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This message board is populated by the original members, leaders, and officers of Southern Legion which was a guild in Everquest that started just after the games release in 1999. Twelve months later a new guild, Aurora Noctum, began life in Everquest on 11th November, 2000. We played and won EQ a few times and then people gradually stopped playing. Since then we've played many games. A significant part of our history is noted below.
Mid 2016 - Everquest
A number of people rolled characters on the Phingel server. Phinigel is/was a "box progression server". What that means is that it starts off as plain Everquest with no expansions and adds them at intervals of 3 to 6 months. Initially there were 15 to 20 players, but real life and other things kicked in and it dwindled to about 10 playing just before Christmas 2016. There is currently nobody playing due to a break over the 2016/17 holiday period ... more to come.. maybe?
Early 2016 - Blade and Soul
B&S is a Korean fantasy MMO. We poked fun at this when it was made available to English/Euro countries. However it actually turned out to be a bit of fun... albeit for a limited time. The playstyle was fast paced, but gearing-up was extremely 'grindy' and repetitive which didn't sit well with many of our players. Most people abandoned this around April/May 2016 but we've heard a rumour Rastan still plays with his cat army.
July 2015 - Final Fantasy 14, Part 2
A new expansion was released and there was also a lot of new content since the guild last played. 8 or 9 players came back to the game and after a few weeks we transferred to the Japanese Tonberry server. The Tonberry server has a larger population in our playing time and also better ping times. With a view to build up numbers and do some progression, the guild has started to actively seek new players for the first time in many years. As of April 2016 people had stopped logging in to play.
April 2014 - Everquest 2, Part 3
A handful of players went back to this old favourite. EQ2 is now in its 10th year and there is a huge amount of content to play. SoE also started their newly priced All Access subscription which some people have found attractive (access all games for the price of one). This effort lasted until early 2015. November 2015, after server consolidations the guild has ended up on the Halls of Fate server, and a couple of people still log in and play occasionally. Sony Online Entertainment sold out to a big venture company and started trading as Daybreak Games. With the downsizing of staff, etc, people are getting the impression that Everquest has a bleak future. The new content releases are slim and Daybreak Games has also announced that Everquest Next has been cancelled so it looks like the Everquest franchise might be headed for a sad death.
May 2014 - Wildstar
AN Players headed into the whacky cartoon game of Wildstar (have nfi what to say because I'm not playing it~). As of September 2014 nobody was talking about this game so we'll declare it dead.
April 2014 - The Elder Scrolls Online
A few AN'ers loaded the game up and most quit before the free 30 days ended. It's best left for history to tell the story of this turd. Elder Scrolls is simply not meant to be an MMO and the developers have been punished for their cash-grabbing greed.
August 2013 - Final Fantasy 14
This game was originally released in Oct 2010 and was a complete disaster. The producers sacked the development team and told the playerbase the game was free until they fixed it. The 1.0 version was shutdown in Dec 2012 and the 2.0 version went into beta. v2.0 is a totally new game with only the core design elements remaining. It looks and plays much better. Sadly though, most players had disappeared by February 2014 once again leaving the last half dozen or so "regulars" with no way to progress.
April 2013 - Neverwinter
The game started off promising but lacked challenge, and the quests whilst levelling up were tedious at best. In the dungeons, they were a bit easy to start with .... until you get to the main bosses. They're nearly impossible unless you're over-geared and/or exploited flaws in the game mechanics. Neverwinter is also meant to be free to play, but after playing for a while you discover the entire game is capped by some of the most expensive costs ever seen in the genre. Died June 2013
November 2012 - Rift Part 2
Storm Legion Expansion came out in Nov 2012 and the guild came back to life with about 15 players. Rift is generally considered to be a quality fantasy MMO, and after only 18 months of release is quite rich in features. Nevertheless, the magic wasn't there and the effort fizzled pretty quickly. It's hard to pinpoint why people don't like Rift. Maybe everyone is getting old and tired of these games. Fizzled January 2013.
