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.

Our third trip to Anguish, and this time it didn’t crash, yay. Keldovan was no worry, but Jelvan, ah sweet Jelvan why do you always need to be rescued. This event is on the edge of TNF’s comfort zone. We know we can beat it, but we know it can beat us as well, we went into this event 1 win for 3 tries (1 wipe following by a win, followed by a wipe two weeks later followed by a zone crash which stopped us trying again).

I’m sure those of you who’ve raided with me know that I never get over-excited and I never shout in rsay, ever. No really, I’m calm and relaxed and in control at all times.

We beat the Jelvan event – but it took us 20 minutes, and it included these phrases in rsay,

I want to see you pull this out of the hat
if you can rez – go rez someone
stay alive we can beat these two *****
you want a story to tell your kids about?

I’ve never been more proud of the TNF force than when we rescued Jelvan. We did indeed pull it out of the hat, it was an incredible recovery. No one gave up, we never accepted defeat. We beat that event through force of will and determination and you deserve the loot that dropped.

We nailed Ture and Hanvar on a high and we took on the Arch Magus Vangl for only our second attempt – and he died in 3 minutes 59 seconds with about two deaths. Disdain, pure disdain for his AE’s.

Which meant the wall came up on the Overlord Mata Muram for the first time in TNF’s raid history.

It would have been rude not to play with him. None of us were sure how it would go, TNF has proven us wrong time after time, and we’d just nailed AMV like he was an Orc Pawn. But alas, we had too much to learn about the encounter, and at around 80% the Overlord had his way with our raid, and we died, laughing.

An astoundingly good Anguish raid – for me personally, one of the most memorable raids in my EQ history, and certainly one of the most fun as member or co-leader. Next week, back to the Gates of Discord and the Benny Hill Event. But the Overlord shouldn’t rest easy, TNF will be back, and we’ve got his measure.

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.

You know you’re raiding the Gates of Discord when the zones you’re moving through sound like bodily functions or tribal sacrificial practices. We went to Inktu’ta, the Unmasked Chapel for the first time on Saturday 22nd September. Startup was a bit slow due to some real life stuff, but the fun thing about Inktu’ta is of course, the first mob you kill drops some Qvic armour. Nijacka the Scourge duly obliged and dropped a Qvic bracer. You can read up as much as you want about a zone, but you never know what you’re up against until you step foot in it and try the first mob. A lot of the commentary on the web about Inktu’ta is pretty old by EQ standards so we really weren’t sure how we’d stand up to the first pull.

Well we stood up easily. Nijacka may as well have been trash. And so started the trash ploughing, until we reached Kelektrix. It’s a fun little event, spawns some shadowstepping mobs with rather nasty AE’s which you need to kill before you can engage Kelektrix, and then when they respawn you have to kill them again. TNF did us proud, beating the event cleanly and quickly, despite the chaotic nature of it and having not seen it before. I have to admit at this point I was worried, Uqua had been seriously tough on our first attempt, and Inktu’ta was supposed to be a real challenge. Had we somehow gone to the wrong zone? Had we perhaps got the level 48 version with no loot by accident?

I think Kelekdrix may have dropped some loot, honestly I was too busy at this point to notice. I want to sneak in a thanks to the full raid leadership team at thsi point, a raid like Inktu’ta takes a lot of different co-ordination action behind the scenes and it’s fully a team effort. We dropped into the next section and started setting off traps (which root anyone in range), we stumbled through that, took out a couple of door guards like they were level 5 orc pawns and entered the Stonemite event.

I’ve read a lot of reports of Inktu’ta, I’ve read a lot of information about this event, I’ve read a lot of stuff on the Sony boards about it, so I was a bit apprehensive. TNF showed once again that we need not worry – we moved calmly to our positions despite the short notice of the required activity, we killed anything which annoyed us, and on cue we triggered the right phrase and unlocked the door. I was starting to wonder if I have already awakened from this nightmare and was in fact just dreaming.

The corridor of deadly golems was up next – a raid wiping event with golems which trigger in fours and AE rampage. We prepped, setup, warned the heal team, advised the tank team, and engaged … and didn’t really notice the first set. Or the second set, or the third set. The final set died with a bit of a whimper. Quality tanking, healing and solid DPS meant we basically dealt with the golems like we’ve been dealing with their kind since Ikkinz one. Trash to be tossed asside.

Ah but finally, the event anyone who’s read about Inktu’ta was waiting for – the Cursecaller event. Or as we prefer to call it, The Benny Hill Event. While killing a bunch of rooting mobs, you have to avoid fast spawning death-touch mobs which chase you until they catch you, getting quicker and quicker as they run. It’s chaos in a tin. Confusion in a bucket. Had we finally met our match in Inktu’ta, could we handle the chaos and rez quick enough to stay in the game? Of course we could, with aplomb. Lessi reports getting the emote almost instantly and completing 138 laps in record time before finally dying to her curse bearer. Others weren’t so lucky and died within seconds. But none-the-less, we killed the Cursecallers, rezzed the fallen, and tried to get the Benny Hill Theme Tune out of our heads.

