Meya with her new Mirage Star!

With the excitement of Fan Faire on the forefront of every ones mind and most of the raid consisting of alts  it took a little more coordinating than usual BUT we got’r done Grats Cheesecake (Seeb) on your update as well, he received Gorynn’s Fist ! After Silverwing we hit up Phara for some Ranger updates Grats Keerian and Kenshu VP wrapped up rather quickly leaving us a bit of time to still smoosh some stuff so we decided to hit up Tombs for some more loots! Seeb beat out Sass on Captains Moldering Flesh Cord , Grats Zook! We dropped Thet and called it a night as ONE person still had some packing to do /grins at Wolf Talk about waiting until the last minute!!

First on the agenda Protectors Realm! PR is always good to us, it brings us some decent plats and usually a mana or two! PR was the usual crew cept Tarsir tanked and Cheesecake was by his lonesome in G2!  We muted damn near everything we got  2 manas and some reality of course haha! I got me an Assassin master and Cast got a Defiler master for Boner! Lucky bastard not even online and getting loots, I guess knowing Castillion since the stone age has its perks Not sure we are gonna sell the mana’s with all the alts getting myths we’re needing adornments made so I’m thinking we should prolly hook them up with the manas.

Next on the agenda was Shard of Hate!! DAMN Shard of Hate was HAWT last night! Same group set up although we did drop Taysloot down w/ Cheesecake for a little bit of buffage and company, poor Cheese! Right off the bat yet again we start gettin Exquisite Chests!! WOOTS! Nothing real special was crappy ranger pants if i remember right, we left them to sit as we cleared to the first named by the mender. Tarsir ran off to gawd knows where to pull a chest and swears up and down that this mob is gonna spawn an exquisite (it spoke to him apparently), well he was right! It pooped a chest! Tarsir /bow /smartass LOL! I think Tarsir set the tables w/ his little “chest experience” because the rest of the night Shard of Hate spewed lootz in our direction!

Cheesecake made out like a bandit: Eye Gouge V (Master) , Diamond Rod , Irritating Wool Cincture

Aeyanna: Signet of Betrayal

Rhesus: Atramentous Omen

Taylona: Atramentous Omen

The Ethereal Mist Gauntlets dropped and we sold them for a purdy plat too

I finally got my Shield WOOOOT! I cant tell you the number of times I have done SoH and this shield has NEVER EVER dropped! FINALLY !

Well tonight is the night, Crimson Dragons head back into VP to give Silverwing a beat down! Meya will be spamming MM w/ some Illy Mythical UBERNESS! Wish us luck! /hugs all!

I have so SUPER DUPER NEWS! 1st!! ANEP AND SASSPANZ!! WOOOT I called my PLP Sasspanz just to shoot the shit about an upcoming vacation we have planned and much to my surprise I heard Anep’s goofy butt in the background talking. He got back a day early WOOT! YAY within the next day or so my PLP and her hubby will be back online and SS will be reunited! YAY! I have missed Sassy and Anep  soOOooOOoo much. I think all of us have! Not only the groupage but the chat and laughs in vent! I think this calls for celebration?!?!?! All in favor say I?!?! I!!!

2nd on the WOOOT list!I reckon tonight We’ll be hitting Silverwing!!!! Meya should be getting her Mythical tonight if all goes as planned! I can’t wait to get her myth! The Illy Myth is HAWTNESS! Going to have to make the spell crit aug on Sinnir for it ! Needless to say I’m a bit excited hehe! Well off to take the kiddos to the swimming pool!

Aiden go splat hehe! We hooked back up with Stormraven and company last night and one pulled Aiden in our saved instance! The Coercer shoulders dropped but I’m sad to say Cast didn’t win them Sorry honey! I think Aiden is my new favorite in Ward of Elements Lots going on with that event and everyone has to be on their game, no slackin hehe!

After Aiden we moved over to Kurns to give Sir Rouland some more pulls. This guy is a real pain in the ass to say the least!! He has a knock back, up (w/e) that seems to give little to no warning (sometimes gives a message on your screen that’s says “time to fly”)!  Grats on the platform seem to randomly shoot out bubbles that do damage that needs to be avoided. We all have to cure the arcane off the tank and or each other that also seems to be a range thing so if your near someone that has it you will likely get it At Least this is what I was gathering from it all LOL! I’m sure we were missing something so damn obvious that will make this fight much easier LOL but for now we will continue to go work it the old fashion way

Tonight the guild is raiding VP and we will be getting some myth updates WOOT SERVER SPAM! Talk to ya’ll tomorrow!

CD took alts through the old zones last night for myth updates! Paw, Thuuga, Korsha and Levi!!  Holy smokes was sit gonna be a long night haha! Well we didn’t quite make it through Korsha, leaving OK and Levi on the agenda for Wednesday. We got alot of updates tho I’m looking forward to VP and the server spam YAY!!! It was a nice “return” raid even tho I was only gone a few days haha! I’m hoping to get a shard run on Sinnir before hopin into a TSO raid tho hehe! Now that company is settled I think I’m going to be able to raid and do a little more grouping than I thought Tonight Cast and I have plans to do the new x2 w/ Storm! I’m really looking forward to that!! Ta Ta for now!

