May 17, 2026
5:00pm Eastern Daylight Savings Time
Discord: Valar Guild/meeting_place
[4:02 PM]Sandalf13: Aiya!
[4:03 PM]Arien Valar: Aiya!
[4:04 PM]Sandalf13: Are we in Harbor or here, Meeting Place?
[4:04 PM]Treebeard: Hello all 🙂
[4:05 PM]Treebeard: I seem to be in both places
[4:05 PM]Sandalf13: I too.
[4:05 PM]Arien Valar: hey hey fangorn
[4:05 PM]Varda: Aiya!
[4:05 PM]Varda: Why look, this is the meeting place. : )
[4:05 PM]Sandalf13: I sent a message to Varda directly...
[4:06 PM]Sandalf13: Aiya Varda!
[4:06 PM]Varda: @Bounder @Guild-friend @Maia @Vala Yay! It's time for the Valar Guild meeting! Chat gaming, Tolkien, and just say hi!
[4:06 PM]Varda: Elen sila lumenn' omentielvo!
[4:06 PM]Varda: Membership:
[4:07 PM]Varda: Much gratitude to Sandalf and Earendil for helping me reach the right location!
[4:07 PM]Varda: Aiya to Arien, Fangorn, and Sandalf
[4:07 PM]Varda: and Earendil who was in the other channel
[4:07 PM]Varda: Are you here in meeting_place now?
[4:07 PM]Earendil: Here as well.
[4:08 PM]Varda: Yay for all the smart people!
[4:08 PM]Earendil: Keyboard was wonky a moment.
[4:08 PM]Varda: They do that. : )
[4:08 PM]Earendil: 😆
[4:08 PM]Sandalf13: Tell me about it.
[4:09 PM]Varda: I had no such excuse, heh, just personal wonkiness. : )
[4:09 PM]Varda: Any membership news to pass along?
[4:10 PM]Varda: I have a bit of a cold, but it should not be contagious through the screen!
[4:10 PM]Varda: Web News:
[4:10 PM]Eönwë Valar: Chicken soup
[4:10 PM]Varda: No new stuff for the Tolkien Site, yet.
[4:10 PM]Sandalf13: Sei gesund! (May you be healthy!)
[4:10 PM]Eönwë Valar: And heya.
[4:10 PM]Varda: Good pic, Eonwe : ) And hi!
[4:10 PM]Treebeard: Hello 🙂
[4:11 PM]Sandalf13: Aiya Fangorn!
[4:11 PM]Varda: Gaming News:
[4:12 PM]Varda: Gimli put in a link in Harbor to yet another game, if any are interested.
[4:12 PM]Varda: tosses the gaming gavel to the illustrious Eonwe
[4:13 PM]Eönwë Valar: Catches gavel.
[4:14 PM]Eönwë Valar: First, for those who haven't noticed, a thread has been started in this channel for this year's Anniversary themes. Make suggestions in that thread between now and May 31st, inclusive.
[4:14 PM]Eönwë Valar: (Namely, thread closes 12:00 01Jun)
[4:15 PM]Varda: I dropped in a suggestion. Save yourselves from it by adding your own! Or live dangerously and agree. 😉
[4:15 PM]Eönwë Valar: Once we've got everyone's suggestions, the poll will be posted to vote, and once we have the theme, all you creative types will be able to get started with plenty of time before the Anniversary to get stuff done.
[4:15 PM]Varda: (It's that image of a thread spool at the top right.)
[4:15 PM]Sandalf13: Where is this thread?
[4:16 PM]Varda: Click on the spool.
[4:16 PM]Sandalf13: Spool? Sorry....you are way over my head.
[4:16 PM]Varda: Hope that made sense.
[4:16 PM]Eönwë Valar: Look at the top of the channel screen.
[4:16 PM]Sandalf13: Do you ean "polls?"
[4:17 PM]Eönwë Valar: You should see a spool, a bell, a pushpin, and two people.
[4:17 PM]Varda: At the top left, it says "Search Valar Guild". To the left are icons. The first one looks like a spool of thread.
[4:17 PM]Varda: Run your mouse over the icon for the meaning.
[4:18 PM]Varda: "Threads"
[4:19 PM]Eönwë Valar: Discord Image with icons to the left of the search bar.
