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.