A Casual Stroll to Mordor

I was looking at the forums today and came across a thread in the Lua forums where the person posting stated that their kinship stated that they received an in-game mail stating that all kinship members who want to raid must have Buffbars installed.

Elborigorn guides us on the Helegrod: Giant Wing in a post F2P world.

A set of fair and well-enforced rules help build a structure for your raid that helps keep people on the same page and will do well in earning you the respect you need to do your job effectively.

The “Alternative Methods” guide set is aimed at presenting different ways to fill the basic roles/needs in any group or instance without use of either the normal class/roll or method.

The biggest key in raid success and especially in succeeding as a raid leader is communication. Everything from basic rules and strategy to who needs to go AFK and when needs to be communicated. If nobody knows anything because nothing has been communicated then the raid will inevitably fail and the leader will have failed as a leader.

This post will briefly touch on the age old debate of Casual vs. Hardcore. While it is not my goal to rehash past debates; I feel it pertinent to give my opinion on the matter so as to provide a reference point from which the following has been spawned.

Way back in Episode 23 we talked to Turbine developers Zombie Columbus, JWBarry and Raskolnikov about skirmishes. A small part of that super long podcast we talk about area effect traps which we called “Standing in the Poop”.

Our raiding readiness calculator will help you determine if you have acquired enough radiance items to join in raid dungeons that have gloom auras.

This is a special between episodes episode where we talk to Azz, Gor and Geiri from our kinship. They are our kinship’s primary players that will organize and lead group content.

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I’m not a hard core raider and I realize that our kin and friends of the kin aren’t raiding kinships. I don’t think just because we’re not considered “raiders” excuses people from being responsible team members.

I found this very interesting post on my.lotro by Deusdictum going over the last three years of his playtime in LOTRO. Merric and I should totally be friends with Deusdictum as we have a lot in common.

This week’s CStM we primarily talk about the raid into the rift that we both were able to attend. Well Goldenstar did the whole thing, Merric came in at the end to tank the Balrog. Merric also discusses his experience with the Lone Lands revamp with his Captain. Our main topic is actually about these two areas and how some areas get attention while other pieces are mostly left as is.

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Today saw the release of a Dev Diary “Introducing Dol Guldur” by Tsieng Liu of the LOTRO Dungeons Team (wow, I bet that’s an awesome team to work on), discussing different topics including how the dungeon area is laid out, a brief look at the dungeons and how they will work.

Today I was looking through the forums and happened upona thread showing a raid of Burglars from Eldar [EN] taking down Nornuan in 1:57. Pretty neat and worth taking a look at.

Taking a look at what makes a raid and how viable raids are in this modern age.