Valar Guild

August 11, 2013 Sunday Meeting

5pm EDT (UTC - 5)
AIM: Valar Guild Meetingplace

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Transcript work by
Ar-Pharazon and Varda.

Attending: (3)
    AriehnV, ArPharazonV, VardaValar1 (presiding)

Before-meeting
Meeting begins
Membership:
    Orome
    Indis
    Arien's Bruce
Web:
Gaming:
    SCBW
    Rift
    Diablo 3
    flashgaming
       Creeper World
    WoW
    LotRO
Tolkien:
    Chat: In the Lord of the Rings, do we readers get that sort of lure feeling that progress gives?
After-meeting:
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Before-meeting
You have just entered room "valarguildmeetingplace."
AriehnV has entered the room.
AriehnV: well noone here
AriehnV: that is weird ... i didnt get a mail or anything
ArPharazonV: Me neither.
ArPharazonV: I've invited Iryenth, Fladrif and Indis too, but Indis apparently can't be invited.
AriehnV: i ll have a look in Lotro and see whether anyone knows something about vardas whereabouts
ArPharazonV: Great
AriehnV: somehow i seem to be looking for missing people a lot \';-)
ArPharazonV: I suggest giving it about 15 more minutes, then it's up to you :-)
AriehnV: they havent heard anything in Lotro
AriehnV: it seems she was online 3 hours ago and since then hasnt been back on tho
ArPharazonV: Odd.
AriehnV: i think i ll just send her and email and ask her to answer within the next 24 hours just to make sure nothing happened
ArPharazonV: *nod*
ArPharazonV: In the meantime I guess you're up!
ArPharazonV: There's Varda!
VardaValar1 has entered the room.
ArPharazonV: Aiya
VardaValar1: Am I here? : )
ArPharazonV: You're here.
VardaValar1: Aiya Arien and Phar. Yay!
ArPharazonV: Interweb trouble?
VardaValar1: Looks ok now
VardaValar1: So, where are we at?
AriehnV: Your here :-D , just alerted the guild in trying to contact you
AriehnV: was just wondering where you had vanished to now
ArPharazonV: We decided to wait half an hour for people to show up. And by people, mostly you.
VardaValar1: Sorry
ArPharazonV: Gilraen, Fladrif, Indis invited; Gilraen logged off a few minutes ago and Indis can't be invited.
AriehnV: so we havent started yet
VardaValar1: Indis is not on something allowing group chat
VardaValar1: Invited Fladrif
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VardaValar1: Elen sila lumenn' omentielvo!
Membership:
VardaValar1: Thank you both for showing up so faithfully.
VardaValar1: Orome's birthday was August 1
ArPharazonV: Congrats!
VardaValar1: Has Indis spoken to the group yet?
ArPharazonV: She's.. not here.
VardaValar1: She'll be having surgery on the 20th and be unavailable for a while. I'll let her tell if she wants to give more details, but that's enough so we all understand why she will be gone.
VardaValar1: Hello from Fangorn, Sauron, and Gimli at my house. : )
AriehnV: ah well i hope she will be okay
VardaValar1: Our best wishes go to her and to the doctors' having a highly capable hand and mind.
VardaValar1: Bruce is home, if I understood Facebook correctly?
AriehnV: Bruce was able to leave hospital on Friday and he is back with me at home , doing quite well although he is still sore .
ArPharazonV: Sorry, was afk a bit. Best wishes to both Bruce and Indis!
ArPharazonV: Any idea what kind of surgery? Is it serious?
VardaValar1: That will take a while to recover from! So glad he's home.
VardaValar1: Major, and yes, but she should be fine afterwards.
AriehnV: My thoughts are with her.
ArPharazonV: Same.
VardaValar1: Thank you, both.
VardaValar1: Any other membership news? Phar, are you doing ok?
AriehnV: At least we know where she is going .. it is horrible to know somebody is missing but not knowing where to and when and if he/she comes back is worse
VardaValar1: Aye
ArPharazonV: I'm fine, yes. Just had to go off to feed the cat, that's all ;-)
VardaValar1: Sauron went to SpaceCon in Houston, Texas last weekend. Excellent event. :-)
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VardaValar1: Web:
VardaValar1: I've been a slacker, crazy week, hope to do better next week.
VardaValar1: Nothing sent in by Eonwe.
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VardaValar1: Gaming:
VardaValar1: Any non-WoW, non-LotRO gaming this past week?
VardaValar1: StarCraftBroodWar by Fangorn and Varda as a team-up.
AriehnV: Rift and Diablo 3 for me a bit
ArPharazonV: Mostly flashgaming. Besides spending some time on a browser MMO to get an achievement badge for the flashgame site, I've also found myself enjoying a new strategy game with several installments (read: same game with several packs of maps) called Creeper World.
VardaValar1: Diablo 3 for Bilbo, and first person shooters. Sauron first person shooters.
ArPharazonV: http://www.kongregate.com/games/whiteboardwar/creeper-world-training-sim here's the original, and you can check the author for more creeper world games.
VardaValar1: Handy! Thanks
ArPharazonV: And that's it for me.
VardaValar1: Thank you, Phar. : )

