It’s been a while since I’ve posted.  I’m still kicking around LotRO at the moment.  I was subscribed to SWG but my old PC bit the dust and I had to get a new one.  SWG is a moderately fun game but, with the new machine, I don’t feel like reinstalling a game I’ll hardly play across the Internet.

I’m interested to see what will come up in the Siege of Mirkwood expansion for LotRO.  There’s a dev diary about the skirmish system – sounds neat.  I’ll have to wait and see how the whole thing turns out.  I know MoM was devastating for my kinship.

Speaking of which, my kinship, a group of casual players who liked to do it all, is no more.  We’d been around since open beta, been through the Rift and Helegrod, raided the Moors together and generally had a lot of fun.  Sadly, the raid changes in MoM cost us too many good players (most of whom went to hardcore raiding kinships).  We also had several officers leave the game or take extended breaks as well as some members.  It was the perfect storm of crappiness.

We merged with an ally who wasn’t experiencing quite the same level of burnout and attrition.  Generally, I view the move as positive.  I’m still getting to know the new players.

I’m already being considered for an officer position in the new kinship.  I’m not sure I’ll take it though.  I’m a tad burned out from all the drama of the last couple of weeks and I’d like to spend some time with nothing more pressing to do than stab the snot out of some orcs.

Some of the folks taking a break from LotRO have been trying Champions Online.  I’ve also had a friend at work try the game.  The feedback I’ve been hearing is that it’s a good game and an interesting take on the superhero MMO but the story lines aren’t as developed as they could be.  I have no first-hand knowledge so I couldn’t say.  I’m sticking to fantasy at the moment so a new superhero MMO isn’t going to be in my near-future.

And that’s what’s going on.

Happy gaming!

I was on a “staycation” recently – that’s basically me taking my required time off but being too broke to go somewhere cool.  I did a couple of non-sitting-at-home things but at night I found myself back in my apartment.  I figured why not also make it a gaming break from the norm too?  The only MMO I’m currently playing is LotRO, so I put that on a back burner.  I rummaged through my old gaming CDs and there amidst the WoW expansions and old games I haven’t played in years (Heavy Gear 2, Quake 3 Arena) was my Elder Scrolls: Oblivion CD.  Oblivion is a game I remember fondly from a couple years back, so I checked my PC and I still had it installed.  I popped in the game disk and away I went; I created a new character and entered the tutorial.

The introduction tutorial features the player escorting the current emperor Urial Septim on his escape through the city jail area.  As players use different skills, the game is making calculations about what kind of class they should be.  Like using stealth and ranged attacks a lot?  Perhaps you’d like to be an Agent.  Want to charge in and bash heads with a heavy two-hander?  Maybe a warrior-type would be more to your liking.

Once you’ve made your selections about what kind of character you want to be, you’re off into the world of Morrowind.  And once you’re out, you don’t have to do anything!  That’s one of the things I really like about Oblivion – players can follow the main quest line immediately and do everything they’re “supposed” to – be the hero, rescue the embattled people of wherever – or ignore the main quest and do whatever you like.

This time around, I decided to mix things up a bit.  Once out of the tutorial, I stole a horse and made my way to the priory to turn in an amulet.  As I mentioned above, the turn-in isn’t mandatory but going to the priory would get me some cheap armor and weapons and access to a non-stolen horse – you know, just in case I decided to hop back on the straight-and-narrow at some point.

Unfortunately, I forgot about the whole horse-stealing thing so on my way into town, several guards challenged me and, without my thieve’s guild network set up yet, I had to do some jail time.  It was amusing but not quite as funny as my best in-game arrest: in a previous game the guards arrested me for horse thievery while I was escorting the Prior and the Heir back to town.  I broke through the baddies in Kvatch, shut down an Oblivion gate, opened the city front gate, rescued the heir, saved some citizens from a horrible fate … and got jailed for stealing horses.  The funny part was the Prior and the Heir were both standing right there and had just finished telling me how great I was.

Once out of the slammer, I went about joining the Thieve’s Guild and setting up my fence in Bruma.  That done, I was ready for my epic crime spree!  I also inadvertently killed a civilian (what can I say: he was some random guy standing around in the wilds at a camp site – not a good thing to do in Morrowind) and I got a visit from the Dark Brotherhood guy which I’m not sure I’ll follow up on.  I like being a thief but a random killer sounds a bit too much.  Then again, the Fighter’s Guild doesn’t want me to steal, the Thieve’s Guild doesn’t want me to kill, but the Dark Brotherhood is cool with anything I decide to do.  The Dark Brotherhood: we love you just the way you are.

While playing though my new adventures, I noticed the same stuff in the game that made me like it so much the first time through.  The NPC AI is wonderful.  My first time through a spy quest, the person (NPC) I was spying on went to church, then went for a walk and then did some gardening.  This time around on the exact same quest, she went to church and then stayed home the rest of the day.  Why?  It was raining out.  One doesn’t go for walks or garden in the rain.  Quest NPCs are marked on the map, but where they’d be at a given point in time was a crap shoot.  Also: they sleep behind the locked doors of their houses at night so no turn-ins for them at night (there are some that seem to always be around though).  The NPC AI can also lead to some odd behaviors.  One NPC in the Fighter’s Guild in one town prefers to eat breakfast naked for some odd reason.

Another thing I liked is that my accomplishments changed the world around me.  This time around I was careful about how far through the main quest line I went.  I haven’t gone to Kvatch yet to save the heir.  Once I do that, Oblivion gates will start opening all over the game world and right now I’m having too much fun in the world without them.  I like being able to experience the world before it begins falling apart.  However, when I do start in on the main quest line again, the forces of evil will begin their invasion and I’ll see signs of it all over the place.

I could also sleep or wait to quickly pass time in the game.  I would reawaken several hours later and could approach contacts in the morning.  Leveling occurs after a rest period and when leveling the whole world levels with you.

All of which brings me to wonder why it is we don’t see more of this kind of game play in MMOs.  The time-shifting bit would be hard to replicate as well as the whole world changing at once.  I’d still love to see NPCs that actually behave like people rather than standing stock-still in shops at all hours or wandering the same predictable patterns in the woods somewhere.  I’m sure some of the auto-pilot players would complain but I think the occasional inconvenience of having a quest to turn in to an NPC that is currently at home in bed is worth it for a world that feels dynamic and alive.

Why keep levels?  Why not find a way to make the game interesting right out of the gate?  In games with levels, players will reach the cap much faster than anticipated anyway.  Why not make a game which is essentially “end game?”  Right out of the starting area, you’re faced with mobs the same level as you … and you can travel anywhere in the world and they’d be the same level (give or take a level or two to account for difficulty, etc).  Players could engage in raiding, PvP, storyline quests, etc. right out of the gate without restrictions imposed by a leveling mechanic.  I know many players like levels to get a sense of forward progress or getting more powerful.  I’m wondering though if there aren’t other mechanics available players could use.  The guilds in Oblivion for example offer players more assignments based on their status within the guild.  As players progress they get harder and more interesting stuff to do.  The rewards for completing interesting content is more interesting content.  Stories lead to stories.  Also, the quests result in money and more content, not gear.  If I want better gear, I need to go adventuring.

Game makers could use gate mechanics like reputation or factions to herd players through certain areas or expand content.  In LotRO, for example, Lothlorien requires that players have a certain amount of rep to get into the zone.  Then we need another amount of rep to get into the city.  The division into rep levels isn’t too bad – I think I made it into the zone in a couple days and into the city by week’s end – and the set up allows players a noticeable forward progression unlike the Council of the North rep where there was no outward sign that I was progressing, just a little slider bar on my rep panel and the deaths of many of exactly the same kind of mob to get the rep item drops I needed.

I’ve been enjoying my break from MMOs for the past couple days and will probably continue with Oblivion for a bit longer this time around.  Maybe I’ll even get a house in my beloved Bruma this go-around too.

There’s an interesting article in RPG Vault recently about addictive gaming.

