Galwyn - Join! LOTRO [APPROVED EXAMPLE APPLICATION]

Q) What MMO do you currently have the most interest in playing? If Warhammer, which branch? (Destruction, Order or both.)
A) LOTRO - I actually just left Warhammer Online have 2 level 40 toons there both an Order and Destro the game is just to repetative for me, I have decided to come back to LOTRO and see just how many of the small things I can complete, kind of the beauty of the game I think, they have added so much since I left! I have a level 50 Guard that I had when I went inactive and recently a level 20 Minstrel.

Q) Have you read our Code of Conduct and Forum Rules?
A) Yes, I really liked the Be Active section, It embodies what I have been looking for in a guild mentality.

Q) Are you at least 18 years of age? [yes, no, actual age is optional]
A) Yes.. over twice that....ok I am 45 (here come the old jokes)

Q) Have you read at least one of our example applications? [this is highly recommended]
A) Well I did not at first but then I saw this question so then yea I went back and checked out a couple...mostly WAR examples, thought you guys might be getting kickbacks from Mythic or something!

Q) Do you have any relatives or friends currently in the guild, or were you recruited by someone? If so, who?
A) That would be a big no, most of my younger relatives play Wow or War, I think LOTRO taps their attention span to much.

Q) Name: [planned in game/forum name]
A) Galwyn - Was the name of my first Human Cleric back in 1979 when I first started playing D&D...better than the name of my Crossbow wielding Dwarf with a 3 intel...he was simply called Thunk. (Was the sound the crossbow bolt was supposed to make if I every hit anything)

Q) Gender: [female, male]
A) Male...and sometimes the wife even lets me think I am in charge!

Q) What region do you live in? [City and State is fine.]
A) Murfreesboro, TN - I am a transplant to the south...originally from Arizone, and the wife is from North Dakota....talk about opposites attract!

Q) How did you hear about us: [friend, another member, forum, google, other mmo's, etc]
A) Actually I spent a fair amount of time looking at the LOTRO Kinship Forums on for Brandywine. After visiting numerous sites scanning forums and what not, this seemed the best fit...I have to admit the Christmas Card on the site sold me!

Q) Are you currently in any other AoC, LOTRO, or Warhammer guilds?
A) No I have no active accounts on any other games I tend to focus on only one at a time.

Q) Have you applied to any other guilds?
A) Nope - One at a time, same way I am with women! Wife and I got engaged 16 days after we met...that was 24 years ago and she still rocks my world.

Q) We like to have fun, how's your sense of humor? Not so good? Good? You're a standup comedian you say?
A) I give and take with the best....somedays I get on a roll other days well lets just say I am an easy mark!

Q) What other MMO's have you played if any: [Acquired a few skills from some other games eh? Tell us about them]
A) Well started online gaming back in the days of 1400 baud dial up modems on BBS boards...yes I know this dates me but I still miss my pen and paper gaming days!

Games -
Tradewars
Kesmai Multiplayer Battletech
EQ
Asherons Call
Asherons Call II
Various Mechwarrior IV Online Leagues
Wow
Warhammer
LOTRO (Returning after being away from the game)

Really the games are just a vehicle and environment to interact with others, the military was such a big brotherhood and the comraderie I had there was something that I often recapture in my online travels. The talent, wisdom and varying backgrounds of folks I have got to know online really is what has made my gaming time memorable. While often times I work in a support role in games say Fire Support in FPS to healing in Fantasy LOTRO was the first time I delved into a Tank class as a Guardian, currently I have a level 50 Guard, but I have been experimenting with a Minstril...my youngest daughter actually begged me to make one and I cannot say no to the women in my life. Currently that toon is level 20.

Q) What makes you want to join us over some of the other guilds? [let us know!]
A) It just seemed to me that anyone who would put this much time into something I am hoping has plans to be around not just for this game but maybe others as well and really putting together and building a community around a long term strategy. I was part of Clan Widowmaker for almost 5 years in the Mechwarrior leagues and it was a blast but alas the group and the game moved on, but it would be nice to find a group structured with the same sort of community principles that made my time there online really enjoyable.

Q) Please tell a little about yourself, aside from gaming. Perhaps some hobbies, about your work, favorite story etc.
A) I am a 45 year old ex-military Airborne Infantry vet of 16 years with 2 daughters who are my world, an awesome wife who puts up with me when I wonder why and a damn cat that we adopted that showed up on our doorstep half starved. (Last count that cat has cost me about a $1000.00 so I quit counting since the wife and kids got attached) I collect guns, and shoot long range distance often at the range but do not hunt. (Has something to do with a Camel I shot in the middle east. that cost alot of money btw! Ask me about it sometime and I will tell you the story of why 17 year old recruits with loaded weapons should be closely supervised!)