VardaValar1: WoW:
VardaValar1: Any news from the WoW front that you'd like to share?
VardaValar1: I dropped in a bit on Alliance and Horde, played a little.
VardaValar1: Guess you talked about WoW earlier while waiting? : )
ArPharazonV: Got a new pet from the Throne of Thunder raid today ;-) And a few more trinkets; my gear is now complete except for thunderforged or heroic versions of pieces I've already got.
AriehnV: :-)
VardaValar1: oh nice!
ArPharazonV: Also! The rest of the shorts about Shaohao have been put up this week.
ArPharazonV: Quick link to all of them with descriptions at http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/blog/10534912/
AriehnV: no we didnt talk about Wow yet :-) We were wondering too much where you were ;-) and i was about to launch a global search alas
VardaValar1: I'm so sorry.
VardaValar1: Thanky Phar. : )
AriehnV: Thanks Phar

VardaValar1: LotRO:
VardaValar1: The Turbine team's been having a tough week.
VardaValar1: They are putting up the new forums. Meanwhile
VardaValar1: a number of people had problems logging on, quite a few (including Elwing).
VardaValar1: So the team dug all through their stuff and discovered the trouble wasn't in their stuff, but in the internet.
VardaValar1: There are sections that have had to routed around, that simply weren't allowing LotRO to go through.
VardaValar1: They're still working with internet people trying to get around all these odd sections. I don't know why those bad spots are there.
VardaValar1: Elwing was still having problems yesterday of that type, so it's not all cured. This is why some folks show their name as trying to come online and then disappear.
VardaValar1: Summer Festival was extended through Monday for folks unable to come on during the main bout of those problems.

