December 29th, 2009
Well Christmas vacation is over! Time to get back to raiding .. wait .. there is nothing left to raid! Grats on the ICC 25 clear everyone, now its time to wait for the door to unlock!

Deathbring Saurfang - December 29th, 2009

"Mark this, mark that, ugh"

Gunship Battle - December 28th, 2009

"Ever seen a druid with a rocket strapped to its ass?"

December 20th, 2009
What a great week it has been! With the holidays just around the corner and some of our members flying off to colder (and warmer sometimes) destinations for the Holidays it was an awesome way to end off our raiding week. Both 10 person groups that entered ICC this week cleared it, grats guys and gals and We brought Lady Deathwhisper to her (his according to Vonjo's addon) knees! It was late, but had we had the time, the airship would of followed. Guess we will have to wait till next week or maybe even after the holidays once the guys and gals get back.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone! Hope the gifts are pleanty and the eggnog is cold!

Lady Deathwhisper - December 20th, 2009

"Really watch out for the ghosts, they hurt!"

December 19th, 2009
Von's group has downed the final boss in the first part of ICC. Now its time to sit around waiting for the NPCs to jimmy the lock on the door.



December 18th, 2009
Congratulations to Von's group on taking down a pair of bosses!


Lady Deathwhisper has been silenced.


We sunk their battleship.

Next week, Son of Cleave gets what's coming to him!

December 12th, 2009
A small update to HoP Voice Emote that is up-to-date with the new patch.
http://www.angelfire.com/anime5/areoborg/HoPVoice.zip

Von's group is making progress through ICC 10 man. We've already downed us a big bag of bones!

Its only a matter of time before the next boss lies dead at our feet.

December 9th, 2009
There is definately no better way to celebrate your guilds 5th birthday then by downing a new boss! Congrats guys! Now if only the server would of let us continue our raid last night instead of kicking us out we might of been celebrating our 2nd new boss kill in ICC tonight lol. Execellent work on bringing Lord Marrowgar down!!

Lord Marrowgar - December 9th, 2009

"The hardest thing about raiding isn't killing the bosses, its taking the screenshot after!"

And a special picture just for fun! Cause you don't get to see this everyday!


Happy raiding!!

December 8th, 2009


"Arthas we've come for you, may the lich king fall first at the hands of our spells and blades!"

December 1st, 2009
"What a long strange trip it's been" would be the perfect achievement to get for a guild turning 5 years old! Happy Birthday goes out to Hand of Palandine who will be turning 5 on December 9th, 2009.

It's funny how something that started out so small, ended up turning into something so big! I remember starting the guild, trying to get 10 people just to sign the charter, then shortly after limiting the guild to 30 people. I remember talking about never raiding, and then next thing you know, here we are raiding lol.

Forune posted a site that estimates the time people joined guilds, the vast majority of the currently guild was from members who joined in '08 and '09. VORTEX is the oldest guild members till playing his original toon, V joined on Decemeber 15th, 2004!! That is a long time V

The officers either joined the guild in '05 or '06, congrats to all of them for sticking around as long as they have Thank you to everyone from Vortex to Lorandoone for keeping the spirt of HOP alive for these 5 years!

However, as I believe Virii pointed out, we've truly transformed from the causal "hey how you doing?" guild, to a raiding one, its fun, but I hope everyone still remembers what the guild was founded on So lets have fun, lets kill bosses and lets be the best we can be! Don't be shy to log on and play with other guildies outsiding of raiding

I encourage all of you to reply to this post with your wow memories, either from being in the guild or even before. It will be an interesting collection to say the least

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HOP!!

Happy Birthday HoP!