[4:19 PM]Eönwë Valar: See where that bell is circled? Match it with our channel, and you'll see the "spool"
[4:20 PM]Earendil: Think I found it, but I'm on my phone while enjoying the weather so I don't think it's helpful.
[4:20 PM]Eönwë Valar: I see your post in the thread Earendil, so you found it :}
[4:20 PM]Earendil: Yay!
[4:20 PM]Sandalf13: I found it under "Threads"
[4:20 PM]Varda: Has to be in the meeting_place channel
[4:20 PM]Varda: You are phoning me
[4:21 PM]Varda: Good job!
[4:21 PM]Treebeard: So travelling is different from parading/fireworks?
[4:22 PM]Earendil: Yeah the threads menu/icon seems to work if you can locate it. Mine was a confusing to find drop down menu.
[4:22 PM]Varda: It can be part of it. Travel to parade into an area to shoot fireworks, for instance.
[4:22 PM]Eönwë Valar: Well, it might be worth it to go from Rivendell to the Shire to see Gandalf's fireworks, heh.
[4:22 PM]Varda: The Threads icon has a drop-down box, right
[4:22 PM]Sandalf13: Got it. I nominated a theme
[4:22 PM]Varda: Your questions are helping others! Thank you.
[4:23 PM]Eönwë Valar: I see it. Excellent.
[4:23 PM]Eönwë Valar: Anyone still not sure? I really want everyone who wants to suggest something to have the chance.
[4:23 PM]Varda: Dancing, Traveling, Farming, Story-telling. : )
[4:24 PM]Eönwë Valar: Sounds like a day with Tom Bombadil, lol.
[4:24 PM]Varda: It does!
[4:24 PM]Sandalf13: That is why I like it....Good old Tom. Plus, there are LOTS of other storytellers, more-or-less, throughout the LoTR/.
[4:25 PM]Varda: We will take those to make a poll later. Then we vote on what we will use for the anniversary theme.
[4:25 PM]Earendil: Seems like some LOTR fans around here or something...
[4:25 PM]Varda: hehe
[4:25 PM]Earendil: 😁
[4:25 PM]Eönwë Valar: What gave it away? :}
[4:25 PM]Sandalf13: Really?😆
[4:27 PM]Varda: It only shows the most recent until clicking on the title.
[4:27 PM]Eönwë Valar: If we're all comfortable with that, we'll move on. You can make multiple suggestions if you come up with another between now and the end date. We'll sift out any too similar to themes recently used if we need to.
[4:28 PM]Eönwë Valar: OK, on with gaming!
[4:29 PM]Varda: Fun!
[4:29 PM]Eönwë Valar: World of Warcraft:
[4:29 PM]Eönwë Valar: This week's bonus event: Warlords of Draenor Timewalking. This week's PvP Brawl: Gravity Lapse.
[4:29 PM]Eönwë Valar: Overlords of Outland is now live on Burning Crusade Classic Anniversary Edition servers. --- link
[4:30 PM]Eönwë Valar: The Siege of Orgrimmar is coming to Mists of Pandaria Classic on June 2nd. --- link
[4:30 PM]Eönwë Valar: See WoW Weekly for anything not mentioned above. --- link
[4:30 PM]Eönwë Valar: Check out this week's hotfixes. --- link"
[4:32 PM]Eönwë Valar: Overwatch:
[4:32 PM]Eönwë Valar: A new blog is up: Reign of Talon - S2 Midcycle Continues The Climb. --- link
[4:32 PM]Eönwë Valar: Overwatch doing a crossover with Fortnite through June 4th. --- link
[4:32 PM]Eönwë Valar: Heroes of the Storm:
[A new balance patch is live. --- link
[4:33 PM]Eönwë Valar: Lord of the Rings Online:
[The Anniversary event ends May 19th at 3am US East Coast time. --- link
[4:33 PM]Eönwë Valar: That's it from me for gaming.
[4:33 PM]Varda: Thank you, Eonwe. : )
[4:33 PM]Varda: More on LotRO:
[4:34 PM]Varda: Landscape Soldier Token through May 21 Code: TRAVELINGCOMPANION
[4:34 PM]Varda: Lord of the Rings Online gamers in our kin branches this past week (yes, our main place is Peregrin, the other branches being for special things):
Peregrin branch: 7 (RP - N. American mainly plus European):
Glamdring branch: (US regular. Ran out of room them in our personal Peregrin branch slots)
Meriadoc branch: (EU-RP)
Angmar temporary branch: (temp, N. American Veil of the Nine event)
Mordor temporary branch: (temp, European Veil of the Nine event)
[4:34 PM]Varda: Go ahead, Fangorn
[4:35 PM]Treebeard: We should see many fans in costume at ComicPalooza this coming weekend.
