Category: Resources & Rules

CoX – Slotted

Another coming I12 feature — more slots per server. Kinda-sorta. Unlike the blanket change from 10 to 12 back in Issue Whatever, this one is a bit trickier.

To accommodate playing more characters on your favorite server, we will be including the following features in Issue 12:

  • All current subscribers will receive 2 free character slots, each of which can be used on the specific server of their choice. This is to help you make new characters to take advantage of the new features of Issue 12, even if you already have maxed out your “home” server’s character slots.

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  • 1 free character slot will be granted retroactively on a yearly basis through the current Veteran Reward system. Every 12 months that a subscription is maintained will unlock an additional free character slot that the user can apply to the server of their choice. Thus, existing players will be eligible for up to 4 additional character slots at the launch of Issue 12. This will continue into the future for Veteran Rewards given out every 12 months, so you get another slot for 5 years, another one for 6 years, etc.

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  • Additional Optional Character Slots will be available on a purchasable basis. These are one-time fees, not an addition to your monthly subscription rate. The additional slots can be had at the following price points:

    • 1 Optional Character Slot for a one-time fee of $5.99
    • 2 Optional Character Slots for a one-time fee of $9.99
    • 5 Optional Character Slots for a one-time fee of $19.99

     

  • Players can have up to 36 slots per server, with an update to the character selection screen that lets you re-organize your character list by Drag and Drop, as well as easily flip between up to three pages of characters available on that server. All customers benefit from these great new User Interface features included with the revisions for Optional Character Slots.

 

Now, if only there were a non-trivial (and free) way to organize all my active characters into a single server — heck, into a single screen to choose from. Given that I have active(ish) alts on most of the servers, it’s semi-nightmarish trying to track down a particular one.

Still, it’s a nice set of QoL features. If I were still heavy into the SG roleplay stuff, I’d definitely be building out my character slots on my old favorite server, Champion …

CoX – I12 interview

The splash-screen interview with Posi and Castle. Nice description of the EVAs, and then this little fun bit:

He’s also excited about the addition of traditional RPG branching tree dialogue, something they didn’t have in City of Heroes until this Issue and will now begin to use quite a bit. “In this issue it’s just the test bed for it, we got the tech late into the development process so we were not able to use it everywhere we wanted to,” said Miller.

This allows them to put options into conversations or theoretically do things like present players with situations like which wire to cut when diffusing a bomb. It sounds simple, but it makes their options as mission designers much greater. Miller could not – however – comment on whether they plan to go back over old content and backwards integrate this technology.

 

That should be pretty cool.

 

CoX: Closed beta for I12 coming up

Quoth Lighthouse:

Starting next week we will be entering the closed beta testing for Issue 12: Midnight Hour. We want to give you this advance notice, because the Training Room Test Servers will become unavailable for the duration of the closed beta. We anticipate that the closed beta phase will last for several weeks. We know that many are excited to participate in the beta testing of Issue 12; however the initial pool of closed testers is considerably smaller than previous closed betas. We are starting the beta with NCNC Friends & Family and NCsoft Employees and we will be adding additional testers as the beta test progresses and as the needs of development dictate.

 

CoX: I12 Character Creator

Official news on the Issue 12 Character Creator and UI changes, mostly driven by the “Real Numbers” changes. So there will be a “See Detailed Info” in the character creator that will show all the underlying numbers, with a “show me at level X” slider (moderately interesting for me).

More spiffy than that will be “costume sets” — a start for, say, “Biker” or “Jester” (!), etc. While in theory that might make slightly more homogeneous costumes, in practice it will make a much easier starting point to get a bunch of similar sets. Nice.

Closed Beta is promised in the “near future.”

CoX: Hollows Redesign

By and large sounds pretty good. A bit more variety, a bit less lethality (esp. at lower levels), and a lot less running around.

I pulled every single mission door from the zone and reassigned it to a specific contact AND that contact’s neighborhood. What this means is; no longer will players have to fly across the deadly Grendel’s Gulch at Level 5 for their Frostfire mission at the other end of the zone, dodging spawns that can make mincemeat of them in a few short hits.

 

While, as Margie points out, the Temp Travel Powers have reduced the burden on this by quite a bit, the fact is a lot of players still don’t do that (either not taking or not having the opportunity to take Bank missions), so it’s still not unusual to end up waiting at a door way in the SE corner while watching half the team struggling to get across the zone.

It sounds like the changes were well done within the resource limitations available. Might make the Hollows a bit more enjoyable to run some of those new characters through …

CoX: The Powers are Yours(yours)((yours))!

Dr. Brainstorm unveils new addition powersets for City of Heroes, City of Villains – PC News 

Lots of fine introductory text … but here’s the list.

Blaster 

  • New Primary – Psychic Blast 

  • New Secondary – Mental Manipulation 

Corruptor 

  • New Primary – Electrical Blast 

  • New Secondary – Storm Summoning 

Controller 

  • New Primary – Plant Control 

  • New Secondary – Thermal Radiation 

Dominator 

  • New Primary – Earth Control 

  • New Secondary – Electricity Manipulation 

Defender: 

  • New Primary – Cold Domination 

  • New Secondary – Ice Blast 

Mastermind: 

  • New Secondary – Storm Summoning 

Brute: 

  • New Primary – Battle Axe 

  • New Primary – War Mace 

  • New Secondary – Super Reflexes 

Stalker: 

  • New Primary – Electric Melee 

  • New Secondary – Electric Armor 

Tank: 

  • New Primary – Dark Armor 

  • New Secondary – Dark Melee 

Scrapper: 

  • New Primary – Fiery Melee 

  • New Secondary – Fiery Aura 

Spiffy!

(via Margie)

 

LotRO – In Dwimmerdelf …

Volume II of LotRO is coming this Fall — Mines of Moria.

Speak Friend, and Enter – Moria, called Khazad-dûm by the dwarves, was their capital and the grandest of cities. This enormous underground cavern in north-western Middle-earth, comprises an immense network of tunnels, chambers, mines and huge halls that run beneath and ultimately through the Misty Mountains. For the first time, players of The Lord of the Rings Online will enter this ancient city which has served as the foundation for the modern-day dungeon-crawling adventures to battle the hordes of goblins and the Nameless of the Deep and journey through hundreds of new quests within six new kinds of stunning environments.

 

Cooooool … new quests, new environments, new niftiness.

The Epic Continues! — The Mines of Moria represents the beginning of Volume II of The Lord of the Rings Online. Players can experience six new books as part of this update and participate in the release of Durin’s Bane, battle the Watcher, aid Galadriel and more!

 

Sounds keen!

Increased Level Cap — Players will be able advance their characters up to level 60, gaining access to new traits, virtues, skills and class quests. The crafting system will also expand, giving players the ability to craft even more powerful items.

 

 

Increased level cap good!

Discover Two New Classes — The Rune-keeper and the Warden, the first new classes to be introduced since the launch of the game, allow players to build exciting and powerful new characters in The Lord of the Rings Online in diverse new ways.

 

Interesting. Not clear (by name) what they new classes do, actually. But new classes are a good way to enable replayability, even of the older content.

Forge Legendary Items – The Mines of Moria will introduce Turbine’s new item advancement system to The Lord of the Rings Online. Players will be able to forge weapons and class-related equipment and evolve them to build a legacy the likes of Bilbo’s Sting and Gandalf’s Glamdring. These legendary weapons will level-up along with the player, allowing customization by advancing the item’s virtues, adding runic legacies, modifying its titles and forming fables.

 

Oh, spiffy. I love the idea of items that level up with you.

I’m new enough to the game to not quite understand why this is a new “volume” / “expansion” vs. being another “Book.”

There’s also some contest site to learn more and unlock this and that.   I will have to look at it.

CoX – More Issue 12 stuff

After the previous post … looking at the Official I12 Post:

JOIN THE MIDNIGHT SQUAD (LEVELS 10 – 20)
The clandestine organization of mystics, scholars and mages, known only as the Midnight Squad, seeks to rebuild its numbers since the devastating assault of the Rikti Invasion. The Midnighters hold a secret that could bring the alien assault to an end, but without the help of the Heroes of Paragon City™ it will remain Lost forever.

 

Sounds like some origin-based lovey-love, as well as new content. Cool. I wonder if similar origin-based bits will creep into future issues.

NEW ROMAN-STYLE ZONE MAPS (LEVELS 35 – 50)
The Midnighters hold many secrets within their walls, including a highly coveted Ouroboros crystal, enabling them to travel to the far reaches of time. There is a familiar threat in an ancient land and the Midnighters need the help of both Heroes and Villains to stop it. Players step foot upon the ancient land of the Roman Cimeroran Peninsula, where they battle deadly creatures, defend an ancient city and ultimately come face to face with the enemy of time itself. Throughout this journey players uncover the mysteries of power and the origins that guide them today.

