Obsession

I am obsessed with a dark, unforgiving place called EVE Online. This obsession has been brewing for months, likely triggered by intriguing articles at Massively and Rock, Paper, Shotgun. LOTRO has worn on me with its grinding traits and grinding reputation and grinding money to support repair costs in PVMP and upkeep on player housing (storage). I am also a bit sick of pointy ears and tights, swords, dragons, magic gear, and 5 hour dungeon crawling (Thanks, Fornost, Helegrod, Rift, etc!). Munching on elves as a Warg helped with my aggression towards pointy ears for awhile, but PVMP in LOTRO is best served as a wonderfully spicy and entertaining side dish.

I have very mixed feelings about Mines of Moria. I am sure the space will be awe inspiring, and the exploration and PVE storyline excellent. Turbine knows how to make a good game. However, the innovative Legendary weapons and gear that have to be leveled seem awfully grindy to me. In addition, there will be new deeds and traits to be ground, as well as new faction that will have to be ground to access efficient travel options. (I miss Guild Wars, with the easy click and go travel!)

I will definitely check out Moria, and as a lifetime subscriber, I will always look to LOTRO to fulfill my fantasy MMO needs. I am just not sure I can stomach the grind necessary to make my Freep (Oblib Jaggins, Hobbit Burglar on Firefoot) a viable force in raids or a viable Freep in the Ettenmoors, where the PVMP happens. I think this brewing dissatisfaction contributed to my current obsession with EVE Online.

A few captivating articles in my RSS reader led me to check out EVE. The Empyrean Age videos looked amazing and my curiosity was piqued. I had heard of EVE a few times while engaged in other games, but it had mostly been negative commentary: clunky UI, laggy, and terribly unforgiving for Newbs. What I had not seen while engaged in other games was that EVE brought levels of depth, complexity, and massive interaction unrivaled in the field: A single shard sandbox MMO with a player driven economy, fleet warfare, subterfuge, political drama, player owned stations, player alliance controlled territory, and tons of PVP and pew pew pew!

I was hooked.

Massively led me to CrazyKinux and Winterblink. CrazyKinux turned me on to the EVE Blog Pack, which I started to devour like a raging junkie. After months of articles, blogs and observed EVE drama, I know about can-flippers, pirates, POS, low-sec, 0.0, mining, industrialism, ECM, mission running, gate camping, safe spots, corporations, frigates, cruisers, titans, and shuttles (which can be smart bombed to steal valuable industrial blueprints!).

While I will continue to enjoy the EVE blogosphere, I now have a grand plan to check out the actual world of New Eden and eventual leave my mark there. I shall soon engage in the 2 week EVE trial, and then buy the game outright along with a 6 month subscription (to save $) if the trial does not totally turn me off. I will then set my fledgling Gallantean training up on essential skills while I mainly play LOTRO and check out Mines of Moria. I can dip into L1 missions and explore the Newb High sec areas of EVE at my leisure during this time as interest leads me. I just found out an old friend is very into EVE, and his established industrialist has offered to front me some ISK for training to enable this grand plan. I hope to have this started within the next month, so watch out Ravens, Megathrons, and Stabbers! There will soon be a fresh newb flailing in the stars!!!

Musings and Virtual Wanderings

My hope with this blog is to capture thoughts on virtual worlds, gaming, mmos, and other forms of early 21st century entertainment. My experience with MMO's started with playing EQ (Everquest) the day it launched. After initially being blown away by a massive 3d world crawling with human personalities and drama, the shine of this proto-MMO wore off after the initial glamour was tarnished by poor game-play. I found EQ too annoying, and was unable to tolerate corpse runs, waiting for ships to travel, and the other myriad obstacles offered by SOE's first foray into 3d MMO gaming. My time in EQ was limited to several months, but I did discover a love of the potential that these parallel universes had to offer. I know that EQ fixed most of the game mechanics that I couldn't tolerate later as the game developed, but by then I had already moved into new virtual worlds.

My travels then led to Asheron's Call (AC), where I lingered for a time. The "clunky factor" of a new game once again wore me down and I eventually drifted away from MMO's for a time. Asheron's Call 2 (AC2) drew me back, and I enjoyed that game for its brief illustrious time until the server issues drove my guild (and most other players) away. I enjoyed the innovative play style in AC2, especially the Lugian tactician and the vampiric Tumerok tank. The PVE content was fun, and it seemed much more polished to me than EQ or AC had been. I had just reached a high level with my character when the game became unplayable so the complaints that there was not enough content didn't impact my experience in AC2.

Star Wars Galaxies (SWG) offered a brief and severely flawed gaming experience. I loved the amazing character models and customization, but running from alien animals shooting a blaster over my shoulder was just too much to take. The X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter action that should have been in the game was missing along with fun playstyle. Having been treated with AC2's engaging combat, SWG just couldn't represent.

I did find amazing combat in the venerable FPS MMO, Planetside (PS). This game was fun enough to engage me for several years of massive fun. The large scale battles that occasionally happened have been unrivaled to this day for me. Sadly, SOE was not up to the development task with PS and was unable to continue innovating and improving the game. PS stagnated, and I now only rarely dip into the Vanu world every year or so for old time's sake.

I tried World of Warcraft (WOW) and Lineage 2, but found them too rudimentary and "grindy." Spending months to finally get to the interesting "end game" just wasn't engaging for me. I had been spoiled by PS and AC2, which both offered engaging ways for lowbies to enjoy the ride. PS especially made it easy for anyone to contribute to the fight at any level. You just gained access to more options when you had risen in the ranks with experience in PS. Anyone could pop anyone else in the back of the head in Planetside!

This disgust with gear or level being the defining force in determining effectiveness in PVP led me to one of my all-time favorites: Guild Wars (GW). Here was a game that made it easy to cap the character, yet still provided engaging PVE with a great objective based PVP system as well as fun arena battles! GW fulfilled the MMO need (with occasional dips back into PS) through the Factions and Nightfall expansions. However, after working at getting my toons fully developed in GW, I was disappointed when Arena Net announced GW2. I had invested in awesome characters, and now they were killing the game to start again. (We saw how well that seemed to work for EQ2...)

I briefly tried Dungeons and Dragons Online (DDO) and enjoyed the game overall. However, I didn't like how they set up healing in the initial release, and this put me off the game as I often enjoy playing healing classes. DDO has phenomenal dungeon crawling, and I feel it is a highly underrated game. I still dip back into DDO from time to time, and look forward to checking out the recent addition of the Monk class at some point in the future. Turbine seems to be attentive to improving DDO, and they have worked most of the kinks out that the game shipped with.

Around this time, my brother had been beta-testing Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO), and he convinced me to check out LOTRO and pick up a lifetime subscription. I greatly enjoyed the atmosphere and lore of the game, so this seemed like a good fit. While I heard the complaints that LOTRO was a WOW rip-off, I found the players to be more mature and enjoyable on average and dove into Eriador. The bulk of my MMO time over the past 1.5 years has been with LOTRO. I love the Monster PVP (PVMP), and I feel Turbine has done very well with the Player Housing, Crafting, and frequent free expansions they have added to the game. I am excited to check out the Mines of Moria expansion expected this November.

I hope to explore my thoughts on LOTRO, gaming, and MMO's in general as this blog develops. I have been learning about EVE Online over the past 3 months, and look forward to checking out a new world soon. I hope this blog will develop into an interesting travelogue and offer some worthwhile reflections or even insights. At the least, I hope it might be entertaining!