Year-End notes, by the Fool

One danger of writing a blog is that you get to take yourself too seriously, and you start to believe that people want to read about you, about what you do, about what you think. Well, I've avoided writing much myself on this blog, I've left it all to Aegthil, and so I hope I've avoided that particular trap. After all, nobody would be foolish enough to give a rat's arse what Aegthil thinks about anything, and I'm certainly not foolish enough to believe they do.

Nevertheless, to a certain extent, a blog like this is as much for my own benefit as for anybody else's, and if I want to write a retrospective, well, then, I bloody well will. As it happens, I enjoy writing; if you don't want to read it, then don't.

And anyway, I can't play Lotro while I'm travelling, but I can write blog entries. And I'm at a loose end, a little bored. So there.

I only started playing Lotro because it was free-to-play. If it hadn't been for that I would never have started playing, as I would never have paid for it up front. Of course, I've now paid for about 2 years worth, and so Turbine, by making their product "free" have made an awful lot more money out of me than they ever would have before. Isn't it ironic how you make more money by charging less? Or even charging nothing. I am the living proof that F2P is effective.

Lotro always intrigued me because of my interest in Tolkien. But WoW sidetracked me for a few years, and that was an absorbing game for a while.  When I lost interest in WoW and began to play Lotro, the beginnings were promising, as I found people surprisingly mature and polite, particularly after my WoW years, but that wouldn't, by itself, have been enough to keep my interest.

However, it wasn't long before I discovered three things, that have the potential to keep my interest for a much longer time. The music system, the Lonely Mountain Band, and BBB.

Having the ability to write and perform music in-game is nothing less than phenomenal. It makes it far more than a game, to me. Music forms a very large part of my life, and having it in an on-line game like this is pretty much irresistible. That appeal will not die for a long time (although the joys of writing abc code pall pretty quickly, let me tell you). The Lonely Mountain Band has been a pleasant home for the most part, and is an impressive group of talented and mature individuals. I hadn't really realised what a guild (or kinship) could be like. I'd kind of thought they were all just groups of teenagers.

And last, but certainly not least, the other members of BBB have become an important part of my leisure time. They are a hilarious and talented bunch of people. It's all rather strange, that, I find. I don't know them. They don't know me. I often don't even know if they are male or female, I don't know how old they are, where they live, what they do, who they really *are*. And they don't know those things about me, either. And yet I count them as friends. Strange how that works, isn't it?

But I also wonder why I'm reluctant to tell others these things about myself. By and large, I don't tell people what I do, what my name is, etc. Why not? Hell, I'm not quite sure. Probably because I'm just so bloody old I'd be ashamed to admit it. Pfft.

I've learned all kinds of things. I'm not really interested in nice Lotro gear, or the latest stats, or the best armour, or anything like that. But I like learning stuff. I've learned how to write in abc notation, I've learned how to make a video, I've learned how to arrange music for the Lotro music system.

And while I continue to learn stuff, I'll contine to play Lotro happily.

Of course, no comments would be complete without some mention of Aegthil. Poor Aegthil has developed into a highy annoying, deeply stupid individual, who is (of course!) nothing like me at all. No way. Not even a little bit. Nope.

It's probably best I leave it at that.