 

Hmmm. Would have rather had something that was contemporaneous (where’s my moonbase?!), but new content is basically cool.

UNLOCK ROMAN-STYLE ARMOR COSTUMES
Through their accomplishments, players unlock the new Roman themed armor costume set.

 

Honestly, I’ve never been fond of “exclusive” costume bits. I simply cannot justify it, story-wise (the cape bits, at least, they made an effort at, but why can’t any Level 1 schmuck have a Roman helmet?). There may be a story element here, and it’s better than some other ways they’ve played with the mechanic, but I’m still no approving.

Villain Epic Archetypes

Infiltrate the Arachnos organization from within! Upon reaching level 50, Villains unlock two new Epic Archetypes; Wolf Spiders and Blood Widows. They have their own unique storyline and missions, power combinations and costume sets. Branching powersets allow the Wolf Spider to specialize as either a Bane Spider or Crab Spider and the Blood Widow chooses from the Fortunata and Night Widow branches. Each brings with it unique costumes for your Arachnos duties, as well as your newfound role as a Destined One.

 

Coolness. Not that I’ve ever brought a villain to 50 (or ever am likely to), but a nice way to handle it.

Powerset Proliferation

Using his newly built Resonance Manipulator, the Villain scientist known as Dr. Brainstorm™ has discovered a way to alter the energy strands which connect every Hero and Villain to their powers. This discovery has not only opened the door to new powers for his fellow Villains in the Rogue Isles™, but has also done the same for the Heroes of Paragon City ™! Specifically, new characters of almost every Hero and Villain archetype gain access to an additional primary and secondary powerset that they didn’t have access to previously. Details to come!

 

Huzzah! Mix-n-match powers! Or, at least, no arbitrary “we want villains to feel special” / “we haven’t playtested it yet” excuses for not sharing the power love. 
Hollows Zone “Gameplay Makeover”

Significant changes have been made to the Hollows zone to make it more fun! NPC encounters have been rebalanced, including new spawns, new villain groups, mission door improvements, and a mobile hospital has been added to the entrance of the zone. Additionally, Meg Mason, a new contact, has been added to give out repeatable missions.

 

As the zone nearly everyone spends time in — and everyone finds something to be annoyed with — I applaud the improvements to the Hollows. Especially the “mobile hospital,” thus saving wear and tear on the pavement (though dying was often a convenient way to get back to level).

Major Gameplay Improvements

   * Eight configurable new power trays let players customize their User Interface by placing them anywhere on the screen.
 

 

Cool. I’ve gotten crowded with only 3 visible — and having even more means being able to put (for example) all your standard toggle powers in one spot, your travel powers elsewhere, your combat powers somewhere else. Goodness.

   * Contact display redesign: Contacts are now listed separately as Active and Inactive, and players can sort contacts by a range of criteria including Name, Zone, and Level Range.

 

Excellent. The contact list was always kind of a mish-mosh.

   * Inspiration Conversion: Right click an inspiration to convert three of that kind into any one inspiration of another kind.

 

Especially if it’s available at any time, this could be a god-send sometimes.

   * Level Up Boost: Upon reaching enough XP to level up (at all levels), one of each type of large inspiration is immediately cast upon your character, and health and endurance bars are immediately filled.

 

Which makes leveling mid-combat all the more keen!

   * Chat improvements: Right click on character names in chat window to ignore, add to friends list, invite to team, etc. Drag any item (enhancement, inspiration, salvage, etc.) into the chat window so that you and others can click a hotlink to view the complete info box.

 

Not sure what the latter provides, but the former is a nice touch.

   * More Real Numbers: Players can now display stats on powers before they choose them enabling more informed power selection and new temporary powers allow players to display enemy stats.

 

For those who like them, More Numbers Are Good.

Overall — thumbs up.

CoX – Issue 12 random stuff

I have been away from this blog for a bit — between business travel and illness and all that — so I’ve missed out on all the CoX Issue 12 fun. I’ll be looking at it in more detail, but Margie’s been feeding me some fun tidbits:

  • CoV post-50 stuff — not Kheldians but Spiders …
  • Awesomeness on Level-Up — HP/End return to max, plus Inspiration drops. Ding!
  • Trading in Inspirations.
  • More power cross-overs: Axe Brutes! Plant Controllers! Storm Corrupters! Psi Blasters! Cool!
  • Full deployment of all ten power trays — not just three at a time — and in whatever configuration (horizontal, vertical, etc.) you want.

