• Quarken Era (2004-2013)

    People try to be the king but the ace is back.

    Yo everybody, I know what your thinking, “Dalnoth you are not Quarken Xired. What the hell are you doing?!” So to clear up some confusion, here is what is going down: Quarken has not been heard from in four weeks when he was supposed to update the front page. While we are pretty sure Nuntius took it up a notch, from threatening to use his coffee mug as a toilet, to mugging him in his sleep and tossing the body off the coast of Boston; we can’t be certain. Actually, that’s all a bunch of hogwash. Quarken is just on vacation right now but we have NEWS to report! Some month old news and some day old news. So, lets get rollin’. You know how it goes by now though. I’m not changing anything.

    *Recruitment removed – see latest News post.*

    Updated Jun 9, 2006

    As usual, you must first read the post titled “Before you apply read this” in our Application forums. After you read that and decide, “Hey that Fishlip guy may be crazy but he likes Walker Texas Ranger and I do too! Triality’s for me dood!”, your next job is to find Orruar or me (Dalnoth) in-game and send either of us a tell before you post on our lovely website. That’s right: TALK TO US BEFORE YOU APPLY.

    So, I mentioned something about having month old news to report but that’s getting stuffed to the bottom. Because, for the past couple weeks or so, we have been wrestlin’ with the Hulkster of Darkhollow himself, Mayong Mistmoore.

    After a multitude of attempts, Mayong taking several dives to 20,000 leagues under the z-axis and the obligatory Polar Kraken kill upon failure, prayers and vitamins would would prevail!

    You gained raid experience!
    The Demi-Plane of Blood is strangely silent. Though Mayong's body is unmoving, his presence can still be felt. His booming voice suddenly fills the halls of the Keep, coming from all directions.
    Mayong shouts, 'I told you that I would be the victor of this encounter, regardless of the outcome.'
    Mayong shouts, 'This is the sweetest victory I could have ever hoped for.'
    Mayong shouts, 'The focused devotion and attention you demonstrated have lent strength and credibility to my divinity.'
    Mayong shouts, 'You have unwittingly worshipped me, and you have martyred me.'
    Mayong shouts, 'And thus was borne a new era upon the world of Norrath. My era.'
    Mayong shouts, 'Let the world know that a new deity has joined the pantheon ... and his name is Mayong Mistmoore!'
    Mayong shouts, 'To your credit, you are exceptional beings.'
    Mayong shouts, 'Were you not so stubbornly opposed to all I stand for, you would have made welcome additions to my army of minions.'
    Mayong shouts, 'Perhaps we will cross paths again under different circumstances.'
    Mayong shouts, 'You would make fine immortals.'

    As a guild we have come a long ways from nearly disbanding in September to climbing back up and layin’ the ol’ stank down on Mayong, 7th serverwide. I’m not gonna type some War and Peace size shit giving you my analytical dissection of these encounters because that’s down right boring and I hate reading that shit on people’s websites. So here’s us ridin’ 54 niggas deep on Mayong’s turf. While 20 of them aren’t clerics, Grap counts for 20 people.

    As Goruna’s eyepatch would say, “Check that one fer’ booty!”

    Before there was Mayong, there was The Performer. This event is total badassery and we had a ton of fun learning it. There’s nothing that makes me more giddy than ANGERING THE MASTER by performing some of our quintet’s favorite hits. Seriously, this event is a work of brilliance. Eventually we finished our performance and there was much rejoicing.

    So that’s it. Expansion #10 is down and we set our eyes on #11: Prophecy of Ro. While we have been getting our feet steady in this expansion, we have not really applied ourselves yet.

    To get warmed up we rocked the dragons in Relic, the Artifact City, plus Porthio the Second Born as well as Legendary Berserker Bone droppers in The Devastation and Sverag, Stronghold of Rage to gain access to Razorthorn, Tower of Sullon Zek. You’ll soon see some action from that front, no doubt.

    We also took a stroll into Suchun, Blood Warden of Solusek and Daosheen the Firstborn‘s hood, testing the waters. So, with a whole new expansion awaiting us, we’ll be taking our momentum that way soon. As for now, we’re gonna make like this was Ninja Turtles 2 add a little Vanilla Ice in there and jiggle a bit.

    Adios, amigos.


    The Funnies


    Originally posted by Dalnoth • Apr 27, 2006 15:45   
  • Quarken Era (2004-2013)

    This Deli Tray Is Unacceptable

    Yo everyone. Before we git goin’ let’s talk about recruiting some more. Look on our forums under the Application section for our requirements. If you feel like you meet those and wanna floss and fly with Triality, then you should go ahead and send Orruar a tell in game. After that, he’ll give you the top secret handshake and you’ll be on your way to a being the next American Idol. Currently, this is what we’re seeking:

    Berserker: 1
    Cleric: 1

    Updated Apr 23, 2006

    That list there changes when we fill or empty one of our luxurious positions. So keep checking back if we hate your class at the moment! You never know, soon we might love you.


