couple of questions

Hello there! I recently purchased the GW trilogy because I wanted to get back into the game and get some HoM rewards on the side. I started playing the game like 5 years ago and i've really fallen behind. I've read the wiki and it has been helpful, but even then the plethora of info is still very overwhelming. So I have a couple questions that I hope you GW vets can answer! Thanks!

1. I'm trying to get HoM points, i've followed various guides but is it possible for me to solo missions and such? I feel as though I'm such a noob no one will party with me because I don't know anything. So far i'm doing well in Nightfall but i don't think i'll have luck proceeding when I hit 20. I wanted 30/50 but realistically, I'll be lucky if I get past 3.

2. What's the rule with rare items and identifying them? I have a couple golds/purples but I don't know if i should I.D. them or not.

3. finally, when I returned to my account, I discovered that my guys had been hacked and everything had been deleted or sold or whatever, I know I had lots of birthday pets and other items from like 5 years ago. Was there anything from the first Gw campaign that contributed towards the HoM?

Thanks for your help!

1. Soloing missions is easy with Heroes and as you are in Nightfall you will be fine, also get them in Eye of the north, Look for good builds in PvX wiki gwpvx.com and look up guides at guild wars wiki guildwiki.com

2. Identify all rare items if you want upgrades, or to increase their merch value and to unlock for your account, unidentified golds sell from 500 to 2k depending on the buying averaging around 700

3. Many things contribute to the HoM but you can still get everything with the content available that is, if you lost something, dont worry, sure it would help, Mini's are great for HoM, but its not like you cant get more presents, be careful not to get hacked.

Welcome back!

1. Most of the community's done with the missions in all the campaigns (not to mention WiK and WoC maybe) so you'll rarely find anyone doing them in normal mode nowadays. But, it's a good thing you can now have 7 heroes in your party. They're sometimes better than PUGs since you can load whatever build you want for them. And they won't ragequit. Once you unlock hard mode, you'll be able to join the Zaishen Mission for the day for PUGs.
Don't worry about the HoM. You'll add points as you play. Just plan accordingly. I got mine from 3 pts to 21 in about 2 months.

2. I'd ID all purples and merch them or salvage good mods from them. You can check if the mods are good here in the forums in Ventari's Corner (if there are buyers). You can also ID the golds but I usually just sell them in a set of 7 for 5k in Kamadan.

3. There are titles from Prophecies that add to the HoM, but not items per se. You can still earn Legendary Defender of Ascalon, Protector of Tyria, etc with a fresh toon.

Welcome back
All achievements (like finishing Prophecies or learning every elite skill in Prophecies) and minipets can contribute to your HOM. But those points are only counting if that character has (had?) access to his/her HOM. So if your characters got deleted by the hackers before he was able to show his achievements to his HOM then i am sure that you have to do these achievements again.

Whew glad to hear I can solo most content and do it at my own pace. I really appreciate the answers guys, thanks a lot!

If by 'solo' you mean "with heroes and henchmen", then yes, you can solo almost all content.

Best bet is use a site like http://argos-soft.net/GwEstimator/ for price checks on potential rare items. Although sometimes you'll see some crazy prices but it should give you a rough idea.