August 2012 - Guildwars 2
The great messiah of MMO's was released and the guild was formed. To be continued..... fizzle. As of November 2012 I don't think anyone is playing this anymore. It's hard to declare it dead because it's game that requires no subscription. All up though... probably the second biggest disappointment for 2012, next to swtor. There was a burst of activity in 2014 and we run a few dungeons but the game still lacks enough of the type of content needed to keep players playing for very long.
July 2012 - The Secret World
This game brought back some old-fashioned values and combined them with some new ideas for a MMO. The strength of the game caters to a niche market and unfortunately that could be its downfall. MMO players have been calling out for the things TSW provided, but there's a much louder population of players who continue to hate on anything that isn't a game of comfort and free entitlements. The MMO locusts and sheep chewed through TSW fairly quickly and moved on. Most of the guild players drifted away from TSW when Guildwars 2 released, although as of Sept 2012, ten or so remained. August 2013 there were 5 regulars and a few intermittent players, not quite dead but very quiet for the guild. Most players abandoned the game after 2014 New Year break.
December 2011 - Star Wars, The Old Republic
After a bit of a MMO drought, the guild took to the streets in SW-TOR. The guild started raiding on The Harbinger server (US West). The Australian servers launched on 29th Feb, 2012 and the guild was created on the PvE server. There was a delay with transfers to this server so the guild was split across two servers until May 2012 when the transfers were completed. By Sept 2012 swtor had fizzled, with most players citing a lack of challenge as the reason for not playing. It was generally accepted as being a good game and we thought the future might improve things. WRONG. The gaming company of dogshit proportions, Electronic Arts, introduced a free-to-play system in Nov 2012. EA quickly turned a reasonable game into a stinking turd.. So now we know the answer asked down below in SWG. How do you fuck up a Star Wars franchise? Give it to a company that is clueless.
Feb 2011 - Rift
We formed the guild on the Wolfsbane server along with many other Oceanic guilds and have seen lots of activity and interest with many old members re-joining us to take on Rift. During the first couple of months of live play, the guild had between 80 and 90 main characters. Three months after release, the guild wasn't getting 20 players logging in for raids and it fizzled.
June 2010 - Dungeons & Dragons Online
The guild was formed and active in DDO for a bit. The game is very casual in nature and the free to play model is quite interesting. The adaptation of DnD rules to a MMO is something a little bit different too. Our members didn't show much interest in this though.
13th January 2010 - Star Trek Online
The guild (Fleet) was formed during the beta of ST:O on 13th January 2010. Is this a space MMO that might work? It seems to have captured the feel of Star Trek, so maybe...... not. (June 2010) The Fleet still exists but only a few players with lifetime subs log in to check things out every now and then. During 2011, Cryptic was bought by Perfect World and they moved STO to a free to play model during January 2012.
May 2009 - Lord of the Rings Online, Part 2
A few players returned to the game to find the older content had been filled out considerably, and the Mirkwood expansion was on the way. (Dec 2009) After peaking at around 35 players, most of those disappeared for various reasons. The guild remains alive due to some lifetime subscriptions, at this stage it's just a game to drop into every now and then with no active recruiting happening. (June 2010) There's a move to a free-to-play model that could prove interesting and may attract a few back to the game. After the free to play system was released in 2011, a few players came back to play for a while but not enough to do anything useful as a guild and it fizzzled again.
21 September 2009 - 19th November 2009. Aion
We formed up the guild in this new fantasy game where everyone is beautiful and perfect. The guild closed down it's Aion operation on 19th November because it was too beautiful and perfect. nim keke ^_^ tldr; Asian disaster.
May 2008 - Age of Conan
A small band of explorers created AN on the Gwahlur server. Will AN survive playing in three different games at one time??? Nope. AoC stank after level 20 and the guild fizzled... everyone went back to their respective holes (mostly in eq2)
March 2008 - Everquest 2, Part 2~
During Nov 2007, fifteen or so players started playing EQ2 during the Rise of Kunark expansion and joined another raiding guild. There were old AN players scattered all over the place on the server, so during March 2008 AN was formed by Tyranny (Amadacinia from eq1) to put alts in and have a place where old friends could get together. After four months of being in the abovementioned raiding guild, a few of the raiding players left due to culture differences and joined AN. The leaders of the previous guild kicked out everyone else associated with AN. That turned out to be a great move for us. We quickly turned AN into a raiding guild and passed the former guild's progress in our very first night of raiding. During May 2009, several key players departed for other games/guilds and a rebuilding process commenced. Due to reduced numbers, the guild ran with an alliance for a while and then came back to strength in the latter part of 2009 and started raiding on its own again. After a difficult 2010, the guild fizzled again early in 2011. Eq2 was losing players quickly, probably due to the impending release of Rift. As of May 2011 the EQ2 guild still exists with a couple of players staying around to wave the flag.
