Editor's Note by Mapthor
How you doing guys, it’s Mapthor and here’s my thought of the day. Next Saturday, there’s going to be a Team meeting open to every ranked member (not Commoner though). Now this might sound boring, but the best part of the server back in the day was the meetings. While stuff gets done, you never get to have a majority of the team packed into one giant voice chat arguing about how MCME should be run. It’s a gold mine for memes and an all-around fun time. So if you’re in Team, attend the meeting, it’s gonna be fun because that’s the old school way. OS for life. Take it easy.

Happy Sailing,
Mapthor


Anduin - Lead: @Wyattrox03 | In Progress
Report by Wyattrox03

Whats up Jake Paulers, welcome back to another Anduin update. These past two weeks have seen some continued steady progress in Ithilien. Maski finished the Morgulduin east of Osgiliath, w0rld has run some cliff concept jobs, and MP has been shaping the cliffs under the ruined village opposite Harlond. Also after a successful trial job from HyprNinja, we not only have a new Foreman, but also a large segment of completed road running now from Osgo to the knee of the Anduin. That's about it, keep it cool MCME.



Moria – Lead: @DoctorDaom | In Progress
Report by aVeryAngryBadger

Moria East Gate’s development is progressing with Artists contributing concepts and ideas. The first hall is almost complete, with the main corridor to Khazad-dum developing nicely under Beetle’s hard work.






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HyprNinja: After a pretty long period of improving his build skills and running jobs, Hypr has finally been promoted to Foreman! He's been a great Guide and thus I would want to thank him for all his work as Guide, and wish him good luck with his new tasks that come with the Foreman rank. Congratulations Hypr!
Promotion

Human100: After more than 2 years, everyone's favorite Swedish Commoner has finally been promoted to the rank of Artist! He has improved significantly since he applied for the rank, and will now finally show off all his building skills on the main world. Another thing he can be proud of is that the longest lasting Artist application before getting promoted is still Dahl's, so congrats Human!
Promotion


GingerlyGinger1: Again I'm the one who also have to give you guys the bad news, GingerlyGinger has decided to step down from his position of Guide, Media Team leader and Times Team. He will be busy with college and other stuff in his life. Let's thank him for all he has done as Guide and the media part of MCME, without him it wouldn't be as great as it is today. Good luck Ginger with whatever you decide to be doing, and hopefully we'll still see you around sometime!
Resignation



Interview with @GingerlyGinger1

1.) Why did you resign?
A couple factors went into the decision, the main one of course being a need to focus on preparing for college. My past two years on MCME have gotten me accustomed to putting MCME before real life, and I knew I needed to put an end to that. And anyway, it's not like I've only been in the teams a short time! We all need to resign and pass the baton at some point. As for what I'll do from here, I don't intend to get any special sort of degree, probably will simply be a liberal arts degree. For now I intend to just get something to put on a resume so I can be in a better position to get a good job and proceed with life. That is my current plan, in any case, we'll see how much it ends up changing, haha.

2.) What made you want to become a Guide?
Funny story. Shortly after I got Commoner after four-five days of being on the server, I got a message from the Head Guide of the time, Arkengarde. He asked me if I'd be interested in applying for a position in the Guide Team. This was a result of my being pretty helpful in chat during the influx happening due to the Node video. At the time, I declined the offer, citing time constraints and other matters if I recall rightly. I was active on the server for one or two more months before going inactive over much of Fall and the start of Winter. I eventually came back around I think late-January and started answering questions in chat again. In February, I got a message from an old Guide named Ben_The_Epic, who asked me to consider applying for Guide. I initially once again pushed away the idea, but eventually I think I got talked into it. My reason for applying is the same reason I like to think I ever did anything for MCME. I applied because I liked and wanted to help people.

3.) What's your favorite memory or moment on MCME?
Golly, that is a tough question, much to MCME's credit. I've had some fun talks with Sevy while we were both leading the Media Team. Sometimes we'd go on for hours talking about various issues of the Media Team and what we could do about them, but they were always enjoyable and often resulted in good solutions. I also have very fond memories of spawning hostile mobs for players to fight in PvP, creating "Ginger's Spicy PvP" with its own cult following of sorts. It's also hard to beat some of the laughs I've had pranking poor, unsuspecting Team members with floating heads, shulker cages, and Team doppelgangers. I feel those laughs got me through the script-writing for the entities of the Charity Stream and made for a nice reward afterwards. And even after that, there are more memories that could take the spot! Annoying Soarz before the 11th Anniversary, watching the 2020 Year in Review video opening for the first time, the premier for the 10th Anniversary Video, getting toured through Moria for the first time by Elius Solis, getting hit by Smaug's stick prior to my trial tour, burying a particle effect alive with Ayla... I couldn't pick one, and I'm leaving out so many.

