Author: Syp

Posted in Lord of the Rings Online

LOTRO: Vacations and work days, both in the same game

Posted on by Syp

This week in LOTRO, I dusted off my lowbie Lore-master and bought her a Stone of the Tortoise so that I could double back and work on some lower content without continually pushing her levels higher. First up was heading into Bree-land and working on a full zone clear of deeds. Nothing like a Hobbit, a pint-sized bog-guardian, and a backpack full of mushrooms to signal hope for an entire world!

I like how this character feels like a “vacation” toon. I’m not in any particular hurry, I just log on to revisit these old areas and gradually do stuff there. It’s a really good visual break from the desert regions of the most recent expansion, that’s for sure.

I’m also returning to Idagal to try to make headway through the rest of this expansion, especially with the final zone of the Umbar trilogy emerging later this month. I figure that even if my enthusiasm is low, I can still hack away at a few quests every day and keep moving the needle forward until it’s all finished.

And you know what? That works. When you set small, measurable goals to get through a project you’re less-than-enthusiastic about, you can complete almost anything. Plus, it’s not like I should whine about the chore of playing a game. It’s just that sometimes you have to push through blah content to get to the good stuff.

As for a replacement for my gaming computer, I’ve been shopping around and trying to find the best combination of hardware and a good price point. I think we’ll probably pull the trigger on something in May, at which point I can bring LOTRO back to the desktop.

Posted in World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft: Gaming matrimony

Posted on by Syp

Heading into April, I was pretty impressed with the trading post this month. Both garden-themed mounts were excellent, with the arboreal snail being the standout. And what Harry Potter fan wouldn’t love the Mandrake? I probably spent about 1500 tender all told, which is far more than the nothing I purchased in March.

I’m continuing to work on gearing up my Warlock, although occasionally my thoughts turn to my neglected Death Knight and Druid. I know it’ll be a bit of effort to get them caught up, but I feel that it’ll be worth it in the long run… at some point. Maybe this summer?

There’s really so much to be doing on my Warlock that I’m not hurting for content on a single character. There are weekly housing endeavors, weekly quests and world events, weekly delves, the rest of the campaign, side quests, prey missions, and so on.

Some of the best fun I’ve been having is hanging out with my wife in the game. She hasn’t played WoW since Dragonflight, but she’s sucked in pretty deep right now with a love for making tons of gold and buying up WoW Tokens. But we do run delves and world quests together, which is usually pretty funny as our gaming styles aren’t that compatible — she’s very reckless and gets us into trouble a lot — while we tease each other as we sit on the couch with our laptops. It’s the most “together gaming” time we’ve had in years, and it’s been bonding.

And while my Macbook is holding up as a WoW gaming machine, I really miss having a standard mouse-and-keyboard setup. I’m still in a holding pattern for a new computer, but hopefully early May we can figure something out.

Posted in Lord of the Rings Online

LOTRO: Aiming for a fresh start

Posted on by Syp

Not willing to part with LOTRO entirely, I went a week or so go by and then dipped back in to make a little adventuring progress on my Minstrel. I see that Update 48 and its new zone is in testing, so a little pressure is radiating from that. Baby steps back into Middle-earth when I wish that I was rushing back, super-enthused.

My feelings about the most recent expansion could be easily summed up by this screenshot — it’s boring, blah, and uninspired. I don’t normally ding the world designers because they typically do amazing work, but what happened in this expansion? Why is every zone just the worst? How can I escape this hellscape?

I mean, the answer there is pretty obvious — stop playing that character and get away from that expansion entirely. So I hopped servers to Glamdring, where I have zero presence or progression or unlocks, and whipped up a brand-new character. My new River Hobbit Captain joined the ranks of this server. Now it’s time to get settled, find a kinship, level up, get a house, build up a wardrobe, and all the rest.

As for a leveling path, I don’t have any idea right now. Completionism is one way to go, but I’ll over-level things way too fast unless I use a stone of the tortoise. The reason this appeals is simply because it encourages me to take my time, really digest all the content, and spend a good long vacation in Eriador.