    Well, last we spoke, we had just killed Slipperyanus the Redfang and busted into tier 2 of the fabled Demi-Plane of Blood. Here’s a tier 2 spoiler you can feast on: Triality kicks the shit out of tier 2 Demi-Plane – more news at 10. The update here may seem a little vacant and that is because there is nothing to say about these events. This tier, so far, is chock full o’ lay down Sallys. I heard a lot of fuss and hog wash about the difficulty on some of these encounters. So I’m just gonna say this now; no analogies, no funny business: tier 2 is easy. Sorry we don’t need a 20 cleric complete heal chain for every mob. All the events are so self explanatory. They imitate Trial of Foresight’s and previous encounters’ dynamic pretty much all the time. So it’s nothing new. The events tell you exactly what you need to know to beat them. To have difficulty understanding them would mean you’re clinically retarded. If they got any more easy or obvious, the event would look like this:


    So, let’s start with our most recent kill, Roley and Adrianna. We beat this event on our second attempt. This event is pretty cool and a bit different than the rest of the stuff in Demi-Plane. The best part is there’s no emotes, which is nice because half of the mobs in Demi-Plane look like ‘Other‘ spam to most of us and Entering The Guild Lobby…to the rest.


    Devlin Rochester is next. We beat him pretty good in 4 attempts and haven’t had any trouble kicking his ass after that. The best part about this fight is the screenshot I got, look at that pelvic thrust. Simmer down ladies. This little slice of heaven is a fun fight. A bit too easy, but fun. The difficult portion is a little too random, so he can hand you your ass or lay down and take up the hoo-ha.


    We also killed Tri Swallow III. We had a bit of difficulty putting this bitch in her place the first time. We got a little too bloodthirsty and made some incorrect judgement calls on how to ‘save’ her. This bitch has got some serious emotion issues; love me now, beat me later. Same old song and dance with these ladies.


    So basically, 1 more encounter left til The Big Nasty Mayong Mistmoore himself. Being in tier 2 for only like 15 days, I’d say that’s pretty good. We’ll see how it goes. I hope I don’t sound too cocky writing this, because that isn’t the angle I’m going for, for once. But when you work to get to a certain point in this game, and then it turns out the fights are easy as this, it’s pretty much a let down. I hope The Performer kicks our asses for weeks, so when we finally beat him we’re all amped and shit. Tough to get that rewarding ” beating Mata Muram feeling” when you walk up to some encounter, slap it in the face and just straight eat it’s pudding. Know what I mean?

    Now, if you read this a few hours ago when I published it, right about now you’re saying to yourself, “Hey, did this update just grow words and shit?” Ya, it did. I’m a talkative son of a gun and those empty, more-boring-than-ever 1 liners about the fights kept me up all night. So I came here to spam you more with hot info. I feel better and now I can go to sleep for 43 minutes.



    Originally posted by qxx • Mar 07, 2006 05:38
  • Quarken Era (2004-2013)

    Ya Get Skeeted On

    Yo everyone. Don’t adjust your television set – this is an actual timely update. I think it’s been about a month since the last update, which is some sort of land speed record for me. Grap threatened to do something that involved his teeth and my testicles if I didn’t crank this bad Larry out by tonight. So in a valiant effort of testicular preservation, you got something to read and I can safely fondle myself to 1980’s aerobic tapes…still.

    Well, by now you know the drill. Before we get to the meat ‘n badaytas of these here updates, we got recruiting to discuss. And ya, we’re recruiting. So, if you think you got the cojones to rock the casbah, if you think you’re goatz enough to have sex with our raids, then you should do a couple things. First, you should go to our Application forums and read our requirements. Then after that, when you decide you got the swordocity, you need to send Orruar a tell before you apply. So, we’re recruiting some ninjas for these classes:

    Bard: 1
    Beastlord: 1
    Berserker: 1
    Magician: 1
    Warrior: 1
    Wizard: 1

    Updated Mar 5, 2006

    That’s a dynamic list. It may change before your very eyes. We keep it updated for our needs, so check back if we don’t want your kind around here at the moment.


    So, we’ve been romper stomping through The Demi-Plane of Blood some more. Things are getting better up in here. The first two encounters were shit, but these next two fights are pretty damn fun.

