‘Sup guys. We’re ovaries deep in the EverQuest BAC Era. That stands for Bitch-Ass Cazic, the bitch ass who caused this mess and the bitch ass we have to go clean up in a few months. This expansion launch was a marathon, not a sprint. A motion-of-your-ocean, not the size of your boat expansion, if you will. This is also the first real gatekeeping expansion that wasn’t locked behind keys, but a book. Oh, that book. Did you know that the U.S. is ranked 16th overall in literacy? You can let that sink in.

Since this expansion took several weeks to beat due to book learnin’, I’ve been gathering the prime filets, the burnt-ends and the fat grease of our guild’s progress throughout this adventure. I’ve prepared you a delicious meal of amazing, average and below-average screenshots of our accomplishments and nonsense. I hope you’ve got your fat pants on.

First off, we are recruiting! If you or someone you love is feeling the itch to become part of the Family, head on over to our forums and apply! We are accepting all classes right now! If you are a returning player and are nervous about catching up, don’t be, Satoshi has made you a promise:

VEIL OF ALARIS DEFEATED IN 18 DAYS!

ALIENS. ALIENS. ALIENS! ALIENS THAT MAKE YOU READ? For those of us in favor of audiobooks, can I just collectively speak for the group and say fuck this expansion? Being locked behind language for spells and progression, not to mention the infamous book-clicks made this one hell of a slow expansion launch. We did it, though. We are strong, fluffy puppies who can’t be held back.

First and foremost, I’d like to extend a shout out to DKP Master Froogle for all of his hard work. You are a rock star! In addition to that, our raid leaders Rasputyn, Nokkard and Sampsonite (not you Satoshi, you know what you did) for hitting the abacus with their monk maths and keeping all of us 10-second Tom’s in line.

We started off strong on Launch Night 1; we destroyed Argath. That’s it. That’s all we were allowed to do for the first raid. Staring at that 66% on the Book, 20 minutes into official raid times, we came to the realization that we would have to wait 5 whole days before busting into T2. We kept ourselves busy, though. Our bards disrupted the server, everyone got to 95 except our resident Handjob Princess (see below) and it gave us plenty of time to DECORATE!

I have a lot of jobs here at the OGC. Mediocre raid leader who yells too much, updating the front page with average memes and I am also our official Grand Guild Hall decorator. I’d love to give you guys a preview of my abilities to turn anything from shanty to chic!

(Shanty, the entrance)

(Chic, Satoshi’s Office)

As you can see, Satoshi went from shanty to chic instantly! He’s awaiting his interview here.

On Launch Day 6, we beat Argath down again leveled our Books and we were able to venture into Valley and Sarith. Loot pinatas, folks. Not even worth a screenshot, if I’m being honest. I took a few anyway. An hour into official raid times, we were done again.

(Valley, tower defense boss dying)

(Sarith, punching sharks and aliens in the face)

(Sarith, Prexus celebrating with us!)

During our 5 day downtime, our Knights got a little stir crazy. Heavy on the crazy.

Launch Day 11, we were finally able to break into t3. Rubak, Beasts’ Domain and Resplendent Temple knocked out easily.

(Rubak, solid 1 shot)

Unfortunately we weren’t able to go directly from T3 to T4, and we had to wait ANOTHER 5 days. It was at this point we realized that the old raids do, in fact, give book progression. Thanks for letting us know, DBG. ‘preciate you.

One other great thing we have now is Empowered Banners! We felt like this was a great way to practice multiculturalism in our guild and let people who are so used to one way of life experience it through the ultravision of another. Terrorem, our resident old white guyTM, is starting to come around!

On Launch Day 16, we were finally able to bust into T4! City of Bronze was a breeze, Windsong Sanctuary was one note and Pillars, well.. Let’s just say we had some creative differences in Pillars that lead to a few more attempts than necessary.

It took us a few probes, but Pillars got knocked out and we went straight into Sepulcher! We crushed Events 1, 2 and 3 and took the rest of the evening off. We came back strong two days later and defeated Event 4 and 5.

What can I say about Event 5? Buggy? Sure. Tedious? Definitely. Satisfying to kill in an hour? 100%.

We arrived at The Triunity’s door and were met with several of our favorite Norrathian Gods.

The way they were talking about how scary Triunity would be, we were expecting something along the lines of this:

However, once it was all said and done, it was more like this:

We approached,

We killed.

Congratulations and a huge thank you to everyone here at the OGC! Veil of Alaris on Fippy was a long, hard road. As a Fippy refugee, I can say I am extremely impressed and happy with our pace and progress in VoA and I’m excited to see how quickly we destroy Rain of Fear!

Other notable things that happened:

Congratulations to Ryme for being the first to 95, once again!