VardaValar1: Any other news, comments, suggestions on anything? Forum, website, games, other?
VardaValar1: This is where people can come to talk directly, no matter what the problem may be. : )
VardaValar1: Onwards to...
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VardaValar1: Tolkien!
VardaValar1: A feeling of progress seems to be what lures us on as readers (or gamers, or any life thing).
VardaValar1: In the Lord of the Rings, do we readers get that sort of lure feeling?
VardaValar1: We travel and see new, mysterious places, giving one feeling of progress.
VardaValar1: Each place is on the way to the end goal, sometimes twistily.
ArPharazonV: Many enemies are fought and/or weakened, freeing the lands on the way. That's progress.
VardaValar1: True!
VardaValar1: We see that the journey by the members of the Fellowship in all their directions are making a difference.
VardaValar1: The changes are far enough reaching that they continue even after the main goal is done.
VardaValar1: The various races all are affected and come to know others more, where before they were isolated or dying off. Lorien elves, Woses.
ArPharazonV: Ents.
VardaValar1: The Woses, Ghan-buri-ghan's people, gained a safe place to live.
VardaValar1: True
VardaValar1: Humans discovered their stories were more than stories, that these other folk existed and had an influence on their lives.
VardaValar1: Hobbits gained the favor and protection of the High King, and a renown they did not have previously.
VardaValar1: What seemed like side trips had consequences aiding the main goal.
VardaValar1: Aragorn mounted a decoy that allowed the Ring to reach Mount Doom.
VardaValar1: Merry and Pippin caused both Saruman and Sauron to look the wrong way.
ArPharazonV: They all had their purpose :-) Even if the wise could not predict it!
VardaValar1: Legolas and Gimli reached across a long-standing feud between their peoples and lessened it, plus each started new colonies, where before their people were lessening.
VardaValar1: Plus they had the friendship of the High King.
VardaValar1: The whole world came more together.
VardaValar1: All of them had the chance to learn that the West had not forgotten them.
ArPharazonV: Aye, there was not one free race in the West that was not involved somehow.
VardaValar1: The elves were forced to drop their dependence on the Rings. They were as addicted as Gollum or Bilbo.
ArPharazonV: Also a form of progress, even if that came in the loss of the preservation of their realms they were so keen on.
VardaValar1: Only the Mirkwood elves had not picked up such a Ring addiction.
VardaValar1: Apparently Elrond's sons remained in Rivendell and kept it going. Celeborn eventually made his way there and stayed with them, so it was operating a good while.
VardaValar1: They had run with the Rangers a lot, and were less dependent on any Ring, even though they were Elrond's sons.
VardaValar1: Celeborn's people couldn't bear the fading of Lothlorien, and didn't find southern Mirkwood to be good enough for them, and most followed Galadriel eventually.
VardaValar1: But Thranduil's people remained. They even had the new colony in Ithilien.
VardaValar1: With no more Dol Guldur, and the improved relations with neighbors, they surely did better.
VardaValar1: They did have the setback of the burned woods after the battle, and would have worked hard to restore the forest. They had a major goal right there, while other elven realms lost their goals.
ArPharazonV: When other elves moved out, the Mirkwood elves swooped in?
VardaValar1: I wonder. The humans were given a new area that might have prevented Mirkwood from going into the southern forest.
VardaValar1: I wonder if eventually Mirkwood elves would have moved into Lorien, or if it went to Rohan? Seems like the horselords would prefer a place easier for horses to move around in.
VardaValar1: It seemed deserted when Arwen went there to die, but maybe that was only around Cerin Amroth?
ArPharazonV: They might have mingled with Lorien, as the Sindar had left and it was no longer protected with a Ring.
VardaValar1: It would be good to think the meek (silvans) inherited those places.
VardaValar1: Lorien was silvan mostly except for Celeborn and Galadriel. Celeborn was Sindarin, Galadriel was sort of part Sindarin.
VardaValar1: Galadriel thought of herself as being from Valinor though.
VardaValar1: The area was emptied pretty much. So they could have moved in.
VardaValar1: We know of only the one colony for sure, and it jumped far out there to Ithilien, to help the forests by Mordor recover.
ArPharazonV: The meek shall inherit the (middle)earth?
VardaValar1: ^^
ArPharazonV: It would help to have at least one more stop along the way to Ithilien. Could be some good trading by the remaining Lorien-elves.
VardaValar1: That leaves a lot of room for fan stories and poetry.
VardaValar1: The Lorien elves found the place too depressing to remain, too much going downhill.
VardaValar1: But Mirkwoodites might have done just that!
VardaValar1: They did have concepts like putting raft-elves along the river from Thranduil's Halls to Dale, to aid river barrel trading.
VardaValar1: Who knows? With their desire to repair damaged forests, they may have been in other areas, maybe even temporarily. Brown Lands maybe, although that was more of a garden area than forest. Fangorn Forest maybe?
VardaValar1: They would have felt more like traveling just to go between the colonies and see family.
VardaValar1: But at this point, it's all speculation. : )
ArPharazonV: Back to the west, repair the Old Forest? Say hi to Tom?
VardaValar1: Shall we bang the gavel?
ArPharazonV: sure
VardaValar1: Gandalf at least went back to say hi to Tom. As far as we know, Tom is still there!
VardaValar1: *swings gavel*
VardaValar1: *Thonk!*
VardaValar1: That was a good one. *grins*
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After-meeting:
ArPharazonV: Have fun with your tabletop!
AriehnV: indeed have fun with it
VardaValar1: Namarie!
AriehnV: *flashes last sunray on starshine*
ArPharazonV: Namarie!
VardaValar1 has left the room.
AriehnV: Namarie :-)
AriehnV has left the room.
ArPharazonV: saving and sending transcript
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