playing LotRO

So, despite all my whinging, I am really enjoying Lord of the Rings Online. I like the music, the atmosphere, the fact that it is, in some small way, related to some of my favourite books ever. I've got a dwarf now on Nimrodel, and he's up to level 5. Everything about the game so far seems like it's a little slower-paced, like you're actually expected to stop and smell the roses. We'll see if that continues.

I had actually been playing Tabula Rasa up to this morning, and finding it quite enjoyable. But I had one too many CtDs and decided to start the new game, since restarting the client isn't very much fun the 3rd time through.

more Grr Argh

So I made it as far as the bit where the game tries to update itself in LotRO, and the process ran out of threads several hundreds of MB into the update. Which seems to have erased all progress made, as I'm back at trying to update 18,000 files. I hope this game is worth it. I honestly considered sending it back, and if I'd bought it from a Brick 'n' Mortar place I would have - tech troubleshooting is my day job, not what I do for fun.

Grrr! Argh!

So I was feeling a little snarky when I was installing Lord of the Rings Online, and it didn't, IMO, have a dramatic enough installation. I know this is silly, and I knew it when I was installing, so I decided I wouldn't say anything about it. Then the installation failed miserably - I think my comp ran out of disk, and the install program didn't notice. So I uninstalled, and this time for whatever reason it couldn't quite figure out permissions in Vista, and I had to suffer through ugly error messages, Turbine's help system, and general Vista blech-ness. I don't know who to blame, honestly - I remember when everyone was having trouble in WoW with the whole 'run as administrator' thing, so it's not unique to Turbine, but it sure as heck killed my 'I have a new game' buzz!

LotRO

Well, the cost of software (plus a month of gaming, I assume) fell below $10 recently, and as such I decided to give Lord of the Rings Online a try. To my understanding, there are at least a few folks I read who are playing (The Ancient Gaming Noob, for example, who says people are really nice and mature in LotRO, which appeals to me more than a little, I have to confess). I'm not sure when I'll kick off playing, as I've just gotten back into Tabula Rasa for the free 'last hurrah' before it dies. I've never played a game to its demise before, so I want to spend as much time as possible doing that before it all goes bye-bye. But I'm installing the game now, so I can get some nice opening cinematic love (and presumably, some serious updates that take a year and a day).

Really? Zork?

Well now here's a concept - Massively pointed me to the website for a new browser based MMO based on the old Zork game. That's been a while. According to the website, Legends of Zork will see players "take up the role of a recently laid-off salesman and part-time loot-gatherer, as he explores the Great Underground Empire." Who knows? Could be cool.

Darkfall Online

Keen has a post up on Darkfall Online, which I found really exciting. I hadn't read much about the game, so when I found that it implemented some of the ideas I had concerning skills that atrophy without constant use, and a non level based system, I was very intrigued. Sadly, reading the backstory on the game makes me think it may pull a (insert pretty much any game that launched last year), and overpromise and underperform. I hit the big Beta Overview posted on The Noob Comic, and the game seems sensible enough, although I very much hope they get some organizations like Eve has to keep the game from being a chaotic free-for-all. Either way, given the claims I've seen that the game would go live this month, I guess I don't have long to wait!

awkward turtle

OK - this is totally random, and unrelated to anything, but while searching for the article I actually want to post about, I ran across this article on massively, concerning Everquest's upcoming book celebrating ten years. Perhaps it's just me, who never ever goes to cons, but that photo seems really awkward.

Holiday Break Complete!

As you may have guessed, we took a big long holiday break, several weeks travelling around the country (by car, no less). I kept on reading the latest gaming news (and even got some gaming in, if Rock Band 2 and various and sundry Wii games count - they were all multi-player, if not massive), so I'll be back at it now that things have settled down.