Pieces of my mind

It’s been a while since I’ve posted so for that I apologize. Been pretty hectic at work and basically coming home meant crashing or playing LotRO instead of writing. So here’s something a I wrote a little while ago.


Complete at Fifty?
A couple of weeks ago in LotRO, I wrapped up my level forty-five class quest by handing in a crap-ton of materials to my quest contact. As a result I got the epic Burglar trait called “Stick and Move” which grants me access to my critical skill chains not only when I crit but also when I evade an attack. Basically, that all spells more dps since I evade quite a lot.

With my traits set near max for my level and my final Burglar legendary trait slotted, I’ve been feeling more and more like that character is “done.” My concern is basically what happened to me in WoW when I completed getting most of an armor set or maxed in some way: will I continue to play this character past the point of completion?

In WoW when the cap was sixty, I got my warrior to the cap and basically stopped playing him. Raiding didn’t appeal to me at the time, so level sixty equaled done in my book. Besides raiding, there was PvP, which I did for a while, but WoW PvP isn’t all that interesting to me (besides Alterac Valley … at least in the good old days where it felt like an epic battle). My Paladin met a similar fate, though I did play him longer and did some raiding as well. Once he had a good set of armor and the raiding guild I was in fell apart due to drama, I stopped playing him.

Interestingly enough, I’m not getting the same feeling at max level in LotRO. I’m not sure if it’s the tempo of the game or the sheer volume of areas and quest lines present, but for the time-being I am finding plenty to continue working on. I still have places I like to explore. Even places I’ve been before are so beautifully rendered, it’s more like visiting an art museum again rather than seeing the same old crap. I have a few traits to work on still and a couple of Rift Armor pieces I’d like, but neither one is a concern at this point. I can pretty much crush any even-level mobs without too much hassle.

The Book quests are a constant source of amusement. Though I’ve completed all of them thus far, there’s a big push in my kinship about getting up through Book Eleven in preparation for the upcoming Book Twelve so I’ve been helping different groups of folks with those. We ran book 5.8 the other night which was a lot of fun. Some of the group members had tried before in PUG groups and hadn’t gotten the boss at the end down so it was great seeing their reaction in fellowship chat when he finally keeled over. It’s worth noting too that the Book quests get a lot more interesting and dramatic as you get higher in the chain. I highly recommend them if you haven’t done them.

I’ve also been involved in some interesting and fun things with the kinship besides the standard gaming stuff. We have regular RP events which are fun. A couple of us started a lowbie group in LotRO which plays once-a-week. We’re all Hobbits helping out in Thorin’s Hall where we haven’t quested before. I also put together an all-burglar run in Goblin Town the other night. We snuck around most things, fought when we had to and in the end took down both the Goblin King and the Troll boss along with his handler. The amazing thing is: there were only three of us in the group. Conjunctions, crowd control and debuffs played a huge part in our success. I’m looking forward to putting together another one of these, perhaps in Carn Dum or Ungaruth with more burglars.

Overall, I’m still happy with LotRO and still finding a lot of neat stuff to do in spite of having a “completed” character.


In Other News:
In other news, I’m still in WoW on the weekends playing in a “noob club” there. In spite of the coming weekend being the Superbowl we’ll still be on and smushing things. We play in the morning so if we wrap up around the normal time, I’m sure most of the Superbowl stuff won’t have started yet. I’m not really invested in the game at all. The Steelers and Redskins aren’t in it so I don’t really care who wins. I’m just hoping it’s a good game.

I’m also beginning work on a story of my own. I’ve been reading fantasy books (George RR Martin, Tolkien, JK Rowlings, amongst others) for a while now (like since I was 12). I figured, what the heck, may as well give it a shot. I have written a number of snippets, some of which have merit, but am mostly working on the world-building part for now.