on one event, because the really interesting part begins after 90 minutes. Nonetheless you can't just go on "automode" during the first 2 phases, because playing just a bit sloppy can mean a wipe or a huge disadvantage later on, so the pressure is kept up for almost 2 hours constantly. This is different to former long events and I don't think it is good design at all. Considering that the loot on this event is the same number of drops as on the other (much shorter) raids it is no wonder that many think that time investment vs. reward is not balanced at all.

I really hope that we will get a retuning of many raids in the very near future otherwise I foresee an exodus of players, which would be sad, because on the other hand we have seen quite a few new faces since EQ became "free to play" (F2P). Some of those faces are actually rather familiar, for example one of my predecessors as guild leader of RF is back (with a small namechange) and Dalrek already feels the strong lure of EverQuest again:

The Lure of EQ

Qujam feels that lure too, but of course there are opposing interests to decide upon - Insaneox made his choice as you can see:

EQ vs. Girlfriend

A final quote so you all know how much respect officers in RF get from their members:

Smart Ignore

That's it for now, Veil of Alaris is beaten, the farming starts, and I can only salute my guild for a tremendous job they have done.

Members of Raging Fury you made me proud once again!




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