    After banging out the Wailing Sisters, we headed on up to Hatchet the Torturer. This fight is pretty slick. Aside from the occasional ‘mandatory audio trigger candidate’ or some app strapping Hatchet to his chest and suicide bombing the raid like a coffee shop on the Gaza Strip, we devastated this sloppy Sally. This fight is pretty cool even though I can’t play Star Wars: Battlefront 2 during it. It’s got some adds, some emotes, some death bombs but best of all: it’s got bear traps. I can’t believe EverQuest has been out, what? 5 years and this is the first time we’ve seen bear traps. In case you didn’t know, the Top 3 Coolest Things To Ever Exist go: Plinko, television’s Willie Aames & Bear Traps. Don’t ask me why. That’s just the way things are; I don’t make the rules. Now, I may make a couple suggestions here and there, but this isn’t a suggestion – it’s a demand: More bear traps.

    14 days. You have 14 days. If after that time more bear traps are not added to EverQuest, I am deleting my characters, and cancelling all of my accounts. The rest of my guild Really, nobody else will follow suit, but still: 14 days. After that I’m gonna take myself to some other popular MMO that has an excessive amount of bear traps. If you can’t hang with the bear traps, I’ll settle for a 18 player Willie Aames ring event. I can see it now:

    We enter a dungeon with dragons. We’re in Illusion: Scott Baio of course when suddenly we’re overrun by all different mobs of each of Willie Aames’ roles. We’re just trying to slay as many ‘Buddy Lembecks’ from Charles in Charge and ‘Himselfs’ from Celebrity Fit Club: Season 2 as we can while they’re charging at us from every direction all willie nillie. They begin casting Spell: Eight Is Enough which Death Touches 10 of your 18 players after 1 season – just like the real Willie usually was! Actually, you know what? Forget the bear traps, you have 14 days to make this dream an EverQuest reality.

    An enrage Willie says, ‘Time to die a Quarken’

    Alright, what were we talking about before my odd infatuation with Willie Aames started steering my brain? Oh right, Demi-Plane. Okay so after we finished burying Hatchet, we went to see what Sanguimanus the Redfang was all about. He was all about kicking our ass apparently but it wasn’t long until we power bombed his sanguine anus into a bed of broken beer bottles. Even though there is a sickening lack of bear traps in this event, it’s really enjoyable.


    You didn’t think I was gonna get this here update done without a lil’ bit o’ bitchin’, did ya? Is there a more useless effect to put on a Knight only item than Echo of Anger? Demi-Plane loot is a bit retarded in general anyway, but I’ll save that for a rainy day. Still, EoA on a Knight only piece of gear is a bit of a brain-dead mod. That’d be like putting a +20 Whining mod on a Druid only item or a +10% AFK mod on a Quarken only item. How much more aggro do you guys think Knights need? They have oodles, so this is a waste. It’s a wasted slot where a useful focus could be instead.

    Well, that’s the whole shebang today. We’re now entering tier 2 of Dreadspire of Blood, The Keep of Demi-Plane and you know you’ll be getting hot sizzling updates for your chubby American jowls to slobber over. You come on over again, you precious little glutton you.



    On the eve of a new expansion, we all go to bed with the anxiety and excitement only rivaled by Christmases and threesomes. With thoughts of new zones and farmable loot running through our heads, it’s hard to calm one’s self. This time though, I feel a little different. As much as I’m trying to imagine all the laggy zone particle effects, over-farmed attuneable loot and click-here-to-zone-in topography, I can’t stop thinking of gnomes.

    I know it’s a little cliche to complain about gnomes. Those adorable biscuits have been popular in EverQuest since day 1 and their fame isn’t dwindling. But sometimes, I feel a little bit like, what happened to the other races, ya know? Like, why’s it always a gnome explorer fuckin’ up? Aren’t gnomes supposed to be smart? Why they always fuckin’ up? Why they always getting lost in zones and shit? Maybe we’ll take it a step further and make a task where you have to save a party of gnomes, who got captured trying to save another gnome?! The ultimate task!

    Like Cicero Quikwire, the latest gnome to follow in a great line of gnome failures. Maybe I missed the obvious indications we were chasing a gnome in these missions, but when we popped that cocoon open and a gnome shot out, a little part of me died that day. I kinda wanted to throw down my swords and Jake-the-Snake-DDT his bald spot into the ground and send his lifeless body to Ak’Anon with a note pinned to his shirt that reads, “If any of you leave this city again, I’ll orphan your children and widow your wives”. But I can’t do that. Those options are inexplicably unavailable in EverQuest. So I had to just rescue this fuckin’ guy but mark my words: I’m going to go to Ak’Anon to reprogram the King to be a fuckin’ Roomba® or something.

    You may wonder why it took someone this long to bitch about the gnome themed everything in this game that’s been plaguing us for years now. I personally wouldn’t brought it up if it wasn’t for Depths of Darkhollow. Because when I zoned into Corathus Creep for the first time and I didn’t see just gnomes, but fucking robotic gnomes – and a ton of them. A line had to be drawn.

