I understand that alot of my OOC blogging tends to be about World of Warcraft and if that upsets you I am very sorry. I expect in time my attentions will be drawn fully away from it, but as it was a pretty large part of my MMO life over the past four years and continues to be a point of personal contention for me I feel that I have yet more things to say regarding The MMO That Changed Everything.

So I finally had my account reinstated by Blizzard. After six weeks of frustrating emails and busy signals on the phone (that still amazes me, honestly) I recieved a mail stating that I could once again log into my account. The first thing I did was cancel my recurring payment plan. It was an act done partly out of spite, partly out of preservation of my bank account, and partly out of honest disinterest. The disinterest was a minor point however, and pending (if that makes sense) my re-emergence into Azeroth. You see, the biggest claw that keeps me from dumping WoW cold turkey is the fact that I have a dear friend and a dear husband both who still play and enjoy Warcraft. There are still elements to Warcraft that are beyond my current scope, things to work towards and look forward to (especially with the new expansion) but it feels like it isn’t worth my time to stick around to see it.

When I was doing some idle thinking on the bus the other day it occurred to me that I had been spoiled by the originals like EverQuest. A major factor in how much an MMO will stick with me is it’s environment. I have mused in the past how gorgeous LotRO is, and that helps alot in immersion, but it also feels like a classic MMO because it was designed (much like the grand-daddys) half as a game and half as a virtual world.

I like fluff alot. I liked being in a city that felt like a city, having several buildings that were there just because they were there. I liked how a forest felt deep, dark, and expansive and wasn’t just a carefully designed series of trials. What I’m trying to say is sometimes I like a game to be just a game, but for “my MMO”, my escape world of fantasy and roleplaying, I need more than just a series of quests and spreadsheets. I want to be able to close my eyes and imagine myself being there just as easily as moving my avatar and actually doing the things I’m dreaming in the world around me.

World of Warcraft seems like it wanted to be like this in the beginning and Blizzard puts plenty of effort into lore, but when the day comes to a close Warcraft just feels like a game. A long game where you do things just to get more points to get more gear to get more points. Roleplayers have recieved practically no carrots from Blizzard, the only official fluff being the occasional cosmetic item. It took the mod community to even bring us character descriptions. Housing has been promised and promised and not delivered and even something as middle-of-the-line as new dance emotes was promised in print *on the box* and still has yet to see the light of day almost a year after it’s purported launch.

Without being too dramatic I would like to say I’m completely done with WoW, but I can’t. I can’t because I just couldn’t get some of my favorite RL people to pick up the game *I* want to play, Lord of the Rings Online. I understand their position because LotRO, good as it is, is a pretty niche setting. I know for a fact that my husband really loathes Tolkien (for some reason) and prefers to play more fantastic races in his online games. I’m right there with him on the races, though. I loved being a Tauren, and the hints of playable Worgen in the upcoming Xpac are a bit delicious, but playing a dwarf has been shockingly satisfying.

For now I will keep my enjoyment of WoW right where it is. Endgame bores/frustrates me anyway so levelling a new character with my husband is actually pretty fun. What I’m really craving nowadays, however, is LotRO with a side-dish of Guild Wars.

Warcraft keeps improving every day, though. There may come a day when player housing, bios, families, and more get integrated into Blizzard’s big MMO… Stuff that is demanded constantly by more than just myself. If those things came, I could see myself coming back to Azeroth in a more serious capacity. Blizzard has shown consistently, however, that they know their demographic… And that demo is not me.

LotRO and GW feels, right now, like the perfect storm. Something any gamer who has fought with the (honestly ridiculous) conflicts between percieved virtual responsiblity, fond nostalgia, and honest-to-goodness fun likely understands. I know one of my favorite writers, Jerry Holkins, has mused on this very topic many times so at least I’m not crazy.

Maybe crazy… Just not alone.

