Journeys End.

I am sure my millions of readers will be dismayed to learn that this is the final post of this blog. As the diminishing post count shows, my interest in the current crop of MMOs has been trailing off recently. I will probably return to Eve at some point, but nothing else seems capable of holding my interest at the moment. I think I am just utterly bored of the WoW approach, and crave a more sandbox experience. Perhaps Darkfall, who can say? 

So I have decided to start a new, less MMO focused blog. There are enough dull self important MMO bloggers out there anyway, so one less certainly will not be missed. So, thanks you all, and why not come join me at the new place?

*bows*

Settled

After some ridiculous weeks of MMO hoping, I am now happily back in Lord of the Rings online. I have resolved to stop being tempted back to games I have stopped playing for valid reasons. The passage of time makes me forget those reasons, and reading new info about those former loves can be very enthralling and tempt you back, then you return and maybe have fun for a bit, until all the reasons you left become apparent once again, and you leave again, until the next juicy bit of news about a patch, or a tempting expansion appears, and you are drawn under once again. And of course when I say you, I mean me. It is like MMO quicksand, and I want out. The amount of money I must have wasted on reactivating an account, paying for a month but only playing for one or two evenings does not bear thinking about. So my new plan is to write down a series of "Reasons I will not re-subscribe to..." articles about all the MMOs which are stacking up on my shelves. Won't that be fun for us all? Hmmm?

Nomadic

Still moving from game to game depending on my mood. The cracks are really starting to show in Warhammer, I am just not sure there is enough there to keep me interested. I enjoy getting lost in virtual worlds, and I am not feeling this at all there sadly. I wonder if a decent guild would change my feelings for the game, but so far I have had no luck on that front. I have had some great RvR there in the last few days, but I just do not think that will be enough to keep me playing.

Difused

The overwhelming power that an MMO can have on my gaming time is still a curious thing to me. World of Warcraft was the first MMO that did this to me. I had played a fair amount of MMOs prior to WoW, but it was the first that totally sucked me in and took over my gaming life. (as a brief aside, I just joined a kinship in Lord of the Rings online, at this precise moment. Wonder where THAT is going to end up?). Lately I have not really had a main MMO to get my teeth into. I had hoped that would be Warhammer, but the joy really seems to be draining from that game to me. Still not given up, but it is certainly on the back burner. I am trying to stay away from World of Warcraft. There is so much that annoys me there now, though it is also extremely comforting and familiar, I fear it muchly. My brief time there last week felt like falling off the wagon, and I am glad to be free again. Lord of The Rings online is keeping me pleasantly occupied, but I feel I am dabbling in it, not sure if I have put down any roots as such.

So it has been very refreshing to be playing other games, and not be totally obsessed with one. I am still enjoying Wizardry 8 hugely, it really is everything I want out of a CRPG. I have also been dabbling a bit in Wizardry 7, which I have never got too far in, but I love it dearly, there is a particular mood to the Wizardry games which is unique and which I have a great soft spot for.

Also, I have spent a fair bit playing Fable 2, and so far I can say that it feels like everything I had hoped Fable 1 would be. It is such a rich, believable world, I have been happily exploring and taking it all in, so far so wonderful.

And then tomorrow I shall pick up Fallout 3, really looking forward to some post apocalyptic shenanigans.

There and back again

Things continue to be hit and miss in Warhammer Online. I am progressing very slowly, and the game is feeling very restricted to me. Less of an online world, and more of a series of empty battlefields. I really ought to try to find a nice guild there, I am sure that would help.

My rekindled interest in World of Warcraft had fizzled away, which I am rather relieved about. I actually cancelled my Lich King order today, I wonder if I can stay away.

As for Eve, seems I have run out of steam there too. I am putting it on hold, but I shall certainly be back.

