TTH: You recently celebrated your one-year anniversary as community manager. Tell us more about your extensive background in gaming and community work, and how you came to be LOTRO’s guide and voice.

MSR: I began my online adventures in the late 80’s on local bulletin board systems, graduating to full-time work and co-sysop status at one of the largest subscription-based, privately-held ISPs in the greater Los Angeles area. This, the early 90’s, was about the time I started to play online games and MUDS, which sucked away hours and hours of my life.

My first job at a game company came in 1995 doing technical support. I admit that I may have occasionally sounded distracted on the phone with customers when my character was getting killed in the MUD I was simultaneously playing – Addict? Who, me? I eventually branched out into working on the company’s website and doing some community outreach on gaming-related usenet newsgroups. In 1997 I moved to a major PC and console game publisher as their online representative. A few years later I put the brakes on my career (except for a little freelance community work) to focus on my growing family.

In 2004, the planets aligned; Turbine was looking for an Online Community Manager at the same time I was looking to go back to work. To say this is my dream job is a bit of an understatement. My first anniversary on the project was January 3rd, which coincidentally is Tolkien’s birthday – I take it as a good omen.

TTH: How would you rate your understanding of Tolkien lore—are you one of those classic know-it-all Tolkien nerds who lives and breathes The Lord of the Rings™, or do you fall on the other end of the spectrum…or somewhere in between?

MSR: I’m probably somewhere in between. After spending a year with the LOTRO community I can say with confidence that my Tolkien is middling at best. I know the difference between Elrond and Elbereth and what really happened at Helm’s Deep, but I would still get own’d by several members of the LOTRO community if it came down to The Lord of the Rings version of JEOPARDY!™.

By the way, I’m not sure I’d call someone a nerd just because they live and breathe The Lord of the Rings – there are lots of folks in the LOTRO community who have a very in-depth knowledge of Tolkien’s works without falling into nerdiness (is that a word?).