And, the Best Bit of All Time: a hospital in the Hollows! Yay!

More (systematic) info as I actually catch up with some of my CoX reading.

LotRO – Making life easier

Finally read through the Release Notes for Book 12, and discovered something I’d not read before.

  • Many Fellowship and Small Fellowship quests downgraded in difficulty to be Solo or Small Fellowship.
  • Several Instance and Escort quests reviewed and modified to be less difficult for solo players

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    • Reading on, I saw that — as Margie had noticed last night when we finally went back to do it — the “Rescue by Moonlight” (rescue Avorthal from the boat in Khelondim, I believe it is) mission is among them (it’s now classifiable as doing by a solo level). “Hey,” she said, “they’re showing up as Normals, not Elites.”

    We rocked.

    Other nice QoL in the new Book is an option in the UI to “Always Loot All.” It makes the visibility of looted treasure a bit less — no icons, just text in the General tab — but it certainly speeds thing up.

    Other things worth noting (or that I’m taking particular note of):

    1. Reorg of the costume screen to support the new costume slot options — but with nice new buttons to allow toggling bits on and off.
    2. You can ranged auto-attack while moving (just at a hit minus). Hunters can move slightly further with reduced focus cost (1 focus per 3 seconds instead of per 1 second).
    3. Hunter melee skills damage up. yay! 
    4. Lots of Scholar recipes moved from Loot to Novice Scholar trainers. Hrm. Oh, and there are now difference sizes of Glass Phial (which I noticed inadvertently the other night).
    5. Lots of stat increases on quest reward items.

    Thirty-odd pages of release notes (though a lot of that is long lists of items). Worth reading if you’re a player.

    Let’s run the numbers

    Gasp! Horrors! 

    Once upon a time, the “real numbers” behind CoX were ultra-top-secret, hidden and masked and obfuscated from the players. The fear was that it would rob the game of a certain mystique, turning it into number-crunching and min-maxing and …

    … but, wait, that happened anyway. People who wanted numbers did incessent trial-and-error and published their results and compared them and came up with numbers that even the Devs had to admit were pretty close — when they weren’t, eventually, correcting them. People who weren’t into numbers didn’t have to bother with them; people who were, could get a lot of the information — but never definitively.

    In the new Test Patch, there are some new tools for seeing (gasp!) real numbers. Spiffy.

    Well, we basically integrated some “tools” into the in-game U.I. which display the numbers behind the game’s combats systems. The Combat Attributes Window lists all the important attributes of the player and shows their current value. It also shows the source and contribution of buffs. The Combat Monitor Window is a lightweight window that can unobtrusively be left up all the time (unlike the Combat Attributes Window), so you can watch selected buffs change during combat. Additionally, more information can be found through buff icons that show their actual effects on the player, and in the combat log where hit rolls have been added.

     

    I don’t recall the name of the tool, but there were some external monitors that used to run in parallel to CoX that would show these sorts of buff infos. As far as I can tell, that’s now fully obsolete.

    Yes, perhaps some of the “romance” of “this is a big buff” vs “this is a small buff” is lost — but given that we’re already getting things that say “this adds 3% to the X,” it’ll be nice to know what “X” actually is. And it should also (if it works right) help debugging of the system as well …

     

    I suggest a new stragegy, Artoo — frag the Comm Officer

    Rikti Comm Officers, of course, spawn Portals, whence issue a number of Rikti soldiers of an higher level. Portals stay open for 2 minutes before “dying,” during which more soldiers continue to arrive. COs are Minions, as are the spawns, and until now, you’ve gotten XP from the COs and big XP from the Portals — you don’t get XP from the spawned soldiers, so that people don’t “farm” Portals for XP (gakking each soldier as they arrive).

    Some people attack COs right away, so that they don’t pull up the Portals — but Margie and I have usually found that the Portals are incredibly good eats, and a few of the higher-level soldiers manageable, So the trick is attack folks around the CO (e.g., the Guardian, or the Lieut on the team), then gang-bang the Portal as soon as it goes up, usually limiting the soldiers to only a couple.