This has all led me back to Lord of the Rings Online once more, which I am enjoying. New start(yet again), new character, lots of fun. Can I make it beyond the level 20 slump? Hopefully. Will I reach level 50 before the expansion? No way. But at least having 2 new classes should mean there will be a flow of players through the low level content, so I might benefit, assuming I am still going. I am sort of coming to terms with being an MMO bee at the moment, flitting from game to game. I guess I am looking for something which is not there at the moment, sadly, and I think Lord of the Rings Online is the nearest thing to it. (actually, I suspect that EQ2 or Vanguard are nearer, but I am not sure how healthy a community I can find there).

So for now, mostly LotrO, and a little bit of WAR when I am feeling extremely patient and forgiving. I subbed for 3 months to WAR, and I hope that something happens in that time to inspire me to carry on.

In other gaming news, been playing some Wizardry 8, a great classic ending to a very fine RPG series. Tomorrow Fable 2 should arrive. I had massive hopes for the first Fable, but found it very linear and lacking the depth I had been hoping for. I have less grand expectations for the sequel, and I have been actually avoiding any previews. This is pretty much my new policy regarding games, I try to grab enough info to get a feel for whether it is something I will be into, then avoid the endless details given in previews. I was reaching a point where it felt like I had already played games I was playing, as they had been written about so much. So I am hoping to be pleasantly surprised by Fable 2.

Then Fallout 3 at the end of the week. Again, avoiding any previews, I am very excited about this. Despite their flaws, I am a huge Elder Scrolls fan, I actually finished Arena and Daggerfall, really ought to do the same with Morrowind and Oblivion. I am also a huge Fallout fan (though thankfully not the scary sort), and I am confident that Bethesda can make a compelling and ambitious RPG in that particular universe. 

Abandonment issues

Things are feeling very sparse on my WAR server at the moment. The zones feel very empty, there are generally no open parties and Public Quests have nobody there to fulfill them. My memories of open beta and the first week of play contain the joy of moving from one crowded public quest to the next, or for variety heading up to the open rvr area in Nordland and fighting for hours. In between this I was doing a bit of questing, and a few scenarios. Now it seems that all the options I have are the later two, and as I am just into tier 3 and pretty much useless in scenarios, all I can do is quest alone in empty zone, looking longingly at the public quest and captured keep markers on my map and wish there were other players about to tackle them with. Progress if you are just questing is very slow. I hope the situation improves. I really like the game, but it really only works if you have other players around.

Caught in the grasp of icy fingers

I was convinced I was through with World of Warcraft. Any info I saw concerning the upcoming expansion seemed either boring or ridiculous. So why on earth did I download the new content patch, re-activate my account and log in last night? I wish I knew, I just suddenly had to have it. And now I feel like an addict who has fallen off the wagon. No idea how long it will last, but I have now ordered Wrath of the bloody Lich King, which I never thought would happen. 

Maybe it is a passing madness, and I will snap out of it in time to cancel the order, but at the moment, damn it I am really enjoying the game. So that means I am currently subscribing to WoW, Eve and WAR. Hmm. I can happily justify 2 MMOs, but 3? Trouble is, I am enjoying them all, for different reasons. I wonder where it will all end up.

Blown up!

So, much sooner into my new Eve career than I expected, I had my chunky old Vexor destroyed by a filthy pirate scumbag in an asteroid field. This was my first taste of Eve pvp, and I was feeling slightly dazed by the whole experience, mostly because it never occurred to me that I was in the sort of space that these things happen. A mighty slap to the face. I was in the final stages of a very heated battle with an npc pirate leader, out in a remote part of 0.4 security space, when suddenly a very large looking player ship arrived, flashing red. Soon I was targeted and watching my shields go down at an alarming rate, and of course the were jamming my warp drives. (Is there any way of escaping from this?) I tried to run away, but the Vexor is such a clunker, I didn't really have a chance. Also factor in the general sense of panic and "What do I do? What do I do?" Turns out what I can do is watch my beloved ship (named Fat Duck) blow up. I zoomed away in my pod, docked at the nearest station and sighed. So that's what it feels like, I suppose. I am not sure of the etiquette involved in these situations. I checked my combat log, found the name of the player and added them to my 'friends' list, in a special new folder I made entitled Grudges. Perhaps one day I shall have my revenge, who knows.

