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Good evening ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to another edition of The Front Page. Yogg-Saron is dead, and by extension, all bosses leading up to him as well.



Before this post gets too wild, I’ll start with something serious. I’d like to dedicate this server first kill of Yogg-Saron to Foxery, formerly one of our core raiders. He was involved in a fatal motorcycle accident one week prior. He will be greatly missed.

That said, I have a feeling that employers are secretly GOOGLING my name whenever I apply for a job. Though I try to rig the google search results, this front page inevitably appears somewhere near the top. Some have suggested maybe toning down the content of this front page, to make it a higher class of humor if you will, to perhaps make this here operation at least APPEAR a little more professional and legitimate.

Personally, I’d rather keep it as is and let them have a better time reading it. Because you see, people who don’t play the game and raid will never see it the same way. They will never be able to understand the denial or realization in the voice of someone that just died to rockets. Or appreciate the wonderful excuses we hear when one of our special cadets goes afk in the 3 seconds between a ready check and a pull. You see, from the outside it looks a lot like a small confused male child sitting in a corner having a tea party.

When I was younger, say 4 years old, I was with my grandparents visiting some friends of theirs. These friends had a girl my age, and my grandparents decided to get her a tea set as a gift. Now, so that I would not feel particularly left out, they got me something too: I don’t recall exactly what it was since I allegedly threw it at a wall after getting it, but more than likely it was a racecar.

Now I personally remember the details of this story very very vaguely, but living witnesses have described it as such: shortly after the two presents were opened I forcibly broke the racecar or whatever was given to me, punched the little girl in the head, and then proceeded to take the tea set to a corner where I had a tea party. Attempts to approach me during this time were met with wild screaming and throwing of various objects.

So what I’m trying to say is, raiding is basically a tea party over the internet.

Overall Ulduar is a refreshing experience after running Naxx repeatedly for a few months. In Naxx the boss would usually have to find a way to kill every single raid member to truly wipe the raid, since about 3 out of 25 people could reasonably salvage a bad attempt. Here the punishment for bringing squid tends to be far harsher. And once again the hardest encounters are those that make you fight against your fellow players. Like the man that splits your raid into two parts and puts one of them into a tunnel. Arguably the easiest fight in the instance, but I don’t think we’ve yet had an attempt where everyone that was supposed to be in the tunnel actually ended up there. The best we can possibly hope for is for the stupidity to balance itself out, meaning that those who stayed outside are balanced by an equal amount of "stowaways" looking to visit Egypt.



The later, more difficult encounters are essentially the continuation of Loken’s legacy. In addition to this Ulduar is also a place of great mystery - beneath the circular Walkway of the Watchers sits a suspiciously empty room, at the center of which is the woman from Scholomance, whose purpose is at first not entirely apparent. And as such, to combat these new foes, a very special kind of weapon needed to be brought in.

From the sand-beaten flats of Khloo-poon, the land of ents and Wickerwhims, comes a man in a tattered robe, leaning on a cane. Around his belt hang containers of various sizes and descriptions, filled with exotic wines and spirits that grant him tremendous power. On his back hangs a flag with a picture of a cat. It is said that in the slurred speech of this powerful warlock lie the answers to the secrets of the Woman and Loken.

And then of course there’s Yogg-Saron himself, a well-tuned encounter with interesting mechanics, the best being where you fuck up and the whole raid turns into anteaters. If you weren’t one of the very privileged few that got a chance to go insane on that fight, believe me, you’ll know when you see it.



And so, it’s off to hardmodes for us. Well, I guess before then we’ll probably have to kill Yogg-Saron again, which seems a little tenuous as of this writing. My theory is that the excitement of a first kill was too much for some people, and a number of individuals are still missing. Gleppars for instance went on what was described as a "cock-sucking trip" to LA, and there are theories that Eggbeater got lost at a gay bar. Well, actually FOUND at a gay bar, if you know what I mean. But back on topic: I’m not sure what the updates will look like for the less interesting hard modes, but in any case I’ll keep a checklist:

Until next time.

