Lord of the Rings Online is free to play (for those who have inactive accounts) from the week of August 18th to the 24th (or so my email told me yesterday morning). I decided to patch it up and take a peek, as one of the (many) games I love to play but simply don’t have enough time to warrant paying monthly for only two or three sessions. Plus it’s very similar to games that I’m already playing and paying for monthly. Anyhow!

I patched, logged in, and received in game mail telling me that there was a summer festival going on, and I should rush right there and take advantage of it. Which of course I did. I forgot how to actually get anywhere in game, so I decided to walk. It was a long walk. I did some harvesting along the way (and completely forgot what tier I was on, or what any of it was used for) and checked through my quest journal to see if I recognized anything at all about my level 17 rune keeper any more. Which I didn’t. It’s been a little while.

I did make it to the festival, picked up all of the quests in the area, one involving a whole lot of drinking. Wobbled around the dance area, found lost objects for one of the hobbit, and then decided to call it an evening.

I enjoy the free weeks that Turbine constantly throws my way, even though none of them have enticed me to re-subscribe to the game. It’s nice to be able to dive in for a short while without a cost – if I had of thought about it at the time I’d have signed up for the lifetime membership way back at release. Ah well. There’s still just not enough time to play everything I want.

I love my job, I really do. Being able to write about something I enjoy as well as something I’m passionate about is a great gift that I try to make sure I’m aware of constantly. On my web site, I write for me and I love talking about my adventures, thoughts, friends and anything else that happens to cross my mind. The only time any of this is difficult is when it all seems to happen at once. These days there are so many games out there, that I simply don’t have enough time to play everything I want. It’s a shame, because I’d really love to.

EQ2 is my ‘steady’ game even though I’m barely playing it these days (it’s due to being crunch week and no other reason) it’s the comfort game that I know inside and out, and I like that comfort factor. However. It’s not the only game I want to play and certainly not the only game I am playing.

I’ve been having an incredible urge to continue playing EQ, which I have waded in and out of for quite some time now. Problem is I don’t enjoy playing EQ alone (where as in EQ2 I have no problem wandering around on my own) and it’s difficult for me to make friends (especially when I waver to and from games). I have my 81 necromancer that I’m considering leveling a little, she’s fairly close to level 82. I’ve always wanted to hit “end game” in everquest, and with the expansion NOT raising the level cap in November, it may very well be a possibility.

Vanguard is another one of those “if I only had more time” games. I seem to be in a rut with my blood mage, and I’m slowly running out of areas where I can just dip in for an hour or two before calling it quits and feel as though I have gotten anything acomplished.

Last month I won a free copy of Age of Conan, I think I found the time to play once during the month that came with the game, and then it sat neglected. For some reason it just does not appeal to me as much as I wish it had. It may be because I’m not really a melee person, and it felt uncomfortable. Either way, it’s one of those “I wish I had more time” games – along with many others.

Lord of the rings online – I really enjoy this game, a lot. It’s familiar, it’s beautiful. I want to continue playing but for now my account lays dormant because once again the greedy time monster has taken all of my time away, and I just don’t have any to spare or to warent spending a monthly subscription for it.

So what AM I playing? Well, my current play list includes EverQuest II, Vanguard (barely), Free Realms (barely), World of Warcraft (please don’t shoot me, it’s easy to dive into for an hour and feel like I actually acomplished something), Wizard 101, Aion Beta, and some DDO.  I want to be able to devote more time to EVE, but that learning curve is so far over my head I may as well actually be playing from another planet. I’ve been having fun in Aion, but again – not enough time to play everything I want to play, and to get work done as well as real life things (plus I can’t actually sit at my desk for too long before I start to get sore from health issues).

While I am excited that there are so many games out there (don’t even get me started on console games and finding time to play those too!) there are certainly moments where I wish the selection were smaller. Am I the only one?

