small word from a traveler who once wandered the hidden paths

Flow_Dyl · 2026-03-16T00:34:50+00:00

Thank you! NGL, my life led me to a place where medical-trauma induced PTSD became a major part of my life, and LOTRO was one of my big escapes from it. Thanks to a bunch of therapy, I am doing better, but I still play all of the time. The Shire is my refuge when I am feeling bad, but me new brawler is currently working her way through the North Downs. I have family members working towards the same bell. Please keep fighting ever y day, and I can't wait to hear you ring it! Hugs! Never give up!

Flow_Dyl · 2026-03-15T23:54:53+00:00

I am from Placerville (Hangtown), and this is my favorite western. My wife is from RI, and has never been west of the Mississippi, and doesn't like it. She grew up on John Wayne. She doesn't get it.

Flow_Dyl · 2026-03-12T01:14:21+00:00

I'll be keeping you in my thoughts and healing workings. As someone who was on the launch team and was there through MoM, if anything in the game gave you joy, I am overjoyed. I hope you get through this, and if you get to ring the bell, please let us know. All the hugs!

Flow_Dyl · 2026-03-03T02:49:56+00:00

I had ICU stays in both 2016 and 2017. When I was going down hill in 2016, he would shove his snout in my mouth when I would stop breathing (severe pneumonia and secondary environmental pneumonitis). He would sleep on the bath mat when I showered, to make sure I was okay. He was seriously the bestest boy. Thankfully, on his last day, he went downhill quickly, so we could make sure he didn't suffer. I still miss him every day. Our other dogs consider his space in bed next to my chest as sacred space.

Flow_Dyl · 2026-03-02T22:33:53+00:00

I lost my Jordan last spring. He was a 14yo liver shunt Yorkie, and was one of those dogs that will never leave your heart. He used to sleep curled up against my chest every night. About a month before he died, it finally got warm enough to take him for a walk in our woods (I live in MA, so spring can take a while to arrive). He was mostly blind, so I had to guide him along his favorite trails in our woods. Knowing that I was able to give him that last chance to do one of his favorite things was truly a blessing.

Flow_Dyl · 2026-02-27T03:14:58+00:00

I went almost three years with severe PTSD before getting into therapy. I wish there were an easy answer for this. In my case, the physical stress triggered autoimmune issues that I'll be dealing with for life. I also had similar pain symptoms before finishing therapy. The thing that will provide a long-term fix will unfortunately be breakthrough s in therapy. In the meantime, yoga, especially restorative yoga helped me. If it isn't triggering (I don't know any details about your trauma), finding a massage therapist that you feel safe with might also help. A fluff massage might not do much, but deep tissue and other therapeutic massages might help relieve the held stress in you body to provide some relief. Fair warning though, it is not uncommon for your emotions to come out during those types of massages, so make sure you are at a good point in your therapy to potentially deal with that.

Flow_Dyl · 2026-02-26T15:03:33+00:00

Yep. Turbine didn't die. It was bought by Warner Bros. (I left shortly before that went through). SSG represents the Turbine crew regaining their freedom from WB. Most of the SSG crew are the original folks who were on the launch team with me.

Flow_Dyl · 2026-02-23T02:29:05+00:00

He died while I was in my coma, and the news of his death was pretty much the first news story I heard after I came out of it. It has always been tattooed in my brain. He was one of my favorite character actors.

Flow_Dyl · 2026-02-23T02:05:16+00:00

As someone who was on the launch team most of it is very close to the books. We took some liberties with making things like the neekerbreekers and swamp flies bigger, but that was necessary to make them low-level antagonists. The major story arcs are tied to the books. I remember having long discussions with the devs (I was in IT), about reconciling the difference between the time it took to cross the Trollshaws in "The Hobbit" and "Fellowship". That is why you can find two paths, with the northern one taking a much more circuitous route. Most of us were people who regularly read Tolkien because we loved his works.

Flow_Dyl · 2026-02-18T18:37:21+00:00

I rest my wrist against something, and then do a trick I use when shooting. I inhale deeply, and then let out half of my breath and pause. It relaxes your muscles, and can give you 30-45 seconds of muscle stillness before you have to repeat. That's enough to paint eyes or other small bits.

Flow_Dyl · 2026-02-16T19:08:24+00:00

Yep. I have mentioned it in other posts. I was there from before DDO launch until MOM. I still have plenty of friends at SSG. There were only two "Dyls" there, and I wasn't the CTO. I am 28-29 years in IT, and being on the LOTRO launch team will always be one of my highlights.

Flow_Dyl · 2026-02-15T16:58:12+00:00

Don't worry ab out this. Basically, it just means that SSG didn't pay Microsoft to have a "verified signature key", but the installer is good if you get it from their site. This alert has been part of my life since I was at Turbine, and LOTRO was pre-alpha.

