You have to understand … as much affection I have for all of my mains (Grodimil, Hackworthe, Amak, Jacob’s Ladder, etc.), I’ve been playing Osti for more than two freaking years. On top of that, almost all of my time with that character has been spent playing with good friends, two of whom in turn I’ve known for something like half of my life.

Even after the Shortiez took their leave from EQ2 to try out new games, I didn’t want to put down my imperious Inquisitor. I jumped to the Guk server and was given a very kind invite by some of the members of Revelry and Honor, the guild Karen (Jaye) runs. Though I haven’t had much time in the last pre-holiday weeks to actually enjoy playing with guildies, it’s always nice to know there are people around. And, of course, I get to enjoy the guildhall.

Oh. My. God. The guildhall.

Guildhalls in EQ2 are so good they feel like cheating. Cross-world teleports, a unique recall spell on a separate cooldown from your ‘port home’ spell, buff statues, a dedicated crafting room with unique crafting storage, a bar, hidey-holes, a lounge … there’s even easy-to-use vendor/bank/broker NPCs hanging out just waiting for my business. So beautiful. Should have sent a poet.

Though I’ve been chipping away at level 59 and remembering very clearly how much soloing used to be deprioritized in this game, the last few days I’ve been having fun with Frostfell. Every year SOE trots out and entire unique zone associated with the holiday, a hub for all sorts of jingle-related malarkey. This year they’ve not only introduced a new quest, we can actually go back and do all the older quests from previous years. I quite liked the new one: a quick dash around Freeport that resulted in some unique ‘tweaks’ to my apartment’s Christmas Tree. I can now make Eyeballs or Bats grow from it … basically making it into a Halloween tree. Yay for multi-tasking decorations!

I don’t know how serious my intentions towards EQ2 are at the moment … lots of fish to fry out there. Either way, it’s a game I have a lot of affection for. In the long run, I’ll most definitely be returning on a regular basis. Norrath, it seems, feels just a bit like home. And isn’t that a little bit what today is about? Happy hols, everybody!

Here’s what I want for my 2009 year in MMOs:

• Mega-quantities of awesome from SOE. Agency, Free Realms, and DC Universe Online are all very near the top of my awesomedar. I am really looking forward to the Free Realms Beta, and my hope is that Agency will go into Beta at some point near the end of the year. I don’t imagine we’ll be seeing much of DCUO publicly, but at least one more chance to play that kickass demo would be much appreciated.
• An ongoing stream of content from BioWare about The Old Republic. Not only am I personally really thrilled that we’re finally getting something, professionally I can’t get enough of that SWTOR.
• The lads at 38 have told us that we should see real news on Copernicus sometime in early summer. I want their kickoff to be a huge splash, their content to be incredibly well-received, and their design to be absolutely inspired. I’ll be straight: I think they’ve got a long haul ahead of them. The fantasy genre is going to be hell and a half to enter as a direct competitor to WoW. But if they want to give it a try, who am I to stand in their way or do anything but cheerlead from the sidelines?
• After one of my favorite interviews of the year with two gents from Red 5, I have been obsessed about getting more details on their game. I would absolutely love to know what the hell they’re doing down there. More than any other ‘dark’ company right now, Red 5 is making the game that I’m desperate to explore. Here’s hoping they give us a bit more insight on their plans thiscoming year.
• I’m greedy, I know, but I really want a look at Guild Wars 2 as well. It’s been more than a year since Arena.net put out Eye of the North, and GW2 was well along in development back in that point. While I completely understand why it’s not out yet, the tomb-like silence that we’ve seen from the company on the topic of their sequel to their groundbreaking title has been a bit unnerving. I really hope Arena will finally be able to throw back the curtain and give us a look at the goods.
• Tons of success to my fellow MMO bloggers and podcasters, be they industry paragons like Scott or enthusiast juggernauts like Tim (Van Hemlock). While I know I don’t contribute a lot from this domain much any more, I’d like to think that the MMOblogosphere is a pretty darn special place to be hanging your hat. Here’s hoping it continues in 2009.
• Continued good gaming vibes and personal connections between myself and my guilds! A year ago I was a boring-as-hell soloer, and now I have a community in all three of my primary MMOs! I hope that 2009 finds me growing even closer to the Podcasters of Bree, Revelry and Honor, and What Would Thrall Do.
• The will, intelligence, writing skill, and patience required to run Massively.com. I’ll be honest, a year ago I never in a million years would have imagined I’d be running an MMO news site. It’s exactly, precisely what I’ve been working towards for the last few years and I feel incredibly lucky to be here. It’s hard, it’s challenging, it’s stressful, and to be honest it doesn’t pay that well. But it’s Massively, and I’ve got lots and lots of love.
• The energy to recommit to doing the MMOG Nation Broadcast … a podcast that should be returning soon!
• And, of course, the dedication to keep the feed alive here at MMOG Nation.

