SPG: Raiding is gud.

SPG: Wrathing is Gud

December 24, 2008 | Category: Announcements | Posted By: Quetzal

So the expansion’s been out for close to a month and a half now, and while I’ve fully intended to write something new for the frontpage here, I guess I just kept waiting for any single accomplishment to feel as though it warranted an update. However, as everything short of Hard Mode Sarth dies repeatedly and the people around me urge with decreasing gentleness and increasing threat of violence to UPDATE THE DAMNED FRONTPAGE YOU LAZY ASS I’ve begun to realize that perhaps it’s time to quit waiting and just vomit my brain at the interweb.

So what’s new? Well close followers of SPG news will recall that we trimmed our roster near the end of TBC so we could shift focus to 10 man’s in WotLK. It turned out that 10-manning was not nearly as satisfying a challenge as we anticipated, with Naxx clear after our first two nights poking around in there, Sarth dead after a handful of attempts, and Malygos dead the second raid in there. Here we were expecting to really have a chance to hone and show our skills as a small team, and we just asploded it all with the first handful of people to hit 80.

Not unreasonably, we decided to go ahead and do 25’s after all. So we recleared 10’s and started killing Sarth with different drakes up while everyone else got to 80, picked up a couple of old faces from back in the day, and scheduled our first 25 raids. Disappointingly, Naxx cleared in two nights, Sarth died after a handful of attempts, and Malygos was dead the second raid in there.

So here we are with all the current raid instances clear, having to cancel raids with an already short 3-day raid week because everything dies too quickly, with only Hard Mode Sarth to hold our interest, and even that promises to be taken care of without an overabundance of pomp. All the reps available are laughably easy to get exalted with quickly, the Heroic achievements (with the exception of Gotta Go!, hello gatekeeper achievement) require very little work, and emblems of Heroism and, to a certain extent, Valor, are quickly becoming little more than alternate currency for Season 5 gear.

This is not to say there’s nothing to do! Wintergrasp has breathed some real life back into pvp and, in particular, community-oriented pvp that many of us remember and pine for from back before cross-server BG’s. The 5-man’s are really fun and well-designed, far more so than anything we saw in TBC- I am, in fact, reminded of my first time through the Blackrock instances. Delicious scripting, fun and extremely varied encounters, a wide array of formats and formulae that keep even sprees of Heroics from feeling repetitive. Those emblems might not be worth a whole lot anymore, but the dungeons themselves remain a blast. Perhaps more importantly, the story behind the quests and dungeons and dailies and raids here in Northrend are so much more developed, so much more intelligently presented than in TBC, that even going to unfinished zones to finish up quests feels like an epic adventure. When I myself went and did the entirety of Storm Peaks at 80, I was so wrapped up in the various stories playing out and questions being answered that I didn’t even notice how many quests I had done until the achievement for the zone popped up.

Wrath is really fun, and remains fun. By this time in TBC I was bored (not to mention spending most of my time dealing with Karazhan-related drama), and that just isn’t happening this time around. But alas, we are a raiding guild, and raiding is really what we love to do. The ease and speed with which we’ve cleared the instances available leaves us hungry for a challenge, and even Hard Mode Sarth at this point is just practice and execution. It’s satisfying that for the first time in our raiding career we’re clearing all available content in two raids, making even our 3-day raiding schedule excessively liberal, but it’s nothing compared to the satisfaction of meeting and mastering new encounters.

[SPG]: WTB 3.1 and real raiding, PST.

For now we’ll keep clearing raids and racking up raid achievements, start getting those red proto-drakes pretty soon here, take out Sarth+3, and just keep on being undermanned and overpowered whenever an opportunity presents itself.

Before you get all mad in the pants, I just spent the last three weeks on a laptop and don’t have a bunch of screenshots with quotes. If you have some you want on here, then ffs get off your ass and give them to me, you lazy fucks. I do, however, have one gem that I think we can all enjoy.

Also, we’re still willing to be persuaded to recruit people who are gudatvideogames. In the event that that’s you, that forums link at the top of the page will take you somewhere where you can find our recruitment forum, in which you’ll find our app. Best of luck, don’t be an idiot.