It’s a tricky thing to define, but I’ll take a crack at it. A design is addiction-based to the degree that it encourages players to experience the same content again and again (often referred to as grinding) in return to obtain a series of rewards. These can be simple labels with no tangible effect (like an in-game title or some achievements), or they can be character improvements that give the ability to move on to a new location with a slightly different sort of grinding. I call this the grind/reward cycle, and it can keep players coming back to one game for years.

One key aspect of this design is that it gives many small rewards instead of a few big ones, so that the player is receiving constant positive reinforcement. A classic example is the style of skill improvement in World of Warcraft and EverQuest. When you gain a level, your skills don’t go up five points. Instead, your maximum goes up that much, and then the skill itself increases with use, a point at a time. Splitting up the reward into many parts increased the number of reinforcements.

The majority of games classified as MMOs these days adhere to a greater or lesser extent to addition-based game play.  Do x until you get y, then move on to z.  Repeat.  Sadly, games don’t seem to deviate much from that pattern.  Star Wars: The Old Republic seems to be attempting to move to a more story-based model.  Whether or not it’s successful, only time will tell (the game isn’t even in alpha yet).

Like the author, I’d love to see more options in games.  One gripe I’ve had with LotRO is their new-found gear-centeredness.  Like WoW, LotRO seems to be heading towards making players loot-crazy to keep them playing.  LotRO’s problem is they can’t make the instances interesting.  Rather than becoming loot-crazy, players are taking extended breaks until the next content expansion or leaving for other games once they hit the cap (that seems to be the general pattern I’ve noticed, anyway).  Personally, I’d like to see more community-based activities in MMOs … I mean, we play MMOs to play with other players so encouraging players to work with each other doesn’t seem like a bad way to go.  I don’t mean that forced grouping should become the norm, but it would be neat to encourage players in other ways (clever game design pushing them into proximity, better and varied PvP activities, trading-card type games where players can interact, etc.).

New models of “addictive game play” may help the industry out of its current rut.

One of the things I like about LotRO is that things are more accessible for casual players.  Having better armor helps, but if you’ve been keeping up with your quest rewards and have a friend craft a couple pieces, you should be good for most of the content.  With a relatively small amount of organization, most instances and book quests can be conquered easily.

But there are still some challenges that are really quite difficult.  This past weekend, a group of kinship mates and I decided that we’d wrap up book 1.15.12.  The final instance of the book is hard.  Very hard.  Players have to fight their way through tunnels of orcs, defeat a boss with debuffs (and massive damage if you have one of the debuffs on you) and fight through a multiple wave fight at the end.  Even with most of our group at level sixty, it was a tricky run.  We had three wipes before getting through the first boss.  Also, this was my second attempt at the instance; my first was in a group of all-fifties and we didn’t make it past the first boss.

In spite of how annoying the fight was, the relief when it was all over was really something.  I ended the day sitting outside the Last Homely House on my new white pony.

While most challenges in LotRO are accessible for most players, finishing the 15.12 instance felt more like an accomplishment to me than the typical Rift run.  It was a tough fight and made players work for it.  I had to run the instance twice before getting though it.  One of my kinship mates had tried five times to get it.  Yet, when it was all over, we finally prevailed.  I’m still of the opinion that the fight should be easier (mainly because it’s a book quest and not a raid) but finishing it while it was that tough definitely felt epic.

*Spoiler alert – strategy and spoilers below the fold*

For those that don’t know, 1.15.12 is the final book in the epic book series for the Shadows of Angmar part of LotRO (the next part being the Mines of Moria).  The book picks up the story of Narmaleth (Amarthiel) and her attempt at redemption.

I’ll also say that the advice below is only from my experience.  LotRO-wiki or some other strategy site may have more complete / useful information than I can provide.

Tunnel:
- Stay on the path.  The little blotches of purple off to the side spawn fire elementals if you step on them.  They don’t hit that hard but if you’re already fighting a bunch of stuff, they can add up.

- Mez their healers (I believe they’re called defilers).

