Aibreán (April) 2012 Edition


Cead Mile Failte!

Welcome to the April edition of the Ceannard Notes! WOW! This month has flown by. We've got quite a bit of exciting news this month ranging from our first ever Gaiscioch Hosted Charity Event, to RIFT's 1.8 Patch on the near horizon, to Guild Wars 2 confirming that Beta Invites have been sent. In addition coming this April we plan to start putting the framework for the first ever Gaiscioch Pubcast as well as some new changes to our homepage. So much to cover, so let's get started with our charity event.


The Gaiscioch Family Hosts:
The Double-Up Charity Event

If you've read any of our Ceannard Notes over the past few months you've probably heard of the Gaiscioch Double-Up Charity Event. The concept: Help 2 Charities with the same Dollar. The original lineup had us helping raise money for the Kohl's Cares program benefiting Children's Education & Health Care and provided toys to several others. We brought on Raphael House, Insights, and the Bear & Buddy Program in Beaverton, OR to receive the stuffed animal donations.

Our original goal was 200 stuffed animals, however by the 7th day of the event there were more than 300 stuffed animals in the mail. There were so many in fact that we ended up needing a 4th source to donate animals to. Enter our 5th benefiting charity: Candlelighters for Kids With Cancer. This organization provides resources, counseling, and assistance to children with cancer throughout Washington and Oregon. They provide a stuffed animal to each one of the kids that they meet with to help give them a buddy through the hardest time of their lives. To think that the buddy these children lean on in their hour of need came from our family is more than enough to warm any heart.

I'm happy to report that as of the time you're reading this, we have collected 397 stuffed animals through this charity event. There's a few days left till the end of this event so if you want to order be sure to do so by April 1st. I am very proud of all of you and look forward to doing this again next year.

For more information about the Double-Up Charity Event visit: http://www.gaiscioch.com/doubleup


Thank You For Your Support!


Coming to an MP3 Player Near You
The Gaiscioch Pubcast

Over the course of the next month we will be putting together the framework for the Gaiscioch Pubcast. We will be holding interviews/roundtables on Saturday mornings via Ventrilo and recording these sessions. There will be a forum post for you to pitch ideas about what you'd like to discuss. The 4+ segments will be combined and released in a podcast format. Some topics we'll be frequently focusing on are Raiding, Crafting, PvP, Role Playing, and life as a casual social gamer. In addition we'll be highlighting news from RIFT, GW2 and other industry related stories. If this format takes off and listeners increase we'll consider opening up a video format as well.

Visit our forums for more information about the Gaiscioch Pubcast or to sign up to be a guest visit


What's New
With The Gaiscioch Family

As always the Gaiscioch Family site is under constant improvement. Last month we saw the launch of the all new Marketplace System which since it's release has seen 2,210 orders filled for more than 7,600 items. This month we have undergone some visual improvements throughout the site in preperation for the new simplified navigation system and reorganzing slated for April. In addition we've launched our Gaiscioch Message Center and added some new features to your player profiles. Lets get started by taking a look at the Message Center.

Gaiscioch Message Center Debuts

Many of you have requested some type of private messaging system within the family network. Well this month we launched the Gaiscioch Message Center. This system is not designed to be some hard core emailing system. It's simple. It's easy. It's functional. It is more designed to provide users with important notices based around a member's rank within the family, marketplace orders, and soon their battlegroup messages. It does have some person to person messaging functionality.

To view the message center login to the Gaiscioch website and look to the top bar. There will be an mail icon that you can click on or hover to view your new messages. If you have unread messages you'll have a orange box with a number in it at the top left corner of your member bar. Personal & Crafting messages can be deleted at any time while announcements and battlegroup messages expire after 30 days. This is so that we don't have to create a bazillion copies of the same message for everyone in the family, we can create one that is viewable by many.

Be sure to login to the Gaiscioch Message Center and read your new messages:
http://www.Gaiscioch.com/

Player Profile & Personal Settings Upgrades

Another new feature that was added this month is an improved player profile system. We've added several new options on your player profile that will be tied into the site over the next month.