In fact, that’s as good a closer as any. Let’s keep it!

Best of luck, don’t be an idiot -

Love, SPG.

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One Wishes To Throw Bricks At The Temple…

September 11, 2008 | Category: Progression | Posted By: Quetzal

…but finds that Black Temple is clear! Raiders and Stephen Crane fans alike rejoice today to news that SPG’s Monday night sortie into Black Temple ended in victory as at-large half-demon nutjob Illidan Stormrage was force-fed the Pwn Rod. Made to feast upon the Jerky of Discontent. Cordially invited to an ice cream social at which the only chaperones were to be Defeat and Despair.

But don’t take my word for it. Put this in your pudding and smoke it (…wut?):

Remind you of anything?

Yikes, this seems to happen to you a lot, there, slugger.

Now I like to think that all of our victories are important, but never before has a single monstar kill garnered so much recognition from our community. No, I don’t mean the WoW community, they don’t care. I mean our community. Our sort of people. You know what I mean. Like these folks, who took the time to drop by and say “grats!” Even Bootsy!

Longtime readers will recall that at one point in our raiding career, we unwittingly attracted the attentions of the United Federation of Planets. Though the situation was tense and awkward at the time (for everyone except Slayth, whose picture of Scott Bacula in his underoo’s was in fact used for the occasion) the Federation has sought us out once again, and this time Scott was nowhere to be found (neither was Slayth, now that I think of it…):

Thanks, Jean-Luc! Now you’re definitely our favorite Enterprise captain!

As long as we’re on the subject of delicious miniature cakes with candles in them (and when aren’t we? Metaphysically, I mean.) an auspicious occasion happens to coincide with our newest and most profound victory: Neke had a birthday! She’s now some age or another, I forget. Happy Birthday Neke! You know what… yeah, go ahead and eat that cupcake on Jean-Luc’s shoulder. It’s all yours. Just go ahead and kinda… just pluck it off there with your teeth. Don’t mind him, he’s getting something out of this too, just try not to make eye contact.

Oops. Er, in other news…

The obvious. 3.0 isn’t even on the PTR yet, but it was nonetheless harrowing to be on the cusp of clearing Black Temple with the threat of a game-altering patch looming just over our collective shoulder, with an expansion soon to follow. For the past few weeks it’s been our primary focus to down Mr. Elastic Moral Logic Stormrage before the expansion (or equivalent game alteration) sows fevered dreams of “I think I’ll take a break from raiding until 80″ amidst our ranks. And now that we have a little wiggle room (hi Anal) before this happens, we find we now have the luxury of setting our sights elsewhere: Sunwell! How far can we get before raiding goes into hibernation? Well I’m pleased to say that we’re going to find out!

Those who actually read these blocks of text and don’t just skip to the quotes at the end (gutless plebian wastrels the whole lot) will be familiar with my personal belief that Sunwell, despite dropping T6 armor, is at the very least an extra half-tier above Hyjal and BT. Anyone who disagrees: a raid can kill Kael’Thas and immediately go down Rage/Anetheron and Naj’entus/Supremus, no problem. Kalecgos/Brutallus? Unless you’re already in T6, you’re farming trash with delusions of grandeur. If you’ll agree that any new tier of content is at the very least half-clearable outfitted entirely in the previous tier of gear and with the previous tier’s experience, then clearly Sunwell falls into place not just above SSC and TK, but above Hyjal and BT. And if you still don’t agree:

Therefore, I officially declare: TIER 6 CLEAR!

Much to our chagrin, we ended Vanilla WoW with 6 monstars un-de-monstared in Naxx. Given that there are 6 total encounters in Sunwell, I suppose we can’t now do any worse than last time, but I’d be disappointed if we didn’t do just a little bit better.

