Bert managed to get 4 server resets in the space of two weeks which, coupled with a 3-day SoC spawn timer, kept us from him.

Four previous attempts, all spawning him -- never *quite* a clean enough attempt, and we'd have probably died anyways on each even if we didn't run out of time.

I have to applaud SOE for some very nicely-done events.

The High Priest event, to even get down to CoDb, puts heavy demands on your raid: one single person dying and you've basically lost to Avhi, only the second mob of that cycle (although tonight for the first time we recovered from a single death!) Vindor and Raex both have incredibly high damage for a mere keying event, and they take some learning to manage to pull them.

All in all, the HP event is a pretty fast-moving, varied event with boss after boss -- you don't get bored.

Then the Bert event itself, which is non-stop pulling for two hours, where you need to always be thinking and planning several steps ahead. If you wait for the pull to be cleared each time then you're going to lose -- at least with only a 40 person raid force.

Finally Bert: rampage so bad we can't keep our top paladins alive through it, AE mana/drain dot of a splurt variety, and such fast respawns that you end up with 6 or more in camp before he's dead. Couple that with a melee so hard you can't keep a tank alive after defensive drops, and you have a helluva ride after.

It was not a clean kill. We didn't have enough plates, so his ramp was eating into the raid by around 40%. And little added gems like an accidental total plow (i.e. to 0%) by the main tank during enrage made it look like we might not win. But finally, on a druid killshot, with only 4 druids left in zone:

The whole area looked like this:

Grats Avelyn:

Grats Gumgak:

We did this for one reason:

To show that this guild is full of cheaters who refuse to play the game as it was intended. They're using their influence with Sony to manipulate the game to their own ends.

But actual examples will serve our purpose better, here's the transcript of one of the incriminating screenshots:

Bertoxxulous tells the guild, 'Heh heh heh I did it again'
Agnarr tells the guild, 'Did what?'
Bertoxxulous tells the guild, 'Crashed the server.'
Agnarr tells the guild, 'How?'
Bertoxxulous tells the guild, 'Paid off the sysadmins to "accidentally" reboot it. Again.'
Saryrn tells the guild, 'Yawn... you again? Why do you bother?'
Bertoxxulous tells the guild, 'I'm protecting you, sweetpea -- if I can keep Temerity from reaching me then they'll never have a chance to try to reach you.'
Quarm tells the guild, 'Would you guys keep it down? I'm trying to XP but these damn grass snakes keep killing me.'
Bertoxxulous tells you, 'Haha he's such a noob'

Well.... we spawned him!

In the server's 2nd-ever Bertox ring trigger, and our first actual attempt to do anything other than wander around CoD getting a sense of the event, we did manage to spawn the god of decay -- with 3 minutes to spare on the timer ;).

The good news is, he didn't just despawn on us, he aggro'd on the raid as we were clearing the trash from the last Adan and trying to rez. I didn't even see what killed me, I figured it was the adds. It wasn't until I glanced up at my damage window and saw... BERTOX?!?!

Luckily Viva got some nice screenshots before she too bit it:

We got to visit some old and too-rarely-killed mobs like Burrower Parasite and High Priest, as well as knocking out another Cursed cycle and scoring a warrior shield, INT ER4 wand, and the nice cold focus ring from BoT.

In the midst of the raid I also learned about a new channel!!!

[Sat Feb 4 12:30:36 2006] Socratus tells the guild, 'temorgy:gnomesex'

[Sat Feb 4 12:30:42 2006] Channels: 1=temofficers(6), 2=alliance(20), 3=temerity(31), 4=temraidcore(7), 5=temheals(16), 6=temtanks(17), 7=temcc(22), 8=temorgy(1)
[Sat Feb 4 12:30:44 2006] Channel temorgy(1) members: [Sat Feb 4 12:30:44 2006] *Kyth
[Sat Feb 4 12:30:53 2006] You say to your guild, 'wtf, Channel temorgy(1) members: *Kyth'


[Sat Feb 4 12:34:11 2006] Mordor tells temorgy:8, 'so what is everyone wearling?'
[Sat Feb 4 12:34:21 2006] Mangroas tells temorgy:8, 'cowboy pajamas'
[Sat Feb 4 12:34:30 2006] Viva tells temorgy:8, 'Ohio state pajama pants and a turtleneck, woooo'
[Sat Feb 4 12:34:49 2006] Mordor tells temorgy:8, 'jeans here, no shirt'
[Sat Feb 4 12:34:54 2006] Louieman tells temcc:7, 'what...we're wearing clothes...?'
[Sat Feb 4 12:34:56 2006] Louieman tells temcc:7, 'MT'
[Sat Feb 4 12:35:00 2006] Viva tells the guild, 'Mordor's not wearing a shirt!!'
[Sat Feb 4 12:35:23 2006] Mordor tells the guild, 'hey, what is said in temorgy, stays in temorgy!'


[Sat Feb 4 12:44:42 2006] Louieman shouts, '+++ Kill the foo Xerkizh The Creator huhhh +++'

[Sat Feb 4 13:44:34 2006] Bora shouts, '----KILL High Priest of Ssraeshza NOW-------'

[Sat Feb 4 15:34:58 2006] Kwelynin shouts, '========= KILL A burrower parasite NOW! ========='

[Sat Feb 4 16:19:43 2006] Bora shouts, '----KILL Thought Horror Overfiend NOW-------'

[Sat Feb 4 17:07:36 2006] Nifurn shouts, '***Kill a glyph covered serpent***'

[Sat Feb 4 17:16:24 2006] Kwelynin shouts, '========= KILL Vyzh`dra the Exiled NOW! ========='

[Sat Feb 4 17:32:00 2006] Bora shouts, '----KILL Vyzh`dra the Cursed NOW-------'

[Sat Feb 4 18:15:17 2006] Nifurn shouts, '***Kill Manaetic Prototype XI***'

[Sat Feb 4 18:27:12 2006] Nifurn shouts, '***Kill Manaetic Prototype X***'

[Sat Feb 4 18:36:06 2006] Nifurn shouts, '***Kill Manaetic Prototype IX***'

[Sat Feb 4 19:22:19 2006] Bora shouts, '----KILL Auliffe Chaoswind NOW-------'

[Sat Feb 4 20:16:42 2006] Kwelynin shouts, '========= KILL Kuanbyr Hailstorm NOW! ========='

[Sat Feb 4 21:45:04 2006] Nifurn shouts, '***Kill a construct of nightmares***'

And... wow. It was even crazier than VT, because the mobs had so many fewer HP. I can't wait to try it for real, but we can definitely see why it's difficult. We weren't trying really hard, didn't have full force, but we also weren't deliberately dragging our feet and we still only got 5 Adans down in about 90 minutes before calling it quits (who wants to way for a PoP GY when it's almost 2am EST?)

We didn't really know what we were doing. We didn't really know how to start the cycle. We had no clue what was going to do what to us... in short, we had kill stuff, many died, got no loot, and had a total blast.

You only ever get one "first time" at a mob, and it was really fun to go into things so blind and just wander around "huh another room full of trash. Oh look a boss *smack* ow!"

Definitely my favorite looking guy there, Darwol Adan, he's got style and pizzazz:

Feig Adan:

Kavilis Adan:

Akkapan Adan:

Wavadozzik Adan: