Hello there

[Sowen]

Welome everyone:)

I was looking for any Hobbit related forum - I was missing up-dated discussions and nice chat when the LOTR was on. I have found this one and hope will be fun:)

You can call me Sowen...it's been about 10 years since I have sunk into Tolkien word - "There is no real going back. Though I may come to the Shire, it will not seem the same; for I shall not be the same. I am wounded with knife, sting, and tooth, and a long burden. Where shall I find rest?" just swap Shire to the place where I live.. Thank to LOTR I have meet a lot of interesting people...however, many of them grew up and forgot about Middleearth, old forums and websites are not working anymore...

Anyway, I come from Poland but currently I'm living in Edinburgh (then sorry for bad English^^) I am interested in history, sport, tourism,psychology, some of the unexplained stuff about paranormal activities. Lastly I started taking a lot of photos (Scotland is so beautiful!!), I enjoy it and hope some day have some study about photography..I love also to curl up in a couch with a book in my hand and wander around far away land and adventures..
Ugh, I would say that life is to short for so many things to do, feel and expierience..I have real trouble what to chose;)

Well, some use to say I am not quite normal person..but tht makes my life more enjoyable

[Emmie]

Welcome, Sowen! It's a pity your friends don't remember Middle Earth, although to some extent, I've experienced the same thing. (Well, sort of. But maybe it's more that I'm not in contact with a lot of the LOTR fanatics I used to know.) I'm also sad that the old forums and websites aren't around anymore, but hopefully we can recreate some of what they used to be here on HobbitForums. And of course create a new community that is remarkable all on its own. :) If you have any suggestions about how I can improve the site, I would love to hear them.

I also do photography sometimes, and of course I share your love of curling up with a good book. :) And I wholeheartedly agree with what you said about too many things to choose.

Anyway, welcome again, and I hope you enjoy yourself here. Once the Hobbit movies are greenlit, I imagine the community will be a lot more active, and I plan to do more work promoting the site and seeking out new members at that point.

[Emmie]

Also, I like your signature! That was a good movie.

[Sowen]

Thanks Emmie:)

for me these signature somehow suits to LOTR as well...anyway I like to think about impossible things and after breakfast as well;)

I hope it will be possible to recreate the spirit:) but it's still long time for the movie...I am courious how many "old" fanatics will return then...on Polish www it's very quiet now/or they discussed about so many things already that they do not want to speak any more about some topics and it is very difficoult then to jump into the old community....
Anyway, here not only we can talk about interesting things but also I can practice my Enlish;)

[Lanyare]

Mae govannen, Sowen, delighted to make your acquaintance!

I landed on this forum for very much the same reasons that you did, and while it may still be a bit quiet just now, that makes it all the more easier to get to know the people here.
On my end, too, there is a hint of regret that most of the forums I was involved at, have either died out, or are swamped with spam bots, making it virtually impossible to keep a normal conversation going.
There will most likely be a short burst of activity again upon the actual arrival of The Hobbit movies, but once the hype's over, I think only the 'die hards' will remain again.

Personally, I found this to be a cosy forum, and judging from your intro, I think you'll fit right in. :D
I'm looking forward to getting to know you better, in any case.

Oh, one more thing: do not worry about your English! It really is quite good, if you ask me, and I've got no troubles understanding what you mean. Even the native speakers make mistakes, though. I'm not one of those either, by the way, so you're bound to find errors in my posts as well. If you have not been doing so yet, then I can highly recommend reading lots and lots of books in English, and post a lot. I'm sure that's what helped me the most. ;)

[Emmie]

Yeah, I wouldn't worry about your English, Sowen - I can understand everything you're saying. And Lanyare, I think I read that English was your second language before, but I actually forgot... you write a lot better than several native speakers I know. ;)

There will most likely be a short burst of activity again upon the actual arrival of The Hobbit movies, but once the hype's over, I think only the 'die hards' will remain again.

I've noticed a lot of "fan forums" have this problem. After a movie comes out, or a TV show is canceled, or a book series ends, activity will inevitably decline a lot and in some cases the site will die completely.

Not sure how to prevent that here, but if the movies are delayed by a year (as is looking likely), the DVD editions of the second film won't be out until 2014, which gives us a good four years of growth. And after that, who knows? Maybe we can broaden the focus of the site to include fantasy books/films in general.

[Sowen]

Uh..4 years - everything can happen;)
Anyway, probably we won't avoid discussion about different fantasy books/films...and much may depend on topics about all people wants to discuss beyond Hobbit topic:) We will see how it will be..

Thanks girs for support with my English:D currently I try to read a lot in English - good help to improve vocabulary..I am proud of myself to read it (few year ago I was able t read maby one page and undersood nothing..but living in UK is the best teacher!)

[Lanyare]

Hehe, thanks Emmie... Always did love English. In my part of the country, movies get subtitled. When I was a kid and just started to read, I obsessively practised until I could read them before they disappeared again, but meanwhile I was always listening to what people were actually saying as well. That's how I first learnt English, before ever having lessons in high school. It was far from perfect though.
Been thinking that I should start reading more books in French now. Combined with having a few French-speaking colleagues at work, it would definitely help to improve my French. It's good, but there's a lot of room for improvement. ;)

Anyways... As far as this forum goes, I'm planning on sticking around. Perhaps a book study, or a couple of roleplays, would be fun to do as well. I've always loved those, but they are a little more time-consuming than other forum activities, that's true. Not everyone might want to take time, or even has the time, for stuff like that.

