Team Red had a very successful go in Karazhan on Thursday evening, as they managed to clear all the major and optional bosses in Karazhan in only 4 hours from start to finish. That's a very impressive performance indeed. Congratulations to all Team Red members and to Wheat, their leader!

Joining our very successful Karazhan raiding teams of Pink, Blue, and Red, Blox (alt. of Wheat) has started a run on Saturday evenings for alt. characters and people on the waiting list. This new group, called Team White, will feature a fixed core of 5 or 6 players for continuity and progress, but will feature 4 or 5 drop-in slots each Saturday it runs. Sign up in a GEM near you.

On their first night in Karazhan, they took down Attumen, Moroes, Maiden, Curator, and Romulo/Juliet. Good luck, Team White. Keep up with their exploits on the Karazhan Raid Progress page.

General

Although the 2.3 upgrade brought long-awaited in-game voice communications, the implementation has left a little to be desired in terms of usability/sound quality. As such, Basil and Elsheindra, the THB co-coordinators, have rented a commercially hosted, 35-slot Ventrilo server for Team Pink and general Honourbound use.

Ventrilo has a small footprint and is very easy on system resources. Even if you don't have a microphone or headset, you can still easily use it to listen without significantly impacting your WoW game performance. You will need broadband. Experiments with dial-up show that voice comms and WoW do not go together well.

Accessing and Using the Ventrilo Server

You need some client software to access Ventrilo. Our server requires Ventrilo 3.x clients. You can download these from http://www.ventrilo.com/ for Mac OS X or for Windows. They're also available from the THB Information Pages Index in the list of mods there.

• Server address: ventrilo.honourbound.org
• Port: 27563
• Get the password from your guild's THB rep.

The One's Ventrilo page contains instructions for configuring Ventrilo as well as the current client software. Check that out if you need help.

When you connect to the server, you'll find a number of pre-created instance channels which may be used by anyone as well as some nooks designed for one-on-one or small group conversations. Use of the Honourbound Ventrilo server is governed by the same etiquette rules as other Honourbound channels.

Honourbound Requirements for Using Voice Communications

Event leaders may require that participants use voice communications. They should state this in advance and normally no-one is expected to be able to speak, only to listen. There is no Honourbound Alliance requirement that every event must use voice communication systems.

Supporting the Ventrilo Server

Basil and Elsheindra pre-paid the first six-months of the server's life. Kariandra (The One) and Astarte (Roses of Dawn) donated to cover the upgrade to 35 slots. Since then we've upgraded to 50 slots and another six months. It costs us about $138 US/year.

You can donate money towards increasing the number of slots or extending the number of months the server's available using PayPal or credit cards directly to our Ventrilo hosting account at DarkStar using our ClanPay account link.

Current Ventrilo Server Status

Current Ventrilo server status:

Team Blue, led by Terhen and Drennior, having managed to take down all the bosses in Karazhan at least once, turned their sights to Zul'Aman tonight. In they went and, on their first go, managed to get the Bear boss down with no deaths. Congratulations, Team Blue. Very nicely done, indeed!

Ello you lot...

Just looking a getting a HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player (prob ps3) for chrimbo - I was wondering if you guys had a preference - help me I'm confused!

I'm mainly intrested in the film aspect rather than the games as this machine will be in the front room - but Ive gotta say Uncharted looks very wikky-wikky-wah-wah...

Cheers all...

Speedie

General

• Meeting chaired by Basil (Roses of Dawn, THB Co-Coordinator)
• Notes made during meeting by Elsheindra (The One, THB Co-Coordinator)
• Meeting time: 18:00 to 19:30ish Game Time

Proposed Agenda

1. Welcome & Guild Rep/GM Changes (Elsheindra)
   1. Gimlinox as new leader of PL
2. Welcome new Reps that can attend – Trovlard, Shazbot, Astarte.
3. Representative Job/THB Organisation Review (Basil & Elsheindra)
   1. THB channel password change (Basil & Elsheindra)
   2. Intended for 25 Dec 2007
   3. New Honourbound Ventrilo Server (Basil & Elsheindra)
   4. Access information
   5. Paying for
   6. Rules for use
4. Raiding Progress (Basil)
   1. Karazhan status/progress of current groups
   2. Forming a new Karazhan group
   3. Zul'Aman organised raids
   4. Planning for Gruul's lair
5. Change to Looting/Grouping Rules
   1. Drop requirement for lists of roles by guild (Elsheindra)
6. Applications To Join THB (Elsheindra)
   1. Heresy