First things first. Sartharion with 3 drakes is dead. The screenshot is terrible, I know. My first plan was to photoshop Boxxy onto it, but after several days I realized that joke wasn’t going anywhere. So instead we have the original screenshot as is, unflattering as it may be.



Then again, there is something of value in killshots like this. Ok, imagine a war. This is basically a photograph of a battlefield. You see the soldiers, battered but victorious, some of them not looking at the camera, some of them dead, some in several pieces. Regular killshots, cleaned up and cropped and airbrushed, are like the soldiers standing in a formation and clean uniforms far from danger, holding children and kittens. The soldiers are smiling. The prisoners about to be executed are smiling. The children and kittens are smiling. Bear and Nevvy, who are holding the children and kittens, are smiling widest of all.

So, as many have pointed out, this update was a little longer in coming. And, like I told some of the less patient individuals, this is because I was struggling to find a theme.

At which point Kazajin said "That’s easy, just put screenshots of our kills and add a bunch of running jokes about me and Dan."

And yes, that is indeed what usually ends up here. But this time I’m going with something else, and we’ll leave $400 Prada belts and little sisters found in motels 3 states away until next time. This front page update isn’t going to be about Kazajin or Danrax.

This one’s about crocodiles.

First, let’s get some facts straight:

CROCODILE FACTS:

1. Crocodiles have very weak muscles for opening their mouth, so it can be held shut by duct tape.
2. They feed mostly on vertebrates like fish, reptiles, and mammals, sometimes on invertebrates like MOLLUSKS.
3. A crocodile’s tongue is held in place by a membrane that limits movement. As a result, crocodiles cannot stick out their tongue.
4. The average crocodile will completely consume any human that gets within 4 feet of its mouth.

Malygos eats squid, cannot stick out his tongue, and destroys anyone that comes anywhere near his head. So according to the above facts, Malygos is a crocodile. He ALSO lives in the Matrix, and Liquid Snake lives in his beard (confirmation ­here and here). If that isn’t the definition of a bad-ass raid boss, I don’t know what is. So here’s the killshot of that:



Ok, now imagine you just attempted to steal about $1500 worth of silk shirts from your favorite clothing store, by wearing all of them at once. A man at the door notices you walking out with about 17 popped collars, and gets the feeling that something is slightly out of place. Before you know it, you’re missing the raid because you’re in jail for the night. Your parents are NOT pleased, so they lock you in a closet without food or water. You raid from there, sure, but sometimes you see moving shadows beneath the door. It could be your mother. It could be a crocodile. It could be a crocodile HAVING SEX WITH your mother.

To tell the truth I’m not sure where that particular example is going, so let’s jump to something else.

To get the Undying title, you must essentially BECOME the crocodile. Going into it with the mindset of "we’re all going to play our best and get the title" is like a crocodile charging headlong at a herd of giraffes. Even if you know EXACTLY what you’re doing, the giraffes will just laugh and run away and stick out their tongues, and you can’t do the same in return.

Of course, you can also try to calculate probabilities and stack the group with only very specific individuals, using the sheer force of mathematics to your advantage and approaching the problem from an unexpected angle. But that’s essentially like a crocodile climbing a nearby palm tree with the intention of dropping down on the giraffes from above. Best case scenario is you somewhat injure the giraffe before hitting the ground and breaking most of your ribs, or at the very least becoming stunned. At which point a man will walk up to you and begin poking you with a stick and saying "crikey!" over and over before duct taping your mouth shut.

You see, to hunt such elusive prey you have to outsmart it. Like the wise crocodile, you must gently float along the surface of a river, pretending and FULLY BELIEVING that you are a harmless log. You quietly float up to your goal, maybe dodge a cinnamon pastry that was thrown at you by tourists, and get as close as possible to that baby giraffe on wobbly legs that is bending down to drink. Then, before anyone can react, you scream at Twillside to use bloodlust, pop all cooldowns, and grab the giraffe by the neck and do a running backflip cartwheel back into the water, surfacing for a split second only to tilt your head backwards for a lasting image of baby giraffe legs kicking that will hopefully soon appear on the Discovery channel.

