As a result of yesterdays council meeting, we will start using Mumble instead of TeamSpeak for our voice communications during raids and other events when necessary. We've been testing and discussing it for a while, so most of you will have heard of it already. For those who have not installed it yet, there's a nice guide.

Quote:September 29, 2009-- Turbine, Inc. announced today that The Lord of the Rings Online™: Siege of Mirkwood™, the new digital expansion to the 2008 MMO of the Year will launch on December 1st in North America. Turbine also unveiled The Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO) Adventurer’s Pack which contains what every player needs to survive in the chaos of Mirkwood! Siege of Mirkwood and the LOTRO Adventurer’s Pack are scheduled to launch on December 1, 2009.

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All players can pre-order the new LOTRO Adventurer’s Pack which contains 2 character slots and one shared storage slot that allows players to share items with all of their characters on the same server for $19.99 and get the Harbinger’s Cloak which provides 8% speed boost and the Dusky Nimblefoot Goat mount for FREE!

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The Lord of the Rings Online: Siege of Mirkwood will be available as a digital download for $19.99 or as a bundle with the LOTRO Adventurer’s Pack plus a new mount for $39.99 on December 1, 2009.

Please note: now that raids are becoming over-subscribed, I am going to start applying starting times strictly by the letter. In other words, if a raid is scheduled to start at 9.00 (that's "invite time" on the events scheduler), and you're not online at 9.01, you risk losing your place to any standby of the right class who happens to be online. If you look like being unavoidably delayed for a short time, I will hold your place for no more than 10 minutes if you have posted a message to that effect.

The TWA September Elections have started, good luck to all that will be running for election.

Full members please check the official election threads on the kinship rules board.

Other interested parties can keep an eye on this thread for updates.

The current, informal loot system has worked well with the Turtle and Warden, which are single-boss raids, but we need a slightly more sophisticated system for Dar Narbugud and its six end bosses, who drop the six tier 2 armour items. Now that we are about to begin regular weekly DN raids, it seems a good time to implement this. I am therefore proposing a very simple system, a combination of Dragon Points and Suicide Kings.

For every attempt on Dar Narbugud, all participants will receive one (1) Dragon Point. This means you get one point every time the raid goes into the instance, not one per evening; this allows for the possibility of somebody dropping out and being replaced after a wipe. Every time an end boss is killed and armour coins drop, rolling for these will be restricted to participants with the highest number of DPs (and who don’t, of course, already have that armour item). If you win the coin, you lose 3 DPs; this means that if you don’t already have three of them, you can actually go negative for a while.

All items other than armour coins are rolled for in the normal manner, and do not cost any DPs. However, teal items will be rolled for before the armour coins, and as usual, winning such an item will bar you from rolling for the armour coins.

The same rules will apply to non-kinnies and other guests participating in the raid.

Please comment and discuss before these rules are finalised on Thursday.

Now that we have enough members kitted out with sufficient radiance (+65 at least) for Dar Narbugud, and in view of the forthcoming expansion which includes what sounds like an excellent new raid chain, TWA will start regular DN runs as of next week. On Tuesdays we will continue to farm the Turtle and Watcher, with Fridays devoted to DN; where necessary, Friday raids will continue on Sunday evening. These are the official TWA raid evenings, but members are encouraged to organise further Turtle and Watcher raids on other days (Wednesdays and/or Saturdays would be good). It would also be useful if more of our regular raiders tried their hand at leading a raid; leading a quick Filikul raid would be a good way of getting your feet wet...

Oh my how time has flown, it seems like only yesterday when I became leader again and the future of the kinship was not looking all too bright.
A little under 4 months later and TWA is strong again, taking on the raid content and the roster quickly filling with valuable new recruits.

So for many this will be the first time witnessing a TWA election.

A short explanation:
Elections are held 3 times a year, and announced 2 weeks in advance, the election will run for 15 days, half of that time consisting out of "sign up" time so people can apply to a position and the other half for actual voting.
First the Leader will be elected by a majority vote, then the deputy in the same way, finally the 5 officers will be elected by voting on all applicants and the 5 with the most votes will become officers.

The Time-line for the September elections will be as follows:

    Sep. 18th - Day 1: Applications are opened on the forum for all positions.
    Sep. 21th - Day 4: Applications for election 1 close, and voting for election 1 opens, that of Kinship Leader.
    Sep. 24th - Day 7: Voting closes for election 1, and results announced.
    Sep. 25th - Day 8: Applications for election 2 close, and voting for election 2 opens, that of Deputy Kinship Leader.
    Sep. 28th - Day 11: Voting closes for election 2, and results announced.
    Sep. 29th - Day 12: Applications for election 3 close, and voting for election 3 begins, that of the Officers.
    Oct. 2nd  - Day 15: Voting closes for election 3, and results announced.  All newly elected members take office.

Please note that among other things, you need to be a full member as of September  18th, if you have not finished your initiation by then you cannot participate in the elections.

For all rules and a more detailed explanation of the election please read the kinship constitution

I have added extensive notes on the third and final phase of the fight, and there are some important class notes as well. Raiders, please read and comment.

First off, please note that from now on and for the foreseeable future, the final selection of raid participants will be made by the raid leader in order to secure an optimum balance. This means that signup priority may not always be respected - so if you are interested in a particular raid, always sign up, even if it appears to be fully subscribed.
Secondly, we could use a Warden and another Hunter raiding regularly. If you have such an alt who has reached l.60, we will help them gain the necessary radiance as quickly as possible.
Thirdly, we will be making our first attempt on Dar Narbugud towards the end of August - stay tuned!

Codemasters just finished installing book 8 patch 1, with fixed Hardmodes for Hall of Mirrors, Hall of Crafting and Waterwheels instances, new Lorien recipes, 2nd age craftable legendaries and a fixed Carn Dûm!

Full patch notes are here...