Kinship Interview: The Red Legion

Recently Greg "Darkgolem" Stanley of Ten Ton Hammer talked to Billhur
of the Red Legion Kinship
of the Silverlode server, to find out just
what makes the Red Legion Kinship the outstanding kinship of style="font-style: italic;">Lord of The Rings Online (LOTRO)
that it is.  Find out all about the Red Legion Kinship right here,
and if your on the Silverlode server, give em' a holler!



(Darkgolem)How would you describe the
Red Legion kinship to people looking for a kinship?



(Billhur)We at the Red Legion are an Adult Kinship (18+ in age) with
members aged from 18 to over 50 years old.



We are based on the Silverlode server in LOTRO and pride ourselves in
having an all adult kinship with 0% drama and what we consider to be
one of the best kinships to choose when looking for a supportive
helpful fun environment. Many kinships say they are helpful but we
follow through on this commitment to our members. Our motto is 'We work
together as a team to accomplish our individual and collective goals'.



href="http://lotro.tentonhammer.com/modules.php?set_albumName=album37&id=Redbetaclose&op=modload&name=Gallery&file=index&include=view_photo.php"> alt="Red Kinship"
src="http://lotro.tentonhammer.com/files/gallery/albums/album37/Redbetaclose.jpg"
style="border: 2px solid ; width: 250px; height: 188px;" align="left">I
as a kinship leader am the only one who accepts members into our
kinship.Our website includes an application that is personally checked
over by me and I do my best to ensure that when accepting a new recruit
to the Red Legion the person has read our charter on the front page of
our site and fully understands our standards for a new recruit into the
Red Legion. Each member has a 10 day recruit probationary status which
we determine if they are going to be able to cut it as a permanent Red
Legion member.



style="font-style: italic;">How did the Red Legion kinship get
started?  What is the kinship's history?
style="font-style: italic;">


Red Legion was created in 2002 by myself and with the assistance of a
good friend of mine that still is with me today (Andrew/ Bayk). We
started the guild in Everquest (yes the good old days of  MMO'S)
and since then have had guilds in EQ2, SWG, DAOC, Dark and Light which
came to an abrupt end when we learned of the opening of LOTRO (which we
understood was called during our signups for beta testing Middle Earth
Online).



We received some invites from Turbine to join in the first phase of
closed beta testing of LOTRO and created Red Legion within the very
first hour of the servers availability we chose to play on which at
that time was the Brandywine server, one of 2 server choices, Arwen or
Brandywine.  At that time you did not have to buy a kinship scroll
for the creation of a kinship so the moment I had entered Middle Earth
the Red Legion was born in LOTRO.



What are qualities you look for in
your new members?



href="http://lotro.tentonhammer.com/modules.php?set_albumName=album37&id=thadur&op=modload&name=Gallery&file=index&include=view_photo.php"> alt="Red Kinship Fighting"
src="http://lotro.tentonhammer.com/files/gallery/albums/album37/thadur.jpg"
style="border: 2px solid ; width: 250px; height: 167px;" align="right">This
is an important issue in our recruitment policy, a new member to
the Red Legion must have an unselfish quality. A person entering the
Red Legion understands the importance of our motto. We are only as good
as the sum of our membership or to coin a phrase 'Only as strong as our
weakest link'. The application process is a very good way for us to ask
questions of the possible recruit to ensure they have the qualities we
seek in a kinship member; Honor, Integrity and the need to be selfless
in their game play.



Tell us a story about when a member
was expelled.



We have had very few situations where a member was deemed unfit for our
kinship. I one time had to remove an officer and successor of the
kinship for mining ore and barking at others in the kinship to 'leave
his nodes alone or be kinship removed for their actions. Once I heard
of this behavior I immediately called the officers of the kinship
together to determine how to handle this situation. We decided that
this person was acting in a selfish nature not upstanding our
commitment to be selfless in our game play and this person was
immediately removed from the kinship and a new successor was voted into
place to ensure our kinship continued on its goal of 'Working as a team
to accomplish our individual and collective goals.'



How about giving our readers an
example of one of your kinship's great members, and what makes them
such a good member.



Its very difficult to say one person is outstanding within the kinship,
however I will say that we have a few couples in the kinship. Wrek and
Jani one of our first named couples and officers of the Red Legion are
out there showing many people what the Red Legion is all about. On a
daily basis they are helping anyone when they find someone in need. The
persons they assist are many times not even Red Legion members.



I frequently get a tell or an application from someone who says in
their referral area of the application or I recieve a tell from these
people saying how Wrek and Jani are oustanding people whom took it apon
themselves to help the person contacting us with their ingame needs.



What sort of amenities do you have
for new members?



We are very proud of our website which has features some of the most
innovative plugins, components and php codes with structures such as
our item stat hover for raid loots in the dkp section. We have a
Ventrilo server, intergrated signups for raids and events, full forums
with tons of goodies and even an arcade with games like Pac Man and
Frogger as well as tons of NES and Sega games just to name a few
ammenities.



