Old timer (stories) thread

[Dotlbeme]

In honor of the 10th anniversary, I suggest some of the original (10 year) people relate some stories from the old days. This is not (intended) to be a snob-fest, just a retrospect. How did you get started and why?

My story:

I was a big Everquest player and our guild (they called kinships: guilds) was considering starting up a crew for the new game. I got in at open beta but some had been doing closed beta. Started a Lore-master in beta (who is still around today, level 95-ish). I got a lifetime account when it was offered ($199, a bargain!). Should have bought two! Lore-master did most of what is now Erud Luin, got lost in The Shire! Could not find Michel Delving at first...mired in the swamp...this place sux...where is the freakin town???

I still have the original box and also a Moria box (with RING!) Cool pics in that other thread.

Our kinship flourished both PvE and PvP, but eventually (around year 6) interest waned. Kin disbanded, but I continued on with some family members. Took about a year or so off but I have been back for the past two years, fairly regular. I think our kinship highlight was running the level 50 (when 50 was the cap) instances. We also did well in Moria. Loved getting a first age weapon from the Turtle raids, plus ALL the instances. I remember when they filled out the epic books (9-15) for Volume I and those instances were HARD and you needed full groups. Also much complaining about the Volume II Moria instances. Very HARD. You actually FAILED 4 or 5 times before you completed them.

[Nymphonic]

I thought Combe was the main hub of the game. I had no clue that Bree was literally around the corner lol.

[Findun]

I loved the original crafting system of lotro back in 2007. As a Blacksmith and a Dwarf Guardian "I had to" craft my own stuff. But those god damn rare monsters were not easy to find.

So one day a (3 months after lotro's release) Captain and me went to Angmar (Himbar) and looked for the rare spawn Spider called "Achathling". I will never ever forget that experience. The whole cave were full of spiders, every each of them attacking us. We spent more than 2 hours in that cave alone to make her spawn (not kidding!), but no luck.

The Captain then got bored and ported back to town after two hours.

I didn't, and I couldn't give up ... I stayed in that cave and kept fighting against a countless number of spiders. I was about to give up, too. When I was running towards the exit of the cave (Carn Dûm shortcut) I had to run down a little something like a hill. What I saw then was for that moment breathtaking.

There she was ... huge, pride, beautiful and scary as ****. Achathling!

She was accompanied by two other spiders - and keep in mind that in that cave there were spiders all over anyway. Never would I have been able to fight and kill her all by myself. And this path is used by hundrets and hundrets of players to reach Carn Dûm. I was so worried that a party on its way to Carn Dûm would now find her and kill her before me.

I told the Captain to make his way again to the cave as fast as he could (I think he was in Gabilshatur). Meanwhile, I tried to not aggro her, because if I did, I knew I would die. I killed off those little spiders spawning left and right. But Achathling was moving! She was slowly patroling the cave! At one point I had to make a decision: Engage Achathling and try to stay alive until my Captain arrives or wait in safety in risk that a party on the way to Carn Dûm finds and kills her.

I engaged her. I only had 3500 Moral back then as a lvl50. Achathling had 9000 and several spiders surrounding her. But I had to engage her. I couldn't let this soppurtunity slip away.

I was fighting for my life when suddenly my Captain friend arrived and we managed to kill that beast. Achathling dropped a very very rare and expensive crafting material that I needed to craft my own Blue Chest piece which was one of the best Chest pieces in the game back then. The only problem is, the recipe was a one-time recipe and the crit chance was even with my blacksmith hammer in total only 21% (!).

I gave it a shot and BAM!

I did it! I actually managed to find and kill Achathling, get the rare ingredient and even managed to crit craft my chest armor. I couldn't believe it. I was shouting and chanting all over the place.

Wearing one of the best Chest Armors in the game which I even crafted by myself helped me to become one of the best known Blacksmiths on my server (during 2007-2008).

Priceless experience!

[Dunford]

During closed beta, the stable system was not originally implemented when I first started testing. It got enabled a couple of weeks afterwards.
The stable routes would almost literally make you sick. You would spin in circles, jump to other locations, have graphics that dropped out, get stuck at random locations etc.
It was literally easier and faster to travel to your destination yourself than use the stable routes!

