It's not like it's a secret or anything, but we're always actively recruiting people to join our community.

We believe pretty strongly in quality over quantity, and so you'll never see us just inviting people willy-nilly in any game we play.  We likewise have an aversion to spamming chat channels - it tends to bring in the wrong kind of people for what we do more often than not.  What we want from our members is for them to really be part of the community, and to take part in the stuff that goes on here on our website as well as in any game they play.

So to help get the word out we put up forum posts.  Like this one right now on the LOTR forums:

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Take up the banners of old.

We are Niasa En Estel, or the Alliance of Hope in the tongue of men. Long ago, we fought against the enemy. Though we won many battles, one by one our numbers dwindled, until at last few remained. But now, we have returned, with new leadership and new purpose in our hearts.

Light the flames of hope.

We are a casual-friendly roleplay kinship, and we are looking for more members on Landroval to join our cause and work to push back the darkness threatening the lands.

We believe very strongly that a person's worth is determined not by their profession or their level or by how often they can log in and play, but by their character and their attitude. Here are some key points about our kinship:

• Primarily US time zones.
• We would like to build up numbers to do some of the raid instances, but this is not a focus and participation will never be required.
• No class or level requirements to join.
• No pressure to log on - real life comes first. We play the game because we want to.
• No pressure to level up - play at your own pace.
• Voice chat never required for instances or raids
• Our only gameplay requirement is that you try to stay in-character when fellowed with kinship members for an adventure.

It is a dangerous path we walk, but together we shall prevail.

In the interest of full disclosure (and to avoid confusion) - we are recently reformed and this is our first recruiting push since doing so. We are hoping to meet like-minded players to join us and thus build up our numbers so that we can start having more people online. We are not a large kinship and we look more for quality than we do for numbers. Our ultimate goal, of course, is to be able to have enough people so that when you log in, there's always someone to roleplay with, to fellow with, or to raid with, but it is a journey that is just beginning. The impatient need not apply.

Also, we are part of a multi-game community, and our website reflects that. While we are not roleplay-focused in every game we play, we do all share a common set of rules and values. What this means is that joining Niasa En Estel also makes you part of the larger community. Whether you only play Lord of the Rings Online or eventually decide to venture to other worlds, our hope is that we can make it easier for you to find good friends to explore and adventure with you.

Stand with us against the darkness.

We pride ourselves on maintaining a friendly and helpful community. If you're interested in learning more about our kinship or applying to join us, you can find more information on our Lorebook page. We are happy to answer questions as well - simply post here, message me, or post on our website, which you will also find linked from the aforementioned Lorebook page.

---

We also try to actively contribute to the community of any game we're playing.  How we do this depends on the game - in Vanguard, we used to put on huge organized events.  More often though it's in small ways - helping out newbies, answering questions in chat, that sort of thing.  Every time we help another player enjoy the game more, it helps get our name out there in a game, so it's something that we do as often as we can.

Anyway, we're currently recruiting in all three games that we play.  So if you're interested in joining us in EVE, LOTR, or STO, just hit that button that says "Join Shadowfire" to put in an application.  Here's a quick summary of what we're about in each game.

In all games - casual friendly and focused on enjoying the game.

STO - Primarily PvE content, and a little roleplaying besides.  STO is a new game and so mostly we are just about exploring it with good friends.

LOTR - Roleplaying, and of course having adventures.  LOTR is a great game to roleplay in - it amazes me every time I stop by the Prancing Pony for a drink how many people are just there, in-character, doing the kinds of things you'd expect to see happening in Middle-Earth.

EVE - Manufacturing and economic domination of the galaxy.  No, really.  If you're a crafting/economy addict, and you can handle a little PvP now and then, EVE is quite possibly the game for you.  Our focus in EVE is to be an industrial and manufacturing powerhouse, and make tons of money by doing so.

