Eanáir 2014
(January)


Cead Mile Failte!

We're on the doorstep of 2014, with new goals, refreshed ambition, and opportunity knocking on our door. This year our community is going to focus on creating something epic. Through several ambitious plans and events we are going to strive to make 2014 our most memorable year yet.

GAISCIOCH FAMILY NEWS

A Year of Family

2014 Event Calendar

  • Jan 7th @ 6PM: Gaiscioch Magazine Team Meeting
  • Jan 11th: Great Tyrian Adventure Kickoff Event
  • Mar 30th: Gaiscioch Magazine Issue 1 Published
  • Apr 1st-June 1st: Double-Up Charity Event
  • Apr 4th: Chapter 5: Elder Scrolls Online Launches
  • TBA: Gaiscioch Family Reunion (Atlanta, GA)
  • Fall 2014: Gaiscioch Family Reunion (Seattle, WA)
  • Fall 2014: PAX Prime Zerg & Parties
  • Fall 2014: Extra Life Event
  • Dec 8th-12th: CookieZerg 2014

January Summit

  • Jan 4th @ 12PM PST: Great Tyrian Adventure Announcement Livestream
  • Jan 4th @ 5PM PST: Gaiscioch Family Summit Pubcast - Live

Gaiscioch Magazine

It's finally happening. We've talked about the idea for a while and finally laid plans to make it work. We will begin publishing the Gaiscioch Magazine in 2014 with it's first issue set to upload Monday, March 30th, 2014. This will be a digital publication viewable from any web browser and available for download in several formats including pdf, kindle, epub and more.

We are holding a Magazine Team meeting on January 8th at 6PM for anyone interested in contributing to the magazine. Additionally if you would like to submit an article as a Guest Writer we will have several sections available including: Game / Movie Reviews, Recipes, Out of Game Events, and Various Game Guides and walkthroughs. Bottom line if you think it would work in a magazine submit it along with some pictures or screenshots. If our editorial team approves it we'll include it in the magazine. All submissions must be made by March 1st 2014 to be included in our first issue.

If you're an aspiring journalist and want to gain some experience or contribute your journalistic skills are looking for several columnists and beat reporters to interview game developers, get the scoop on new technologies and games and become a face or voice of our community. These magazine articles will be published and you will be able to use them for things like acquiring press passes to conventions and to gain exclusive access to information.

This magazine is a volunteer driven production so we will be relying on members to help make it a success. We will be offering advertising to companies for trade of prizes to our events, or by donating to our partner charities. I still need to work the logistics out on this side but I will be working on a method in which no cash passes through our hands. All contributions will be made directly to our charity partners or to players in game.

Learn more at:
http://www.gaiscioch.com/tavern/family_news/post_68721.html

GUILD WARS 2 NEWS

A Year of Epic Adventures

The Great Tyrian Adventure: Legendary Edition is about to begin in Guild Wars 2. In our first season we gave away in-game codes, full sets of armor, bags, and exotic weapons. In the second season we upped the ante by giving away a precursor. In Season 3 we're going all out... Our prize list this time includes over 25,000 gold worth of items (a $4,060 usd value). This season we will be giving away 6 Legendary Weapons, 9 Mystic Forge Weapons, and 3 Precursors along with the usual assortment of full sets of armor, exotic weapons, and 20-slot bags. If you would like to help us bring this goal to life please visit our forum to find out what donations we currently need. In addition we will be hosting several events designed to help farm some of these materials. If you need contribution points now is a really great time to earn them. We're collecting more donatable items than we've ever had in Guild Wars 2.

Getting Involved:

If you would like to help there are a few things you can do.

Event Leaders Needed: If you're willing to run materials gathering events we could use your help. We need Orr farming events, temple farming, dragon chasing. Anything that can help earn gold and tier 6 materials for the family will help a lot. Ask people to donate their mats and spare coin for contribution points. By running these, members can earn both Family Honor Points and Contribution points at the same time!

Player's Who No Longer Play: Please help our family out by logging in and sending anything listed below to Foghladha.2506. Many of us have been sitting on these materials for quite a while. By pooling our resources we can make the impossible possible.