Remember Me Feature:
The biggest change is the ability to remember your login to the Gaiscioch site. This will store a temporary key (cookie) on your machine that combines itself with a server side key then compares your browser and ip data against it to see if it matches. If it does, it relogs your machine in automatically preventing you from having to log in each time from the same machine. This feature is disableable from the Edit Profile page.

More Social Options:
We have removed MySpace as not many were using it and added YouTube and Steam to the lineup. We now allow you to set your Blog URL, YIM, AIM, MSN, Skype, Xfire, Steam, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, XBOX, and PSN information.

The Gaiscioch Professional Network & Business Center
Few years back we thought about building a place where we can exchange business information, resumes, and help each other succeed professionally as well as in game. This feature will help people find others that can offer advice, guidance, or even business services. You can optionally list your profession, company, company url, company description, and LinkedIn profile address in this area. In the coming months the Gaiscioch will have a business directory where all of our businesses we're involved in will be listed with links and descriptions to help with their companies search engine presence and provide a stream of traffic to these businesses. This is completely optional and you can change or remove this information at any time.

Be sure to Edit Your Profile on: http://www.gaiscioch.com/


New Professions, Dungeons, and PvP Oh My!
RIFT 1.8 Coming This April

Seems like yesterday 1.7 changed the PvP game giving everyone access to all PvP armor right out of the gate. RIFT 1.8's release nears bring an all new Dungeon, Instant Adventures, Crafting Professions, Recipes, Items, Seals, and more.

New 20-Man Raid Dungeon:
Infernal Dawn

With 1.8 releases the all new Infernal Dawn raid dungeon in Ember Isle. this multiple wing raid dungeon is designed to allow you to attack each of the bosses independently giving casual raid groups a chance to defeat each boss in shorter spurts. The difficulty is placed above Hammerknell and contains both Earth and Fire storylines. Since the Alliance of the Wanton Maw both factions have made Infernal Dawn their home.

There's quite a lot of new tech in this dungeon as the boss fight encounters are the first of their type in the game. It is said that there are 7 bosses the last of which is Lathys herself. In addition it is said that there will be a fight against Maleforge in which you have to both fight and climb an erupting volcano before the constantly rising lava flow catches up with you. Can your raid defeat this ferocious foe all the while keeping your feet on cooler soil. We'll see with 1.8!

New Instant Adventure
Ember Isle

While the Instant Adventures system has been active for a while, they have taken part only in the zones of Shimmersand and Stillmoor. Next up is the inclusion of Ember Isle. While they definitely share some similarities (as one might expect, being that they all run on the same system), there are also some differences.

Read More at MMOSite's Instant Adventure Preview

New Item Slot
Seals Make Their Debut in RIFT

These items are single-stat crafted items available starting at level 40 and 230 crafting skill for Apothecary, Armorsmith, Artificer, Outfitter, and Weaponsmith. The first two recipes are found on the associated crafting trainers, two more recipes are found on the recipe vendors for Artisans Marks and Master Craftsman's Marks, and a final recipe is available from the Hammerknell Raid merchant for Greater Mark of Ascension.

Read more on the Official RIFT Forums

New Crafting Professions
Fishing & Survival Join The List of Available Professionals

One of the hottest new additions to Rift coming about with patch 1.8 is fishing. Players have been asking about it for quite a while now and it's just about here! Through this article we'll be taking a journey through this new system to give all the information you need to know to effectively jump into this new feature as soon as it goes live.

Read more about fishing with MMOSite's Fishing Preview

New Guild Recruitment Tools
RIFT Adds Guild Finder Tool

Now for the humor column of the day, RIFT has decided to add a guild recruitment tool which lists what each guild is looking for. Just imagine what Gaiscioch will look like when it tallies up number of members compared to the rest of the server. Will our family break yet another system ;)? Regardless this should allow us to have some avenue to say who we are and what we do without blanketing channels like every other guild out there. This should be quite a little gem in this patch. We are currently taking bets to see whether or not this system can handle our family :D.