And so the final event. The deadly and deceitful Noqufiel. Another chaotic encounter, in which you must constantly strive to engage the True Form of Noqufiel while ignoring his deadly Mirror Image. Of course, it would be too easy without the additional benefit of high-speed death touching ghosts, so some of those are thrown in as well. Finally a challenge for TNF. This event kept us on our toes, but due to sterling healing, tanking and solid teamwork from everyone, Noqufiel fell and TNF left victorious. Txevu and Tacvi await, a class above Inktu’ta no doubt about it, with complex events, nasty spells and just brutal damage output. We’ll be ready. We’ll soak up whatever they can give and give back double for no charge.

We are TNF, and we are not afraid.

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.

The 1st of September saw TNF’s first Anguish raid, and it was a mighty success. If you’ve not seen the video, head over to the Forums and check out Simes’ post. Anguish was the culmination of a long period of raiding for us, you don’t just walk into Anguish in the right gear and kill those mobs. You need to understand how to raid, how to raid efficiently, how to handle multiple kinds of healing, how to handle different kinds of mobs and different sources of damage. The things TNF learned beating the Planes of Power, raiding in Time, beating Uqua and all the raids we did before that came together in Anguish. On a personal level, it was astoundingly good fun, and I want to thank everyone for turning up, and doubly for those who managed to stay until the end, much beyond our normal finish time. As co-raid leader, and I know Siddhaya feels the same, we’re proud to raid with you and proud to have gotten here with you the right way, with hard work and learned skills.

Keldovan the Harrier posed no threat to us, we beat his little pets to death while was looking the other way and then we nailed him to the wall. Grats to Loxado, Simes, Raggnok, Grayhelm and Goldun on loot drops, and Bellin on her Anguish backflag.

Ture roared and roared and roared but failed to blow our house in. Check out Simes’ video of Ture sulking with his heads in the wall and showing his arse to the raid. Even that didn’t manage to put us off and he dropped like the big dog he is. Grats to Ciorine, Goldun, Donii, Torakk and Hetshu on loot drops and Spirithelm on his Anguish backflag.

Warden Hanvar tried to outwit us, his Dragorn guards put on a good show, but it was in vein. We wittled them down and smashed his great ugly beast spine into little itty small bits. Your axe doesn’t scare us Warden Hanvar. Grats to Belline, Moonebeam, Annalaesta (epic 2.0 orb), Nlaokx, Tinyface and Seibas on loot drops and Marissa on her Anguish backflag.

Jelvan, why do you not escape yourself you lazy ass? Well we tried to rescue you but we got overwhelmed, also we got no video or screenshots! But we recovered and we showed your tormentors what it means to suffer and we freed you from your prison you ungrateful bitch. Grats to Annalaesta, Spirithelm, Kubit, Swifit, Mirzerker (epic 2.0 orb) and Simes on loot drops, and Caminaara on her Anguish backflag.

On the way, we triggered some Lieutenants, but even they could not stop us. Damlin Lingering Charge, First Lieutenant Minas and Vilria the Keeper. Grats to Loxado, Zanbuko and Aaiamen on their augs.

And then came Arch Magus Vangl. It was late, very late, and he was mean, very mean. Mostly though his guards were even meaner. We put up a valiant effort, but it was doomed, literally. Next time we’ll get to him faster, and we’ll be less tired and more awake.

Anguish you were everything we expected, and we’ll be back.

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.

So it happened, TNF put in the hard work, and we made it to Anguish. All six MPG Raid trials have been beaten, and around 20 people got their Anguish flag when Foresight fell on Saturday.

For those who still have some trials missing, don’t worry, we’ll be redoing them over the next couple of raids. For a start, they’re fun! Secondly the loot is still incredibly good quality for TNF. And thirdly, like the Marine Corp. TNF doesn’t leave anyone behind.

Our trip to the Plane of Time was planned, calculated, and we formed an alliance to beat the Gods and ensure our success.

Our trip to Anguish has been a bit of a rollercoaster, we came out of GoD for a week to have a look around, tripped over the Master of Hatred, and then rocketted through the remaining five trials to get where we are. I know you guys have been working hard to get your signets done, and you need to give that your utmost attention in the next few weeks. We need to help each other out to get the RSS / Sewers / Catacombs done since they’re the toughest of the seven.

Anguish lies before us, open and inviting. The door is ajar. The trap is laid. The muramite army sits in wait.

It wouldn’t do to let them down now would it?

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 raids, three victories, three hours of fun in the Muramite Proving Grounds. Grats to everyone who got loot and thanks to everyone who makes the raids as much fun as they are. Truly Naughty Friends are knocking at the door of Anguish. I hope someone’s home.

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.