ShynDarkly

Lotro ... DDO is fine, but its just not as epic

I'd use them for more wardrobe space

Not being a fan of L2 or GW (was more in the EQ and WoW camp) I was going into the weekend not expecting much bar flashy graphics. However, I was pleasantly surprised; not since original EQ and FFXI have I felt drawn into an experience in the way it grabbed me.

The non-queueable combat where you have to actually pay attention was very welcome compared to the hit keys XYZ in this order of other big MMOs. The classes all play very differently (ended up with an assassin, a spiritmaster, a templar and a just pre-ascension priest before time ran out) which is again a welcome change when other games seem to be removing class identities.

Could be just nostalgia, but it felt for pulls to be single or multiple based on where the mobs were, not just a function of mobs being linked or not; the reactive nature of much of the combat and how easy it is to screw up and die definitely helped with providing a feeling of accomplishment; death felt meaningful again (no corpse runs though thank goodness).

Will probably try it on release, with 2 reservations; channel hopping and farmers/bots - channel hopping boss farming seems to be something that needs limiting (restricting channel switch to when joining groups perhaps), and as the weekend wound down, the early lakes seemed to be teeming with folks refining their hp potion drinking farming droids.

Overall, pleasantly surprised.

Makes so much sense, was ever a technical artifice, although I do fear it has the potential to diminish and further the decline in that feeling of community.

Some of my best MMO memories date back to the original Everquest, where lack of instancing, coupled with the likes of very long spawn times for epic quest monsters, resulted in players and guilds across some servers/shards creating community run mechanisms to arbitrate and co-operate or vice versa (the mob rotations and "who's next in line for Ragefire" queues of Morell-Thule were truly amazing, great work Mallo et al).

I'm not advocating a return to those mechanics (ok, so part of me would love it), just an old man musing :)

At last, a way to share my addiction with my children, safely, in a way that's tailored to them.

Was there for the build up, but had to bow out before the big reveal - nice look - nice additional functions; love the blog roundup at the bottom. Great job!