I quietly, gradually got established and started running her around the Shire. I might freeze her progress at level 15 — the cap for this zone — and keep her difficulty at level 2 so that I’m not getting nuked by Sauron all the time.

Posted in Music

A day in the life of Syp’s music listening

Posted on by Syp

It’s 6:30 am. Groggy and waking up, I head into the basement and put in the earbuds of my iPod Nano 7th gen before getting on my exercise bike for a half-hour spin. The random assortment of 4200+ songs keeps me company through the rest of the exercise and then through making breakfast for a half-hour past that.

8:30 am rolls around and it’s time to head to work. My car boots up the small flash drive I have with my custom mix — no algorithms for me, no sir. I bop to this (yes, sometimes I literally bop in my car and I’m unashamed if others see) until I roll into the office.

As I get settled for the work day, I’ll take a stack of about four CDs from my to-listen pile, which currently numbers around 200 or so. I never get tired of those extra steps of turning on the stereo, popping in a CD, putting the case on a stand so that I can look at the name of the tracks, and listening to it from start to finish. Any must-have tracks I’ll flag to put into my music mix folder later. If it’s an album that I’ll legitimately listen to again in the future, I’ll give it an honored spot on my shelves. If it doesn’t pass muster, I’ll put it into a bag to bring to the record store later that month to exchange for credit.

I try to get through four albums a day. Depends how busy I am, because some work — and visits with people — require no music to distract.

Over lunch, I’ll take a mile walk, grabbing my customized iPod Mini and Koss Porta Pros to keep me company. I keep telling myself that I need a second iPod Mini because I love this one so much and would be crushed if it failed.

When I get home and have some down time, I’ll check through a number of YouTube channels that I trust for curated songs — some EDM, some VGM, some just random cool songs. As I game that evening, I’ll sort through the new songs and see if there are any keepers that also should go into the music folder.

Perhaps I’ll sit on the couch and listen to some music on one of my other players or laptop as I read or write. Not always, but sometimes. If the weather’s fine, I might take a walk or sit on the back porch and enjoy some tunes that way as well.

And that’s about it for the day. I’ve experimented with listening to music as I fall asleep, but I’ve found that listening to a quiet sitcom on my phone tucked under my pillow works far better to put me right into a sleep state, so I go with that unless I’m on a trip or something and only have music on hand.

Posted in World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft: Walking into the Void

Posted on by Syp

When my gaming PC was knocked out of commission permanently last week, it threw me for a loop. Suddenly, I didn’t have access to most of my MMOs and other games and had to make do while I started shopping for a replacement. Fortunately, I was able to load World of Warcraft retail on my Macbook Air and get in a good weekend of gaming with no other distractions — perfect for finally hitting level 90 on my Warlock and getting started on delves and gearing a bit.

I’ve really been enjoying doing full zone clears. I know a lot of people rush through the campaigns and ignore side quests, but that doesn’t feel right to me. Some of the side quests have better stories, for one, and some cool rewards (pets, housing decor). And by doing all the quests along with the occasional delve or dungeon, I had no problem hitting the new level cap before I was done with Zul’Aman.

However, what I didn’t realize until about halfway through is that even if I hit level 90, I wasn’t able to access world quests, higher-level delves, and the rest of the endgame stuff until I got through the campaign at least once. So my previous plan went out the window and I started to power through the campaign just to get it done. Like most of WoW’s campaigns, it was a big nothing-burger of a story, but at least it was fully soloable with the follower dungeons.

It was a surprisingly huge relief to finish the basic campaign and see all of the standard endgame systems unlock at once. That gave me more choice on a nightly basis, and I started to juggle weeklies, delves, campaign quests, and side quests depending on how I felt at the time.

I do want to get back to my Death Knight at some point and work on getting her leveled and geared up, but one character at a time — and I should probably wait for a timewalking or leveling event.