So now I am flying around in my smaller faster ship, salvaging wrecks and killing a few npcs in asteroid belts. I have enough money to replace Fat Duck (Fat Duck II), but I am not sure how I feel about another Vexor. Maybe it will be a good mission running ship, but I really feel that speed is important, particularly after my pirate run in. I shall spend some time harvesting wrecks and looking into my options.

For some reason it seems that Eve has really clicked with me this time round. Could be that I am being more patient, perhaps. Mostly I think I am dealing with the vast amounts of information in a much more manageable way. Rather than thinking there is a right way and a wrong way to go about things, a 'best ship to have', 'best way to make cash' etc, I am just experimenting with different equipment and ships and having a great time doing so. There is something very immersive about Eve, probably due to its extreme depth and freedom. I am also finding it very easy to dip into for a quick hour. 

Currently I have a small, fast ship with a reinforced hull, and a big slow cruiser loaded with drones and rails guns. When I learned how much slower the big ship was, drones and the longer range of the rail gun seemed like and obvious choice, and indeed I now chew through pirate gangs with a frightening swiftness. It can still take a while to approach their wrecks for looting and salvage. I shall look into the concept of tractor beams, I wonder if they work on wrecks? 

I am mostly doing a mixture of missions and salvage at the moment, like I say, still finding my feet. My aim is to save up for a decent ship to go exploring the dangers of lower security space, and when I say decent, I mean expendable. I still haven't even got insurance on my big cruiser, so maybe that should be my immediate short term goal... It seems to me is that there is a huge amount of options for configuring a ship in Eve, but a limited focus for those options. So there is always a trade off; strong ships can be slow and clunky, fast ships can be weak, more cpu or better shields? More cargo space, or stronger hull? That is before you even get into weapon types, ammo types and the seemingly endless amount of electrical systems (tracking disruptor, stasis whatnot, sensor thingamajig) of which I have a massive pile acquired from various pirates. Oh, and of course rigs and implants, which I have not even begun to think about.  

So I am enjoying this learning process, taking my time and gradually stretching my legs. Maybe one day I shall start looking for a corp to join, but at the moment I am enjoying the life a freelance salvager. I feel I would like to get a lot more experience under my belt before I consider anything more than that.

Also played a fair bit of Warhammer Online over the weekend. My rune priest has moved into tier three and bought a mount, which I hate by the way - give us dwarfs some ponies or rams or something, not that noisy awkward machine. I must admit I was suffering a bit of Warhammer malaise. I am loving the game, but the server has felt a bit empty over the weekend, and it really is an MMO that needs there to be people around. I worry that the traffic through the lower tiers will dry up, leaving them empty. We'll see. It certainly feels like I am traveling in one particular direction towards end game, rather than exploring a world, and I do miss that feeling. And I was actually considering but Wrath of the Lich King, which is a crazy prospect. I just need to keep reminding myself: "Think of the thousands of bunny hopping death knights"

Space is deep and space is endless

It's only been a day, but so far the Eve / Warhammer experiment is going well. Yesterday I spent a couple of hours in Warhammer Online, doing some scenarios with my engineer and ploughing through a few quests with my rune priest. I also spent an hour or so in Eve, getting used to the interface and controls again mostly, but also transferring money and goods from an older character I have there to a new one. I decided to start fresh, rather than try to pick up where I left off, so it is nice to have a bit of a head start. I even have a fancy looking ship, which I should be able to fly in ooooh, about 30 hours time. There is a curious passive nature to Eve gameplay at times. There is of course the skill training system, in which skills train in real time, whether you are logged in or not. But extended travel through the galaxy, big mining sessions or similar activities make it a game which it is quite easy to play while you are doing something else. And I sort of love that about it.