[4:36 PM]Varda: True. : )
[4:36 PM]Varda: We may not be back in time for the Sunday meeting, as we will be at Comicpalooza (assuming all goes well).
[4:36 PM]Varda: Comicpalooza | Texas' Largest Pop Culture Festival
["Comicpalooza is a pop-culture event featuring celebrity panels, photograph and autograph opportunities, shopping, hours of programming with discussions, workshops, and entertainment showcasing anime, comic books, cosplay, kids activities, and gaming."
[4:36 PM]Treebeard: ... here in the Houston convention center
[4:37 PM]Varda: A number of local Valarites plan to attend together. : )
[4:37 PM]Varda: If any others are coming, let us know so we can meet up!
[4:38 PM]Varda: StarCraft 2:
[4:38 PM]Varda: StarCraft 2 gamers this past week that I know of: Fangorn, Varda.
[4:39 PM]Varda: Any other gaming news to mention? I know between us we play a number of things. : )
[4:41 PM]Earendil: I know I've been trying out fallout 4, and only a decade after it came out! I'm doing wrong though as opposed to questing I'm just rebuilding American society. Pretty sure it's going...going.
[4:41 PM]Varda: Yay for building. : )
[4:43 PM]Earendil: I've been experimenting with turning the fallout shelter into a kind techno-dwarf kingdom but it's not there just yet, however if I get it right I'll bring pictures.
[4:43 PM]Varda: Cool. : )
[4:44 PM]Varda: We need to move on to Tolkien. : )
[4:44 PM]Varda: On to
[4:44 PM]Varda: Tolkien!
[4:44 PM]Pallando-Valar: Ooh before you do
[4:44 PM]Varda: I had a topic but the anniversary stuff sounded cool...
[4:44 PM]Pallando-Valar: I have gaming 🙂
[4:44 PM]Varda: Pallando! Aiya! Fire away. : )
[4:45 PM]Pallando-Valar: Reporting live from Reykjavik, Iceland, I can tell you that the next expansion of eve online lands 9 June, Cradle of War.
[4:45 PM]Varda: ohhh!
[4:45 PM]Sandalf13: Please bring me home a rock!
[4:46 PM]Pallando-Valar: The headline is military campaigns, one for each of the main four empires.
[4:46 PM]Sandalf13: I will pay the postage!
[4:46 PM]Pallando-Valar: Despite the name, they'll have plenty of non-direct conflict things to do.
[4:46 PM]Varda: (like most games 🙂 )
[4:46 PM]Pallando-Valar: These are somewhat unique per empire, each with a unique reward that will impact the world in some permanent way
[4:47 PM]Varda: Nice touch!
[4:47 PM]Pallando-Valar: This is a feature that is designed to last and be reused: I was able to find out that there's gonna be at least 2, and of course the official line is they'll continue forever and ever and ever
[4:48 PM]Pallando-Valar: Along with this, there's 8 new ships: 4 new navy destroyers and 4 new t2 command carriers.
[4:48 PM]Pallando-Valar: There's an additional number of balance changes the details of which are yet to be released
[4:50 PM]Pallando-Valar: Because this expansion is focused around the empires and to some degree FW, we're also getting updates to battlefields, 4 new plex types, and some standing changes.
[4:51 PM]Pallando-Valar: We're also getting achievements and titles
[4:52 PM]Pallando-Valar: I think that's all the big stuff? Big blog with details will be out soon (tm).
[4:52 PM]Pallando-Valar: Oh, vanguard (the new spinoff shooter) is coming to steam in early access as well
[4:53 PM]Pallando-Valar: Think that's it
[4:53 PM]Earendil: 😎
[4:54 PM]Pallando-Valar: YouTube - Cradle of War expansion trailer
[4:54 PM]Earendil: Looks awesome!
[4:54 PM]Pallando-Valar: For you, we got a sort of official leak about ansiblex getting nerfed in September
[4:55 PM]Pallando-Valar: I've yet to look at reddit to see how bigmad people are
[4:55 PM]Pallando-Valar: Okay that's really everything
[4:56 PM]Varda: Thank you, Pallando. 🙂 Great report!
