News Archive - january to May - 2009

weekend update!

Even with the Memorial Day long weekend in the U.S, and double XP in EQ, we did manage to do a few events in FC with a smaller turnout.

We dropped the four aug mini events, and Hearol the Tactician in FC1.  With around 19 adventurers, we finished up the night with an attempt on Lorekeeper Grenwald.

On the DKP front, this was our first official weekend with hybrid states fully implemented.  Chance happened to result in using the Random 1000 ruleset for the Hearol event.  However, it was a good run through of the procedure overall.  In addition, during raids the FLBot will be running to allow DKP queries in game.  Simply ;tell FLBot dkp, or if you want to find out someone else's DKP, then ;tell FLBot dkp playername.

Loot lists have been updated.

Hope everyone in the U.S had a safe holiday weekend!

Posted by Furro on Sunday, May 17, 2009

frostcrypt 1 cleared!

Friday: FC1 Events - Shadow Selves, Three Brothers, Overwheling Numbers, Shades of Calm, Hearol the Tactician, and Lorekeeper Grenwald.

Saturday: FC2 Events - The Sleepless Guard, Wulfnor the Gladiator, Fridleif Master Warcraft.

We made a solid dent into Frostcrypt this weekend, and ended Saturday with three strong attempts on Harfange the Black.  I'm confident we can defeat this event, and have some adjustments in place for our next run.  Overall, great job everyone!

Hybrid DKP

The hybrid states portion of our DKP system is now in effect from this point forward.  If you're not familiar with our system, please click on the Loot Rules link for details.

After some consideration with regards to individuals who pass on /randoms after the fact.  I believe implementing a no passing rule would be too strict, and hard to work around accidental randoms.  Passing and/or fake randoms slow the loot process down considerably, so please exercise some caution when choosing which items to random on.  Thanks. :)

Loot lists have been updated.

Have a safe week!

Posted by Furro on Sunday, May 17, 2009

king odeen defeated!  Frostcrypt entered!

In an outstanding performance by all those who attended, we defeated King Odeen Saturday!  This was our final hurdle to overcome, and opens the gateway for Frostcrypt raids.

Following the King Odeen event, we grabbed our first Frostcrypt raid and ventured inside to size up some of the encounters. 

We completed the Three Brothers event, and attempted Thulagar from the Shadow Selves (doppleganger) event.  We almost managed to pull off a win on Thulagar, but wiped at two percent!  However, It was worth the attempt and at the very least, we got a better handle on it for next weekend.   Nice work everyone!

Have a safe week.  Hope to see everyone Friday & Saturday in Frostcrypt!

Loot lists have been updated.

Posted by Furro on Monday, May 11, 2009

weekend update!

Friday: Living Legacy - Dragons, Dragons, Dragons raid

Saturday: Solro Fabled minis - Rizlona, Jiva and Arlyxir

We reached Lethar in the Dragons LL event on Friday, and made two solid attempts with marked improvements over last weekend.  Tactic adjustments are in place for the next run, and I'm confident we can pull off a win.

On Saturday, we made attempts on the RZ script in PoTactics.  However, I didn't anticipate the triggers spawning Fabled versions of both TZ and VZ.   Due to our raid setup and time constraints within the script, it was decided to move on to other more viable targets.

Although only three of the SolRo minis were up, we dispatched them in short order to finished up the night.

Living Legacy Raids 4x - May 1-2

This upcoming weekend is our last opportunity to revisit all of the LL events.  Simply put, this is win win for everyone.  Not just for those who missed them last time, but we can better our scores over last year!  Rally your friends and fellow guildies to attend!

Have a good week!

Loot lists have been updated.

Posted by Furro on Sunday, April 26, 2009

Freelance fabled kill squad!

With the level cap raise, and availability of Fabled targets, it allowed us the opportunity to take on some new events.  In addition, we revisited some of our regular Fabled Gods & trouble makers in The Planes of Power!

Most notably, we pulled off several epic wins in Fabled Plane of Time, such as:  Tallon Zek, Vallon Zek, Terris Thule, and Rallos Zek!

Outside of PoTime, we had some Freelance firsts, including: Solusek Ro, The Plane of Earth Rings, and even The Fabled Mystical Arbitor of Earth!

