When reminiscing about LOTRO, there are many personal highlights for me to consider. Raiding in the Rift, completing the epic story in Shadows of Angmar, or even getting my first mount. Yet, if I had to pick a personal favourite experience, it would be the great charge across the River Anduin, into Mirkwood. This happened on Gilrain server on Monday 25th of Janurary 2010, the night before Siege of Mirkwood expansion was launched. An enterprising player by the name of Mikeemoo arranged the event via the forums and at the designated time a hundred plus players assembled on the Western bank of The Great River. Once the signal was given we swam en masse to the Eastern shore and swarmed up the bank into the woods. As the zone was not yet accessible the developers had placed NPCs in the vicinity; Mirkeves Fell Arrows that could one shot any player. However, due to the sheer number of players in the zerg and the resulting lag, many made it across. Eventually the server kicked everyone but it was immense fun while it lasted.

On Monday 22nd December 2008, I visited the Game store at Colliers Wood, South West London. I was working at St George’s Hospital in Tooting the time at and the nearby shopping centre was an ideal place to spend the lunch hour. As I perused the shelves in the PC gaming section, I spotted a “compilation pack” that contained not only the MMORPG The Lord of the Rings Online but it’s recently released expansion pack, Mines of Moria. Although I was aware of the MMO genre at the time, I had never played one beyond a trial of Star Wars: Galaxies. However, as I had recently moved and was living alone, I was in the perfect position to start playing such a game. So, I decided to take the plunge and buy LOTRO for the bargain price of twenty pounds. There was also a sizeable display for World of Warcraft in the shop, which was by far the market leader at the time. Yet because I’ve always been a Tolkien fan, I just naturally gravitated toward buying LOTRO and it never crossed my mind to buy another product.