November 2007 - WoW
AN was reformed on the Blackrock server by a small group of players, mostly refugee's from EQ1 and the leftovers from the Proudmoore effort.
May 2007 - Lord of the Rings Online
AN was created in Lord of the Rings Online, on the Elendilmir server. LoTRO is a good game but at that time players got bored with the strictly linear content which ran out of steam past level 35. The guild went into hibernation around August 2007.
July 2006 - WoW
AN was created in WoW on the Proudmoore PvE server. There was good interest to begin with and we merged with another guild to boost numbers for everyone, but that didn't turn out very good and the new players went their separate way again. Although we started to raid in Karazhan, people started to be lured away by other more interesting things and the guild went into hibernation in June 2007.
Early 2005 - Vanguard
We gave Vanguard a good run in beta but it turned out to be a piece of shit, just like some of the players who were invited to our beta guild. The shining light on the horizon may be Vanguard but don't be surprised if that ends on the pile of crap that is MMO-2006. After all, it's being created by core of the team who did eq1, and we all remember how crappy that was when it was released. Microsoft ditched the publishing rights for Vanguard, so that must say something. SoE picked up the rights which also says something. Something. Fail.
November 2004 - Everquest 2
AN was created in EQ2 on the Nektulos server. The guild creation on a non-Aussie server was made with the best intention (better access to contested mobs, etc), but turned out to be a mistake and the guild fizzled due to a lack of players to recruit. EQ2 at that time was also very difficult with nearly all overland mobs being heroic. From what I can gather from my screenshot directory, it fizzled somewhere around June 2005, but some of us went back to play again from Sept to December 2005. Most people took advantage of a free server transfer offer in 2006 and move to Najena which was the unofficial Aussie server at that time.
November 2004 - WoW
AN was created in WoW on the Blackrock PvP server.
July 2003 - Star Wars Galaxies
AN was created in SWG. Once again, we had a game that should have been the EQ-Killer but it wasn't. By releasing this game too soon, SoE proved just how bad they were at making games. How the F could anyone screw up a Star Wars franchise? It's hard to put a fizzle date on this one, looks like somewhere in the middle of 2004.
October 2001 - DAoC
AN players were there for the latter stages of DAoC beta and formed up the guild when the game was released, and ....... not much in the way of info after that because I had a busy qwork schedule ^_^
June 2001 - Anarchy Online
AN was created in Anarchy Online at release on 26th June 2001. The game that could have been the EQ-killer was riddled with bugs and was unplayable for months. That wasn't surprising considering the devs managed to trash the game database during the final week of beta and couldn't recover it, so they shut the game down for a few days and then launched it. Although the game is/was quite revolutionary it didn't hold the players who prefer the traditional fantasy MMO's.
11th November 2000 - Everquest, (as Aurora Noctum)
Aurora Noctum was first formed in Everquest on the Tribunal server. A group of about 20 players split from Southern Legion to create a guild that was a little more rigid in structure, and with a few more rules and regulations to suit a raiding environment. The first leader was Demyte, followed by Jhentar, Jimoin, Fangers, Quue, Rincewindex, Xansoro/Seratus. You could write a series of books about the life and times of the players who have played Everquest with AN. March 2008 - AN-EQ1 stayed among the best of the raiding guilds for many years. In February 2008 AN wound down its hardcore raiding profile due to a general lack of interest in the game. The raiding players drifted away to other servers, while the guild continued to run at a slower pace. As of 2013 the status of the guild is unknown.