In an attempt to replace my rather worn armor, I am beginning to gather iron ore and new bindings. With my leather stores completely tapped I had to make a large investment into trade. Hopefully some of my goods will sell in the next few days to help mitigate the cost. I still require several straps of medium-grade leather in order to properly secure the plates.

This book was given to me earlier this week by an old friend of mine. It seemed a shame to put it to waste so I will devote some of it’s pages to recording my daily goings on.

This morning I awoke and dedicated the day to collecting ore. Ever since the incident with Skorgrim and the Dourhands everything that was not frozen, carved, or chained has been cast to the winds. Many of us that might have had valuables and homes now find ourselves without. With so many in need and a strange uptake in travelers from the east, we are finding that what once was taken for granted is now strictly rationed.

While there is well enough lodging to be found amongst the generosity of friends, I long to once again have a home to call my own deep within the western peaks. To that end I have been enrolled in the armorsmithing classes being given at The Hall’s forge. I figure with all the tension and encroaching brigands, man and dwarf alike, there are those who would pay good coin for a thick dwarven breastplate. Good coin is what I need, too, to earn a place to stay.

After a long and frustrating morning finding but the most meager of veins, I was able to pass my apprentice class. In the coming days I shall be riding closer to Bree in search of iron. I have some tasks there I was asked to complete anyway.

Until then.

Just a quick note… I got home from work around 1am, hopped onto the computer and booted up LotRO. I decided I needed to work on catching my armor crafting up to my prospecting so I started mining and hunting and selling and refining and mining some more.

I then started to feel sleepy…

And it was 5am.

I need to get to bed.

Also, as an aside to dear Aerhinn, without going into much detail I seem to have lost Wilona… But I am going to be “resurrecting” her soon and hope that you and she can meet again when the time comes.

I honestly am surprising myself lately. I have very much been enjoying the dwarf experience in spite of all of my usual leanings in regards to characterization and roleplaying. Perhaps it is more due to the fact that I had forgotten how great Tolkien’s dwarves were in comparison to their image in recent popular fantasy. I’m really not sure what it is but I just feel so at home with my dwarf.

Today I hit 16 and decided to take a stroll down to the Thorin’s Hall homesteads. I am well away from being able to afford a house but thought it would be neat to get a preview. In the past I had explored the homesteads of elves, hobbits, and men (with hobbit homesteads being my favorite by far) but the subterranean dwarven homes really make me feel… Cozy.

Now I can understand that many would enter the homesteads and be unimpressed by the persistently dark sky, the heavy haze, and the dim lamplight casting a mild glow throughout, but I love it. I honestly cannot wait for that gold piece to make it into my coffers so I can pass it straight on to the housing broker and get my little corner deep within the mountains of Ered Luin.

This man is crazy! He prefers the cold dampness of Thorin’s Hall to the rolling, verdant hills of the Shire? Well, yeah I do. I still love the green hills, don’t get me wrong, but something about me craves so much to burrow deeper.

This is so powerfully the primary reason I returned to play LotRO. There have been alot of positive comments regarding the Mines of Moria expansion, some even daring to call it the greatest MMO expansion ever. Having never seen the endgame in LotRO it inspired me to push on so I could see this reportedly awesome content. The Moria zones seemed to resonate so deeply with my dark cave fetish.

Even though I never thought I’d roleplay as a dwarf, it turns out that once I took the plunge everything clicked. I am a tunnel rat and virtual worlds are my home. If you have a mountain, mip-mapped and anti-aliased as it might be, I powerfully want to dig into it and make my home in a hole deep within.

Keep the beauty of Lorien. I’m happy in my hole, thanks.

I dropped out of LotRO very shortly after my last re-sub. It was a very abrupt period and it was not entirely to my design. It was primarily because a few days after my most recent post I was hired by Disney. It was a big/pleasant surprise and it really threw me out of the loop. While I was fighting with my erratic and consuming schedule I picked up some things and dropped others and my free time became a fickle maelstrom of this and that.