Sowen: Oh, I forgot you currently live in England! That's going to be the very best way to practise, indeed, hearing it around you all the time and having to speak it most of the time as well.
When I first began to read in English, I didn't always understand everything either, even when most of the time it was possible to more or less deduct the general meaning from the context. But I've been doing it for years now. It's a good way to maintain the language, and not only vocabulary-wise.

[Emmie]

Hmm, what did you mean by a book study? Just reading and discussing the books together chapter by chapter? I tried to set something like that up a while ago (for The Hobbit) but I sort of suspended it because a lot of the people who were going to take part got too busy. But I do plan to start it up again at some point.

As for roleplaying, I've actually been thinking about a RP section since I first created the forum - the main reason I didn't make one was that I've only ever dabbled in forum RP and I didn't think I knew enough about how it worked, but perhaps you could help organize/moderate that section.

[Sam]

Hey Sowen, welcome to the forums! We have quite a few things in common - I'm mad on sports and love everything that is paranormal :)

[Lanyare]

Emmie, that is exactly what I mean with a book study. At the very first forum I ever joined, book studies were more or less the main focus of the site. One person was in charge and would set up a couple of questions/dicussion topics about the chapter that was read, and then we discussed.

I've already contemplated posting in those threads here, as well, but I should reread The Hobbit first. Though, do count me in when you're going to restart it. I'm sure I'll find time to read the chapters each week or two weeks or whichever. Reading is what keeps me occupied on my daily train rides to and from work. :D

And as far as roleplaying goes... So far, I've only dabbled in it as well, usually joining already existing ones. I think most of the rules are simple, and logical, though it probably also depends a little on how 'set' or 'free' you want to make it. We'd probably need more active members than there are now, though, and so far I never came up with a good enough idea for a roleplay myself.

[Emmie]

Book studies: Sounds good, perhaps later this year we can get that going. :)

RP: Ah, okay. Maybe we can get the help of some other future members. I agree about needing more active people first. (I'm planning to do another big promotional push at some point, similar to what I did when the forum first came online, but it seems like my efforts would be more effective if I waited until the films are greenlit and we have some solid news... since that's when many people will start to get interested.)

[Niniel]

Hey Sowen! Welcome!:)

I feel like this forum is going to be like the ''new ringquest'' once the first movie is getting closer , by that I mean similar in popularity and full of fun people all loving Tolkiens world. But hopefully this will still be popular after the Hobbit movies aswell...

[Sam]

Emmie I've saw a system on some forums where members can have weapons, armour & stats, I dont know if this a custom mod or something. I'm not good on website design stuff but if you need any help with the RP system (if your going to have it) or graphical stuff then I'm here to help :)

[Emmie]

Niniel: That's my hope as well. :)

Sam: Thanks for the suggestion - I'm pretty sure the addon/mod you're talking about is freely available for people to use. We could definitely install it (though it might be nice if we could set it up so the weapons and armor didn't show up outside of the RP section of the site, so things don't get too cluttered).

Just to clarify - what sort of RP system/graphical help were you thinking of? Like, designing the weapons and armour images? Or helping to design the rules and premise for the RP? Or moderating the section? All of the above? Anyway, I'll send you a private message when we get closer to setting it up.

[Sam]

Niniel: That's my hope as well. :)

Sam: Thanks for the suggestion - I'm pretty sure the addon/mod you're talking about is freely available for people to use. We could definitely install it (though it might be nice if we could set it up so the weapons and armor didn't show up outside of the RP section of the site, so things don't get too cluttered).

Just to clarify - what sort of RP system/graphical help were you thinking of? Like, designing the weapons and armour images? Or helping to design the rules and premise for the RP? Or moderating the section? All of the above? Anyway, I'll send you a private message when we get closer to setting it up.

Well all of the above, I have never designed armour or weapon sets before but I could give it a try :)

[Lanyare]

Hmm, this is also vBulletin, right? At the One, members could 'buy' weapons and stuff in the armoury, and the little icons would appear underneath their avatars. Never know how exactly it worked, exactly, though, and the weapons showed underneath your avatar regardless of where you posted. But it was cool.

Will look into RP-rules sometime in the near future, just to get an idea.

[Emmie]

They were/are running vBulletin 2, and this is vBulletin 3, but I think there's an updated version of the same addon.

[Sam]

Can you link me to a site that has it or maybe the mod?

Edit: I found this site, http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=68440

I am not a techy with vBulletin but is something that you might use Emmie?

[Emmie]

Well, you can sort of get an idea of it from the attachment (which would appear at the left side of people's posts). The "Items" section contains images of things that were bought with "Malda" points.

However, I was looking into it a bit more, and I'm not sure that there actually is a version of that addon for vBulletin 3. We may be able to set up something similar, but I'd have to research it more.

Edit: just to clarify, this is a screenshot from another site to show how it would look; I didn't create it.

[Sam]

That is fantastic Emmie! Really good work - I'm here if you need anything :)

[Emmie]

Sam - in response to your edit (which I didn't see until now), it may be possible to do something similar, but I'm not sure, because the addon you linked only officially goes up to vBulletin version 3.5. I'll have to look into it some more.

[Sam]

Np Emmie, just thought it might of helped - I'm sure we can get something out before the movies :)

[samrom11]

The green dragons live only to serve the forces of nature and uphold the balance between mortal creatures and the ever-evolving world . Green dragons are the weakest of the four adult chromatic dragons and the weakest adult dragon....
desktop wallpaper (http://freewallpapersplace.com/):cool: