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.

First of all, congradulations to everyone, we beat the game!  We made WR at the very start of TBC and it has been better than any of us could have imagined.  Every single raid boss has died to our hands, and we quickly rose from being just another pug to the 2nd most powerful raid group on CC.  It was a long ride, and I would not have wanted to do it with any other group.  We had lots of good friends quit along the way, and gained lots more.  I could try and go through listing all of the amazing memories, but I'd much rather have you guys post your favorites.  Was it beating Kael in just a matter of days, or were you a sadist that loved Archimonde?  Fellina and the meteor trinket?  Or maybe something I can't even think of.

And it's all of you guys that made this possible.

Gruul the Dragonslayer -  March 25th

Magtheridon - June 18th

Lady Vashj - August 20th

Kael'thas Sunstrider - October 14th

Archimonde - December 17th

Illidan Stormrage -  March 16th

Kil'jaeden - October  26th

Now  one year and eight months after we started, we prepare to show Northrend who we are.  Arthas start getting ready, we're coming.  

A hero is nothing, if not but for his or her weapon. And weapons of legend, my friend, are created. And so it is with great honor and esteem that we deem Wraithedge worthy of the Twin Blades of Azzinoth that he has so richly earned. Neither blood, nor sweat, nor tears, and certainly not wipes on shears could stop this ineffable rogue from completing his mission to loo--- I mean CRAFT! - Illid-- uh, his own glaives.

We doff our hats, ol-- young Wraithedge. We commend thee.

PUT BEAST STRIKING ON THOSE SUCKAS!

Right, Adrine?

Yorex: "I can't be the only person who's seen porn that has a guy with more than one dick."

....

Cause he is leaving.

We've got a huge backlog of newsposts to get through. Some got lost in the great website rollback of 2008, and others were never posted since images were broken. Images are still broken, or I'm too stupid to make them work so in the meantime, handy dandy links!

In Warden's Reprise news, we've been steadily pushing into the Sunwell Plateau. Kalecgos was defeated sometime like in May or something like that. He was a big jerk, but our strategy of creative naming led Team Doth, Fat Angry Tree, Chalupagorditatacoburrito, and Magical Carebears to a spectacular victory!

On June 22nd, Warden's Reprise gleefully defeated GenericPitLordModel2, aka Brutallus. Congratulations on making the DPS check!

Bane of the Betrayer has been on an epic killing spree in the last months, taking out High Astromancer Solarian, Hydross, The Lurker Below, Leotheras, Fathomlord Karathress, and Morogrim Tidewalker. Mclintock, Bane's fearless leader, had this to say:

"As leader I am glad to see us succeed though hard fought efforts of everyone. Some people where introduced to new roles, some people made leaps on there original roles. All in all we had a great effort. A special thanks goes to the WR members and Bushidox who helped with the kills. It's been more than I could ever ask for."

Also on June 22, the members of Bane of the Betrayer, Warden's Reprise, and others from the GoG joined forced for Team Building Exercise '99. It was a great success with almost a full 40 people showing up to tackle AQ40. At the end, C'thun lay dead which was a GoG first and a personal goal of many of us who never got the opportunity to beat him at 60. Thanks so much to everyone who came out!

Several of our members have also had a busy couple of months in their personal lives. Congratulations to Enny and Kronen who recently tied the knot. We also wish the best of luck to Adrine and McKinsey who are expecting their first baby, Barrel and his wife who are expecting their first, and Gradar and Azsharlis who are expecting their second!

Our new raiding team, Bane of the Betrayer has been making waves of their own.

Led by the brave and ruggedly good looking Yenom, the team has scored wins in Serpenshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep. A few moons ago there was some controversy over who the team mascot would be and through some underhanded moves Warden's Reprise stole our Golijov. Little did Warden's know, Bane would secure a new member that idealizes the excellence? What? and amusement of Bane: Jekab!

That's right. A....Retribution....Paladin...ummm...

Screw you guys.

Now accepting donations for the mascot uniform: a unicorn with rainbows shooting out the ass.

The power is undeniable.

We couldn't figure it out - we had been wiping, little things going wrong that turned into big things going wrong, people panicking, bad luck. All of it combining to thwart our attempts to defeat Illidan time and time again.

Then Fellina equipped... THE trinket.

He died that go, and it wasn't even close. I swear to God, this is a true "I win" trinket. When we go into Sunwell, we'll be through it in about 10 minutes, tops.

Congratulations to Fellina on Shroud of Absolution, Gradar on Lightbringer Chestpiece, Amnarak on Black Bow of the Betrayer, and Garainla on Zhar'doom, Greatstaff of the Devourer.

I want to give a special congratulations to Shyeera and Nellenya, who took up one of the most difficult jobs in the game: tanking the Flames of Azzinoth. Having to deal with that amount of pressure and wiping the raid repeatedly as you learn how to handle it is not for the faint of heart, and I appreciate both of you sticking with it.

A while ago, I wrote that one of the goals that I had was to defeat Illidan before the Sunwell dropped in patch 2.4. We've accomplished that, but a lot closer to the release of patch 2.4 than we wanted. The last few weeks have basically been a whirlwind for us - after canceling our raids a few weeks ago, many of our membership were in California the week after, attending Greg's service. Killing Illidan was pretty much the last thing on anyone's mind.

