Heroes Update 2009-09-18

Alright, lets try this again. Wrote a huge post just moments ago, with all the nasty details, and then I clicked the big fat cross up to the right by mistake. Just start over.
Ah well, no point whining about it I suppose. Early morning, and noone in guild was enough awake to give me some sympathy.

Raid progression

Raiding have gone very well recently. Just this week, we managed to clear two full instances in 10man, namely Ulduar 10 and TotC 10. Oh yeah baby, Yoggi-Bear is finally dead. I want to give a big shoutout to the teams that did this, and yes, thereby I also pat my own back for nuking Yoggi.

The future goals of Angledans 10man team is to farm some TotC 10, as it was proven this week that it's done in a night. The other, clearly harder goal, is to do the hardmodes in Ulduar 10 in a hardcore kind of way (expect monstreous repair bills), and hopefully slap Algalon himself in the face (almost wrote Angledan for some reason. Freudian slip?).

We've also had some nice progression in 25man Ulduar, with only Mimiron left of the keepers. Personally I don't know too much about this, as Sundays isn't part of my raiding days, but real good going.
We also wanted to have a stab at TotC 25, but have as of yet not been able to summon the people needed

Looking at the quick 10man progression it seems like TotC really is a pushover, so if you want to easy to get Tier 9 epics, this is the place to go.

News in Hota

Not much news in the guild at the moment.
Worth mentioning however is that we do have a fairly urgent need of an extra Tank. Know anyone outside guild that have a real knack of beeing pounded upon without dying? Give him a shout, telling that we are interested.

News in the World

As usuall News in the World is all about patches. Patch 3.2.2 is in the works, and can hit us at any time really. I'll stay away from making predictions this time, as I tend to be wrong anyway.

Not many class changes as it looks at the moment, only minor fixes. A cooler thing then is that we will get a new chanse to meet the Broodmother herself, Onyxia. A whole remade raid, 10 and 25man, with heroic counterparts just for our enjoyment. We'll see some nice classic gear, updated to fit us level 80's.

For more info about the patch, I do as I always do, and point towards MMO-Champion.

The Fun Part

I've always been a huge fan of CAD-Comic, and it seems that the author, Tim, have recently taken up WoW again. Here's an example of the latest "sillies" (minor comics) he have made:

More comics on his website, and some are even WoW related!

Azthal

Heroes Update 2009-07-27

Again, quite some time since last post here. I'm lazy, deal with it!
We are working out the kinks among officers however to share the duty of writing Heroes Update, and hopefully we'll soon go back to atleast "bi-weekly update".

Raid progression

Beeing summer, raiding have grinded to a bit of a halt. We rarely have the 25 people online that is needed for 25mans, and now we have a hard time filling the 10mans as well.
Even with these problems, we have had some good times in Ulduar 10. We lost parts of the team that had made the most progression in U10, but we are right back at it, jabbing away at Vezax. He would have been down by now, had we had more time for raiding, unfortunally again beeing summer, few can raid more then two nights a week.
As for the 25mans, we still do the weekly poke at Flame Leviatan, but can't get much further then that without a full team. Same goes for Naxx 25 that also have grinded to a halt.
Last important note for raiding, there's no more DKP in Naxx 25. Our DKP system is a bit slow to work, beeing based on bids, and we decided it's no longer needed. This goes for all Tier 7 content, so no DKP if we jabb at Malygos 25 again either.

News in Hota

Some changes in guild since last post.
First of all, I was promoted to Guild Master, as Dav after two years of service to the guild decided he no longer have the time needed.
The other day, our in house professional raid leader and organizer Angledan decided to take some time off WoW. We wish him best of luck, and hope that he will be back soon.
Last news about changes in guild is that we lost an officer when Gweryan left a while back, to find some higher end raiding, and we hope that he's doing well there. Fortunally we got 3 new officers at roughly the same time to replace him and Davarnus, namely Athriel, Jellifer and Kirderfia.

News in the World

Patch 3.2 is closing in on us, and it's looking more and more like my prediction will come true. Most likely the patch will hit sometime in August (I still bet last week of August). As always, everything concerning the new patch can best be found at MMO-Champion.

