It's not without regrets that we have to announce the end of the Everquest II branch of Xanadu. After a long time of constant rebuilding throughout the year, on September 20th, 2011 the decision was finally made.
The actual closing might be a surprise to most outside the guild and even some members. However, despite our recent accomplishments and attempts to maintain morale and up the pace again, us long term members have felt the slow and steady decline for a long time, and gear requirements and unlucky drops made it harder than ever to find suitable replacements for those retiring.
What made this guild great is not only what we did in game, but also the sense of responsibility and loyalty that kept many here past their "expiration date". While fielding a half decent raid might still have been possible every odd Sunday, the list of long-term members with good attitude, gear and knowledge of their class who privately announced their retirement in the foreseeable future grew longer every week. It is especially (yet not exclusively) those who we would like to thank - for holding out as long as they did, and for making us proud to be <Xanadu>.
Good luck on finding a new home to everybody who will stick with the game. Be lootful and don't wipe!
On Monday 8th February Xanadu cleared Sentinel's Fate by killing Master Yael
That now leaves us some time to relax a little before Destiny of Velious, farm for a few missing drops that might take some time to replace in the new expansion and generally make sure we enter the next expansion rested and keen.
It has been quite a while since we had our last news update, that's not to say we haven't been busy.
We've spent many weeks trapped underground in Underfoot Depths pushing forwards with our progress there. With solid progress into the 3rd wing of UD made after we killed Saalax on October 27th (which makes us one of only 5 none Russian guilds to have killed Saalax so far). After that we focused intensely on taking down 4 rune Theer, with some very close pulls in the days leading up to our victory and Xanadu Luck (tm) delaying our kill by a few days and denying us a top 10 kill (I'm sure we're not alone).
Finally on November 9th we took down both Theer's for one of our most satisfying kills to date. A server first and European first to be proud of.
With two new raid zones added ( The Icy Keep and Underfoot Depths) not that long ago, we've had a little bit more on our plate to keep us busy.
We also managed to finally take down the hard mode for both contested (more than once, as I've taken so long to write the news!).
Another expansion is here, and I must admit it feels long over due. Sentinel's Fate finally brings us face to face with Roehn Theer, the God Slayer himself.
This of course in turn meant that the Avatars of the gods have finally (hurray!) left Norrath, after 3 years of fighting against them I think few people will truly miss them.
Sentinel's Fate also brought the return of Odus and with it Toxxulia forest, Toxxulia (the Dragon Queen) herself included.
Read on to find out how we've faired against the new content.
On December 6th Xanadu finally cleared TSO with the killing of Munzok.
With the expansion cleared yet again, we can now safely look ahead to Sentinel's Fate and prepare as best we can with a mixture of farming, slacking, alting and weird guild chat conversations.
It's about time we had something to post some news about, and with Miragul's death on November 1st we finally have something new to post about.
The fight wasn't too complicated and we killed it with only a few hours of real pulls. The adds certainly have an Echoes of Faydwer feel to them which wasn't too bad on its own but everything combined to be quite problematic at times.
Galvanized by our complete Avatars annihillation, the fierce penguins marched on one of the last two enemies that still refused to give us shiny loots in this expansion, Warlord Ykesha. While his officers were no threat to us as we'd been killing them easily in the past months, he had some lame trick up his sleeves (hail, reset mid-pull) and managed to keep us busy for some time, but in the end he fell and we put his head on a stick (nicely covered by a pedestal) and placed it in hour guild hall! Woot!
Goes without saying that this another SERVER FIRST by Xanadu.
Wanna read more about this, read some kinky quotes and support Bear Humping (c) in Norrath? click the following button!
A few of our members decided we had spent enough time with 13 out of 14 Avatars killed with only Fear remaining. With the faction bump made it was only a few days before Avatar of Fear spawned on May 3rd and was soon dealt with. This completes our Avatar kills, all TSO contested killed. With only Ykesha, Gozak and Munzok left for us to kill.
It's been a while since we last posted a video for one of our kills, but with thanks to Krantz for filming and Slacka for producing we have one (I think Slacka uploaded 3 in total due to complaints about choice of music). I wasn't going to put this on the front page as it will most likely download the video in full every time people load to the forums, but the only other media we have is a stamp sized screen cap of the Avatars health at 1%.
With a few recent new Avatar kills we're now left waiting for just one to finally spawn (we will probably have to resort to forcing the spawn via faction). So having started at the end, what have we been up to that leaves us with only Avatar of Fear and Ykesha unkilled this expansion?
