These posts are archives of forum / blog entries I made on my EverQuest guild website. The website won’t be around forever, and I wanted the posts all in one place so I didn’t lose them, this blog seemed like as good a place as any.

It’s July. I know, I can’t believe it either. In January of this year, TNF raided the Plane of Time for the first time, and at the end of January we beat Quarm. Two months later we cemented that victory by beating the most challenging TNF target up to that point – Uqua. No mean feat, it’s a tough zone increased level cap or no increased level cap. With our confidence high we took out Matriarch Shyra and Zomm the Seventh Born at the end of March, the biggest hitting mobs we’d ever seen.

And in June, ah June, the middle of the year, we took on the Muramite Proving Grounds and we put down a flag.

TNF will not be daunted by the size of the Muramite army, we will not cower at the depth of their hatred, and we will not step down in the face of their enmity. TNF has defeated the Master of Hatred. TNF has defeated the Master of Adaptation. TNF has defeated the people who defeated the Master of Corruption 😉

And by Brell, we very nearly wiped out the Master of Specialization as well. One percent stood between us and three new victories in one day. One percent. We gave our everything. We pulled out all the stops. We were not found wanting.

Next time, the Master of Specialization will recognise our force and next time he too will fall to us. We will not be defeated by him again – it will just not happen. You will not let him beat us. He’s our bitch, and next time we go we’ll remind him of that fact.

Behind us are victories and fights to be proud of. Behind us lies the trail of the defeated and the beaten. But ahead of us lies glory, opportunity, revenge.

Before us lies Inktu`ta in the land of Discord, where-in enemies the like of which we have never seen will test us with death touches, secret warnings and magical power of the nastiest kind. We will prevail.

Before us lies the Trial of Foresight, where we will be tested and tested again, our patience, understanding, attention to detail and ability to act as one will see us win through.

Before us lies the Trial of Endurance in which we shall be forced to give and give and give and at the end to give again. We will defeat the Dragorn who seek to block us from our righteous path.

Before us rest the Dragons of Norrath, Yar`lir, Rikkukin and Kessdona. Yar`lir has learned to fear us, and so shall Rikkukin and Kessdona. The golden hoard of the Dragons shall be ours, and we shall bathe in it.

It has been a glorious start to the year, and with you and your continued presence, strength, dedication and conviction, the rest of the year will be glorious too.

To TNF, to what we have beaten together, and to the trials ahead.

To victory.

These posts are archives of forum / blog entries I made on my EverQuest guild website. The website won’t be around forever, and I wanted the posts all in one place so I didn’t lose them, this blog seemed like as good a place as any.

Three times we’ve tried the MPG Trial of Hatred. Three times we’ve failed. But TNF doesn’t give up that easily. We may be a casual raid force, we may only raid once per week, we may only field 36 people, but we’re determined, skilled and eager to beat new stuff. Today, the MPG Trial of Hatred fell, beaten, convincingly. Superb work from everyone on the raid, everyone pulled out all the stops. Grats to everyone who got loot.

Our second view of Adaptation went pretty well – wipe at 28% with a low dps turnout, adaptation will drop next time we go.

And then, because we ‘wanted to have a look’, we went and woke up Ya`lir, and in traditional TNF style, already on a high from the trial of hatred – we wasted Ya`lir on our first visit. Grats to all of those who won the very nice loot that dropped.

These posts are archives of forum / blog entries I made on my EverQuest guild website. The website won’t be around forever, and I wanted the posts all in one place so I didn’t lose them, this blog seemed like as good a place as any.

“Goodbye Elemental Planes”.

It’s the journey they say, not the destination. It’s the taking part, not the winning or losing. It’s the shared experience, not going home with some loot.

Well, let me say this. Those things are true often enough. But they’re not true when beating encounters means killing a hundred gazillion trash mobs (helloooooo Plane of Air rings, helloooooo Plane of Earth rings). There is no journey there. There is turgid trudging. And I for one will be glad to see the back of them.