And I’m not speaking of World of Warcraft! This weekend is kind of a blur we did so much lol! Lastweek Crimson Dragons went into VP to start clearing for some upgrades/mythicals but we only got Druushk and Nexona down due to signups and some peeps internet connections. ( No Chus, not the little sugary marshmallow candy) Well Second String decided we were going to give VP a try!!!! Let me tell ya….we 8 man’d trash and got Xygoz to 50′ish%! Wait wait wait back up, Why Xygoz? Well as you all know Cast has decided to dust off the swashy so we figured why not give Xygoz a few pulls for his mythical! I honestly think if we woulda had some regen in grp we woulda had him. I honestly dont recall what our group make up was but I can tell you Tay and I had zero regen haha! So we gave him a few pulls getting him to the 50’s each time and finally we called in some reinforcements! Anep switched to Work, Elo had logged in and grab Haku and our good friend Darkc was kind enough to come tank (/hugs TY Darkc)! Jorun (Warden) (/hugs Jojo) and Engram (Illy) were also kind enough to come help out! Next pull we were rolling on loots and Cilantro was soon off to get his mythical! Yea we called in for help but we still two grouped in and Second String cleared damn near all the trash to Xygoz which is pretty damn good!

After that Second String was pretty pumped and decided to go hit up PR for some plats! I got to bring my Illy for some aa since Tay and Haku were kind enough to heal! YAY! It was fun and the plats were nice. I did switch over to Sin for Doomcoil tho, if we wipe on him you cant pass go and you cant collect 200 hundred dollars! He was soon and and we were off to the bank with our plats and manas WOOTS! O boy what else , ummm Tay stole a choker from me /grumble! Ya go figure ……haha I talked Anep into runnin Shard of Fear for a chance at the choker and Tay logged in so I figured he could grab his Conjy and tag along. Guess what, the choker dropped and the goober won it! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr! haha Nah grats Tay! Guess that means we gotta do fear more lol poor Anep and Tarsir haha! Well guess I’m gonna go do some chores! Tatta!

We started out Friday night raiding with the guild ! First we hit up Tomb of the Mad Crusader killing the first two named and then moved on to the first named in Palace of the Ancient One. I think we’re going to be cutting back on raid nights due to the lack of sign ups. Cant say that I blame them really, the weather has been gorgeous.  Friday night after the raid Second String got together for a mini Shard of Hate raid. Azznep is desperate for the gloves , which I’m happy to say Sinnir already has /flex! We didn’t get the gloves but Tarsir got 3 Masters and a ton of aa! Graybone got the Beacon and some aa as well so he made out like a bandit!

Saturday was Veeshan’s Peak for CD and I’m happy to announce we got a few toons some Mythicals YAY Grats guys! We cleared everything up to Nexona on the first level and I’m sure we’ll clear the rest of VP this week. Following VP, Second String formed up for PR plat farming bringing in 20ish plat and 4 manas WOOT! After PR we decided to give Thuuga a few pulls. Thuuga? yea I know little bit of a jump from PR but damn we two pulled it! I was rather impressed because we got her to 3% on the first pull and I think we would of had her if Anep didn’t get sac’d! Thuuga dropped the scout boots and Seeb logged over to his newly leveled alt Seebozook (assassin) to loot up some twinkage!

Sunday Second String formed up for a Palace run! Theonee has been hounding us for over a month now to finish up his TSO Chapter 8 quest line. Due to conflicting schedules and all that jazz we just haven’t had the chance to get around to it. Not that I was complaining, as you all know how I feel about Palace (sorry Theo LOL)!! But I went kicking and screaming, “Sin your are going and you are going to like it!” Off to Palace I went! I’d also like to go on the record to state…If I EVER meet the genious dev that put those stairs in Palace…../grumble!!!!! We cleared everything up to Varsoon with ease and we all took a 3hr afk while Anep explained to Theo how the Varsoon event worked. Now gawd bless Theo this man plays on Satellite which makes things even harder. Vent is pretty much non-existent as well so ….lol..yea poor Theo!

We start in the blades room and at 3% Tay hits cheetah and we haul ass to the fire room and from there we wait until his cheetah is up again (slow and steady dps) and we then cheetah to the life room. He was being a pain in the ass with the curse but Cast really rawks the interrupts and he only managed to get it off 2 or 3 times which Tay and I healed through (wooters /flex)!!! 3rd times a charm tho and we got him on the 3rd pull! Grats Theo on your update and uber Chapter 8 loots! Sinnir got a nice little charm outta the deal too…:) Guess Palace aint so bad after all! /snicker

That’s right, we went from Druushk all the way through 2nd wing first pulling everything.  Not bad for our first time through.  Only a few guildies had been that far before, so this was quite an achievement.  Grats to everyone in Crimson Dragons that got their Mythicals and especially grats to my  Second String buddies…

Nexona is dead! Crimson Dragons did it!  It was awesome!  Such a clean pull too!

Nexona Down!

Okay, enough exclaimation.  Seriously though, few failed pulls, and then success.  Funny thing was our successful pull took less time than the previous and we only got her to ~50% on that pull!  The guild really seems to be pulling together and it’s obvious the leadership is getting serious about things.  Not to say they weren’t before, as I understand it there has been a significant amount of -redefining- occuring behind the scenes.  Second String came in right as some others were leaving, more specifically a key raid leader.  At least that’s my understanding.

What’s next? I’m glad you asked!

For a fascinating look into the world of live MMO coding, take a peek at the personal blog of Everquest II’s Technical Director, Josh “Autenil” Kriegshauer.  Earlier this week in an article at The Joshua Tree, Josh pulls back the curtain on an issue he’s been working with regarding memory leaks.

It’s a refreshing post, because he dives right on in to the actual code changes he’s hoping to make instead of making vague corporate-safe proclamations that “he’s working on it” or “it’s on their list of issues to look into”.  If you’re into programming, you’ll love the post all the more.

For the rest of us, the quick summary is this:  While looking at a problem with lag in Veeshan’s Peak, Josh found a solution that should hopefully help fix quite a bit of lag throughout the entire Everquest II client.

Source:  “Leaking memory by the kilo[byte]“ at The Joshua Tree by Josh “Autenil” Kriegshauer