Eve is my alt

Even though my gaming time is limited, and 90% of it is spent in Warhammer Online (Last night: Reclaimed several tier 2 keeps, a few PQs, and a few quests) I decided for some reason that I am going to start playing Eve Online as well. Eve was the first MMO that I ever played from launch day, and back at the beginning I stuck with it for about a month before feeling a bit bored with it and leaving. I have been back a few times over the years, but eventually the seemingly endless complexity eventually overwhelms me and I go back to the simple pleasures of killing boars over and over again. You know where you are with boars.

But the trouble is I remain fascinated with the notion of Eve. The sandbox nature of it's world is very appealing. I love the completely player driven economy. I love that it is all on a single server. The open-pvp-but-with-consequences system creates a brilliant atmosphere; as you venture out into lower security space seeking better asteroid fields, any ship you pass is viewed cautiously, as a potential threat. The fact that you can actually loose your ship that you have worked hard to buy gives the concept of conflict real weight.

The biggest problem I have with the game is that I lack a sense of my own character. In Eve, you are represented by a static portrait you create, and ultimately your ships are your characters. It can be a bit hard to relate to a spaceship, after a while. Also, because it is all in space, there is no tangible world to explore, and I miss that. If anybody makes an MMO with the same open ended nature of Eve, but where I get to have a character and explore a world, that would be lovely thanks. Maybe the Whitewolf MMO that CCP are making? I had hoped to find this sort of world in Age of Conan, but I was very wrong.

So why go back to Eve yet again? Several reasons. This time I am going to take it slow, and learn as I go along, rather than panic that I need to know everything right from the start. Also, it is a great change of pace to Warhammer, and I think that playing the two with give me some good gaming options depending on my mood. Then there is the matter of the 'walking around in stations' upgrade which is coming soon, and which I am hoping will not only give me more of a sense of my own character, but also give the universe a more tangible feeling. Let's see how I get on shall we?

Lay of the Land

I think a special mention should go to the landscape design in Warhammer Online. It seems that the designers were thinking vertically as well as horizontally, and I never feel like I am adventuring across a flat plain. There are many hills, mountains and ridges to climb, as well as clumps of rocks and boulders. Fall damage is very unforgiving, and consequently it really helps to be aware of your surrounds. These features also provide plenty of nooks to hide behind and plan ambushes, or to try to heal up after running away (not that we ever run away, right?) As an engineer, I am finding much enjoyment from choosing a suitable spot to set up my turret, and choosing a place with good height and hopefully a little rock for me to pop behind if I start getting attacked at range. If I can position myself near a big drop, even better, as there is nothing finer than using my knockback on a big burly orc that has clambered up to my sniping spot.

Yore

In between the endless playing of Warhammer Online, I have also been enjoying a few games from the past, thanks to being a beta tester for Good Old Games, a great site which sells downloadable DRM free versions of classic PC games which run in XP (probably Vista too, though I am still avoiding Vista). I downloaded Die by The Sword and Stonekeep, both games I can remember playing when they first came out. 

Die by the sword is a third person dungeon exploration and combat game, and its key feature is its mouse driven sword combat, in which the movements of the mouse translate directly to the movement of your sword. It is very tricky, and takes a great deal of getting used to, but the sense of freedom of sword movement and control is thrilling once you get the knack. With some refinement, it could be a really great combat system, and I am surprised nobody ever attempted anything similar. (unless they did and I missed it)

Stonekeep was a big budget, years in the making dungeon crawler rpg published by interplay. It plays a lot like the classic Dungeon Master; you explore, solve puzzles and fight monsters. It is also very good fun, atmospheric and extremely tough. Special mention to the sound design, it is effective and a great deal of tension comes from hearing the sound of a monster close by.

