Bastion Of Light Server : Meneldor Founded By : Rmoin Founded On : Dec 6, 2007   Kinship Size : 80+ Players   Kinship Type : Casual Friends_and_Family Crafting Recruitment : Open Min Level : None     Achievements : Cooperation : Roleplaying : Events : Crafting : PvMP : Raiding :     Description : The light shines on in the darkness and the darkness can not overpower it

You are not alone

Bastion of Light... the light shines on in the darkness and the darkness can not overpower it!

About Kinship

Founder = Rmoin
Date Established = December 6, 2007 on Meneldor server
Approximate size = 80+ (not counting alternate characters)
We are rank 10 and are allowed up to 1500 members
We have a kinship house
94% PVE - Player Versus Environment
4% RP - Role Play
2% PvP - Player Versus Player (PvMP - Player Versus Monster Player)
(percentages you experience may vary)

Contact: You can contact us on our new user channel bastionoflight
/joinchannel bastionoflight
You can see the user channels you have joined by typing
/listchannels
You can communicate on the channel by typing a slash and the number of the channel and then the message
/1 hello
This says hello on the first user channel (number 1)
You can leave channels by typing
/leavechannel bastionoflight

Ask to speak to an officer or send Rmoin or Meriana a tell to request membership.

See our member list Member list.
Lotro kinship listing: http://my.lotro.com/guild-865817029467389973/
Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/Bastion-of-Light/143203052396714
Lotro recruiting post: http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?243709-Bastion-of-Light-Kinship
Guildlaunch page: http://bastionoflight.guildlaunch.com
LotRO-KinFinder.com interview: http://www.lotro-kinfinder.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=5:kin-interview-bastion-of-light&Itemid=62

Rmoin's words of wisdom: "No kinship is any better or worse than it's members."

Join

If you would like to join our kinship we would love to have you. Please review our rules and conditions in this article.

If what you desire is:

• Help learning the game
• Help getting equipped with armour and weapons
• Help with fellowship quests or raids
• Buddies to hang out with

You will find Bastion of Light members are eager to help.

How To Join

We have a *new* requirement. New members must sign up on the http://bastionoflight.guildlaunch.com website first before being added to the Kinship in game. This is to ensure you have read and agreed to our rules and guildlines during your recruiting process.

You have to be online with your character while one of our officers is online with theirs in order to have your character added to our kinship. A kinship invite is sent and you have to click yes to join ( Not our rules but simply how the game mechanism works ).

You may contact Rmoin, Meriana, or one of the many other kinship officers in game to communicate your desire to join. You can send in-game mail or a tell message, or if you happen to be within say distance or in a fellowship you can communicate your desire to join that way as well.

Current Member Composition

Our current membership is comprised of individuals and families ranging in age from early teens up to 70+. There are members with occupations ranging from Teacher, Engineer, Computer Programmer, Student, Graphics Artist, Cook, Housekeeper and so on. Some of our members are casual players spending only a few hours a week, some are mostly into solo content, some are in to role play and some are eager to do raids or group content. We have players from almost every time zone.

Rules & Guidelines

Rules:

1. No Harassment is permitted.
2. Members are expected to keep their language clean (no profanity, no sexual innuendo, etc.).
3. Respect others, submit to Officer correction and direction.
4. No drama (no fighting or heated arguing), it's just a game, show respect.
5. Do NOT discuss, or make jokes about, race, religion, politics or sexual orientation. This leads to drama see rule #3.
6. No begging for money.
7. Fair Looting policy. Take only what you need unless everyone in the group agrees to an open roll. Try and keep the loot distribution as fair as possible. Roll only on class items for your own class (unless there is no one of the required class present).