- Have burgs mez the archers or use the trait-slotted enrage to stop them from using their bows.

- Run in front of Narmaleth.  In the tunnel, it’s like she’s trying to get herself killed.  Don’t let her go first if you can avoid it.

- If she’s moving too fast, you can jump on one of the purple splotches deliberately.  She stops wherever there’s a fight, so if you’re waiting for rezzed / released members to catch up, spawn an elemental and just make sure she’s getting enough heals to stay alive.

First Boss:
- The worst part of the fight.

- If you have a debuff on you, run to Narmaleth.  If she buffs you and you get the white mark on you, go hit the boss (you should be able to do extra damage).

- Have ranged fighters stand beside the pillars on either side out of line of sight of the boss.  He won’t move and if he can’t see you he can’t hit you.  The same people hiding by the pillars also need to take out the elementals attacking Narmaleth.

- Narmaleth’s power is the key to the fight.  She can buff you and remove debuffs if she has power.  Keeping the elementals off her is important.  If she’s burning power to fight them, she’s not using it to keep your group alive.

- The first group I was with had a guardian tanking the boss while the hunters hid by the pillars.  Melee classes like me (burglar) were pretty useless.  I fought the elementals until I died – pretty much par for the course for burgs.  Even conjunctions didn’t seem to drop him fast enough.

- One possibility is to wait until partway through the fight and then have a burg trigger a conjunction.  Go greens and blues (GGBBBB or similar).

After the first boss:
- Pat yourself on the back, the worst of it is over; just don’t get careless: failure anywhere in the instance resets the whole thing.

- Head across the column over the lava to the next area.

- You’ll enter a library filled bad-guys.  She’ll also have a ring appear and wait before you click it until she moves.

- Ignore the ring over her head and kill everything in the library.  When it’s clear, then go back and get her.

Final fight:
- Mordrith appears on his shiny new flying mount.  Some neat cinematic stuff ensues where they basically trade insults.

- Mordrith then starts sending in illusions to fight.  It’s basically a tank and spank.  Target-marking will help a lot.  You can also go into the keypad options and set a target-marking key.  I have mine assigned to my “G” key.  If I’m marking targets, I can select one and hit “G.”  The skull marker will appear over my target (you can use any of the available icons, I use the skull because it’s straightforward – skull means this one dies next).

- The illusions are in groups.  There are some elites and some signature mobs.  As mentioned above, tank / crowd-control and focus-

MBP tagged me for another meme thingy, this one to post the sixth screenshot of any game of my choosing.

I take a lot of screenshots in any game I play.  I suspect it’s the camera buff in me.  I’m aware that at some point the game will go away (either I’ll leave or the game will shut down) and all that will be left are my screenshots of the people I met, the places I’ve explored and the adventures I had.

I printed a screenshot I took in City of Heroes back when I was playing it (I was trying out a new color printer and wanted to see what it could really do).  The shot was of a friend and me standing on the roof of a building high above Paragon City overlooking the statue of Atlas in the courtyard. We had just gotten our travel powers (super jump for me and teleport for her) and we were excited to see the world from a perspective which had been previously unavailable to us.

On a recent return to City of Heroes, I visited the same building and leapt across rooftops just to take in the views.  My character had changed since the screenshot – I’m a lot more glowy now and my outfits include capes instead of the simple ensemble I used to wear.  More importantly, my friend is gone. Gone to where, I do not know.  Given what she was like when I knew her, it’s likely she’s playing another game.  My other friends in CoH are all gone too.  I remember our supergroup outings to crush Clockwork or the Fifth Column goons.  I still have the screenshots of when we formed our supergroup (a shot of us standing around the registrar all doing the /newspaper emote).  We were quite the crew.  Time and changes in gaming interests pulled us apart.  On my return, I noticed they weren’t around anymore – but I still have my screenshots.

In the ephemeral world of MMOs, screenshots are a way to pretend that something which doesn’t exist, in-fact never really existed, is in some way real.  They help maintain the illusion of the worlds we inhabit and our place in it.  Though these digital worlds move on and my online friends fade as they discard one digital shell to, perhaps, pick up another shell in another world, I still have my screenshots of the way things used to be.