Love family time and camping, last weekend rented a cabin at Tims Ford Lake in Tennessee and spent 2 days hiking the trails along the lake...it is amazing the stuff kids will find in the forest! I also still hold the reigning title of Scrabble champ keeping my unbeaten streak alive for family fun night!

Love gaming online which you obviously surmised! Travel frequently for work as I am the Director of Operations for a large 3PL company in the US so visit our sites often and when I am out of town connecting online keeps me nice and safe in the hotel!

Love to read and do so at a voracious rate, most recently have started the Inheritance Trilogy by Ian Douglas, also The Conclave of Shadows Trilogy by Raymond Feist is great, and just finished a biography on Abe Lincoln.

Q) Do you have any questions for us?
A) I was curious as to how many are active in LOTRO is, I see you have various other game factions in the group, I just left Warhammer online as I felt it was really to repetative to me and am looking forward to the varied content and progression paths in LOTRO and was hoping that there is at least a small and steady group in game.

Great app!

from me.

Nice app. I think you would fit in well. from me. As for the number of active players, I'm not sure but most week nights you'll find 10 - 15 or so and even more on weekends. Since Moria we have had a lot more folks as well as quite a few new recruits recently.

Awesome app! I vote . And your comment about 17 yr old recruits made me think of a story my son told. He just got back from finishing boot camp and AIT a few weeks ago. One girl in boot camp with him had her rifle misfire. So she then proceeded to turn her rifle up and look down the barrel to see why it didn't fire. Fortunately she did not blow her face off as a consequence.

WOW!

Lots of replies so fast and so late, all of you hiding from the family and Christmas merriment like me! (Wife is the youngest of 12 kids so we have something like 60+ nephews and nieces) I finally quit counting. Anyway thanks for the kind replies, was just poking around the site again before I head off to bed and was happy to see a few folks said hello.


Yea Earathien, I did one stint as a DI and sometimes there is not a lot between the ears with some folks in certain situations, but sometimes I saw stuff I just would not believe.

Anyway here is my experience with the camel and it was actually in the Sinai Penisula during Peacekeeping with the 82md ABN on the MFO mission for the Camp David Peace accords. Was coming back from one of our guard posts on the Egyptian border and the Deuce broke down and everyone saw a camel and it was oh cool look and then it was oh cool can we ride it and then it was dammit it bit me! THen it would not let go of my BDU shirt. So I had to shimmy out of it and all my gear and it still would not let go, had 9 other guys rolling around laughing watching me the noob to the squad chase a camel (albeit it was hobbled) with my shirt in it s mouth and finally I had enough, one round all it took to get my shirt back.

My squad leader thought it was quite humerous until we were surrounded in about 3 minutes by no less than 100 nomadic Bedouins. Suffice to say it got a bit hairy, eventually however our CO pulled up and being fluent in thier sign language of all things was able to discern they wanted compensation and not my head for the camel. However they wanted compensation for not only the camel I shot but 5 generations of camels. At the end of the day they settled on a price of $20,000.00 and I got an article 15 lost half of one months pay for 2 months and 45 days restriction and 45 days extra duty... like the restriction was anything in the middle quite literally BFE.

Anyway the camel joke follows me to this day, everytime I got sent back to the middle east it was the same thing, called in by the chain of command and get counseled about shooting camels. Then one of our customers has a guy who would'nt ya know it was in my chain of command, knows all about the camel story and spreads it at work! So they painted the outline of a camel on some of my stuff.

And that is why you closely supervise board 17 year old Airborne Paratroopers when they are in the middle of nowhere with loaded weapons, because left to their own devices they will find trouble under a rock!

I think the best one however was at the Rennasaince festival this year my two daughters come screaming up the path telling me and my wife I cannot go down that way, especially my little one she literally was pushing back up the trail. Finally when I inquired just what in the heck was going on, my teenager said, "Dad....there is camels down there and people are getting rides, were a tad worried you might get flashbacks".

Galwyn

from me.

Your story of the camel reminds me of a time I got in trouble for discharging my sidearm in the military. I was assigned to a Tactical Communications Squadron in Germany from '76 to '79. We spent a lot of time out playing silly ass war games in preparation for Ivan to come through the Fulda Gap. On one of these exercises we were having a problem with rats getting into our stuff. One day, a particularly bold, or stupid rat, was challenging me for my C-rations. (C-rations rank up there with eating dog food that no self-respecting dog would eat, but when that is all you have to eat, you eat it.) I had tried scaring it away, had chucked sticks and rocks at it, but it kept coming up and trying steal my food or bite me. Since it was not a case of simply get up and leave (I was on a guard post at the time) I drew my .38 and blew it's head off. I was lucky to get off with a Letter of Counseling, but for awhile I was known in the squadron as "Ratman". (Then went back to calling me "Doc" a couple months later after I had to reduce and splint a compound fracture of one of our guys in the field on yet another excercise.)