[Caanwick]

Well, only an 8-year player but I'm posting any way. The best memories I have are grouping for some of the ND content, and how that started a bunch of us running together regularly. That culminated in us running all the instances in Moria on a regular basis. Most of the group is gone now, but there are still three of us running the new instances together and through it all, we've become pretty good friends.

A stupid story that began in that time period: We all ran in Oldieone/Kronick's Turtle and Watcher runs on Gladden. Twice a week for each run till Mirkwood came out. In all those runs, I never got enough of those stupid coins for the level 60 1st Age LI!! Even back then the RNG hated me. So much so, that I once rolled a 98 and got beat by a 99!!! So, being the vindictive SOB I can be, I went back into the Turtle run as a 105 last fall. Solo'd the turtle 6 times and got the coins, got my level 60 1st Age bow, went back into the instance and chucked it at the turtle. OK, I didn't chuck it at the turtle, but I would have if I could. I just dumped it there. Total waste? Yep! Childish? Yep! Satisfying? You bet your ###!!!!!!!! LOL! My 2 friends were in tears laughing when I told them what I did.

There's a lot of memories wrapped-up in this game. A lot of money too. The friendships and good times have made every penny worth it! Here's to hoping we get 10 more years of memories out of it!!!!!!!!

[Nosdracir]

One of the most noticeable bugs during the first year was named Ghost Bear (or Invisibear) by the players. At random times almost anywhere outdoors you could experience a loud bear roar, even though there was nary a bear in sight. If you were easing past patrolling orcs in a camp the sudden roar would make you jump. It was even worse when slipping through a bear den area because it sounded like one had just spawned behind you.

The power of Ghost Bear extended into real life. A couple times my wife was leaning over my screen as I pointed out something interesting or a beautiful landscape only to have Ghost Bear nearly blow her backwards with his mighty roar.

To this day she won't take a look at anything in LOTRO unless I mute my speakers.

Sadly, the bug was fixed and Ghost Bear passed into the great beyond.

[TheREALify]

This isn't really a story per se. But, who remembers the "Stealth-Swim bug"? It was only noticeable if you played a Burglar or Warg...

For those who don't recall or weren't around or otherwise didn't encounter it, a brief explanation... Swimming slows your movement speed. Stealth also slows your movement speed. But somehow when you did both activities at the same time (swimming while stealthed) the debuffs got together and turned into a sizeable buff! If you were in stealth you could swim like Michael Phelps! You could easily outswim players running on the land. It was pretty amazing and funny. I'm not sure when, exactly, this bug was squashed. But, I'm pretty sure it was well before Evendim released because I remember thinking how handy it would have been to have that bug in the Evendim zone.

Or how about one of the early updates to the game (after it launched) that turned all the hidden deeds visible? All the social deeds suddenly showed up in my deed log one day after a patch. I knew it would be fixed right away so I pegged several of the hidden deeds to the quest tracker. Sure enough, another update came out a little while later and all the deeds that were supposed to be hidden disappeared from our deed log. But the ones in my tracker were still there and updated correctly as I received additional emotes. That's where they stayed till I completed them.

How many of us were here for the 2-day outtage that lead to us getting scented candles? I still have mine on most of my characters. Ahhh, the goofy things we decide to keep. Mementos from a different time.

[Maximilan]

When I finally got to Moria, almost 9 years ago now, I was underwhelmed after fighting in the 'great outdoors'. I prefer sky to tunnels! So I go into the entry after the Watcher quest and take off for Dolven-view, running up the steps and into the dark cavern.

I just kept running thinking surely I'd end up in Dolven-view? Next thing I know I've got a mob train behind me .... I see some light and run for it ... ugh it's another enemy camp. Well I figured I'd might as well die since I was lost in the dark with no idea which way to go back or where I was heading originally. /shake head

So now I'm at the lifestone, with no idea where I was or how to get where I was going. Okay the direction helps but in Moria that frequently is not the way to get to your destination. So I take off again, but it's so #/%@ dark I can't see $&*@! Well you could predict how this goes ..... down down down. Another trip to the lifestone. Well I finally made it to Dolven-view but it was another day and with help from a buddy of mine who somehow figured how to navigate the path there.

The lighting today is NOT like it was in the beginning! Those doggone drop-offs caused me to break a keyboard! Oh did I mention the quest tracker didn't exist either then! This is when I found out about lotro-wiki.

