Well after less pondering than I should have done I went back to LOTRO. Reinstalled my retail cd that was picking dust on my shelf. Installed 5 chapters that seemed to take FOREVER (left the MoM patch downloading while I slept since it wasn't necessary to play right now and it's unpacking as I write this), reactivated my old account and pre-ordered MoM... talk about a leap of faith.

First off let's pickup where I left LOTRO for the last time. It was the year 2007 and april had brought us a brand new MMO based on the Lord of the Rings. I ran out to buy the game and after scouring 3-4 shops I managed to grab a copy, ran home installed it and played the free month. What did I achieve? A lvl 35 minstrel named Joco (and a bunch of alts) who made a living in the Prancing Pony by telling odd job poems about the players he met around the game. I actually got veeeery closed to being banned for a mischievous tale about a snobby elven bard. (yes... I almost got banned for an RPing incident... hardcore! :P) I left the game around the time the first festival events were made with an Inn league member title for making a drunken run around the bars in the shire, a pie eating champion title, a few extra dance moves, and sore arms after playing a few rounds of ultra bugged chicken punting. Left the game cause I can't remember what caught my eye in the distance.

So now I'm back... and oh boy am I lost! I first logged into the shire and it all seemed pretty normal and recognizable, until I started looking through my character. My mail was empty of goodies (no suprise there) and my inventory and stash were full of trophies I needed to barter, probably due to name changes from the patches, and I had 600 silver. After that I had to read through all of my skills again since I couldn't remember what the hell each of those icons did. The first thing I noticed was that one of my aura songs I used as a perma buff (something like +fate and +will can't remember) now used 1 power per second. Darn... that sucks. Then suddenly I flipped through my character sheet and saw something that scared me... Rep! What the hell? I need to grind rep in this game too? Here is where I start pondering I need a reroll to take full profit of it's benefits, till I saw the horsie in the inventory and just couldn't be bothered any more. Plus I had some acquantance standings automatically in my rep bars which meant I had received an invisible rep buff when I was away so I thought... well that's not too bad.

So feeling like a fucking ebayer, I jumped on my chestnut pony and started running around the shire, with a mixture of anxiety and giddinness filling my heart, went to check out the hobbit's rep house and wasn't that much impressed so I decided not to give the rep incident another thought. So I go down hill and find a small quest giver (in the shire they're all small) and I discover yet another new addition: Housing! Well that seems like a fun and necessary addition to the game. I check out the prices and the low end houses don't seem to be too expensive, hmmm... 1 gold, I'm only missing 600 silver, I wonder how often I need to pay upkeep? I check out an empty house and they seem pretty nice, empty... but nice all the same. I guess this is where all my cash is going to end up in the near future.

So far it's going better than I expected, so my next stop is the skill trainer. After seeing expansions in other games I figure there's bound to be one or to new skills the game has implemented for my class so I summon the mount and run along. I open the trainer window and to my suprise there's a whole bunch of them! Wow... a dps boosting buff and area damage! niiiiiiice, I can also train people in instruments now, sweet, ooo bagpipes! Huh? Why can't I train in bagpipes, I got the level and it's only 25 silver... That's not right, so I open my character page and to my dismay I find myself with only 2 silver left. Oh goddamn. There goes my house fund...

I end up needing a drink and some friendly rping to make me feel better so I rummage through an old drawer and find 2 of my old RPing works: The tale of Ellriel Skillsong, the grumpy minstrel (the one I was almost banned for) and The tale of Thorkin and Orbin, the drunken dwarf twins (an old crowd pleaser). I'm guessing that could get some free drinks, so I keymap my keyboard to function as a piano for the lute and head off to the prancing pony. A sore ass from riding later I open the door, and even though it was quite late I find some people standing and chatting round the fire, something about a costume party so I guessed RPing was not lost. Hurray! I introduce myself to the group and offer my trademark Tale for an Ale service. They seem happy enough to accept. So they get confortable, I place my drunken dwarves tale before the keyboard and start typing away. It's all going smoothly, not too many typos from speed typing and a few laughs and smiles from their part, good their enjoying it, but half way through it I suddenly realize I'm missing half of the poem! Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap... think fast! /e starts shuffling through his notes. I need to buy me some time, I crack the drawer open and start shuffling through papers in real life. I apologize to the crowd and keep looking for the damn scrap of paper, but it seems to be lost. They say it's no biggy so I go for some improv, I kinda remembered how the story ended and the last rhyme from it all (even after a year... I was impressed with myself!) and it doesn't end that badly, the crowd cheers and claps and I get 17 beers, score!

Here's where the embarassing coincidence part starts, we start chatting a bit and I ask for the news around town. They seem a bit suprised by the question so I try to give them a push. I remember a post by Achazia (couldn't remember the name by the time) in Gax about a cool RP event where they made a huge concert with their ingame band. The only thing I could remember was the name of the band wich I thought were the shadows and so on, so I decide to give it a try and ask them about the concert, on one part curious to see if it had really had any impact on the game and on the other trying to look connected to the community. But what a coincidence! It was Achazia I was speaking to! (that'll show me to turn on the floating names) At this point I'm feeling like a complete tard, and probably get the impression they think I'm taking the piss out of them or am just a retarded fanboy wannabe or somethin. But it all stays pretty civil, and then she actually plays me a little song. And dayum! She IS good! (what can I say, I wasn't expecting it lol) The song ends and my jaw is basically resting on my desk by then. C'mon I play the lute using my keyboard and had no clue of what .ABC files were so I'm easily impressed. Still even with abc's the music is good. So in my drunken glee we say our goodbyes and we each part our different ways.

I walk out of the tavern and get ready to tryout my newly acquired (and terribly expensive) combat skills, when I bump into a recruiter from Serenity. The name rings a bell and I don't know if it's from other MMO's or the LOTRO launch days but they seem pretty eager to have me in their ranks so I join in (that reminds me I need to register in their forums lol). I make my way to north barrows where I have some lvl 30-32 quests (want to start easy on myself) and I activate the combat aura... LOL! The little dude starts making some wierd poses and it has an evil soundtrack to boot, I think I'm gonna like this. And I do! I'm really impressed with the DPS I can dishout now, with that cool sword DOT and aura effects I find myself ripping enemies appart and not having to heal myself in fights, which I realize could be problematic since the dps aura halves all my healing done, but still It's worth having an almost perma stun on my shout skill and a fast reload time. I'm impressed and it seems those 600 silver were well invested.

All in all I'm glad I came back to LOTRO, I got a lot of things to look up to and the community is as good as I remembered it to be. Now all I need is to figure out the economy, start making some cash, and empty my inventory so I can quest worry free. Thanks to Panda for the initial nudge and to Achazia for making it a good RPing night. Oh and sorry for the wall of text, if you manage to finish leave your adress and I'll mail you a cookie![img]