We are always scheduling raids and events such as Shakes Middle Earth
Olympics (SMEO), Kinship Meetings, and even a night for Quest and Deed
Completion to help the younger level characters develop within the Red
Legion.



href="http://lotro.tentonhammer.com/modules.php?set_albumName=album37&id=patience&op=modload&name=Gallery&file=index&include=view_photo.php"> alt="Fighting"
src="http://lotro.tentonhammer.com/files/gallery/albums/album37/patience.jpg"
style="border: 2px solid ; width: 250px; height: 183px;" align="left">What
can new members expect (I.e.
what should they do once they are in the kinship, and what should they
expect from the kinship once they join)?

 

A new member to the Red Legion should always feel right at home once
they join. A new member is welcomed immediately from our online members
once accepting the invite after their application is approved. A new
member can expect to get help and not be left out of the 'cliques' that
are commonly found in a larger gaming comminity in LOTRO. When you join
the Red Legion you can expect support and the creation of long time
bonds that develop into friendships that last a lifetime.





How did your web page get made (who
designs it, who's idea is it)?



Our website is a Joomla created website which is a newer PHP
development software. We have used many different website softwares but
have always strived to create the best website availible to a gamer. We
think that our current site could be considered one of the best LOTRO
site's availible. You just have to go try it yourself, its quite fun
and quite effective and were constantly upgrading and adding content
and features to stay cutting edge. The site was orignially developed by
Bayk (Andrew) and myself and recently we have had Twigferd come on as
an administrator as well and his input has really taken us to a new
level in website use for our members and visitors alike.



What are some of your kinships
successes (successful raids, memberships numbers, whatever)?



We in the past have had some great successes as a kinship in many
different areas. We started off the End of the World event during the
closed beta 1 phase of LOTRO development when Patience attacked us
during our screenshot session that night. (pic is enclosed of
Patienceeeee a level 50 warg). Paitence is a GM and board admin for
Turbine and can be found cleaning the mess of the trolls on the LOTRO
forums still to this day.



Little did we know that we would be starting the first wave of the
event when we met there, we suppose that because of our great success
in beta and large membership that we were targeted in Michael Delving
for the onslaught. We have found success in raids such as the Rift and
Helegrod raid zones as well, as you can see by viewing our loot table
on the DKP mouseover item stats area on our website



If your kinship participates in PVP,
how successful are they at it?



We have members that really enjoy playing the freep side of the PVP
content in the Ettenmoors, such as myself (although im only rank 2) and
Pingstar one of our officers whom is a dreaded foe in the ettenmoors,
(those burglars such as pingstar are fiesty). Pingstar is very well
known for ending the lives of many a creep.



What are your goals for the Red
legion, that is where do you want to go in the future?



This is a great question we always are looking towards the future of
the Red Legion and LOTRO. We are certainly looking forward to the first
paid expansion of LOTRO named the href="http://www.unlocktheminesofmoria.com">Mines Of Moria.



href="http://lotro.tentonhammer.com/modules.php?set_albumName=album37&id=blogmal&op=modload&name=Gallery&file=index&include=view_photo.php"> alt="Nasty Troll"
src="http://lotro.tentonhammer.com/files/gallery/albums/album37/blogmal.jpg"
style="border: 2px solid ; width: 250px; height: 200px;" align="right">Mines
Of Moria promises to be a great time to further explore J.R.R.
Tolkien's world which many of us know from reading his books as
children
and some from seeing the films. We want to continue to develop our
current roster of members and get them well geared and most of all
ensure we provide a fun environment to do so in.



We anticipate more raid successes and/or failures depending on the
difficulties of the upcoming content. In any case the Red Legion will
be there to experience it and hope more people find their way to us to
make Red Legion their home.

 

What can you suggest for people who
wish to start guilds.. what sort of things do you think are the most
important things to do and not do?

 

This is an area where I think I can really share some knowledge in
kinship creation and maintenence, do's and dont's. One of the most
important lessons I have learned is to remain humble and consider
myself a servant to our community. No one wants to be told what to do
with a crass attitude. A leader mut be humble, kind, forgiving and most
of all willing to accept shortcomings and being willing to accept some
failures in order to reach the goals you intend on reaching. To really
sum up my experience of it I say 2 things. First you must persevere, no
mater what shortcomings you encounter you have to continue to better
yourself and your kinship on a daily basis. Second thing is remember
the show must go on! When leading your kinship remember its not just
the destination its the journey, keep your eye on the balrog and press
on young hobbit.

 

I guess I will give a quote from Gandalf from the style="text-decoration: underline;">Lord of the Rings books to
try to inspire others and this is certainly one of my favorite
quotes.....

 

'He who breaks a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of
wisdom.' - Gandalf

 

Thanks for the interview and I look forward to seeing you in Middle
Earth

Billhur, leader of the Red
Legion



Thank you Billhur, and we appreciate the interview here at Ten Ton
Hammer.  Readers, make sure to look up this great kinship at
www.redlegion.com, and
if your a kinship leader and want talk about
your kinship here at Ten Ton Hammer, make sure to email
[email protected] to find out how.



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