Also on our previous 30 days path of destruction were:

2x Telkorenar
3x Dozekar the Cursed
1x Harla Dar
2x Klandicar
3x Derakor the Vindicator
1x Statue of Rallos Zek
1x Dracoliche
1x Cazic Thule
2x General V`ghera
1x Trakanon
3x Undead Bard (Spawned Trakanon)
1x Final Arbiter
1x Tukaarak the Warder
1x Nanzata the Warder
1x Shawl Crawl

We’ve had days where we simply lined up epic fights and knocked them out, such as killing Trakanon and then returning later in the afternoon to kill the spawned Trakanon for our bards. And another day where we killed General V’ghera for a rogue, traveled to Sebilis for an Undead bard and back to Kithicor for another rogue. We’ve also made trips to Fear to complete a wizard epic, and Plane of Sky for a monk. Congratulations to all of our new epic owners:

Crapin (Rogue)
Ecco (Bard)
Fhileraene (Bard)
Magon (Monk)
Puscifer (Bard)
Rylai (Wizard)
Shakespeare (Rogue)

In the last month, Vintage’s raid force has been helping it’s members with leveling and getting upgrades of Skyshrine Armors, completing epics, and working towards our progression into North Temple of Veeshan. It will take a group of well geared level 60′s to take on some of the toughest encounters we’ve yet to face to date as a guild, and I’m happy to announce, we’re well on our way!

1x Tukaarak the Warder (First Kill!)
1x Nanzata the Warder
3x Derakor the Vindicator
3x Statue of Rallos Zek
2x Zlandicar
1x Klandicar
1x Dozekar the Cursed
1x Telkorenar
1x Lendiniara the Keeper (First Kill!)
1x Cazic Thule (First Kill!)

In yesterday’s raid alone with a high attendance of 8 groups coming and going throughout the day, we earned 3 new ST keys, a rogue epic, and lots of loot between Temple of Veeshan and Kael Drakkel, including 2 Unadorned Breastplates and an Unadorned Leather Tunic!

Many new First Kills as a guild are happening too, as we flex the strength of our raid force on new targets such as Cazic Thule, Sleeper Tomb’s Warders and Lendiniara the Keeper.

Vintage’s First Kill on Lendiniara the Keeper.

Vintage showing the Statue of Rallos Zek what a few new members and new primal weapons feel like.

Watch out Velious, Vintage is on a warpath!

The Loots:

Bile Etched Obsidian Choker – Shuvit
Bile Etched Obsidian Choker – Monkus
Halo of the Enlightened – Wejbot
Eye of Cazic Thule – Rictus

In the past two weeks, The Proginator, The Final Arbiter, Nanzata the Warder, and Tukaarak the Warder have all gotten to meet our guild as we danced on their corpses.

Vintage kills Nanzata the Warder

One of Kerafyrm’s Roaming Guards

Kerafyrm Asleep on Al’Kabor

Congrats to everyone on our first round of Sleepers Tomb loot:

Dragon Scaled Mask: Dunkirk
Mask of Tinkering: Cerra
Priceless Velium Warsword: Ecco
Primal Velium Battle Axe: Scarboar
Primal Velium Battle Axe: Shuvit
Primal Velium Battlehammer: Monkus
Primal Velium Battlehammer: Redneck
Primal Velium Brawl Stick: Number
Primal Velium Brawl Stick: Pabts
Primal Velium Reinforced Bow: Shlomo
Primal Velium Warsword: Shlomo
Primal Velium Warsword: Summa
Smolder: Ecco
Smolder: Lulzcat
Smolder: Rhuark
Smolder: Shuvit
Staff of the Elder Claws: Wejbot
Staff of Morning Dew: Kapowie

Source: http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/posts/list.m?topic_id=184489

We kicked things off with two groups, buffed them and set them out with some nutty tasks to make points! Killing reanimated hands or werebats as a team awarded 1 point each, while killing named targets such as Torklar produced 5 points and Garanel stacked 10 points. There were even side tasks such as finding Serra for 5 points.

Highlights of the day included Voon training the entire zone, Scartoar crying, Zoripos beating the crap out of every named target we could find! Team Zoripos won by the score of 38-30, however lots of awesome loot was awarded to everybody, and nobody left empty handed.

This is the kinda of thing I remembered when I as thinking of re-joining EQ and I’m very glad I’ve found it. – Thornton

That was definitely a blast! Can’t wait to hang out with everyone more. – Zoripos

Lots of member feedback resonated how fun it was to be able to roll through the old hallways of Unrest again, and we are working on planning more guild events of different types soon such as level 1 naked runs across continents, searching for members hidden across Norrath, more dungeon crawls of classic zones, and even some PvP!