Amongst all this my S.O. was wanting to play more WoW with me. While I haven’t exactly been warm to playing it on my own volition I have no problem enjoying it with friends and family. There was just one problem, however… I upgraded to a new model of iPhone and when my software was transferred it reset my Blizzard Authenticator. With the software locked into a new serial number the authentication codes would not sync with my account. I could not play nor could I even log into my account to change anything.

This week marks week 4 (or even 5 perhaps) of trying to resolve the situation with Blizzard and failing. It’s not for lack of trying however. I now understand why Blizzard Customer Service got such a low rating with the BBB. I could not call whenever I tried. I did not even get the luxury of being on hold. When the lines were busy, you got a busy signal. Hang up and try again.

WTF.

So I communicated via email. Every email has taken at *least* a week to recieve a reply. A WEEK. I know you guys are a busy/big company but COME ON. And I can’t even check on the status of my problem without sending another email and waiting another week.

It has been ridiculous. I’m pretty much done with WoW for a while for certain now. I don’t even know if I have the patience with the company any more to even play with my friends. It has been an utterly ridiculous scenario on par with my adventure to get cable internet (but that is another story for another day).

So after re-sampling a bunch of other MMOGs I come once again to my trusted fallback: LotRO. My problem with LotRO recently has been getting comfortable with a class. I started out with a hobbit huntress which was pretty fun, but it didn’t feel quite right. I moved onto a man captain which was different, and enjoyable, but after a while it just didn’t feel right either.

Third time’s the charm right? I decided to try something a bit off the page from my usual characters. One of my favorite fantasy races ever is the Ratonga from Everquest 2. There’s just something about the subterranean subterfuge that I like. Likewise, I find the Skaven of Warhammer just as kewl. It then occurred to me that I quite like the subterranean lifestyle in my fantasy livings. LotRO has dwarves, then… But I’ve never really been a fan of dwarves. I’ll give it a shot, though.

So far it has been really neato. I’ve really enjoyed the opening quests and felt more attuned to what’s going on than the other races I’ve played. I also rolled my dwarf as a guardian, changing up my normal playstyle further by picking a tanking class.

It helps quite a bit that Tolkien dwarves aren’t Warcraft dwarves. They’re nowhere near as base and full of excess. It feels like I can play a real heroic figure who is brave and stoic, polite and wise, but still have some shaping background elements that I need not wear on my sleeve.

So why I am I coming full circle anyway? Well, this falls into the category of mid-August heat induced crazy rambling (i.e. this post seemed like a good idea when I started). When I had to pick a my.lotro.com username it had to be different than my game login. So I thought on my back catalog of monikers that I could draw from and I picked one of my oldest avatars: A lion called Luminous. He was intended to be similar to a paladin and bold defender.  A protective knight with a roar that parted the clouds and assaulted his enemies with the bright, pure sun. Yeah, I was a teenager… But much like my early shamanic experiences (probably another story, there) it sometimes strikes me as funny for all the times something happens in my life that has had ‘writing on the wall’ all along so to speak.

Perhaps this guardian will be it for me, then. I enjoy the lore and the setting so far, and am eager to finally take up the mantle of a tank for the first time in 10+ years of MMO gaming.

As I so often say, this post is getting long and I’m losing my focus… So before this becomes completely unreadable I shall terminate communications and say “See you next time.”

So… See you next time.

I feel bad continually going back and comparing LotRO to my most recent MMO separation but I feel like I need to write something in my blog and this came to mind.

It feels so nice to be in a world unexplored with new quests to do. That is certain. An admission I feel I must make, however, is along the mantra of every older gamer: “Graphics don’t make the game.” I still firmly believe in this, be assured… Sometimes, though, graphics help alot.

As has been remarked on many sites like Massively.com, DX10 a-looka pretty nice. That was certainly one of the first things I noticed when I installed LotRO on my brand new machine earlier this year. The details brought on by DX10 were really stunning. With these little touches, the ambient sounds, and the general setting penned by Tolkien, LotRO is equally fun to play and fun to explore. As a result I have been feeling no pressure to level and no pressure to reach end-game content. I just log in, see what quests I have, pick one and go. Sure, it could be another kill X guys or grab X drops but it will be a scenic journey along the way.