Both remind me of a time when games were a lot less forgiving, and the player was left with much to figure out for themselves.

AFK

Been very busy lately, and also been playing a major amount of Warhammer Online. Feeling very positive about the game, there always so much to do, and it never feels like a chore. My biggest problem is deciding which character to play. I seem to have narrowed the list down to three. I was hoping for a main and occasional alt situation, but three? Hmmm...

Initial Warhammer impressions

On Tuesday morning I managed to get my open beta code registered, patch up my client and log in to Warhammer Online. I have spent most of my free time between now and then playing, and indeed I am sitting here wondering if I should have a quick log in before work, which is a good sign, if slightly worrying. I feel I am in something of a honeymoon period with the game, so at this point my opinion is slightly biased by the excitement of having a new MMO to play (though I have been in many open betas where I realised within a few hours that the games were not for me.)

Anyway, so far, I love it. It really feels like Warhammer to me, which was my biggest concern. The atmosphere in the two zones I have been in (Nordland and Ekrund) feels spot on. Questing is the usual MMO fare ("go there, kills these/bring me these/talk to so-and-so") but it feels much more focused on the never-ending war, rather than arbitrarily killing boars, so there is a nice logic to it. You really feel like a foot soldier, and possible hero in the making, rather than a traveling odd job person.

Much has been written about the Public Quest system, and it certainly is a great feature. To be suddenly part of a large scale conflict when you were just running about on your own is very thrilling, and the way influence and contribution in the quest work towards you earning lovely loot just seems to function so well. I found myself repeating public quests many time, on the one hand trying to get the loot, but also because it was just so much fun, and again, I really felt like I was part of a little dwarf squad. 

Then there is RvR combat. I never played Dark Age of Camelot, though I have read much about how Mythic were very skilled at devising meaningful, fun pvp. Well, I eventually found myself in the RvR section of Nordland and I was blown away by how much fun it was. I think I spent about 4 hours in a massive battle for territory. Characters seem to be able to take a fair bit of damage in Warhammer Online, so you feel like you have a certain amount of survivability. Even as a relatively squishy Witch Hunter, I always felt able to retreat if things were going badly. This leads to battles where you have a little bit of space to think, and more importantly, you do not run to the battle, fight for 1 minute, get killed and repeat. Instead you skirmish, withdraw, regroup and charge again. One moment your forces are being pushed back, the next you get the upper hand and break your enemies lines. It is exhilarating, and tremendous fun.

The last thing I shall mention, which rather neatly ties the public quests and the RvR together is the open group system. When you get into a public quest or RvR area, you quickly get into the habit of clicking the open group icon and seeing what the nearest one to you is. Almost without fail there would be a large open group there taking part. You click join, and suddenly you are in a group. As somebody with a massive aversion to Pugs, I am surprised at how effective this system is, but it works because it is so inclusive. The more players that join, the better chance you have, and players come and go over the course of the battle. 

Overall, I log on, and within minutes I am having great fun. There are plenty of carrots dangling to tempt you to progress (new skills at every level, influence rewards, PQ rewards, renown rewards, etc), and so far it never feels like a chore to earn those rewards. They just happen in amongst all the fun I am having. I would like to balance out these impressions by talking about some of the negative issues with the game (mostly annoying bugs), but I have about an hour before I need to start work, and I think I shall have a quick run about Nordland instead. I shall write more on the game another time.

Open Beta woes

The Warhammer Online European open beta has not been a smooth experience, to say the least. After much reassurance that things would be fine, the account creation and beta key validation systems just could not handle the load, and even now things are not working correctly.

I have mixed feelings about it all. On the one hand, I can appreciate that this is all part of the stress test, and that hopefully there are things being learnt now which will ensure that the actual launch next week will go smooth. On the other hand, I cannot believe the ridiculousness of only putting up the (broken) registration system on the same day as the beta began, claiming that it would of course be fine and then being surprised that is could not cope. I can cope with waiting a few more days to get into the open beta servers (though I am of course feeling very impatient and a bit frustrated with the situation), but I just hope this is not a taster of what to expect in the future. I have heard the horror stories about Europe getting badly treated during the Dark Age of Camelot days, and had hoped that those days were over, but maybe not?

