Iúil (July) 2012 Edition


Cead Mile Failte!

Can you feel the intensity of the summer heating up? It's about to get real exciting in the Gaiscioch house. Today, 1.9 launches in RIFT bringing low level instant adventures, mentoring, a new 10-player dungeon, and most importantly 3 Realm PvP Combat in the form of Conquest. In addition the next Guild Wars 2 beta weekend is quickly approaching as ArenaNet has announced another stress test event in preparation for the BW3 event. But first let's cover some family news.

Improved Discussion
The Gaiscioch Tavern Receives a Much Needed Facelift

Over the past month I have been adamantly working on improving communication channels between members and giving some form of organization to our forums. The result has been a complete overhaul of our Gaiscioch Tavern / Interact section. Now upon visiting the Interact section you will find forums devoted to various topics.

In addition there are specialty views for Important Posts, New Posts, Active Posts, Unanswered, and posts by new members. It's my hopes that these specialty views can help us stay on top of the expansive forums now and make sure that no question goes unanswered. If you haven't seen the improvements, jump on over to the all new Gaiscioch Tavern.

Browse our new forum at:
http://www.gaiscioch.com/tavern/

Personal Profiles Updated
See Your Victories Over All Games

This month with all of the activity in Guild Wars 2 and RIFT the site has become widely popular and began to slow down and eventually crash several times. One of the problems we discovered was the way we queried victories on the Member Profiles.

Over the past month we completely rebuilt the member profiles. Currently only 3 of the 6 tabs are available. Member Profile will now list your complete character list from all of the games you've played with the Gaiscioch and provide a base overview of your achievements with the family. The Valor tab will list all of your victories as a Leader along with all of your stories of valor submitted by those who awarded you a token of valor. The Fellowship tab shows your participation in family events and lists your total victories of each objective along with your current title for each objective.

Over the next month we'll be adding tabs for your Artisan Rank, Exploration Rank, and Lore Rank. We will also be working on a way to bring back the fan favorite badges. Stay tuned for more and be sure to check out your new profile.

The Gaiscioch of RIFT Celebrate
The Gaiscioch na Nuada Celebrates Level 20

With the help of our dedicated membership, we finally arrived at level 20. This half of our house started 6 months after the launch of our Guardian faction and has not only hit level 20 but has also become a force to reckon with. The Nuada have not only taken down the titan Rhamm Dragonsbane, but have also on several occasions infiltrated Sanctum and toppled dozens of mobs for first on the server achievements. While the Defiant side continues to be small but mighty they have bonded together over the past few months and have really started to make some headway. Now with both rooms of our house ready for battle we are ready for Conquest!

RIFT 1.9 Conquest Launches

The Gaiscioch Trinity Flys Again!
RIFT 1.9 Gaiscioch Conquest Events Start Tomorrow!

Join the Arach Dubh at the head of the Gaiscioch Trinity tomorrow night (Thursday) at 6PM PST in RIFT as we take to the battlefield wearing the banner of the Nightfall. After months of preparation and planning the Arach Dubh is ready for their debut in the RIFT conquest mode.

Conquest mode is fast paced, action focused, and rewards speed and tactics over mindless zerging. The map is an alternate version of Stillmoor with slight modifications. The side that reaches 5,000 kills or 60% control wins and then the zone goes into lockdown. In lockdown mode a zone invasion begins and you have a shot at some pretty nice gear and rewards if you can down the targets in an allotted amount of time. Did I mention that once lockdown happens the 2 sides that lost, no longer can resurrect inside the conquest instance. (Think Warhammer city fights). This in turn is a giant slaughter fest and race to complete the final objective.

After spending several nights, hands on with Conquest I can proclaim that, while this isn't the traditional player vs door warfare we wanted, it does however deliver with its fast paced drop in / drop out casual friendly PvP with a 3 faction system.

If you want to learn more about conquest head over to our RIFT PvP Forums and join the discussion.

View the Conquest Overview & Map at:
http://www.gaiscioch.com/tavern/rift_pvp/post_32175.html

Come One Come All!
Mentoring Enters the Rift, Bringing Instant Adventures For All Ages!

With 1.9 comes not only one new event for the family, but also a second in the form of Mentoring. After today you can queue solo or as a group for instant adventures and it will build your adventure around the lowest level member of your group. So a raid full of 50's can go to Silverwood and be mentored down to level 12 for some instant adventures with low level friends. The rewards and experience are the same as you would find at a level 50 Instant Adventure.

