The Crew

Hacked and Back Again

Kevoogre — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:40:48 -0000

Posted 11/17/2009 01:40 PM by Kevoogre.

Yes, we got hacked and it sucked, but brothers and sisters, it was I who told you that we would be OK. Yes...it sucked. But it wasn't the end of the world. Brothers and sisters, we had all lost something that fateful night. But the one thing that we didn't lose, was our faith in the Light. For we all had faith that order would be restored and, brothers and sisters, in an act of miraculous grace, a few days ago The Light restored our materials, and more importantly, Brother Bob's gear was returned to him. Praise the Light..I say Praise.... the Light. Ya gotta believe in the power of the Light, brothers and sisters. I know... I know...I can feeeeeeel that the Light is strong within each and every one of you, and I know that it was the faith in the Light, I'll say it again, the Faith in the Light, that returned Order to our World, and in doing so returned the gear and mats to our beloved guild bank. Can I get an AMEN... Praise the Light!

It did suck..but it was not the end of the world. Thanks to the good folks at Blizzard for all their help.

Grats Bag
Grats to Ravenhammer on his accent to level 80. Hammer, as his friends and loved ones call him, is the third toon to reach 80 from the Raven stable of toons, he also has Ravenstorm who is a captain in the guild and "hero" of last week's aforementioned hacking incident. Rave, also plays Nevarmore who was forced by work issues to move to another guild. He wasn't getting enough work with us.

Please give a warm Crew welcome to Cutoff a lvl 80 dwarf paladin. Cutoff may just be the oldest player in the guild..and in this guild that is saying something. Also welcome Healuall a level 80 priest from the Dniulife family of toons. I guess after denying life he felt a need the heal you all.

This week also saw the return, sort of, of Alenicia who was forced to take a break from the game for a while. We hope to have him back full time shortly.

Raid Schedule
We are gonna try to keep the same schedule for a few weeks.
All raid times are 9 p.m. server time

Tues: OS with Crew2
Wed: ULD with main raid group
Thurs: Heroics & Help a guild member.
Fri: Heroics
Sat: Free
Sun: Onyxia
Mon: Heroics

HACKED

Kevoogre — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:13:37 -0000

Posted 11/11/2009 02:13 PM by Kevoogre.

As most of you know one of our Officers, Bob, had his account hacked last night. At about, 7:20 p.m. server time Gofman, who was an Officer Alt, logged on, and immediately invited a toon named Fjkka and started kicking all the other toons that were on out of the guild. Luckily, Ravenstorm, a captain in the guild, was playing Nevarmore at the time and somebody whispered to him that something was going on. Rave was able to quickly demote Gofman to prevent further damage. Rave also kicked the Fjkka toon.

At this point the hackers logged into Golfman, who was also a captain in the guild with an almost unlimited access to the guild bank. The worst part was that Rave could not demote or remove Golfman from the guild because they were the same rank. It was at this point when 90 percent of the damage was done to the contents of the guild bank. Also Fjkka was re-invited to the guild by the hacker.

At about 7:35 p.m. Maxx called me to tell me to get online ASAP. I did, by this time the hackers were done with Golfman and had moved on to Waddajoke. I removed all of the Bob's toons from the guild. However the damage had already been done. In the mean time, the folks that were booted from the guild were re-invited and a ticket was opened with a Blizzard Game Master. Later, I also opened a ticket and spoke with the same game master who told me there was a good chance we'd be able to get some of the stolen stuff back but it would take three or four days.

Once Iceflare (Bob's brother) logged into vent I told him to get Bob on the phone and let him know what had happened. After a short while Bob logged on and spoke with a game master. While the guild bank was very well wiped out...Bob's toons had their gold, gear and banks completely wiped out. Each of his four 80s were left gearless with empty banks. Again...there is hope that much of his gear will be restored but you never know. It will take 3 to 5 days. Please cross your fingers, rub your rabbits foot, pray to your God, sacrifice a virgin, use what ever mystical force you might have to hope for a return of Bob's gear.