There will, of course, be many other games in our future!  Here are some we no longer play, but you might want to check out:

Vanguard:  If you're interested in Vanguard, head on over to the Impact Web site.  When we pulled out of Vanguard as an organized guild, they took over some of our members and a lot of what we were doing.  They recently finished up Xeth Faire VI and I hear they've got some pretty good raiding going on as part of their alliance.  If you are an old-school EverQuest fan, and you like a fantasy MMO that challenges you with a huge world to explore, Vanguard is worth a look - despite what you may have heard a few years ago.

EverQuest 2:  If you're looking at EQ2, you should check in with the Dioscuri.  Shadowfire wasn't formed until after most of us left EQ2, but the Dioscuri was where a lot of us came from, and they're still going over there.  EQ2 is a great game and a lot of fun, especially if you're an old EQ player and looking for something a little more casual.  Or even if you're not, and you're just looking for another fantasy world to explore, you really should at least try it.  It is possibly one of the most polished fantasy MMORPGs on the market right now, and that is saying a lot.

Editor's note:  Originally posted by Lesai (aka Whipthorn) in our forums.  Enjoy!

---

Captain's log, Stardate 87726.15

Starfleet has ordered us into the Caspian Rift, to investigate a possible build up of Orion forces.  I have to admit that I am a little nervous about this mission.  The Spokane hasn't been out of drydock for more than 10 hours, and while I feel the crew is capable, who knows what quirks this ship has lurking in it's systems.

My uncle, Admiral Jensen, says she's the finest science vessel Starfleet has produced yet.  Personally, I was hoping to get my command aboard an escort vessel.  It seems as though everywhere I go, my family continues to interfere in my business.  I guess that's the price you have to pay when your uncle is a Starfleet Admiral.

I am happy though about my command staff.  My first officer, Smok, passed up an assignment onboard the USS Kirk to serve with me, though I suspect it was at my unlce's request.  He is a highly decorated officer, and from what I hear from his colleagues, his record is comparable to Ambassador Spock's.  I can't help but appriciate the irony of having a Vulcan first officer, given my last instructor's parting comment, that I was "a bigger pain in the neck than James Kirk!"

 

My Chief of Security is an old friend, Unyuht, one of the finest Bajorans I've ever had the pleasure of serving with.  I requested his presence when I learned of the Bajorans wanting one of their officers to act as an advisor aboard a starship.  His sister, Gwom, just happens to be an officer aboard the Spokane as well.  Starfleet nearly denied the assignment because of our personal history, but my uncle is as great a boon as a burder.  Now I have the most decorated tactical mind the Bajoran military has to offer.  I've been told it's only a temporary assignment though, as Bajor might need him back should things escalate.  Still, his presence is relaxing in such tense times, and it helps to have him around.

My Chief Engineer is a different story.  She continues to border on insubordination at every opportunity possible.  I understand it is hard for her as a Klingon in Starfleet, but Lt Com K'Runo seems hell-bent on starting a fist fight with me everytime I speak with her.  Perhaps beating some sense into her is the best solution.

We are approaching the Rift currently, and I am needed on the bridge.

 

My only hope is that whatever we find in the Rift, the USS Spokane and her crew are ready to handle it.  This is her maiden voyage after all...

 

Editor's note:  This was submitted by Jeralt, whose forum handle is Strife2k7

---

Captain's personal log. On this day my crew and I received orders to transfer to another ship. The Jonathan Archer is a fine vessel and has defended us well against many threats and in many battles, but Starfleet Command feels the ship is in need of a major refit and added offensive and defensive capabilities. Given the need for able crews, we have been transferred to a new vessel, a variant of the Hope class that I was given the pleasure of naming. I've chosen to call her 'Tsionis', a goddess of protection and benevolence among my people. The vessel isn't newly constructed, but salvaged after a battle with the Borg and rebuilt.

I've been given the task of testing new Tetryon Beam Arrays, designed specifically to rip through enemy shields to allow other vessels in the fleet direct access to the vulnerable hulls of anyone who might attack us. Preliminary tests are encouraging, although I admit I miss the standard phaser arrays. There is certainly a learning curve when entering combat with new weapons, but I am a very quick study.

