Sunday, August 10, 2025
5:00pm Eastern Time
Discord: Valar Guild/meeting_place
Attending: Arien, Ar-Pharazon, Eonwe (Before), Pallando, Shelob, Varda (presiding), Xavier
Topic: Tolkien gives us a vehicle to discuss almost any subject imaginable.
Non-flashgaming "Magnetized".
[August 8, 2025
[4:41 AM]Eönwë Valar: So I'm going to link back to this: meeting_place because I was thinking about it for "reasons."
[Referring back to October 3, 2012 meeting:
[5:23 PM]Eönwë Valar: Fun tidbit: "naltalma, the name of an Eldarin device for signalling from afar (like a heliograph, though it is said to have been also usable in a clear moon). It's form and the manner of manipulating it are not recorded, but it must have contained a bright surface. It was however evidently small, able to be slipped into a slender pouch or pocket, and the flash that it gave would not have been visible by human eyes, at any rate not at a distance."
[5:24 PM]Eönwë Valar: Sindar used it too, -- Sindarin name was glathralvas =" flashing glass/crystal"
[5:24 PM]Varda: Some might call it a mirror?
[5:24 PM]Eönwë Valar: Well, mirror is has its own word.
[5:25 PM]Eönwë Valar: This is actually in reference to a standard military issue item for the British Army during Tolkien's time.
[5:25 PM]Eönwë Valar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliograph
[End reference.
[4:51 AM]Eönwë Valar: Don't believe I've mentioned this before since I didn't find anything in the chat history, but thinking about it reminded me of a "toy" they used to put in cereal boxes back in the 80s that's similar. it was essentially a piece of cardboard with a glow-in-the-dark surface and a shutter with holes in it so you could alternate between showing/blocking the glowing.
[4:58 AM]Eönwë Valar: I was musing that perhaps the Elven naltalma had a surface that worked on a similar premise in low-light conditions.
[4:58 AM]Eönwë Valar: Doesn't seem I can find a picture of the toy, but perhaps some of you are old enough to remember what I'm talking about.
[August 10, 2025
[4:00 PM]Varda: Aiya!
[4:01 PM]Varda: @Bounder @Guild-friend Aiya! Valar Guild meeting time! Come say hi!
[4:01 PM]Varda: Elen sila lumenn' omentielvo!
[4:01 PM]Varda: Membership:
[4:03 PM]Varda: Let me know what you would like to see more of at our meetings! This is for our membership. Officer(s) available at a set time in case of need. Chat and maybe even help or company in games. Passing around news of our favorite games. Tolkien chat because Tolkien topics can cover pretty much anything in life.
[4:03 PM]Varda: Web:
[4:03 PM]Varda: Here's hoping we're working on stories, articles, art for the Oct 4 anniversary of the Valar Guild. : )
[4:03 PM]Varda: Gaming:
[4:04 PM]Varda: World of Warcraft:
[4:04 PM]Varda: This week's bonus events: Arena Skirmishes.
[4:04 PM]Varda: This week's PvP Brawl: Shado-Pan Showdown.
[4:05 PM]Varda: Ghosts of K'aresh is live
[4:05 PM]Varda: and with it Season 3.
[4:06 PM]Varda: The raids and unlock schedule for Mists of Pandaria Classic is posted.
[4:06 PM]Varda: Check out WoW Weekly for anything not mentioned above.
[4:06 PM]Pallando-Valar: Eve is still very quiet.
[4:07 PM]Varda: Pallando! Thank you. : )
[4:07 PM]Varda: Pretty quiet here too. : )
[4:07 PM]Pallando-Valar: Some fighting in lowsec, there's some drama with PL leaving PH/NC? But that's it.
[4:07 PM]Pallando-Valar: Summer vacation time is almost over though so..
[4:07 PM]Varda: Sorry, could you translate the letters, maybe?
[4:08 PM]Varda: ohh so there's hope for excitement!
[4:08 PM]Pallando-Valar: There's some drama about some folks leaving a group and possibly reforming on their own again. The context is... way too much to get into here so that will have to do.
[4:09 PM]Varda: Okie dokie. : )
[4:09 PM]Varda: Happens to groups of any size, it seems like, eventually.
[4:10 PM]Varda: Diablo 4:
[4:11 PM]Varda: Check out the upcoming patch notes.
