Well, well… March saw me whittle down my list of active games a bit. After finally canceling the whole SOE Station Access last month, I didn’t immediately renew my subscription to Vanguard. I did get around to it, but I’ve decided to re-cancel and take a break from the game. The Vanguard guild seem to be dwindling in numbers at the moment, with Karen’s shift to EQ2 as her primary game. Dolndruth is to a point where the majority of his time is spent grouped in “dungeon” content and the targeting issues with Vanguard has finally pushed me to the breaking point where it’s hindering my ability to both play and enjoy the game. The whole developer shift drama notwithstanding, new VG team? This is an easy fix. Read carefully: if the mob isn’t loot-able, and it’s either not skin-able or I don’t have a skinning ability, the corpse should not be click-able. Period! Not to mention the “hit boxes” (for lack of a better term) for interacting with any object in the game is way too big. The combination of those two factors makes tanking more of a chore than it need be. While I do think the whole leveling process of VG is pretty fun, like many others I just have to wonder where all this is going, especially with the direction the new team leader wants to go. Which is: more like WoW, it seems. Some of the changes they’ve mentioned I’m totally in line with, others… let’s just say I won’t be surprised if VG sees it’s own NGE treatment. I’ve said before that my own observation of the “MMOsphere” is that players don’t forgive and forget; they move on. Permanently. They might stop back in a year later for a month or less out of curiosity, but by and large once a player moves on in their heart, they move on for good. I think pulling an NGE 2.0 will serve only to demonstrate to the public that SOE does not in fact listen to feedback nor learn from its own mistakes. Perhaps Vanguard will gets its due rather than becoming yet another Matrix Online or SWG barely surviving on life support (ie. Station Access), but I’m taking my rose-colored glasses off when it comes to SOE.
I’m also having too much fun again in LOTRO with the kinship. Which means, just like the first time, I have to temper myself and my playing because it’s truly a bunch of fantastic guys and gals and we all really enjoy chatting and grouping together. As it turns out, Oakstout also started up LOTRO on my server, so we’ve been chatting it up, and Troy (formerly of Voyages of Vanguard fame) also just started LOTRO. Troy and I may even be kin-mates soon! We were both in the same Vanguard guild as well. I’m not sure if either of them will end up sticking with the game after the initial 30 day period, but in the meantime April should be fun having new friends to adventure with from the blog scene. I’ve also heard through the grapevine that pΘtshΘt might be doing a bit of LOTRO this month, although he’s on a different server. Perhaps I’ll send the Middle Earth Mafia over to “coerce” him to starting fresh and joining the rest of us? 
Arwellyn just reached level 39 today as well, so that’s very exciting! She’s questing nearly full-time in Evendim now, with a few stints in the Trollshaws as she gears up to start Book 4. One of her kin-mates made her a set of the Scholar’s armor today, and Gandalf himself awarded her with a new staff after she walked around Rivendell with Frodo, who shared his concerns about everyone depending on him. Nice little fellow, I’m sure he’ll come into his own… After grouping with several high-level hunters, I’ve been in awe at their sheer single-target DPS abilities, so I now have a third LOTRO character and he is already level 14!
I’m actually pretty happy with the way this is turning out. LOTRO can be my full-time MMO, and I have both DDO and Guild Wars when I’m in the mood for them. Oh, I just looked at my desktop and saw the Hellgate: London icon! I guess that counts too? Maybe someday I’ll spend more time with it and try to get a group, but that hasn’t worked so far. The whole point of buying that was group-based, Diablo-esque game play, and it’s been nothing but solo so far. Very disappointing in that regard.
For my non-MMO gaming, I’m still very much into Battlefield 2142. I’m sorta-kinda debating joining a clan but I play so casually I don’t know if that would be such a good idea. I do play primarily (well, in the evenings) on two clan servers if they have any open slots. One in particular I really enjoy playing on, and I’m always getting invitations to normally clan-only squads so that’s been great. I haven’t played Team Fortress 2 since the recent update, so I can’t comment on that. I downloaded the Enemy Territories: Quake Wars demo 2.0 on Steam but… it just seems very “meh” to me, so I don’t see myself getting the full game at all. I’m extremely curious about Frontlines: Fuel of War (also on Steam) but I’m also going to wait until they get a demo out the door. Releasing an FPS with no dedicated servers? In 2008? Sorry… I’ll hang til you guys get your act together…
I did play a single round of World in Conflict this month. I’m still having a hard time sitting down from the spanking I received… If any very friendly and patient bloggers are WIC players and want to give me some “WIC For Dummies” schoolin’, let me know. 
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I would recommend playing artillery in WiC to start with. You don’t get spanked right off the bat and you can fire from half a map away, death from a distance I say. I’ve also enjoyed helicopter duty, but firing the big guns from your home base is really great.
I’ve not picked up the game in a long couple of months, but I’d be willing to group up some time if your interested.
Also gratz on the Ding. I will probably stick with the game longer than 30 days, only because I doubt between now and then I’ll get a good chance to see a large portion of the game. So far, it not much different from other games I have played recently and the scenery is much better, not to mention less laggy than the beautiful Eq2.
I do have some issues with the game, but nothing that would prevent me from playing the game. But I’ll not bore you with those, I’ve got a whole post planned once I’m back full time behind a decent computer. lol
Looking forward to reading the post then! Glad you’ll be sticking with it too, it really seems to be coming into its own, especially with the expansion news. Every tidbit of new info they release about Moria just sounds so cool… And Book 13 this month sounds excellent too! Fishing, Forochel, environmental effects… I can’t wait!
Thanks, been having a blast with the kinship, fellowing with them damn near every night which is why Arwellyn gained several levels so quickly. I left her right around 80% to level 40, and by the time I get home the ‘enhanced experience’ bar should be full again and ready to go.
This might be old news to some, but I just learned about it last week: if you’re having a lot of hitching when the game loads in new models and textures, try this one. In the Options menu, click Troubleshoot at the bottom. Adjust the framerate to max out right around where you would normally max anyway. Or just set it to some arbitrary number like 30, 40, 60 whatever you’re comfortable with. Then adjust the engine speed down one or two notches. I did that and the difference in hitching is very noticeable with no noticeable difference in the actual game play. I still hitch when I first ride into Bree-town but that’s understandable suddenly rendering all the extra models and textures, but even then the hitching is not even in the same league as what it used to be. I haven’t tried turning on AA with those settings though; AA gave me roughly a 10fps hit before, and would hitch like crazy when new textures popped in and had to be rendered and anti-aliased, so I’m curious to see if it improves with these troubleshooting settings.
[...] of Middle Earth has been rekindled. I’m not quite ready to reroll on Arkenstone as Scott at Pumping Irony might be hoping. Not saying I wont, but as I’m a wee bit rusty, I thought I’d take [...]