Feel free to drop in what presents you want from the industry next year in the comments.

Or rather, how I finally ‘got’ LotRO. As I’ve said elsewhere I honestly think Lich King is a better expansion. Moria and the two new classes are incredibly impressive, but WoW’s newest offerings are (in my opinion) some of the best content ever added to an existing online game. What the last few weeks have proven to me, though, is that when I keep saying ‘the fantasy MMO is a solved problem’, I’m not giving enough credit to the other fantasy games that are already out there.

Let me be clear: new fantasy MMOs are almost certainly a losing proposition at this point. That’s just the way the market looks. But my viewpoint that WoW’s success had completely overshadowed other company’s work is oversimplifying things. Turbine’s hard work on LotRO – which I’ve long tried to highlight at Massively and elsewhere – is not wasted effort. Nor, I think, is SOE’s work on EQ2 – but that’s another blog entry. Read on for some thoughts on why Turbine’s work should be lauded so.

Online games are, first and foremost, a hobby. Like bowling, golf, or any other social hobby, there has to always be a ‘reason’ to engage in your leisure pastime. Mythic Entertainment specifically designed Warhammer Online with that thought in mind, and I think Turbine has proven out an understanding of that mindset as well. LotRO’s quality doesn’t come from the place of sheer excellence that defines World of Warcraft. Nor does it offer the nostalgia of EverQuest 2.

Instead, Lord of the Rings Online compels you to play by always offering one more layer to work through. There’s always, it seems, just one more thing you could be doing. While I’ve always enjoyed the concept of crafting, for example, I don’t engage in it much outside of EQ2. There’s usually a lot of hurdles to jump through, and the ‘feel’ is often rote and frustrating. The tripartite ‘jobs’ that LotRO offers gives crafters enough variety to keep them – or at least me – truly engaged.

There’s only one hobby in the game at the moment, fishing, but I truly enjoy that singular hobbit-lark more than any other fishing system I’ve ever encountered. I wrote up a full article on the subject over on Massively, and I mean every word.

Then, of course, there’s the quests. The bread and butter of modern fantasy MMOs, the rich storytelling background offered by Middle-earth really does make a difference. If you’ve read the LotR trilogy, or seen the movies, you’re going to see a lot of names and places that ring very familiar. The early levels are nothing but lore-steeping, as you literally swim in references to places in the Shire or brave the darkness of the forests near Bree. While I’ve changed my tune recently, in the past I was always very much a quest-ignorer. I’m very glad my perception shift came in time to fully enjoy the stories of Hobbits, Men, and Dwarves.

The final layer, and one that catches me fairly often, is the game’s extensive Deed system. Each zone has specific achievements you can unlock by performing certain tasks or exploring certain areas. Kill 30 wolves in the Shire, for example, and you earn the ‘Fur-Cutter’ title. Kill 50 more and you unlock a trait, one of the game’s build components. These traits are extensively tweakable, and compel you to complete deeds for mechanical reasons as well as simple check-box completionism. Even using your class abilities in combat sees you working towards new traits; pushing class traits together helps you to further define your class, and ultimately allows for variation where there may have been a lot of uniformity.