The Fun Part

No Gnome Jokes, or even a video this time. Instead I will take the time to promote an event that is happening next Sunday (2/8-2009), namely a VIG Escort.
We did this event once before, but this time it's bigger, badder and hopefully even more fun! Add to that much bigger prizes, and we'll hoefully see some gnomes running as hard they can, whilehaving a path carved for them by their bodyguards!
More info about the event can be found in the Event Forum, and signups can as always be made in calendar.

Azthal

Heroes Update - The Future of the Guild

It's been a couple of weeks since the last update, and today's News is a little different format to usual. The guild has been shaken up a little, and I'm afraid there's one more shake still to go

The Future of Raiding

Firstly raiding does still continue. There are 3 raids posted up for this weekend so please sign up!

You can't fail to have noticed that our Raiding has taken a bit of a hit lately with the loss of Gweryan, who did an amazing job at pushing HOTA into 25 man content and clearing most of Ulduar-10. With Gwer we also lose several of our most regular raiders, which is a shame, but we wish them well in their new guilds.

The upshot of this is that we no longer have a team that can seriously progress in Ulduar-25, at least for the time being. It occurs to me that, in trying to push our progression hard, we got away from the Mission Statement on the homepage which refers to "some casual raiding". HOTA is not a hardcore raiding guild and never will be, but we can still aim to be up there as one of the most progressed casual guilds.

I will therefore leave it to the Officer team to decide whether HOTA needs to switch focus to the 10-man progression path, and leave 25-mans open for people to PUG on off nights, or whether we will work the 10-mans for a while to build up experience and gear and then have another try at heroic raids once again in the future.

The Future of Leadership

A little less than a month ago I advised the Officers of my intention to step down as Guild Leader, starting from the 15th July.

I realised that from that date it’ll have been exactly 2 years since I accepted the reins from Bjornsangel, who wanted to step down herself when she was preparing to have her first baby. At the time I was one of the highest levels in the guild at somewhere close to Level 62, and raiding was far away on the horizon. Indeed I think we’d dropped down to about 20 members by that point with many of the old regulars jumping ship, and so I was full of ideas for reinvigorating the guild. I think I created this website the day after being promoted as the first step to getting the guild back on its feet, and the date of creation still shows on the homepage.

In those 2 years the guild has gone from strength to strength, having a valiant attempt at the Burning Crusade raid content (and being one of very VERY few guilds that successfully made the jump from Karazhan to 25-mans without falling apart and completely reforming), and our continued efforts in Wrath of the Liche King, where we continue to be seen as a well-respected and well-progressed casual guild. We are also one of the longest established guilds that are still going, and we watched as many other "more successful" guilds have broken apart over time.

I now think it is time for me to step down and let the Officers continue to do the great job they have been doing in recent months. I will stay in the guild but as a normal "Veteran" level member, and you will probably still see me organising the occasional guild event or retro-raid. At the moment I don't think the Officer team has decided whether one specific person will take over as "Head Officer", so for the time being it is likely to be a collaborative effort. Joining the current Officers will be 2 (possibly 3) new promotions, whose names will be announced soon. I am confident that the Officer team will be able to lead HOTA to new successes in this expansion and beyond.

Guild Photo 2009

The last time we had a Guild Photo event it was back in 2007 and only 20 people showed up. It'd be great to get a screenshot of the whole guild, and so before I step down I'd like as many people as possible to gather at Stormwind Cathedral steps a week next Saturday afternoon for a group screenshot!

The time is on the calendar and everyone is welcome, new member or veteran. Be there to be recorded in Heroes of the Alliance history!

Davarnus

Heroes "It's not my turn to write!" Update 2009-06-23

Quite some time since last update. I blame everyone else but myself. If you look at the front page, the majority of the updates are mine, mmk? I deserved to be lazy!
In any case, got some news for ya'll, so read closely!

Raid progression

We have gotten quite a way in Ulduar 10. Now that dreadful "summer" thing hit us though, and people want to spend time outside it's slowing down a bit. Go figure... ;) We are 11/14 in Ulduar 10, and the second team have gotten some way as well.