    So on the dawn of Prophecy of Ro, I know it’s a little too late to avoid the gnome assault, but next-next expansion, please make some tasks that maybe have a Barbarian who got lost looking for ale, a Dwarf that got lost mining some gems or an Erudite who got lost looking for fat white women.


    Originally posted by qxx • Feb 21, 2006 04:12
  • Quarken Era (2004-2013)

    Black & Huge

    Yo everyone. So ya, this update should’ve been done a week ago or so. I slacked a bit. If this is your first time reading our site, that sort of thing doesn’t happen often – scout’s honor. Typically, I’m so punctually on top of things that I stream our raids on real-time video feeds with live commentary provided by some of the internet’s most esteemed MMO talking heads and the day’s hottest celebs.

    Before we get into the hot new action, we are recruiting! Keep a look back here, this list will change depending on our needs.

    Bard: 2
    Berserker: 1
    Cleric: 2
    Enchanter: 1
    Magician: 1
    Paladin: 1
    Wizard: 1

    Updated Feb 17, 2006

    If you feel our lovely guild is the place you want to be, send Orruar a tell in game before you apply.


    So, according to the last update, we had beaten Emperor Draygun, the Lich King and Sendaii, the Hive Queen, which were the last 2 raids we needed for the big 5 out of 5 in the cursed blood department. No, I’m not talking about super AIDS. I’m talking about the convoluted plot device that leads us closer and closer to the end-game of Darkhollow. Now that we had the 5/5 locked down, there was one last thing we needed to do in order to be able to get into The Demi-Plane of Blood. That last thing was kicking the tears off that weepy vampire bitch Master Vule the Silent Tear. We hadn’t really been putting time into killing Vule yet. We were really focused on juicing our curse counter up to a full 5 first. Even still, we ran up through Dreadspire and quickly gave Master Vule a dramatic death that any goth would be proud to receive.

    And with Master Vule’s death, we were ready to bring The Big Orange Machine into The Demi-Plane of Blood.


    The first fight we have in front of us is Zi-Thuuli of the Granite Claw. This fight consists of sitting at the zone in and pulling trash until he randomly pops. Then you fight him and he depops. Do that 4 times and, hooray, you move onto bigger and better things. Am I talking shit about this event? Not really. If I made it sound boring and brainless then that’s not my fault. That’s just exactly what happens; a perfect description of the fight. I didn’t even mock it with witty hilarious one-liners or clever color commentary. I personally think it’s boring, but it’s not a big deal. It’s the first fight in the zone and usually things get better the deeper in you get. Like a butthole.


    So, with The Notorious Zi-T dead, what’s next? We stroll upstairs for some more of this hot Dreadspire, erm I mean, Demi-Plane action and Drama queen alert: We’ve rolled up on three sister’s who are all fighting over The Master’s dick piece. For some reason, we gotta help one of these strangers succeed in getting laid. I just sat here for 5 minutes, half a glass of diet coke and 2 cigarettes trying to figure out a way to tell the tale of this splendiferic event and I got nothin’. This event sucks. It’s all about talking to NPCs, killing trash that repops and that’s it. The entire raid sits there while a few people HAIL NPCs. Don’t believe me? Let’s have Fishlip explain this event to you:

    For true. This event would be cool if it was a 1 group instance that was optional. Basically, so nobody would ever have to do it. Because nobody would. Ever. Because hailing NPCs isn’t fun. Whatever though, we beat it. Here’s the loots:

    We’re pretty close to beating the next fight up in Demi-Plane. So come back soon and I’ll spin you a tale all about it.


    So, this update should’ve been done 3 or 4 days ago, maybe more. I just couldn’t gather the stamina to do it because, frankly, I wasn’t excited about any of the fights. There’s nothing to write about them – they suck. We got into this new zone and it sucks. The Hatchet the Torturer fight we’re working on now seems fun. I dig it. And the fights we haven’t seen could very well be awesome and shit. So, I may be out of line right now because I’m ignorant to what the rest of the zone contains but whatever, I’ll say it anyway.

    How the fuck do you get away with making the end zone an exact replica of a previous zone? How? That shit wouldn’t fly a few years ago. Remember? A Few years ago? When you actually drew in new players so you had to keep the good shit coming? The end zone was something you always looked forward to, something that made you go, “shit, that’s dope” when you zoned in. Something unique looking. You made the end zone of this expansion an exact replica of Dreadspire Keep. Are you guys that lazy? The couple of weeks after Depths of Darkhollow was released, I was really digging the geography of it all. A few friends, who are retired, logged on to ask about it. I kept saying how neat all the zones were. They are pretty creative zones; a lot of vertical space, which is a relatively new design style. It gave this expansion a different feel to the others. So why the fuck did you drop the ball when it comes to the end-zone? Shit doesn’t make any sense. I can’t tell you how much of a let down it is.