Final Attendees

• Co-Coordinators
  • Basil - Roses of Dawn
  • Elsheindra - The One (Guild Leader)

• Circle of Elder
  • Wheat
• Phoenix Legion
  • No representative available
• Spirits of the Wolf
  • Trident (Princebrian – guest rep)
• The One
  • Popcorn (Rianna)
• Roses of Dawn
  • Astrakhan (Astarte)
  • Kanine (arrived late)
• Ye Olde Geezers
  • Eztiger (Jungore)

Final Decisions/Major Points

• Welcome & Guild Rep/GM Changes (Basil & Elsheindra)
  • Trovlard (The One) decided not to take on rep job. Trident (Princebrian) covering for Spirits of the Wolf.
• Representative Job/THB Organisation Review (Basil)
  • HB designed as loose alliance of similar-minded guilds, with intention of each guild maintaining its own character, while keeping everything workable. Provide HB Leaders forum (http://www.wowkindness.com/) to communicate with reps, all of whom should have access and receive e-mails automatically with any updates.
  • Reps should pass info on to their guilds via whatever method works best within their guild. Likewise, guilds need to speak to their reps should problems arise. The idea is that reps know their guild members best and can mediate within a guild as much as possible.
  • Co-coordinators rely on reps to inform us if something is up by in-game mail, e-mail, or on the forum. While we do chat with reps normally, we don't spend time catching up with everybody as it would take a large portion of playtime.
  • Reps intended to speak for their guilds, so we want at least 1 rep per guild at meetings. More can attend but they need to decide amongst themselves on decision-making as we want a guild view, not an individual rep view. We have multiple reps to ensure that there is someone online for the guild or other reps to talk to.
  • Reminder: HB and other guilds have no power over individual guild members. Good or bad feedback needs to go to that guild's reps and it is up to that guild to deal with any issues raised.
  • At worst, HB can exclude (temporarily/permanently) people from HB events by adding their name to the relevant blacklist. It's up to event leaders to use these lists.
  • Reps can and should try to mediate problems. If a third-party is needed, the co-coordinators can act as a neutral third-party to help mediate.
• THB channel password change (Basil)
  • Current HB password almost a year old. Needs to be changed as guilds have seen members change and we're seeing increasing numbers of unguilded/non-HB-guilded people on the channel. They normally leave or explain their membership when queried, but good security practices suggests regular password changes.
  • In order for a password change to work, everyone must change at the same time. or it causes havok, as recently demonstrated. [edited]
• We need to agree on a new password, agree on a date to change it, and let our guildies know. Proposed password is "" [edited out] on December 25th.
  • Trident (SotW) asks if we shouldn't use January 1st instead and who is the "we" who must change passwords. Basil responds that Christmas seems quieter. Eztiger (YOG) suggests phasing it over a few days. Basil responds that doesn't work and leads to havoc. Elsheindra suggests that this is where reps come in. They can spam their guild channels. They can message guildies. They can update the message of the day. They can change the guild info panel, etc.
  • Decision: January 1st to be change date for password @ 02:00 Server Time. Basil to post instructions on how to change GEM passwords and on channel administration [some information edited out here].
• New Honourbound Ventrilo Server (Basil & Elsheindra)
  • WoW has voice comms now but not very ideal to use.
  • Some people have their own voice comms server (e.g. Team Red) which they let people use for various reasons.
  • Given how useful voice communication is, Basil and Elsheindra have established an Honourbound voice communications server. It currently has 25 slots and is up for 6 months (minus 2 weeks or so).
    It has several channels for instance runs and conversations and is open for general HB use. Note, however, that Team Pink will be using it for their raids and, in case of capacity issues (unlikely but possible), we may remove people to allow Team Pink people in to the server. Also, if we run an HB 25-person raid, that may soak up all capacity. The server is flexible and we can review usage over time and adjust it.
  • Elsheindra points out there were previous objections to voice comms on the grounds of hardware requirements, but Ventrilo is very lightweight and nobody expected/required to speak during events using it. Basil reminds people that event leaders need to be aware that not everyone on Ventrilo, so will need to provide instructions in typed chat as well as orally. If an event leader has specified in advance that everyone must be able to hear and everyone agrees to that requirement, then that's not necessary of course. As with loot rules, HB rules are the default, but any event leader can specify their own rules as long as the changes are made clear and all in event are aware.
  • Eztiger (YOG) asks if server is available all the time. Basil says it's commercially hosted (paid for by Basil and Elsheindra) and is active all the time.
  • The host provides a donate money link. We need to look into that to see if it can be used to provide extra capacity if needed, but by default extends the duration of the rental. We have 6 months at the moment. We intend to maintain it at 25-person, but we will make the link available somewhere accessible for people who wish to donate.
    Decision: Reps to pass on voice comms server information: ventrilo.honourbound.org, port 27563. Password is "" [edited out]. Event leaders can require everyone to be listening but must have agreement on that from all event attendees prior to starting, as with any other changes from default HB rules.
  • Decision: Elsheindra to make the donation link available.
• Raiding Progress (Basil)
  • 3 Karazhan fixed groups currently running (Blue, Red and Pink). More people waiting on the Fixed Group list. Some of those can't commit to regular dates or have shiftwork patterns. Shift patterns can work well, but the raid leader needs to know in advance and be willing to find replacements.
  • Team Blue (Thursday/Mondays/Tuesday, led by Trovlard/Terhen) have made solid progress, taking down Aran reliably and have killed the Prince. They're working on optional bosses.
