TBS and the Raiding Guild

The Buried Sea is the latest expansion released by Sony Online Entertainment. It was designed for the upper end of the character level spectrum. While there are three major areas of TBS to explore (Pirates, Combine, Solteris) I would like to focus on Solteris.

****BE WARNED SPOILER INFORMATION SOON****

Solteris is a fiery set of islands and home to the god "Soluesk Ro". Thing is, the plane has been attacked and is weakened. The question to "Where has Mayong Mistmore gone," was also answered when you reach Solteris to find it full of Mayong's minions.

Surprise! The vampire demi god has decided to weaken the Sun in hopes of unleashing the undead on Norrath. Go figure, what a typical vampire strat... remove the sun and evil will reign forever. But did he ever think of how he would sustain a food source for his people? No!

The Solteris raids were designed to be "very challenging" for the best raiding guilds. But, considering that there are less than 15 guilds that can even consider tackling this content, its safe to say most casual EQ'rs will not see this raiding zone for years.

I must say, the challenge of this zone really appeals to me.

When I was younger I always played by video games on the hardest setting possible. Why? Because you learn the game faster that way. Sure it's more painful, takes way more time than usual, but the challenge is what drives me. The more impossible the challenge, the sweeter the reward when you defeat it. This is why I hope no one beats Solteris for a while. I want to see the best guilds laboring and working to find the solution to these raids. If guilds are able to win events without significant effort, then the entire expansion will be a waste.

Event 1: Sisters, again?

Anyone that has made it through Demi-Plane of Blood has encounter the "Sisters" event. The three vampire sisters (Althea, Brenda, Christine) are viaing for the attention of their master (Mr. Mistmore). Apparently, after they were defeated in Demi-Plane of Blood the Mayong thought to himself, "These girls can slow down the raiders while I formulate my attack on Sol Ro". Mean while, Soluesk Ro is thinking, "hurrah for ho's!"

This event is centered around a giant sun dial. There are two phases. Currently my guild has not been able to reach phase two, since we are still working on the mechanics of the fight. The requirements for this fight are pretty crazy it seems. I won't spill much more info on this fight besides saying, "trying to kill the 9 trash sucks".

I wouldn't suggest changing a thing about this fight yet. One guild has already beaten the fight. But it seems that guild was able to bypass some of the difficulty of the event's design. I'm not saying that's a negative thing either, but the loophole that was used for the first win has already been corrected.

Something that worries me, the lack of helpful emotes for this fight... all the sisters say is "hey go kill these dudes, bring me three things" and then the guild is left trying to figure out, who the dudes are, how to kill the dudes, what the things are, which sister wants what thing, what the things do or matter, and how are we going to have enough juice left for the next phase? If the design team would add a few more emotes that give hints to the amount of time the event has left, what items the sisters want, and what the giant sun dial is for... that would be great.... or atleast have a lore book somewhere that gives clues for the various raids... using rare drop or quested lore books to get information that could guide raiders would really help EverQuests raiding game: Rare Lore Information. Knowledge is power.

So that about wraps it up for what the top of the top raiding guilds are doing right now. Event 1 in Solteris is pretty freaking hard, but I expect to see some wins by this weekend.