4.) What is your favorite place on MCME?
Annuminas, next question, please.

Well, if I had to go into more detail than that, I'd say my personal favorite location is Annuminas because it was the first theme build I participated in, the place where I did my trial tour for Guide, the first place I took a shader screenshot of after building my custom PC, and because it was the place I did my first showcase video of. I also did the OST video for it. Overall, I love the layout of it, the palace district, and the overall lushness of the area. Before the merging of the Gondor and Eriador packs, you'd often find red and orange trees around there, adding to the beauty. Obviously, we have newer or more recently updated, more impressive ruins nowadays. Osgiliath and Lond Daer leap to mind. And I think those look great too, especially Lond Daer. They're just not Annuminas, that's all.

5.) Why did you decide the Media Winners? What is it about screenshots that interests you?
Back before I led the Media Team, I was in charge of gathering the shots for each of the MCME on-going projects for each edition of the MCME Times. Soarz was I believe running the Times Team back then, and after a Guide meeting he asked me whether or not I'd take up the position of Media Winners judge for the Times since RubenPieterMark was stepping down from his MCME positions. I accepted simply because I thought I could do a good job, though I was a bit nervous and so said I'd do it only if Soarz showed me the ropes. Believe it or not, before MCME nothing about screenshotting or photography actually interested me at all. Even today, though I have a greater appreciation and interest in photography, I still haven't actually studied a thing about it. My best guess is I must've seen what some of the screenshotters in the screenshots channel were doing and thought it looked cool. I built a custom PC around the beginning of 2020 and started taking screenshots with it in February of that year. I was pretty meh at it at first, I will admit, but eventually, motivated by the successes of Xmine01 and Mershy mostly, I got better at it through experimentation, communication, and practice. Even though I had no interest in it before all that, I found it very interesting and fun to do as a hobby on MCME. Eventually, it seems I became good enough for Soarz to not only offer me the position of Media Winners judge but also a position in the Media Team Leadership. Nowadays, just about every aspect of a screenshot interests me, and it's always fun to see the techniques, shaders, editing, and angles used by each person in the screenshot channels.

6.) What is your favorite screenshot?
You're asking me to pick my Media Winner of Media Winners here, my personal favorite screenshot out of all screenshots ever taken and posted on MCME. You do realize that, right? But alright, I'll play along. Obviously, I'm completely biased here and prone to pick something of my own, so I'll pick my favorite screenshot I've ever taken as well as my favorite screenshot I didn't take. My favorite shot I have taken might well be a shot of Dol Amroth that I believe I took during the Closing Ceremony of the MCME 10th Anniversary, (which I didn't attend, lol) as I personally feel the lighting, composition, and overall colors and effects of Voyager 1.6 really came together just for this shot. The angle isn't completely original, from what I can tell I was the first person to make use of it in a screenshot, but this would've been the third time I had taken a screenshot from said angle. This was, however, easily the best of those first three times. My favorite shot someone else took? Incredibly hard to pin down, I went through each of my Media Winners folders to try to find just one I could pick, but alas, it was too hard. Sorry for the anti-climactic answer, but just know that whatever I've chosen as a Media Winner is probably still one of my favorite shots.

7.) What is your favorite MCME video?
That's easier than what my favorite screenshot is, that's for sure. I still am super happy with how the third Sevy Tour came out, the one where she's exploring Belfalas settlements Methrast, Minas Aduial, and Dol Amroth. It also had one of the most detailed scripts we'd put together at the time, with shot's for each bit of dialogue arranged in a list and various ideas thrown around. While Sevy did most of the script-writing and lore-collecting, I think, I had a look through it and came up with shots we could use and added a bit of humor while I was at it. (Remember the "Here lies Amroth's Hopes and Dreams" bit? That was added in by me during editing.) Overall, the quality of the cinematics I and Effie had collected at the time for the video were some of the highest we had yet collected, I believe, and the deadline didn't feel particularly tight. I really like that video. Though I have other favorites like the Beacon video I mostly handled, with I believe the most ambitious cinematic so far, and the 10th Anniversary video of course.

