Second Anniversary Reflections

by Manwe-(Valar)
Recruiter of many; Council head for a time; Council member, Vala
October 6, 1999

Heya heya heya,

  Wow! I cant belive it was 2 years ago that the Valar guild was formed. I
can tell you that it has been a pleasure getting to know you guys and I hope
that the Valar group continues on for another 2 years (atleast=). Two years
ago I would have never imagined that I would have online friends or penpals
from across the globe, but you all in the guild have made me change my
thinking. Tahanks Valar guild for the laughs, for giving me a glimpse of
life beyond my own circle, and for being good people.

  Some history...

  In mid October 1997 I went onto battle.net for my first time. I had just
made a move from California to the state of Virginia. I didnt know many
people beyond my family so the computer was my form of recreation. I played
as Sauron on battle.net being a Tolkien fan already for 10 years. Like our
founder Eru I saw many Tolkien names on b.net and began to chat with them
about the books. I was from that time on addicted to chat. It was late
October when I was accidentally messaged by a user named Melkor-(Valar).

  Melkor's accidental message to me was kinda funny looking back. He was
recruiting for the new Valar guild and meant to whisper someone else in the
public channel we were in. I remember I complimented him on his choice of
names and he invited me to the Valar channel. In the channel were some of
the Original Valar members and I began a Tolkien chat with them. Eru (then
Manwe) began telling me the history of Sauron and we started finishing
each other's sentences. It was funny, because until that time I had not met
anyone who knew the books as well as I did. The others in the channel, I
think, were kinda blown away by this and they began asking us questions,
qeustions that proved that they were not big Tolkien fans. Eru proposed to
me that I should join the guild and I would be allowed to have the name
Sauron. I left the channel to ponder it and I came back after having a
ciggarette and joined up as Sauron-(Valar) and the first Maiar to join the
ranks of the new guild.

  During those times the structure of the guild was very different from what
we have today. Eru recruited the Valar characters first and he gave them
sub-guilds. The sub-guilds were run by the individual Valar players and the
Valar themselves were in Eru's sub-guild. Myself playing as Sauron-(Valar)
was in Melkor's sub-guild. Melkor's sub-guild grew the fastest and he
quickly gathered up a handfull of members and I learned from him some ways
to recruit. However I will admit I was not happy being in Melkor's group.
Melkor wasnt online much and the people he was recruiting had little or no
knowledge of the books. Melkor also seemed to have something against Eru and
he saught to get the guild for himself (weird I know). The conflict between
Melkor eventually led to a one on one talk between them in which Eru nearly
booted Melkor.

  It was during this time also that I began recruiting. I would mostly try
to recruit for Melkor's subguild but I also worked with Eru on one
particular occasion and he and I recruited Ingwe. The recruitment of Ingwe
sparked a few things. One being that we employed an early version of
quizzing, though we did not intentionally quiz just our chat with Ingwe
revovled around Tolkien and Eru and I wanted more Tolkien fans such as
ourselves to chat with. Secondly the recruitment of Ingwe kinda broke down
the barriers of the sub-guilds in that I as Sauron did not try to make him
play as an evil char but worked with Eru to find a suitable place for him in
the guild since Ingwe wanted to be an Elf. Thirdly I think that I earned
Eru's trust with the recruitment of Ingwe since we were both thinking of the
guild as whole and not just to our own particular subguilds.

  All things said above took place within about a 3-4 week period of time.
Those beginning weeks were hard, since there were no real guidlines for
anything, no web page, and a general lack of Tolkien knowledge or activity
throughout the guild. I began to take some thought to help the guild, but
Melkor as cool of a person as he was wasnt much help. So I began writing to
Eru, mostly our mails were long winded Tolkien chat but I did express some
of the things I thought could be improved on in the guild. I must admit I
was becoming very attached to the guild at that time. In early-mid November
I wrote Eru a letter in which I attacked some of the problems the guild was
having and proposed some solutions. To my shock the next day Eru disbanned
the original members of the guild, except me. He wrote me a seperate letter
which explained that he agreed that the original concept of the Valar guild
just wasnt working and he invited me to help him with rebuilding a new Valar
guild in which the Tolkien theme would be emphasised.

  Now with the invitaion of Eru I began to take some thought to the problems
of the orginal guild. One being the lack of Tolkien knowledge
and the lack of activity within the guild. I submitted to Eru a guidline for
recruiting in which a Tolkien quiz would be included thus assuring only
Tolkien readers could become members. Also in the guidlines I made an
attempt to make sure potential recruits were somewhat frequent users of
b.net. We both agreed that recruiting the right people was important to the
"second theme" of the guild. Eru began work on the first Valar home page in
which he put up the first connections page complete with times of
availabilty and e-mail addresses of members. We aslo agreed that members
should have freedom to choose any names from the books. In the original
concept of the guild, members filled up the high ranking names first, but we
saw it best to let members play as characters they liked, ranked or not, as
a matter of fact a ranking system still wasnt discussed or even really
needed.

  From mid Nov-Dec '97 Eru and I began a heavy regimine of recruiting. To
our luck one of our first members during those times was Orome (then Turin).
My first impression was, "boy this guy knows his Tolkien" but as our
conversation revovled around the stories it became apparent that Turin/Orome
was just the type of member the guild needed. In closing our first
conversation with me Turin/Orome told me he had to pick up his kids, I
thought it was cool to have a family man join up. Well versed in Tolkien,
could joke around or hold a mature conversation Turin/Orome became the first
member to become a Valar in the "new" guild after just a short stint as
Turin, and became Orome-(Valar). It was in these early recruiting days that
Ingwe was let back in the guild.