Well I don't hate Moria anymore and enjoyed my last times through with alts. The burg was a blast and by that time the lighting was improved and the quest tracker was working!

[djheydt]

Well, I've already put some reminiscences on the "post a screenshot from beta" thread.

I got into MMOs when I saw the box for Asheron's Call in Fry's (smallish California electronics chain). I've told that story too elsewhere, so I'll summarize. Picked up the box and looked at the artwork. Me: "This looks neat!" Husband: "That's an MMORPG, you have to go online and pay a subscription fee, are you sure you want to?" So I did what I did for new games in those days: bought the hint book and took it home and read it. Bought the game the following week and played it for years.

Until Asheron's Call 2 came out, with superior graphics and a series of mystery quests: what the heck had happened between AC1 and -2? I played both for a while and then concentrated on AC2, because I don't know about you guys, but I can't put enough time into two games at once. I played AC2 till it closed. Went back to AC1, but it had changed a lot (Olthoi player characters!!?!) So I went back to single-player games (Crusaders of the Dark Savant, Toonstruck, Grim Fandango).

And then I read about Lord of the Rings Online. It was still doing friends-and-family alpha, and I didn't rate that status, but the forums were open. I haunted those forums for months. Every now and then somebody would get a free invitation (apparently at random) to alpha three. Came the day when somebody got a *second* invitation (it's got to have been random) and gave it to me. I plunged in and never came out.

Those were the days when every race did the newbie instance in Archet. I made and re-made my character in Archet so many times, I've forgotten how many. Every couple of weeks they'd do a server wipe and we had to start all over. (Mind you, after a few iterations I learned what to do at each step and where to go to do it.) It was a big day when I finally leveled enough within the time limit to get to Bree. (And in those days, please note, we didn't meet Strider in the newbie instance; we met Amdir there. We didn't meet Strider till we got to the Prancing Pony. An unforgettable experience.)

Alphas turned into betas (still multiply re-wiped every couple weeks) and my husband got in too. We coursed over the available territory, I with Eruanne the LM and he with Elian the Hunter.

I've mentioned elsewhere the frustration when I got a quest that was supposed to be turned in at Duillond, ... which wasn't available yet.

We had a fairly large Kinship at that time, mostly consisting of people who'd met in beta and were crafters. It's dwindled over the years; most days it's just the two of us.

Anybody who knows me knows my primary interest in the game is the Lore: not only adherence to what Tolkien wrote, but filling in the blanks and the interstices where he didn't write anything because the Company didn't go there. (There was a similar phenomenon in ancient Greece: Homer, or somebody else by the same name, had composed the Iliad and the Odyssey, and in later years other people wrote other epics about other things that happened in the Trojan War -- but never trespassed on the parts that Homer had made.)

The Lore, and the artwork. Since the days of AC (modulo that AC1's graphics were fairly primitive), Turbine/SSG has excelled in landscape, weather, and wildflowers. The thing that makes my heart skip a beat every time I see it is the sky over Rohan at evening, when the stars of Elbereth peer through veils of clouds on the horizon.

[Dotlbeme]

Reading the above got me to think of a list of quirks long gone...

1. Damage not removing fear effects on mobs
2. Ever-Swim (Evendim) Can you believe there were no boats!
3. Waiting until level 35 to get a horse
4. Dancing Hobbit and friends in the out of bounds of Dol Dinen.
5. /follow anything
6. newbs...sheesh...
7. Volume I, book 15 without instant travel (that's right, you had to ride everywhere and there was no fast travel to Echad Candelleth from anywhere!)
8. Needing a group to ever finish Volume II.
9. Or needing a group to even do landscape stuff!
10. Paying real $$ for expansions

feel free to add....

[Murtanion]

Finding the Hobbit and squirrels in the hills behind Dol Dinen.

The release of the Battle for Aughaire was a blast.

Adventuring into the Misty Mountains for the first time only to get lost in a blizzard created by a unique shard dropping mob. Kinmates came rushing to my side for a chance to roll on the beryl shard.

[Saintjoan]

In honor of the 10th anniversary, I suggest some of the original (10 year) people relate some stories from the old days. This is not (intended) to be a snob-fest, just a retrospect. How did you get started and why?

Hmmm. I'm beginning to feel like Bilbo, when he sat at his table to write LOTR.