Warhammer Open Beta

So, I managed to get myself an open beta key for Warhammer Online, which pleases me greatly. I shall report my thoughts on the experience here over the course of next week. Looking forward to trying to narrow down my class choices, and of course seeing if I enjoy the game or not.

No LotrO yesterday, instead I played a bit of Baldurs Gate, possibly my favourite game of all time. I am slowly making my way through the entire saga, as I never finished BG2, and never played Throne of Bhaal. I am about a third of the way through the first one, and it seems I am slowly leaning towards a more morally ambiguous party this time around. I chose a cleric for my character, and I am imagining that as I move though the saga, the character will be drawn deeper down the evil pathway. 

Settling in

Had an enjoyable couple of hours in LotrO last night, ending up by running back to town as the sun was setting, handing in the few quests I had just completed and hitting level 25. I am reaching a feeling in the game where I would like to find an active guild of like-minded folks, but there is something holding me back from doing this. In a few weeks, I will be playing Warhammer. I am not planning on giving on up LotrO by any means, but I imagine I will have a break from it, assuming I actually enjoy Warhammer that is. I do not want to spend the time finding a nice community in Lotro, only to vanish as soon as Warhammer comes along, so I am going to delay the search for a while. 

This does leave me feeling a bit unsettled in LotrO though, like I am watching from the sidelines. 

Darkfall Beta

So the elusive Darkfall made a surprise visit this week, with a new trailer of in-game footage and a chance to sign up for beta. For the unaware, Darkfall is an MMO which has been in development for many many years, and is often rumoured to be vapourware. I have mixed feelings about the game. It features an incredibly old school hardcore rule-set, and many features that I find intriguing. Players are free to attack each other anywhere (at the cost of their alignment), all armour and items are lootable from player corpses and a skills based rather than level based character development system to name a few. 

However, there are a few things that I have misgivings about. The game features real time combat, which in my mind just means players will run about flailing wildly at each other, or aim arrows and spells in first person view. I am much more a fan of the auto attack, choosing abilities and spells to use sort of combat. I had issues with the more action combat in DDO, and AoC was worse, as that just felt like a gimped version of auto attack that made me press 3 keys instead of 1, and claimed that this made it visceral. Tedious yes, visceral no. Anyway...

My other big concern for Darkfall is the look of the game. In my mind, the character design and artwork just looks extremely ugly. The new trailer did little to put my mind at rest, as it mostly involved badly animated chunky warriors swinging awkwardly at each other.

Interestingly, the trailer suggested  a 2008 release. That would be a surprise. I am certainly interested in trying the game, and of course I signed up for the beta straight away, I just have my doubts.

Alt soulution

Well, I have decided to just focus on the burglar in LotrO. It is my oldest character there, and I find the play style more satisfying than the minstrel, so I shall stick with it. I have not been spending too much time in Middle Earth this week, mostly due to being very busy with real life. I have a huge pile of group quests to get through, and I might try to plough into them this afternoon.

I have downloaded and installed the Warhammer client in anticipation of open beta, though it looks like I will not actually get to take part. As far as I can tell, the only way to get open beta access is to order the digital version of the game, either through the EA store or Direct2drive, both of which are charging £10 more for the game than most other online retailers. I want a boxed copy, and I do not feel like being charged more money, so I shall miss out. Seems that new MMOs have a strange concept of open beta these days, what with this situation and also Funcom operating a similar pre-order only access, and charging for early access. It is a disturbing trend. I have been in open beta for almost every MMO that has been released in the last 4 years, without being charged or having to even pre-order. Oh well. I should at least get access to the head start on the 15th, so not too much longer.