Guidelines:

1. Members are encouraged (but not required) to take part in kinship events.
2. Members are encouraged (but not required) to help others with quests and other gaming objectives.
3. Members are encouraged (but not required) to sound off upon entering the game (say hello in kinship chat).
4. Avoid unnecessary drama, this is just a game and tolerance should be exercised.
5. You are welcome (but not required) to assist with the kinship fees... click on House in your character journal, then click on Maintenance, then click on Deposit Upkeep. Our upkeep costs are 285 Silver per week.
6. About giving, crafting, and crafting materials. You will notice that Rmoin, Meriana and some others, are very giving of time, crafted items and crafting materials. These things do cost (time and/or silver) and not everyone is at a place in their life in Middle Earth where they can afford to give in the same way or to the same extent. Members are not required to give everything / anything away. It is up to the individual member what they are willing to do or to give. Members can set their own terms for how they support the kinship with their time and talents. So if someone sets a price for something they are willing to do or make, while we hope it is reasonable, it is their right to set the price. You also have the right to acquire the item from whoever you feel has the best price.
7. Pay it forward. We hope to set a good example (and good mood) by helping new players get established. What we ask in return, if you feel you owe anything, is pass on the good will to others.

Raid / Difficult Instance Strategy

Scope:
There are some small/full fellowship quests that will not take a lot of research or preparation to successfully do. We are not talking about those instances here.

Where a number of team mates are required it is essential for the attack to be organized. With different time zones and real life commitments it is not practical to expect enough members to be online and willing to participate in a spontaneously organized attack on an instance whether raid or full fellowship, or large skirmish.

Problem:
There are far too many group quests/raids/skirmishes at different levels and with different rewards or gaming objectives to be able to expect that there will be a significant number of other members currently interested in doing any one of them.

When a game is young and there are a significant number of new players you may be able to expect a sufficient number of random and previously unknown players would be available and willing to do a group instance at the same time as you are. But in my experience even this was a lot to hope for. There are a number of times that I grew tired of spamming LFF for a particular group instance and eventually skipped it. This was even before the game was a year old.

Strategy:
Lotro's strategy has been to turn a number of these group quests into solo or small fellowship instances. It used to be that even the volume 1 of the epic line required a full fellowship at the end or partway through every chapter.

But still there are a number of gaming rewards and quests lines that require a full group of participants to succeed.

Most players who have reached the current "endgame" level have a virtually endless time requirement to max out their equipment, reputation, virtues/traits etc. and many of these objectives require endlessly doing some group raid/skirmish or quest instance. These endgame players may be able to arrive at an agreement concerning what raid/quest or skirmish instance is mutually beneficial for all of them and thus regularly scheduled runs can begin.

What happens if a member wants to do something that is not currently scheduled? Whose problem is it to organize that?

Well that responsibility falls to the member who is most interested in doing said instance. If you are interested in doing a particular instance/raid or skirmish in order to accomplish one of your gaming objectives here is what you need to do.

1) Research. There are usually a number of resources available, maps, walk throughs, tips, other members or allies with experience, youtube videos etc..

2) Post the results of your research, complete with links, images, videos, etc. on our website along with a proposed strategy for doing the instance.

3) See if one of our allies is currently doing the proposed instance and get some experience by going along with them and doing it yourself.

4) Organize a time for doing the proposed attack on the instance, and ask for those interested to sign up or post a reply on your forum post.

5) Expect to fail a few times. You may fail to get enough members to show up at the proposed time, try again another time. You may fail to finish the instance, try again another time.

6) The key is, if it is important enough for you to do, it is important enough to try try again until it is done.

Since we are all here to have fun and none of us is getting paid to provide entertainment for anyone else, these sort of guidelines need to be provided and understood. If you as a member are interested in trying to organize and do a particular instance that is beneficial to your gaming objectives there are other members and officers who are willing to help. But you have to provide the energy and initiative.

Summary:
Fortunately most group instances are not truly required and skipping them does not unduly impact the possibility of progressing to level or obtain even better items later in the game.

No one is required to participate in a group instance, but that does not mean that there will be no one to help if you put the effort into organizing an attack on any particular instance.

Info:

Kinship House:

Members have access to the kinship house chests and items in the chests are free to take if you need them. Do not put items that you can not afford to lose in the kinship house chests. Officers have access to decorations in the kinship house.

Promotion To Member:

New members start off as a recruit for a 2 week trial period. The join date of every new recruit is listed in the Kinship tab and the math to determine when 2 weeks is up will be done on the first character that the new member has added. New recruits are requested to list any alts they have in the Notes area of their listing on the Kinship tab so we know who owns what characters and can promote them all at the same time.