31st August 1999 - Everquest, (as Southern Legion)
Southern Legion was formed on The Tribunal server and lived out its life as being the ultimate casual EQ1 guild for Aussies. 3D MMO games were new to Planet Earth and players were happy to take weeks, or even months to get one level.
Mid 2016 - Everquest
A number of people rolled characters on the Phingel server. Phinigel is/was a "box progression server". What that means is that it starts off as plain Everquest with no expansions and adds them at intervals of 3 to 6 months. Initially there were 15 to 20 players, but real life and other things kicked in and it dwindled to about 10 playing just before Christmas 2016. There is currently nobody playing due to a break over the 2016/17 holiday period ... more to come.. maybe?
Early 2016 - Blade and Soul
B&S is a Korean fantasy MMO. We poked fun at this when it was made available to English/Euro countries. However it actually turned out to be a bit of fun... albeit for a limited time. The playstyle was fast paced, but gearing-up was extremely 'grindy' and repetitive which didn't sit well with many of our players. Most people abandoned this around April/May 2016 but we've heard a rumour Rastan still plays with his cat army.
July 2015 - Final Fantasy 14, Part 2
A new expansion was released and there was also a lot of new content since the guild last played. 8 or 9 players came back to the game and after a few weeks we transferred to the Japanese Tonberry server. The Tonberry server has a larger population in our playing time and also better ping times. With a view to build up numbers and do some progression, the guild has started to actively seek new players for the first time in many years. As of April 2016 people had stopped logging in to play.
April 2014 - Everquest 2, Part 3
A handful of players went back to this old favourite. EQ2 is now in its 10th year and there is a huge amount of content to play. SoE also started their newly priced All Access subscription which some people have found attractive (access all games for the price of one). This effort lasted until early 2015. November 2015, after server consolidations the guild has ended up on the Halls of Fate server, and a couple of people still log in and play occasionally. Sony Online Entertainment sold out to a big venture company and started trading as Daybreak Games. With the downsizing of staff, etc, people are getting the impression that Everquest has a bleak future. The new content releases are slim and Daybreak Games has also announced that Everquest Next has been cancelled so it looks like the Everquest franchise might be headed for a sad death.
May 2014 - Wildstar
AN Players headed into the whacky cartoon game of Wildstar (have nfi what to say because I'm not playing it~). As of September 2014 nobody was talking about this game so we'll declare it dead.
April 2014 - The Elder Scrolls Online
A few AN'ers loaded the game up and most quit before the free 30 days ended. It's best left for history to tell the story of this turd. Elder Scrolls is simply not meant to be an MMO and the developers have been punished for their cash-grabbing greed.
August 2013 - Final Fantasy 14
This game was originally released in Oct 2010 and was a complete disaster. The producers sacked the development team and told the playerbase the game was free until they fixed it. The 1.0 version was shutdown in Dec 2012 and the 2.0 version went into beta. v2.0 is a totally new game with only the core design elements remaining. It looks and plays much better. Sadly though, most players had disappeared by February 2014 once again leaving the last half dozen or so "regulars" with no way to progress.
April 2013 - Neverwinter
The game started off promising but lacked challenge, and the quests whilst levelling up were tedious at best. In the dungeons, they were a bit easy to start with .... until you get to the main bosses. They're nearly impossible unless you're over-geared and/or exploited flaws in the game mechanics. Neverwinter is also meant to be free to play, but after playing for a while you discover the entire game is capped by some of the most expensive costs ever seen in the genre. Died June 2013
November 2012 - Rift Part 2
Storm Legion Expansion came out in Nov 2012 and the guild came back to life with about 15 players. Rift is generally considered to be a quality fantasy MMO, and after only 18 months of release is quite rich in features. Nevertheless, the magic wasn't there and the effort fizzled pretty quickly. It's hard to pinpoint why people don't like Rift. Maybe everyone is getting old and tired of these games. Fizzled January 2013.
August 2012 - Guildwars 2
The great messiah of MMO's was released and the guild was formed. To be continued..... fizzle. As of November 2012 I don't think anyone is playing this anymore. It's hard to declare it dead because it's game that requires no subscription. All up though... probably the second biggest disappointment for 2012, next to swtor. There was a burst of activity in 2014 and we run a few dungeons but the game still lacks enough of the type of content needed to keep players playing for very long.