Concerning My Lotro Story, A Players Tale, by John C Soper. (Sainjoan777, on the Lotrostream)

I was mainly into playing the older console games. I had no idea what an MMO was nor did I ever hear of one. I went to work at a service center in February 2000. The guys I worked with spoke of Asheron's Call, all the time. I never played though. Then, they spoke of playing Wow, all the time.. I began to think that I would like to try playing an online game. Since Wow was the current craze at work, I thought that I would end up there. But I thought that I should at least see if there was anything related to Middle Earth, before taking the plunge. I had found and ordered some games off ebay, but they were roll playing board games. Reguardless, I got some great maps and game books, which used pictures from the PJ movies.

One day I had received an email from Gamespot, which I had registered at previously. The email invited me to take the tour of Middle Earth, so I signed up. That was it, until I got an email from Turbine to participate in the open beta, which was to begin around March 16th, 2007. When the day came, I downloaded the game and created my Turbine account. I did not know what to expect, but there I was sitting on Elendilmir on an Elvish Champ name Maidjoaniel DArc (Named after Joan of Arc). I began the intro quests in the original Ered Luin start up area. While playing, I couldn't find my way back to the start up NPC's (I had no idea about pushing the letter M key, for the map ). Since I was lost, I figured I would create a new character and start again. Nimrodel was the recommended server, so I created a Human tank Joanwyn DArc (Named after Joan of Arc).

I was in Archet, running around doing all of the quests, but I didn't know how to get out of Archet. I guessed that maybe I had to be level 10 to get out. Back, it took a few days of gaming, to get to level 10. I had joined a kin, Redemption, which was orginally a Wow guild that came to Lotro. When I reached level 10, the Combe gate was still closed. Since I was in a kin, I asked and they told me I had to do a certain quest to open the gate. I was on that quest and finally hit Combe. I hooked up with a couple of players, Flat and Mydd and we leveled together and yes, I actually completed all of the Trollshaws quests on my tank Joanwyn. .

I had payed in 3 month blocks for the first 6 months. Back then the lifetime account was available, so I took the plunge. So now, I'm considered to be a Founder VIP. I've been with Lotro from day 1. I've never taken time away from the game. I've lived through all of the changes and I am amazed at how far we've come in the 10 years and 1 month that I've been playing. With the server transfers a year and a half ago, I split my characters between Landroval and Arkenstone. I have characters on Brandywine, Evernight and other servers too.

Lotro has alway been my #1 go to game. I'm committed to be here, until my Lord releases me, or death takes me.

Thank you to the Devs for Turbine and now SSG, for 10 amazing years.

[OldMadeOfLions]

On launch day I wore my Shadows of Angmar t-shirt and went down to the local Gamestop to proudly buy myself a box of LOTRO and a copy of the strategy guide (which I also helped work on, reviewing PDFs and copy-editing; I've always loved strategy guides, despite knowing that physical media could never keep up with a changing MMO, and this one was no different. It's kind of a hoot to flip through it these days and realize how much is changed, but especially how *small* the world was back then, although it felt big at the time). The guy at the counter didn't seem to know there was a Middle-earth MMO coming out, and when he noticed the Turbine logo on my shirt his reaction was, 'Huh. Cool.'

Indeed, Mr. Manager! It ended up being very cool indeed!



MoL

[StoatMandible]

Type ;loc

(https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Landmark_coordinates for those too "young" to recognise early navigation)

Up hill, both ways ... in the snow!

[Snowlock]

LOTR fan since Jr. High, I was a strategy gamer in the 90's and early 2000's that was eventually lead to Warcraft. World of Warcraft was on my radar, but like Ultimo and even Star Wars Galaxies, there was no way I'd pay a sub to play a video game. Then I saw Middle Earth Online was announced and started tracking its development. Lost track of it until one day in April of 2007 I see "Lord of the Rings Online" boxes at my local Target. Huh, was this that MEO game? Looked at the back, hey looks similar. 30 day free trial. Why not?

Bought it, brought it home, signed up, created Snowlock, a captain. He's running around with some hobbits I've never heard of, killing stuff by shouting at ####. Weird. And his armor looks dumb. Never heard of Archet. Okay I'm done with this game. A month goes by and it's Memorial Day and the bbq we were going to was rained out. Well, lets try LOTRO again. I rerolled that silly captain deal as a hunter, and BAM, that was the missing piece. Played to level 17 where I'd sit on top of the entrance of the Great Barrow and beg people to let me come with them. They all said no. I recruited my RTLS gaming partner to join me in this MMO thing, rerolled Snowlock a third time, 2nd time as Hunter so we could level together, and never looked back.