A vote with a simple majority of officers agreeing to the promotion of new members will be conducted with Rmoin having a tiebreaker and a blackball in the case of differences of opinion between Officers (there should be at least 3 Officers involved in the vote, however and whenever it takes place).

Promotion To Officer:

Exceptions to these guidelines can be made at the discretion of Rmoin.
Existing Officers that do not meet the requirements listed here are grandfathered in.

1. Officers must be at least 21 years old and mature (emphasis on maturity).
2. A vote among at least 3 other officers shall take place with Rmoin holding the final say for or against any promotion to Officer.
3. Compatibility with existing Officers will be assessed during the time of consideration.
4. Officers must have been a member for a minimum period of at least a month.
5. It is not a given that you will one day be an officer, but if you show a good level of maturity and responsibility and if the kinship needs more officers you will be considered.
6. Those who are promoted to Seneschal ( Officer ) are trusted to assist with leadership responsibilities including recruiting activities.
7. Officers also have the responsibility to enforce our rules, disciplining delinquent members ( or at least bringing the issues to the attention of Rmoin ), and organizing events if they so desire.
8. An Officer's alts may be promoted by request of the Officer.
9. Just because you know some friends that you want added to the kinship is not considered to be enough reason for a promotion. So if you ask for a promotion, be sure to have thought through your reasoning for wanting the promotion in the first place.
10. Officers must be signed up on the http://bastionoflight.guildlaunch.com website and be familiar with the Wiki material and rules and guidelines for the kinship.
11. Officers are responsible for reading the posts in the Officers forum to get up to speed on Officer practices and issues after being promoted.

Meriana is second in command and head of communications.

Merger:

"Merger is a term used to refer when two corporations join together into one, with one corporation surviving and the other corporation disappearing. The assets and liabilities of the disappearing entity are absorbed into the surviving entity." http://www.incorporating-online.org/Definition-merger.html

Kinships which are considering merging with Bastion of Light need to consider a few things which may affect their decision.

1. The leader and officers of the merging kinship are not automatically promoted to Officer in the Bastion of Light kinship. Candidates for Officer positions must meet the Bastion of Light Promotion To Officer requirements.

2. Members who merge from another kinship to Bastion of Light still need to go through the same process as new recruits to Bastion of Light.

These requirements of ours are due to the fact that we have had no control over the merging kiniship's requirements for their officers and members.

Either the existing bastionoflight user channel or a new channel will be set up to permit the merging kinship's members to communicate with Bastion of Light both before and during the merger. This communication by the general membership of both kinships prior to a merge will help to determine compatibility.

The merging kinship should direct their members to review the Bastion of Light Wiki and indicate their acceptance of the rules and guildlines. If there is no buy in by your membership to our rules and guidelines then you should reconsider the merger as it is not likely the best choice for your members.

Alliances:

We are part of a kinship alliance and we have a chat channel ( user channel ) that we use for alliance communication. Our allies include Vigilance, Elders, and Silver Swords among others. After joining you will be provided with the information required to set up and use the alliance chat channel. You are a representative of Bastion of Light. Any time you communicate on a public channel, including alliance chat channels, we expect you to be polite and courteous. During times of heavy recruiting, we may delay dissemination of the alliance channel details until we have the opportunity to get to know our new recruits.

What We Are Not:

We are not a power leveling kinship. If you are looking to be power leveled there are other kinships that have that as their focus.

We are not a raiding kinship. We will go on raids, and we have allies that we can join who go on regular scheduled raids, but that is not our primary focus.

Disclaimer:

What we are and what we will be is subject to change. If we have members with strong leadership skills who wish to lead raids we are not going to stop them from organizing scheduled raids. But pressure to 'have to' go on raids? That is not likely to be tolerated.

Removal Policy For Delinquency:

Members may be removed (kicked out) if they do not obey the rules. Depending on the seriousness of the infraction, warnings and other corrective measures may be employed first.

Removal Policy For Inactivity:

Members who have not logged in for a long time may be removed if we need to clear up space for new members.

After You Join:

To chat in the kinship chat channel you can either type /k and then the text you wish to say or you can select "kinship" from the chat bubble to the left of the chat text entry field.
You will have a new skill "Travel to Kinship House". You will need travel rations to use the skill (purchase from a provisioner vendor). On your character display you will see in the "House" tab the address for the kinship house.