Congratulations to Barudin and his crew for being the first to 100 Alaran in the guild, may everyone weep at your feet!

Congratulations to Satoshi for starting something he’ll never finish!

Congratulations to Oakenblade for declaring himself the Handjob Princess?

Congratulations to Froogle and Duprix for taking their relationship to the next level!

Now enjoy our caffeine-addled guild members.

Until next time,

Hi pals! It’s been less than a month since our last update and I’m afraid this might be a little overwhelming for some of you. I understand, we typically don’t update this frequently but I was super excited to share the news! We’ve conquered House of Thule and will be returning to our split-raid hibernation soon and it’s likely you won’t hear from us until shortly before Veil of Alaris drops.

As per the ushe, WE ARE RECRUITING! Healers, people who punch things, people who get punched – one and all are welcome! We have some high need and some medium need classes, but we always room for exceptional players of any class! Mosey on over to our forums to apply, or if you have any questions feel free to send Azzira, Talanaa, Dysomku or Froogle a tell in game! If you are a returning player, now is a great time to come get level 90 and gear up for Veil of Alaris!

Now for the goodies!

HOUSE OF THULE DEFEATED IN 11 DAYS! 

I’m not sure what the record for defeating House of Thule is, but I’m willing to bet 11 days is it. In the first week we crushed 22 raids! That’s right, 22 raids. Typical shout outs to our DKP guru’s Froogle and Scornn, you guys make magic happen. Big kudos to Rasputyn for the all the monk-math and cat-herding that went into defeating this expansion.

The first tier was relatively uneventful. Evil lizards, evil clocks, evil plants, evil book-burners. We have a resident old white guyTM who was very excited to shut down the Erudin’s Burning scuffle.

(But first, let me take a selfie!)

We split Lilth (Upper House) 6 times! That’s a lot of thot’s. Unfortunately, Russian math =/= real math, and some of our splits ended up with 10 poor souls instead of 12. We also came back a second time and split Lilth an additional 6 times for a total of 12 Upper House splits. (6+6 is 12, Dima. It’s just 12.) There might have been some pain involved in some of this.

Tier 2 was much the same! We smashed Al’Kabor. Miragul’s gave us a bit of trouble due to positioning, but fortunately we have someone in the guild who is a world-renowned artist and helped us through this trying time.

(Courtesy of Giles, self-proclaimed social whore.)

We then moved on to Cazic Thule. Congratulations, Jeffy. Think of that while you’re in Maui.

Terris Thule appeared and scolded us for killing her dad. Then she got butt-sucked through a portal, so I wonder if we might see her soon!

Morell’s Castle was our final destination before Sanctum. We smashed through it the first time and opted to 3-split it the second time around to maximize our keys. Rock throwin’ Rasputyn is a prominent feature in DPSing Sandman down.

 

Unfortunately, one of our splits goofed and deleted the cure wand for the Stifling Sands debuff during the second phase.

(Help, Nokkard!)

But we conquered it! We defeated all of the progression raids in about 3 days, and then went back and split a majority of them for the second cycle.

We have a policy here at the OGC that if Satoshi dies doing something dumb, we get a DKP bonus. Since there were several events we didn’t test, and this is Satoshi’s first time doing this as someone who nobody heals, I made something for him.

We entered Sanctum Somnium on Sunday night expecting it to give us some trouble. Welp. We completed the entire zone in 3 hours including loot, 2.5 hours between the first and last event lockouts. I knew that Sanctum Somnium was the kingdom of Dreams, but I didn’t even get sleepy.

That isn’t to say that some people didn’t have issues in Sanctum. Event 6 does have a duck emote.

However, Morell Thule put up very little challenge and we smoked him. Big thank you to everyone in the guild who pushed to 90 so quickly, played alts in other splits and kept the energy up to put this expansion to bed. It may have taken longer than Underfoot but the win was just as sweet. In the end, we’re all here to have fun and kill monsters and I think we did both of those things exceptionally well this expansion launch. We are always looking for more people to join the Family!

Other notable things that happened:

Congratulations to Shepherd Ryme, Savior of Bees on server first 90. Bards are broken, y’all.

Congratulations to Catashe for what I think is server first, but definitely guild first speckled bunny!

Congratulations to Melinie on the biggest DKP-dick-drop in the history of OGC.

Congratulations to Blackninja for doing what he does best: eating some ass.

Congratulations to Tacara for fucking up when the Grand Guild Hall goes in.

Congratulations to Satoshi for this somewhat sweet SS that you wanted me to put in this update!

Sleep-deprived funnies:

 

We’ll be around, messing up the House for the next 10 weeks before VoA.

Until next time.