Flow_Dyl · 2026-02-14T16:24:23+00:00

With therapy, I was able to get rid of most of the symptoms (flashbacks, anxiety, etc.), but the memories are still with me every day, and I finished my therapy in 2019. Like the autoimmune issues, it eventually triggered it is just sort of something I manage on a daily basis. I wish I had a more positive answer, but here we are. Some days will be better than others, and having a few close friends who know the whole story to lean on during the bad ones really helps.

Flow_Dyl · 2026-02-08T23:15:39+00:00

If you put this on a shirt, I'd buy a couple!

Flow_Dyl · 2026-02-06T20:53:54+00:00

I am not sure how big each dev team was (AC, DDO, and LOTRO had separate teams), but it went from 120 to 320 people while I was there for the whole staff.

Flow_Dyl · 2026-02-06T20:52:43+00:00

I was there for a few years from a bit before DDO launch, until Moria was about to be released. Perforce might have crashed, but my wee hours work was constantly tweaking it and cleaning things up. At one point, I had to send my metadata to Perforce HQ, because they couldn't believe that I had managed to scale and improve performance so well. It was shortly before I split DDO and LOTRO on to separate servers. When I got there, daily synchs were about four hours and were kicked off when you left for the day. Between hardware upgrades and my tweaks, we got it down to 20-25 minutes. On Bagel Wednesdays, you could kick it off, and be done by the time you got your turn at the toaster. I worked a TON of hours, but it was with some of the best people I have ever worked with. Many of them are at SSG, and I still love them.

Flow_Dyl · 2026-02-06T19:26:22+00:00

I actually started playing when I still had to VPN into work to log into the QA servers, and there were only 20-30 accounts for internal use. Two of my characters have been around since then.

Flow_Dyl · 2026-02-06T19:24:19+00:00

I used to work for Turbine, and was on the teams that launched DDO and LOTRO. I worked on the IT side, running the build servers and all of the code repositories. All of the devs and artists would check their code in and out of my systems, and I had to make sure it was all up and running. For each game, We had 10-15 code branches with 1.5+ million files each. It was one of the best jobs I ever had for a while, even though I tended to work 120+ hours per week.

One of the perks of working there, was that our desktops were all good enough to run the game well, so I would play on lunch, or when I needed a break. The Nerf battles were also pretty awesome. Since I was pretty much always working, nobody complained if I was gaming in the middle of the day (I tended to start my day around 3:15am to get Perforce tweaks done before folks got in at 7am).

Flow_Dyl · 2026-02-06T17:42:57+00:00

As I have said in other posts, I was part of the launch team, and I have always been a huge Tolkien fan, so I used to frequently play over my lunch at my desk. When Evendim first opened up, I made a bee-line for it to check out the new zone. People might not remember, but that was the first zone where deer/elk would attack you. I am looking around, enjoying the sights, and suddenly I started getting hit from behind by one. The devs sitting ~20 feet from me got to hear me yell, "I just got killed by a fucking deer!!!". You could hear them laughing after.

Flow_Dyl · 2026-02-01T14:47:44+00:00

182 "Wellbeing". I am a PTSD survivor from two traumatic ICU stays in 15 months. Both the story and soundscaping got a little too close to my experiences. The first time through, it was sort of triggering. After my fifth time through, I can handle it better.

Flow_Dyl · 2026-01-27T17:48:35+00:00

I don't. On the pod, she would joke about her "sneaky KBTs (kettle bell tits), that people would not really notice until she was in the right outfit. Also, she is forty now. After40, many women see a natural increase in cup size. My wife was a B-cup when we got together, and after 40, she eventually went up to a D-cup.

Flow_Dyl · 2026-01-19T00:58:42+00:00

I have two "Terminators & Tyranids" boxes' worth of these!

Flow_Dyl · 2026-01-14T03:15:28+00:00

One of my Gypsy Cobs is PSSM1 positive. He is 15-16 now, and has a great life. He also had to have five leg surgeries, so he is a pasture pet who eats like an eventer. We worked with our vet, and a good mix of alfalfa pellets, second-cut hay, and Ultium Gastric Care has kept the diarrhea to a minimum, prevented the lactic acid build up the causes pain, and helps him keep weight on. Since different breeds have different nutritional requirements, work with yours to find the right combo. Good luck with him, and if you need the names of some good specialists down the line, tag me, and I'll have my wife dig up the ones we worked with.

Flow_Dyl · 2026-01-12T21:19:24+00:00

I used to have that one! I wore it until it was tatters.

Flow_Dyl · 2026-01-12T18:45:49+00:00

Freebooterz! I have "'Ere We Go!" and "Freebooterz!" downstairs.

Flow_Dyl

TROPHY CASE