[4:11 PM]Varda: Diablo Immortal:
[4:11 PM]Varda: Check out the recent bug fixes.
[4:12 PM]Varda: Overwatch 2:
[4:12 PM]Varda: A new blog is out: Talent Tree: Sound Designer, Overwatch 2.
[4:12 PM]Varda: StarCraft 2:
[4:13 PM]Varda: Players this past week include Eowyn, Fangorn, and Faramir. Yay!
[4:13 PM]Varda: Lord of the Rings Online:
[4:13 PM]Varda: Simple Rally Horn free until August 14 code: ASSEMBLETOME
[4:13 PM]Varda: LotRO Update 45.1.1 came out.
[4:14 PM]Varda: Lord of the Rings players in kinship this past week:
Peregrin branch (US RP-encouraged. Main):
Glamdring branch (US normal):
Meriadoc branch (EU-RP)
Angmar branch (temp US VIP "Veil of the Nine"):
Mordor branch (temp EU VIP "Veil of the Nine"):
[4:15 PM]Varda: If there is no further membership or gaming news?...?...?
[4:16 PM]Varda: Pallando had to go do a rescue of a fair lady in real life.
[4:16 PM]Varda: Tolkien:
[4:16 PM]Varda: One of the amazing things about working with Tolkien subjects is that it lets us cover nearly any subject that we might want to address in real life.
[4:17 PM]Varda: And he keeps his work consistent right down to the moon phases. Amazing!
[4:17 PM]Varda: So, as Gollum in his cave under the mountain, this seems to be a lonely place. So it's time for me to go dive for fish.
[4:18 PM]Varda: I will remain here, available, for the usual meeting time, and hop into LotRO.
[4:18 PM]Varda: Cheerio
[4:19 PM]Arien Valar: aiya all
[4:21 PM]Varda: Aiya Arien
[4:23 PM]Arien Valar: ""Alive without breath, as cold as death; never thirsty, ever drinking; all in mail never clinking."
[4:26 PM]Varda: Fish : )
[4:27 PM]Varda: Guess that completes the fishing dive!
[4:27 PM]Varda: cleans and puts it on a spit over a fire Ok, can't go full Gollum.
[4:28 PM]Arien Valar: hehe how about taters and carrots with it :DDDDDDDDDD?
[4:38 PM]Spidey (Ungwetari/Shelob) BRIO : Mae Govannen!
[4:38 PM]Arien Valar: Mae govannen spidey
[4:39 PM]Arien Valar: i think there is noone really here apart from me and you .. and probably only half as well .. have to update Lotro as well
[4:42 PM]Varda: O pardon. Hi there Shelob : )
[4:43 PM]Spidey (Ungwetari/Shelob) BRIO : That's okay!
[4:43 PM]Varda: We are in After-meeting since I was alone after Pallando left, and the business was done.
[4:43 PM]Varda: So, free chat!
[4:44 PM]Spidey (Ungwetari/Shelob) BRIO : I've been resting today, so no stream and episode, and I went to bed almost 4 hours ago. Now back awake for a little.
[4:45 PM]Varda: Falco came into LotRO just now
[4:45 PM]Varda: Hope you get to feeling better.
[4:45 PM]Arien Valar: fair enough .. i ll be going soon .. wanted to log into Lotro but the update .. sigh
[4:45 PM]Varda: Let it just update?
[4:48 PM]Arien Valar: finished
[4:49 PM]Varda: I see your Ariborn on Peregrin! Yay!
[4:54 PM]Xavier: Hi everyone
[4:54 PM]Xavier: Good day to all
[4:57 PM]Varda: Hiya Xavier
[5:00 PM]Varda: We went to After-meeting a bit earlier than usual. Free chat time, anything is fine.
[5:00 PM]Varda: As long as it would be ok with JRRT, heh.
[5:07 PM]Varda: Pardon, a bit of construction going on inside the house. : )
[5:14 PM]Varda: Good night, Arien : )
[5:14 PM]Arien Valar: Namarie all :)]
[5:57 PM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Aiya! Reading up.
[6:06 PM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Ariborn, I like that
[6:10 PM]Ar-Pharazon-V: As for fish, you really gotta eat em raw and wrrrriggling
[6:10 PM]Ar-Pharazon-V: or at least juicy sweet!
[6:11 PM]Ar-Pharazon-V: poor fish YouTube - Gollum singing fish song
[6:13 PM]Varda: Thanks, Phar
[6:14 PM]Varda: Being called away. Namarie for now!
