“Halona” Guild

Halona

In a world of guilds that wink into and out of existence within the space of a few weeks or months, Halona represents one of those very rare things indeed - a guild whose age is measured in years. The guild was created in September 2006 on the Doomhammer-EU realm and was originally named "Converge" to reflect the act of a group of friends that were joining forces once more to go raiding together.

The closing months of 2006 saw the guild achieve great success with rapid progress through Zul'gurub, Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, AQ-20 and AQ-40 and into the entrance-ways of Naxxramas. The ORIGINAL Naxxramas!

The launch of TBC caused Doomhammer-EU to become massively over-populated with hour-long queues and server crashes to boot. It therefore made sense in early 2007 when Converge elected to migrate to the brand new Anachronos-EU realm via a freely offered option from Blizzard. The guild also underwent a minor change in its management soon after the move as original GM "Drack" found that a new RL job left little time for the game or guild. Via unanimous agreement, "Broliant" thus became "GM Next".

Without doubt the early TBC content tested most guilds forged in the fires of 40-man raiding with its requirements for running 10-player content as a prelude to the proper 25-player destinations that came after. As a result, the summer of 2007 saw a wholesale rebuilding process begin that would not only form a new foundation for the guild, one that would persist far into its future, but also imbued it with the ability to be able to keep on reinventing itself, to adapt as required, when the world around it changed.

Progress through the TBC raids of Karazhan, Gruul, SSC, Magtheridon, Tempest Keep, Hyjal, Black Temple and Sunwell Plateau all followed. But there was a strange smell in the air and it wasn't coming from Denmark!

After nearly two years on Anachronos-EU, the limitations of the 'new' realm became clear and thus the arrival of Wrath saw the guild make one further 'hop' to relocate to the Silvermoon-EU realm, a destination offering a far larger base of players from which to draw and a greater economy in which to participate.

Things immediately looked much improved and ultimately the only down-side to the move was an enforced guild name-stretch(tm!). Turns out another player had an abandoned vanity guild for his banking alts under the name Converge so the guild took a deep breath and inserted some spaces... creating "< C o n v e r g e >"!!!

Thankfully, other than the name-stretch, all other aspects of the guild contined to smell-as-sweet as they ever had and thus onward marched the guild through the new challenges of Wrath from Naxxramas in the beginning to ICC at the end. (Well, and that violet drake beneath the tower they tacked on just to keep us occupied!)

Roll the clock forward another 18-24 months to the close of 2010 and with the imminent release of Cataclysm came the news that rewards from 10-player and 25-player raids would be equalised ... (Is that not the technical description of a Cataclysm?!) ... which led the guild management to make its next adaptation and change.

With the launch of Cataclysm the guild would restructure itself to be primarily a 10-player guild, hopefully removing some of the work-load in maintaining a 25-player roster, and simultaneously rebrand itself with a new name to reflect the break from past traditions. After voting on many alternatives and suggestions the name selected was "Halona" which simply means "Happy Fortune". If the name still doesn't grab you, remember it could always have been worse; one semi-popular option that did well in the voting was "Black Yoghurt!" Imagine striding into battle as a 'Yoghurteer??!!'

Despite these obvious changes, Cataclysm began for Halona as Wrath had ended for Converge with the same management team and membership running the game's content together. Blackwing Descent and The Bastion of Twilight led us through to the Firelands and onwards towards Dragon Soul and the torment of Deathwing. Activities peaked there and then dissipated slightly for the warmer months as the incredible sporting Summer of 2012 somehow distracted many of us from the delights of running DS for the 'billion-ty millionth' time.

And thus it was that Cataclysm slowly faded into the twilight of this storied guild's history as the fall of 2012 saw the release of "Mists of Pandaria", WoW's current expansion. Halona is, as you can see, alive and well and continues to have its fun by going raiding and sometimes by doing other things in the game as well. But mostly it's about the raiding, mostly...

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What Halona is offering you as a raider:

1. Extraordinary fun-with-focus raiding with competent and proven raid-leading and master-looting practices.
2. Analytical feedback available to all raiders who wishes to improve their personal game-play skills and abilities.
3. A co-operative "help-out" attitude to ensure your improvement as a raider and team player is part of the agenda.
4. A well organised and disciplined Guild offering a foundation of stability, reliability and consistency to all members..
5. A friendly community atmosphere that encourages social activities and fosters long-standing friendships between our broad membership.
6. A mature and understanding perspective that is considerate to the many pressures of life outside the game whilst keeping a firm hand on maintaining good raiding discipline and efficiency.

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What Halona expects of you as a raider:

1. Be reliable and punctual. Sign ups are to be done at least 24 hours before raid start. If you can't attend or arrive on time, it is an obligation upon you to inform an officer or the raid leader.
2. Be prepared. Always come to every raid with enough personal flasks, food-buffs and pots to cover your needs for the entire raid.
3. Be up-to-date in your class/role knowledge. In addition, you should always be prepared with full tactical understanding of a minimum of 2 boss encounters further than the actual guild progression is.
4. Be capable of receiving objective criticism. If you make errors or mistakes, someone will politely advise you of this and you must be able to receive this information and make the necessary corrections.
5. Be vocal during raids. It both supports the raid-leader but also improves your contribtution to the raid significantly and increases the social aspect of the guild. The guild uses Mumble for in-game voice-chat.
6. 2/3 attendance per week is a requirement to be able to get a regular spot in the Halona raid team.
7. A solid internet connection and good computer hardware is mandatory to avoid disconnections and laggy game play.

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General Info about Halona

Raiding days:
Mondays 21:00-23:30 (Server Time)
Wednesdays 21:00-23:30 (Server Time)
Sundays 21:00-23:30 (Server Time)

For more detailed information about Halona visit our website http://www.halona-zat.com or contact one of our officers in-game.