    Alas, it appears that with the Rikti War Zone, a new exploit was born. People were going in, triggering the Portals, then doing one dinky attack aon them and scramming. When the Portal collapsed / unspawned / “died” in 2 minutes, they were the only ones to have done damage, so they got all the credit. This would only work in an outdoor zone (to allow running) that didn’t need clearing, and where there are a lot of Rikti. I.e., the RWZ.

    So … up on Test today, a new twist. Portals (sob) no longer give XP. Instead, the COs willl, though remaining Minion-level, give Lieut XP. So there’s no point in letting Portals come up (or in taking them down if you can avoid them once up). Just frag the COs first.

    Pity. I expect the net XP from Rikti teams will down from this, and the excitement as well. 

    Meanwhile, back in Paragon City

    Had a yen to hop back into CoX this afternoon (not surprisingly … downloads of patches …)

    So aside from this being a Double XP weekend, what’s up with this whole “XP Curve Smoothing” thing?

    Quoth Positron:

    Well, the leveling speed “curve” looked like a jagged mountain slope more than a smooth line. There were some levels in City of Heroes and City of Villains that just took players longer to get through. This was due to a variety of reasons, mostly in the realm of available mission content. We have tried to add new content in those areas over the past few updates, but a stronger hand was needed in some of the real problem areas. We went in and, through data mining, determined how long characters “lived” (existed) at any given level. This pointed out exactly where our problem areas were and exactly how we could address them. In addition we did a near global increase to the XP earned for defeating enemies. This will have everyone leveling faster than previous issues.

     

    That’s actually pretty spiffy. Not just the leveling-faster thing, but the idea of using data mining to load balance experience gathering. There are definitely certain levels — based both on content and on certain power set / archetype plateaus — that go more slowly, and this sounds like a way ot smooth them out.

     

     

    Costuming Options in LotRO

    One of CoX’s rightfully renowned strengths is its costume creator, with zillions of combos of outfts, accessories, body types, features, etc.  While there’s always “just one more thing” every player wants, it’s without a doubt one of the gems in CoX’s crown.

    LotRO is very pretty in many ways, but character customization is limited.   You have control over hair style and color, complexion, eye color, a couple of other things, but after that, the only variations are … what adventures you have.  Every class/race/gender starts off looking exactly alike, and based on the gear you pick up (or buy), you can change that.

    But it’s more complicated.  My elvish hunter, Frelliel, picked up a lovely plumed hat somewhere.  Loved it.  But eventually I had to give it up because, well, I picked up a stupid kind of hat that had much better armor rating.  Good-bye, plumed hat.

    Things get found of different colors, too.  Margie notes the “clown” effect — “why the heck am I wearing these purple shoes with this outfit.  Oh, yeah, they have a nice armor class and Agility bonus.”

    You do get one other level of customization — you can turn off helmets/hats (so that your bare hair is shown), cloaks (to admire your outfit), or boots (if you’re a hobbit) in the UI, which lets you keep the bonus, but tune the look just a bit.  It’s an imperfect solution, but that’s what you got.

    Enter Book 12, and Outfits.

    The goal of The Outfit System is fairly simple: Give players complete control over how they look in the game, without impacting the gameplay benefits they gain from their currently equipped items.  […] Now, as of Book 11 you already have your first Outfit. The Outfit System refers to that set of items you currently have equipped. That won’t be changing at all.

    What we’re unveiling in Book 12 is the ability for you to define two additional cosmetic appearances, called Outfits, for your character. These Outfits will override the visual appearance of your base Equipment.

    Now, it’s important to emphasize that these additional inventories are only cosmetic, and that your Equipment will continue to be the only items affecting your stats. With that said, once Book 12 goes live it’s really up to you as to how you want yourself to look in Middle-earth.

    Spiffy!

    Two extra outfit slots open at level 20.  If you pick it up (or buy it), you can make it part of an alternate outfit.  There will be some (reasonable) restrictions, but also the adding of a lot of various non-combat-related clothing items.  Excellent.

    Also being introduced is the Barber Shop, which lets you change some physical appearances — hair styles, facial details, etc., with various new ones of these also being added in.

    It doesn’t look nearly up to CoX level yet, but it’s a welcome addition to a good game.

    Other Book 12 patch notes info is here.

    (via Doyce)

    LotRO links

    A few links I’ve already dug into a bit to answer some specific questions.

    On the positive side (I think) I’m not feeling compelled to compulsively print out all these sites and delve into the forums and all, like I did back in the CoX days, even early on.  I plan on letting Margie do a lot of the research, since she’s very good at it.