    I personally think it’s because the majority of the player base today is never going to see it. So you spend all your time cooking up these cool looking experience zones anyone can get into. But when it comes to the small portion of the player base that is going to spend the time working their asses off to get into the one exclusive zone, you just fuck it all up. You know we, the hardcore players, are going to be here tomorrow. We’ll raid whatever you throw at us. We’ll beat it no mater how shitty it is. And you know this. So, why bother making it all snazzy and cool? Why bother putting any effort into making a hot looking end-zone? Right? Ya, that’s right.

    There aren’t enough popular guild site’s that criticize your mistakes. Which is a shame because it used to keep you on your toes. You’d listen to the feedback, make some changes etc… Now it’s like, all those popular sites people trafficked went to World of Warcraft and you finally can sit back and slack, pumping out bullshit without the player scrutiny. Whatever. I’ve spent 5+ years of steady playing, keeping at the top of this game, because I enjoy it. So excuse me if I get offended when you make a zone that is a total crock of fucking bullshit. So excuse me when I gotta honk the ‘You done fucked up’ alarm while I sit through some piece of shit encounter you obviously put no effort into making. If there weren’t people telling you your fuck ups, you’d just continue to fuck up either because you 1.) Are ignorant to how people feel or 2.) You just don’t give a shit.

    Above: An example of a Serious Man™

    There’s no rational explanation. People who design this game, who designed this expansion, got together and shared ideas with what the zones should contain, what they should look like, who they are designed to be played by, etc.. So when Dev1 said, “Hey, let’s save some time and money, we can copy/paste the Dreadspire Keep file and call it Demi-Plane” – why didn’t anyone slap the skin off him? I’m seriously asking.

    Enough of that Serious Man™ talk – let’s giggle.



    Originally posted by qxx • Jan 16, 2006 11:37
  • Quarken Era (2004-2013)

    We Doin’ Drive-Bys On Freestyle Bikes

    Yo everyone. So I started writing this last night but I got sidetracked by a lot of real life responsibilities I’m dealing with right now (i.e., fired up the PS2 and played Star Wars Battlefront II for 16 hours). Turns out it was lucky for us that I had to extinguish the Imperial threat on Endor because I’d be doing another update tonight if I hadn’t slacked. See? It pays to be lazy and addicted to the occasional console game sometimes.

    Confused? Okay, what I mean exactly is: we killed Sendaii, the Hive Queen last night for the first time and, when I should have been preparing the update for that, we went ahead and hit Emperor Draygun, the Lich King with some sweet chin music. So now it’s like, ya know, a 2-for-1. A better value per update for you and less work for me. Win/win.

    Needless to say, this front page update is action packed with our magnificent adventures through the dankest, darkest Depths of Darkhollow. Why don’t you settle in and read on to see what I’m talking about, you silly little goose.

    Oh, before I forget: we are recruiting! You need to read our requirements and whatnot before you apply. We’re looking for good members to fill out our ranks. Here’s an itemized list of the classes we’re looking for:

    Cleric: 2
    Enchanter: 1
    Ranger: 1
    Rogue: 2
    Wizard: 1

    If you feel our lovely guild is the place you want to be, send Llohannis or Grap a tell in-game before you apply.


    Ok, where were we. Ah yes. Let’s start off with a list. Let’s title this list:

    Things We’d Rather Do Than The Hive Queen Event

    • Have a Naked Twister competition in a colony of lepers who all have Parkinson’s disease.
    • Play a blindfolded game of ‘What’s In My Mouth?’ with an incontinent coprophiliac.
    • Build a time machine, go back about a year to celebrate Christmas on the island of Phuket.
    • Eat a shipment of laxatives and attempt to kayak across the English Channel.

    Why would I and 53 other people rather do the awful[ly delightful] things on that list rather than do this event? Because this event is ri-dic-u-lous-ly long. Absurdly long. It’s not even that difficult. The only difficulty lies with how long can you not-piss-your-pants before you’re forced to ninja AFK and consequently wipe the raid, wasting 54 man hours because that’s just how life is sometimes. Wave 3 is just the most annoying shit a human could dream up because its like the world’s worst Russian nesting doll collection. Shitty mobs that die and make more shitty mobs, that die and make shittier mobs, who die and make the shittiest of mobs and so on. They’re probably still replicating their shitty selves as I type this.

    Let me throw out a spoiler for anyone working on this event: Once you put in a full 9-5 shift doing Waves 1 & 2, you’ll eventually get to Wave 3. Amazing how that works out isn’t it? Anyway, in Wave 3 you gotta kill [shitty] mobs that generate more [shitty] mobs, as previously mentioned. So here’s the spoiler: First, you get 6 spiders that, when killed, make 2 spiders each. When you kill each of those spiders you get a completely bored raid that begins to develop stomach ulcers as they slowly realize we’re going to be stuck here well until the end of times and even then more [shitty] spiders will spawn.