8.) Who is your favorite character from Tolkien's legendarium?
Always have liked Pippin, our second breakfast legend. Poor guy got dragged onto a horse to take a long trip to Minas Tirith with Gandalf as company. Once there, he got to experience the pleasure of explaining how a man died to the man's father. He was then essentially enlisted into the military and had to watch Denethor eat cherry tomatoes, at least in the films. If not the true hero of the Lord of the Rings, he's at least up there in my book. Bilbo gets an honorable mention for his excellent hospitality and manners.

9.) Opinion on pineapple pizza?
My personal favorite pizza type is probably standard pepperoni and cheese, the classic. Adding the acidity and sweetness of pineapple simply makes it taste wrong, at least to me. So if you are one of the two people out there who got interviewed by me before being added to the Media Team and got asked what your opinion on pineapple pizza was, you now know what the correct answer is, haha.

10.) Any parting words for this interview, and/or your time on MCME?
What? Is that it? No more questions? You sure? I was just gettin' started... Well oh well, I'll be big about it. My time with various people on MCME, whether Vala or trainee, Guide or Artist, has, if not been enjoyable, taught me a lot, as I am what one might I believe call "sheltered". And by and large, it has been enjoyable, whether I was out taking screenshots of the greatest Minecraft server still up and running, or giving detailed and overly-critical feedback to a Media Team trainee. I can only hope I have repaid MCME and those who populated the time I spent on it through what time and effort I've given it and them. I'll still be around on Discord for the time being, so if you ever are interested in taking on a position in Video Team leadership, have a shader-related issue, or just want to catch up on old times, feel free to DM me so I can maybe talk you out of it, fix your problem, or send you a long story from "back in the day". This has been GingerlyGinger1, and if you read through all of the above, thank you and have a blessed day!

Interviewer: _Shen



Greetings people of MCME, RubenPieterMark here. I shall be relieving GingerlyGinger for one edition of his task of selecting the Media Winners – a task which he has done relentlessly 39 times now. Thank you for allowing me back on stage, Ginger, it’s an honor! As with all things on MCME, the screenshots have only gotten better. To my surprise, the screenshot even started moving, as you will see further on… I have reached the conclusion that the developers behind those animations are in contact with extraterrestrials with advanced technological knowledge. Lastly, a quick word of thanks to all of you amazing members, who still make MCME more impressive, and keep the community warm and running. God bless you all.

Media Winners:


Themed Build Winners
(http://imgur.com/a/tyONHjs)


The Great River

"And it came to pass after many years of journeying in this manner that the Eldar took their course through a forest, and they came to a great river, wider than any they had yet seen; and beyond it were mountains whose sharp horns seemed to pierce the realm of the stars."
― Quenta Silmarillion, "Of the Coming of the Elves and the Captivity of Melkor"

It will be unsurprising perhaps, that I begin my time running the lore section of the Times by briefly exploring the events around the Great River: the Anduin. This river appears in a number of Tolkien’s works: Thorin and Co. must cross the Upper Anduin from the Carrock where the Eagles drop them off, the Fellowship paddle down the Anduin from Lothlorien to Nen Hithoel (almost becoming wrecked at the rapids of Sarn Gebir), and many thousands of years before the Great Journey of the Elves pauses at the river. This led to the second sundering of their folk, with some elves departing southwards or remaining there after their kin move westwards. The river is an important physical barrier in Tolkien's stories, but also nourishes the Anduin Vale, and the folk that inhabit it.

This is also where Isildur was killed after (rather impressively) having managed to swim westwards across the river to escape orcs that attacked his company. His journey to north to Rivendell along the east bank was cut short as orcs poured out of Mirkwood and attacked his company. His sons were killed, with his eldest, Elendur, insisting his father escaped with the Ring. Isildur fled north, down to the river banks and swam across. The strong current of the river swept him down back into the Gladden Fields, where the One Ring betrayed him and slipped from his finger. Orcs then shot him with arrows. The One Ring would remain the in pools of the Anduin at the Gladden Fields for almost two and a half thousand years.

Presented by: TheStephen



This Week's Question:
Who banishes Smeagol from the family and home after he is corrupted by possession of the One Ring?


Presented by: TheStephen



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