Something I haven’t really covered before is that in the past several months, a few of our officers have become total pussies who have retired from monstar killing (but I wouldn’t waste my money betting on them staying away for good), leading to a couple of promotions. Though old news for everyone in the guild, these unwitting boobs we’ve shamelessly duped into this exhausting, thankless job are none other than Slayth and Helliax! I mention this because both of them signed on with bright-eyed optimism and a conviction that they were going to make a difference, be glimmering beacons of calm-mannered patience and warm support. And now…

They grow up so fast. *sniff*

Illidan is dead, Maiev feels like crap, and SPG is great. Onward we venture to the third of only four raid boss encounter dragons in all of TBC, our eyes dewy with hope and our pockets stuffed to brimming with dreams. Well, thanks a lot for reading. Until next ti-

WHY YOU NEED SPECIAL NEEDS YOU FAGFUCKINGBUTTPLUGGINGBALLSUCKINGDIPSHITTINGPIECE…

Aherm… yes, quotes. Of course, massa. Any way you please, massa.

Wacky fun. Har har har!

Well that about wraps it up I think. It’s been lots of fun and with any lu-

STUNNING DEVELOPMENT

Unfortunately, I’ve just been informed that diplomatic relations between SPG and the United Federation of Planets has been severed entirely. It seems Jean-Luc was poking around and ran into Slayth…

In the end, I think Slayth was the one who ended up poking around.

Okay, third time’s a charm:

I think that about does it for news this time around. Stay tuned though, because I’m reasonably confident I’ll have more to report before we all make the big move to Northrend, and you wouldn’t want to miss another one of these, amirite? Yeah, I’m right.

Take it deep.

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Quarrelsome Quartet Quaffs, Quashed

August 1, 2008 | Category: Progression | Posted By: Quetzal

Our quixotic quest to quiet the unquestionably quotidian qualms of this quatern quango quaking querulously of quaestoric quibbles now qualifies as quite a quelling! Quit to quietus, quivering quokkas!

Since the encounter seems specifically designed to make getting a good killshot impossible, I made this diagram to demonstrate how the shiz went down:

As anyone who was there can tell you, it was just like that.

“Q, what are the implications of this victory?”

Well jeez, that’s a really good question, actually! I mean I was just going to go off on a meandering rant with the vague appearance of subtle insight and then throw up a couple of shopped pictures to distract from my lack of anything substantial to say, but yeah maybe I’ll just address this remarkably pertinent question instead!

Well first, it means that we’ve learned how to maintain a relative degree of focus for about ten minutes straight, which, you know, better late than never. It also means that 4pc T6 is now available, which I know for me personally is very exciting. But arguably most importantly, it means we’re just one little kill, just one more encounter away from clearing BT and tucking T6 content under our belt! (Honestly, I know what drops there, but SW25 is 6.5 in my book. No way is it on par with BT and MH the way BT and MH are with each other.) All that remains is to tackle this fellow:

Of course it turns out that when we decided to take a first stab at him and try a couple attempts at the end of the night after the Council kill we were, ironically, not entirely prepared. In the back of our minds we all knew that our pet bears needed Fire Resist gear, but we all sort of figured that problem would work itself out. So while mastering Phase 1 took all of 1 attempt, our work on Phase 2 was cut tragically short by our tanks getting hit for 41k fire damage. C’est la vie.

Hilarious Reliquary wipes notwithstanding, the rest of BT is pretty well down now, so with a little luck and a little pluck (and sometimes a visit from our furry friend Puck), we should be getting ample time to work on Mr. Stormrage over the next few weeks. So far it seems relatively straightforward, but we’ll see how the raid healing situation looks once we start playing with Phases 3, 4, and 5. Either way, I’m expecting to make a big half-demon-shaped notch on the ol’ bedpost well before we see 3.0 drop!

Yes, having tiny genitals will do that to you. Alas, I am nothing if not a crowd pleaser, regardless of said crowd’s sexual potency or lack thereof.

So the count is 5/5 and 8/9, and prospects look good for having plenty of time to deal with the Big Man. I’m guessing you’ll be hearing from me again soon, and that’s going to be an exciting day for a whole lot of people.

Finally, I leave you with a steamy and candid shot of Ane as a gnome. Come, let’s skirt the line between enjoyment of cuteness and mild pedophelia together!