With Fabled coming to a close, this upcoming weekend will be our last chance to drop anything we find up Friday & Saturday.

Living Legacy - Dragons Dragons Dragons Raid!

We did our first Dragons Legacy raid on Friday.  It was a nice change of pace, going through the dragons from old world up to where Lethar put a stop to us!  But we're going back for some revenge in a week or two when the raid is available again.  This time we'll be better prepared!

There's also plans to revisit the earlier Living Legacy raids when they open again in a week or so.  This will give us the opportunity to better our scores from last year, and allow anyone who missed out before to attend!  Keep an eye on our scheduling forum for details.

Level 75 Minimum Requirements

Just a reminder, for those who don't read the forums, our level requirements to raid with us have been lowered to level 75 or above.  For everyone at or above this level, you're more then welcome to attend our raids.  Feel free to spread the word to your friends and others you meet in your travels about us.  Word of mouth is still our best advertising.

Going Forward in Reverse

Prior to the start of Fabled, I had to changed our direction slightly with regards to progression.  TSS FC/AG, with a mix of SoF periodically, is our new path.

SoF is still a viable path for Freelance.  However, I believe there were three major factors at the time, which largely prevented us from making any significant headway beyond the BMK raids.  These factors are explained below and actions taken to address them.

Lockout Timers:

This is where guilds that raid similiar content to Freelance, have members that cannot raid with us due to their guild policy/lockout conflicts.  This isn't anything new.  However, it comes into play when we branch into content at or above mid-tier raiding.

The best way to handle this is to keep up our strong and healthy efforts to build onto our viable core of regulars.  From here, we can gear our force in a tier lower, and push slowly into SoF as our numbers increase, and mid-tier raiders phase it out of their cycle.

Doing it this way, we're not excluding SoF entirely from our progression path, and not banging our heads against SoF raids without the required gear/numbers they're designed around.

Low Attendance:

We've always struggled with attendance at one time or another.  This is why I think our low turnouts early into SoF have been in a way related to the other factors mentioned here.  Adjustments to our progression path, lowered minimum level caps to attend raids, and the addition of DKP are all an effort to counter this factor.

Drop Tables (Loot Viability):

There are many drops in SoF content and lower of value to both melee and casters.  Not everyone is equiped in full SoD group gear, including non-visible pieces and augs.

By changing our focus here, we'll be able to gear en masse faster in a lower tier, such as TSS FC/AG content.  This in turn will strengthen our force as a whole over a shorter period of time and enable us to push into SoF and beyond.

It's better to raid for upgrades of quantity over quality.  Stop gap upgrades are always worth getting.  For every drop we obtain on a Freelance raid, we grow stronger when combined with our teamwork as a whole.

Loot System Update:

We're getting close to the level of DKP needed to start the bidding state of our loot process on raids.  There's two minor policy issues I addressed in the DKP thread on the forums.  Outside of any major corrections or debate, I'll implement them into the Loot Rules pages on the site in a week or so.

The plan is to hopefully enable the DKP Bidding State not long after Fabled are over.  With some real bidding taking place, we can iron out any issues that arise from there.

If there is something in the DKP/Random system that you feel has been overlooked, please post in the DKP thread on the forums about it.  As always, your input and ideas are appreciated.

Have a great week!  Hope to see everyone Friday & Saturday!

Loot lists have been updated.

Posted by Furro on Sunday, April 19, 2009

updated loot system!

We made some quality attempts on Scorn Friday.  With around 30 people, our 3rd attempt we managed to get Scorn down to 37%.  I'm confident, with a few extra bodies and some tweaks in place, we can defeat this event.  I've scheduled her in again for this upcoming Friday.  For Saturday, I put in another new target that's within our reach.  Check the events forum for details.

Loot System

I finished integrating the loot system and policy into the main site.  They can be reached from multiple pages now.

For those concerned or misinformed as to rumours of Freelance going all out DKP.  This is not true.  We still use /random ruleset for loot.  What we've done is, incorporated a DKP system to work with our current /random format.   It's a fair system to all, and I believe it'll serve us well over time.