I have loved my time in Middle-earth for the simple reason that it’s fun, a claim I’ve made with other games before. I’ll admit it: I do have MMOADD. But for a guy that’s always admired Lord of the Rings Online from afar and never ‘got it’ the way I wanted to, the last month or so has been a real treat. I’m honestly glad to be enjoying this game the way I do, because I feel like something has finally clicked inside my head.

Whether it’s enjoying the beauty of Bree while fishing or shield-slamming my way through waves of goblins, there’s just nothing quite like time spent in the world Tolkien and Turbine have created.

On the AAA front, I wanted very much to make sure that Ostimak the Gnomish Inquisitor didn’t die the death of loneliness. After two-plus years of play I’m kind of attached to him. So I took up the kind offer of Karen (Jaye) and hied him over to the Guk server. There Revelry and Honor reside, her guild and the guild Darren plays in. Other VW’ers also call R&H home, so I’ll be in good company. On the more casual side, I return to the fun and games of Shortiez gaming in a bit more casual environ. We took on Puzzle Pirates with a fervor.

Read on for my duality of experiences; old and (old) new.

It’s fascinating because after the aforementioned two-plus years of gameplay, Osti is now more-or-less on his own for leveling. As a result I’ve been retune/reorienting my understanding of what it means to play him as a character. I’ve had to swap around some Achievement points, I’ve made a point to look to my equipment more than I might have otherwise, and I’ve done a lot of examining how to solo through the levels.

Thankfully the EQ-IQ podcast, and the associated guide Dave made up for episode 5, have a lot of handholding guidelines. I’ve actually found myself … sigh … in the Kingdom of Sky content. It’s actually quite beautiful. As I remember, I didn’t lead the Shortiez there because I heard that it’s not that great an area for grouping. For soloing, it’s working just fine. My only problem is that I can’t handle more than three regular guys or one group guy at a time. Healers are fun, but even my Inquisitor isn’t so much for the DPS. Especially since I’m primarily still a healer, and haven’t completely gone into DPS-speccing.

As I write that, maybe I should look into that more; completing quests gets you AAs, so … yeah. Really glad to reconnect to my EQ2 time, though it might not be something I do much more of overtime.

Speaking of the Shortiez, yesterday we played together for the first time in something like two months. Weird to say, but that’s the way it’s been. Between holidays and RL issues it’s just not been conducive to gaming together. Yesterday’s outing was notable then. Notable too because it was a return to Three Rings territory.

That’s right, we played us some Puzzle Pirates, and I’m pleased to report it went over like gangbusters. I actually still had a character sitting around from back in the day, though his skills had atrophied quite a bit. It was nice to walk around with a guy wearing something better than the ‘castaway’ garb. It was equally nice to be able to outfit my comrades with gear.

To add a nuance, though, I was basically giving away money to my friends. I’ve played on one of the Doubloon oceans essentially since they started up, and having cash in your pocket is as easy as swiping your Visa. Doubloons are the RMT currency that underpins the game, translatable into in-game pieces of eight at an island’s bank. The night we were playing each doubloon was trading for about 1250 piece of eight, so I was able to give each of my comrades about 12-15,000 in-game coins – about four or five bucks in real money.

As a quick aside, have you looked at how easy it is to buy Three Rings money now? Check out the FAQ on the official site … you can buy Doubloons at one of those freaking green coin counting machines you see in the grocery store! We live in an age of wonders!

Once everyone had played through some tutorial time and outfitted themselves adequately, we had a ton of fun playing games together. We played about 45 minutes worth of Spades, and then did quite a bit of Swordfighting. Both of these games (as well as Rumble) were available as free-to-play options that day. If we hadn’t played on Thursday, we would have had other options. There’s even a helpful calendar.