It seems the conversion to Battle.net is partly to blame. According to Bob, the GM thinks that somehow his computer got infected with a keystroke replicating program at some point in the last year or so. However, because he had his WOW Username saved and didn't have to type it in... the hackers never had his username. But with the conversion to Battle.net, he had to type in his new username and password, and at that point the hackers had both and they were able to go to work on our guild bank and Bob's toons.

The bad news is that much of the mats and goodies in the Guild Bank are gone, the worse news is we've lost one of our best tanks until they can get his gear back. And if they can't, I am not sure, he will ever be back. I know I would just walk away rather than try to reacquire all the gear I'd worked a year-and-half to get.

Sure, the guild bank was pretty well wiped clean of anything of any value. All the gems, all the gear, all the potions, all the ore, leather, cloth, herbs, chanting mats, abyss crystals, and orbs. They took anything of any value, leaving only meats and low level stuff. -- but we can restock that stuff. Luckily, they were only able to withdraw 150 gold.

Now is a good time for all of us to revisit our account security. The good folks over at WOW.com have put together this list of tips and hints to better secure your account. Please take a few minutes to read it.

This isn't the end of the world... its just sucks.

Pony up, Ony down.

Kevoogre — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:58:18 -0000

Posted 11/10/2009 09:58 AM by Kevoogre.

After a disappointing Wednesday raid, where real life issues prevented a bunch of us from getting online at the appointed time, we made up for it on Sunday by downing Onyxia. It took us a number of times just to let everyone fully understand the fight. But once we all got a grasp on where we needed to be when, it was pretty straight forward. Great job all, thanks to Light, Bytor (in Infidel form) and Xtrahealth for all their help in explaining the fight and offering suggestions. I think Onyxia will become a regular weekly Sunday raid for us, much like OS used to be.

Welcome Wagon
Please welcome Ferial, level 80 Druid to The Crew.
Also, grats to TheDrew who was able to easily heal heroic Nex last night with some low level gear...a testament to his healing skills.
Also, please give an Attaboy to Werdwarrior, who is learning the ways of the tank and doing a heck of a job, in an effort to get his skills up to tank for the second raiding group, or Crew2.

Crew2
Speaking of Crew2, we are still in the forming and planning stages. I have asked all the officers to remind players that might not be on all the time that we are trying to get this second group together, and that there was a spot for them. Here is where we stand so far:
(these are just projections and potential spots. I am keeping this list to toons that are under-geared and not part of our regular Wednesday night raid group. Nothing is set in stone, and not all of these folks have committed to the Crew2 yet. )

Tanks - Delininja and Werdwarrior
Heals - Defibulator, Ferial, Priestguy, Synoki, or TheDrew (once we get him so gear)
DPS - Tieghernan, McGuinness, Darkwanderer, Shadyjay, Iceflare, Gofman, Darthelmet, and other various sundry DPSers.

I would like to propose that The Crew 2 be our weekly Tuesday night Raid, starting at 9 p.m. server time. AGAIN --- ALL OF THIS CAN CHANGE to fit other folks schedules. I propose we go through OS with as many as under-geard folks as possible, and then break off into to two groups and run an easy heroic, i.e. UP or Nex for badges. Depending on how long OS takes. If we try to do this every Tuesday, eventually this group will form into a stable self-sufficient raiding group. Any questions, thoughts, complaints, suggestions? Please use the Comment button at the bottom of this post.

Schedule
All raid start at 9 p.m.
Tues: OS with Crew2
Wed: ULD
Thurs: Heroics
Fri: Heroics
Sat: Free
Sun: ONY
Mon: Heroics

Video Treat and a Dead On Funny Post on the Ruin of WOW
A couple of us have been enjoying watching the Web show, The Guild. Please enjoy Season 1. The episodes are only about 7 mins. each, but well worth the time.

This post is too funny not to share.

Patch issues

Kevoogre — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:46:24 -0000

Posted 11/09/2009 11:46 PM by Kevoogre.

If you are having issues after the little patch Blizzard dropped on us tonight, please check out this page for solution.

