Valar Guild

June 19, 2016 Sunday Meeting

5pm EST (UTC/GMT - 5)
AIM: Valar Guild Meetingplace

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Transcript work by
Ar-Pharazon and Varda.

Attending: (4)
    Arien-(Valar)/Arien V, Ar-Pharazon-(V)/arpharazonv,  ElladanV, VardaValar1 (presiding)

Before-meeting
Meeting begins
Membership:
Web:
    New link
    New art by the Bohemian Weasel-(T)
Gaming
Tolkien:
    Topic: Tolkien moment and discussion: Treebeard's farewell to Galadriel and Celeborn.
After-meeting:
    Ar-Pharazon: more gaming news including flashgaming reviews.
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Before-meeting
arpharazonv: Aiya!
Varda Valar: Wow, that was fast. Aiya :-)
arpharazonv: Wow, there's early, and there's this.
Varda Valar: Another 45 minutes to go. Feel free to go on about doing stuff, just a quick thing to see if we could get you in.
Varda Valar: Eonwe is hoping to pop in for a few minutes tonight. :-)
arpharazonv: Great.
Varda Valar: Happy hunting. :-)
arpharazonv: Time for some WoW archeology!
Varda Valar: Yay!
Varda Valar: I''m on doing webwork. Think you'll get a kick out of it. :-)
arpharazonv: Intriguing.
Varda Valar: ^^
Varda Valar: Sorry, it's not a Phar pic. Maybe we should suggest that
arpharazonv: I only ever found one of those, egyptian styled I think.
Varda Valar: Aye. Remember that one.
arpharazonv: *googles* oh, there are more now
Varda Valar: ahhh
Varda Valar: Sure 'nuff
Varda Valar: And here's a Pharazon from our own site by the Bohemian Weasel, with Sauron.
Varda Valar: http://valarguild.org/varda/Tolkien/encyc/art/gallery/BohemianWeasel/characters/Sauron/SauronArPharazon.jpg
arpharazonv: Yes, I spotted that one during the google image search :)
Varda Valar: Oh good :-)
Varda Valar: Storming here. Power hasn't flickered though, may be ok.
arpharazonv: Hope so!
Varda Valar: and it's time to start inviting. Arien need a /poke?
arpharazonv: done
Arien V: Aiiya all :-)
arpharazonv: Aiya!
Varda Valar: Aiya Sunshine :-)
Varda Valar: Catch you in the middle of rp stuff? :-)
ElladanV: Aiya!
Varda Valar: Aiya Elladan. Must be time for you to cook! :-)
arpharazonv: Aiya!
Arien V: Aiya Elladan :-)
ElladanV: hahaha you know me too well! Actually got it done early today
ElladanV: hello hello!
Varda Valar: Yay!
ElladanV: baby back ribs and baked beans
Arien V: and aye Phara  :-P as usual
Arien V: sounds yummy .. i had mushroom risotto
Varda Valar: Collecting people for the meeting at the moment
ElladanV: that sounds good too!
arpharazonv: Round em all up.
Arien V: yeah i like it vegetarian at times :-) Not that i am a Vegetarian , but some of the recipes are just nice :-)
Varda Valar: Fangorn says he sees five on LotRO, says hi.
arpharazonv: Hi!
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Varda Valar: Elen sila lumenn' omentielvo!
Varda Valar: Membership:
Varda Valar: Storming over here, but the power seems to be holding steady.
Varda Valar: Any other comments?
Arien V: .. clammy here today
Arien V: and very rainy
arpharazonv: Seems dry over here. Should start to rain tonight though.
arpharazonv: I believe we're getting the UK's rain overnight.
Varda Valar: May we all manage to stay online without problems. :-)
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Varda Valar: Web:
Varda Valar: New art up but not yet all hooked into the Tolkien Site, so you're getting sneak previews. :-)
Varda Valar: The Bohemian Weasel-(T) took up a challenge to take an original drawing of a character's face and give it 25 different expressions. She picked an early Sauron face and did this:
Varda Valar: http://valarguild.org/varda/Tolkien/encyc/art/gallery/BohemianWeasel/characters/Sauron/2016-25-expressions-challenge.jpg
Varda Valar: She also reworked an early Legolas painting. This is it still on her work table:
Varda Valar: http://valarguild.org/varda/Tolkien/encyc/art/gallery/BohemianWeasel/characters/Legolas/Legolasartontable.jpg
arpharazonv: Silly Sauron *grin*
Varda Valar: hehe
Arien V: nice one both :-)
Varda Valar: She also made the Legolas picture animated, so that it goes from dark times to light times:
Varda Valar: http://valarguild.org/varda/Tolkien/encyc/art/gallery/BohemianWeasel/characters/Legolas/Legolas_animated_lphp.gif
Varda Valar: It keeps cycling in a loop.
arpharazonv: An accurate portrait of Legolas standing on watch for days on end.
arpharazonv: He doesn't seem to blink, though!
Varda Valar: Heh, go from light to dark for standing watch at Helm's Deep?
Varda Valar: These unblinking elves. Makes for a good sentry?
arpharazonv: Yep!
Varda Valar: An interesting link for us Tolkien fans that will take quite a while to go through but would be fun to do (I blew a lot of time on it already *cough*):
arpharazonv: And he's smiling the whole time, as well! Must be enjoying it.
Varda Valar: is a suggested TV adaptation that started out working through the Sil then went crazy and did the H and LotR too!
Varda Valar: It's called "The Silmarillion Series"
Varda Valar: https://silmarillionseries.com/)https://silmarillionseries.com/
Varda Valar: I haven't yet spotted a person to credit for it. Just says "I"
arpharazonv: Oh this looks very interesting.
Varda Valar: It's a TV-adapted outline of the books, with credited images.
arpharazonv: An adventurous artist might even use it as an outline for a comic or other medium.
Varda Valar: Aye
Varda Valar: Good thought
Arien V: nice idea
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Varda Valar: Gaming:
Varda Valar: LotRO:
Varda Valar: The Spring Festival is going, with its nifty new barter items along with old favorites.
Varda Valar: Also, people are trying to get their main characters up to 105 with fully imbued Legendary Items before the next update.
Varda Valar: We have tier 8 essences to go after, as well.
Varda Valar: Any other LotRO comments?
Note: Valarites on in the past week in LotRO:
Varda
Fangorn
Dis
Gorlim
Elladan
Morwe
Nar
Lenwe
Falco
Bregalad/Quickbeam
Nimrodel
Goldilocks
Erkenbrand
Eonwe
Ancalagon

