[Archived News]

Season's Greetings

December 24th, 2007

Happy Holidays, Everyone

Wishing everyone a happy holidays, and a happy New Year. Can you guess who's who?

Another year is about to pass by. Much has happened in the last year. Since the release of The Burning Crusade in January, Risen has come a long way. We have adjusted to the new game, and steadily worked ourselves through the content available.

We have had sad departures of long time members, and joyous new addition to our family of professional raiders. To this day, we are progressing at a very fast rate per time spent raiding. This is all because of the hard work Risen members put into gearing up, preparing for raids, reading up on abilities rotations, and understanding their roles in the encounters Blizzard provides us.

Thank you everyone for putting in your time and effort to make Risen what it is. There would be no Risen without you. Whether you are a long time member, new member, left the guild, taking a break, or any other category you may fit in, you are what makes Risen tick. Thank you.

May your holidays be filled with many joys and more importantly, gifts :P

Have a happy holidays

-Parn

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Of Milestones and Server Firsts

December 9th, 2007

What's All the Fuss About?

I'd like to open up this update with these two shots.

So what's the big fuss? Why are Jantha and Hammerfell, the two dullest (one of them a dork , and the other "Hard Gay" ) members of Risen, getting so much attention? In order to explain this, let's retrace our steps back to what has happend since about a month ago.

Blazing Through Mount Hyjal

After the 30 minute session with the Shade of Akama which consisted of us having tea with the Ashtongue while Elumako went crazy threatless DPS on the channelers and then Akama falling over, our focus shifted back onto Hyjal. There were many undead and demon lords from the past to be vanquished.

Kaz'rogal was almost as generous in offering up his loot to us as Shade of Akama did. The only difference was that Kaz'rogal's friends didn't want tea, but insisted on us killing them instead. That's just too bad... Maybe we'll offer them peppermint white chocolate mocha next time instead.

Azgalor has something special about him. On top of his ability to kill off even the bravest of heroes of Azeroth in 20 seconds, no questions asked, he apparently has the ability to set Hammerfell's room on fire with his rain of fire. The urgency of getting Azgalor down could be heard clearly through Hammer's ventrilo communication. I hope you have insurance, Hammer! 

Despite being the first boss ever to threaten players both in the game and in real life, he was no match for Risen.

Mid-week Activity

As we steadily progressed through our 25 man content using our limited raiding time, we still had opportunities to run joint SSC runs to give ourselves chances for more attunements. During these runs, more refined, masterful strategies were born. Babypoohbear (formerly known as Debob) came up with a new way to explain the Leotheras fight.

Faewn obviously does not have Enchant Cloak - Subtlety on his gear.

Patch 2.3 and Server Firsts

Patch 2.3 introduced many exciting features, with the most exciting being a new 10 man raid zone known as Zul'Aman. We decided to take a stab at clearing ZA on the day of release, much like we did with Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj. The result was being the first guild on the server to clear Zul'Aman with an unbalanced raid makeup (3 warriors, no mage). Congratulations Risen, for another server first clear.

The other exciting new feature with 2.3 is the Guild Bank. The Guild Bank serves as a very easy way for guilds to store and share their resources with everyone in the guild. However, in the planning phases there was much debate about how we should organize the tabs. Mainly a debate between what Rosh wanted and what we have now.

Some things changed.

Some things never change, however.

Rosh learned to cope.

Back into the Black Temple

We decided to spare Archimonde his life for a little while, and head back into Black Temple. Teron Gorefiend was first on our list. 

After clearing to Teron during our farming runs ten thousand times without ever attempting him, we were eager to take him down. In fact, we were so eager to see him downed, that we decided to do it just a few raid hours after we took down Azgalor. That particular weekend, we claimed two new boss kills.

Shortly after, we took some time to say hello to Gurtogg Bloodboil. Gurtogg Bloodboil is an elegantly designed fight which requires precisely executed strategy in order to defeat. That was not a high enough hurdle to thwart Risen, however. After another session of working on line dancing and lightning reflex healing, and a little bit of help from Cheri Oteri, Bloodboil came down to a simmer.

Now For the Main Event

This takes us back to the present point in time. What is all the fuss about? I'll tell you what. It's a huge party at the base of Nordrassil at Mount Hyjal.

Why, do you ask? It's because after several hours of working on a yet another epic encounter involving one of the most infamous villains known to the people of World of Warcraft... With the efforts of every Risen member starting from carefully planned raids and precisely fine tuned gear sets to preparing raid food and offering ways to relax to relieve stress from repeated wiping, we did it.

Our after party consisted of Hammerfell and Jantha each singing their hearts out and the whole guild bursting in non-stop laughter. This is how Jantha and Hammerfell, the two awesomest members of the guild became the center of attention this night.

I said it then, and I'll say it again. Risen is a group of highly dedicated and highly competent players. Thank you for letting me be a part of this group.

Random Quotes

Another month full of extremely professional quotes from officer discussions, raid discussions, ventrilo talk, and even some personal life.

Important Officer Discussions

There's something about Debob...

More Ventrilo talk

And finally, Congratulations Jantha, on her license to kill... I mean drive.

Aussies, try to stay off the road.

-Parn

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How Long Since The Last Update?

As much as I enjoy writing updates to show off our progress and guild clowns, having the pressure of having to make an update every week is just. too. much. Please. Stop killing bosses.

Ok. I lied. Let's keep up this pace and keep downing bosses. But, you guys have to promise to keep the funny comments coming in because I'm running out!! And it's got to be better than what I got this time around.

But, just as Amhn said, we ignored this sign that was seen as we entered the courtyard of the Black Temple through the pipes past Naj'entus' room, and left Supremus in a steaming pile.

Credit Where It's Due

Attunement needs are quickly becoming less of an issue. This is because many of our guildmates have made a mid-week SSC run possible (with some guests), allowing us to get Vashj vials for people in need during the weekend without having to clear the majority of SSC. It's not always a cakewalk, though. The 3rd week we did this, we had some issues, keeping us from taking down the bosses we usually take down mid-week. On the days we were having smooth sailing through SSC, I would tell Rosh that we had been wiping on Hydross over and over when he logged on 2 hrs into the raid. The first week, he completely believed me and seemed very dissapointed our plan to minimize attunement time failed. But this time, when faced with the truth...

Thank you everyone (those who attended, and those who allowed us to run it mid-week despite it meant not being able to raid the content) for allowing us to cut down on SSC clearing time during the weekend so we can focus on progression.

The next biggest out-of-official-raiding activity we had the opportunity for are Hyjal and BT trash farming. We needed Hearts of Darkness and epic gems. Veil and Chippy were our grand strategists:

One night's run went until 4am server time.

The "She" I was referring to is my wife, who had gone to bed 2hrs before this conversation took place. No, she was not mad at me, and even made me breakfast the next morning. Thank you everyone for farming BT trash in order to supply us with gems and SR gear. You all rock.

Laughing All The Way to the Bank

Elumako, our Phrak replacement, was looking forward to our next target.

The verdict?

Elumako replaced Phrak, and now the Shade of Akama replaced Elumako as our legendary squishie. Who's laughing all the way to the bank now!?

Random Quote

Risen is full of good discussions. Theorycrafting, World of Warcraft lore, class discusssions, ventrilo optimization, etc. Take these for example.

My apologies to all the shammies out there. NOT!

-Parn

Say Something Funny, Because I'm Running Out

November 5th, 2007

Attunement is Fun, mmkay?

October 20, 2007

RTP - The Raiding Revolution

October 8, 2007