Fortunately, fellowshipping can get you through the lower levels a bit quicker. My lowest character is Derndwimmer, human Captain and ladykiller, at level eleven I believe. My only day available this week is Thursday, so if you see any of me online /t me up yo.

Right on.

Since returning to the Barrow-Downs in the late summer, I made a character on Vilya to play with with some IRL friends, but if people are still active, I think I'll possibly make a new one on Silverlode.

I'm typically on at least once or twice a week.

Coolness, Eonwe.

So, regarding the kinship, we can choose a "racial charter" which has nothing to do with anything except leader/officer titles. There's more info on kinship specifics here.

And of course the all-important name.

Knights in Wight Satin?

What a Downer?

Paper Teleporno?

Will give this some thought and come up with something really awesome.

Anything involving wurst or the phantom is an automatic rejection. :p

Things involving wurst and the phantom are just icky.

Hi guys.

After over a year's absence I am toying with the idea of re-DLing LOTRO and playing it some again.

I won't be around nearly as much as I was in the past. I just don't have enough time for that...and besides, being on the grinding treadmill is not fun. ;)

As for kinship name suggestions, waaay back in the days of beta when it was just Durelin, CoD and myself I think we called ours The Downs Troupe...to sort of get the "We're a travelling circus" feel in our name.

Knights of Tyrn Gorthad? Shades of Tyrn Gorthad? The Trooping Spirits? Wight Knights?

After a download and installation I can only describe as horrifying, I have my account up and running again.

I was surprised at how easy it was to get my house out of hock.

I've basically remade a better version my character on Vilya on this server. A Dwarven historian guardian.

I'm a dwarf guardian, too!

Dwarf guardians are awesome!!!

(kinda...)

(The dwarf part is definitely awesome...the guardian part comes and goes... ;))

Well, it so happens that a while ago I started (finally) a secondary character of mine, who is a Dwarven runekeeper-historian. Quite like him. I have left him last time around Gondamon, he is barely something below level 15 or somesuch.

Thinking of getting him a properly Dwarvish-sounding name and inspired by all the names like Gimli, Fíli or Frár, I called him Gimifril (let him that readeth understand).

As for the kinship naming suggestions, specifically those Gwathagor proposed, I think all the "knights" stuff is a bit too, hmm, high and mighty sounding (and everyone has such names anyway), but the Tyrn Gorthad stuff is a nice idea (no idea how long a kinship name can be, just hope the two words don't take all the space). So either I would make it "something of Tyrn Gorthad" (hmm, not sure if "Something of Tyrn Gorthad would be a representative name, though) or then if Knights, then Knights in Wight Satin as mentioned before. That actually would be really nice, on top of "forum" reasons I think it sounds quite good, too. But of course, we can still think of something else (though personally I can't seem to think of anything, unless we want to go with something like 'Ham-on-Skull').

The potential we are developing here for having all dwarven fellowships rampaging around the landscape is warming the cockles of my heart... :D

Shades of Tyrn Gorthad would be cool.

Given the number of dwarves...I may ditch one of my Silverlode characters and create a minstrel or something.

Just make sure its a dwarf minstrel. :p

Btw, I know where there is a kinship house is unoccupied if we want one.

I say! Bwahaha! :D

My only dwarf is also a runekeeper. I'm not sure if I like the runekeeper class though, and haven't even got him out of the tutorial. I don't want to delete him because he's got all the benefits from that one premium month.

Minstrels are fun.

Ok, I ended up deleting my Hobbit hunter and creating a human lore-master instead.

Just when I was looking for your hunter's name too, I see. :p

Figures. Now my two characters are Frarr and Crabbanald.

I did not like the runekeeper much initially either (when I tried the game a long time ago), and also didn't get past the tutorial, but actually now I found out that it suits me surprisingly well. Gimifril is cool, anyway.

And minstrels must be fun, yet I never got through actually properly playing one. Must be a bit difficult for solo playing, anyway, which is probably why I got bored easily during the first necessary tutorial-scrambling-through-stuff.

Just as a random remark, at one point (about a year ago, however), I've been mightily disappointed to find that "Hilderinc", while not occupied on many other serves, was taken on Silverlode. What a pity. Then again, maybe better not to mix computer game and reality... um... never mind.

Minstrels get much stronger as you advance. They get some really good attacks and warspeech is awesome...sadly people frequently complain if you use it in groups. :o

Minstrels are also always in demand.

The very early game is not a good picture of class capabilities. Champs and hunters start off pretty similar to what they ultimately turn out to be, but other than that...