Varda Valar: WoW:
Varda Valar: (from Eonwe's work on the Gaming News)
Varda Valar: The Legion pre-patch is now on the PTR. That means it's almost time, so you might want to get ready. Among other things, if you haven't completed everything you wanted to get done with the Brawler's Guild, you might want to very soon.
Varda Valar: There was a Legion Developer Q & A this week, and there will be another next week.
Varda Valar: Check out the latest hotfixes.
Varda Valar: Any other general comments on WoW?
Varda Valar: (Sauron, a friend, and I saw the WoW movie yesterday.)
arpharazonv: Hm. I might have to check out those q&a's when I have time. But then again, MMO Champion does summarize them.
arpharazonv: Oh, hope you enjoyed it!
Varda Valar: Yes indeedy. :-)

Varda Valar: Diablo 3:
Varda Valar: Patch 2.4.2 is on the PTR. Check out the PTR patch notes.
Varda Valar: Check out the new blog Developer Insights: Behind the Goblin Giggle.
Varda Valar: (I'd like to game more, and that includes long-neglected D3, and hope to do so as things are settling down except for a friend's upcoming wedding.)

Varda Valar: StarCraft 2:
Varda Valar: A new patch came out this week: Patch 3.3.2.

Varda Valar: Heroes of the Storm:
Varda Valar: A new patch came out this week.
Varda Valar: That's all of the site news. Any further general gaming news from anyone?
arpharazonv: in Heroes of the Storm, Medivh is now truly implemented.
arpharazonv: Rather than my false alarm last meeting.
Varda Valar: Good. He was quite prominent in the movie.
arpharazonv: I've seen him tried out a few times, seems weird.
Varda Valar: Any other comments, suggestions about anything before we change to Tolkien?
Arien V: i loved the way he was characterisisized .. bit like Feanor in a way
Arien V: and a bit like Boromir too
Varda Valar: *tries not to give spoilers*
Arien V: .. all right then i wont say any more ^^
arpharazonv: Well in the real canon he was possessed from birth by the leader of the Burning Legion, but.. yeah.
Varda Valar: Thanks, good to mention that.
Varda Valar: On to
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Varda Valar: Tolkien!
Varda Valar: The more I looked at this passage in the Return of the King, that seemed simple, the more I saw in it. But it's a bit long.
Varda Valar: If you want to say something during the typing, please feel free.

Varda Valar: "Many Partings", RotK
Varda Valar: Then Treebeard said farewell to each of them in turn, and he bowed three times slowly and with great reverence to Celeborn and Galadriel.
Varda Valar: "It is long, long since we met by stock or by stone, A vanimar, vanimálion nostari!" he said.
Varda Valar: "It is sad that we should meet only thus at the ending.
Varda Valar: "For the world is changing: I feel it in the water, I feel it in the earth, and I smell it in the air.
Varda Valar: "I do not think we shall meet again."
Varda Valar: And Celeborn said: "I do not know, Eldest."
Varda Valar: But Galadriel said: "Not in Middle-earth, nor until the lands that lie under the wave are lifted up again.
Varda Valar: "Then in the willow-meads of Tasarinan we may meet in the Spring.
Varda Valar: "Farewell!"

