Merric posted this on October 12th, 2010.
Categorized as lua, mods, opinions, plugins, raids.
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Full link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/cstmfeed/~3/O2jazkSNhZs/
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. It then included instructions on how to obtain Buffbars and how to install the plugin. This upset the original poster and they wanted to know if others had seen messages like this or if they were being required to use plugins on their raids as well.
Personally I don’t see this as anything that my kin would ever enforce, but then again we’re not “hardcore”. But even when I was in WoW and we were raiding the highest raids I was in a group where we would suggest the “standard” set of plugins for people, but we never required them. Even as a plugin/addon enthusiast, my opinion is that while plugins help a player they do not make them a good player. All the addons in the world cannot make a player know what skills to use in which situation, nor make them respond accordingly. My advice to any raid leaders who think that Buffbars will drastically improve their raiding would be that unless you have a player who is willing to take the time to learn how to set up the plugin, that you be prepared for disappointment. Will it help? Sure. Will it cure all your woes? Definitely not.
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Elborigorn posted this on September 22nd, 2010.
Categorized as dungeon, Dungeon Guides, giant wing, Guide, Guides, Helegrod, instances, raids.
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Full link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/cstmfeed/~3/tnHYALBSCWE/
One of the things I really wanted to do here at CSTM was to help provide end-game guidance and more specifically, guides. I’d been holding out on doing any until the changes to instances that came in the free to play patch hit. So without further ado I give you my first of hopefully many guides here at CSTM: Helegrod: Giant Wing.
Helegrod: GIant Wing is a 12-man scalable instance. See our Instance Join Reference Sheet for other information on joining this raid such as quest pack to purchase for free/premium access.
A Few Recommendations
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Elborigorn posted this on July 26th, 2010.
Categorized as dungeon, Dungeon Guides, Guide, Guides, how-to, raids.
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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.
This is the second part in the series on leading a raid. See Part 1 on Communication if you missed it.
Guidelines for Fair Rules
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Elborigorn posted this on July 22nd, 2010.
Categorized as cc, crowd control, dungeon, Dungeon Guides, Guide, Guides, raids.
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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. My goals with these set of suggestive guides are to break people of the “You have to have classes A, B, C, D and 2 others” mentality as well as offer suggestions of how to use skills and mechanics more aggressively in the logic of the best defense is a killer offense.
The classes in this game are far more flexible than some realize and there are a lot more possible class combinations that can work through content just fine. Break this mind set and you may find new fun and challenges in your everyday LotRO gaming.
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Elborigorn posted this on July 19th, 2010.
Categorized as dungeon, Dungeon Guides, Guide, Guides, how-to, raids.
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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.
In the topic of communication we’ll be covering the following subtopics: Quality Voice Software, “Keeping the Air Clean”, “Setting the Table” and Troubleshooting.
Quality Voice Software
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Azz posted this on July 8th, 2010.
Categorized as casual, General, raids, Skirmishes.
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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.
I would like to first, try and present this from my point of view, because this is a post on how I see it. I consider myself a casually hardcore gamer. I aspire to some of the hardcore play styles and tasks, but am limited by other obligations that take a higher priority to my gaming, hence the casual. I do not view it as either/or, or mutually exclusive, but more of a sliding scale from one extreme to another. I am somewhere in the middle, but more on the hardcore side if that makes any sense.
When I refer to raiding I will be referring to the 12-mans in LOTRO, i.e Rift, Vile Maw, Dar Narbugund, Barad Guldur, and any of the skirmishes that provide for 12-man runs.
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Goldenstar posted this on June 25th, 2010.
Categorized as attention, deathtrap, dungeon, General, raids.
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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”.
You know the AOE fire patch, pool of slime, the wall of lava, etc, that appears you’re too busy tanking/killing/healing/helping to notice you’re the one standing in it and dying. Everyone else is rolling their eyes telling you “OMG how could you not see the giant pool of fiery liquid on your feet!” or “The boss did warn us saying ‘Burn You Fools’ before it appeared. How did you miss that?”
Well thanks to an email from frequent commentor Stormwaltz, you may be able to say that it’s not your fault! But first I’m going to make you run through the same test he sent to me.
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Goldenstar posted this on May 7th, 2010.
Categorized as Barad Guldur, calculator, Dar Narbugud, Dungeon Guides, Guide, Guides, how-to, raids, Vile Maw, Watcher.
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Our raiding readiness calculator will help you determine if you have acquired enough radiance items to join in raid dungeons that have gloom auras. The ready to raid determination is based off guidelines we found in various dungeon guides. In all instances, you will still need to bring with you hope tokens and may require additional hope from destiny points to prevent yourself from cowering too much.
See our Radiance Guide for more information on these calculations. We also have information on Hope and when you start to cower.
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arbitrary posted this on May 6th, 2010.
Categorized as Barad Guldur, Dol Guldur, interesting fights, lotro, MMOs, raider, raiding, raids, skills, sociable.
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Full link: http://nerfthecat.wordpress.com/2010/05/06/old-raiders-dont-die/
…they just wipe at 1% (with thanks to Spinks for the ending, I was too lazy to think of one).
Or, can you just drop raiding and not worry about it? I know at least one person who’s happily made the transition that way. I’m vacillating about it.
There’s things I don’t like about the current raiding I do, solely in LotRO, in the Dol Guldur cluster. I’m not overly keen on the radiance gating, I’d rather it was trait-based, or .. hrrm many other proposed systems. I prefer a closed-ish raiding group, but our kin has opted to go for rotations, and a much more broad brush approach.
There’s things I do like about raids in general, and the current one is included in that. I like the social side, the larger group size and chance to group with people I may not group with every night of the week. I like the more interesting fights a raid can bring in (though to be fair, lots of the 3-man instances have some fairly interesting fights in them which probably allow me to display my ‘leet skillz’ more obviously than in the current raid.
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Goldenstar posted this on April 29th, 2010.
Categorized as dungeon, Episodes, Episodes from 2010, instances, Interview, podcast, raids, roundtable.
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Full link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/cstmfeed/~3/x5q-cloxi24/
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.
The interview is set up as a sort of a roundtable discussing dungeons and raids. From 3-mans to the 24 man Helegrod we discuss all dungeon types. We also go over the main class roles and when they like to bring which classes to a dungeon.
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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. It then included instructions on how to obtain Buffbars and how to install the plugin. This upset the original poster and they wanted to know if others had seen messages like this or if they were being required to use plugins on their raids as well.