The past 5 years have been really awesome.
- I remember running instances with Bran, Glynt, Ferestis, Angst, Lotsa others i can't remember but not really going in with a healer or a true tank - if you could carry a shield you tanked, if you had mana you healed sorta thing - anyways going into these places hoping that we killed a mob before it killed us. Brans "ret healing" and complaining in Strat how he's almost out of mana cuz he had to heal, all while he was trying to beat Angst on the damage meters.
- When the DM tribute run was the best thing going and arguing who would get to go on any given day.
- The numerous times we failed to kill General Drakkisath in UBRS - This always met with Bran's: "You guys wanna raid MC but can't even kill freakin Drak after 10 attempts". Ya, it was that bad.
- Ferestis and wolfie. Namely Fere's awesome kiting abilities lol.
- Pissing Glynt off in Scarlet Monastery. I asked for help with a quest there so Bran and Glynt came over. Anyways, Glynt told me he would tank and my job was just to hamstring all the mobs so they didn't run away and aggro more things. I didn't even know what hamstring was. Needless to say the whole room pulled and we wiped. My screen quickly filled up with big purple paragraphs
- Raxxis and Wuggums in a Baron (20 man raid?) I think when they allowed that lol. And Rax rolling on a crossbow that dropped just so Ferestis didn't get it. A.) He wasn't high enough to use it and B.) He wasn't even trained in Crossbows. Result: Bran reems out Raxxis on TS lol. Mind you, Rax was like 7 years old...
-Me and Patrickduffy in STV trying to level our toons. We were stuck trying to kill Gorlash (the sea monster guy). We asked if someone could help us kill an elite and Darkerangst responded with, "Sure, who's face do I have to rape?". I didn't know how to react really, I never heard an expression like that before but hearing someone talking about raping a monsters face seemed so badass. That day Angst became my hero.
-When no one gave a crap if all of your points were put into a certain tree.
-Upgrading to blues was a huge deal....
-thinking Anth was a girl too. I mean who would play a blonde warlock human female other than a girl? Until I heard him talk...
-Rerolling Indira as a human warrior becuz there weren't many female warriors back then :\ imagine that... (She was a rogue initially)
-The very first toon I made was a warlock - Onyxx now known as Purples I leveled her more than Indira only because I thought fearing things was the most coolest shit ever.
-When I thought playing 3 days a week for a couple hours total was alot. My Boyfriend at the time tells me, "I think your getting addicted to that computer game.". I broke up with him two weeks later...
I'm sure if I thought hard enough, I could come up with others :P

Thanks all for the great memories HoP and I look forward to many more!

Hmm...WoW turned 5 and gave out a free weeks worth of game time...maybe the same could happen with us..?

edit: I wish I started playing with you guys 5 years ago...but I'm glad I didn't, I would have been 11...

I remember the first time my mom started to play the game, and she was trying to move her character around. It seemed all so simple until I had to try explaining how to move and control the camera at the same time. She has come a long way since then

I also remember when Nishi first started playing on her rogue Indira, we were in Elwynn forest, and Nishi was having the same problems my mom was, and I remember my telling me "See it's not as easy as you think"

I remember just before the big nerf to paladins a holy paladin telling me ret was useless, he was from some big raiding guild at the time and challenged me to a duel. He lost.

Hehe I remember Fereistis's druid on the UBRS run. Fere' always wanted to do something differnt, I sweaer he was the first druid tank I knew, anyway, I'll never forget watching him get punted off the bridge in UBRS, there was just something about how he slowly went up and then over that was brought tear to my eyes.

Haha I also remember the one time doing UBRS, we had Fereistis kitin Drak outta the room, I swear no one could kite like him, so anyway we do the pull and Fereistis kites drak like normal, we finish killing off the add's and let Fereistis know he can let Drak come back now, so a couple of minutes later still no drak ... and we repeat Fereistis you can let drak cooem back now, and the response ... "I did" lol, I think that brought laughter out of anyone, finally here comes Fereitis running running around the corner with drak behind him ... I can only begin to imagine how far he had Kited him. Most hunters were lucy to get across the bridge, Fereistis could of kited to the entrance

I remember my first run to BRD to get the shadowforge key ... 6 hours later, completely lost in BRD, but I managed to get the key

Haha I remember the Tribute run one particular night, this was back when Crowd Control was king and every pull had to come off perfectly, so darker is getting ready to sap his target, tensions are high liek normal, this was a hard long run (not the instances that we do today in like 10 min) and we're waiting for Darker to do his 3,2,1 countdown to start ... silences falls on Teamspeak, then all of a sudden Darker as quick as he can "321" sap catching all of us guard , laughter ensues

I remember flying to Silithus one day and on the gryphon infront of me was Phunbaba, I remember while flying checking out his gear ... tier 2/3 gear OMG, I said one day we'll be good enough to get this type of gear, it had such aamazing stats such as +10 sta and +10 str

I remember having a quest to go to deadmines ... I had no idea where deadmines was ... so i abaonded the quest

OMG I remember the first time i ever saw a gnome .. it was in wetlands (yes I didn't see a gnome till wetlands), and I'm running along the road killing crocs when all of a sudden i hear this "Ooohaoooohhhh" whatever the heck noise the ghomes make for a train, and see two naked gnomes with pink hair runnig by, thinking to myself WTF? It was one of the funniest things I had scene