Finally, congratulations are in order for my bridge crew, each of whom earned promotions from Admiral Quinn for their service. I share in their good fortune, having been promoted to the rank of Commander.

End Log.

 

Captain's log. Stardate 87753 -- At 09:30 hours this morning the warp core of the USS Tsionis began exhibiting abnormal temperature readings, well outside the standard operating range. Subsequent scans revealed microfractures had formed in one of the deuterium tanks and the reactor chamber was being slowly filled with the fuel gas.

I'm deeply troubled by this turn of events for several reasons, primary among them is the complete lack of forewarning. Our vessels are equipped with numerous redundancies to prevent accidents, and far too many of those redundancies failed to stop the problem from spreading. Magnetic containment around the deuterium tanks was somehow disabled. Sensors monitoring the interior of the warp reaction chamber read normal throughout the ordeal despite the spiking pressures inside. Any number of failsafe devices should have detected the problem and alerted the crew, they did not.

We're currently docked at station DS9 for a level 5 diagnostic series on the warp reactor, EPS manifolds, and power transfer conduits. Under normal circumstances these tasks could have easily been done while we were on assignment, but I felt it necessary to have personnel outside my own engineering teams perform the necessary scans. I'm quite certain that so many early warning systems did not simply fail at the same time due to 'bad luck.' Either there is a larger system malfunction that is impeding the ship's performance, or this was an attempt at sabotage. In either case, I urge members of Task Force Shadowfire to be diligent. Investigate /any/ suspicious readings, no matter how innocuous they may seem. While a warp core breach due to leaking deuterium is not a strong possibility, the fact that magnetic containment failed around those tanks is troubling. If that had happened to the anti-matter storage pods... I would not be recording this log entry now.

I'm not prepared to say that any of my crew were involved in this, should it prove to be sabotage. This ship was salvaged and spent months in dry dock with hundreds of personnel in and out of the work areas. Any one of them could have tampered with our systems. It may very well have simply been a system glitch causing cascading failures in those systems but until I am certain engineering will be off-limits to ship personnel due to safety concerns. Shore leave has been granted to the station and Bajor's government has agreed to allow my crew to spend a few days touring their planet should they wish. The brief respite should be enjoyed by all.

End Log.



Captain's log, Supplemental.

Reports from DS9's Chief Engineer have confirmed my worst fears. Sabotage, and apparently conducted sometime over the last two weeks. This means either we have a stow-away, or one of my crew is responsible. I've decided to report this to the crew as a minor malfunction which caused cascading system failures in the ship due to a faulty EPS transfer node installed during the refit. If I want to catch this saboteur, I can't risk allowing them to know we're looking. Perhaps the person or persons will become complacent. In any event, I once again urge extreme caution to my fellow Captains. Dangerous times are upon us, and trust is at something of a premium. Don't take it for granted.

End Log.

Omber, how do I love thee?  Let me count the ways.  You refineth to isogen, so brilliant and blue.  And trace amounts of other things too.  Torpedoes it makes, to blast things apart.  Which we sell for millions, making them quite dear to our hearts.

Yes, today was a mining operation :)  As we took a break the last few weeks to get things going in STO, we kept the factories cranking....and, well.... we sorta ran out of some minerals because we weren't mining.  So today was the first step in getting the supply chain moving again.

 
See that Omber rock to the left of my ship?  It's nearly as big as the ship!  Yum!

In EVE, even though we do go on the occasional pirate-hunting spree, we really are a mining and industrial corporation.  Our goal, ultimately, is to make the corporation so profitable in terms of the sales we're doing that it pays regular dividends to our members, which in turn helps them buy ships or whatever.  We still have a bit to go before we're at that point, but we're getting close - the corp actually IS profitable right now, we are just taking all the profits and putting them into things to expand production so that we can make even more profits.  How long will it take?  It really depends on how many pilots we have jumping in to help with the mining and other things.  But in the meantime we have fun regardless.

 
We wasted no time getting started this morning :)

Anyway, today we lucked upon one of those lovely hidden asteroid belts.  And there was much rejoicing.  This particular one was full of Omber.  Omber is what we call a middle-tier resource.  It's fairly rare in high-security space, and a bit more common in low-security space.  It refines to mostly isogen, which is right smack in the middle of the scale as far as value goes.  Isogen isn't used in big big quantites in many things, but it's used in smaller quantities in a lot of things, and the rarity means it's pretty expensive if you have to buy it.

So now, after a few hours of mining, we have a nice pile of isogen sitting in our corporate hangar, which means we don't have to go spend money on it later.  Win!

We'll have another op next weekend as we get back into the swing of things :)

|| Begin encoded transmission
|| Starfleet Command -  Priority Channel 3-Alpha
|| Lieutenant Commander Trace
|| USS Valkyrie, NCC-93403
|| Stardate 87718.07

--<Transmission Follows>--

Admiral, as requested, Task Force Shadowfire deployed to the Laurentian System to intercept a Klingon scout force detected on Long Range sensors.  We were joined by all available federation ships in the sector.

The klingons deployed multiple wings of attack ships in an inverted phalanx formation.  Our fleet was able to defeat them with minimal casualties, but they delayed us long enough for the main klingon force to arrive.  No sooner had we turned back the first wave than a large group of klingon battle cruisers decloaked around us.

We lost several ships in the next stage of the fighting, however, the core of our fleet managed to hold and push the klingon ships back.  It took us a while, and we lost more ships along the way, but we were finally able to engage the klingon commander and his carrier group.

 
The Valkyrie suffered moderate damage, but our engineers were able to keep things together long enough for us to engage the klingon general himself.  His ship was immense.  It outlasted every other klingon ship in the system.  We offered him terms of surrender, but he refused.  He said he would die gloriously in battle.

 
The USS Dallas and the USS Carver were both heavily damaged in the final fighting, and we were forced to evacuate their crews.  Most of their command staff didn't make it.

...

Sir, this wasn't a scout force.  This was a full scale invasion attempt.  We have word of fighting on the planet's surface, and we're deploying all available security personnel in away teams now to prevent the planet from falling to the enemy.

Wish us luck.

Trace out.

--<End transmission>--

You know, if a battlestar galactica MMO ever happened, I might have to quit my day job.

Anyway, for those of you wondering at all the STO coverage lately, never fear!  You will be seeing regular reports from EVE and LOTR resuming soon as well.  Actually, as soon as this weekend.

STO is shiny and new, and as such a lot of our folks are over there right now.  But we still have people in both of the other games, and more importantly, we still have plans for both of them.  I wanted to give everyone an idea of what we have planned.

In STO, obviously, our members are busy exploring the galaxy, trying to secure peace, etc.  They're starting to team up for missions and fleet actions, and it's looking like we're going to be designating two "fleet nights" each week to help make that teaming up a little easier.  So ideally you will see at least two (and possibly more, if people get sick of me pestering them to post) captain's logs each week, although not all will be on the front page.

In EVE, we're going to be back at work mining and shooting pirates.  You'll see more pictures of the various ships we fly and encounter, and soon you'll hear details of our super secret project there.  Our EVE fleet operations will continue on the weekends, so you'll see reports of those posted here as well.

In LOTR, our fellowships are going to continue to fight the evil of Sauron.  We have a fellowship night each week, and generally when something memorable happens, you'll read an account of it here.  We're active the rest of the time of course, and our agents roam the lands of Middle-Earth constantly in their quest to hold the darkness at bay.

Anyway, now I have to go do that work thing (bleh).  But I hope that this reassures everyone that we're not abandoning any games right now.

Meet some of the members of Task Force Shadowfire when we took some shore leave on the pleasure planet of Risa.  (Note:  any rumors of Tal getting drunk and falling in the lagoon are purely fictitious and bear no resemblance to actual events.)

 
From left to right:  Cyrano, Arkhan, Trace, Desnar, Sarbis, and Lesai.

It just seemed appropriate to do this:

 
 
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the USS Shadowfire.  She's an old ship, but one with a proud history, and she's still in service today.