Gatherers Needed: We need your expert gathering skills to farm the bulk of these mats. There's a list below of what we need. If you can work your magic and gather these materials it would be a huge help. All donations are processed for Contribution points.

What is needed:

  • Gold (Currency) for Icy Loadstone and Materials Purchasing
  • Globs of Ectoplasm
  • Giant Eyes
  • Piles of Crystaline Dust
  • Vials of Ancient Blood
  • Vicious Fangs
  • Vicious Claws
  • Elaborate Totems
  • Powerful Venom Sacks
  • Ancient Wood (Logs or Raw)
  • Orichalcum (Ore or Bars)
  • Gossamer (Cloth or Bolts)
  • Lodestones (All Varieties)
  • Cores (All Varieties)

Need players with skillpoints and time to convert cores to lodestones.

Bloggers & Socialites: We need to spread the word, and spread it big. We want everyone to know what we're up to. I will be relying on you all to help amplify our voice. We need to hit up social media, post blogs, and spur in game conversations in map chat about the event. Here are some key notes you can use to attract attention.

  • We will be giving away over 25,000 gold or $4,000 worth of prizes in this season.
  • The Great Tyrian Adventure will run 4 times a week with the weekly raffle Livestreamed on Thursday @ 8PM.
  • Each week a new Grand Prize and Chapter Prize will be announced.
  • On January 4th at 12PM PST we will be hosting a Great Tyrian Adventure Season 3 Announcement Livestream.

Behind the scenes I can tell you that we are in active production of 6 Legenedaries and 9 Mystic Forge items but I don't want to reveal that quite yet. Remember under promise, over deliver. We will only announce the things that are completed. Last thing we want to do is announce something and then not be able to follow through. We will need help passing the word of each of the items we announce each week. If your interested in helping stir the buzz please get in touch with me. If you blog about it be sure to link it in our forums so we can help drive attention to it.

Special Thanks:

I'd like to send a special thanks to Aingeal, Don, Jessica, Izmina, Sairesh, and Prissy for volunteering to create the Legendaries. By doing this they committed to countless hours of dungeoning, mystic forging, and exploring. I'd also like to thank everyone who has helped us gather the materials required to create them. It's been awesome watching the whole family come together to work towards one goal. Together we are creating a moment in gaming history many won't forget. A tribute to who we are and what we do!

Learn more about the Great Tyrian Adventure: Legendary Edition at:
http://www.sanctumofrall.com/gta

View our progress at:
http://www.gaiscioch.com/tavern/guildwars_crafting/post_68874.html

A Year of Persistence

Uncertainty is definitely on the horizon for many of us in Guild Wars 2. There are several games on the horizon in 2014 that threaten to pull players away and potentially could cause drastic shifts in player population on servers. This is one of the reasons why we decided to throw all our cards on the table for Season 3 of the Great Tyrian Adventure.

In the next year we will see the launch of Wildstar, Elder Scrolls Online, Everquest Next/Landmark, and possibly Archeage. With this vacuum on the horizon we wanted to create a VERY large bang that is heard around the world of Guild Wars 2. Season 3 ends the day before Elder Scrolls Online goes online officially. We scheduled it this way as on that day we will be raffling off 6 Legendaries and 7 Mystic Forged Items and a Precursor. We want to draw the attention to Sanctum of Rall to attract players that might be on one of the servers widely affected by the new games’ arrival. Thus creating a beacon that will keep Sanctum of Rall alive and well so that we can weather this storm.

It will be through kindness and persistence that we survive this next year in Guild Wars 2 and we will all need to help keep this server alive and well. When ArenaNet gave us Sanctum of Rall their message said, "We will name a server in honour of Roger, it will be up to you guys to defend it.". That's what we will do. We will weather this storm and continue to thrive even after we open our doors to chapter 5. While we can't say what's in store for the future past season 3 of the Great Tyrian Adventure we can say for sure we'll be a part of it. Help me make this season the best and most successful Public Community Event we've ever hosted. We can be certain that players will never forget this memory and our name will be known throughout the land as one of the kindest most giving communities in the MMO scene. Sanctum of Rall, Roger's Memory, and Gaiscioch will be a permanent landmark in the history of Guild Wars 2.