Holy cow, that Camel cost more than my Scion XB bought new in 06. I went shooting with some friends in New Mexico on private property, just .22 rifles and paper targets, milk jugs and the like, and the guy who owned the property had us setup into a hill so we didn't miss and hit a cow in some pasture a cow was worth 5-10K. But 20K?

for sure. Story killed me, good app.

Man, the LOTR segment of the guild keeps on growing and growing. If I wasn't on such a huge push to get to level 40 in WAR I might check that game out. Seems very popular ;-)

Great app.

HAHA Breygon rats are always a good time, in the Gulf War we had this rat visiting our tent...finally caught it and the guys were about to kill it and I was like wait I have a better idea! So we tied a normal chem lite to its tail and then doused it in the liquid from the Infra red chem lites and turned it loose in the perimeter of the firebase! Needless to say it was quite the interesting event! Man the Fulda Gap! That was one of the Capstone missions we trained for, someone had the brilliant idea to drop a light ABN infantry unit in that area and hold off the Warsaw Pact for 72 hours so the Reforger Units could be mobilized....yea right! Also nice to see someone who remembers C-Rations! Where is my John Wayne Bar and Pound Cake! I still have Orange Nut Roll Nightmares, but they were better than MRE's IMHO! I even still have my P-38 Breygon!

Anyway went to see Marley and Me with the wife and kids after a day of day after xmas shopping, man what a great movie! I highly recommend it from me!

And m7_b5 come back from the dark side return to LOTRO!

Wow Thanks!

Look forward to getting to meet all the folks here and contributing to the community!

Galwyn

I was out of Highspeed internet range for the holidays and refuse to ever use dial-up again.
Welcome to the kin. I think I saw you on last night while I was getting caught up on some crafting.

Your 17 year olds with a loaded weapon story reminds me of my time in basic training back in 1985 when I was at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri (aka Fort Lost in the woods, Misery). On the day we were sighting in our rifles a big buck ran out into the middle of the firing range. My DI was shouting behind us "Don't even think it, Don'teven think it". Well, we were all thinking it and even though none of the guys in my squad fired at it, we did hear a few shots fired down to our left. Nobody hit it though. Good thing it was the day we were sighting in our rifles and not the day we were qualifying. I could just picture someone waiting for a target to pop up and have a deer pop up instead and be history. I hated the dark green pop up targets with the dark green trees behind them. Made those 300 yard targets hard to see. We got lucky and it snowed prior to qualifying though and I ended up with a great qualifying day. Dark Green on a white background is so much better.

I was a 24G (Improved Hawk Missile System Mechanic) in the army. I did 2 years in Graffenwher, Germany and 2 years at Fort Bliss, Texas. I was then a 63L or 68L in the Texas Army National Guard. I can never remember the exact numbers. In the guard I worked on Helicopter Avionics. Primarily Radio and Navigation. I finished my 8 year obligation and called it quits.

I still love to play board games.

Wow lots of Vets on here, very cool, I so love to hear from other vets who game online! Hope to talk to you in game Baradain!

Galwyn

I have a 53 Burg and a 52 Guardian as well. Maybe we can group up in Moria for some questing. Have you completed Book 1 yet?

Also, how is your gear. Earathien sent out a kinchat just as you loogged last night to see if you needed any upgrades. We have SM and GM crafters in many of the professions in the kin, so do not be afraid to ask for some upgrades. Most of the time we only expect you to supply some of the materials or possibly some of the cost to cover vendor purchased items. Best bet is to get to know your crafters and talk to them, they will let you know what they can make you and what they will want from you. None of them are going to make you crit gear and ask for a few gold as if they were selling it on the auction hall. They will merely ask for you to supply the mithril flake or some other material or crit item. We are not doing this to make money off the kin. We are doing this to help kin members get the best gear they can get to make it easier when we get kin groups together for rolling through the instances and bosses.

I mentioned earlier that sometimes we ask for some monetary expense to cover vendor purchased items. I only mention it because as a scholar, it takes about 19 sp to make one new tier 6 morale/power potion. I usually make them a stack of 20 at a time and that will cost about 380 sp. If I wanted to make them for 4 different people that would end up costing me about 1.5 gold. I think these are the only things that cost a bit to make. I used to not worry about it, because I would just sell a few stacks on the AH to cover the costs, but lately I have just been storing up mats to make things for the kin. I don't know of many other items that require costly components though. I know for jewelry, weapons and armor for the most part it is just raw resources that you gather thoughout the game. I am not sure about others.