Turbine has another promotion going on right now in celebration of LotRO turning 2 years old. Old players will find their accounts active for a week, there’s 25% bonus experience in game, you can purchase a subscription at a discount price of $9.99/m (if you purchase one of their plans, 3 months or more) and there are also gifts to be found in game by means of ‘tokens’ that drop from mobs. I love promotions like these, and Landroval was bustling yesterday during the day with all sorts of players. On one side it was great to see, on another side, the lag was not great to see. I can only assume Landroval is far more populated then the server Nostalgia moved from, since I don’t remember having lag before. It’s short, and in spurts. It doesn’t hamper my game play any more then being slightly annoying as I run through Bree, and it seems to be limited to the big cities.

I played the rune-keeper for a bit yesterday along with Kasul who is still waiting for his character to transfer over. Word reached that Tipa’s characters made the trip successfully, so his should be up very soon. It’ll be nice to have everyone on the same server again.

We completed a few chapters of book one, volume one, inching ever so closer to where we were at before in the series, which was book one volume one chapter 11, the portion where we’d need a group to complete it. Tipa and Malfi will no doubt be dragged into that one to help out.

After it was decided that we’d do our level 15 class quests, mine was already starting to lighten up in colours as I was level 17 by then, but it made me trek out to the Lone Lands and I didn’t want to walk way out there when I’d not yet received the quests that had me adventure that way.

The quest was fantastic, I had so much fun doing it on my rune-keeper. You speak to an NPC outside the Forsaken Inn (I believe that’s the name, if it’s not dead on please forgive me) and get ported to the top of Weathertop. This is a HUGE mountain just North of the lone lands, and when I got there a thunderstorm was raging. I had to take my rune-keeper around and select a number of stones and then watch them each get hit by lightning. Mother nature at her best or some such story. After I’d carefully selected my three stones, orcs began attacking me. The atmosphere was intense, the sky would be pitch black as rain came pouring down and then suddenly everything would be illuminated bright as day time as the storm grew in height and then BAM an orc would charge me from the darkness.

After a time I received the messages that my three stones had been hit by lightning and I should go back to each one and see what remained. Back to the npc who ported me to the Inn and I received my weapon as well as a new class trait that lets me focus on my lightning skills with crits.

I headed back to Bree and turned in 5 iron tokens I’d gathered while adventuring and received a scroll for a weapon smith that allows a one time creation of a purple (not sure what the classification is actually called, heroic legendary etc) weapon! Neat. Most people were talking about how they’d received food from the gift-giver and naught more.

It was starting to get close to dinner after that, so I decided to break there. The rune-keeper is almost 18 and then it’s just one more level to catch up to Hamal once he moves over. Hopefully I can squeeze that in before our next game day the following week. We’ll see!

Yesterday I had some time to play with Kasul on my little rune-keeper. He managed to get an invite to Casualties of War (Thank you Ethic) and with that came a visit to the Kinship house in the shire. I learned something very important. Don’t drink from the Kinship Keg.

I took a sip, innocently enough. Just one sip. Before I knew it, I was passed out on the floor with a blurry image of Kasul hovering over me shaking my shoulders – and when I woke up I was in Tyrn Lhuig – Angman. This is a high level zone, at least higher then me. I was laying in a field surround by mosquito and when I managed to get my feet under me one of them came along and easily bonked me on the head. Of course my recall was down because I’d just used it, and guild recall was down.

Needless to say Kasul had an easier time of it and when he revived at least he was not too far away. Even though he was also unceremoniously dumped in a field some place. I guess that will teach both of us.

I paid the repair bill and we continued questing. The rune-keeper inched her way through 15 and most of 16 before I decided to call it a day. I didn’t get any crafting done, but I am sure I’ll manage to find a little time to work up the cooking and jewelcrafting.

I’ve already done all of the quests before on the other server with my minstrel, but I’m having a lot of fun with the rune-keeper. It’s interesting to make sure I align myself properly for either healing or dps depending on what I’m doing and who I am with.