(Screenshot and further blathering below the fold.)

Fighting Drakes in the Rift

Anyway, without further ado, here’s my screenshot.  It’s a picture of my kinship and I taking down the dragons before one of the bosses in the Rift.  My wee hobbit burg has his Rift chest and legs on and is wielding a mace and dagger.  Since the fight is ranged at this point, my only job is to round up any drakes that are attacking the minstrels (the drakes appear to be dead already).

I’ve been thinking about play styles a lot lately.  When my kinship was getting ready to get into the Mines of Moria expansion in LotRO, we had a thread running on our boards about how people were going to tackle the content and make the transition between 50 and 60.  Many argued for the “take it slow” approach.  The slow levelers intended to stop and smell the roses, read all the quest text, take in the sights, etc.

My main, a hobbit burglar, is now finally 59 – one level from the max level of 60.  I’ve been all over the area outside the mines and even sneaked my way through to the content on the other side.  I’ve done a lot of quests and am enjoying my time.  I don’t feel that I’ve rushed through anything.  The person who started the “let’s take it easy” thread has been 60 for a while now on his main and is closing in on 60 on a number of alts.

Another event that got me to thinking about play styles is when I stopped to help out a kinship mate with his quests outside the mines.  We raced from one objective to the next, hammered out no less than five quests in the area in about half-an-hour and ended the night when he dinged 52.  It was, by my standards, a marathon of racing around like crazy.  I barely had a chance to think before my kinship mate was bolting off in another direction to chase down the next glowy or mob to kill.  My friend, however, seemed fairly content with our speed.  He is also 60 now, while I’m still getting there.

The two incidents got me to thinking more about how I go about leveling and what’s enjoyable for me as a player.

Adventure-based:
I like the idea of adventuring more than leveling.  Kill ten x quests bore me quickly, but give me a mystery to solve, a specific bad-guy to put down, a plot to uncover or some other way to show I’m good at something besides the mass killing of wildlife and I’m all over it.  Even if the mystery involves killing ten things, it’s the mystery that will grab me, not the killing.  In Moria, for example, there’s a quest to set two groups of orcs against each other.  I’ve had to kill a number of orcs, including one of the orc leaders, break apart a barricade and set some traps in the halls outside the dwarf camp.  As the plot developed, I was more eager to see what would happen next.  Will the orcs really fight each other?  Will the plan succeed?  The fact that it was all wrapped up in a series of kill-ten-x quests interspersed by some click-the-glowy quests didn’t matter to me.  The plot was more important than the mechanics.

There’s Treasure Everywhere:
I like finding things that are special, different or unique in some way.  I like exploring ruins and finding statuary or ancient artwork.  I like taking in the vistas available in places like the Trollshaws or Moria.  Things that are surprising or inspire awe are tremendous immersion tools in games; they quiet the part of the mind which is aware it’s in a game world so the player can just stop and marvel at something.

The other day, I was sneaking around in Moria in a place called the Waterworks.  It’s an area filled with large machinery and spinning gears.  There are huge underground palaces and flooded areas where I could walk past some ruined statuary just to realize it’s part of a submerged face or broken column which was part of something else.  Lights shine down from the ceiling and play over stone and water.  There are goblins there and fire-breathing lizards so it’s dangerous to get around.  It was awesome.  All the while, the song from the animated Hobbit cartoon was playing in my head.  The one based on Tolkien’s poem:

Far over the Misty Mountains cold,
To dungeons deep and caverns old,
We must away, ere break of day,
To seek our pale enchanted gold.

The dwarves of yore made mighty spells,
While hammers fell like ringing bells,
In places deep, where dark things sleep,
In hollow halls beneath the fells….

The feeling of being in a place of wonder and beauty and with a history all its own makes my day.  It feels like I’m roaming ancient halls long since fallen to ruin and walking paths which are hazardous.  All of Moria feels like a dungeon crawl with the possibility of treasures and adventures just around every corner.