But this game, no matter how silly and trite it can be, no matter how frustrating, can also be a place to laugh and relax; a place to get your mind off of things, no matter how painful they may be. For years, I've been telling anyone who would listen that it's not the gear, it's not the bosses, it's not the gameplay that keeps people logging onto to a game like this - it's the people you play with.

It's the Canadian who finally spoke on vent after we killed Kael.
It's the psuedo-Canadian who passes on everything so other people could have gear.
It's the mod author who designed the most-used threat mod in WoW and still pulls aggro off the MT.
It's the gnome with a twelve second cast time on ice block.
It's the quiet warlock who causes us to wipe multiple times when he's not there, because we're just so used to him doing what needed doing.
It's the kindest, gentlest person you can imagine, until she tells you to stop fucking sucking.
It's the man who would wander off the highest places you could find.
And it's those people who gathered in a circle one night to reminsce and honor that man.

I'm not going to make some silly comment because of this kill like "If Gregil were here, he'd be proud of us." First, it's a kill, it's an accomplishment, but it's a computer game boss dying. There are far better ways to honor his memory. But the real reason I wouldn't make that comment is that it's just not true. If Greg was here, he'd say something like "What took you dipshits so long?" If he was still awake in his chair. Which he likely wouldn't be.

Instead, what I take, and what I hope everybody takes from this kill isn't some sort of honor'ing of our friend, or even how leet we are(which is pretty damn leet). It's how so much of this raid has stayed the same over the years, the friendships that we've created during this time, how so many of us have moved from content tier to content tier together, always wiping and screwing up and rezzing and wiping and rezzing some more. It's how we've met new people and they've become our friends, becoming part of our joyous cycle of screwing up and wiping in new and horrible ways. God, do we get frustrated sometimes, but it always seems to turn out okay(even if it's Archimonde). Forgive me for getting sentimental, but we've created something special here, and it won't matter if we're the first to kill Kil'jaeden or the last. It's the people I play with that will keep me coming back. It's people like Gregil.

That's the best way I can think to honor him. Not by killing a boss, but by relating why this is so important to me. I hope it's important to you.

Congratulations, everybody. See you in Sunwell.

I'm a bit late in posting this, but in honor of Greg, his father has established the Gerg Foundation.

I established “The Gerg Foundation” yesterday. It will be providing
scholarships to computer science students at Westmont [the college in Santa Barbara, CA that Gerg attended].

I’m requesting contributions to the foundation in lieu of flowers.

While the flowers are always beautiful, they are as fleeting as Greg’s life was.
I’d like to have something more lasting and I think Greg would have liked the opportunity to help other students.

If you could post something where his friends could see it regarding this I would be very grateful.

 

If you'd like to donate in Greg's honor, you can visit the Gerg Foundation website.

They've also posted a lot of pictures from Greg's life and from his service. We had a lot of GoG'ers present there, and all of us were there in spirit.

Last night, we found out we lost our friend, Greg Gilbert, known to all of us as Gregil.

Somebody called him the rock of the GoG last night, and it's the best way I can think of to describe him. For as long as I've played this game, over two years now, Greg has been a part of it. He was the leader of one of our member guilds, Alligare. This website was created by him, the domain paid for by him(along with the 36 other domain names he owned). He's been a part of every single step of our progression through WoW, starting with Onyxia so long ago all the way to our first attempts on Illidan just a few days ago. He was a key part in everything we've done in this game.

But it wasn't what he had done in WoW that inspired dozens of us to meet last night in game to sit down and reminisce about Greg. It was the good times we had with him both in and out of game. It was the kind of person he was, the way he was friendly with so many different types of people, how he could be bitingly sarcastic and often hilarious, how he improved the lives of everybody around him. It's a testament to him and his memory that the gathering only seemed to get bigger as it went on last night; that he could call people from all walks of life and from all around the world friends, and that they all came out to honor him the best way we knew how - getting drunk and falling off something high.

Hey, he was the only person I knew who had an alt dedicated entirely to storing alcohol.

Greg Gilbert was far, far too young and I'm going to miss him terribly. We're all going to miss him terribly.

HWAH

Oh yeah, after a grueling four hour long battle with the Illidari Council(Marlon, Jackie, Jermaine and Tito), we got to meet Michael himself. He's much more of a whiny little emo kid in person.

Anyway, the Council sucked so much that we decided to take a killshot picture with Illidan, because he's actually important. FLYING V, ACTIVATE!

We finally got to devote some real solid time on them - we filled out some roster spots and got to spend some quality time in SSC and TK as a result, reacquainting ourselves with our old friends Vashj and Kael, but unfortunately at the expense of the new crew we've been hanging out with. We'll make it up to them, believe you me.

Congratulations to Cinara on Helm of the Illidari Shatterer, and to Adrine and Golijov on Slayer's Legguards!

Onwards towards beating the game! At least until 2.4 gets off PTR!

You're all probably wondering why we haven't had any new boss kills lately. Part of this can be blamed on our ordinarily hilarious news-master. He's been getting a bit lazy and never posted that we killed both Reliquery of Souls and Mama Shaz. Other than that we've been on a short break. Good times are had by most at our raids, but raiding constantly can still be tiring work. Just look at this poor guy, he's all raided out!

Don't fear though, we'll be back. Just as soon as our leet healing squad catches their breath, our tanks recover from their concussions, and our DPS refill their sippy birds.