The goal is to reach level 19 and be able to play with the Nostalgia who are still waiting to transfer, and work on my crafting. It’s a slow process but it’s been a lot of fun. Once we’re all there and settled it will be great to see some new sights, as I’m getting a little bit tired of running the same quests that I just did last week when I leveled the other character.

I was also happy to learn that I must have miss read the cost of housing. While it is still expensive, it’s not something that’s going to be completely out of my price range later on. I do want to purchase a home (seeing as housing is one of those things that I just enjoy doing) and I’ve been collecting a few house items to use once I get one. I’m not sure which area I’ll move to yet, but I’m thinking of avoiding the shire – since the Kinship home is there and my elf is constantly hitting her head on the low ceilings.

I’ve been leveling up a rune-caster on Landroval in order to catch up to the Nostalgians who have characters that are moving over (some time soon we hope). I didn’t want to pay to move a level 19 character when I’ve only devoted 24 hours to the class and figured it would be easier to just start over. I switched from a minstrel to the new class and then noticed ‘gee, there are a LOT of rune-keepers around!’ but I’m not going to let that bother me. In the past, it would have. I’ve never really grasped the idea of ‘playing what you like’ as opposed to ‘playing what is needed’ because I’ve constantly tied the two together. What I liked was something that was needed. As I continue to game though I’ve found it more and more important to play what I like because lets face it, things change and if you’re not at least happy with what you’re playing, well. What’s the point. It used to be a much bigger deal because I enjoy almost all classes – but I’m learning to narrow it down.

healer – support – ranged dps  - tank – melee dps 

That’s what I like to play, in the order that I like to play it. No big deal, nothing earth shattering. Anyhow – yesterday the rune-keeper climbed to level 14, almost 15. I’ve had a few deaths but nothing too difficult thus far. I have to keep reminding myself that last time I was doing this content I actually had a tank helping me out which made things far easier. It’s some times difficult to solo when I have to attune myself to either dps or heals. I’ve been getting by so far by placing a healing rune on the ground, and one of my two HoT’s on myself before combat begins (when ever possible) and then switching over to the dps which blocks out the rune from being cast as well as one of my HoT’s. I can take on three at once if they’re dark blue, but anything more and it starts to get messy. I typically get interrupted as I try to cast my DoT’s or my mez. It’s a work in progress what can I say. 

I’ve picked up crafting but so far have been doing very little of it, concentrating on catching up in levels instead. I also managed to snag myself an invite to CoW yesterday since Sarzan was home during the day (which happens to be when I’m around most as it were). Hopefully the rest of Nostaliga moves soon and we’ll be back to our regular leveling schedule before too long!

I ended up twisting my ankle on Sunday, so yesterday I took something for the pain that knocked me out most of the afternoon and evening so here I am at 6am Tuesday morning which happens to be my birthday- I intend to spend most of it eating ice cream cake and gaming and maybe going around the city taking pictures which is exactly how I want to spend my birthday. 

I decided since Nostalgia was joining up with CoW on Landroval that I would actually not move my level 19 over but just re-create. The current transfers take approx a week and a half due to a backlog, and I figured I could level up another character in that amount of time to 19 which is where my last character was at. Sure, the crafting would not be fun to do over, but I wanted to change her craft anyhow. 

I also figured that I would change from playing a Minstrel, to playing a Rune-Keeper. I didn’t really have an exact reason, but I’m happy I made it so far. The rune-keeper is level 12 and I’ve been having a lot of fun playing her. I did want to make a hobbit but they can only be dwarves (which can’t be female) or elves, so I’m playing another elf. I’ve done the starter for this race before, and blew through it fairly fast. I decided to make her a tinker in order to be able to cook, and Kasul made a new character who happens to be a farmer, so he’s got veggies to give to me. I’m excited to be playing on the new server, the people I’ve met have been friendly. There was someone working on a quest slightly a head of me and I needed a named after they killed it, so I let them clear a head and was healing them then I stayed behind and managed to kill the named I need afterwards. I couldn’t take on all the little extra encounters that were scattered around so the situation was more of a ‘right place at the right time’ but it w0rked out well and they actually thanked me for healing them – most people don’t do that. 