More information about kinships in general can be found in this lorebook page: http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/A_Guide_to_Kinships
Maps to help you find quest objectives: http://mehq.net/dynmap/
Great Barrows info and map: http://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Great_Barrow
Carn Dum guide and map: http://allshallfade.guildlaunch.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1130023
Want to know what your actual DPS with a particular weapon is? http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/CStats

Rmoin info:

I started playing MMORPGs in January 2001. Since then I've always been the founder and leader of a guild or kinship. My real first name is Robert. Thus most of my character names start with my first initial R. Rmoin was my first char in LOTRO and since the suggestions for endings for a Dwarf's name included moin I put R with moin to get Rmoin. In my head I pronounce it R-moin (are-moin). Moin sounds like mowing so I think of him as mowing through the mobs.

The former guild and now kinship I've lead have both been small to medium in size and tight knit like a brotherhood or family. No one leaves the kin without causing some tug on my heart strings.

When You Leave:

Please do so on good terms. I am especially fond of my kin members and always wonder what I could have done different or better. But I'm also happy when you find success even if it is with another kinship.

Any who leave are always welcome back to visit. If you leave on good terms you are welcome to return and stay.

Returning Members:

When a member returns who has left the kinship they are expected to go through the same probationary trial period as a new member. Please see the Promotion to Member topic for more detail. Repeated leaving and returning is suspect and will cause concern, possibly resulting in a no vote by the Officers when considering the promotion to member.

Role Play - Rmoin's Welcome Speech

Gentle folk of Middle Earth. You have been called from your comings and goings, from your work and your play, from your positions of nobility within your peoples, to join us in creating an army to resist the dark lord Sauron. No one wishes for these times, no one embarks on such a journey willingly, but such dark times as these are upon us.

Numerous other Kin Lords are answering the call as well. We will equip and we will train and when the time comes we will be ready. Ready to join the rest of Middle Earth to decide our fate.

I know a number of you are uncomfortable, this gathering of Elves, Dwarves, Men and Hobbit folk into close proximity can create some tensions. But you need to put aside your differences for the greater good. Infighting and dissension will not be tolerated. Exercise self discipline. Understand that these folks who have gathered have a common fate and purpose.

When the hoards of Sauron descend upon us, when the darkness covers the sky and blots out the sun, you will want to know who it is that stands beside you. You want to trust that they have got your back.

Treat each other with respect. You have no idea who it is that you are greeting. Is it a person of nobility? Is it a person of renowned military exploits? Or is it just someone like yourself, called during these times to leave the comfort of home, of family, and of familiarity to answer the call to save Middle Earth.

Your officers have been carefully chosen. Chosen for their proven leadership and for their exploits in battle. Many are persons of nobility within their own peoples and all hold great respect among their peers. Give them honor and respect. Heed their direction and pay close attention to their advice.

Thank you all for joining us, Lord Rmoin

Events

Meet & Greet.

Wednesdays at the Prancing Pony in Bree. Loc: 29.6S 51.2W
We are going to try alternating locations from Bree, to 21st Hall and Galtrev.

Time: 7pm PST, 10pm EST.
Duration: 1/2 hour with activities to follow
Comments: Don't miss the Meet & Greet at the Prancing Pony on Wednesday nights. This is your chance to meet fellow kinship members and share an ale or a tale.

Bring friends, meet allies, plan fellowship quests and plan skirmishes or raids.

Please make sure all group quests and / or raids are done before the Meet & Greet and are only scheduled for after the Meet & Greet event so we can get maximum attendance.

We will understand if you can't make it but we will miss you :)

Leadership

Founder / Leader

Founder : Rmoin
Leader: Rmoin

Officers

Second in Command and successor Officer : Meriana
Officer : Merisara
Officer : Peabody
Officer : Periago
Officer : Daddyric
Officer : Petropete
Officer : Allafresh
Officer : Clorindra
Officer : Tiriow
Officer : Ehirgar
Officer : Kerowin

See the full current list of Officers by visiting http://my.lotro.com/kinship-meneldor-bastion_of_light/characters