I believe those who are skeptical about DKP systems, have had prior negative experiences being part of one.  As I was working on ours, I did extensive research, and came across many guild systems which had funky clauses in place.  These clauses unfairly benefited certain members and/or classes.   I was very careful to avoid any type of trash such as that in our system.  My primary purpose was to design ours around fairness, while maintaining an open door for newcomers.

Any concerns or recommendations regarding the loot system, please feel free to post on the forums or contact me in game.

Freelance Helpers!

Freelance is currently seeking individuals interested in helping out during raids.  No specific class or experience in this type of position is required.  If interested, either reply to this thread, or send me a tell in game.  Thanks!

Have a safe week!  Hope to see everyone on the weekend!

Posted by Furro on Sunday, February 22, 2009

hybrid dkp system!

Friday:  BMK1

It was a Valentine weekend, however we did have some numbers Friday to do BMK1.
Slightly lower turnout on Saturday prevented us from making our scheduled Bimbalicus attempt.  I'm not discouraged, as I didn't expect high numbers Saturday.

Hybrid DKP System

I layered the DKP system into the site.  If you notice any dead links, please let me know.  Thanks.

The Loot Rules section will be modified once the DKP ruleset is finalized.  My hope is to wrap it up this week.

Have a good week!

Loot lists have been updated.

Posted by Furro on Wednesday, February 18, 2009

short update!

Friday:  BMK1 and two attempts on BMK3
Saturday: Attempts on Bimbalicus

Lower then normal turnout limited our BMK3 progress on Friday.   We did however make two attempts and a BMK1 run for some loot.

Although we didn't have the proper numbers for Bimbalicus, it was decided worth the push to make a few attempts at the very least.  This gave us some valuable information about the event first hand.  We'll apply what we learned to future attempts.

Freelance DKP

We're currently working on a hybrid DKP system, that incorporates our current /random ruleset.  This is in draft stage at the moment, open for all to view and discuss on our forums.  Your input is valuable to us, and I encourage everyone to give it a read and comment.  Thanks!

Have a great week, see you on the weekend!

Loot lists have been updated.

Posted by Furro on Tuesday, February 10, 2009

weekend update!

Repeating our success from last weekend, we pulled off BMK 1 & 2 wins.

Ideally, our plan was to make a run at BMK3.  However, BMK2 ran longer than expected, leaving us with too short a window to try the 3rd.

In order to get some time in on BMK3.  I've scheduled only BMK3 for Friday or Saturday, depending on our turnout.  This way we can start fresh with the 3rd and see how things progress.

To mix things up a bit, within the same days (Fri/Sat), I scheduled a Crypt of Shade raid.  Most of you raiders know this as Bimbalicus or Soulbleeder.  It's tentatively slotted for both days, as it'll highly depend on our turnout.

See you on the weekend, have a good week!

Loot lists have been updated.

Posted by Furro on Tuesday, February 3, 2009

BMK 1 & 2 down!  Freelance is back!

We kicked of our return to raiding this weekend with two Freelance firsts:  BMK 1 & 2 wins!

Bloodmoon Keep raids are one of the initial starting points in SoF.  These are good little raids, which can be used to help fill gear gaps in our ranks.  The goal is to keep these raids in our rotation weekly, but mix in other targets as well, to keep it interesting.  Our exposure to BMK this weekend, along with subsequent wins, will give way to smoother runs in the future.

There are three BMK raids in total.  Defeating the first two, opens up the final one.   BMK is scheduled again for this upcoming weekend.  Our hope is to give BMK3 a run as well!

Since we just started back raiding this past weekend, there is undoubtly hundreds if not thousands of people on Fennin Ro, that may not realise we resumed our regular raids!  You can help spread the word about our raids, by telling your friends, guildies and random people you bump into during the week!  All you have to do is point them to this site, and from here they can read all about our adventures!

Open raiding has a positive effect within our server community.  If we share our time and resources helping others, it raises everyones gaming experience and enjoyment.  Take a break each week from the grind, and come join us!

Have a great week!  Hope to see you on our next raid!

Loot lists have been updated.

News Archived - August to December

Posted by Furro on Monday, January 26, 2009