Discussion: Weatherstock 2011

Envoyé par AlphaMan

Envoyé par Denjamuri

I think we've got about five Kin members + myself attending from Riddermark, with another four on the maybe list.

Also two of us were at the Bird and Baby Inn Tuesday night, and we have about twenty screenshots (cut down from an overwhelming forty lol.) My Screenshot folder will be bursting by the end of Weatherstock!

One question though if someone sees it before tomorrow; Are the times listed really in EST, or are they in EDT (EST with Daylights Savings Time) I have seen it written both ways the past week, which has been slightly confusing me.

If a time is given in EST or EDT it's pretty much always in the CURRENT time the east coast is following. It's currently EDT, yes, but people usually just call it EST anyway. If your country/timezone/region does not practice the Daylight savings switch, you'll have to calculate based on EDT.

Which is why I always prefer to just say "server time"

a quick check (/servertime) and a glance at the clock, and I know the difference quickly
(cause I am a noob who puts the events on his calendar )

Our first Weatherstock and the Shades are all really looking forward to this... hope to see you all there!

Envoyé par morrowbreeze

Weatherstock is less than 24 hours away! If you dont attend this epic event you may cry!

Taynith is parked at the Forsaken Inn; she'll be sneaking her way to Weathertop later today!

Envoyé par Gaelicwolf

Rolled a toon on Landroval just to cheer on my kinsfolk, The Breakfast Club! Watch out, Big Folk.

I love that kin name!

I'm having visions of an all hobbit band singing Don't You Forget About Me.

MVT had a great time at the pre-Weatherstock concert last night. Now we're ready to seriously rock the top.

Final reminder from Vending team at Weatherstock.

We will provide ale and pipeweed for all who attend. The price is FREE. However donations are accepted, and all donations go to our 300 gold prize pot.

Low level Hope Tokens will also be provided for FREE, with the donation as above if you choose. These Hope Tokens are used by YOU the crowd to vote for your favorite "Light in the Darkness" band, which the winner of, will receive a third of the total prize pot.

Vending chat will be in the Lone Lands /trade channel.

Vending team will be wearing YELLOW outfits for easy sight and access. Thank you! Enjoy the show!

Rolling a character there just for this event can someone assist me to get there... since I'd be like Lvl 8 or something.

Look for someone with the name tsubaka or tsu[insert class here]... haven't decided.

Envoyé par tsubakainoue

Rolling a character there just for this event can someone assist me to get there... since I'd be like Lvl 8 or something.

Look for someone with the name tsubaka or tsu[insert class here]... haven't decided.

If it's anything like last year, there will be an escort service from Bree. You should be there at least an hour before it starts. The parade is likely to start at the Pony or the South Gate.

BTW, turn your graphics to their lowest setting well before you get to Weathertop. I didn't last year, froze up entirely and had to do a hard reboot to get back. Removing your hat will also help reduce graphic problems. Finally, staying mounted or doing mass emotes of any sort is a good way to get banned from the event.

Be Seeing You!

Which compass direction will the stage face?

The stage is a "theater in the round" so technically it faces in all compass directions.

All the bands face south-south-east.

Awesome.

Extremely well thought out organisation and great music.
Thanks for a great evening/night/morning/whatever.

Shades rule!

Weatherstock Screenshot
Yeah. It may have gotten even more crowded than this, but my computer couldn't handle it. Even though I usually play at High graphics settings, I was crashing with everything at Very Low. Everyone was also being hit with massive lag spikes when I got there. Other than that, everything seemed very well organized and it looked like it would have been a blast. I hope those who could actually be there enjoyed it!

Some pics from the after-event photoshoot. Feel free to copy.

http://darmok.dyndns.org/tmp/weather...011/index.html

Lag was terrible at the start of the event. There was a huge lag spike that everyone seemed to experience but then with a little experimentation things settled down. Removing the emote channel, removing cloaks and weapons, removing names, looking at the ground or up at the stars really helped. I crashed twice, first time I didn't think I was going to get back in when I switched to DX9. Maybe someone at Turbine fired up some extra chinchillas about then. It was a monster event. Congratulations to the winners, I am sure at the height of the numbers present it was well over 500. Great job Lonely Mountain Band, your organization was superb.

Congratulations to all the Weatherstock winners! MVT had an absolute blast once again. We are so proud to have won the LMB Cup Award! This was a fantastic event. Great job, LMB!

We had reports of from 511 to 643 attendees. What lag at first! I thought the server was gonna crash! YOU made it the smashing success it was! By far THE largest player event in LOTRO! We rock!
Our Teams!

Amazing show tonight! A hearty thanks to both the LMB and all of the bands that played tonight! Here are a few caps I was able to take:

Well here's a video I made that I posted in general discussion:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3GOMDY8BxI

Thanks a lot to Harperella and the LMB for organising! Definitely worth waking up at 6 in the morning for =]

Here are some of the screenshots I managed to grab (Only thought of taking screens just before I left, which was when The Breakfast Club were playing). They're all on my Ultra high settings so hopefully they look good. Linked because I went a bit screenshot crazy in the few minutes I had =P

Overarching shot of the crowd

Crowd from a different angle

The Songburrow Strollers

The Strollers' jamming out!

Encore for the Strollers!

Crowd and two of The Blackheart Pirates!

Harperella making an announcement

The crowd in anticipation

The Breakfast Club!

Whats this?

Some of the crowd passed out from the excitement!

Sending up a smoke signal for Candaith

Is that coughing I hear?

Middle Earth Pipe Weed Convention?

The Crowd!

And Again!

And more! (Note guy in the bottom corner mapping out ;] )

Some Shire-folk amongst the crowd

And a different angle of the crowd

A nice shot of the banner and the crowd ... but mainly the banner

The Shades chilling in the crowd

Harperella's solo

The crowd watching in awe as Harperella plays!

Thats all I've got. Seems I went a bit F11 happy, but it was awesome!! Wanted to capture the atmosphere =]

Wish I could've stayed for the whole thing but I had to leave early. Would've been good to get some shots of the bands playing more to balance out my crowd obsession haha.

Great event, I must have arrived after the crashing and lag, because other than a low frame rate (about 17fps) everything went smoothly and I was able to enjoy the hell out of it. Thanks a lot to the organizers who made this such an awesome event!

Thanks to those for organizing the event and to the bands that played. I don't RP and I've only been to Landy once before for an event (Horse Race), but this was a lot of fun. Even though I don't really participate it was great just to be part of the crowd and I look forward to catching another big Landy event in the future.

For all who missed Weatherstock or want a quick recap here's a little video I put together. I think it turned out very well for my first video!

From the looks of that movie you must have been sat right next to me! That red headed dwarf was quite loud!

This was my first Weatherstock, and I have never seen anything quite like it. Beautifully managed and wonderfully hosted! And free ale!

Here's a few pictures I took -





And in true festival style I awoke the next day in my underwear, on top of a hill.

This was my first Weatherstock and even with the major lag at the beginning, I had a great time.

Thanks to LMB for arranging everything and special thanks to the bands. You were all excellent.

Can't wait for next years weatherstock.

My first Weatherstock also and I loved every minute of it.

Great organisation, excellent music, and an awesome atmosphere.

Thank you for a wonderful time

I'm kind of confused about this whole event. I didn't really get it. Ok, so there are a TON of people on top of Weathertop, which creates a TON of lag and forces you to turn your graphics from max to min so your computer doesn't crash. Then, the only reason why you are there, is to listen to people pressing one button once and having the computer play prerecorded music. I mean, it would be cool if the bands that were performing ACTUALLY played music, but if I want to listen to prerecorded music, which sounds much better anyway, I can go to youtube, or itunes, or whatever the #### they use these days. After asking if anyone was actually going to play music themselves, instead of ABC files, I was told that if I didn't like it, I had to leave. So, I turned off my floating names, and BAM, my computer froze. I just really don't get what was so fun about it. You can't even chat with other people properly because there are at least 10 /claps and /roars every second, which fills up the chat log.

What I also don't get, which has actually pretty much stopped me from RPing in this game, is that 90% of the RP in this game is: people sitting in a circle playing prerecorded tunes, and at the end of each song saying something like "That reminds me of Rivendell. Next song please." And when you try to start actually RPing, they either /ignore you, or start ruining your RP by playing elf characters who jump on passed out hobbits who had too much to drink, and keep making strange sounds like "=)" and when you ask them to stop breaking your immersion, they say "But 1ts s000 funz lulzors! =)))))))".

Please, someone explain to me why everyone thinks this is so fun, and why people don't use the music system in the game to PLAY music.

Thank you!
Have a nice day.

Congratulations on such a huge event!

A personal request: is there a place to download the 4h+ streamed audio from the concert that was put on the radio? I would greatly enjoy to get it on my computer for future listenings.

I had a great time at Weatherstock earlier today. Yes, earlier today. It started at 4am our time and I left at the after-party in the Pony at almost 10am. And I haven't slept during the night because of over excitement. :3

Here are some of my shots:


ScreenShot00083 by sPsP49, on Flickr


ScreenShot00092 by sPsP49, on Flickr


ScreenShot00099 by sPsP49, on Flickr

Too bad I only had decent photos from The Shades and not the other bands. They didn't turn out too well upon checking.

The lag wasn't as bad as expected. I thought I wouldn't be able to see anything and at worst, my computer would crash. But it was very smooth and everyone was fantastic. I even got muffins from a lovely man in black, aside from the refreshments from wonderful hobbit lasses in yellow!

Thank you so much Landy for your warm welcome on a visiting young woman who thinks she's a hobbit.

~ Celeree

Envoyé par Okimi

And in true festival style I awoke the next day in my underwear, on top of a hill.

Aha! So you were the hobbit stripper that I saw earlier! :3

An absolutely amazing event! I can only echo the thanks to the organisers, volunteers and helpers who made this event a huge success.

The Songburrow Strollers are still in shock at being chosen as joint winners of The Light in the Darkness.

I think my reaction in /f was *Gobsmacked* which just about sums it up.

Thank you to all who raised their tokens and voted for us.

It must have been hard to choose, I know I was listening to all the other bands and thinking "They are very good" and cheered after each song.

Congratulations to everyone who performed. The quality of the bands was outstanding!


On a personal note, it was wonderful to invited to your server and to be at the concert.

The players of Landroval are extremely generous and I wanted to share with you some of their generosity without embarassing those involved.

Those of us from outside Landroval have recieved offers of help to level, gear and cosmetics. Offers of coin were made, these were for "anything you need".
Even a Kin-house to use for this and any future event as a pub to gather together and prepare in.

Landroval, I salute you!

Envoyé par Kalluin

is there a place to download the 4h+ streamed audio from the concert that was put on the radio? I would greatly enjoy to get it on my computer for future listenings.

Was wondering the same thing myself. Being quite pre-occupied with everything going on during the event, myself and some of my kin didn't get a chance to listen to it live, and such would be very keen to hear it.

What a night! What a crowd! What amazing bands! Thanks to all that organised this event, especially Harperelle, I can only say 'Wow!'. Congrats to all the bands that played, it was quite an accomplishment considering all the people watching. I made loads of screenshots, but sadly didn't manage to get all of the bands. Please forgive me. I hope you enjoy the screenshots I did manage to make.


What a crowd!


The Eriador Music Society


From the Shades, with love


As usual, the Songburrow Strollers get voices humming and feet tapping

http://s234.photobucket.com/albums/e...view=slideshow
The Shades rehearsal prior to Weatherstock

http://s234.photobucket.com/albums/e...view=slideshow
A selection of screenshots from Weatherstock

Hope you enjoy!

Lady Duissane. You have this unique talent capturing the atmosphere on every events, beautiful pictures as always!

I want to thank Lonely Mountain band for this excellent event! I have never been on anything like this at all.
To see so many from Landroval together, shows an enormous community spirit. That is something you should be very very proud of. But I also have to say on behalf of my band from Laurelin, that we felt so much welcomed. *bows*

The bands were excellent, and I could see how much work each band had put in their performances..Is not all about music, but also the introductions, lyrics, the stage appearance, coordination, and of course the outfits.
I could also hear excellent transcription of different songs and originals. I know it lays much work behind this, so is not all about pushing a button.

The lag was epic too I must say I was a little nervous, when half of my band in The Shades chrashed, but luckily we manage to be ready right on time.

I also want to thank the audience standing by our side when the battle of bands started. It was quite touching to see so many cheering at us. Thank you so much! the award "Free people choice award" is something The Shades will treasure for a long long time! and it motivates me to continue what I like. Writing songs both ingame and in RL

I also want to praise the other bands that also won! Songburrow Strollers <3 and the other bands... You all deserved it

Thank you all. It was a night to remember and it wont be forgotten! that's for sure!

Someone in the audience requested that we post the lyrics we used at Weathherstock since it was somewhat difficult to follow the chat window. All these lyrics were written and performed by our own Ingolemo.

Born in the Shire (Born on the Bayou by CCR)

Now, when I was just a little tween,
Standin' to Bilbo’s belly,
My uncle said, "Boy, watch out for Lobelia
She’ll do what she done to me."
'Causes he'll get you,
'Causes he'll get you now, now.

And I can recall the Downs, and the Barrows,
Runnin' through the green grass, bare.
And I can still hear Tom singin to Willow
Merry is a stuck down there.
Merry is a stuck down there.

CHORUS:
Born in the Shire;
Born in the Shire;
Born in the Shire;

Wish I was back in the Shire.
Not stabbed by that ole Pale King.
Fleein’ across those wide lone lands,
Or to Mordor they will take my Ring.

Born in the Shire;
Born in the Shire;
Born in the Shire;

(White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane)

One class leaves you sneezing
And one class makes you kneel
And you didn’t really want to
But they don’t ask how you feel.
Go ask Bilbo
‘Cause he knows the deal.

And if you go helping hobbits
Though you saw Gondolin fall
Tell 'em a pipeweed smoking innkeeper
Has given you the call
Call Frodo
Though he is quite small!

When the man at the keyboard
Sits down and tells you how to pwn.
And you've just had some Barrow Brie
For your fate is not your own.
Go ask FRODO!
For he has known!

Am I IC or OOC?
Did I read what’s in his head?
Should I reference my own backstory?
Or keep it hidden instead?
Remember what your spouse has said:
"COME TO BED!
COME TO BED!
COME TO BED!"


Regeneration (My Generation by The Who)

People try to put me d-down (Talkin' 'bout regeneration)
Say I only stand around (Talkin' 'bout regeneration)
My heals, my DPS ain’t b-b-bold (Talkin' 'bout regeneration)
My mez won’t stop the Dead I’m t-told. (Talkin' 'bout regeneration)

This is regeneration
This is regeneration, baby

Why don't you all f-f-
feed yourselves. (Talkin' 'bout regeneration)
Go by some Waybread from the E-e-elves. (Talkin' 'bout regeneration)
I just want a little c-c-commendation. (Talkin' 'bout regeneration)
I’m your out-of-power s-s-salvation. (Talkin' 'bout regeneration)

This is regeneration
This is regeneration, baby

The Minstrel, she is getting l-l-low. (Talkin' 'bout regeneration)
Share the Power, here we g-g-go. (Talkin' 'bout regeneration)
Power of Knowledge f-for d-d-domination. (Talkin' 'bout regeneration)
I'm just talkin' 'bout my g-g-generation (Talkin' 'bout regeneration)

This is regeneration
This is regeneration, baby

Poppin’ Lembas like a P-p-pill (Talkin' 'bout regeneration)
Stackin’ Fate and stackin Will. (Talkin' 'bout regeneration)
Sword and Staff, You Shall Not P-P-Pass! (Talkin' 'bout regeneration)
Yeah, as support I am first C-c-class. (Talkin' 'bout regeneration)

This is regeneration
This is regeneration, baby!

And here are the lyrics that band member Callendor wrote for our opening song which we didn't use because Ingolemo didn't actually know the song well enough to perform them properly.

(Dark Star by The Grateful Dead)

Dark Lord crashes
Turning his eye into ashes.
Orcs, they scatter
Their forces now hardly matter.
Mordor crumbles
As Barad Dur downward tumbles.

Shall we go
You and I while we can
Through the Black Gate of Morannon?

Palantirs shatter
In thousands of shards of matter.
Flame eye dissolving
On top of the tower revolving.
Orcs in armor
Retreat through the night of goodbye.

Shall we go
You and I while we can
Through the Black Gate of Morannon?

I hope some of you noticed, we went with a Woodstock theme this year. All of our songs were performed at the original Woodstock event. So if any of you were there at that concert, we hope we gave you a nice trip down memory land.

Oh, lyrics? Grand idea! Here are the songs sung by The Songburrow Strollers:

The Strollers' Waltz (Citadel Hill, Trad.)

One day in the Shire I'll never forget
A band of musicians out playing I met
They belted out songs and spread joy on their way
The Songburrow Strollers are playing today
Sing fall-de-dol doodle-dum fall-de-dol doodle-dum
Fall-de-dol doodle-dum lidy-I-dee

I sat down and listened a minute or three
But soon I felt something itching in me
My legs said "Oh dear, let us dance if we may"
"The Songburrow Strollers are playing today"
Sing fall-de-dol doodle-dum fall-de-dol doodle-dum
Fall-de-dol doodle-dum lidy-I-dee

I stood up and shuffled my feet on the ground
I soon found the rhythm and swayed to the sound
The players all smiled to me and said "Okay"
"Us Songburrow Strollers are playing today"
Sing fall-de-dol doodle-dum fall-de-dol doodle-dum
Fall-de-dol doodle-dum lidy-I-dee

They played reels and waltzes and a merry old jig
The audience grew and it soon got quite big
At the back we heard shouts, "Get out of our way"
"The Songburrow Strollers are playing today"
Sing fall-de-dol doodle-dum fall-de-dol doodle-dum
Fall-de-dol doodle-dum lidy-I-dee

Come all merry hobbits and dance to our tune
We'll play and be jolly here under the moon
The night is for dancing but so is the day
The Songburrow Strollers are playing today
Sing fall-de-dol doodle-dum fall-de-dol doodle-dum
Fall-de-dol doodle-dum lidy-I-dee

The Grand Biscuit Song (Magical World, Blackmore's Night)

I sat all alone on a chair in my burrow
As winds howled outside, I thought it would rain
The fireplace burned as I drank my tea
And I knew I would eat a biscuit again

I leaped up and headed straight for me larder
It beckoned me near, it called out my name
Imagine my look as I threw it open
No biscuits inside, my cheeks burned with shame

Neither some biscuits nor crumpets nor cookies
Nothing inside, not even a crumb
Not even crackers nor scones nor buns
Nothing and I felt all numb

Wailing I leaped for the jar on the top shelf
Where I kept a stash for rainy days
But sadly it seemed we'd had rotten weather
'cause empty it was, no biscuits in place

Neither some biscuits nor crumpets nor cookies
Nothing inside, not even a crumb
Not even crackers nor scones nor buns
Nothing and I felt all numb

I felt hungry, I sat down in my seat
But there were no biscuits here I could eat

Searching my burrow I heard something squeaking
Along with the tiniest patter of feet
A mouse sat outside a hole in the wall
Holding up in its paws two biscuits so sweet

