As more and more people have become interested in raiding Dragon Soul in the guild and we have been working some new people into the raid, it seems time to outline expectations for raid etiquette and behavior. First off, required add-ons for raiders, which I don't think anyone is lacking at this time: Ventrilo and Deadly Boss Mods or similar boss encounter add-on.

Protocol for raid invites: Priority invites go out first and for most to people on the calendar list that have accepted/confirmed their participation for the raid day, followed by any raiders set as tentative who have managed to make it, as long as the raid is not already filled with the appropriate roles (to confirm we go with 2 tanks, 2 heals, and 6 dps). I expect raiders to be REPAIRED and PREPARED. This means I expect you to make sure your armor is completely repaired prior to the raid start and that even though cauldrons and feasts are usually provided, you bring some of your own as well. Also, as part of preparation, take some time to watch TankSpot videos about the fights if you are not familiar with them. This will give you an understanding of the fight and the strategy and will help make raid explanations shorter and easier to understand.

BE ONLINE AT RAID START TIME IF YOU WANT TO MAINTAIN YOUR SPOT.     

     I am usually online at least 5-10 minutes prior to raid start time (7PM SERVER) and may start invites early, but I expect people to be on no later than raid start time if they want to ensure they are invited to the raid for the evening. If you want to raid and know you will be late and are in a position to let someone know, please do, but unfortunately that will not guarantee you a raid spot, If enough people of the appropriate roles have accepted the calender invite and are online on time they will get priority. Sorry, no favoritism here.

     Please be aware that we may have more people SIGN UP and SHOW UP than we have room for. We haven't had a big issue with this yet but should we encounter this problem we will choose the appropriate amount of melee and range needed from the people who accepted their calendar invites first. Meaning, for example, if I send out calendar invites April 15th for the raid on April 27th/28th and you accepted your calendar invite April 26th but 6 other DPS (or 2 other tanks or heals)accepted their invites anywhere from April 15th-April 25th, they would get invite priority. It's important then that if you want to raid, to accept your invite as soon as you can. I usually try to send out calendar invites 2-3 weeks in advance. I know for a lot of people that may be too soon to know for sure what their plans are for that given raid time but if anything you can always accept first and if you find out prior to the raid time that you for sure won’t make it or it may be 50/50 then you can move yourself to declined or tentative. If you do so in this fashion, be wise. MAKE SURE YOU CHANGE YOUR INVITE STATUS if you won't make it. If you leave yourself as accepted too many times and NOT SHOW UP without any explanation, you MAY be removed from the raid calendar invite list.

While in raid: Please be respectful to your fellow raiders. If you have issues/concerns about an individual in the raid or an event that occurred in the raid, please talk with an officer first. Typically there are at least 2 officers in the raid. Not sure who is an officer? You can always check guild rank, but usually the officers who you may find in the raid are: Myself (Thea), Tirael, Zehuti, Jadefira, Littleace, Kyree, and Romeran. Please keep unnecessary chatter down on vent, especially during boss fights. There’s a time to goof off and a time to focus. Boss fights we focus. This is important more so for that fact that we may be starting to work on some heroic encounters which will require focus and attention.

Blizzard has announced that there will be no Blizzcon 2012! Is this true? Or is it an indication of something else? Here's the article as posted on ARS Technica

"

The primary reason Blizzard gave this morning for announcing its decision not to host a Blizzcon fan gathering this year was that the company is "heavily focused on getting Diablo III, [World of Warcraft's] Mists of Pandaria, and [Starcraft II's] Heart of the Swarm into players' hands as soon as possible." While this is probably true, the justification doesn't fully explain the decision to my satisfaction.

Don't get me wrong, I understand that putting on a massive convention as big as Blizzcon is quite an undertaking, and no doubt requires diverting some attention from Blizzard's primary focus on creating games. But it's not as if Blizzard wasn't working on a wide variety of pending projects in the six out of seven previous years it managed to put on the show. (There was no 2006 Blizzcon after 8,000 people came out for the inaugural 2005 show). In fact, with Diablo III finally, semi-credibly threatening to be released in the next few months—after four straight years of Blizzcon showings—you'd think there would be a little bit of extra bandwidth to devote to this year's convention by its usual October date.