  The recruiting went well into December '97. That was a great month for
recruiting. It was during that month that most of the core members of the
council, as we know it, were recruited. Ulmo(then Earendil), Makar(then
Turgon), Namo(then SamWise), Osse(then Ar-Pharazon)
Varda (then Faramir, "Far buddy"), Beren( then Beren and later Tulkas), Osse
brought in later Aule(then Aragorn) and Orome later brought in our
Melkor(then Eomer). It is interesting to me that most of the council was
recruited during this time and that they would eventually become the
care-takers of the guild. There were many people recruited during that month
and the guild began to grow and Eru and I had to put more time into it, but
to our pleasure =). I found myself enjoying not only the recruiting aspect
of my role but also helping new members along, gaining levels in games,
sharing equiptment/gold, and also introducing everyone to eachother. These
members mentioned above though not yet "ranking members" were already
forming ideas and helping. Earendil(Ulmo) and SamWise(Namo) helped me a ton
with the recruits that were steadily coming in.

  In late Dec '97- Jan '98, though the council was not formed, some of the
traditions and rules began to take shape. Orome it was who thought up the
idea to have multiple/secondary names so as diablo players could play with
all the classes. Eru( still playing as Manwe) began the 1st Valar quiz,
which went very well. Also Earendil(Ulmo) proposed the idea of a tournament
and began working how and what games would be fun. Beren the young man from
south America added his touch to the guild by teaching us some of the
languages of Tolkien. Also late night chats became more common =).

1998 for the Valar guild started out a little rough. I myself had taken a
few weeks away from the computer which was lovingly called the "Sauronless
days", the endless hours I spent recruiting cought up with me finally and
Eru's computer crashed and the first Tolkien quiz was cut short.

  While Eru and I were temporarily M.I.A. I think the members began to rally
and became a tight bunch. In hindsight maybe it was better that way. Upon
one of my visits during my mini vacation from the guild Earendil(Ulmo) told
me that Eru was no longer answering his mails. I said to Earendil(Ulmo) that
we should form a council to help keep things going until the hopeful return
of Eru. Earendil(Ulmo) gathered up those he saw fit and Aragorn(Aule) sent
out a mass mail to the guild, which was around 30+members at that time
explaining the events and of the council's formation. Also Aragorn(Aule) and
Beren picked up the slack and remade the guild homepage with some new
additions, Beren's book of the high elven toungue and the first discussion
board.

  In Aragorn's(Aule) letter he named me as "second in command". To tell the
truth I had never thought of my rank in the guild. Up until that point I was
only interested in recruiting and helping to keep a fun theme to the guild
and to meet people. With this perception from the guild as to the rank I
held I knew that I had to help in Eru's abscence. I saw that I could not do
things alone and knew that the people in the council liked the guild as much
as I did. I called a meeting of the guild on a Sunday in Feb '98. To my
relief Eru got his comp running in the days just before that first official
meeting. Eru thanked me and the council for picking up the load while he was
gone. At this time we all thought that the council would be disbanned and
infact that was our idea when we formed it, it was supposed to be temporary
until Eru returned. Eru decided that the council would stay in place. Im
glad he did. Eru gave out duties to each council member and promoted them to
Valar characters. Infact all members who attended the meeting that day were
promoted to Maiar, and I myself was promoted to the title of Manwe, and Eru
became Eru. It was at this first Sunday meeting that we had a "scroll" =).

  This system was the first official ranking system that the guild had since
the "first theme" and the meeting time became official. I was promoted to
chairman of the council. I was a little overwhelmed by this descision at
first. Firstly no matter what people said I never wanted to be "second in
command" and secondly we didnt have such a position up till that point. I
made it a point to stay in touch with the general mood of guild members. I
would send out weekly mails to the council in which I would include old
letters myself and Eru wrote on the rough guidelines that we had already
established (remember those?). The council was willing and helped out tons.
They helped make rules on trainers for diablo, ironed out tourney games,
beefed up the webpages, and began to help out with recruiting.

  From March-May 1998 the council helped shape the team oriented theme we
have today. I must say it was fun to watch the council in action in those
first few months. During these months the guild became very close knit, and
many family members and friends joined up. I thought(and still think) it was
cool to have parent/children combos in the guild. It was something unlooked
for but definitly a plus for the group. Also during this time Felagund(Irmo)
joined the guild and added his expertise on Tolkien's books and he and Beren
began the organised Tolkien chats.

  In April of '98 I made plans to move back to my home in California.
I knew with this move that I would be out of touch with the guild for quite
a while. Though the guild was in the good hands of the council and Eru, I
felt that I could not just drop out. In late April I posted the "Changing of
Days" letter on the discussion board. I did this because of the time I put
into the guild and also because I wanted to say goodbye to the friends I had
made. On the first of May 1998 I left the guild and moved back home to
California.

  From May 1998 through May 1999 I became very good pen-pals with the
council. I kept in touch as best I could since I did not have my own
computer. I would often visit b.net from several different computers.
In May 1999 I finally got my own computer and returned back to the Valar
guild.

Conclusion...

  I must say here that I am  happy with the role I played in the early days
of the guild. It was fun helping Eru and Im glad he invited me on such an
adventure as the Valar guild. As I said in the beginning of this letter I
never imagined that I would have pen-pals or online friends. The Valar guild
over the past two years has become for me, as Ulmo often says"a great escape
from reality", but Im glad to have met you guys. I must give you all tahanks
again for putting this thing together.

Namarie Valar buddies
Manwe Sulimo

...but before I go I will leave you all with some words of wisdom, words
that go along with the history I included in this letter.
"Remember, today's mighty oak was once yesterday's nut which held its
ground"