Alt trouble

Still spending far too much time playing LotrO.

After playing a human burglar up to level 19, I finally succumbed to the temptation of rolling another character - a hobbit minstrel. Then after a few days playing that character, I realized that I prefer hobbits to big folks, so I started playing my year old level 21 hobbit burglar, and I have ditched the human.

I see playing the human as a good training exercise, getting me back up to speed with all my burglar skills, but still...

Now I keep having the problem that half the time when I am playing one hobbit, I am sort of wishing I was playing the other. I have a real problem with alts, it is just too tempting to try out a different set of skills and equipment. Even in single player games like Morrowind, I end up starting several characters, and losing focus on progress. Thank goodness for party based single player games. 

I have already narrowed down my Warhammer character choices to three, which is still alot, but was hard work. Speaking of Warhammer, EU pre-order open beta partners are finally announced tomorrow.

Community

Playing LotrO on and off for the past few days, I have really been struck by how in generally the community feels very good on my server. I did encounter a few annoying players, one spamming the LFF channel, and one spamming me with fellowship invites in the wilds. ( Random group invites are a real annoyance to me. If you cannot be bother to at least send me a tell say "want to team up" first, then I certainly cannot be bothered to group with you. It is disruptive and rude. Grrr!)

It is a funny thing that your initial choice of server, and the resulting quality of community there can influence your experience of the game so strongly. I wonder if I would have stuck with WoW for so long if I had clicked the next server down on the list all those years ago.

I am really enjoying my experiences in LotrO again, though I cannot help but think I will get bored in the early twenties again. It certainly feels like it will keep me going until Warhammer is released. 

I *want* to group

It has been written about elsewhere that there seems to be a growing trend in MMOs that is needs to be easily possible to play solo all the way to the level cap. Personally I find this rather disturbing. A major part of the reason for playing an MMO for me is the potential for interaction with other players, and I mean interaction beyond just having a guild chat window open while I play. 

I remember in my first day playing World of Warcraft, I had been soloing along in the starter night elf area, learning about the mechanics of the game and how my small set of skills worked, and eventually I found myself around level 8 at the entrance to a dangerous looking Barrow Den. Fortunately three other players showed up, and after a brief chat we decided to join forces. This was my first ever group in WoW, and it was amazing. Suddenly seeing how different classes worked together, getting into much bigger battles than I had ever seen before, sharing jokes and helping each other out ( remember, this was the early days long before a pug became a thing to dread). From that point on, I actively sought out groups for dangerous quests, and it is how I made a good bunch of friends and found a great guild.

These days, WoW seems to be trying to eliminate this sort of behavior, as Blizzard is mainly concerned with getting a new player to Outland as fast as possible. The speedier leveling means you can easily ignore the harder quests you are given. I remember Uldaman quests sitting in my logbook for weeks, now the would be gray in a few days as I level beyond them. The changing of many world monsters to non-elite also adds to this, and seems completely pointless to me. Killing the ogres in Loch Modan was not only an excellent way of teaming up and meeting people, it was great practice for what to expect in instances, and always felt like a rite of passage with a new character. Now you can solo it.

Sorry, I am not intending this to be a rant about WoW. I like being about to play my character without having to group all the time too. I like for there to be plenty I can do alone. But I do believe that at certain stages you should need to interact with the other players in the world, and there should be plenty of incentive to do this (and not just instanced dungeons). From what I can tell, Warhammer seems to encourage grouping with things like public quests and the open party system, and that makes me hopeful. 

Hi, I'm new here.

Following on from my previous (and only) post, I have been thinking a little about the concept of what it is like making a fresh start in an MMO that has been plodding along for many years. I have been present at the start of a fair few online worlds, specifically Eve, World of Warcraft, LotrO and Age of Conan. I love the first few weeks, where everyone is gradually learning their way around and communities are forming. It seems to me that people are just more open in these stages, and my friends list always grows rapidly in this period. 