Top 10 Guild Wars 2 News For December, 2013

  1. Guild Wars 2 Guru: Now Through December 31: Purchase Gems to Receive Exclusive Gifts
  2. Guild Wars 2: Player vs. Player Rewards Roadmap
  3. Guild Wars 2: Introducing the Black Lion Wintersday Rewards Event
  4. Guild Wars 2 Guru: PvP Rewards Roadmap
  5. Massively.com: Flameseeker Chronicles: November is controversy month in Guild Wars 2
  6. Guild Wars 2: Wintersday Items in the Gem Store!
  7. Guild Wars 2: A Very Merry Wintersday – Toymaker Tixx Returns December 10!
  8. Guild Wars 2 Guru: A very Merry Wintersday - December 10 Update
  9. Massively.com: Wintersday livestream to offer sneak peek into Guild Wars 2's new content
  10. Guild Wars 2: Guild Wars 2 Is Changing Billing Platforms

ELDER SCROLLS NEWS

A Year of Opportunity

Zenimax Online has asked us to assemble 1,500 of our strongest, most devoted warriors to partake in an epic quest to break the Elder Scrolls Online guild system and help prepare the game for public beta. If you have any interest in this game or helping the family make a new home please visit Gaiscioch.com and click "Join" next to Elder Scrolls Online on the Command Center after you log in.

In early to mid January you will receive information from Zenimax about this opportunity. Shortly thereafter I will send you a notification about how to validate your status on Gaiscioch.com to gain access to hidden areas of our site to discuss and coordinate with each other and also get in game invites.

This is a very exciting opportunity and Zenimax Online is giving us their trust to provide crucial feedback on their system and find any holes in it before they open it up to the public testers.

A Year of New Horizons

Chapter 5 is knocking on our door and preparations have begun. Over 1,000 players have arrived on our shores eagerly waiting for the launch of this new epic adventure. This is guaranteed to be a challenging experience and will likely push our family to their limits. I wish I could tell you that this will be entirely stress free and nothing but fun, however I have done this enough times to know, no matter how planned your launch, something will always get messy. It's going to be chaotic at first as new players get to know us and our ways and as the game patches any bugs or issues that rear their ugly heads on launch day.

What I can tell you is that we will have some epic adventures in our future. From the sieging of foreign lands in AvA to exploring the depths of the darkest corners of the world. I look forward to these adventures and the possibilities that make themselves available. April 4th, 2014 our newest chapter begins. I hope you choose to join me on this new adventure.

Top 10 Elder Scrolls News For December, 2013

  1. Tamriel Foundry: Character Progression – Be Who You Want to Be
  2. Elder Scrolls Online: Video – Character Progression
  3. Massively.com: The Elder Scrolls Online shows off the process of building a character in a new video
  4. Massively.com: The Soapbox: Seriously, we have enough fantasy MMOs
  5. Elder Scrolls Online: The Tamriel Chronicle, Issue #36
  6. Tamriel Foundry: The ESO Vodcast – Keys to Success
  7. Elder Scrolls Off The Record: ESO Collision Detection: Why or Why Not?
  8. Shoddycast: Elder Scrolls Online Weekly: Character Progression
  9. Elder Scrolls Online: Creating ESO: Designing Skill Lines
  10. Massively.com: Elder Scrolls Online classes won't 'chain you to any one playstyle'

Elder Scrolls Links of Interest

CLOSING NOTES

This year we will have ups and downs. We will celebrate and remember. We will pay tribute and create epic memories. We will bring new lives into this world, and remember those who have departed from it. I suspect that this year will be one of the most eventful and chaotic years in Gaiscioch history. We will have our share of growing pains and adjusting to do with the duo-game approach. Let's exercise patience, and fortify our commitment to community. Remember, We are not the guild for all, we are the family for many. As strife and opposition stand in our way, our family will come together and overcome any obstacle placed in our way. Happy New Year and hang onto your seats people, we're in for a heck of a ride!

Slan Go Foill!
(Goodbye For Now)

Benjamin "Foghladha" Foley
Ceannard De Gaiscioch Treubh