I also remember jumping off the damn in loch modan to see if I could and dying in wetlands ... the map was completely uncovered I was level 18, they were level 30ish monsters ... I never thought I would make it out of wetlands alive

I remmeber when we first got Teamspeak, the first night a couple of us logged on ... it was dead silent lol, not sure of what to do, we finally said "Hi", now I can't imagine playing wow without Vent

I remember stepping into Molten Core for the first time towards the endo f Vanilla wow, starring at the rock giants and thinking holy crap, and I remember first time we kill them it was the biggest accomplishment to date and whispered my mom saying "We did it, we're raiding "

Remember kiting the ghouls around in Scholomance, the green dudes that exploded and you had to pull the room in sections lol, that was always a blast Or that one boss, that would randomly drop aggro and one shot clothies (and tanks) alike

Little Timmy!

Some might remember Rafee he was a night elf rogue lol, I remember when he joined theguild, he would always talk like a pirate in guld chat lol, it was one of the funnist things to read

Going into karazhan the first night with like 5 or 6 people just to see if it was hard, we killed one horse and were like oh ya this'll be cake with 10 of us ... I think our first night we spent 2-3 hours just trying to get to the first boss

I remember dueling someone in the guild once and somehow not sure why, but I actually ended up kililng them during the duel lol

There are so many more things, I'll add some later

I remember the first computer I started playing the game on. single digit fps with all the settings turned down and the camera pointed at the floor in a relatively deserted area. I'd measure my frame rate as minutes per frame the first time I stepped into IF. I had to get anth to log onto my account and move me to wetlands.

I remember when getting your mount right as you ding'd 40 not only took weeks worth of farming, but was also skipped by most players. I got Darker's right at 40 by vendoring heavy silk bandages and grey items I farmed off of the elites outside scarlet monestary.

I remember the night I earned my "Farm equipment turned sentient" running gag. I'd never ninja'd so much leather before in my life.

I remember the week before it was announced you'd start earning bonus gold for turning in quests while at level cap. Everyone helped everybody complete tons of quests just to sit in our log for a few nights. Patch night we all grouped up and had to clear our ways through LBRS to turn them in.

I remember one night after some event, a group of us were dicking around infront of IF. I of course had been raiding on lighter, so darker's gear was worse than everyone else's. Well, I watched Virii duel Forune and a few others and figured I would join in on the fun. The duel flag smashes down and I say over TS, "Sorry Forune, don't hate me for this." I then brought him from 100% to 0% without him being able to even turn his character. Rogues = "skill". Rogues were nerfed shortly after.

I keep hearing all these stories about people believing I was a girl, yet I never hear anyone mention how they thought Angst was a girl. And I choose that character to semi match me in real life, considering that none of the male toons had long hair its only fitting as for blonde I actually used to be bleach blonde.

Though now for some remembering, I remember...

the fun boss in Strat that would MC people, and doing that with Thunderwar. I also liked that boss on Anth back when I could Curse of Doom people, was even more fun if no one could remove curse.

going into Gnomergan with Angst and duoing up to the clean room while we were both at the minimum level for it.

the massive amount of gold I had to shell out for my Felsteed, I think the gryphon ride was something like 5s. And the trainers made me go to Booty Bay.

the quests for my demons, and not knowing where I was going in the Barrens. Lvl 20 human warlock walks into Camp Taurajo.

me and Angst getting our asses handed to us in Ragefire Chasm at either 60 or 70. Fucking druid didn't heal me.

Zul'Gurub... My amazing idea for the panther boss, ill stand still and use Hellfire. That will kill all the adds. My plan worked brilliantly, right Angst? If I remember correctly his exact words were, "Fuck you Anth" mind you this was on a "G" rated TS server.

falling asleep in multiple raids, including Molten Core, UBRS, there might be some others but I don't quite remember them.

the 5v5 HoP arena team, I don't think ive ever heard Bran curse that much before.

His brilliant ZG idea also attracted the attention of every panther within 30 yards. I was the only one who noticed what he was doing. So I solo healed Anth through that travesty, hence the "Fuck you, Anth. Fuck you" over the 'G' rated channel.

Falling asleep during a raid or a run was eventually dubbed "pulling an Anth", just like dieing was "padding the Gimps meter".