Spades was a bit weird. It has a kind of hardcore bidding mechanic that all of us found a bit abrasive. When we sit down for cards (and most of us are from Wisconsin, where Euchre is like a freaking state-wide pastime), we do trick-taking games for fun. All this trick bidding and hardcore decision-making, penalties for overtricking … very harsh. Fun, because it’s basically a Euchre offshoot/Hearts variant. But, still. Harsh.

Swordfighting though, is just as fun as always. Definitely one of the best game rip-offs on the high seas. I’ve never actually played Puzzle Fighter proper, so all of my experience with that mechanic has been with this Swordfighting mini-game. It’s perfect for an MMO because of the potential for numerous players all participating in the same fight. I found it’s also a bunch of fun to play while voice chatting, because you can say things like “Have at thee!” and “Take that!” and not just be talking to yourself.

I’m finding … and I don’t suppose this should come as any shock … that as I get older my definition of ‘an awesome game’ is changing. As reflected by Tipa’s change at West Karana from a hard-bitten raider to a Wizard 101 grinding / DOMO rocking titan, free to play games hold more and more appeal the older I get. There’s a lot to like in these quirky titles … not the least of which being that they don’t cost anything. If I can get together with some friends in an online space, screw it. Who cares if it’s some huge AAA game or a puzzle-based f2p title about pirates? As long as we’re having a good time, that’s really all that matters.

That said, still really like AAA games. I’m not exactly planning on hanging up my hardcore spurs anytime soon.

My heel scrapes across a rock, disturbing the crystalline silence. I freeze. It’s full daylight out, but beneath the arched boughs of some urban foliage there is a deep shade, almost darkness. I involuntarily hold my breath, waiting to see if anyone heard me. No one did. There’s no one around to hear. Letting out the breath, I slowly move deeper into the bushes. I’m stalking prey that isn’t there, lost in a world inside my head. I’m seven, and successfully ‘hunting’ the wild creatures that stalk the wooded lot behind my grandparent’s house. Dangerous urban predators with the wiles to stay alive in a small stand trees still thriving in the middle of a Chicago suburb.

Two decades later, and I return to that wooded glade. I’m a rogue with a pair of enchanted daggers moving through the steamy underbrush in Stranglethorn Vale. I’m working with a group of Horde players in this PvP-heavy World of Warcraft zone to drive off rampaging Alliance player-killers, coordinating a strike to allow the lower-levels the ‘luxury’ of leveling unmolested. The Alliance group has paused to cheer over another effortless kill, and we’re closing in. I’m stealthed, silently hoping that the high level characters won’t notice me as I inch closer … closer …

Yes, yes. I haz a problem.

I’ve actually been 74 for some time … but as I mentioned yesterday, it’s been a bit of a challenge to get in game-and-writing time. I dinged 74 finishing off the content for Borean Tundra proper, which left me just the last few quests on Coldarra/Nexus proper to finish off. I’m now in Dragonblight, and I’ll talk more about my experiences in that (awesome, amazing) zone in a bit.

I want to finish up my ‘Lich King starter zone’ impressions by talking a bit more about the epic feeling Blizzard has instilled in these adventuring areas. It’s actually kind of ludicrous, the sheer number of powerful moments they pack into one area. Even finishing up the kind-of-gimmicky D.E.H.T.A. quest line had some fun times. The last guy I had to kill before Harold Lane was Ned, the Lord of Rhinos. He’s riding a bloody great Kodo, and slaying both of them is required to get the quest completion.

The quests around the Nexus were a lot of fun, even if they were very straightforward. Far less epic than I’d come to expect from Borean Tundra. Still, any questing involving dragons and their kin has some definite fun inherent to the scene. I honestly wish that that questing hub had been more built up, though. If you consider Amber Ledge to be a part of that ‘hub’, there was a lot to do, but I was left wanting a lot more … especially compared with the lackluster quests out of Bor’gorok Outpost.

The above-pictured ‘murloc suit’ and this field of Tundra Penguins are all near the very end of that quest chain, and surround one of my least favorite part of Borean Tundra. I’ll be honest, these final stretches made me glad to be leaving the zone for more Dragon-y pastures.