I figured I’d add our Kil’jaeden "killshot" from a few months ago for the sake of completeness, since it was never posted before. Unfortunately a legendary bow didn’t drop, meaning that pictures of Despina in the shower that Kaz sent me are going to have to wait for a future update.

A few weeks ago some of us were at a bar, where some of us may or may not have drank Raspberry Cider to assert our manhood. The conversation turned from football and weight lifting to more manly things like "what Anubis looks for in girls", as salad was served and some of us ordered another round of Raspberry Cider with sugar. The commandments made by Anubis were written on the backs of three beer-stained coasters, which like the Mormon discs that Pezz prays to will soon start a powerful religion.

The point is, after that was done some others made similar discs. Bear’s list of what he looks for in girls began with "has a tail". This is similar to his approach to most things, like raid compositions and strategies. These tend to be better and more bulletproof than anything Bake is capable of, since they use principles and theories that are made up by Bear himself and do not actually exist.

Of course, it may be just me. As Bear himself often says, "I come from a world you may not understand".

Until next time.

So it’s been a few weeks since our last outing, and, the day we managed to marshal enough squid to form a raid we cleared the Dread Citadel:



I’m not going to post screenshots of all of the bosses, because quite honestly, they don’t deserve it. There’s a problem when it takes longer to explain a fight than to do it. There’s a problem when you not only 1-shot a boss with 25 people alive, but also manage to get an achievement you never knew existed. Even Thaddius, the biggest squid net in the instance, goes down within half an hour of attempts. Four Horsemen are simpler than Attumen the Huntsman, Sapphiron was done without people knowing what "frost resist" MEANS, and the mighty lich Kel’Thuzad would have died on the first attempt if I had been looking at void zones instead of attempting to cast vigilance on squid across the room.

But this front page update isn’t about Naxxramas.

It’s about a man named Loken.



Ah, Loken.  A hatsmith by trade. The last boss of Halls of Lightning, for those unaware. Danrax and his trusty companion Tom Brumbler have tracked this man across the millennia, battled him across worlds. Together they have succeeded where whole armies failed. Just ask Dan sometime when he’s been drinking. He’ll tell you a tale and show you the scars. He travels here and there they say, joining channels on vent silently when he senses a Loken encounter to be in progress. He listens, without saying anything, feeding on the tears and failure of squid, chuckling to himself as he pours another glass.

Let me explain to you how a typical encounter with this man goes.

You enter a large circular room with coffered ceilings. A giant model of the world spins in the center, glowing with light, as golems and constructs patrol about. At the far end of the chamber a set of stairs and a pulsing white line lead to a large rune-etched throne, on which sits a man made of stone. He idly taps his fingers as he waits, head leaning on one hand. When you approach, he laughs, and speaks of worlds which he has shattered, whole empires and civilizations of squid turned to ruin. Rising from the chair, he holds up one hand-

-and then you void your bowels, and realize, and unconsciously say out loud: "We’re all about to die".

And then, as you hesitantly charge to meet him, one of two things happens: either somebody stands too close when they shouldn’t be, or too far away when they should be humping his leg. THAT PERSON becomes a hat, instantly, hitting the ground faster than a holy priest in Primal Mooncloth healing during a pull. Or, in this new age of raiding, faster than Rooraman on the wrong side of Thaddius.

Ah yes, Rooraman. This post is about him too. A man that was once the most powerful warlock in the guild and probably the world, with a throne rivaling Loken’s. A man who has seen better days. Now he watches us fight the Lich King’s lieutenants, looking upwards from the ground, from the spot generally reserved for Nevvy in raids past. Due to a phenomenon described only as "affliction combos", and having to play from a laptop after his liquid cooling system "drooled", this man can be counted on to be dead every single time, on every single fight.

Well, some say, it’s not THAT bad. I mean, how many fights do we realistically go through with having all 25 people alive?