[4:57 PM]Varda: And yes, there are always upset people for every change. Messes with what they've learned or at least become comfortable with, even if it's an improvement.
[4:58 PM]Varda: What would we want to say in an article about the anniversary topics we came up with? The anniversary doesn't have to narrow it, but an article would!
[4:58 PM]Varda: Just a quick suggestion on narrowing down to an article if possible on any of:
[4:59 PM]Varda: Dancing, Traveling, Farming, Story-telling, Adventures.
[4:59 PM]Varda: This might be something to add to the Tolkien Site even if we don't pick that topic for the anniversary.
[5:00 PM]Varda: It may help us narrow down the anniversary topic, also.
[5:01 PM]Earendil: Farming is easy. We all love the simple pleasure of fresh grown good food, and so I wonder at modern small scale farming and growing things at our homes. How do we shire-ify our own lives?
[5:02 PM]Varda: The article would be inside the Tolkien-verse, however. But that's still a good question!
[5:03 PM]Varda: These wide topics are great to let us do so many things for the anniversary. : )
[5:03 PM]Varda: Getting some great side comments. Might go ahead and put some of those in here.
[5:03 PM]Varda: If you like.
[5:04 PM]Arien Valar: ugh .. i can start farming yawns :/#
[5:06 PM]Varda: Sounds like wood-chopping. : )
[5:06 PM]Varda: We have reached the hour plus 6 minutes. We can continue in...
[5:06 PM]Varda: ta-dahhh!
[5:06 PM]Varda: After-meeting!
[5:06 PM]Varda: (Let the sun set, meanwhile.)
[5:07 PM]Treebeard: Farming is a great way to produce a lot of gold when first beginning, but I am not sure how we would incorporate it into a Guild celebration of the Valar Guild anniversary?
[5:07 PM]Arien Valar: i d think there would be hops and barley for beer brewing and berries and apples for pies and caks
[5:07 PM]Arien Valar: cakes
[5:08 PM]Varda: We show screenshots of farming in our games. We make stories about a hobbit trying to farm in a strange new location, such as Ithildin after the war, fighting back against left-over Mordor creep.
[5:08 PM]Arien Valar: Namarie 🙂
[5:08 PM]Earendil: Hm...good point.
[5:08 PM]Sandalf13: My three recently-planted apple trees (two are in their third year, one is still in its first year) are thriving with hand-watering. A Macoun (heirloom New York apple), and two honey-crisps.
[5:08 PM]Varda: We write an article about what we know of as being farmed in various parts of Middle-earth that might be used in exports.
[5:09 PM]Varda: Grats, Sandalf!
[5:09 PM]Varda: These are like plot-prompts. : )
[5:12 PM]Treebeard: Interesting. Nice meeting. C'y'all next time and Namarie ! 🙂
[5:12 PM]Earendil: Your own apples must be awesome. You know so much about LOTR is tied to the concept of homes (found, lost, reclaimed etc...) it's just occurring to me the pastoral shire is presented as the ultimate homeland. Pristine, peaceful, probably other positive p words...
[5:13 PM]Earendil: ...I guess it's a bit of everything we want right? Dancing, storytelling...all of our suggestions are really pieces of that notion it seems
[5:13 PM]Sandalf13: Right on!
[5:13 PM]Sandalf13: We have some great topics to consider!
[5:14 PM]Earendil: The simple pleasure of having your own apples and eating them to...yeah we do.
[5:17 PM]Earendil: Namarie, see you guys next time.
[5:17 PM]Sandalf13: Namarie, Earendil!
[5:18 PM]Varda: Namarie : )
[5:19 PM]Varda: Ar-Pharazon will probably show up later. Hi when you come on!
[5:20 PM]Eönwë Valar: pnosy pneighbors? :}
[5:20 PM]Varda: hehe
[5:20 PM]Varda: Homes. That could be a topic for the list too. : )
[5:20 PM]Varda: No, you are not restricted to just naming one at this stage.
[5:21 PM]Eönwë Valar: Image: "I'll take a potato chip..."
[5:22 PM]Varda: : )
[5:26 PM]Sandalf13: Namarie for now...need to check the garden. We had a spot of rain this afternoon, and we may have more rain tomorrow! Fantastic. Will check back in later.