July 2012 - The Secret World
This game brought back some old-fashioned values and combined them with some new ideas for a MMO. The strength of the game caters to a niche market and unfortunately that could be its downfall. MMO players have been calling out for the things TSW provided, but there's a much louder population of players who continue to hate on anything that isn't a game of comfort and free entitlements. The MMO locusts and sheep chewed through TSW fairly quickly and moved on. Most of the guild players drifted away from TSW when Guildwars 2 released, although as of Sept 2012, ten or so remained. August 2013 there were 5 regulars and a few intermittent players, not quite dead but very quiet for the guild. Most players abandoned the game after 2014 New Year break.
December 2011 - Star Wars, The Old Republic
After a bit of a MMO drought, the guild took to the streets in SW-TOR. The guild started raiding on The Harbinger server (US West). The Australian servers launched on 29th Feb, 2012 and the guild was created on the PvE server. There was a delay with transfers to this server so the guild was split across two servers until May 2012 when the transfers were completed. By Sept 2012 swtor had fizzled, with most players citing a lack of challenge as the reason for not playing. It was generally accepted as being a good game and we thought the future might improve things. WRONG. The gaming company of dogshit proportions, Electronic Arts, introduced a free-to-play system in Nov 2012. EA quickly turned a reasonable game into a stinking turd.. So now we know the answer asked down below in SWG. How do you fuck up a Star Wars franchise? Give it to a company that is clueless.
Feb 2011 - Rift
We formed the guild on the Wolfsbane server along with many other Oceanic guilds and have seen lots of activity and interest with many old members re-joining us to take on Rift. During the first couple of months of live play, the guild had between 80 and 90 main characters. Three months after release, the guild wasn't getting 20 players logging in for raids and it fizzled.
June 2010 - Dungeons & Dragons Online
The guild was formed and active in DDO for a bit. The game is very casual in nature and the free to play model is quite interesting. The adaptation of DnD rules to a MMO is something a little bit different too. Our members didn't show much interest in this though.
13th January 2010 - Star Trek Online
The guild (Fleet) was formed during the beta of ST:O on 13th January 2010. Is this a space MMO that might work? It seems to have captured the feel of Star Trek, so maybe...... not. (June 2010) The Fleet still exists but only a few players with lifetime subs log in to check things out every now and then. During 2011, Cryptic was bought by Perfect World and they moved STO to a free to play model during January 2012.
May 2009 - Lord of the Rings Online, Part 2
A few players returned to the game to find the older content had been filled out considerably, and the Mirkwood expansion was on the way. (Dec 2009) After peaking at around 35 players, most of those disappeared for various reasons. The guild remains alive due to some lifetime subscriptions, at this stage it's just a game to drop into every now and then with no active recruiting happening. (June 2010) There's a move to a free-to-play model that could prove interesting and may attract a few back to the game. After the free to play system was released in 2011, a few players came back to play for a while but not enough to do anything useful as a guild and it fizzzled again.
21 September 2009 - 19th November 2009. Aion
We formed up the guild in this new fantasy game where everyone is beautiful and perfect. The guild closed down it's Aion operation on 19th November because it was too beautiful and perfect. nim keke ^_^ tldr; Asian disaster.
May 2008 - Age of Conan
A small band of explorers created AN on the Gwahlur server. Will AN survive playing in three different games at one time??? Nope. AoC stank after level 20 and the guild fizzled... everyone went back to their respective holes (mostly in eq2)
March 2008 - Everquest 2, Part 2~
During Nov 2007, fifteen or so players started playing EQ2 during the Rise of Kunark expansion and joined another raiding guild. There were old AN players scattered all over the place on the server, so during March 2008 AN was formed by Tyranny (Amadacinia from eq1) to put alts in and have a place where old friends could get together. After four months of being in the abovementioned raiding guild, a few of the raiding players left due to culture differences and joined AN. The leaders of the previous guild kicked out everyone else associated with AN. That turned out to be a great move for us. We quickly turned AN into a raiding guild and passed the former guild's progress in our very first night of raiding. During May 2009, several key players departed for other games/guilds and a rebuilding process commenced. Due to reduced numbers, the guild ran with an alliance for a while and then came back to strength in the latter part of 2009 and started raiding on its own again. After a difficult 2010, the guild fizzled again early in 2011. Eq2 was losing players quickly, probably due to the impending release of Rift. As of May 2011 the EQ2 guild still exists with a couple of players staying around to wave the flag.