Flash back/Flash Forward

Kevoogre — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:31:54 -0000

Posted 11/03/2009 10:31 AM by Kevoogre.

It was a great week for The Crew. Nothing momentous happened -- didn't down Yogg or get a server first, but we had fun. Thanks to Despina for organizing The Crew's first costume contest. Grats to Jack for his Beatlejuice costume. To see all the entries click here.

Grats Bag
Huge grats to Hypnotoad on reaching 80. Now, let's work toward getting Toad geared so he can join our raids. Good work, man.

Welcome Wagon
The Crew is pleased to welcome a bunch of new folks to our merry band. Please welcome Werdwarrior, an 80 Human warrior with eyes on being the 2nd tank for the secondary raid group. Also swelling our ranks is Lestari, a 73 NELF hunter, and her alt Daledruid, a lvl 72 NELF (you guessed it) Druid. We were also able to talk Shadyjay into bringing his alt, Axelay, an 80 Pally into the fold.

All of the new blood has gotten thinking about the game in an old/new way again. Maxx, Priestguy, Werdwarrior, Darkwanderer and my huntard were doing reg TOC yesterday and really struggling as a group, since my huntard's dps is in the crapper, and Priestguy's healing chops are not quite up to snuff quite yet, and Werdwarrior is undergeared and a bit inexperienced (at least in TOC). Eventually, Priestguy switched to supertank Waddajoke and I jumped to my shammy to get through the run and hopefully get Werd and Dark some gear.

But the experience got me thinking about the first time I did a hard instance. (cue the blurring flashback lines as we are transported back in time to when 70 was the pinnacle of WoW) When Hellfire Ramps was fresh and new and newly minted 70 hunter was asked by a veteran priest named Lumination to join her 5 man group in Heroic Hellfire Ramps. In this group was pally tank named Lightsaver, and Lumination was the healer. There were two other dps, but I don't remember exactly who they were but there is a good chance it was some incarnation of Bytor or Ltkickbutt, but really don't remember. However, this group opened my eyes to a whole new way to play this game. These folks had a strategy for each group...they would mark targets so we all knew where to shoot. This was organized, this was effective, this was good. I was shooting along on my 70 hunter, who's gear consisted of a bunch of spell power (which I would later learn did me no good.) I remember being in awe of this group and embarrassed at my own inability to play this game. But was put at ease when Lumination said, "Kev, don't worry we are all here for practice." Getting in that group made me want to be a better player. It changed the game for me.

So going forward, as we gain more folks and more low level, undergeared, or in my case, wrongly geared, inexperienced players, please try to remember that we all need some practice sometimes and we are here to help each other get better. What helps a guild member, helps the guild. What helps the guild, helps me.

Don't worry, we are all here for practice.

Raid Schedule
I am going to continue to schedule a Crew2 (secondary raid group) raid each week in hopes of one actually materializing.
All raids start at 9 p.m. server time, Midnight on the East Coast.

Tue: VOA
Wed: ULD
Thurs: OS (Crew2)
Fri: Heroics
Sat: Free
Sun: Ony 10-man
Mon: Heroics

Crew Costume Contest

Kevoogre — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 03:06:37 -0000

Posted 10/31/2009 11:06 PM by Kevoogre.

Ok...so you want to participate in the Crew costume contest but don't know how? If you are registered with guildomatic.com, i.e. you logged in to the website, you can upload your pictures here at WoW Photos, use the Add Files to upload your photo and then use the link to that photo in your reply to Despina's post.

OR... if you have uploaded the photo to another website, such as Shtterfly, Snapfish, or the like, you can post a link to the photo at the website.

Good Luck. and thanks to Despy for thinking of this.

Corporate Restructuring

Kevoogre — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:44:30 -0000

Posted 10/27/2009 10:44 AM by Kevoogre.

"Ladies and Gentlemen...I have called this meeting to let you know that corporate has decided to make some changes, and there has been a reshuffling," said the VP of Horseshit, at my last job.