    Heroes with Swords (and Axes and … Clubs?)

    Clubs?

    Yeah, we took the plunge over the weekend — a “birthday treat,” Margie framed it — and downloaded Lord of the Rings Online.  Many thanks to Avo for the reference trial keys (10 days rather than the current 7 day offer), and a hat tip to him and Doyce both for offering some sage council.

    We fired things up early in the afternoon on Sunday, and continued playing (with a couple of evening breaks) until about 10 p.m.  Initial thoughts.

    I had to download the low-rez version, because of system restraints.  I also installed it on an external (USB2) drive.  This wasn’t ideal, by any means, but it actually worked pretty darned well.  Margie was capable of much higher rez on her machine, of course, but is having some performance problems.

    We started off with two humans (duoing with the same race looks to be significantly easier early on), and, at Doyce’s suggestion, went with a Captain and a Champion (myself and Margie, respectively) as fairly versatile starter characters.  Managed over the course of the day to get them up to 10, and be hip-deep in Coomb quests.

    Generally speaking, had fun.  Some basic thoughts:

    Like:

    1. Plays a lot like CoX, with a few keybaord/mouse tweaks.  The game mechanics are similar enough that it’s not that big of a problems.
    2. I like the idea of “morale” as the “hit points” — it finesse around death-vs-defeat, and also provides some nice mechanics for “healing” classes.  Plus, it just feels epic.
    3. Though folks have noted the character generator is not as fancy as the one in CoX, it’s pretty good, and does some nice origin localizations with color tones and the like. 
    4. I love the storyline-driven play, with careful instancing for certain events (the attach on Archmet, for example) and their aftermath.  Feels very “real” and immersive.

    Dislike:

    1. Running everywhere, though this isn’t — yet — a horrible burden.  The teleport map helps.  Disappointed my Captain’s “move faster” shout (which increases running speed, too) isn’t a toggle.
    2. Facing is sometimes annoying.   I should be able to say, “I have X targeted, keep me facing X,” especially since people and critters can clip through each other.
    3. Oh, dear Lord — crafting quests.  “Can you find me three redberries, a block of granite, and a rowan axe-haft?”  Yeah, bet you’d ask Boromir that, too.  Far as I’m concerned, the whole crafting system could vanish — I just don’t know to what extent I’ll seriously regret it if I ignore it.
    4. A lot of mechanic subsystems and icons that pop up and pull you into various windows where it’s not clear what’s going on or what you should (or shouldn’t) do about it.  I’m sure that will be mitigated with some experience, but it’s more than a bit confusing early on.
    5. Finding your way to things, quests, etc., can be — challenging.  Sometimes that’s okay — it’s part of the story.  Other times, it’s just annoying. 
    6. Slow repop of certain mission goals (“Bury Will Wheaterly”) — if both of the folks on a team (fellowship) have the mission (which makes sense, right?), why does it take a minute or three for Will’s body to reappear after someone on the team buries it.  That would be nightmarish with a larger group.  And when you have multiple teams running around in a non-instanced area (see Will, above), they can make it really difficult for you to ever get to slowly-repopping goals.
    7. Non-instanced sites mean you spend a lot of time watching other adventurers fighting bad guys without lending a hand.  There’s a bit of that in CoX, too, but it feels worse here.
    8. Yes, I see what you mean about people getting irked at their mismatched (and ever-changing) wardrobe.  “I found green shoes!  No, wait, the red leather boots are better armor!  Hold on, what about this stylish set of black, patent-leather pumps?”  It’s whacky.
    9. There are times when the action stop because you have to click on someone who’s standing there so that they can give you some story dialog.  That’s almost unavoidable in these circumstances, but it still sometimes feels a bit like railroading.

    All that said, the “likes” are pretty darn keen, vs. a lack of deal-breakers for the “dislikes.”  I’m pretty sure we’ll continue to play for at least the 10 day trial period, and likely beyond.

    That said, as enjoyable as it is, I don’t feel a burning urge to play hooky from work and Just Play.  I think (mercifully) I’m over that level of fanaticism for a game.  🙂  Heck, I have plenty of TV and DVDs I still want to watch, not to mention various other evening activities.  This will be a passtime, not the passtime.

    And, for the time being, I’ll be recording my LotRO thoughts here in this blog.  Not that I plan on renaming it — and I still haven’t canceled or uninstalled CoX, either. 

    But I certainly feel heroic …