Chapter 4: Guild Wars 2
ArenaNet Shares Some New Information & Beta Invites Are Sent!

Check your mailboxes folks, beta invites are on their way. You might be one of the lucky ones to get an early peek at this titan on the horizon. I ask you all to please, respect the NDA that ArenaNet has put forth and do not share anything, including your involvement with anyone outside the NDA circle. It is very important that our family protects our reputation at this stage and I do not want our name to be associated with any breach or leaked information. I am quite strict on this front. Anyone caught leaking information will be reported to ArenaNet and removed from the family immediately. We have spent the past 2 years building a relationship between ArenaNet and the Gaiscioch and we will not see that threatened.

That said, if you get in, enjoy yourself. Keep an eye on the internal testing forums, you might find some familiar faces that can guide you to the right place. Go explore the world and imagine what it's going to be like with your family and friends with you. This will be a very momentous occasion and breath new life into our family from bringing back the members of old glorious times in DAOC and WAR to reuniting friends we made in RIFT as well as giving members a chance to stay connected without having to commit to a monthly fee. We've already begun to see a surge in returning members and former allies coming to join the family.

So this month I think I'll let ArenaNet and some of the choice media outlets do most of the talking about Guild Wars 2. Here's our top 5 news items for this past month.

1. Pre-Purchase Guild Wars 2 on April 10th! Collectors Edition Announced - ArenaNet

2. GAMEBREAKER's Seven Reasons Why Guild Wars 2 WvW Wins - GameBreaker.tv

3. A look at Guild Wars 2's world vs. world PvP - Massively.com

4. The Evolution of Narrative in Personal Story - ArenaNet

5. Mike O'Brien on Microtransactions in Guild Wars 2 - ArenaNet


Revisiting Guild Wars:
The Legend of Guild Wars Continues

Guild WarsNow in our 8th week of the Legend of Guild Wars adventures, we have travelled through most of the Prophecies campaign. We experienced the rise of the Charr, the fall of Rin, the death of Prince Rurik, sought refuge in Kryta only to find ourselves in the lair of our toughest foe yet. Markus turned against us and allied with the Mursatt while the chosen have ascended in the crystal sands desert. For those that have joined our adventures be sure to have the eye of the north campaign ready as we will most likely begin venturing into those lands by the end of April. Feel free to join in the fun every Saturday at 5PM PST.

For those of you who have not joined us but still are curious as to what events have transpired, or if you're curious as to the backstory to Guild Wars 2 be sure to check out our webisode series on YouTube "The Legend of Guild Wars".

Here's the list of current episodes:


In Closing

The next month is going to be a busy one. I suspect we'll see a lot more revealed about Guild Wars 2 as the April 10th pre-purchase is released as well as the release of RIFT 1.8. I'll be visiting ArenaNet this month and may have some details to share. All depends on what they allow me to talk about. Also we will likely see PAX Prime tickets go on sale. For anyone on the fence about PAX Prime this year, this is the year you REALLY want to go. We will likely see the launch of Guild Wars 2 sometime this summer - fall and if I was to place a bet on the table I'd be willing to bet a release right after PAX Prime. It gives ArenaNet homefield advantage, and they are well known for throwing the best parties. I'm betting they're going to want to steal the show one last time, hype the game to all heck, and release right when everyone's busting at the seams. Regardless for those that are planning to attend, we'll be holding a 11th year celebration at Fido's Irish Pub Friday Night. This is one party you're not going to want to miss. Meet your favorite RIFT personalities, GW personalities, and party with the family. This should be an exciting month so be sure to frequent the Gaiscioch site over the next month and we'll do our best to keep you updated.

Slan Go Foill!
(Goodbye For Now)

Benjamin "Foghladha" Foley
Ceannard De Gaiscioch Treubh