Some of the things I most fondly remember were the original Great Forest, Garth Agarwen, the Thief Takers Bane quest, and Fornost. Forming my kin to run the Rift and eventually beating it. Exploring (and hating) Moria for the first time. Beating the Watcher, Barad Gulleran, Barad Guldor, Carn Dum, Urugarth, and Sammath Gul. Ranking up those first 13 ranks in pvp (the last two were kinda meh as the game had changed into it's more modern version). All the strategy and drama of being a kin leader and pvp leader. The friends I made, and those we lost, in game. Being on the Player's Council and participating in the forums. It's been a ride, surprising that a game could take you on one like this one had for me. 10 years, holy ####.

[Inkling]

Indeed, Mr. Manager! It ended up being very cool indeed!



MoL

Well, manager. We just say manager.

[Amorey]

First time I heard about LOTRO was back in early 2007. Back then I was playing World of Warcraft and also Alpha/Beta Testing Age of Conan . It was a very busy times in the world of MMOs back then. I have always been a huge Tolkien fan so when I heard the game was coming out I knew I had to play it. Sadly because I was so busy at work and committed to the Age of Conan testing, I was unable to jump into LOTRO's betas , but that was actually a bonus for me because when I finally got in game I was just stunned by the awesomeness of it all. On April 24th , I think it was about early afternoon , LOTRO was launched in Europe .

Early that morning I chose the name on my WoW's main as my account name. So finally the servers did open , there were queues of course, but it was so exciting. I was not really into RP much then, but I knew the RP servers are usually nice places in MMOs so of course Laurelin became my home. I finally got to character creation and made a female elf hunter and called her Frodi of course back on day 1 I was completely unaware of the very strict naming rules on Laurelin. I still remember the first few minutes in game. The chat channels were filled with exited players welcoming each other and so happy to be there, it was awesome! Not having a clue what to do, where to quest, or even where I was ( back then there were no maps, we had to literally explore to unlock the maps ). I got killed by a cave-claws almost immediately.

Somehow I struggled out of the intro and ended up in Celondim. At the time once the intro was done your character would spawn just outside the town, you know that beautiful place that looks like a stage, with statues and blossoms overlooking the river. I could not believe my eyes. Frodi and I did manage some amazing adventures on the first day, we ended up getting lost and somehow finding a portal to a completely new world....The Shire! Everything was so new and so vast , I had no idea where I was until I started seeing hobbits in Neddlehole. Got killed by a slug in the bog and pressed on, ending up in Hobbiton that felt so familiar to me. It reminded me of one of Tolkien's painting called Hobbiton Across The Water so I knew exactly where to go - passed the bridge, up The Hill, third to the left....BAG END!

I did share a few tears on the terrace overlooking the Party Tree, the sun was setting, the music was playing, it was something I will never ever forget. It was busy, there were lots and lots of players around. I had no idea Bag End was open. When I realized Bag End was actually accessible I knew I would have played this game for a long long time. We did not have player housing back then so Frodi did move in ( despite Lobelia's objection ). As I said earlier I was not aware of the strict naming rules of Laurelin. It took me only a few hours before someone reported me and Frodi's name was changed to something more 'elvish' by a GM. That was the day when I finally learned about naming rules and also that is very unwise to use a hobbit name for an elf. I logged out , deleted the elf and started again. The rest is history. The memories I have on LOTRO could probably fill a book, so I wont bore you with all of them, but know that I am incredibly proud of having made it so far, it was not always plain sailing but it has been an incredible journey and a huge part of my life

In Loving Memory of Frodi of Laurelin - 24th April 2007

[tuor66]

I was playing DDO at the time but knew LOTRO was made for me. No regrets. Mostly I recall and still have screencaps of crazy bugs like when the Shire Auction Hall floor was solid black so it looked like the pit of doom. Candaith's tent was technicolour. My Captain's herald floating 10 feet above the floor in the Bree Vault. A strange bug in Ered Luin where, at certain places, you entered some sort of invisible water layer that then put all nearby mob's in exploit mode. Crazy fun.

