The Lords of Nordrassil have appointed three new guild officers in readiness for the release of Wrath of the Lich King - Congratulations to Tarn, Jermar and Krakenoah!

The officer corps now comprises of Arvariena, Bestiarius, Durathor, Etharil, Jermar, Krakenoah, Revver, Tarn, Winterfold.  Our Guild Master is Railor / Trailor.

Guild members should familiarise with the conduct page of the website, for guidance on acceptable behaviour.   The officers can assist if more details are required.

Shade of Aran was recently killed by The Lords of Nordrassil - another ‘first time’ for the guild!. I say recently, it was actually Easter weekend - real life has been hectic since, so it’s taken me an age to post it. We then followed up with the Chess event and a sightseeing trip to the Prince.

Here’s a screenshot for posterity: click the image for a link to larger version.

Curator was downed last Sunday - another first for the guild!. Sorry it’s taken so long to report, real-life can be a drag. Great result though and we had a first look around the upper tower on Monday before the reset.

Congratualations to Ragnesis who got his Tier 4 gloves: [Gauntlets of Malorne]. Also grats to Jermy who earlier in the weekend was lucky enough to get [Fiery Warhorse's Reins].

Here are a couple of pictures of our happy faces both immediately post fights and also once we were organised enough to line up. Click the images for link to larger versions.

Another guild first was reached in Karazhan with Big Bad Wolf killed in the Opera event, opening up the chance to have a look at Curator now. This was preceded by good kills of Maiden and Moroes.

Special congratualations to Rudi, Panoramixs and Tarn who got drops of [Moroes' Lucky Pocket Watch], [Red Riding Hood's Cloak] and [Nethershard Girdle] from the bosses.

Patch 2.4 is coming soon. The test patch notes are now available, revealing some of what is on the way (all subject to change of course). Summarised below are the main features at this point:

• Sunwell Isle which includes a new level 70 five man instance and a 25 man raid.
• New daily quests as part of the attack on the Isle of Quel’Danas, to confront Kael’thas and the Legion at the Sunwell.
• Keepers of Time npc in Shattrath providing easy access to the Caverns of Time
• When you repec your talent tree you no longer have to relearn trainable ranks of talent-granted spells
• Mana regen changed so that as intellect rises, more mana is regenerated per spirit point
• Spell haste reduces global cooldown on spells to a 1 second minimum
• Warlock’s Ritual of Summoning can be used to summon players into instances (that they match the level requirements for)
• In battlegrounds, diminishing returns on honour for kills is being removed - honour will now be calculated correctly straightaway.
• Bad news for fans of the Fires of Skettis daily quest: Monstrous Kaliri have learned how to chase players going straight up.

Two guild firsts were achieved with kills of both Maiden and Moroes on Saturday. This was preceded by a warm-up on Maiden on Friday, Attumen down on Thursday and an encouraging first look at Opera on Sunday. All in all a great team effort from all the guildees who were able to come along over the entire weekend’s raiding.

Special congratualations to Arvariena, Ragnesis and Bestiarius who got drops of [Shard of the Virtuous], [Barbed Choker of Discipline] and [Emerald Ripper] respectively

And for posterity, here are a couple of pictures of our happy faces post-boss fights - click the image for link to larger versions.

Lately, there have been a number of posts detailing account hack horrors, most notably BRK’s guild bank being cleared out twice in the same day and a similarly traumatic account hack incident for Gun Loving Dwarf Chick’s guild.

So in the spirit of new years resolutions and all that, it is probably a good time to highlight Altitis’ guide to improving your account security. I don’t fully agree with all of the points, but if you read the post and also the comments below and apply some common-sense all should be well with the world.

In particular, I’d expand on step 7, that installing addons is generally fine, so long as you download the .zip file and extract it to the addons directory (as per the Lords site addon instructions). Running .exe files or installers can be dangerous and you’re advised to be confident of the origin of the package before running these. People do use WowAce updater and I’ve suggested the use of WUU previously, but just be careful and apply some common sense.

Other points Altitis makes are essential for anyone who owns a PC connected to the internet regardless of whether they play World of Warcraft or not, most notably:

• Get a firewall e.g. Free ZoneAlarm
• Get antivirus software e.g. Free AVG
• Get an ad-ware cleaner e.g. Free Ad-Aware

Season 3 of the arena has arrived, bringing bigger and better rewards. One upshot of this is that the rewards from season 1 are now available for purchase with honour and battleground tokens.

I’ve summarised below the rewards and honor / marks needed. This was sourced from MMO Champion, check out their post on arena rewards for full details.