[5:29 PM]Eönwë Valar: Take care Sandalf.
[5:36 PM]Varda: Happy gardening!
[5:58 PM]Eönwë Valar: I must be off. Take care all, good night, sleep well, and have fun.
[9:15 PM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Aiya, reading up.
[9:43 PM]Ar-Pharazon-V: More than one type of farming. All those battles, the Fellowship must have farmed quite a bit of xp.
May 18, 2026
[4:21 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Personal gaming report:
[4:22 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: We have a casual platformer today with Hat Wizard"
[4:22 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: I've linked its sequel and the christmas version before, I know that, at least.
[4:23 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: A platformer where you make your way through short levels, complete with enemies to avoid (by not standing in front of them when they turn in your direction) and blocks to move.
[4:23 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: You can throw your hat at statues or enemies and then switch places with them from any location you choose, to avoid stuff or just necessary to progress.
[4:25 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: And if you like you can use that to drop your enemies into gaps 🙂
[4:27 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: There are a few less mechanics than in the sequels, but still a good amount of levels, and an interesting bossfight.
[4:27 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: But at least you can't be squashed by blocks in this one 🙂
[4:31 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Blizzard gaming:
[4:32 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Hearthstone:
[Level 89 on the reward track. 2 more weeks should do it until the next portrait!
[4:35 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Second week of the quest event is going, focusing on battlecry minions as we hype up the Dragon Soul, or at least imbue it. Got an interesting card back as a mid-reward from the event, called Raid Finder. It even features the green eye you can see in WoW for that.
[4:35 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Next week we'll be aiming that thing at Deathwing!
[4:36 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: I wonder if it works, since it's still a while to the next expansion.
[4:38 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Brawl is new, or at least not seen for a while Shadow Towers, where your minions all have stealth for a turn when you play them, supposedly hiding behind towers.
[4:39 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Tried some murloc stuff that used to work with the 2-turn brawl, but had no luck, so instead I went to one of the most infamous minion types that nobody ever uses: Ragers!
[4:39 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: There's lots of types of ragers with various small effects, but basically they're minions w ith 5 attack and 1 health, which means they're easily cleared but can do some damage if they survive their landing turn. And with stealth, they usually do 🙂
[4:41 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: So I stacked the 8 or so different types of rager, alongside some other high attack low health minions. Didn't always work, but if they didn't come up with specific aoe counters or taunts, things could go downhill really fast for my opponents 🙂
[4:42 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: I'm not too good at crafting custom decks for these brawls, but when I do see a chance to make weird cards shine, it makes me happy.
[4:43 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Warcraft Rumble:
[No new collection levels. I have enough gold to buy 7 epic cores in the daily offer now, which could speed things up, but they haven't shown up in a while!
[4:44 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Reward tracks are ramping up, getting lots of gold and tomes.
[4:45 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Continued the heroic sigil campaign, defeating Brightwing with the remaining families and Cenarius with the alliance family. That puts me at 158 sigils, with 9 fights remaining!
[4:47 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: For quality upgrades, I got my last mini to 25 stars required for epic, the Darkspear Troll. I also got a few free rare cores from the end of the pvp season, enough to exchange for an epic core, so at one least new mini, the Gryphon Rider, is now epic and also has its last talent.
[4:48 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: WoW:
[4:49 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Still level 87, as I've spent some evenings watching Eurovision this week.
[4:50 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: I did start the questline with Arator and Alonsus Faol, visiting the Sunwell, and then doing some stuff at Light's Hope Chapel and the Scarlet Monastery to collect relics for more sunwell power. Silly Scarlets are like weeds... impossible to root out completely, always sprouting up again. One more leader down, I guess.
[4:52 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Next week we visit Arathi Highlands in what appears to be the aftermath of a War Within questline I haven't done yet - yay for phasing, I assume - and then it's time for Arator to resolve his dad issue. And then off to the big void in the sky!
[4:54 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Oh, and in our old school raids, we've both got all the pets from Eternal Palace now. Next week we'll decide whether to stack more pets for our absent third, or take a look at Nyalotha for more pets.
[4:56 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: And that's the report for this week!
[4:56 AM]Ar-Pharazon-V: Namarie 🙂
[6:59 PM]Varda: Thanks, Phar. : )