Varda Valar: /endquote
Varda Valar: Just for starters, when Treebeard says a long time, he means a lonnnnnng time.
Varda Valar: Treebeard calls this time the "ending". This is early to humans in the history of the world, but he and the elves he speaks with are not human.
arpharazonv: Ending of the book!
arpharazonv: Very meta.
Varda Valar: Their time in history is ending. The Ring of Galadriel can no longer preserve Lothlórien in an unchanging state, the way Galadriel prefers.
Varda Valar: True too. :-)
Varda Valar: Galadriel is from Valinor. She wants to go home, now that she has redeemed herself.
Varda Valar: Celeborn at first look seems clueless, but think again.
Varda Valar: One, of course, is that he is a great warrior and tactician, leaving magic to his wife. Very much like the ancient tribes.
Varda Valar: What else might make him give this answer?
arpharazonv: Well, you never know, do you? Even when an old tree predicts it. Besides, there's still a difference between "I do not think" and "I know"
Varda Valar: (Eowyn-V says hi, on the phone for Father's Day)
arpharazonv: hi!
Arien V: hi!
Varda Valar: Celeborn is a Sinda elf, born in Middle-earth.
Varda Valar: He deesn't have any sea-longing problem either.
Varda Valar: He has no desire to go to Valinor the way Galadriel does.
Varda Valar: In fact, when she leaves, he doesn't go with her.
Varda Valar: For all he knew, he might see Treebeard walking around in his woods, out hunting entwives.
Varda Valar: This could be an early warning that the two elves will be separarated for a while, before Celeborn finally does sail over, as most of his people finally leave. [Note: A bit farther on, Celeborn alludes to the coming separation again.]
arpharazonv: That's true.
Varda Valar: Then we have the comments by Galadriel concerning things that we don't get to see.
Varda Valar: The ladns that lie under the wave: Beleriand? Numenor too maybe?
Varda Valar: they will be "lifted up again".
Varda Valar: Since they won't meet in Middle-earth, that suggests that Treebeard will travel to where Galadriel is, in Valinor, one day.
Varda Valar: Even though he is not an elf.
arpharazonv: Numenor would be nice.
arpharazonv: Well, Tasarinan was in Beleriand.
Varda Valar: It sounds quite possible. Meneltarma was there, sacred to Eru once.
Varda Valar: Ok, so if they will meet in Tasarinan in Beleriand after the land is lifted up, but first they will meet somewhere that is *not* Middle-earth,
Varda Valar: hmm
Varda Valar: and in the Spring?
Varda Valar: Is that in the new Arda reborn as it should have been?
arpharazonv: The way it is phrased, seems to mean that Tasarinan was not in Middle-earth.
arpharazonv: So perhaps the "uplifting" is part of Arda reborn. Metaphorically, perhaps. When Arda is reborn, the world is recreated, so in that sense those lands might find themselves at the surface again.
Varda Valar: Aye, which is interesting.
Varda Valar: Aye.
Varda Valar: That's quite a while!
Varda Valar: That does not really suggest that they meet in Valinor, but in Arda Reborn.
arpharazonv: Yes. It suggests that the first time they meet will be after the world is remade, in a new version of Tasarinan.
Varda Valar: That's quite a bit of info in a few sentences.
Varda Valar: That was what I wanted to pass on to everyone from that Tolkien Moment. Just a little area has so much info from way back to the far future.
Varda Valar: Long ago in Entish, and on into Arda Reborn.
arpharazonv: Yep.
Varda Valar: and Celeborn is not as clueless as a cursory reading might suggest.
Varda Valar: Any other comments, suggestions?
Varda Valar: *picks up a colorful gavel, hoping it's not a left-over from Orthanc*
Varda Valar: *thminnnnnnng!*
Varda Valar: *A great rainbow arches up, doubles, and sheds all the spectra of light across us in stripes that shimmer*
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Varda Valar: After-meeting!
arpharazonv: Shiny!
Arien V: *adds a golden spark onto it*#
Varda Valar: Free chat, game talk, whatever you want to chat about with each other. :-)
Arien V: Olore Malle .. the path of dreams to Tol Eressea and the Cabin of Lost pLay
arpharazonv: Now there's a good place to spend your vacation.
Arien V: (Unfinished Tales version if i remember right)
arpharazonv: Yes.
Varda Valar: There you go. :-)
Arien V: we have no vacation advert for that =-O
Varda Valar: Oh no! Want to write one?
Arien V: I almost should now eh? ^^
Varda Valar: Sure, knock out an ad sometime for it!
Arien V: will do :-)
Varda Valar: yay!
arpharazonv: Anyway, Varda, I liked that they used one of Treebeard's lines there at the start of the movie, though there they gave it to Galadriel.
arpharazonv: The writers did know how to get their source material.
Varda Valar: Agreed!
Varda Valar: Hoping folks recognized that. We get to give the credit to the right tree here. :-)
Varda Valar: The movies did a fair bit of that. Bombadil's words from Treebeard, for instance. Fun for us lore nuts.
arpharazonv: Now I would've liked to hear that prologue done in Treebeard's voice.
Arien V: uhm he d have taken the whole length of the movie to say a sentence ^^
Varda Valar: Maybe we'd be safer with his talking in Common, then.
arpharazonv: Well, yes, in Entish it would take a while.
Varda Valar: Hmm, wonder if John Rhys-Davies ever did that? Might have somewhere in You Tube, that line, I mean.
Varda Valar: One comment I want to make about our Tolkien Site. So many are wikis, with a concensus of what the group thinks. Ours allows individual voices to surface as well, using the same original resource material as the others.
Varda Valar: /end comment
Arien V: make poll mjaybe?
Arien V: or a forum thread that allows people to put their comments about the site even if they are not members of the Valar Guild
Arien V: but .. Irmo is calling me loudly .. i have to follow and walk the path :-)
Arien V: Namarie for now :-)
arpharazonv: Namarie!
arpharazonv: Meantime, I'll start my personal gaming section.