[6:14 PM]Ar-Pharazon-V: namarie!
[August 11, 2025
[1:45 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Personal gaming report:
[1:46 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: For (non)flashgaming, I give you Kongregate - Magnetized
[1:48 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: A puzzle physics game where you have to guide a tiny block through 60 levels, using magnets to affect its trajectory.
[1:50 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: There's 3 types of magnets, that get introduced each level set. Blue ones that work normal but are actually the hardest to do precision moving with, affecting both position and direction. Pink ones that pull the block close but keep its direction intact. And yellow ones that teleport them to the other side of the magnet.
[1:51 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: And they get to combine as well, though the parts of the level are colored to give hints of when each one will activate, though it's really whichever the block is closest to.
[1:51 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Takes lots of trial and error, but it's doable! Though I admit about 20% of my lives lost were on level 59, so good luck
[1:54 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Still, I got there in less than 500 deaths, see if you can do better!
[1:55 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Blizzard gaming:
[1:57 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Hearthstone: Level 63 on the reward track. Bit slow going, but almost enough to buy a new skin.
[1:57 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Did get the card back for August though!
[2:03 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Sure enough, another quest event started for this expansion. Rewards include a legendary weapon for death knight, normal at the start and golden version at the end of the event, of which the normal I've now got; and a new death knight skin involving an undead King Krush.
[2:04 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Once again, large numbers of minions, spells and cards, though no emphasis on the expansion's cards this time, so there's a lot more cards to use for it.
[2:05 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: One daily quest I've had several times for it included golden versions of deathrattle minions, so that made for very shiny decks!
[2:06 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Brawl is another heroic arena, so instead I dove back into battlegrounds. Takes a while longer, but you only need to end up in the top 4 to count it as a win. But that doesn't mean I give up after reaching the top 4, and I actually managed to win 2 of them! Including with Deathwing, which was kinda fun.
[2:07 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Maybe I'm getting better at this... or luckier, or my matchmaking rating was low enough
[2:09 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Warcraft Rumble: No new levels, but got a few stars. I'm out of rare-o-matic gadgets for now, so instead started using my large stocks of experience boosts on the grid instead, getting up to 25000 experience for a mini I buy a star for.
[2:11 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Most minis are now in the 50k range of experience, approaching 60k, out of 90k for their second last level. Seeing some progress!
[2:11 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: New login reward calendar beginning in a few days, that'll help again.
[2:12 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Also now on tier 5 of pvp rewards, around which time the experience tomes are well worth it again as well.
[2:15 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: My WoW friend who I reported a while ago as having gotten all 160 sigils, has now defeated Onyxia, and claims to be done with the game for now (except maybe heroic Ragnaros). I told him he should get all his minis and army slots maxed out, but he doesn't care Guess I'll overtake him there at some point, at least! If he does quit, though, we'll probably no longer have enough activity for the seasonal guild rewards. But there's no unique cosmetic rewards anymore, so we'll just miss out on some xp and upgrade cores, which all can be gotten elsewhere as well.
[2:16 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: WoW:
[2:17 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Still no raiding, we start next week when the new raid releases!
[2:18 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: To enter (or even approach) the raid, a new cloak needs to be gotten from the new storylines, at least the first 3 chapters. I'm now at about 2 and one quarter, on schedule to complete the cloak this reset. Feels a bit sequence breaking again, but it's necessary for the raid, so why not. I am liking the questing as a whole, though.
[2:20 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: So far I've saved the city of Tazavesh - an insert of the Shadowlands dungeon, which I've actually never done before, which is how far behind I am on the story there - from the Shadowguard, and saved an Eco-dome led by our old friend Ve'nari, getting 2 Reshii Ribbons along the way. 2 more to go for the cloak, apparently! I've also visited the second eco-dome, which was not so lucky.
[2:21 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Weekly this week is arena skirmishes, which have been going pretty well so far. Maybe I'm better at the start of the season? Probably just lucky.
[2:22 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Haven't done any delves this week, I'm just waiting for next week when the next season's quests for it should be available. Could've made some tier progress already, but thought I'd focus on the necessary story quests this week.
[2:24 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Next week, poking the raid, wooh!
[2:24 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: And that's my report for the week :)
[2:24 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Namarie!
[3:57 PM]Varda: Thanks, Phar. : )