Wandering over it held up a biscuit
I sat on the floor and accepted its gift
Just for a second we looked at each other
Then ate the biscuits quite swift

After we finished nibbling our cookies
I went to the larder and picked up more food
Cheeses and cherries, pies and some berries
All things a mouse would find good

As I came back I was met by a sight
Something that made me think I had dreamed
All the floor covered with warm fresh-baked biscuits
The mouse had been busy all night it seemed

Warm fresh-baked
Biscuits and crumpets and cookies and scones and buns
Warm fresh-baked
Biscuits and crumpets and cookies and scones and buns
Warm fresh-baked
Biscuits and crumpets and cookies and scones and buns

Else, what a grand night it was! I can only begin to comprehend the logistics involved in pulling off something like this, let me just say that the efforts from the organizers are well and truly appreciated. Also, some marvelous performances by all the bands there. Cheers everyone!

*runs off to spend some of the Strollers' prize money on biscuits before the rest of the band wakes up*

What an awesome vibe and an awesome event! Bree was buzzing all afternoon with people arriving from other servers and getting their outfits ready. I am very glad that I got to the Forsaken Inn good and early because there was a huge party going on. Lots of music and RP and hobbits being their hilarious selves. The spontaneous roll call of "Hi from (place)!" was amazing.

It was fun being part of the big group going up the hill, I must say the security did very good work in dealing with the mobs, especially as it got so laggy after a while. (I wondered if that was because the location of Weathertop itself is so graphics-heavy? Maybe a music festival on the flattest field in the game would be a better idea for practical reasons with such large numbers attending.) I loved the uniforms of the people on duty. The Lonely Mountain Band must be congratulated and thanked for all the effort that was put in to this event. Every detail was thought of.

Once I got to the top of Weathertop and sat down my game client simply crashed and then crashed again before the game even finished loading, despite all my settings being way over on the left or very low or whatever I could do to them. I guess being at the far end of the internets is just one of those things. (Also a reason why I could not watch streaming video on the internet, we don't get fast enough internets here yet for that.) So I listened to it all on the live audio feed, and killed wargs on Laurelin instead, and looked at the screenshots that were coming over Twitter.

After the audio feed ended I tried to log in to the concert again just before heading off to bed, and this time I managed about 5 seconds before my client crashed, just as the Shades were being announced as having won the Free Peoples Choice award, and it was all so pretty and sparkly.

A big thank you to the organisers and everyone who participated!

Envoyé par Maermaethor

Then, the only reason why you are there, is to listen to people pressing one button once and having the computer play prerecorded music. I mean, it would be cool if the bands that were performing ACTUALLY played music, but if I want to listen to prerecorded music, which sounds much better anyway, I can go to youtube, or itunes, or whatever the #### they use these days.

The Shades has the very talented composer Achazia.
Their music is composed, arranged, adapted to .ABC and played as a group via the music system.
Our own band plays adaptations of traditional, folk and Irish music. These have been taken from sheet music turned into MIDI files, adapted, re-written, arranged, converted into .ABC and finally "one button once".

Consider it "lip-sync" for the digital world.

Envoyé par Maermaethor

Please, someone explain to me why everyone thinks this is so fun, and why people don't use the music system in the game to PLAY music.

Thank you!
Have a nice day.

The logistics of playing live, whilst theoretically possible, are outweighed by the convenience of "pressing one button once".
The same lag that stops you from being able to RP in the game during a performance causes the music system to malfunction, tunes sound disjointed to the point of unrecognisable.

On the night it may be a case of pushing one button once but you need to take into account the effort involved in composing the music, converting it to a workable abc. No small feat even if it's the birdy song

Great event, really shows off the ingame music system and the talents of those who have learned how to make the most out of it. Congratulations to the prize winners and many thanks to the organisers.

And on a personal note my thanks to the performers down at the chillout zone who kept my little one entertained after I replaced their pc's graphics card, 600 odd players was too much for it. Thank goodness for a spares box.