Playing the part:
I like playing a character in games.  I don’t just mean taking control of an avatar in a virtual world, but using their appearance, attributes, itemization, etc., to tell a story, even just an internal one, about that character and what they’re doing.  With LotRO’s cosmetic appearance tabs, I could set up my hobbit burglar to look like a farmer or a knight (albeit a short one) or a pirate or some other thing I wanted.  When I’m adventuring, I usually have him dressed up in leather armor and a backpack or cloak.  The look of the armor plays a part in what I envision him to be: a sneaky and often-scared hobbit trying to quell the evils around him in his own way.

The class abilities I choose also play a role.  Even though there is a non-stealth “stance” I could use which would increase some of his abilities (mischief mode), I still choose to sneak with my burglar when I’m solo.  Quest objectives become things for him to pilfer from under the nose of the enemy.  He defends himself through force when necessary but would much rather use wit and guile to thwart the evil designs of the foe.  My guardian or hunter, on the other hand, would take a dramatically different approach.  It’s not just a matter of game mechanics; it’s a matter of what the character would do.

Some people would call my gaming approach “RP” or role-play.  I suppose that’s correct.  I don’t often engage in role-play with others as much as I used to.  I usually typify my play as “RP-ish.”  I’m usually telling a story or playing a role, but whether or not others know or understand it isn’t something I really care about.

Going my own way:
Much of what I enjoy in my play style encourages solo play.  Anyone stuck in a group with me may find my distractions tedious.  I’ll start off in one direction and before I know it, I’ve been swept off doing something else (seeing what’s down a passage I haven’t been in before or looking around for treasure).  I’ve grouped with my kinship leader before – she enjoyed yelling “LOST!” in chat when I get caught up in one of my little distractions.  I’m not lost, I’m just not going to the same destination I was two seconds ago.

Add my hatred of crowds to my willingness to wander off on a whim and it becomes completely natural for me to figure out what everyone else is doing … and then go do something else.  Quite a few friends of mine race off to new zones as soon as they open.  New zones opening means one thing to me: I own the old ones!  Mu wu ha ha ha!  I get to explore areas now devoid of players more completely, grind out any deeds I want in less time and basically gawp at things.  I’m not anti-social; I like socialization, just not near me.  *smile*  (Actually I do like socialization, but I’m often particular about the company I keep.)

To paraphrase a quote on raiding I heard recently: Everyone that levels faster than me is racing; everyone that levels slower than me is lazy. “Rushing” is a subjective term.  One person’s speed-leveling is another person’s leisurely stroll through the content.  A player’s play style may be conducive to leveling quickly or not.  As long as I make reasonable leveling progress, I tend to ignore my leveling speed in favor of other things in a game.

My company has mandated that employees take up some more of their Paid Time Off this year, so the past couple of weekends have been three day weekends for me. As it’s winter here in the Northeast US, I’ve stayed inside and mostly watched TV, read or played video games.

I am now addicted to House MD. I recently caught the House marathon over New Year’s and started watching the show. It’s funny: I had no interest in the show for the past four years but all of a sudden I started watching it. *shrug*

I’ve been re-reading The Hobbit  as well as The Lord of the Rings. The Hobbit has to be one of my all-time favorite books. Bilbo is a wonderful hero because, in his world, he’s not really supposed to be one. I like tales of knights or warriors as much as anyone, but unlikely heroes appeal to me.

LotRO continues to give me my MMO fix. My hobbit burglar is now closing in on 59. A little over a level and he’ll be 60. My kinship has begun creating regular instance runs to get the armor required for the final Watcher battle. While I’ve enjoyed much of Moria, this weekend, I spent a lot of time either crafting or in Lothlorien questing or fishing. It’s good to see the stars and sky again after the long dark of Moria. I’m looking forward to the Lothlorien expansion (I believe it will be in the first free expansion for MoM).