I know that. But the point is exactly what I said: to get past the first levels. It's not a question of how strong does the character get as I advance, but if I don't get bored in the beginning. But I would still like to give it a shot, eventually. But that has time.

Did not enjoy lore-master. Replacing with a minstrel.

Minstrels are the best. :D

I'm beginning to agree.

Ok, I've settled on Frarr and Crabannan, guardian and minstrel. Find me.

*waves at Durelin*

You and CoD should come back too now that I'm back. :D

You have acquired yourself a stalker! :eek: ;)

Good to 'see' you Kuru! I must say I was shocked to see that you are back in the game -- you seemed to get fed up much earlier than we did! ;)

I'm tempted! I told CoD you've decided to give LotRO another go. Maybe if I decide to he will join me (he seems bored waiting for Skyrim). At least when I mentioned the game he didn't go off on how much of a waste of time it would be to go back... :D

What all did you lose after your long hiatus, Kuru? I'm assuming at least your 'VIP' status or whatever? Glad to hear your house wasn't lost, though...I was wondering about that... I haven't logged on in almost a year so almost afraid to do it.

I did. Part of it was that it *can* be a really frustrating game at times (especially with constant exposure to some of the more glaring flaws) and part of it was that I'd been playing it literally for years without a break...bitter vet syndrome is real. One day it just suddenly hit me that I wasn't having fun and I didn't want to play LOTRO anymore.

After taking such a long break, its kind of fun being back. :) I was surprised but some people actually remembered me and said hi (one of them literally before I'd finished logging in the first time).

I enjoyed working through the latest book. Given the confines of what one has come to expect from Turbine, I thought it was reasonably well written too. Right now, I'm looking forward to the expansion coming out next week to carry on with the story.

So, in sum, yeah, I got really frustrated and I still am aware of the game's many flaws, but for the moment I've got a little bit of that "new experience" enjoyment and it is nice to talk to some old faces again. We will see how long it lasts. At the moment I don't intend to just stop playing again like I did. I also am not going to be playing anything near as often as I did in the past, for one thing I physically can't, and for another doing that will ultimately just result in the kind of burnout that I experienced already. I'm hoping I learned my lesson.

Taking the whole thing easier seems like a better idea all the way around.

Tell him I think that game will turn out to be disappointing. He knows I'm rarely wrong about these things. :p

No, my account is still VIP. I think if you bought Lifetime before it went f2p (which, I did and if I remember right you guys had too) you are still VIP for life.

I have to admit that not wanting to deal with trying to get my house back was a big deterrant to coming back to the couple of times I thought about it before I actually did it. However, all I had to do was go to the housing screen and pay the upkeep and I had it back. :)

I hope you guys decide to come back, at least for a bit. It would be nice to see you.

Yea, that sounds like a good way to approach it. And yea, I miss the 'new experience' feel! It was my first MMO and I loved exploring when I first started playing. My thoughts lately have been...well, it's free...why not? What is my problem? XD Lately it has simply been lack of time, haha, but anyway...

Thanks for the info, I'm really glad to hear I'll still be VIP! And it looks like I've built up some Turbine points.

So here's the characters I have that I know I won't be replacing, lol: Rakein, Khamir, Rakien, Durelin...Minstrel, Champion, Burglar, Captain.

At high levels, they are ridiculously powerful. I once did the Great Barrow in a fellowship with a level 30 and he practically took on the main wight himself. Also, they can both heal and do serious damage.

By dint of unrelenting stalking I tracked down Gwathagor last night.

Scheduled is too strong a word, but we agreed if we both happen to be around at the same...undefinied time on Saturday I would log in my level 14 hunter and we would go forth and quest.

Anybody else who wants to join us is more than welcome. My 14 hunter is named Nokki.

I don't know about Saturday, I will probably be doing other stuff on that day, but if I happened to appear around...

Yesterday we've had a brief encounter and eventual quest-together with Eönwë, it could be summed up as something like "two low-level Dwarves show off with their stunt moves, music skills and sparkling light and then walk from Thorin's Gate to Gondamon with a bit of detour to a goblin fortress". I think it was really enjoyable, and I think we both agreed that more gatherings of 'Downers would be nice. And also that we definitely should go on here with the proposed idea of forming a kinship.

Agreed.

Had we settled on a name yet?

I cast my lot for Shades of Tyrn Gorthad. One big private joke, as it were.

Best vocation for minstrel class? Anybody?

For a mini it doesn't matter so much...unlike a loremaster where its just a natural fit for scholar.

Any class can be anything and make it work.

I like this one as well. It has that winning combination of being classy and a joke at the same time.

I approve of "Shades of Tyrn Gorthad".

Also, can we arrange at least one time when we can get all our characters to meet?