November 2007 - WoW
AN was reformed on the Blackrock server by a small group of players, mostly refugee's from EQ1 and the leftovers from the Proudmoore effort.
May 2007 - Lord of the Rings Online
AN was created in Lord of the Rings Online, on the Elendilmir server. LoTRO is a good game but at that time players got bored with the strictly linear content which ran out of steam past level 35. The guild went into hibernation around August 2007.
July 2006 - WoW
AN was created in WoW on the Proudmoore PvE server. There was good interest to begin with and we merged with another guild to boost numbers for everyone, but that didn't turn out very good and the new players went their separate way again. Although we started to raid in Karazhan, people started to be lured away by other more interesting things and the guild went into hibernation in June 2007.
Early 2005 - Vanguard
We gave Vanguard a good run in beta but it turned out to be a piece of shit, just like some of the players who were invited to our beta guild. The shining light on the horizon may be Vanguard but don't be surprised if that ends on the pile of crap that is MMO-2006. After all, it's being created by core of the team who did eq1, and we all remember how crappy that was when it was released. Microsoft ditched the publishing rights for Vanguard, so that must say something. SoE picked up the rights which also says something. Something. Fail.
November 2004 - Everquest 2
AN was created in EQ2 on the Nektulos server. The guild creation on a non-Aussie server was made with the best intention (better access to contested mobs, etc), but turned out to be a mistake and the guild fizzled due to a lack of players to recruit. EQ2 at that time was also very difficult with nearly all overland mobs being heroic. From what I can gather from my screenshot directory, it fizzled somewhere around June 2005, but some of us went back to play again from Sept to December 2005. Most people took advantage of a free server transfer offer in 2006 and move to Najena which was the unofficial Aussie server at that time.
November 2004 - WoW
AN was created in WoW on the Blackrock PvP server.
July 2003 - Star Wars Galaxies
AN was created in SWG. Once again, we had a game that should have been the EQ-Killer but it wasn't. By releasing this game too soon, SoE proved just how bad they were at making games. How the F could anyone screw up a Star Wars franchise? It's hard to put a fizzle date on this one, looks like somewhere in the middle of 2004.
October 2001 - DAoC
AN players were there for the latter stages of DAoC beta and formed up the guild when the game was released, and ....... not much in the way of info after that because I had a busy qwork schedule ^_^
June 2001 - Anarchy Online
AN was created in Anarchy Online at release on 26th June 2001. The game that could have been the EQ-killer was riddled with bugs and was unplayable for months. That wasn't surprising considering the devs managed to trash the game database during the final week of beta and couldn't recover it, so they shut the game down for a few days and then launched it. Although the game is/was quite revolutionary it didn't hold the players who prefer the traditional fantasy MMO's.
11th November 2000 - Everquest, (as Aurora Noctum)
Aurora Noctum was first formed in Everquest on the Tribunal server. A group of about 20 players split from Southern Legion to create a guild that was a little more rigid in structure, and with a few more rules and regulations to suit a raiding environment. The first leader was Demyte, followed by Jhentar, Jimoin, Fangers, Quue, Rincewindex, Xansoro/Seratus. You could write a series of books about the life and times of the players who have played Everquest with AN. March 2008 - AN-EQ1 stayed among the best of the raiding guilds for many years. In February 2008 AN wound down its hardcore raiding profile due to a general lack of interest in the game. The raiding players drifted away to other servers, while the guild continued to run at a slower pace. As of 2013 the status of the guild is unknown.
31st August 1999 - Everquest, (as Southern Legion)
Southern Legion was formed on The Tribunal server and lived out its life as being the ultimate casual EQ1 guild for Aussies. 3D MMO games were new to Planet Earth and players were happy to take weeks, or even months to get one level.