Not sure if I’ll make it in game today or not, but I’d like to at least for a little while to continue trying to get to level 19. We’ll see how it goes. 

Hope everyone has a fantastic day no matter what you’re doing!

Yesterday was Easter, and I spent the majority of it with family (which I am ever thankful for) so I didn’t play much at all. I did create a new rune-keeper in LotRO on Landroval to play (though now I need to hunt down someone from CoW who can invite me to the guild) and managed to get a few levels. Aside from that I checked the broker and did some banking in EQ2, checking on sales from various characters and contemplating betraying the coercer over to illusionist. Without a sage, it will cost me an arm and a leg. My 80 sage is on Najena, so that doesn’t exactly help me out. Ah well. 

Hope everyone has had an enjoyable weekend. Tomorrow is my birthday, so I don’t expect to be online all that much again either. We’ll see I suppose.

We are a small group of friends who are doing the 1-80 progression one untwinked level at a time, seeing the old world as it was meant to be seen while seeing all the bits of the newer world we may have missed.

We group once a week on the Luclin server, Fridays at 7PM Eastern Time.

We are not currently recruiting, but we’re always interested in meeting new friends and if there is interest, we will make a third progression group.

Regardless of whether or not you want to play in one of the progression groups, if you just want to hang out with a bunch of friendly people and are fairly low level, we’d love to see you in guild chat, once we get the guild made. 

Register and leave a message here if you’d like to join!

That was the welcoming message posted by one Tipa almost exactly a year ago on the Nostalgia web site. I was thinking back on everything that’s happened since that point in time. It was a turning point for me, I met a lot of people, made a lot of close friends. We’ve drifted over the course of the year but most of us wander back in one shape or form and leave comments on blogs, forums, emails, xfire, or twitter. We’ve changed games (some times a lot) but we all had something in common when we joined the guild and I think to some degree still do. 

We’ve kept small. It’s an aspect I’ve really liked even though I (at times) wish we were more steady. Maybe that’s just not our play style as a group though, maybe we’re just not the sort to all settle down. I look at Casualties of War (which I’m also a member of) and envy their following at times. In day to day activities I’m not really one for crowds and this carries over into my gaming habits. 

Nostalgia the Guild started out on EverQuest. It has since carried over to EverQuest II, and most recently Lord of the Rings Online. They are some of the best friends I could have ever asked for, and I am thankful I’ve gotten to know such an amazing bunch of people. Especially since they’ve (to date at least) put up with me and all of my ‘quirks’ (such a kinder word). What an amazing world we live in that we can experience such things. I feel lucky. I realize that there are other guilds, older guilds who have spanned across a greater time period, more games, and bigger trials and tribulations – feel free to give a shout out to them below if you’ve got a great story to tell or just want to share.

Tom just wasn’t all there. Wait, not that Tom. Oh, not that Tom either. There we go, that’s the one. As he sang his tunes and started dancing around I turned and looked at Kasul. We were supposed to follow him? Was that even safe? It didn’t seem like it would be. Of course, good ‘ol Tom ended up leaving Kasul and I standing outside of a big deep cave with lots of creatures inside so maybe we should have followed him after all. 

I was so close to hitting level 20 without a death. So close I could taste it. Then book one, volume one, chapter 11 came along. I died. I died a lot. I died from heal agro most of the time and when we went back to Bree broken and torn, my repair bill was 75 silver and I’ve never seen it that high before. I can’t even remember the number of times I died, but it seemed like I was always trying to make my way back to Kasul. Once we decided that there really was no way that we could complete the instance without a group or at least a few more people, we headed back to Bree to see what our options were. 