The Crew, just like any good organization must evolve to keep up with the times, and as such, I have made some changes and reorganized The Crew ranks to better reflect our status as a guild of 80s, rather than a guild which is waiting for most of its members to reach 80, which is what we were when I initially set up the ranks. Not much has actually changed.

Probies are still members that are brand new to the guild and any member under level 20.
The new rank of Leveling Crew is for any member between 20 and 80.
Once a toon reaches level 80 it will be promoted to Crew Member. Crew Members can remove 5 stacks per day, from each tab (except The Safe).
Crew Members, level 80 toons that get geared and prove themselves in raids and instances, will be promoted to Raiding Crew. Raiding Crew can remove up to 7 stacks per day, per tab (except The Safe).
Those members who are really lucky or unlucky depending on how you look at it, and prove themselves to be loyal, to a fault, and show good leadership will be promoted to Officer and their alts will be Officer Alts.
Any member crazy, er...um... committed enough to learn every fight in every instance and willing to die over and over again trying, and then willing to come and impart that knowledge to us will be promoted to the very difficult rank of Raid Leader.
Those members that, without which this guild would not be possible are promoted (forced to be) Captains.

All of this Guild minutia probably means very little to most of you, but it is the kind of thoughts like "our guild ranks don't accurately reflect the type of guild we are" that keeps UberGeeks like me up at night. Ultimately, nothing really changed -- Just like when my company did a Corporate Reorganization. The only person who cared was the CEO, and nothing really changed. Except this time, nobody has to do extra work to make up for production shortfall that the restructuring created.

Secondary Raid Group or Crew2
I am excited for this group to take shape. We kinda sorta started last night with an OS run that was toons new to OS and half vets. Grats to Iceflare, McGuiness, Tieghernan, and Darkwanderer of the OS achievement. We have two healers that are willing to join us. Our own priest Defibulator and a Wolfsknight has been in contact with a Resto Druid named Sumthing, that will commit to joining us once a week.

We have Delininja who is more than willing (chomping at the bit, really) to tank but we need a second.

What we really need to do it pick one night a week to raid with this group. Wednesday is our 10 man ULD group. I want to really nail down a time when everyone can make it. (Officers Note: please help me by telling folks, not in our regular raiding group such as Viz, Sturmtiger, Alissa, Abbigale, Greyatra, that we are forming this group and asking which night is best.) And if anyone knows anybody in game that you run with and enjoy playing with that wants to raid but can't in their guild or they are unguilded, (tanks especially) let them know we are forming this group. We can PUG holes. Thanks.

Please welcome Thedrew, an 80 Pally, and Onii, a 77 lvl Deathknight, to The Crew.

Schedule

Tues: VOA
Wed: ULD
Thurs: NAXX (Crew2) hopefully
Fri: Free
Sat: Free
Sun: Heroics
Mon: EOE

Hey did you hear me cursing this morning? Could hear my pained screams.. I forgot to extend the weekly ULD raid. So we start from scratch with Flame Lev again. Bad Guild Master, Bad boy.

Any requests? Comments? Complaints? Compliments? Shout Outs? Suggestions? Let me know.

And hey if you want one of these cool signature boxes you can get it at Wow Ranked.

Secondary Raid Group, New Officers, and Freya... Oh My!

Kevoogre — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:39:35 -0000

Posted 10/20/2009 09:39 AM by Kevoogre.

Hey kids... there is much news this week. Let's start with some house-keeping, boys and girls lets remember to be respectful of our fellow guild members, and WoW players in general. It is uncool to drop group after one wipe, by just going offline, or just dropping out. If you have to go or the house is on fire, or your wife caught you playing when you shouldn't have been. All you need to do is type. "I gotta go." But to just drop group and go offline leaves your fellow guild members in a bind, because we aren't sure if you DC'ed or dropped. And we have to find someone to replace you. It is Poor Form and will not be tolerated. It is basic respect.

