Outside LOTRO: A Salute to The Middle-Earth Adventurer

It’s easy for us to associate a character name, an in-game avatar, a forum name, or some other online representation of the person behind the computer.  However, trust that there is a person behind there who has come into our lives whether it is briefly, for a long duration, or permanently.  That person, although potentially thousands of miles away, can still make an impact on our life.  Although the media can argue that relationships made online are fleeting, temporary things; most of us know better.  As seen by Tolkien’s works, words can make an impact on us as human beings that can last a lifetime. 

This past Friday, Jaxom92 of The Middle-Earth Adventurer has decided that the time has come for him to retire from LOTRO blogging and to focus on other things in his life.  He has resolved not to quit playing or to disappear from the community, but currently he finds himself unable to continue writing the blog.  In turn he will turn his attentions to the possibilities of writing other works and is also pondering the possibility of doing a podcast in the future.  Jaxom (or Richard) would also like to stress that he still loves the game, but just feels that now is the right time to move on to different projects.

I am sad to see Jaxom stop writing, as he was the first bloggers to welcome us into the LOTRO community.  He could have easily felt that we were imposing in an area of LOTRO that he had been active in for almost a year, but instead he welcomed us in with open arms and did his best to promote our site through mentions on his blog and twitter messages.  As a blogger he has inspired us to branch out our love of Tolkien into our real life, been involved in Massively.com’s Choose Your Own Adventure project, shared his view of LOTRO with us, and guided us all when he could.  He was also our first interview on the podcast and we would love for him to come back as a guest host in the future.

However, I can fully understand his position.  Writing a blog, especially one as active as MEA, is almost a full-time job in itself.  Now that we are seeing a close on Moria and transitioning into Mirkwood the timing of the decision makes sense.  My hope is that if he finds himself inspired to take up the pen that he does so, whether it’s the re-birth of MEA, or a guest post on another blog.  I for one happen to know of two hobbits who would be more than happy to publish any works that he might feel inspired to write.