There's things that impress me in this world. One of those things is how marshmallows can't be singly eaten. Another is the human spirit.

Third is our raid team. 

Our Yogg-Saron defeat came in no more than a couple raiding days, and schoolgirls everywhere sighed in relief. Our victory relied heavily on ancient Ulduar secrets such as "PRESS TEH BUTTAN HARDUR" and "healers staying alive." When it was all said and done, we felt a little wilder, a little more insane. (Well, except Nellenya, she's already titularly Insane.)

 
It's crazy to me that this last boss is palpably a new beginning to the instance, one of hardmodes and one hour spawn bosses that could decide the fate of our universe. So while Yogg Saron's door has closed, a window opened... uh...somewhere. I've never been good with stuff like this.  Either way, we were not content to just rest on our laurels and get drunk like other guilds after a finishing boss kill. What did we do? We partied with some iron dwarves and did Iron Council medium-mode:

Yogg-Saron being defeated means that now we here at Fordragon's Reprise are looking towards hard-modes. Good thing there's so MANY of them! Much in the spirit of our aggressive train-wreckers, we demolished Flame Leviathan with two towers:

How long have we all known one another?

I don't have an actual answer because if it really was a concern to know I'd go back and research the date.  But it's something insane like 4 years, going on 5.

Stop and think about that a moment.  That's older than my kids!

It's been a wild, amazing time and hopefully fun.  We've had some amazing people among our ranks and even more with us now, and even those that come o join us every week.  We've lost some, either to life and other more dire things, and all of them have had one thing in common - we're all friends.  It's pretty cool to stop and think about it.  We spent hours each night hanging out, playing and talking to people we may never see, have seen only once or twice, or included our friends and family in this whole crazy affair. Fortunately, to see us through we all have our dong jokes.

I'm getting chatty, I know.  But we've come a long way and the game has advanced in many ways as well.  Fordragon's is going strong and Ais will be posting screenshots of our recent accomplishments soon, and Crusade is really starting to come into their own.  They too should be posting a slew of screenshots soon.

We're more than just raiding.  PVP, roleplay, even just grouping and doing dailies.  it's good to be a part of you guys.

Finally, just want to leave you all with something that I think sums us up rather well:

http://www.wegame.com/watch/GoG_vs_Kaelthas/

My sincerest apologies for not posting sooner, faithful readers.

Fordragon's Reprise has been moving ever upwards in their quest to be molested by a tentacle monster. 

Mimiron proved to be a difficult challenge, due to rockets and insane healing demands, but with a little experimentation, I believe we all came out the better for it.

Marsau, don't worry. We'll let you get a lick or two in on God sooner or later.

Never thought i'd fly Stormcrow
He wears bright white billowy robes
Hey, Sauron, look at meeeeee whoa-a-whoa-a-whoa

Never thought I'd see the day
When I'd be flying on Gandalf the Grey
And believe me when I saaaay
I had a hobbit three-way!

-Corusis, Dwarven poet

Fordragon's Reprise has been slowly winning the Titan Keepers to our side. Putting points in Diplomacy helps.

On Sunday, we finally harnessed the power of mojo and mastered the arena/tunnel dance and downed Thorim.

Fordragon's Reprise has continued their streak this reset of punching very large giants in the goolies.

 The Council of Iron was our first stop and after figuring out the whole "this circle is good, this circle is bad" thing and eventually getting my butt off the floor from being dead, we downed the bug dwarven trio! Proper respect goes to Adrine for having a dual-spec that includes 4 interrupts.

We found a really awesome backroom that will unveil more secrets of Ulduar as we progress further into the dungeon. Notice our stellar campfire positioning. We were really psyched to start Hodir, obviously.

After that, we did our second bout with Kologarn. This was not noteworthy with the exception of our very first [Fragment of Val'anyr]! The decision to give the shards and eventual mace was a raid-wide decision but ultimately rested on our healers. Thusly, with much gnashing and flailing and self-flagellation, Gradar dutifully accepted the first of many shards that will ultimately give him a bigger ego mace.

A good portion of our time on Sunday was spent just figuring out the pull to the next boss, Auriaya. I suspect someone in the dungeon design department of Blizzard has a fetish or perhaps loathing of team-building exercises ('99) and therefore wanted us to down the boss only using immolation trap, our wits and some pipe cleaners. Thankfully, we all managed to learn to trust eachother, get line of sight and downed Auriaya. She doesn't shave, by the way, as Nellenya found out.