You don’t seem to understand. This man is GUARANTEED to be dead. "24-manning every encounter" does not even begin to describe it - this isn’t dying once per boss fight, this is dying multiple times PER TRASH PULL. Per pull of ONE MOB. If you were to count, I would not be at all surprised if the inhabitants of Naxx killed Roo 3 times for every one of them we killed. Everything you can possibly die to in that instance, this man has died to. Everything you CAN’T possibly die to, this man has found a way to die to. He dies outside of combat, he dies without taking damage, he dies to HEALING SPELLS, and attempts to resurrect him usually end up autoreleasing him and/or dropping him from the internet.

Back in Burning Crusade, in the days of SSC, we had a running joke about Bear dying 5 times in two Lurker attempts. That, I am sad to say, is nothing now. Now, we raid with 8 druids. EVERY ONE of those battle rezes is used on Roo, every fight. He is given more healers than the tanks, he is given a cane and a seeing-eye dog to guide him around and show him what is bad to stand in, and still, if I turn around for ONE SECOND, he trips and falls and lays waiting for a rez and a repair bot in a puddle of drool.

This man spaces out in the 3 seconds between a ready check and a pull, which conveniently places him in an alcove with a group of angry undead. Needless to say he gets torn into about 15 parts on the spot, and said undead, with pieces of Roo still in their teeth, proceed to wipe us on Kel’Thuzad before he is done making his intro speech. Note that unlike the drawn-out monologues of Kael and Illidan, his speech consists of "Minions, servants, soldiers of the cold dark- obey the call of Kel’Thuzad!".

I can’t even find a picture in my collection to describe the level of fail here. Here’s one anyway, though Roo hanging in power lines I’d consider a great success compared to some of the things I’ve seen this man do.



Up next is a powerful dragon man with a beard, who might take a staggering FOUR attempts to kill, making him the hardest boss in the game by far. Stay tuned. I for one can hardly contain the excitement.

Patch 3.0.2 came out 2 weeks ago, and introduced some buffs to all of the classes. Then, since clearly this could make some of the current raid encounters HARDER in ways that only Blizzard understands, every boss and trash mob in the game was nerfed by about 30%.

And that led to this:



Let me tell you a story about a man named Danrax. Dan wakes up at 6 a.m. every day, puts on a dry-cleaned suit, his best shoes, and grabs his hat and suitcase full of pictures of cats. He goes to his local McDonald’s, orders a cup of coffee, and sits back to read a newspaper. He then goes home and plays Warhammer Online. This daily ritual is known as "pretending to go to work", or as he puts it, "practicing for when I have a job".

So basically, at this point our "accomplishment" is about as real as the job that Dan pretends to go to every day. Most guilds have been working to clear these bosses since January, and here we are spending one laid-back night learning each. More often than not with about 22 people in the raid. Sure, it LOOKS like the real thing, the bosses SOUND convincing when they tell us that the world will burn and we’re about to be turned inside out and wear our asses as hats, but in reality we’re in the Special Olympics right now. It reminds me of the track and field events they had for the handicapped kids back in elementary school:



That’s us right now. Sure, within a week we’ll have the "Kill Kil’jaeden" achievement, and with time nobody is going to remember patch 3.0.2, but somehow it’s still not the same.

Speaking of achievements, the Adventure Seekers club has also been busy. The standard procedure for most weekends involves consuming all alcohol in sight and boldly venturing into the forgotten dungeons of the the pre-BC era. Some of us remember these places. Some of remember the weeks of Vaelastrasz, which turned powerful guilds into whimpering squid. Those to quit the game first were the lucky. Some go mad and begin yelling unintelligibly when they see the steps leading up to the Suppression Room. Others see the glowing square of light in C’thun’s hallway or the ground moving as Ouro is about to surface, and run for their mothers and teddy bears.



Fifteen drooling drunks can now beat difficult bosses that broke guilds and destroyed lives two years ago. In a few hours we can easily do fights that took organized teams of 40 people weeks to learn and months to perfect. And pretty soon, Illidan and Kil’jaeden will be about as difficult. Though to be fair, for that C’thun kill we had to use the Cock Phone to contact Dr. Conq, who arrived at the raid with pretty much every squid in Shattrath at his back. Most of whom got lost on the way to the boss despite being given PAINFULLY clear instructions and were subsequently eaten by beetle-people.

