Break time

So I quit LotRO last week.. I think. It's come to a point where I log in just to fight the urge of deleting each toon, which I just can't do since a few are my precious RP playthings and every other is a valuable Supreme Master&Kindred crafter. I had the same feeling in 2008 when I quit GW (which I also had played passionately for many years) - there's just nothing in the game to do, and the things I'm still missing are either easy to grind in a couple days (which I could do any day, meaning I'll never do it), or locked behind such a massive endless luck-based grindfest* that I'm not even going to consider going through it.

* like, grinding SG half a dozen times each day for a chance at a Symbol, yay!

Maybe I'm just spread too thin - I have 8 characters at lv60+ (and I've done the lv35 horse quest maybe 10 times), because I like playing all possible roles. I guess my problem is that I just don't prefer one specific class over the others (and it's not that I "like" them all, it's gone to a point where I'm disliking one just a little less than the others), and the current game mechanics are very much trying to force you to focus on one. It's the whole awful and unrewarding LI system combined with Radiance gating that means that if I ever want to do anything interesting with my new characters I'd have to grind a massive amount just so they'd be able to join the ride. I'm sick of the Legendary Items and how the entire endgame** just revolves around them - I don't want to spend all my game time working towards a lottery that only gives me disappointment nine times out of ten.

** there is no endgame, there is only SG

I like leveling alts, but my character slots are full already, and advancing new toons would just eventually lead them to hit the same brick wall I'm stuck at with all my other characters. Like my bf said it: "why should I level up my alts, so that they too can run SG?". I'd kind of like to just delete all my scrubs and maybe save one or two so I could focus on them better, but it still wouldn't fix the fundamental sources of frustration in the game - the reduced quality of content (and complete lack of it) is so obvious and it doesn't show any signs of getting better. The devs just seem to apply band-aid upon band-aid instead of actually.. oh, I dunno, amputating the whole current endgame mechanics? :D

Hm, maybe I'll go play Aion again, it's so bad it should make LotRO seem like a shining gem. It's just weird that I'm so used to wasting hours in LotRO each day that I can't really come up with other things to do with my spare time.

Lilies

I got stuck raiding and missed a wonderful rp event ;__;. But at least I got some cute screens while wandering around the Old Forest - all alone and very much lost.

On another note, I finally, FINALLY got my thesis done and presented, so now I should have more time for hobbies again. I'm kind of tempted to try or resub some other mmo right now. I've actually still got an unused STO retail key, but on the other hand AoC (which just got a new expansion, I believe) and Aion are also kind of tempting..

And on a completely other note, I also realised Roll100 is one year and three months old now. Yay!

LotRO Speedrun

Shameless plug:



My boyfriend rode from one end of the LotRO game world to the other, FRAPS'd it and sped it up ten times :D. It took him around 1 hour 40 minutes in total. Not bad!

Infinite Loop

Oh hahahaha, I ripped the good old Gold Saucer theme from FFVII and put my hobbit to play it on loop in the middle of Michel Delving. Gods, I love this tune.

Fashion highfive

I found a pleasant surprise when I was randomly browsing the US LotRO forums and clicked on the last page of a thread called "Show us your favorite cosmetic outfit", and just four posts down I spotted my own costume screenie! I had originally posted it the EU forum's Elven outfit thread a month ago. It's a pity I can't comment on the US forums (us eurofags aren't allowed to post there), but here's a highfive to our fellow costume enthusiasts across the pond o/.

Deeds for deeds for deeds

In the wake of my Ring-forges farming, I happened to join a pug raid for old Helegrod. While the raid itself is long and tedious (too much trash) I thought I'd seize the chance to get a Thorog kill for my hunter, since I've only ever been to Hele on my LM and minnie, and because the kill also counts towards the Eriador meta-deed which I'm still working on.


I ran into Silirien of From Dusk 'till Dawn, and got a couple nice shots of us giving Thorog some tender punishment.



I must say that was probably the last time I'm ever going to Helegrod though, it's still a bit too tedious to be fun. The immense scale of the instance (and bosses inside it!) is still awe-inspiring, and I wish Turbine will make something similar in the future. We need more enormous, ungated and non-linear raids!

The Ring-forges of Eregion

I have been slowly and steadily working on the new meta-deeds, and yesterday I was bored enough to go and finish another book in Volume 1. The deeds inside the last instance of Book 14 are counted towards the Eriador meta-deed, but my hunter (who is not my main btw) had never finished Vol1, so I had to do a bit of running before getting to the legendary Ring-forges.


In one of the corners there is a large fresco of the Lord of Gifts. It gives you massive DREAD.





The Champion of Angmar, Amarthiel, as lovely as ever <3. Now I just need to do it two or three times more to get all the deeds finished.

Victolyy

The Lieutenant of Dol Guldur is no more. The chicken used HIPS, but left us a nice chest of treshur instead.





I bid high and got myself a nice pair of new pants. Finally I get the 5-set bonus! And the set is pretty too!


Here's the 5-set bonus, if anyone's interested.