Yet another screenshot where the boss isn't even in the picture. No one's going to believe us now, guys.

Grats to Adrine and Fellina for our first raid tier 8 chestpieces!

It's the only way to be sure!

Tonight we accomplished something great. You might call them "hard modes" but we here at Fordragon's Reprise like to call them, "slightly difficult modes". Ulduar has many of these "ascending implausibility" modes and we shall conquer them one by one.

Flame Leviathan in particular has four - each corresponding to how many towers are left standing before engaging the boss. Ultimately we had to dissuade Weazey from his obsession with leaving the four tall, Titan-sized, rock hard...structures all upright and in the end, three were left flaccid. Interrupting flame jets was perilious but we succeded!

 And so we have an excuse for another screenshot. EXPECT MORE!

Also, XT-002 trash can suck a fat one!

Our second night in Ulduar was full of swift vengence, particularly towards Ignis, considered one of the harder bosses pre-hard modes for some. We went in and put the old Fordragon's Reprise try into it and successfully got him down. However, we still wipe on his trash. Go figure.

SUPERHEATED WINDS THIS, BLIZZARD. 

Due to server instability from patch 3.1, Fordragon's Reprise had to contend with two additional, previously fought bosses from beta - Blue Bar Boss and World Server Down Boss. Thankfully, both these were conquered. Even though we got a late start to Ulduar raiding (starting Sunday, April 19th), we got off on the right foot as fast as we could hope for. 3 bosses down the first night of raiding in the newest end-game instance, that's definitely a hat trick!

Flame Leviathan was far too demolished to snap a picture, but Razorscale and XT-002 did much better at letting us pose on their dead bodies.

Last night, Fordragon's Reprise made a stunning if not accidental victory against Sartharion and his three drakes. Excellent teamwork was had, coordination was fierce and Kerena was actually heard talking on Vent.

Amnarak, one of our hunters, was awarded our first Twilight Drake, but only because Lysala didn't have enough DKP.

Good job, everyone, and now that we've beaten the game, we'll see you in Ulduar/3.1!

The New year is breaking on the East Coast and it's the time for reminscing all the things past and ruminating on what is yet to come.

GoG has been through a lot and have been together through it all - deaths, births, marriages and Kallindril finally succumbing to moisture.

I know that we're looking forward to the new year with vigor and the prospect of exciting AND challenging raid content for both raid teams.

Just remember that the best time to live in is the now. The moment. After all is said and done, is it only what we have right now that is the most important: our friends, our health and our families.

Or else you will be dropped into the ocean and fingered to death.

Happy New Years, Guild of Guilds.

So, it is xpac time and like a month old.  By now many people are 80 and many more working towards it.  The new year will be upon us soon and once more we'll be engulfed in raiding and PVP as well as a multitude of other things.  Lots has changed in the game and likely much more will still change yet again.

We have the holidays to get through and the New Year.  It's a rough time in the world right now, but we as the Gog can do what we do best, and that's to do our best by each other. So, best wishes my family-that's-not-actually-my-family and may things be bright for everyone, no matter what you believe or celebrate.

I have a feeling I am going to mess up this image thing.  However, int he hopes that it works. . .

bane of the Betrayer has had a long, long, long, long, long (you get the idea) road that it traveled down.  Monday, November 3rd, it lived up to its name and Baned the Betrayer like they had long sought to do.  Illidan is now dead, and congrats to all that did it, both those that were there and all those that labored hard along the way to get the raid to that point.

Congrats also to Vizier on his sexy offhand, a warglaive!

I know some may think that with the 3.0.2 nerfwave to BC raid health that the road was paved for Bane.  But in a true testiment about how seriously badass the raid is, they basically came in on their day off to achieve this.  Roster changes, some unfortunate spouts of drama, and all kinds of other challenges, the folks in the Bane have fought uphill against more than their fair share of hard knocks.  In the end, well, there was nothing but victory to be had because it was so well deserved.

Now, the raid is apt to change to meet the challenges ahead for Wrath, and how will depend on those in it.  It's taken some time to come together, but that only means the raid has that much of a stronger, unified base to head into the expansion with.

So, again, congrats Bane.  Well deserved, I dare say.