arpharazonv: For Flashgaming, I've only got.. hrm... 2 games for you this week.
arpharazonv: worlds_hardest_game_4 http://www.onemorelevel.com/game/worlds_hardest_game_4 is a sort of action/puzzle game where you have to move around mazes and paths while avoiding obstacles, quite fun. But indeed very hard. It took me about an hour of play to get to the end.. only to realize that was the first level.
arpharazonv: It's a lot of pattern recognition, and taking it one step at a time, really.
arpharazonv: 339 deaths just in that first level for me ;)
arpharazonv: the-space-game-missions http://www.kongregate.com/games/CasualCollective/the-space-game-missions is the other game, a strategy game where you have to mine asteroids in a certain level or defend a position, while being bombarded by waves of enemy fighters. Make sure to keep your defenses up!

arpharazonv: Now, blizzard gaming!
arpharazonv: Diablo 3: Finally got a bit of time spent in there again! A rift and a greater rift, while getting to Paragon level 60. I'm still a bit undergeared for the Torment level I'm at, but barely making the timer, so good enough! I'll get better eventually.
arpharazonv: Got a new useful legendary gem there, anyway, which should help, especially when upgraded.
arpharazonv: Heroes of the Storm: Not much progress. Most of the heroes still at level 7. Anniversary bonus is over, so experience is slower again. 8 will take a while!
arpharazonv: I did get to test out some of the skins I unlocked at level 7 though, which was nice.
arpharazonv: Hearthstone: Some classes nearing level 42 now, but I'm focusing on having the rest catch up, as my quests allow.
arpharazonv: This week's brawl was pretty fun, with each player having maximum mana each turn.
arpharazonv: I ran into a few players who used lower-cost minions to get multiple cards played in the early turns to get an advantage, but personally I made a druid deck with a ton of higher-cost cards.
arpharazonv: A few taunts, a few taking out of enemy minions, and if I'd last long enough, they just couldn't keep up with me because they'd run out of cards in their hand while I still only played one per turn :)
arpharazonv: So it was risky, but fun.
arpharazonv: WoW:
arpharazonv: Few more raids on heroic and normal difficulty to tidy us over during the 2-week break. Fun to be overgeared for stuff.
arpharazonv: I got the troll to level 29 now, and finished the blackfang claw gathering, up to 5000 at least.
Varda Valar: cool
arpharazonv: I also dove into the Brawler's Guild - I'd already had that planned after the claws, so the WoW blog reminder was just coincidental timing - and cleared all the normal fights, getting myself to max rank 8.
Varda Valar: (To Arien: the forum allows for comments to each Encyc section.]
arpharazonv: Next up will be the rarer bosses, and then I'll have all the Brawler's Guild fights and achievements done.
arpharazonv: And because I was so close to finishing the World Event achievement category with those, I also met up with a friend to get the achievements for fighting in the "day of the dead" melee costumes, silly little things.
arpharazonv: So when I finish off those rare Brawler's Guild fights, the entire category will be complete!
arpharazonv: Never done that before in an expansion. Other categories, yes, but not world events.
arpharazonv: And that's my report for this week!
arpharazonv: Next week, hopefully, finishing the Brawler's Guild and getting the troll to level 30.
arpharazonv: saving and sending transcript
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