Speaking of godly healing that was completely and 100% skill based on my part... The first night I ever raided for the guild as a boomkin. Went the whole night and topped healing with the least overhealing and allowed the fewest assigned targets to die, even out performing the tier 2 resto druid in my blues/greens. Once the last boss of the evening was dead, I shifted into Uberkin form and did the sexy dance.

I remember standing within the entrance of heroic sethekk halls waiting for the tank to zone in for almost 30 minutes when I realized the group was full and we had no tank. That was the first night Lighter ever tanked an instance... and had almost no tanking gear. Thats why I've been dogging zontree.

I remember back when Bran had the most impressive weapon collection on the server.

I remember sitting at Light Hope's Chapel juggling around most of darker's gear for 5 minutes just so I could get a screen shot of 1337 armor.

I remember back when my UI actually didn't look like gargled anal seepage. Unfortunately my character looked like a moose lost in a fist fight against a bush and as punishment had a snake stapled to it's ass. Shortly there after druids were given tree form which I still refused to use since it disabled my main healing ability (healing touch), disabled remove curse, slowed me down, and only reduced the mana cost of regrowth and rejuv without strengthening them. The initial revision was amazing ya?

I remember logging in one day to a grey tabbard thinking I had been gkicked and it turns out bran just got so drunk on hockey that he made the tabbard uglier than the game could handle. 2 revisions later and a guild vote (that I think a whopping 8 people voted on) we got the super sexy purple with gold lions that persisted for 3 or 4 years.

Everytime Bankangst got a group, Blizzard nerfed paladins. Please, think of the paladins.

I almost forgot, zoning into MC on Anth and looking at my massive health pool. I had the second highest hp in the raid. Second only to the tier 2 warrior.

I remember a UBRS run where I looked at the damage charts, damn that was a great night. Was the first time I beat Bran in damage. Now I could strip naked pull out a wet noodle and still beat him.

I remember Blackblade, who else remembers the awesome win of Blackblade?

I remember my first time doing PvP on Nyctera, and thinking, "Wait I didn't roll tank". Then when I went into arena and respeced disc, god that is/was an amazing spec for PvP. Except when me and angst got the fucking cookie cutter, piece of shit Resto Druid, Demo Lock. And of course some arena fun with battles that took 20-30 minutes.

I remember going to Dire Maul with Bran, Angst, Laro, and some other body for my Dreadsteed. God that was an amazing quest. I then joined the few, the proud, the Warlocks that actually worked for their Dreadsteed.

Ah yes blackblade .. the only warrior I knew that wore leather .. TO TANK.

well with the rules of the guild even if its an upgrade we are not allowed to bid on it so you will never see a warrior in the guild wear anything but plate even if leather is best in slot.

with the changes blizz made, I don't think any leather item is bis for warriors anymore, unless they are in greens or shitty blues.

Depending on which spreadsheet or simulator you're using, there is a BiS leather boots and mail belt for fury. Also, the necklace, back, and one ring slot are all BiS with agility itemization, meaning they're aimed originally intended for use by hunters, rogues, and feral druids (which is a harder argument to sell, but still the truth). Arms (incite) has BiS mail pants, belt, and bracers with the same neck, ring, and back as fury.

I haven't triple checked the outputs for the dps warrior module in either of my sims for a while, but it is certainly within reason considering 1 tier ago there were still 4 pieces of leather that were BiS (one being pants). The dps difference between absolute max dps set and plate only dps set is pretty minor, normally within 100 dps out of ~9800 dps (less than 1% difference).

I'm fine with the higher armor tier classes "downgrading" just as long as they're only allowed to do it in offset bidding.

I think like angst said their might be some pieces for a dps warrior that are best in slot even if they are leather, and warriors are more than welcome to bid come offset time

However ... I couldn't imagine a warrior tank wearing leather like Blackblade did lol. That dude was so out to lunch lol


Anyway.. I remember doing the 45 min baron run with alca, angst, glynt, laro and myself. we did it about 3 hours a night for a few nights lol, then I remember the first time we did it, we had 13 min left when we entered the barons room and that was in blues @ 60 /flex

The most hideous boss at the time ... the princess thing in Maradon ... mind you the most confusing instance at the time ... maradon (yes i'm sure i've spelt it wrong) ... nothing like having a big freakin' cave system to work through, and then 2 different portals to go through Still making the staff for the short cut to last sections was one of the coolest things I remember.

I remember the T-rex in Un'goro crater ... speaking of, I should pay him an unsuspecting visit