mbp

I played MoM for a while about five years ago shortly after I abandoned WoW. It was probably the first Western mmo to use a "fremium" model in that you could play for free up to level 20 at the time. I remember the game being a refreshing change from WoW and I remember there being a very helpful community. I am delighted to hear it is still going strong.

I used Opera for a couple of years and I became totally dependent on Opera link - the service that synchs Opera between multiple PCs and most importantly between phone and PC. I also happen to think that Opera mobile / Opera mini is a really great mobile browser once you get used to it.

My big bugbear with Opera is that I still come across web pages that are not compatible with it. Not very often it is true but it has happened on important pages where I need to fill in forms.

I was recently tempted back to Firefox because the new version 4 now has a sync feature and they have also introduced an Android version for mobiles. I love the new Desktop version of Firefox but I hate the android version. It is abominably slow at rendering pages.

You would think that Chrome would be the logical choice to synch to an Android phone but bizarrely Chrome doesn't sync properly to Android yet.

I call practical joke:

"Enough with killing people", go to church and repent instead. Tasos is winding us up I think.

My relationship with titles in LOTRO is now in its third phase:

When I first started playing the game I treasured each title and proudly sported my latest acquisition.

As the number of titles I earned ramped up however I got disillusioned. I began to feel that the ridiculous number of titles in the game devalued the whole point of having a title. I stopped sporting a title altogether.

More recently my view has mellowed. I have come to seen titles as a fun embellishment to the game. I will browse through the many titles I have earned by now and pick one that suits my mood and wear it for a day or so. I will just as happily wear a humorous title as an epic one.

Guild Wars wins for me because of the humour of their titles.

Who wouldn't want to proudly sport the title "Drunkard" or even "Incorrigible Ale-Hound".

"A god walking among mere mortals" has already been mentioned but I have a fondness for the understated simplicity of "Kind of a big deal" and you cant get a more explicit title than "I'm very important".

One of my favourite moments in Lotro was early on in Moria when I went exploring and fell off the path into an abyss. Luckily I didn't die but I was completely and absolutely lost wandering around passages in the dark. I was on the point of giving up and mapping out when I stumbled across a dwarven guard who actually gave me directions to the nearest settlement. Cool.

Agreed on the virtue grind although it might get easier if you are closer to the level cap. If memory serves there are more than enough deeds available to max your virtues so don't feel guilty about skipping the tough ones.

Not a serious mistake but a pretty embarrassing one:

After failing on multiple occasions to come first in a LOTRO harvest festival race and win a fancy horse I eventually got lucky and managed to find a quiet time near the end of the festival when no one else was racing. As I was the only runner in the race I knew I was guaranteed victory as long as I didn't screw up so I took my time carefully trotting around the course making sure I got every marker. I even stopped to loudly inform my kinship buddies that I was the only horse in the race and I was about to win myself a Festival horse. Unfortunately I hadn't realised that there is a time limit on the race and with my careful steering and stopping to type in kin chat I exceeded the limit. The timer ran out with the finish line in sight and I was booted of my horse and told I had lost the race. There was much merriment at my expense when my next kin chat message admitted that I had lost the race despite being the only rider.

I haven't logged in in in a while but I have a lifetime sub. Sounds like this is worth picking up for when I do go back to the game.

Up to now WoW players have been blithely oblivious of th Kotick factor. Sounds like that is about to change.


Of course it is not like he is going to upset an apple cart that is earning his company hundred of millions is he? Ahem..... ask Messrs West and Zampella the answer to that question.

Big big Kudos to Turbine for this.

Partly for implementing a customer friendly non abusive free to play + item shop game model but also for having the guts to even try and rescue a game that wasn't doing so good commercially and the cleverness to pull it off wonderfully.