Graphics indeed don’t make the game, but if handled well they can really make the environment. And environment in an MMO is one of the most important aspects for me.

I am freshly returned to LOTRO. I first delved into the very popular, award-winning MMO when I had recieved a brand new computer and was falling out of love with my then main MMOG, World of Warcraft.

I know it is easy to fall onto the bandwagon for WoW with its smooth and stylish graphics, quick gameplay, and it’s myriad of really nice little touches. It is a very, very polished game that, with the recent addition of Achievements, has provided near endless gameplay for those willing to invest time.

I just have become quite restless with it (again) lately. I still very much like it and I still have interest in what is to come, but I have become very unhappy with the direction the developers feel the game needs to go.

Without forming a dense critique of Warcraft what I have to say is this:
I have played WoW for four years now. The game has improved vastly over those years but I am still waiting for basic QOL features that every other blessed MMO has… Even the free ones! Player housing? No. Custom clothing/appearance slots? No. Any sort of player created content? Not without mods. I find this behavior so strange since Warcraft’s lore is so deliberately crafted and considered, yet they completely ignore an RP community that the majority of the population shuns and/or thinks is a myth.

And its not just the snubbing of the RP community. It’s the painful and constant ‘class rebalancing’ caused by their investment in PvP. Sure, LOTRO has PvP too but it’s carefully crafted as hero classes versus monster classes (which are not played in PvE content). WoW feels like it has “balanced” itself into a corner and I see so many players furious because their class is getting messed up to appease the hardcore pvp demo (a frighteningly huge chunk of the population.) When Rogues are supposed to be the pinnacle of melee dps, are then found to be doing ‘too much’ damage in PvP, and are subsequently nerfed and forced below hybrid classes on raid damage meters… Things have gone wrong.

It’s not just rogues that are (or have been) suffering, either. Mages and Paladins have been toyed with quite a bit, with the latter yo-yoing back and forth between doing too much damage in pvp, and then not enough to effectively tank, and back again.

Thank heavens for Creeps vs. Freeps.

Anyway, with the rant over…

My biggest problem is that I feel emotionally chained to WoW. I have, indeed, put alot of time into my character. I have an attachment to her and her history. I have done so much with her and put alot of time into long-term tasks that I have yet to complete. I’m just not having alot of fun these days. WoW has become a cycle of logging in to do the same dailies I did last week (and the week before that and the week before that…) and then working on doing old, lower level quests to work towards a particular long-term achievement in order to earn a title. I’m not raiding because I’m not finding enough time (and I’m starting a new, huge job so…) and I’ve done pretty much all of the currently available content.

I’m still interested in what is yet to come, but I feel… Well… Addicted, for lack of a better term. I don’t see any really good reasons why I want to continue playing, but I feel compelled.

LOTRO, I’m hoping, will be my detox. I started it, as I mentioned, some months ago and then left to play more WoW. I really, really liked LOTRO and now I’m getting back into it. I can’t promise anything regarding leaving it again for WoW… But I really want to play one or the other and part of me wishes I could break away from Warcraft for at least a large period of time to truly enjoy the full flavor of LOTRO.

It does feel quite good. It is coming at a turning point in my life where I am (finally) getting a completely new and better job that will change my life considerably. A new schedule with a new(ish) MMO could be just what the doctor ordered.

Perhaps I will even add Runes of Magic to my sidebar of PC gaming. That, too is a game I rather enjoyed that has alot of WoW-ish elements to it. Perhaps my ‘WoW Patch’?

…But I digress.

I’m back in Eriador, freshly out of Newbie Land and into late single-digit content. I have a Man Captain whom I’m enjoying both in lore and in gameplay… And he’s a male! I now know I’m becoming a boring adult when I decide to make a same-sex-as-me character in a Tolkien MMO.