  • Team Pink (Thursdays/Tuesdays, led by Basil/Wandjina) can reliably kill Curator, has downed Aran, and gotten the Prince down to 8%. They've had some fluctuation in members which is still ongoing.
  • Team Red (Thursday/Monday/Tuesday, led by Wheat) have cleared Karazhan on their first night in 4 hours end to end. They are using one of the other days for Zul'Aman.
  • Wheat (CoE) points out Team Red days are changing to Karazhan on Thursday and Zul'Aman Monday. Tuesday's freed up for other things.
  • We have a potential leader for another, but they are having trouble getting things arranged, partly due to real life issues.
  • If anyone knows people willing to lead, please encourage them to speak to us. We'll hopefully also see more people arriving on the waiting list so that a group can be formed easily.
  • Wheat (CoE) says he's started a 4th group on Saturday nights with Blox. Basil says he had the impression that it wasn't intended as a fixed group. Wheat would like to see more people having the chance to raid Karazhan but a core of 5 or 6 who know the task makes sense for all. Trident concurs. Wheat continues that 5 or 6 people will be stable and he's happy to rotate on the others. Basil summarises it as Wheat aiming for a fixed core + drop-ins, to which he's in favour as it does give people not in fixed groups a chance to get to Karazhan. Wheat would like the colour white.
  • Trident (SotW) asks about the teams that have cleared Karazhan and whether they should try Gruul's to complete the T4 sets. Basil responds that's next up on the agenda and that's also why we coughed up for 25-slots on the voice communications server.
  • Decision: Elsheindra to add Team White to Karazhan raiding info page and Karazhan raid progress page.
  • Zul'Aman is new, so we're still sorting that out. It's primarily fixed groups going as they are geared. Elsheindra points out that Wednesday/Saturday is a composite, drop-in group. Basil agrees and points out it's made up of members from fixed groups, so we have some level of comfort in their gear. Elsheindra adds that Wednesday/Saturday group and Team Red have both downed the bear boss in Zul'Aman.
  • Gruul's Lair: 25-person, no attunement required. You don't even have to be level 70 to enter. The trash is fairly easy but the boss fights are not. Trident adds that the trash hits quite hard. Popcorn says L66 rogues can get inside and take 30k damage in 2 seconds. High Council, Basil continues, needs specific geared-up classes and a good level of gear for each member, and a very high level of coordination. Gruul is a bigger gear check. Trident (SotW) adds that Gruul is most tactics and Kara-geared people. Realistically, people going to Gruul's need to be mostly epic'd up in L70 epics (Karazhan, PvP, or Heroics). Also need people used to listening to how fights are done and playing by the encounter rules. With 3 raid groups doing well in Karazhan, it is time to move on to Gruul's. We do need to communicate clearly to our guilds what is needed to pull your weight in there. Wheat adds there are a lot of class-specific requirements: good mages and hunters important as well as tanks. Basil continues, we also need to find an evening where the current fixed raiders (as our pool of geared up people) can attend. Trident suggests that all attendees read up on tactics and bring potions/flasks. An event leader is still to be determined but for now, please ask in your guilds who is geared up enough and what days they have available. Also check on their willingness to read tactics in advance and to do as told.
  • Gruul not intended to fixed, but the leader will have discretion over who is invited, in order to try to make sure it works. This is especially important as it's not just down to gear but also to coordination.
  • Decision: Raid leader to be determined. For now, ask in your guilds for people who are geared up enough, what days they have available, and whether they're willing to read tactics in advance and to do as told. We will then assemble a list to work out which day is best.
• Change to Looting/Grouping rules
  • This is primarily to drop requirement for lists of roles by guild. As posted in forums, role lists haven't always appeared and aren't being maintained consistently. Given Armoury allows event leaders to check specs (or you can inspect in game), are there any objections to dropping these lists? They were intended to give leaders a place to look up preferred roles in game but this now seems obsoleted.
  • Decision: Remove requirement for role lists. Elsheindra will update web site accordingly. GEM items will disappear at end of year or can be removed by current list owners.
• Applications To Join THB
  • Heresy has applied to join. It's a relatively new guild with a few L70s and a few more at lower levels. Keen to join. Seromontis (their leader) has been actively chatting to Elsheindra and Basil to see what needs doing. We don't know much about them. Some concerns have been raised, but that may get cleared up. There has been very little feedback on the forum. For general info, they split off from IR. Many people in HB have friends in IR. Basil wants an informed decision on this. [edited]
  • How can we get to know them better? Past method was via 40-person raids. Not an option. Wheat (CoE) says only way is to group with them and Astrakhan (RoD) says best way to move forward is to talk to each other. Basil says that Saturday's drop-in raids (White/Zul'Aman) are an option or for people to make an effort to group with Heresy members to form an opinion. As a rep, you don't have to group personally – just get guildies with sound judgements to do the grouping and report back.
  • Decision: Astrahkan (RoD) to talk to Roses members who may have concerns about Heresy. [edited]
  • Decision: We need to know more about them before admitting them. Make an effort (including via guildies) to get to know members of Heresy more.
  • Decision: We need to give Heresy an idea of how long it will take to form an opinion: suggestions on the forum, please!
• Any Other Business
  • No longer exists. If you have issues, please post it on the forum or let Basil/Elsheindra know.
  • Can get in touch with us using Basil/Elsheindra AT Honourbound DOT org or both of us together using info AT honourbound DOT org
• Next Meeting Date
  • Decision: To be determined when we have an agenda. People can volunteer to champion items.