Even now it’s starting, Black Temple and most of Sunwell is a joke. I remember the glorious days of SSC and Vashj, where legendary bows were whispered myths and those that fucked up were dealt with strictly and quickly removed:



Back then there was a long road ahead, content was hard and conversations in vent were highly intelligent. Now we raid from a channel called "The Gay Fort", and a typical conversation looks somewhat like this:

"So a few nights ago, when we were in AQ, my girlfriend went outside and returned with her back all wet."

"Was it raining? Or do you have a pool or anything?"

"No. I think that maybe someone jumped out of a tree and peed on her."

Because, that’s DEFINITELY the first explanation I would come up with, sober or otherwise. In fact, it’s a pretty common occurrence believe it or not. Often I go out for a walk, minding my own business, and a man leaps out of a tree, urinates onto me, and then vanishes. I can definitely relate. I don’t know what you’d have to be like in real life to come up with things like this, but I predict you would look something like this:



Until next time, which will likely be the last update before the expansion, where we will look back before continuing forward.

I remember the first time we attempted Kalecgos - 10 minutes until trash respawns, and when a portal appeared, it was like squid swarming around a feed bag, flailing at it with their soft jelly-like bodies trying vainly to get in.

­

But he’­s dead, finally. And of course the actual boss flies away, and instead that demon comes out and leaves behind what appear­s to be a shiny lump of toasted feces. Well, at least our positioning in­ the killshot is much better than usual, so we might be onto something here. And w­hile the lack of a proper boss corpse is somewhat disheartening, the feeling of actually beating a difficult encounter is exhilarating. No matter what differences and personal issues we have with each other, no matter what kind of drama clusterfucks people start on the long wipe nights, when that boss goes down we ALL briefly turn into squealing 12-year-old girls in gymnastics uniforms and jump on each other and make out.

­
­
Ahem.

So now that we have that out of the way, on to more important things: for instance, finding out which way the guild "dresses to", left or right.

Not sure what I’m talking about? You’re not the only one!



From the data we managed to collect from last week’s raid, it would seem that most of the guild dresses to the left. Either that, or they’re saying it just to be cool and fit in with everyone. Which incidentally is exactly what happened when the topic of circumcision was brought up some months ago.

I think we’re going to need to make this an interview question or something.

By the encouragement of several members of Group 1, I have extended this informal study beyond the guild, in the name of science. Doing an unofficial survey at work and amongst the people on my AIM and Facebook friend lists, I’ve found 1 guy and 2 girls that dress to the RIGHT.

"What Mister Kain?"

"How can girls "dress" like that?"

Behold:



That’s taking things a little far, sure. You figure nobody would EVER fall for that. But then again you also figure that the first instinct most people would have when they see fire, for instance, is to not stand in it. Nope. Not here. Here the neon glow of the flames attracts squid like the fluorescent lights in the twilight pools where they feed, and they tumble over each other in a mess of ink and drool trying to be the first in the fray. Or, in this case, the trap.

Which is what happened the LAST time I posted traps on the front page.

"Wow Kain, that girl in the news post is hot! Although I don’t really get the joke…"
"Dude, are you retarded? It’s a man."
"What the fuck, no it’s not!"
"Look closely. That’s not a fold, it’s a penis."
"Oh shi-"

At this point realization seeps in, and though we haven’t lost anyone to this yet, their lives will likely never be the same again.

You have to remember also that our raiders essentially look something like this:

­

One-legged stream hoppers, rat goblins, a goat man that eats paint chips, and some sort of swamp toad that looks suspiciously like an unholy merger of Kazajin, Illside, and an aborted duck fetus.

But it’s ok. We have a foothold in Sunwell, and have proven to ourselves that we can work together and overcome challenges that require moderate coordination. Next is Brutallus, as Dan put it, "that guy that makes hats out of people".