Posted in Rimworld

Rimworld: Alone, naked, and ready for an adventure

Posted on by Syp

I think it’s high time for another Rimworld adventure — and another crack at its hard mode, Naked Brutality, where I start with a single character who has no gear, no clothes, no resources, and practically no chance. I’m playing on commitment mode with a randomly selected colony site, and the only advantage I’m giving myself is rerolling my character until I get some nice stats.

I ended up with Jake here, a disaster survivor who’s pretty good in a lot of desirable areas, including being brawler, having high construction, being good at researching, and being a good doc as well.

Jake landed in a temperate forest region near the equator with some large hills. This is all very desirable — food will grow year-round, it won’t get that cold, and there will be healroot scattered about to harvest. He got to work fixing up some ruins into a one-room base, getting almost all the necessities finished in the first day. I did prioritize him making a club to defend himself, however.

Food and clothing are going to be his biggest challenges at the start. Jake does what he can to harvest berries while planting some rice, but he’s not a hunter, and so meat and leather are going to be difficult for a brawler to get.

I’ve never done this before, but I had Jake run up and start thwacking a horse with his club to see if he could take it down. Lo and behold, he could — and with minor injuries! It wasn’t enough leather for an outfit, so I had him do it again, and the mare kicked him right to the ground. He had to crawl back to the base, hastily construct a passive cooler to counter a heat wave, and then miserably heal in bed.

And on top of all that, Jake got an infection, which could outright kill him — and even if not, it’ll keep him bedbound for a long time without much food.

But all might not be lost! Jake’s daughter Shin appeared out of the blue and joined the colony, giving me a much-needed second colonist to do some work while Jake hopefully heals. She even came with an autopistol and clothes, which is a win for how little we have right now.

And then a timber wolf immediately started hunting Shin, who fled into the base, followed by the wolf itsef. Jake did what he could to protect his daughter, who managed to gun down the beast. But now Jake’s bleeding and Shin can’t doctor, so this bodes very poorly indeed.

Why not a raid right now, too! Shin plugs the raider in the leg, but he cuts her down and kidnaps her right off the map. This game really hates me today.

Because Jake wasn’t dying of enough things, he got a second infection, was bleeding out, was starving, and then the raider left something on fire that ended up burning down the base with him inside of it. Thus ends this terrible Naked Brutality run. Lived up to its name, I guess!

Posted in Nostalgia Lane

Nostalgia Lane: The amazing run of SNES and PlayStation JRPGs

Posted on by Syp

Around the turn of the century, I juked pretty hard into CRPGs — and later, MMORPGs — and left JRPGs in the dust. I know that they kept coming out and still do today, but I was satisfied that I’d lived through perhaps the greatest run of JRPGs that there ever was.

Because when you look back at the ’90s, you couldn’t do better for JRPGs than to spend the first half of the decade with the SNES and the second half with the original PlayStation. Between the two consoles, there were so many incredible classics.

The SNES had Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy II and III, Dragon Quest III, Lufia I and II, Earthbound, Super Mario RPG, Secret of Mana, Tales of Phantasia, Breath of Fire I and II, Shadowrun, the 7th Saga, and more.

And then over on the PlayStation, we enjoyed Final Fantasy VII-IX, Suikoden I and II, Xenogears, Parasite Eve, Final Fantasy Tactics, Front Mission, Parasite Eve, Breath of Fire III and IV, Legend of Legaia, and Lunar SSS.

Some of these I played. Some I played extensively. And some I never knew about and/or had the money to buy them at the time, so they sailed right past me. I’m not really in a place in my life where I want to dip back into these older titles, but hey, never say never.

I appreciated the fact that all of the ones I did engage with were very pick-up-and-play without having to worry about bending myself into knots trying to get them to work on a computer. The cartridges simply worked, and I could get my progression leveling fix along with exploration, looting, and a semi-coherent story. Usually.

At that time, this is what I needed, and I appreciate the flashy fun and nonsensical narrative that JRPGs provided.