It's also hard to believe that Blizzard would simply want to do without the massive promotional opportunity that Blizzcon represents just because it would require some extra work. Not only does the event serve as a way to provide controlled early previews and major announcements directly to tens of thousands of attending fans (and those following along via press coverage), but those fans actually pay substantial sums of money—$175 per ticket last year—for the privilege of taking part in the marketing maelstrom. Blizzard has said in the past that it actually loses money on the convention despite taking in millions of dollars in ticket sales, but I have to believe that the goodwill and fan interest generated by the event makes it an incredibly good marketing value for the company. Otherwise, why would they have put on the past six Blizzcons at all?

Of course, many of the functions of Blizzcon could be served virtually now. Instead of summoning over 25,000 people to Anaheim to hear a keynote speech, watch some tournaments, and try out the latest build of its next expansions, why not just provide live video of the events and offer beta downloads to the most devoted fans? Blizzard has actually been making steps in this direction in the past few years. Since 2009, the company has offered a comprehensive pay-per-view TV and Internet streaming package for those unwilling or unable to shell out for a ticket to Blizzcon.

But a fully virtual Blizzcon wouldn't capture what the actual show provides, which is an opportunity for Blizzard's massive, incredibly devoted fanbase to commune in the real world. Anyone who's attended a fan-focused show like the Penny Arcade Expo, or even a game-focused professional conference like E3, will tell you about the sense of connection and community that develops when so many commited fans of the medium gather in one place. Blizzard's fans already gather online every day, and any fully virtual Blizzcon gathering would likely feel a bit impotent compared to its real-world counterpart.

Blizzard will still be providing that real-world gathering opportunity, to an extent, at the newly announced Battle.net World Championship which will premiere in Asia at the end of the year, we're told. While that's a great sign of Blizzard's commitment to the burgeoning eSports movement, and to those devoted to the ultra-competitive side of the company's games, it seems an ill fit for the less competitive fans who want a chance to show off their Murloc balloon hats, listen to some nerdy musical acts and basically just hang out with their fellow Blizzard devotees.

Blizzard has yet to respond to a request for further comment on the cancellation of this year's Blizzcon, but it's the kind of thing fans will quickly and wildly speculate on. Perhaps Blizzard doesn't have any tentpole announcements or new preview content to anchor this year's show (Mists of Pandaria and Heart of the Swarm were shown at Blizzcon last year. And whither Titan?). Perhaps the company is worried because last year's show was the first to have attendance lower than the one before it, declining from 27,000 to 26,000 attendees (The Anaheim Convention Center site has hosted 81,000 attendees for the NAMM music equipment convention in the past). Perhaps it truly believes that Blizzcon's competitive tournaments, now hosted at the Battle.net World Championships, were the show's most important function.

Or perhaps we should take today's announcement at face value and accept that Blizzard is simply much too busy with making games to waste time putting on a huge promotional event. I'm sorry, but I don't quite buy it."

Welcome to the official Soldiers of Fate website to all you new folks.

For starters in updates we have a new weekly quest up. It's going to be:

Lvls 80-85 : Volatile Earths x 20

Lvls 1-79 : Wool Cloth x 20

Clicky the picture to find out how to get those achievements. 

For other news...

You'll have to find out by clicking the picture ^  =)

UPDATE!!! DATE SET!! FRIDAY 13th OF JANUARY!!! So get ready to slaughter your guild mates!! Read the Forums for more info!! (Legacy Battle will be what you will look for)

Hey guys, we got an upcoming guild PvP event.  Jadefira has been working on it for some time. It's in the forum section so if you want to read it check it out there. You do NOT have to have PvP gear for this event but it is reccommended.  This is guild only event along with maybe another guild that would likely join us.

Clicky Picture or Read More to find out more ;)

Ok so since hostventrilo kind of shafted everybody they vent hosted, we have got ourselves a new vent. It's from typefrag.com and we are still querking on it so don't bash it just yet.

It's only a 25 man vent but we are working that one out too.  We usually don't have more than 25 people on vent at a time but it's been seen before especially if people get really wanting to do two separate 10 man raids.  Majii has hit us once again with no way to change the vent on the website here so you will have to go in-game and look at it in the guild info.  If by some reason you cannot get in game and just wanna get on vent and chat with us then please contact me via email : This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Enjoy =)

Well I hope you guys had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday! I know I sure did.  So to be honest not many people have been on that much, with the new update out and Thanksgiving over, we might be kicking it into another gear.