[Tuco]

I started with the fan website in about 2003 when Sony was still in charge, it was to be Middle-earth Online, and they promised there wouldn't be any WoW-style leveling nonsense - there was general recognition that that kind of thing requires too much new content development load. The flame wars back then were every bit as virulent as in the forums today. There were several very prolific trolls, though I think not as many as we have now. Anyway...

I have great memories of the open beta - level cap was at 15, and for us hunters the best early bow was Thornley's. The rare Dagger of the Juggler was my favorite burglar weapon. Mobs were much harder then, of course. We organized massive hunter raids with support from other classes to visit Candaith and work our way through to *his* spare bow, which I think was the best we could get by level 15.

Crafting was good fun, too - the aggro distance was much wider, so harvesters would go on naked to harvest wood and ore in difficult regions to reduce losses from their inevitable untimely demise. The craft mastery tasks were harder, too - the cook's was especially challenging. I still smile when I see the Mountain Basil bushes on the back side of Weathertop - no, we didn't have to go all the way to the top to harvest it!

The early game is still my favorite, and I still love the Shire... though I could do without the cancerous growths around Marcho and Blanco's statue in Michel Delving!

Thanks, SSG (and Turbine survivors)!

[Nosdracir]

I was playing DDO at the time but knew LOTRO was made for me. No regrets. Mostly I recall and still have screencaps of crazy bugs like when the Shire Auction Hall floor was solid black so it looked like the pit of doom. Candaith's tent was technicolour. My Captain's herald floating 10 feet above the floor in the Bree Vault. A strange bug in Ered Luin where, at certain places, you entered some sort of invisible water layer that then put all nearby mob's in exploit mode. Crazy fun.

I came from DDO as well. I was so happy when I heard that DDO Founders automatically got LOTRO closed beta invites. Bye, DDO.

In retrospect, the bugs were amusing:

- Ghost Bear, as I described in post 6.
- Despondent stable horses in Celondim that had a 50% chance of ending it all by diving into a ravine on the way to Duillond.
- Crafting nodes that spawned inside objects. I think this was intentional to teach us the importance of DEL + U keys.

I even had one invisible flying mount experience. I took a fast stable ride from Bree to Michel Delving. As the horse disappeared my character stayed visible, riding through the air across Southern Breefields. I thought that was pretty cool until he smacked into a wall of the Hillshire Ruins and got stuck, plastered against a wall with two bears below him. They refused to wander off and I had to dismount to certain death.

There were also some interesting differences at the beginning...

Crafted items were not bound. My main was a Cappy and the next two alts were a Guard and a Champ. They'd pool money to buy items from the AH to equip the Cappy. He'd pass old equipment to the Guard who would pass it to the Champ. The Champ sold his used equipment on the AH to finance a new set for the Cappy.

Money was tight. If you spent too much on the AH getting equipment you couldn't afford stable rides and had to run everywhere. Repair costs were high enough that it was common courtesy to tip the tank because their repair cost was likely to be 5-10 times yours. Everyone was scrimping and saving in order to have 4g 400s by level 35 in order to buy their first horse.

Gold sellers started infesting the game. There were low level gatherers wearing starter armor running around areas way above their level (dwarf iron ore) and harvesting materials to earn the gold. Spambots would gather at South Bree and advertise the websites. Hunters would invite them into a fellowship, port them to a campfire in a dangerous area, leave fellowship, and port out. The spambot script was so simple that it would often accept the invite and the port, so it became a bit of a game to see who could take a spammer out.

The release of Evendim gave a lot of people a big shock with a new mob type: kamikaze deer. Over and over that first night Evendim Regional chat would erupt with "What the...? I just got killed by a frickin' deer!"

LOTRO gave us all a sense of wonder that entire first year. Even us lore mavens were awed by simply being present in Middle Earth as well as by discovering that all the locations and NPCs we knew were present in the game world, plus a lot more.

[Urwendil]

Not at all an old timer myself by the standards of the people in this thread so I should have shut up but there are so many parallels with your story that I couldn't resist! So, apologies in advance to the true old timers who have been here from the beginning and experienced SoA & MoM when the world was young, from a late-RoI newbie.

...
there was no way I'd pay a sub to play a video game

Likewise! I would often proclaim "sorry, I won't pay per play" whenever my long-time SP (mostly grand strategy and RPGish stuff) friends loudly lauded a new or upcoming MMO.