It's been almost a year since we last changed the Honourbound channel password. We've seen many people come and go in that period and good security practice suggests changing passwords frequently. This is your first warning that the password for the shared Honourbound GEM channel will change.

Date of Change: January 1st, 2008
Time of Change: 02:00 Game Time

Due to the nature of Blizzard's chat channels, it's important that everyone updates the password in their GEM client around the same time. Your guild's Honourbound representative should be handing you out the new one a few days before and helping you change the information in your GEM client. As it gets closer to the change date, I will also post some instructions on how to do it.

This is advance warning #1 that the GEM Honourbound password will be changing.

Gnomish Intelligence Services (GIS) recently spotted that the guild master of Spirits of the Wolf had changed from Sopheia, the guild's founder, to Princebrian (AKA Trident). We've since spoken to Princebrian and confirmed this and we're happy to welcome Princebrian to his new position and wish him all the best in bringing his plans to fruition.

So we finally got the ventrilo server. And as far as I can hear ppl like it. Thow I have to get a new headset since mine is not to good annymore. It has ben arround since the beginning of Counterstrtike so time has not been to kind to it.

Funny is that I asked the guild if I should set up a vent server about 1.5 years ago. Can´t say that the interest was to great then. Guess ppl just have to try it to findout how fun it can be.

I don´t think the writing time is over. But I do know that manny of us will use vent alot from now on. i know I will..

It's been about 6 months since THB attempted Gruul's Lair. Now that we were more reasonably geared up to make an attempt, Basil/Wandjina (Roses of Dawn) organized a Gruul's outing on Sunday, December 16th. Alas, due to his computer problems, he had to hand over the reins to Zam (The One) and watch from the sidelines as the valiant team made 4 attempts on the High King, bringing him down, down, down! Terhen (Shaman), Lauralie (Hunter), and Clout (Paladin) walked away with the loot (identical shoulder tokens for Terhen and Clout – Pauldrons of the Fallen Champion – and Maulgar's Warhelm for Lauralie). This is a THB first and we're quite chuffed that we did it essentially on our first visit ever.

(view as slideshow)

Enthused with our success, the group carried on to attempt Gruul himself. Alas, we didn't quite master the "Stoned Shatter Dance". We made several attempts on Gruul, but each one was improved. On the fourth and final attempt, we had him down to 27%. That's a very impressive showing indeed for the Honourbound Alliance. If we can only learn to dance in step, we should have him down in no time. We have the healers and we have the DPSers.