I will miss Xegony and her flouncing, I shall miss the frenzied call for “BURN BURN BURN” on Coirnav, and the little giggle inside when someone asks ‘who’s main tank on Coirnav?’. I’ll miss running from one end of Fire to the other, in the guise of clearing some kind of waves of mobs and then forcing everyone to ‘fight at max range’ and ‘ranged attacks only’. There’s not much I’ll miss about the Rathe Council encounter to be frank.

I’ll put those memories into the same basket as Rallos Zek in the Plane of Tactics, rushing to the pit, rushing to rez and get people back in, naked if necessary. The feeling of seeing Rallos rushing the main tank, the God of Warriors against a self proclaimed Warrior God Killer. I won’t miss the hours of mindless killing in the Tower of Solusek Ro, but I’ll miss the brief flurry of excitement as Solusek himself is brought to his knees. I’ll miss watching Agnarr being run in circles by a brave ranger or bard. I’ll miss watching Mithaniel Marr twirl his sword as he smites another contender for his crown. No more shall we watch Terris Thule spin her skirt in an attempt to scare us, and alas, the Queen of Bondage, Saryrn, TNT’s Patron Saint, shall be visited no more. We won’t have to fool the gnome in the Plane of Innovation into giving over his flags, even though we just kicked him in the nuts and ran him around a bit. We shall never again have to smell the stench that rolls from the fat of Grummus, nor walk in the slime that forms around Bertox.

We started a journey, some time ago, to prove to the Gods we were worthy, to show them we knew where they hid, to remind them that mortals don’t roll over and die just because you have a bigger AE than they do.

We made it to Time. We passed all the tests. We flagged the unflagged.

And by god we had fun doing it.

To everyone, all of you, that turn up, week in, week out, who pull, mez, tank, heal, hit, kick, nuke, die, rez, laugh, joke, coth and keep smiling throughout, thank you. You hear me say it over and over, and I can not stress enough how true I believe it to be. TNF is a team effort, from those people who manage the whole thing in the background, to those of us who shout in rsay, and everyone in between. It’s a team effort. We made it to Time by working together and sticking together. And we’ll beat Time the same way.

These posts are archives of forum / blog entries I made on my EverQuest guild website. The website won’t be around forever, and I wanted the posts all in one place so I didn’t lose them, this blog seemed like as good a place as any.

It’s 1:02am, I’ve just had another cup of tea to calm myself down. The members of the Truly Naughty Friends raid force, in alliance with the Prophet’s of the Myst took on, and beat the Rathe Council on their first attempt. Everyone pulled a blinder. Mezz team were perfect, pull team excelled, heal teams were spot on, DPS were controlled and co-ordinate, and tankage was top notch. It’s a complex raid which requires focus and co-ordination from everyone, and it does feel like all the complexity of previous raids has been a training ground for this one fight.

Yeh, it’s a few years since the EP’s and Time were endgame content, but TNF and PoTM have fought their way through content in the right order, killed the mobs, got the flags and took on the Gods.

I want to assure those raiders who couldn’t make it tonight, or missed the hail due to being LD, that we will be doing Rathe Council and Coirnav again very soon, at the very least.

You did us proud. Hear that ticking in the background? That’s the sound of time running out for the Gods in the Plane of Time.

These posts are archives of forum / blog entries I made on my EverQuest guild website. The website won’t be around forever, and I wanted the posts all in one place so I didn’t lose them, this blog seemed like as good a place as any.

On Friday the 29th of September the Truly Naughty Friends raid leaders announced our intent to form an alliance with Prophets of the Myst, to beat the four Elemental raid events and flag as many raiders from both raid teams as we could, for the Plane of Time (link here).

Since then, the Gods have been quaking in their boots (and high-heels[1], and in the case of one god, tentacles). The first week saw the new alliance plow through the ‘fun’ that describes the rings in the Plane of Earth. Despite two rings being bugged (one not working, one triggered 3 times!) we managed to spawn the Mystical Arbitor, rush to him, and laid him flat on his earth elemental ass. We would have shouted in joy – but our souls had been sapped by the endless trash that this raid revolves around, so we just drank hot drinks and ate cake instead.

