Valar Guild > Histories > Glaurung-(V)
I joined the guild on December 27 of ’99. Obviously, it was right after Christmas. I had just gotten the coolest game ever. Yes, I had gotten Starcraft for Christmas. We only had a Macintosh with no internet for the longest time, so after we got our PC in early December, I had wanted Starcraft above all else. It was my favorite game at the time, and I had a blast playing with and against all my friends in massive “free-for-alls.”
The first day I had gotten it (the night of the 25th); I played with random people online one versus one. The second day, I played with friends and against them. The third, I played Use Map Settings games. On that fateful day, I found my first Lord of the Rings v. Silver game.
I immediately joined. In that game I found various people with Tolkien-based names. One struck out in particular, because he was one of my favorite characters. I asked Eomer-(V) if he had read Lord of the Rings, striking up a conversation while my 21.0 kb/s connection downloaded the map. He said yes, and asked if I had. I said yes, twice. We became the team Gondor/Rohan. He was Rohan, and I was Gondor. After we had started to win, and things were slowing down a bit, I asked him what the – (V) after his name was. He said that he belonged to a Tolkien-themed guild. I was ecstatic… Could there actually be an entire group of Tolkien players on battle.net?!?!
As I found out soon enough, the answer was yes. We went to his home channel, Valar. There I found another person in the channel, as well as a bot named Valarbuddy. The other person’s name was Aule-(Valar). I asked how I would be able to join the guild. He said I had to take a test. This was weird, because all my friends said that clan’s come and go, and tests aren’t important. I reluctantly agreed, and followed him to the channel Eldar. Five questions he told me. “Great!” I said, a way to show someone how much I know! What I didn’t know is that this person knew much more than I did. He asked his questions, and I answered them guessing my account name (‘Sauron’) for the last question, which just so happened to be the right answer. Imagine my surprise…
From there I had played Starcraft for a long while with different members. I saw people come and go. I made friends with nearly everyone. I saw Imrahil come, Grimbold come, Feanor (very old one), and Gelmir (Freebe before he joined the guild).Those people had joined right after I did. After a while of playing with them, I saw a huge contingent of people in the guild playing Diablo.
I decided that it sounded AWESOME, and I went out and bought it. What I saw in this game, was two-sided. I saw a wonderful place to congregate for long periods of time, playing with each other, and I also saw and unfortunately experienced a hacker’s paradise. I had myself a King’s Sword of Haste, a Godly Plate of the Whale, Obsidian Amulets and Rings? Not sure, can’t remember those… But they were all hacked… Once scanners (things that check other people’s items, like if they’re real or hacked) came out, I ran into some trouble. I was informed that outside dealings were not allowed in the guild. And I had to sacrifice all my items. That was a hard blow, because even though they were all hacked, they took time to get, and I didn’t have anything else to resort to. I was told that the guild could compensate for my losses, so I gave up that char items and all, and then started fresh.
That, I thought, was a close shave. From then on, I waited for Diablo2. It was awesome at first, and I had played it for a long while. Somewhere along the road there, In between a game or two, I lost interest in the guild, and got absorbed in my daily life. I was away from the guild almost completely for months. I think what actually brought me back in about half a year or so ago, was re-reading the books. Also, all the hype about the new movie, a friend at school who I always had contests with about Tolkien trivia (Beleg), rekindled my liking of the books and guild. I bought Diablo 2: Lords of Destruction and started playing again with the guild, and noticed that it wasn’t the guild that I had left.
I noticed that one of my friends had been banned for one reason or another, and most of my previous friends had all left the guild, become inactive, or played other games. I began to make new friendships through D2X. The Diablo games are what I think really bring the players close. So much time playing together and developing are what made the friendships in Diablo, AND in D2X. I had found new guild members to talk with and play with. Valacirca (Eonwe now), Bert (Gandalf now), Turgon, Legolas, Denethor still played even though he had left the guild, Avontor the guild’s old bot holder, and many others. They all rekindled my desire to learn more about Tolkien.
Even though I missed the Tolkien moments, the old members, and the Saturday chats, I like equally the new members, the trivia contests after the meetings, and the more involved and straying Tolkien chats!
Recently,
I’ve been writing articles, playing Warcraft 3, and web-weaving to keep active.
I think that overall, the changes and my progress in the guild has been an
experience that I wouldn’t have traded for the world.
[Note from Varda: On December 15, 2002 Glaurung-(V) went on to
become the Maia Honor Lungorthin, keeping up the Book List and Reviews
page for us for a long time and coming to meetings, before real life
interefered and he passed the pages on to Arveleg-(V).]