New Officers
In recent months we have lost some officers to real world issues that have caused them to stop playing or alter their play. But there is no need to fear, because like GE of the 1990's under the legendary Jack Welch, we have a deep bench of fine folks ready to take over in executive positions. Please welcome Maxxmage and Wolfsknight to the Officer rank. Both have been with The Crew for many moons and have shown themselves to be exemplary players and people. Bravo! and keep up the good work. FYI: I like my coffee light and sweet, and pick up my dry cleaning on your way back from having my car washed.

New Faces
We have some new folks joining our little troupe of wandering murderers. Welcome to Shadyjay, an 80 human warlock; Amonor, an 80 human priest; Defibrilator, an 80 Draenei priest; Rualann, an 80 Dwarf hunter. Also Marashon has brought, Darkwanderer, an 80 Death Knight alt into The Crew. Please make our new recruits feel at home in The Crew.

New Raid Group Forming
It is time to start forming a secondary raid group for those players who just don't have the gear for Ulduar and/or want to see some of the other 80 content that they might not have had the chance to yet. This is for those folks that need to run Naxx 10-man, or any other instance but haven't been able. We shall call this group Crew2.

This group, Crew2, would run on Tuesdays, and maybe Thursdays. (Our main raiding night is Wednesdays, and sometimes Sundays) Yes I am talking to you... Xtrahealth, Iceflare, Delininja, and anyone with an alt that isn't a regular part of the main raiding group, such as my huntard Tieghernan.

The raid times would probably be the same starting at 9pm server time (12 midnight on the East Coast.) But the time isn't set in stone. I'd rather have that be determined by the majority of folks in the group. (in other words, that time works for me, but I don't have to be part of the group.) We are gonna need two tanks and at least 2 healers. If you want an alt to be part of this group please let me know. I will be sending out special invites ASAP. Since today is Tuesday we probably won't start tonight but I'd like to get traction on this by Thursday and get a basic 10 man group to run OS Thursday night as a test run. I'd rather not have Lightsaver, Waddajoke, Kevoogre, Mehofjack, Ravenstorm, Maxxmage, Wolfsknight, or the other Ulduar regulars in the group. I just want to open it up to new toons and new faces, obviously if one of those toons doesn't mind getting saved to Naxx on a weekly basis and there is space... come on in, but I think you get the picture.

Crew2 may have some issues getting on its feet at first and may have work on running heroics to get some folks better geared, but after a week or two of that it should be up and running as a fully functioning raiding crew.

The Ulduar Group
We had a good week last week, which was chronicled here with the downing of the Iron Council and a couple attempts at Freya. We will start fresh with Flame Lev again on Wednesday. Getting more experience on the other bosses and better gear for the raid members, so we might have better luck with Freya and her co-horts later in the week.

We raid ULD on Wednesday at 9p.m. server time. I have posted all of Tankspot's guides for all the Uld bosses below.

Schedule
All times are server time

Tuesday: OS/VOA 9 p.m.
Wednesday: ULD
Thursday: OS/VOA (Crew2)
Friday: Heroics
Saturday:Free
Sunday: ULD
Monday: Naxx (Crew2)

Tankspot's guides to ULD Bosses

Kevoogre — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:47:06 -0000

Posted 10/20/2009 08:47 AM by Kevoogre.

Here are link's to Tankspot's guides to all the Ulduar bosses. Many we may know, but there are many who have not seen them yet and here is a good way to get your feet wet in the ULD.

The Siege of Ulduar
Flame Leviathan on Hard Mode
XT-002 Deconstructor (easy mode)
Razorscale (easy mode)
Ingis The Furnace Master

The Antechamber of Ulduar
Kologarn
Auriaya (Crazy Cat Lady)
The Iron Council

We have downed all of the above bosses, and we are working on Freya and the rest. I am posting these here for future reference.

The Keepers of Ulduar
Freya
Mimiron
Thorim
Hodir

The Descent into Madness
General Vezax
Yogg-Saron

Freya Guide from Tankspot

Kevoogre — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 16:56:13 -0000

Posted 10/17/2009 12:56 PM by Kevoogre.

To our ULD group..and anyone who may get into that group on Sunday or Wednesday night: Please watch the videos in the link below it is most informative and helpful.

Tankspot's guide to Freya