Generations Monthly Newsletter - August 2007

Editorial - Mebsuta

As Mille mentioned last month, he's away travelling the world at the moment, so for this month only I'll be filling in for him as the guild's emergency back-up editor. As Mille mentioned last month, gaming is always slow in summer, so there's not much guild news to report, but I've spiced up the newsletter with a couple of articles that I hope you find at least vaguely interesting. My trusty Imp Chopit insisted on helping out with some of these, so if you spot any spelling mistakes or serious factual errors, you'll know who to blame.

Manchester Meet-up - Mebsuta

[Real Life] On July 15th, the long-expected Manchester Meet-up happened. Despite the rain (this was Manchester, after all), plenty of Generations members were there, from a cross-section of all the games we play. The full roll call was even longer than we'd expected: Ajax, Firefox, Hercules, Ivyleaf, Kelera, Kwambus, Mebsuta, Mille, Munchkin, Qosmio, Rakshi and Tornadium. We took plenty of pictures of the event, and we'll be posting a selection up on the Website as soon as we can. In the meantime, thanks to everyone involved for an excellent meet-up. With a little luck, we can hopefully arrange something similar next year.

Making a Splash in Serpentshrine Cavern - Mebsuta

[WoW] Deep beneath the sodden lands of Zangarmarsh, at the end of the great drain of Serpent Lake, Lady Vashj, trusted lieutenant of Illidan, makes her lair. A maze of shifting platforms and narrow walkways lead across a lake filled with ferocious fish - dangerous even without [i]frickin' laser beams[/i] - to some of the nastiest bosses in WoW.

So far in our forays in the Vashj's lair, the Gens of Stormrage have beaten down two of her most fearsome guards. Hydross the Unstable was a monstrous elemental, and a very technical fight that requires every raider to perform flawlessly. We did, and Hydross is now even less stable than he was. After his death, we discovered how to boil the water in the lake, freeing us from the peril of the attack fish.

With the way now clear, we swam down to face the Lurker Below: a monstrous fish apparently immune to the scalding water that dealt with his lesser cousins. The Lurker has a unique 'Sprout' attack (well, technically it's a 'Spout' attack, but we can call it what we like) that took time and dedication to master. At last, though, the Lurker succumbed and Generations prepared for a truly spectacular fish supper.

Stop press: As we were going to press, news came in that yet another boss has gone down in the Cavern. This time it was Morogrim Tidewalker, a fearsome giant protected by hordes of angry murlocs.

News from a Galaxy Far, Far Away - Tornadium

[SWG] In the SWG section of Generations there has been a hive of activity with the new Beast Master expertise available. We now have in guild a few 60 point (these are like experimentation points used in crafting, the maximum points available are 60) pets. These are formidable pets as they are strong and fast, especially when they get to higher levels.

Just as normal toons do the pets have to be levelled by killing creatures or NPC's for XP. They start at level 1 and can progress to level 90 as normal toons can. The pets we have are in the CL40 to 75 range but all are climbing fast and we expect some very good things from these top notch pets.

The BM system I feel is a real nice system that seems relatively polished and is actually a joy to work with. The variation of the pets is good as you can make mounts or fighters. Mounts are set to a select few creatures though as not all creatures (especially flying varieties) are allowed to be mounts. But fear not one of the best mounts can be engineered in the Varactyl as you will know from the film when chasing Grevious.

I will try and start a section in the Discussion area, a sticky so we can do a pet roll call. We can start to catalogue our pets and there achievements.

The Rebel Theme Park was revamped and is now a pretty difficult quest series to get through without some help. The guild have been through it a few times with different toons making there way along the RTP trail. The rewards are some Rebel Armor, Rebel Banner and a few other things along the way.

There is a new quest series based on Naboo as well called the Cabal Quest series. These are to help CL85 to CL90 players get from the CL85 to CL90 with help from some friends as well. There is more content being added with these new Chapters, and the GM's decided to make the credit spammers in Mos Eisley 'PvP' enabled so we all had some fun there killing off the spammers.

We would like to give a hearty Gen welcome to a new member to Generations SWG-Section. Vianna K. Good luck to you in your future exploits, any advise you need please ask in guild as I am sure there will be someone there who has the answer...

(Just to let you know as well Vianna K is also an interior decorator with reasonable rates. Any house you need decorating please give her a nudge and I am sure she will be happy to help. She doesnt realise yet this will be in here.)

If you want to know anymore about any part of SWG please send me a PM from the Gen Guild forums and I will try and answer your questions.

Things to See in Azeroth Before You Die - Mebsuta

[WoW] In common with most planets, the world of Azeroth is relatively large, and that means that it has plenty of space for interesting stuff to hide. These are a few that I've discovered on my travels, but surely there are dozens more than these few. If you have a favourite strange or interesting spot in WoW (or SWG or LotRO, for that matter) why not let us know? If we can get a few more together, we'll try and post them in a future Generations Monthly.

The Body of Sully Balloo

If you dive down off the Thandol Span (the bridge between Arathi and the Wetlands) and hunt around, you'll eventually find the half-buried body of a Dwarf, Sully Balloo, and nearby a Waterlogged Envelope that starts questline. Inside the envelope is a letter - one of those readable quest documents that nobody ever bothers with. However, this letter is worth reading: it's a real letter sent by a real soldier, Sullivan Ballou, who fought in the American Civil War.

The Ghost Sabres of Mathystra

The Ruins of Mathystra lie in the far north of Darkshore: you might well have visited them while you were levelling (remember the quest where you have to find relics among the ruins?) Also scattered among the ruins are little statues of cats that have nothing to do with any quest, and normally when you loot them, you just receive a 'Cat Figurine' vendor trash item. Every so often, though, looting a cat will cause a Ghost Sabre to spawn - that's a sort of transparent snow leopard (they make a nice fancy pet for a hunter). When you kill and loot a Ghost Sabre, if you're lucky, you'll find 'Glowing Cat Figurine' that will summon your own tame Sabre to fight by your side.

The Ships of Faldir's Cove

Faldir's Cove is a mini-quest hub in the Arathi Highlands. I guess most people have discovered it at some point, but it's pretty well hidden, and so worth a mention here. To find it, follow the valley that runs east of Stromgarde Keep until you reach a cave above the sea: go through the cave, down to the shore, and then swim north and east until you find a ship. The characters there have a whole set of level 40ish quests, including plenty of underwater work, culminating in a highly entertaining naga-blasting sequence using the ship's working cannon.

Grimbooze Thunderbrew

Grimbooze is a strangely poetic Dwarf who lives in a tent in the Dagger Hills in southern Westfall. You might well have met him when you were killing Defias there at level eleven or so. If you head back to him after level 40 though, you'll find that he suddenly has a whole new 'Sweet Amber' questline. Its bizarrely cryptic, and will send you all over the world, but its worth a small fortune in XP - very handy if you're levelling an alt.

Well, there are a few to be going on with - don't forget to send your own suggestions!

GEN-forum - MilleSabor

[ALL] Please make sure to register at our forum (http://forum.genguild.com) and ask for access (please use one of your ingame-names so that admins are able to recognize you): It is a great place to stay in contact with other GENs (or get acquainted with them - there are some nice guys there even if they play a different game), talk about geeky stuff, upcoming games, books, music or get help with whatever your heart desires. You might even find some useful stuff there such as a table with ingame-abbreviations... Make sure to read our FAQs (here: http://forum.genguild.com/viewtopic.php?t=5036) first!