We managed to gain almost two levels in the time we played. I am a little shy of half way to 20. I gathered together more supplies to craft with (story of my life) and contemplated switching to a cook because the food is quite handy, as opposed to a tailor where most of my gear seems to come from quests or drops and it’s far better then the items I can actually make myself. I’ll think about that more when I’m back in game again. 

I’ve mentioned before how alive the world feels to me, and I’ll stress it again. As we were running through the woods it was dark, the music was scary and I FELT as though I was in the woods. As we fought our way through The Barrows and I looked across the rolling mountains with ruins scattered every which way, it just felt so atmospheric. Of course, there is also a lot of walking in the game which means I spend a lot of time trying to get from point A to point C (because point B would be silly!) and things are starting to get REALLY expensive (skills and what not) but I’m still having a great time. Were it not for the few items I’ve sold on the market I wouldn’t have even been able to afford my repair bills yesterday let alone my newest skills. 

I’m looking forward to hitting 20 and finally getting some appearance slots although my hopes of ever owning a home are quickly diminishing, I have no idea how anyone manages to afford anything, especially since the home I wanted is over 900 gold and I learned that there is a thousand silver to every gold. The most money I’ve had on me has been 400 silver. This could take a while.

My (now) 17 Minstrel hanging outside of Bree last night. It was one of the few ‘safe’ places to be that didn’t involve “rubberbanding” as they’re calling it on the forums and in game. 

The issue is quite simple. I’m not sure if it’s present on all servers but it’s certainly on Nostalgia’s. Eventually as you’re walking along, at particular points you’ll meet up with an invisible wall that pushes you backwards each and every time you try to push forward. It slings you back, like a rubber band. There was one such wall on the outskirts of Bree, heading towards the Shire. It also happened to be exactly where Kasul and I needed to go to progress our epic line. No worries though, we worked around the area by using swifttravel, even though it took us a huge distance out of our way. When the quest sent us back to that area again we decided to move on to other things. 

Needless to say neither of us gained very much experience. 

We did still have fun though. No office supply is going to stop that! So we spent the majority of the evening wandering close to Bree, picking off bears and searching for mines. Once we’d filled our bags with goodies we headed back to the crafting area to gain a few skill ups. While crafting in LotRO takes a LOT of resources, I also enjoy it. Crafters rely on one another for components, much like VG does and EQ2 used to do. With an active Kinship (and Nostalgia is active for the members we have) this is hardly an issue as we’re constantly trading things between one another for use. Combines are done much the way they are in World of Warcraft, nothing too fancy about it. It’s not a mini game like EQ2 and you can’t (as far as I know) fail the combines like EQ, thus losing all of your material. I’m attempting to save up for a house (some day) but dang are they expensive. I can barely afford my skills each time I level, let alone a LOT of gold for a home. It’s a (far) future goal of mine though.

Lately I have had a HUGE ache for some role play. When I had these cravings before I used to satisfy them in EQ2 as a guide – but I don’t have the time to dedicate to the program any more. There are no D&D groups that I know of around here (here being Ottawa) so I’m trying to think of a little project I can do that would take care of my desire to be a story teller or my need to listen to other people’s stories. One idea I’m tossing around is creating an alt on Antonia Bayle (the most populated server in EQ2, also happens to be one of two RP servers) and write about an adventure of hers once a week leaving her for only role play. There are LOTS of guild events that happen on AB for RP purposes, and I could easily lose myself in one of those. 

Aside from that, I’m not sure what other games out there offer a strong RP community. I’ll have to search a little bit. It’s like an itch that needs scratching, creative juices that are eager to flow (or some such thing. It’s late and I can’t come up with flowery words right now). 

Hopefully LotRO is fixed back to normal by Thursday, which is the 2nd day of the week designated for some play time (during the day this time). I’m looking forward to inching towards level 20 – and appearance slots. Kasul got himself a really nice pirate hat and eye patch tonight, and I’ve been looking for ‘fluff’ armor for just such a reason. 

Hope everyone else had an amazing night!