Like MBP, I’ve noticed a lot of bloggers returning to LotRO or picking it up for the first time. It’s a game I’ve enjoyed quite a bit during my time there and I’ve hopeful that at least a couple more LotRO regulars will develop. On the other hand, I’m a realist and I’m sure many will head off for newer games once they pop up. LotRO is an acquired taste, I think. As I’ve stated before, there are certain types of players I’ve noticed in LotRO (lots of Lore fans, casual socializers, etc). People who value other attributes in their gaming (hardcore PvP, rapid advancement, etc) or who don’t place a lot of value in just being in Middle-earth may not enjoy LotRO.

I’ve been playing LotRO a lot but also wanted to mess around with some other games as well. I did some more time in WoW including re-re-rerolling a Death Knight. LOL! What can I say, their starting area rocks. After that though, I cancelled my account. WoW remains one of the best MMOs for new MMO players, but no amount of nostalgia will bring the game experience back to what it was for me back in the day. I just can’t seem to make it past the Burning Crusade stuff and the questing Horde-side in the new continent just didn’t do it for me.

Just for giggles, I loaded up Oblivion again. What an awesome game that is. It’s a sandbox game where players can either do all the quests, none of the quests or anything in between. My first character there was a noble knight and I’d take pains to do all the quests and work through the content. My second character is a lot more fun to me. As soon as I was out of the starting area, I stole a horse. From that moment on, I’ve been flitting between questing and fleeing the authorities. If it’s not nailed down, I’ll steal it. I have a personal house in the main city which I use to house stolen goods until I can safely transport them to my fence. One thing I’d love to see is an Oblivion-style MMO. The ability to level via using skills (just sneaking and walking around grants skill points to level up) is excellent alternative to quest-based or grind-based leveling seen in many MMOs.

And that’s what’s going on.

In a brilliant maneuver no doubt designed to limit the load on their servers, Turbine has let their SSL certificate expire.  There is a thread about the issue on the official forums.  There is also a dev post.  The problem will create SSL errors on the LotRO client and won’t allow users to log into the game.

The fix is to move the date on your PC clock back to 1/1/2009.

This fix will, however, cause issues with any daily quests.

Edit: The issue has been resolved.  Turbine states that they did reup the certificate but for some reason, the original request didn’t take.  A new certificate has been set up and the game should work correctly now.

Yahoo posted the results of a video game survey conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life project.  The survey compiled answers from 2,054 U.S. adults late last year.

Among the interesting tidbits:

• More than half of American adults play video games and one in five play just about every day.
• 81 percent of respondents between 18 and 29 said they play games, compared with 23 percent of people 65 and older.
• Fifty percent of women and fifty-five percent of men play video games.
• Gamer Education: Fifty-seven percent of respondents went to at least some college; fifty-one percent are high school graduates; and forty percent have less than a high school education.

Star Wars is not a science fiction movie; it’s a fantasy movie with spaceships.  Star Trek is a science fiction movie: it contains spaceships and every piece of technology has a thin veneer of scientific explanation.  Star Wars, on the other hand, contains technologies with no explanations: they just work.  Ever wonder how a light-saber was able to contain the beam?  An actual sword made of light would need some sort of cap or lens on the end of the beam, otherwise it would continue on forever (or until it dissipated).  Light sabers don’t fit in a science fiction world.  In a fantasy world, however, it’s not important how light sabers work, they just do.  It’s the same way a mage can summon fire from his hands without setting his sleeves on fire.  In fantasy, it just happens.  In science fiction, there has to be a why.

Star Wars is a fantasy movie with sci-fi trappings and that is why some fans got angry when the Force got midi-chlorianed.  The Force didn’t need an explanation, it just was.  The Force had descriptors (it’s everywhere, between this rock and that tree, the land and your ship, etc) but it didn’t require any empirical evidence about how or why it existed.  The explanation, via midi-chlorians, as to how the Force worked betrayed the fantasy aspects of Star Wars and made it science fiction, which, in my opinion, it shouldn’t be.

Incidentally, these are the kinds of things I think about when changing a video card at midnight because my other card died and I really wanted to log in and goof off for a bit before going to bed.

Maybe I should have just gone to bed.