Hello everyone. I just joined up last evening and wanted to pass over a quick thank you and introduction. So first, thank you for the invite and welcoming me into the kinship. Also, thank you for the toolkit for my newbie char. It was much appreciated.
A little about myself. My name is Matt and I'm 40 years old and live in the SF Bay Area of California. I'm married and my wife are expecting our first child this December. I'm very excited and can't wait for the new guy. Obviously, my game time will be cut significantly come the end of December, but my hope is to continue to be involved how I can be and still find a scrape of time to login when I might be able to. I mean, I must begin to teach him all about Hobbits, at some point. :) But in seriousness, with my family obligations, my game time currently is usually late night PST (9 PM-12AM) and will adjust most likely once the little one arrives.
In regards to gaming, I'm a very long time game player and have played MMOs since the Star Wars Galaxies days. I've played most of the popular MMOs and even some of the not so popular. I started with LoTRO right at release and was instantly hooked. When Moria was announced, I pre-ordered and bought the Lifetime as well to solidify the deal. For the original release and the Moria expansion, I played more frequently and stayed at the level cap. However after Mirkwood, I slowly over the years did other things and strayed from the level cap. So, through the years, I've left and came back. I was originally located on Nimrodel, but the population was dismal after 2010. Eventually, the kin I was in was just empty whenever I returned back to the game and by the time the server merges were announced, I decided to hold off on playing until I could merge. At which point, I chose Landroval for the light RP option, population estimate based on the forums posts, community and other points. Typically, in MMOs, I found that RP servers tend to have stronger communities. Anyways, on to the characters...
Granador the Hunter, my first and somewhat main character, has been a long time journey man through Middle Earth. While only level 79, he's completed many deeds and seen many places from the vanilla and Moria expansions. At this point, however, reboots of the Hunter after game breaks have been challenging. Frankly, the dps challenges and number of skills to leverage reasonable dps have made him a bit of an annoyance. Soloing in the world and having to struggle with even the most basic of fights is frustrating. Additionally, fighting signatures was never an issue in Moria or vanilla, but now is a stressful engagement that sometimes leaves the Hunter elf wanting to head to the Undying Land. So, until Update 19 and dps boost, I've chosen to try an attempt at an alt.
Thus enters Hodorhin the Warden. Only at level 15, I'm enjoying the gambit system a lot and actually believe this type of class may be more enjoyable because of the way the gambit system presents itself. It's more about remembering the gambits and their use, than which skill on the bar to use. While still a challenge, I think I might actually play better in this format. Who knows, but it was nice to be able to take on a signature 3 levels above me and not drop below 60% of life. Kind of made me happy. :)
So that's Matt in a nutshell and where I'm at game wise. I tend not to do the vent thing because when I'm playing, it's late and my wife is sleeping. However, I keep a separate chat window up for guild chat conversation and if I were to group, I would do the voice chat as appropriate, I just might be low toned or responding via typing.
Thanks again for the invite and I look forward to meeting you all.