For those interested in such things, you'll find the raid stats and a list of people who made the raid possible at http://www.honourbound.org/raids/ Just look for the Gruul's Lair run from Sunday, December 16th.

Good work, all!

In just over a week, the Honourbound channel password will be changing. This is your second warning about the upcoming change.

Date of Change: January 1st, 2008
Time of Change: 02:00 Game Time

Due to the nature of Blizzard's chat channels, it's important that everyone updates the password in their GEM client around the same time. Your guild's Honourbound representative or your guild leader should be handing you out the new one a few days before and helping you change the information in your GEM client.

Updating your GEM client is fairly straightforward:

1. Click on your GEM icon around your minimap or type "/gem toggle" to bring up GEM.
2. Once GEM is opened, click the "Options" tab near the bottom of the window to bring up the program's options.
3. In the channel list at the top of the "Options" screen, double-click on the entry for "honourbound". The channel name, password, alias, and slash command should now be in fields you can edit (see picture)
4. Change the current password (BANANA in the picture) to the new password.
5. Optionally, add/update your alias and slash command. The alias is what's printed to the left of messages coming from the channel, like "Guild:" appears before messages from your guild. The slash command is a shortcut to send information to the channel. In the picture, I use "a", so to send a message to the Honourbound channel, I type "/a This is a message on the Honourbound channel". Using a slash command allows you to embed clickable links in your messages, which using /1, /5 (or whatever your Honourbound channel number is) doesn't.
6. When you're ready, click the "Update" button to accept the changes. You're sorted.
   

As everyone needs to change their password around the same time, please update the password just before logging off before January 1st at 02:00 Game Time. If you're away during that period and didn't update before you went, in most cases you will be prompted for the new password when you return and try to join with the old password.

You should also be running a version of GEM higher than 2.26. That is, you should be using at least GEM 2.27 or GEM 2.28.

This is advance warning #2 that the GEM Honourbound password will be changing.

It's a sad day here in THBLand as Oakk/Larian steps down as guild leader of Circle of Elder. Bingley (L70 Hunter) will be the interim guild leader until a permanent one is announced. Welcome and good luck, Bingley. Best wishes, Oakk, and I hope we'll see you around WoW still.

General

The Honourbound channel password was changed at 02:00 Game Time on January 1st.

Due to the nature of Blizzard's chat channels, it's important that everyone has updated the password in their GEM client around the same time. Your guild's Honourbound representatives or your guild leader should have posted or given you the new channel password.

Updating Your GEM

Updating your GEM client is fairly straightforward:

1. Click on your GEM icon around your minimap or type "/gem toggle" to bring up GEM.
2. Once GEM is opened, click the "Options" tab near the bottom of the window to bring up the program's options.
3. In the channel list at the top of the "Options" screen, double-click on the entry for "honourbound". The channel name, password, alias, and slash command should now be in fields you can edit (see picture)
4. Change the current password (BANANA in the picture) to the new password.
5. Optionally, add/update your alias and slash command. The alias is what's printed to the left of messages coming from the channel, like "Guild:" appears before messages from your guild. The slash command is a shortcut to send information to the channel. In the picture, I use "a", so to send a message to the Honourbound channel, I type "/a This is a message on the Honourbound channel". Using a slash command allows you to embed clickable links in your messages, which using /1, /5 (or whatever your Honourbound channel number is) doesn't.
6. When you're ready, click the "Update" button to accept the changes. You're sorted.
   

If you haven't already updated your password, in most cases you will be prompted for the new password when you return and try to join with the old password. If you run into problems, contact your THB rep or guild leader for advice.

Important #1: You still need to update the password in the GEM options or you'll be prompted every time you try to join.

Important #2: You must change the password for every character you have using the Honourbound channel. One change doesn't do them all.

Important #3: You should also be running a version of GEM higher than 2.26. That is, you should be using at least GEM 2.27 or GEM 2.28. The version number is at the top of the GEM window.

Troubleshooting

If the three "Important" notes above don't solve your problem, the following are known potential problems:

Problem: "GuildEventManager: You must add another channel before removing the last one" error when you try to "Update" because you only have one channel managed by GEM.
Solution: In the entry box (Step 4/5), enter a channel name of "junk", with no password, no alias, and no slash command. Click the "Add Button". Then follow the regular sequence of steps to update the Honourbound channel password. When you're done, click on "junk" in the channel list and click "Remove" to remove it.

If you have additional problems, talk to your THB representative or guild leader.

THB Guild Reps/Guild Leaders