A week of recovery, and the alliance swam silently into Coirnav’s home. Giant-cthulhu squids aren’t known for their hearing, and he totally missed the 50-odd people hanging around outside his enclosure. He didn’t notice as we cleared some of his fish-spawn. Eventually we got his attention by turning his so-called guardian into fish-paste and using his scales as decorative jewellery. He summoned his champions, who we turned into sushi, and while he made some half-hearted attempt at confusing us by calling forth a horde of ugly squib-fish, he failed, and we feasted on Roasted Calimari that night.

We quickly reformed, and dried our clothes in the heat of the Plane of Fire. Fresh from our victory against Squid-head just moments before, we swarmed towards Fennin’s castle, his Chancellors put up little resistance and chicken-legs himself came forth to defeat us. Which was pretty dumb of him because we ambushed him and nailed his chicken-feet to the fake wall.

Two gods down, two more shields to everyone in the alliance, and a week to reflect.

The Plane of Air, more endless trash to get keyed to Xegony Queen of Flirting? Perhaps, but a secret weapon, Dheath the Necromancer was three quarters keyed and willing to die for the cause. We just needed to defeat one ring, the Dust Ring, the ring that used to make warriors cry like babies. But no more, we had a plan, we had more enchanters than you can shake a stick at, and we were hungry for fricassee faerie wings. The dust ring fell in about 90 minutes of clearing and killing, the spiders at the end, once feared, were no match for the raid force and we rush the Avatar of Dust, keyed Dheath and marched back to the Rainbow. We spent over an hour moving the raid force onto Xegony’s island, including 85’s and people who needed the flag, longer than we had hoped, but the raid force kept their spirits high and no one camped in disgust. We went over the strat, we setup, we pulled Xegony … she flirted, she sang, she taunted, she twirled, but all in vain. For she died, and her waves of defenders could do naught to get past the forces aligned against them.

We had no butter, so we had sautéed faerie wings instead.

Three gods down, the Rathe Council standing in our way … 12 council men preventing us from our ultimate goal. The Avatar of Earth hiding behind his 12 council men. Already he quakes in fear (see how I did that, Earth? Quake?).

We must bolster our forces, ensure that when we enter Ragrax, Stronghold of the Twelve we are at full strength, and so we may well re-visit the earth rings once more. We may test ourselves against one or more of the other three once defeated gods again, before moving on. But the Avatar need not think he is safe, we are coming, soon, and his council men will provide him no succor from our wrath.

[1] Fennin Ro denies the implication that he wears high-heels, and his legal team is prepared to back that up with money.

These posts are archives of forum / blog entries I made on my EverQuest guild website. The website won’t be around forever, and I wanted the posts all in one place so I didn’t lose them, this blog seemed like as good a place as any.

On Thursday, a small TNF Raid force took on, and beat, the Ikkinz Chambers of Glorification. Twenty Four intrepid raiders, against the Hords of Discord. It was never pretty, but it was successful. A brilliant and successful raid which pathed the way for a full attempt on the Ikkinz Chambers of Transcendence.

The full might of TNF rallied on Saturday, 51 raiders entered, 41 were left standing 5 hours later.

But it wasn’t over. Vrex Xalkak`s Sentinel’s were giving us some issues. We finally managed to get one single and nailed. Then another. And after what felt like an age, we killed the last two. Vrex Xalkak`s Marauder spawned and we gave it our best shot, FOUR times, but eventually we just ran out of people standing on their feet, we leashed him, and set to go again.

But we couldn’t contain him. And again we had to recover.

It was late, people were tired, the end was so close. Trash that had been giving us concern when we zoned in was being dispatched in seconds, lest it get in the way of our true goal. Vrex Xalkak`s Marauder had a date with the floor. We explained the strat again, we engaged …

… and he died and stayed dead on the first kill – Hybrids.

We charged Vrex Xalkak Nixki while he wasn’t looking, burned the last 5% of his life from his rotten corpse, and vowed never, ever to set foot inside the Ikkinz Chambers of Transcendence ever again.