This allows players of all ages to join in the adventure with new IA's in Silverwood, Freemarch, Gloamwood, and Stonefield. The Gaiscioch Family will be rotating Telara's Last Stand and Instant Adventure Nights every Thursday at 6PM PST starting next week! Be sure to join in the adventure and quest without dialog boxes!

More from 1.9
But Wait, Order Now and Receive...

1.9 has a bunch of nice little gems stuffed into it. There's a new Tier 5 PvP armor set, new crafting recipes, the Barbershop, and a new sliver called Primal Feast which is set a little more difficult than Infernal Dawn. There is also an all new world event that is exploration based. Fish, Explore, and stop legions of insect swarms in this world event. There's a lot of really neat costume gear in this event so be sure to stock up on the currency.

Check out the latest and greatest on the Official Homepage. http://www.riftgame.com/en/game/updates/conquest.php

Guild Wars 2 News

Guild Wars 2 News
Colin Johanson on How ArenaNet Measures Success

This month Colin Johanson discusses how ArenaNet measures success and how their perspective on how a Free-2-Play game can monitor their success. Check out this fascinating blog entry at:

http://www.arena.net/blog/is-it-fun-colin-johanson-on-how-arenanet-measures-success

Beta Weekend #2 Recap
The Gaiscioch Gives Eternal Grove a Taste of Gaiscioch Warfare

During the second beta weekend the Gaiscioch held their second Gaiscioch Siege night and if you were not in attendance then you missed out. The sieges were massive, the battles epic, and at its climax we were dug in sieging a heavily defended castle. At one point we had 8 catapults, 2 trebuchets, a siege golem, and 3 ballistas blasting the defenders from afar. We fought for an hour and a half starving the supply line waiting for them to finally run out of supply.

Alas, their resources were depleted and Gaiscioch punched through the outer walls, then forced their way into the inner gate. The battle inside raged on for an hour and half of white knuckle fighting, but eventually the castle was ours. When the dust settled we were all so tired, but let out a pretty exciting cheer. Players all over Eternal Grove were buzzing about the win and it bled over to several forums.

To think... This was an event where we kept everyone together. Just wait until the Gaiscioch Trinity flies again! Be sure to Pre-Purchase now to get ready for BW3 when we take to the field again. This time we'll have a squad!

Gaiscioch Football Turns Season Upside Down
The Gaiscioch Play For Division Championship July 1st!

After a rough start losing 5 of their first 6 games the Gaiscioch Competitive Flag-Football team managed to turn the season around and fight their way into the playoffs. Plagued with a short roster and having to borrow players for the first half of the season the Gaiscioch finalized their roster on week 7 of 10 bringing on two young athletes who were coached by our own Josh Branch. We won our last 3 games giving us a spot in the division playoffs.

This past weekend we laid it all on the line with a long shot at making it to the championship. Just hours before the game we learned that our long time quarterback and golden arm Anthony "Tony" Davis re-injured his spine where it was fused together with metal vertebrae. Without Tony things looked grim and we decided we had to win this game for Tony and ensure he has a chance to play in the championship. I took on the Quarterback role for the first time in 6 years. We stopped them on 10 of their 14 possessions and managed to intercept 6 passes returning 3 of them for touchdowns. I managed to gimp my way through passing 10 touchdowns and 5 extra points. In the end we rallied to beat the sure fire defeat, 83 to 28 launching us into the championship game. Win or lose we finally have our squad. Tony, Uriah, Chris B, Chris T, Kaimoa, Josh, Tre, Jasper, and I have come together to form quite an amazing group of athletes. Now it's time to take it to the next level!

Learn more about Gaiscioch Football at:
http://www.gaisciochfootball.com/

Watch the Playoff Game Highlights on Youtube:
http://youtu.be/yvAthvfr7_E

In Closing

Over the month of July, I may be scarce as my daughter will be visiting from California. I don't get a lot of time to see her, only 30 days out of the year, so my attention will be mostly devoted towards her. I will be continuing our Monday & Thursday adventures but will likely be absent on Saturdays and the focus group activities. This next month is going to be insane and fun and should bring our family into a new age. The addition of 3 Realm Combat in RIFT, the strengthening of the Arach Dubh, and BW3 nearing on the horizon things should get pretty exciting. We've also seen an increase in both new membership and player retention on both sides of the ball. With a canvas that Gaiscioch was built to paint now being put in the game we play we will finally be able to shine as we once did. If RIFT was your first game with us, you haven't seen nothin yet ;). Saddle up and hang on for the ride!

Slan Go Foill!
(Goodbye For Now)

Benjamin "Foghladha" Foley
Ceannard De Gaiscioch Treubh