Then, at some point, I began to search for Middle-earth games. Everything I caught scent of was based on Jackson's films, so I passed on and on, until I found about LOTRO on Wikipedia (right, Wikipedia!). "Shame" I said to myself, "wish it wasn't and MMO." But it got stuck in my mind somehow and I finally surrendered. Despite my many complaints about the game (some openly voiced here or in-game) I deem it one of the best decisions in my life

30 day free trial. Why not?

"Hmm, F2P. Shiny name for a playable demo but why not?"

created Snowlock, a captain. He's running around with some hobbits I've never heard of, killing stuff by shouting at ####. Weird.

Created Urwendil, a Captain. I couldn't beat the spider boss and her adds at the Marshwater Fort and almost called a rage quit after several tries But it was too late to let it go. Rolled Erohtar, my Champion and first real main. After him came Kibilturg (Guard), Taurunion (Hunter) and Irka (Cook...err... Burglar)... At some point I deleted Urwendil to open up a character slot. During server mergers I had him undeleted and now he's called Urwendil Abdolron (intended to mean who has come back/again).

Never heard of Archet.

Here comes a major contrast: That we were starting at Archet, that Archet was there in the game was a foremost upside for me that got me hooked up. These guys were apparently recreating the world in the last years of the Third Age and not just following the fellowship or desperately attempting to mimic a major named hero.

All told, the last 5.5 years of my life has been enriched thanks to LOTRO and its community, my great friends and kinnies in several kinships. Glad to have been here

[phantasiarose]

Ah, I remember when I got into the beta for LOTRO, and they were doing beta weekends. I had my original account, before having to create my current account, which is seven years old this year, due to me not quite remembering my account details for the original (although now I have them, though will probably still play on the seven year account, since I have done so much on it with my husband.)

I remember the days of Middle Earth Online, and following its progress before losing sight of it. Then, I remember seeing the mmo, Lord of the Rings Online was looking for beta testers. I remember signing up, starting the game with my Hobbit Minstrel (level 15 when I checked last year) on Brandywine... and I was instantly hooked! I fell in love with the story, and questing in the game. I was elated to be traveling through the Shire for the first time, and actually seeing sights such as the Party Tree and Bag End. I remember the original Old Forest, and how it was at times a bit scary, and frustrating at times. On the last day before the beta closed, I remember a lot of players gathering at Buckleberry Ferry. For me, it was a bittersweet day because at the time, I could not afford a sub to the game, and settled with waiting until I got a job to afford a sub.

It wasn't until 2010, when I convinced my husband (boyfriend at the time) to play LOTRO with me, when I found out that the game went Free To Play. Unfortunately, I could not remember the details of my original account, and decided to start anew with my husband. We both created accounts, and picked Landroval as our server of choice.

[Snoman73]

Ahh the good old days. I remember spending 8 hours in Carn Dum only to give up near the end because people had to leave group.

Funny thing about ghost bear is that he is now a rare pet, I got a Ghost Bear pet a couple years ago for donating to the charity event. Sometimes I take him out on walks just to get that bear growl like the good old days.

I remember the floating captain heralds and the /sit in chair thing and then /follow. We had entire trains of folks in chairs running around Angmar.

The 3 things that stick out to me the most now are:

-the music in all the old zones, so good, hearing it now just takes me right back

-the shire mostly, and lothlorien, so many zones that just really brought to life the amazing works from the books, i wont ever forget them

-the people i met along the road, strangers united in a common effort to push back the shadow. The group runs, the questing, i will never forget some of these people.

[ElanorFb]

Lore-master did most of what is now Erud Luin, got lost in The Shire! Could not find Michel Delving at first...mired in the swamp...this place sux...where is the freakin town???

This is very similar to my story. I was here in the beginning. However, I kept getting lost going between The Hill and Michel Delving. Then I kept getting eaten by bears in the woods over hill. It got so frustrating that I quit. I meant to come back in a while but it was a long while of two and a half years.

I tried hard to find my old character but eventually gave up and started over. Having played some of these type games in the interim it was much much easier and I've been at it ever since. It did take me 3 years to level my first character.

It means more to me than I can ever say to be able to play this game. Each time I click "enter middle earth" I feel it.