Below are some screenshots of Vintage and the Al’Kaborrian armies during the event. Special titles were awarded at the end such as Ranejaa scooping up the fitting title of, “the Vacuum”.

In the massive influx of F2P Players, we’ve dispatched a team of recruitment officers to find new members that are interested in raiding, experiencing, and having a ton of fun in classic content. We’ve had an incredibly positive response, and have decided to roll out a new initiative:

Over the next couple of months, we will be taking our new group of players (What we refer to as the Vintage Class of 2012) through a rush of classic and Kunark content. Yes, we are still raiding and locked at Velious, but we plan on giving new members an opportunity to experience what made EQ great all over again. We also plan on helping the new class grow, train, and gear themselves in a tight social environment.

We can’t thank you enough for the wave of positive comments and good players who have decided to join the Vintage Class of 2012. If you’re new, returning, or just want to experience classic content the way it was meant to be played, please read our charter, progression rules and FAQ’s and then post an application to join on our forums, or just say hello to us!

We look forward to seeing you this Spring!

Without question, the best time to start a new character to play on Al’Kabor is now. Vintage is planning on hosting a “Meet and Greet” event in the upcoming week to introduce ourselves and meet all the new faces, as well as handing out gear and plat. Stay tuned for the date(s) and time.

We’re so excited that more people have discovered the preserved treasure Al’Kabor exists and SOE has given us the chance to re-live our golden days of EQ as it was a decade ago. Welcome everyone to the server! Welcome home!

But later, as the dust was clearing, a ray of light appeared as the community united to work together and with SOE to keep the server alive. Heartfelt stories of what Al’Kabor meant to everyone, the value of preserving EQ as it was meant to be locked in the original Planes of Power expansion, and the loyalty of its player base throughout the years were expressed through forums, emails, private messages and phone calls.

Last night, Smedley tweeted (https://twitter.com/#!/j_smedley)

Ok EQ Mac Players. You are a wonderful group of players. We will leave it running with no changes or subscription fees. Details soon

Again, the EQ Mac community was in shock of the announcement, but overwhelmed by thanks as their prayers and wishes were answered. EQ Mac will not be shut down and this server we all call home lives on!

Another official announcement by the Director of Global Community Relations last night:

Ladies and Gentlemen, some of you may have read this on the official forums already, but thought I’d drop by here to share this as well:

After announcing our intention to sunset EverQuest (EQ) Mac in January, the response we received from the passionate EQ Mac community has resulted in our decision not to sunset the game at this time. Moving forward, we will be removing subscriptions from EQ Mac so that it will be a free game that everyone can continue to play and enjoy. We will look closely at Mac for our future titles.

Feel free to join the ongoing discussion here as well: http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/posts/list.m?&topic_id=182908

;-)#
Linda “Brasse” Carlson
Director, Global Community Relations
Sony Online Entertainment.

However, there were sacrifices that had to be made in order to keep Al’Kabor alive. Sometimes you have to amputate a limb if you want to survive…

Hobart posted this morning: (http://www.eqmac.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=11102)

I have very little new information and I’m sure I’ll have more by next week. But, here is what I can tell you.

- The game will be F2P. What does this mean you say? It means you don’t have to pay to play. Right now there are no plans to have a marketplace. That could possibly change at some point. But don’t worry about that now.
- We are working on allowing new accounts to be created. This change came in hot last night and our billing team will need to play catch up.

****ATTENTION PowerPC users and users of the OLD LaunchPAD.****
- As of right now, the old LaunchPad will die at around around the original shutdown date of Alkabor. (3/29)
- Alkabor will be moving to the new LP4 launcher that you currently see for EQ and EQ2.
- What this means is that if you are using a PowerPC, you will lose access to the game. (*NOTE* I’ll try and support PowerPC, but the effort to do this is not simple.)
- If you are still using OSX 10.4 the GameLauncher will not run. You must upgrade to 10.5 or higher.

Although players with PPC clients will no longer be able to log in (at least for now), it seems to be a small sacrifice for the greater good.

In the meantime, since Vintage first heard of the Doomsday news, our members have been squeezing every ounce of classic EQ that Al’Kabor provides on our weekly raids. Targets such as Derekor the Vindicator and Statue of Rallos Zek, Telkenor, Zlandicar, Dozekar the Cursed, Dracolich have all fallen to us, Vintage-style.

In the upcoming weeks, we plan on breaking into Sleepers Tomb with a larger than ever force, and North Temple of Veeshan. If you’re looking to jump in on old school Velious raids with us, head over to our forums and apply to join!

We’re looking forward to a huge revival in the Al’Kabor playerbase and our guild with the news of EQ Mac becoming Free to Play! See you in Norrath!