Now that I’ve fully done them both, my final thoughts on Lich King’s starting zones:

Howling Fjord –

• A bit more ‘traditional’ than BT in quest type.
• Better storytelling than almost anywhere else in the game I’ve been.
• My favorite questing area to date (Gjalerbron).
• Awesome theme of directly opposing a single enemy throughout the zone (the Vrykul).

Borean Tundra –

• Far more epic questing. Like an amusement park, essentially.
• Scattered-to-nonexistant storytelling. The only place I really felt like I was hooking into WoW’s overarching plot was in Amber Ledge with the Kirin Tor.
• Fracturing, strangely disjointed enemy types. Everything from mecha-gnomes to murlocs.
• Second-best part of the zone was definitely the far eastern area, with the Taunka’le village and the Temple City of En’kilah, but Amber Ledge/Nexus region really clinched it for me.

Next time … on to Dragonblight!

“Is DDO a bad game because we left? No…it isn’t. I think this is just a case of some of the more glaring flaws of the game just being amplified by our specific group dynamic. Yes, it is said that DDO is great for a static group of players…just not for this specific static group of players.”

He nailed it there; basically we screwed ourselves by not really planning our group makeup ahead of time and not having a full group. More on our DDO experiences and our plans for LotRO below.

Update: If you’re reading this and play LotRO, feel free to give advice! One of the best parts of talking about my adventures via MMOG Nation has been the helpful comments from folks like Kendricke. Chip in!

Our group consisted of:

Fighter  / Cleric / Monk / Rogue / Rogue-Wizard

As you can imagine, this resulted in lots and lots of death. We didn’t have enough healing or tanking, too much squishy DPS … it was a constant problem. As a result what should have been encounters appropriate for our level were too hard for us, and on the whole Monday evenings ended up with us having sort of demoralizing experiences.

The irony of our decision Monday (prompted by me, I’ll admit it), is that last week we had a blast. It just totally clicked and we tore through this great dungeon, had a bunch of fun. As per usual we didn’t actually complete it because we weren’t powerful enough to overcome the last boss, but the evening was lots of fun.

Over the course of our time in Dungeons and Dragons Online, we had a couple of super-fun times punctuated by these incredibly frustrating moments. This mood swing, really, was what made it hard to have a ‘real’ good time. We liked the blowout fun moments, a lot, obviously. Fun is good! But the fun of a weekly MMO session isn’t just the fun, it’s the camaraderie. It’s the talking and the chatting and the socializing. It’s really really quite hard to socialize when you’re all swearing and cursing the names of the Twelve, the designers, and Gary Gygax all at once.

Which brings us around to Lord of the Rings Online. LotRO has always been a game in my ‘lamentation’ list, and MMO that I knew I would have really liked had I ever really taken the time to dig into it. A picture-perfect launch, regular content updates, a likeable spokesperson (Jeff Steefel), and some great storytelling all add up to make it a game very much like what I’ve been whining for on this site for the last two+ years.

Of course, I’ve been so busy playing other non-LotRO games that I’ve never really dug into it. I’m thrilled, thrilled, that we’re going to be playing regularly. I can tell the other guys are too because there’s a ridiculously long thread on the subject sitting in my gmail account. We’ve actually gone to the trouble of planning things ahead of time this go around.

Michael: Dwarven Guardian (Tank)
Craig: Hobbit Minstrel (Healer)
Brent: Captain (Buffs/Healing)
Adam: Runemaster (DPS/Healer)
Darren: Warden (Off-tank)
Jonathan: Loremaster (CC)

I think that sounds like a pretty damned good group. We’ve got doubling up on our core functions, with DPS and some crowd control to boot. I’m told that the Warden and Loremaster can step outside their core roles a bit too, so we should be ready for just about anything. We’re going to step off as level 10 players on Monday to jump into the Fellowship oriented content. I’ll keep you posted.