My LOTRO kinship, Thirst for Power, has had a long, interesting lifespan with serious ups and downs, and is now down for the count. I am the only regular player that has been on for weeks. Sure there are one or two others that leave alts in the kinship, but no playtime logged except for me.
I was recruited into T4P when my Lore-Master was still hanging around Combe and Staddle by a very nice guy who helped me a lot, but declared he had an addition to the game and quit cold turkey, never to be seen again. I met a number of friends in the kinship and we played together for years. Some were a little flaky and jumped out of the kinship, then back in, the back out, etc. A core group of us played through thick and thin, building our characters as we went. Then there was a mass exodus fromT4P to another kinship whose name I forget. Almost all of us went, because it was a big, happening kinship with a charismatic, fun leader and a diverse set of players.
Meanwhile, the old T4P leader had been offline for so long that the game offered leadership to one of my buddies who left one alt in T4P. I put an alt there, so I was 2nd in command. And then our new kinship’s leader decided he was bored of the game and disbanded the kinship. So it was lucky that we could fall back to T4P. We rebuilt T4P with most of the old members and many new ones and had great times in Dunland and the end game instances around Isengard.
Then came Great River. We all raced through Great River and started doing the Limlight Gorge stuff, when many of our top-level members decided it got boring and simply stopped logging in. We survived with just a few members until Rohan came along and added great new content, but the damage was done. With just a few of us, we weren’t able to get groups together to do the end-game instances. Finally, my last friend in the kinship decided she needed a more active place and jumped to the kinship of one of the other ones that was in T4P when I first joined and was with us for a long time, but eventually left to join a raiding kinship. I have recruited a few people into the kinship, but they see how dead it is and either stop logging in or just leave.
T4P has maxed out lifespan and a nice kin house, so I will likely keep it with some lowbie alt running it, but I may look into joining active kinships for my characters when they get near 85. My LM, who is 85, would be a good choice, but nobody wants a lousy LM in the end game instances and raids. I’m working on getting my Hunter, Warden, and Minstrel to 85, because at least they will be needed by others. In the meanwhile, T4P is a member of an alliance, so I can help others and join groups fairly easily.
But it is a shame to see Thirst for Power fade away.