    So, we killed her and there was much cheering, wooting and piss-breaking. In total, the event took us 86 years minutes. Ya know, when it comes to judging how much fun events are, I use this rule of thumb: Any event that lasts longer than I do in the sex is an excessive waste of time especially when it’s a whole 85 minutes longer. Like I said, the event isn’t difficult it’s just a race against Attention Deficit Disorder slowly taking over until it’s running around like the Ultimate Warrior in ’89, no-selling our spells and disciplines while throwing all of us over the top rope.

    4 out of 5

    Despite all of that, it did feel good to be progressing through The Depths of Darkhollow again. Ahh yes, the loots. They weren’t bad considering what we could have got from her (i.e., much shit):


    Now, as I was saying at the start of this update, our first time victory over Queen Sendaii was last night. Tonight we were about to get our farm on in the Asylum of Anguish again for the kagillionth time when we shifted gears and decided to take our ass kicking momentum straight over to Emperor Draygun, the Lich King and good thing we did because he went down like Emperor Draygun, the Bitch King. Get it? Ha. Ha. See what I did there? We killed him on the very first attempt tonight too, which made for a special feeling in our collective unmentionables.

    5 out of 5

    The loots sucked balls but whatever, that’s this expansion’s theme it seems. So I don’t think anyone was expecting anything fantastic in the loot department but here it is all the same.


    Let’s take a quick minute to talk about this ‘Curse of Blood’ shit. We don’t really know all the details around it so we’ve just been slaying and praying that, at some point, it gives us more ~moar powah~ in some form, like it always seems to indicate. And make no mistake – it never fails to indicate that. Just look at the last two sentences up there when Draygun died. The word power is mentioned 3 times. And after all, it is listed in the AA window. All signs indicate that this bitch gon’ be the hookup at some stage.

    So as we strolled into our 5th Blood raid and strolled out with our 5th victory and a maxed out Curse of Blood AA (now called Invitation of Blood), some people were waiting and hoping beyond hope for something, anything, to happen now that we have max rank of this shit – and guess what? *wet fart noise*

    So basically Fishlip’s dick is confirmed to be bigger and indeed the rest of us are speculatively bigger in the e-peen dept. but we would have been all these things without a poorly implemented, fake-ass, expansion defining, chase non-AA? In practice, it is a complete waste and didn’t even need to exist in the game. So what the fuck is it actually? I’ll tell you what it isn’t and through the process of elimination, we’ll be left with a steaming pile of what-it-is.

    I understand people will say this is a prerequisite for getting into The Demi-Plane of Blood but that is bullshit. Getting a character flag upon defeating each of those 5 raids is the prerequisite, not a misleading ‘Alternate Advancement Ability’. We’ve had plenty of character flags in the past and they weren’t in the form of a red herring AA.

    Rumor has it that there are ability and stat sapping zone-wide spells in our near future and each rank of this counteracts or mitigates them. What the fuck is that bullshit? There has to be a better way to flag a character, key a character and design zone hazards that aren’t a misleading, retarded, convoluted MacGuffin in our AA window. Making people think, rightfully so, that this somehow is going to universally beef up their character and then sticking a big rubbery one up their dark hollow is shit. It’s shit. Just another shit idea, shit design implementation and an ambiguous shit bread crumb trail that makes modern day EverQuest a head scratching, overwhelming, confusing shitheap. Try explaining all of this to a new player; someone that hasn’t developed a Stockholm syndrome to modern EverQuest’s design logic. See what they think about all that and then ask yourself why subscriptions are sliding down the toilet like an Olympic shit luge. Also, shit.

    I think that wraps up this little soirée, for now. We’ll probably be having another update again soon since Demi-Plane of Blood is a mere few days away. Peace in your crease, my niece.



    Originally posted by qxx • Dec 03, 2005 02:22
  • Quarken Era (2004-2013)

    Kiss Me Where It Smells Funny

    Yo everyone. A front page update. It’s totally amazing, I know. This here will be the first update since Depths of Darkhollow has gone live. There are so many new features in Depths of Darkhollow to talk about which I’m going to do after we give you the dirty, filthy, greasy info on what we’ve been doing lately. So much to type and so little time. Well, truthfully, there’s all the time in the world but I need to get back to the slack A.S.A.P.I.R.L.

    We’re recruiting. That means you. You right there. You can apply to Trialitymmmmmaybe! Let’s keep this within reason, Charlie. You need to read our requirements and whatnot before you apply. We’re looking for good members to fill our ranks in almost every class except filthy paladins & grimy shadowknights. So if you’re a paladin or shadowknight, you just hold your horses. Here’s an itemized list of what we’re looking for:

    Berserker: 1
    Cleric: 2
    Enchanter: 1
    Wizard: 2

    Updated Nov 28, 2005

    I’ll keep that list updated as we find people to fill in the spots. So if you think, “Yes, Triality is OK w/ me”, then you’ll be needing to send Miss Llohannis or Mister Grap a tell in the MMORPG EverQuest. Once you’ve done that, the next step will likely be ‘create an application and post it on our forums’. I’ve been in this guild a while, I’m going to share some top secret inf0z with you right here. If your app:

    • …is 1 sentence.
      Close your current window. Go to C:\Program Files\EverQuest and delete everything.
    • …has the grammar and readability of a 16 year old Asian girl’s AOL member web page.
      Slap yourself in the face with a bag of scorpion stingers. Immediately.
    • …is lacking a profile because you can’t decipher the mystical, magical complications of Magelo.
      Go to your basement and saw off your hands.

    Alright, enough funny business. I don’t want this update to be all horseplay and rabble-rousing, we have complete seriousness to get to. Let’s all be Serious Men™ and talk turkey here.


    We’ve been raiding all sorts of Depths in Darkhollow shit but primarily we’ve been doing the “Blood” raids. We got to The Council of Nine first. And by “got”, I mean serial killed his face with great haste.

    1 out of 5

    Aaaand after that we met up with Matriarch Shyra. She’s a big sexy werewolf. There’s really nothing to this fight. We just walked in and ate her pudding. She’s boring; needs a little spicing up, eh? A little of the ole’ spicy spice eh? A little spicetastical spicy spiciness EH? Ahh, I’m totally out of control right now and it feels great. /thumbs up

    2 out of 5

    I forgot to screenshot the words of lore from Shyra. It probably said something crazy and awesome explaining why these “abilities” in my Alternate Ability window aren’t actually abilities at all.


    I think after that we went to slaughter Bloodeye. This is a fight where you pretend you’re not letting people die but you’re really letting people die. It’s a pretty fun fight, people just dying and flopping all over. Anyway, between killing each other, we managed to kill him too.

    3 out of 5

    We did some other non-progression raids when Depths of Darkhollow first came out as well. We quickly found out most are worthless trash piles. I didn’t take any pictures, except of the mushroom Sporali king fellow, Antraygus, the Sporali King! That guy is awesome. The fight was hilarious; people getting tossed all over the place willy-nilly. It was a total g-flux zergfest. Anyway, fun or no fun, we killed him of course. Sorry, Big Gus.


    Other than that we’ve been poking around Dreadspire Keep, working on Demi-Plane of Blood keys and just having a super duper awesome time, I GUESS.

    So, in the opening (that’s what us pros call the first paragraph; the opening. You didn’t know that shit did ya? Wham! Knowledge sharing.) I said I’d talk about Depths of Darkhollow a little bit. So, here it is.

    When Depths of Darkhollow was originally announced and the features were up on the Official EverQuest web site, nothing really jumped out at me, you know? Nothing really impressed me, I guess you could say. And I think I’ve figured out what it is. There are no good features in Depths of Darkhollow. None. I mean on the website, they list new…

    • Alternate abilities
    • Spells
    • Zones
    • Items
    • Tradeskill recipes

    …as like highlights of an expansion. What the fuck is that? Don’t list it – all that shit better come with the new expansion. That shit is a given. Without those what the fuck could you even be expanding for this expansion. Listing zones, really? Without new zones, you literally can’t have a motherfucking expansion. You have to have all new ‘those things’. Do you think a restaurant advertises that they will be serving food on plates and having restrooms so people don’t shit and piss all over the walls and floor, as features? Of course not! Because those are, without a doubt, going to be there.

    I’m sick of that shitty deceptive advertising. Because you can’t fill up more than a few sentences describing the only “new” things of this expansion, so you toss that of-course-it’s-in-there bullshit on the box for filler. Advertising new zones in a god. damn. expansion is a little re -dundant or -tarded – you decide.

    Now let’s look at the actual features: Monster Missions and Spirit Shrouds.

    Fuck these things in their variety of faces. People gaining experience doing something besides playing their own class and character? Super awesome good idea…I can’t wait to see the people who’ve gotten 75% of their total experience romping around these bad Larrys. I’m sure they’ll be packed full of skill and aptitude of their actual class. After doing a good handful of Monster Missions, to form my always unbiased and objective opinion, I came to realize that, in a Monster Mission, everything I’ve worked for in EverQuest – all my gear, AA’s, discs, skills, etc… – are just…gone. Eliminated. Nullified. Not present. Who would enjoy this and why? I just don’t understand the appeal of playing as a worse version of myself in some shitty NPC illusion, which is exactly what Monster Missions are. But wait! There’s more to it than that.