After a while, it seems that people are already involved in their own communities and focused on their activities, and there is much less stopping to socialize with strangers, and a lot more running about concerned with your own list of errands. For some reason, Age of Conan was like this right from the start, bypassing the first stage. I blame their ridiculous zone instancing, which is good because is fragments the population of zone and minimizes lag, but very bad because it fragments the population of zones and minimizes the amount and variety of other players to interact with. It is certainly one of the top three reasons that I left that game, but that is a subject for another post, or maybe not.

Anyway, I started characters in two old MMOs this week, the venerable Final Fantasy XI which is nearly six years old, and Lord of the Rings Online, which has been going for about a year and a half. Well, FF XI is hard work! The biggest issue for me is finding my way around the cities. In the times I played before I always started in Windurst, so for a change I started in  San d'Oria this time. Instantly I remembered how long it took me too learn where everything is in Windurst, and the prospect of doing that all again does not appeal. I shall probably just re-roll in the leafy Windurst for the sake of my time and sanity.

Ultimately, I know the game is just too far along for me to consider joining properly. This is an MMO where after about level 10, grouping is pretty much a necessity, and the general lack of low level population means it will really be a struggle to get anywhere. The general user-unfriendliness of the interface and controls (it very much feels like no effort was made to taylor it to the PC when it was ported from consoles) doesn't help either. All in all, it just feels too much like hard work.

On to LotrO. As I said above, I was there for the launch of this one, and had a very enjoyable few months adventuring in the Shire and beyond. Eventually a few of my good friends left the game, and the more time I had to spend in Bree and it's surroundings the more generic and bland this part of Middle Earth felt to me, and so I drifted back to Warcraft. I returned to LotrO at the start of this year, just playing with a friend, and had a great time, but again drifted away once I got into the early twenties. So, third time lucky, I wonder?

It has been a promising start. When I played before, it was on an old PC that could just about run the game with low to medium settings. My current PC can run everything at full, and it looks great. It never felt very smooth before, now everything flows along nicely. I started a human burglar. I already have a level 21 hobbit burglar, but I wanted a fresh start, and I thought that maybe if I start in the human lands, I may get used to them and not find them as generic as I did before. 

I would like to see what is beyond Breeland, as I did think there was some great design in other parts of the world, so hopefully Breeland is just a brief dip in quality. That is the current theory I shall delude myself with. I do not feel that enthusiastic about the Moria expansion, I must say. I would have been much happier with something like Mirkwood, or Rohan. Moria just feels too small in my mind. Regardless, I am feeling that LotrO will certainly keep me interested until Warhammer comes along next month.

Level 1

Currently my gaming habits are in a curious limbo. My on again/off again relationship with World of Warcraft is in a 'let's have some time apart' phase. I cannot imagine getting sucked back in, but I have felt that way in the past and somehow ended up completely hooked again, so who knows?

Mainly I am patiently awaiting Warhammer Online. Hopefully the NDA will drop this week and the internet will be filled with interesting info. I will be playing the game in about a month (hopefully earlier, depending on the open beta / head start situation ), and I am thinking of a stand in MMO to play while I wait. 

I have been toying with the idea of heading back to Everquest 2. I spent a month or so exploring Norath as part of Sony's cunning Living Legacy promotion, and the is much that appeals to me in the game. The main problem is a common one when investigating MMOs that have been around for a while - I just feel like I am too late to the party. It is hard to find you feet in a world where pretty much all the other players are deeply involved in the higher end content, or are alts who know the game inside and out. I am still tempted by the idea though.

The other game that had been tempting me for some reason is Final Fantasy XI. I have played FF XI for about 3 months on and off over the last 3 years, and I know it is a big grind, and I know that the low level zones can feel very empty (or at least they did on my server), but still I am getting this terrible urge to log in, to the extent that I am currently patching the damn thing on my PC.