Not as much luck in Ulduar 25, but we are heading in there this week with some vengence for the previous wipes!
Make sure to sign up for it if you have not already!

News in Hota

No news in the World? It's comming, be calm. Got more important news in guild however!

When we now finally start seriously in Ulduar we will hopefully go in with a full HOTA team, and be able to use DKP. DKP will have a few changes made, as we are not 100% happy with the current costs of different items.
Important note is that these changes only go for Ulduar. For Naxx & Malygos we will keep using the same prices as before. The changes are:

Minimum Cost of Tier tokens lowered to 40dkp
Minimum cost added to Weapons. They are now at 40dkp
Offspecc items won on a roll will cost 5dkp
Raid Leaders will be able to give out extra, time based DKP on new content. This is decided by the raid leader.

There ya go. Rule page will also be updated any day now, as soon as I've decided how to write it properly so that there's no mixup with the old costs.

News in the World

Patch 3.2 PTR have just hit. Some quite big changes there, together with a new Battleground, a new Raid and some major changes to our beloved Wintergrasp.

As always I recomend MMO Champion for all news concerning patches!

The Fun Part

Hey, I already wrote 4 sections! Can't ask for too much!

Ah well, guess I might as well. But no funny pictures this time. A gnome joke will have to do!

A Dwarf priest was wandering the beach when, upon looking out over the ocean, he saw a gnome splashing and appearently almost drowning. He started to rush out to help, but then noticed two humans on the beach had already gotten a rope out to the gnome and were pulling him in. "I'd just like to commend you two" the Priest said. "It's all too rare these days to see people helping each other out in a time of need. Bless the both of you!"

As the Priest was walking away, one of the humans turned to the other.

"Guess he's never been shark fishing"

Azthal

Welcome to the latest News update. Let's see, what do we have for you this week? How about Ulduar progression, a new Rank in the guild, and some raiding drama from another server? That sound good?

Raid progression

As you can't fail to have noticed, Ulduar has landed, and our raiding teams have hit the ground running, clearing the first 5 bosses on normal mode in just a couple of weeks! Initial impressions are that it's going to be a much tougher raid than Naxx, and indeed many people are happy that they will now have to work for their upgrades instead of the "Purple Shower" that was Naxxramas.

With Ulduar comes a new Tier of DKP, so when 25 man raids begin properly, you will not be able to spend your Naxx DKP in Ulduar. Sorry, but it's the only way to make sure people don't save up loads of points in Naxx and spend them on Tier 8 loot!

News in the World

Although not technically "in the World", this is news that will affect all our raiders so I felt it needed a section to itself.

Starting from today we are introducing a new rank in the guild called "Knight". This rank is effectively for our raiding elite, and the consequences of this are that from this Wednesday's reset only Knight-ranked guild members will be able to raid in Ulduar and beyond.

The Officers and Raid Leaders felt that, unless we put some sort of minimum requirements for raiding in higher Tiers, the guild will be unable to progress as fast as we would like it to. By enforcing these requirements, we will be able to make sure that the Ulduar raid team is the strongest it can be, and that everyone in there is fully committed to clearing it as efficiently as possible.

Full details of the Knight-rank, how to get it, and what is expected can be found on our Rules page

The Fun Part

This recent story from WoWInsider really amused me. Basically, a guy on a different server got his account hacked, but eventually he got it restored by a GM. If you didn't know, when you get hacked they can't easily restore all your bank contents and other stuff, so they send you a load of random stuff to get you back on your feet.

This guy was looking through the stuff he got sent and he found Martin Fury. Now... what would you do if you got this item in the mail? It was clearly a mistake by the GM, but he didn't report it. What he did was pass the item to his Raid Leader, who decided to bring it along to their next Ulduar raid.



What followed was a tour of 1-hit-kills on all the Ulduar bosses, which earned the raid a load of loot and indeed many World First Achievements! Blizzard responded by perma-banning the player in question, so let that be a lesson to us all!