Season 1 Item	Price
Gladiator’s Armor Breastplate	14500 30x
Gladiator’s Armor Gauntlets	10500 20x
Gladiator’s Armor Helm	14500 30x
Gladiator’s Armor Leggings	14500 30x
Gladiator’s Armor Shoulders	11250 20x
[Gladiator's Bonecracker]	9000 20x
[Gladiator's Bonegrinder]	27000 40x
[Gladiator's Cleaver]	18000 20x
[Gladiator's Decapitator]	27000 40x
[Gladiator's Endgame]	9000 20x
[Gladiator's Gavel]	25200 20x
[Gladiator's Greatsword]	27000 40x
[Gladiator's Hacker]	9000 20x
[Gladiator's Heavy Crossbow]	27000 40x
[Gladiator's Idol of Resolve]	8000 10x
[Gladiator's Idol of Steadfastness]	8000 10x
[Gladiator's Idol of Tenacity]	8000 10x
[Gladiator's Left Ripper]	9000 20x
<[Gladiator's Libram of Fortitude]	8000 10x
[Gladiator's Libram of Justice]	8000 10x
[Gladiator's Libram of Vengeance]	8000 10x
[Gladiator's Maul]	27000 40x
[Gladiator's Painsaw]	27000 40x
[Gladiator's Pummeler]	18000 20x
[Gladiator's Quickblade]	9000 20x
[Gladiator's Reprieve]	9000 20x
[Gladiator's Right Ripper]	18000 20x
[Gladiator's Salvation]	25200 20x
[Gladiator's Shanker]	18000 20x
[Gladiator's Shield Wall]	15000 20x
[Gladiator's Shiv]	9000 20x
[Gladiator's Slicer]	18000 20x
[Gladiator's Spellblade]	25200 20x
[Gladiator's Totem of Indomitability]	8000 10x
[Gladiator's Totem of Survival]	8000 10x
[Gladiator's Totem of the Third Wind]	8000 10x
[Gladiator's Touch of Defeat]	8000 10x
[Gladiator's War Edge]	8000 10x
[Gladiator's War Staff]	27000 40x
[Veteran's Chain Bracers]	9435 20x
[Veteran's Chain Girdle]	14280 40x
[Veteran's Chain Sabatons]	14280 40x
[Veteran's Band of Dominance]	11934 10x
[Veteran's Band of Salvation]	11934 10x
[Veteran's Band of Triumph]	11934 10x
[Veteran's Pendant of Conquest]	11934 10x
[Veteran's Pendant of Dominance]	11934 10x
[Veteran's Pendant of Salvation]	11934 10x
[Veteran's Pendant of Triumph]	11934 10x

Last week’s Karazhan run sounded like great fun, a positive first step into Karazhan and Arvariena got some nice purple loot ([Gloves of Saintly Blessings]) to boot. I’ve got a message from The Boss (Railor), on how it all went:

Our first Karazhan run the other night was a success thanks to the dedication and enthusiasm of the Lords and also from Lamagra’s advice and guidance. Lamagra is a paladin that we discovered on the LFG channel and subsequently recruited(!). He volunteered to join actually, which is a great bonus as he has a wealth of Karazhan experience. When I say success I mean in terms of what we learnt about ourselves.

We killed Attumen but suffered at the hands of the Maiden. It’s clear that our gear will need to be that little bit better. We aren’t tooled up enough for want of a better expression. To that end I personally will be attending as many heroics as I can, to pursue the better purples. Speaking for myself, I have the firepower, I just lack stamina and mana.

However Kara isnt a learning instance, so those folk that want to go on the runs really ought to be as good as they can be at their various characters. I think heroic runs beforehand will help to give everyone that knowledge. But Karazhan is fun, hard work and I think everyone that goes will really enjoy it.

Another pair of runs are provisionally scheduled for Friday / Saturday night. Check out the signup thread on the forum, and / or sign-up on GEM in-game. I’m regularly updating the minimum stats for Karazhan post with extra details on gearing up, so please keep checking back. If you find any great resources on the same lines for your class, please let me know so that I can add it.

A trial Karazhan run is on the cards for this weekend, intended as a ‘fun run’.. The plan is to get in the door, take a look around, likely die a few times, but to have fun and keep things informal and relaxed if we can.

We’re thinking of this Friday or Saturday at 8pm (maybe 7) UK time (9pm and 8pm server time respectively). To sign-up, please post on the sign-up thread, contact Railor in-game or signup to the GEM event once created. Also please make clear if there’s only one of the two nights that you will be available.

Please note that GEM should be updated to version 2.27 or higher, as there have been problems with earlier versions after Blizzard made changes.

Also it’s worth checking out the previous posts on Karazhan planning (including raiding addons) and Minimum stats for Karazhan along with any other class specific resources you can find. Also please try to bring consumables - food, water, bandages, health pots, mana pots etc as appropriate to help things run that little bit more smoothly.