    When you spend an hour doing something, even if you fail at your objective, usually there’s some experience gained at least, to make up for it. Like, if I spend a few hours camping some item, and I don’t get the item, at least I’ve gotten some experience killing mobs for the chance at it. If the mobs I have to kill don’t yield experience, it’s still my decision to go there and do it. I’ve done some monster missions that only yield experience upon a victory. So, if you spend an hour or two – shit, or more – trying to do some ridiculous objectives and you fail, you get no fucking experience gain. You basically pissed away a few hours aggravating yourself and hating EverQuest just a little bit more.

    There’s some basic building blocks to the game of EverQuest. Whether they are a necessity, or just something we’ve come dependent on, is up for discussion. But I would be willing to wager 99% of the non-retarded population playing this game will agree that the ability to resurrect someone is one of the most important and useful abilities in the game and especially in a group setting. Forget the experience reimbursement portion of resurrection, that is a moot point. In a Monster Mission, you don’t’ lose experience upon death and you respawn at zone in. But what about instances that have mobs that repop and the location of your objective to update the task asks you to be deep within the zone? Well, when resurrected in a Monster Mission, you can’t get back to your group from the zone in; it’s virtually impossible. And when you’re limited to 3 “classes” to choose from, losing 1 person can be a critical failure. So you work up to that point for a while and if someone dies, then what? You’re just fucked? Pack up your shit and go home? What a fucking blast. So much fun. Holy shit.

    The balancing of tank hit points and healer mana regeneration for these ‘monsters’ is totally out of sync in a lot of these missions. When you give a tank 20k HPs and the best heal available is only a 4,000 point rubbery floppy thing of a heal, which also costs an asston of mana – that’s just straight retarded. Top that cake off with the fact that mana regeneration is a fucking joke. Even with Mental Clarity ranked to the fuckin gills, you’ll be sitting to med like this shit was Lower Guk in 1999.

    There was one particular mission where a bunch of mobs came to rub their sacks all up in my grill. We did the mission with 5 people; it was in the Hive. The class options were Warrior, Cleric, and Wizard – which is actually an Enchanter – why. The monster mission had this little ring event in the upstairs of the west tower. So, we plow up there at the speed of a legless invalid. And when we finally got up there for the ring event, the warrior died. No problem, right? It happens. WELL, with no way to rez, and repops alllll the way up to us, we really had to slap on the black face paint and get fully Mission-Impossibled up, just to continue with our monster mission. We had to keep training a shitload of mobs away and at just the right time, respawn ourselves back into the mission, before the mobs pathed back. So, the ability to simply return to your group is less not dependent on the abilities assigned to the whack ass monster vessel you have to inhabit in for these missions but rather more dependent on your computer loading the zone file fast, so you can try to respawn in and run for safety, before the mobs path back and put it in your butt. Again. Super cool.

    During the ring event, we’d get 2 mobs at a time. We’d kill 2 and then get another wave of 2. Kill 1 of those, then have the “Wizard” mez the other while the Cleric meds for half a fucking hour. There were about 10 waves. So, if you do the math, that’s like 30 minutes per wave. You better pray nobody dies or your back at square one. And round and round it goes. What. fun.

    There was another monster mission I did, some instanced version of Runnyeye, where I’m a level 30ish Sporali killing evil eyes. With no resists, because that’s what they decided to give my monster vessel – no control over that! So, it was definitely an awesome time having the evil eyes chain blind spells, stuns and, of course, gflux me all over the fuckin dungeon. At one point I actually punched myself in the throat after realizing I paid money for this experience. I mean honestly, it was ridiculous. I find it hard to believe (read as: impossible to believe) anyone tested or casually played that mission and said, “PERFECT” before sending it off with a stamp of approval, only to be added into the expansion.

    Granted not all Monster Missions are this out of whack, but the general idea behind them is just too much for me to handle. But I guess if you get off on playing as some NPC illusion, with limited and untuned abilities and stats, then Monster Missions are right up your alley.

    I probably wouldn’t be so upset with Monster Missions if they weren’t the only real feature of this entire expansion. Monster Missions and Spirit Shrouds, that’s it. To me a feature is something new to the game, that makes a particular expansion unique. I guess by that definition evolving items are a feature as well, but I’m only agreeing to that because I don’t want to split hairs about how shitty those things are in principal (e.g., pointless time-sink & false increases). I know I got pretty lengthy here, but please believe, there’s a lot more I’d like to say but I’m not sure I have the patience or self control to get it all out coherently. I had started writing some more bullshit about how the life span of these new expansions is only a couple months and how the lack of content and the over usage of instancing is killing the game, but I’ll save it for a rainy day.


    Quotable Quotes That I Quoted


    Originally posted by qxx Oct 14, 2005 1:33