Posted in Music

New headphones, retro music tech

Posted on by Syp

Last Christmas, my father-in-law — a tech geek if there ever was one — absolutely surprised me with the gift of an Airpods Max. At first I was kind of lost for what to do with it, as I already had perfectly serviceable Sony bluetooth headphones and all of my wired headphones. Getting what I realized was a pretty expensive gift that I had no idea where to fit into my normal use was a little concerning.

However, over the past couple months, the Airpods Max has become my absolute favorite headphones I’ve ever had, hands down. First of all, they fit my head like a dream. I have a big head (insert joke here), so most headphones make me look even wider. But these are flat and slip over my ear well, keeping a trim form factor. And despite their metal build, the Airpods feel very comfortable wearing for extended periods of time.

Then there’s how the headphones automatically connect to my Macbook Air, phone, and iPad Mini (I have way too many Apple devices, I know) whenever I’m using them. That’s been extremely convenient.

And then my favorite feature, the noise canceling system, is absolutely amazing. I thought I’d hate this, but it’s just the opposite. I love using it in noisy public places (like supermarkets) to quiet everything so I can listen to music or a podcast, or while washing dishes, or even in our family room where there’s a lot of noise from the kids and TV and gaming systems. I don’t noise cancel all the time, but sometimes, yes, it’s great — and it’s easy to turn it off and on so I can hear external noises too.

The last piece of the “I’m falling in love with this device” puzzle came when I purchased a USB C to headphone jack adapter. With this, now I can plug the Airpods right into my older iPods and get incredible sound out of them. I rocked this setup at the store the other week and felt cooler than I ought to.

Posted in Gaming Goals

Syp’s gaming goals for April 2026

Posted on by Syp

March 2026 in review

  • Not that you need to be privy to my personal life, but March was simultaneously one of the more difficult and more packed months I’ve had in a long time. With all of that plus the melting down of my 10-year-old gaming PC halfway through the month, my gaming time was more limited than I would’ve liked. Alas!
  • World of Warcraft: Midnight officially launching was the big event of the month by far, and I was quite happy to slowly — oh-so-slowly — level up and work my way through the main campaign with my Warlock. I put retail WoW on my laptop and had some fun gaming with my wife as well.
  • I was burning out pretty hard in Lord of the Rings Online, pushing through the rest of the third zone of Kingdoms of Harad and into the fourth. The new Spring Festival content was fun, but I saw the writing on the wall requiring a break, so I’ve been stepping away.
  • WoW Classic saw more Shaman leveling through my 40s, but I’m still nowhere near The Burning Crusade. Yet. It’s been fun and relaxing, though.
  • I played and blogged a little about Barony, a pixelart dungeon crawler that’s had some rave reviews. It was cool and I did leave it on my laptop.

April 2026 goals

  • The one sure thing I have going is that I’m really enjoying WoW Midnight and want to pour more time into this expansion. After I finish up the leveling campaign, my goal is to settle into weeklies and then start working on side quests that I skipped past.
  • I’ll probably keep playing WoW Classic — it’s comfortable, but I’m also not on fire for it right now. So it’s there, and I’ll probably be there with it. Getting to Outland would be a huge goal achieved for this month, but I doubt it’ll happen.
  • I might blog through a Rimworld run for your entertainment, and I’m planning on picking up Outbound when it comes out on April 23rd.
  • That’s it! Getting a new gaming PC is a big priority right now, but we’re waiting on a good find and some finances to line up, so that might not be until May.
Posted in Lord of the Rings Online

LOTRO: The death of a computer

Posted on by Syp

Instead of kicking off today’s blog post with more adventures in MMOs, I have to announce the sad demise of my gaming computer. The other night I heard some very disturbing noises and my hard drive absolutely crashed, and upon trying to reboot, the computer wouldn’t go into Windows at all. And even though I got a good decade out of the machine, it was still a big blow. I lost some files, some programs, and the ability to game with it. It’s one thing when you’re expecting a computer to go or ready to replace it, but it’s another when the end of its life comes out of left field.

All was not lost, though. I still had two laptops that could handle some gaming and handle podcasting, blogging, and other online hobbies. Honestly, I kind of saw this as an excuse to step away from LOTRO again and explore other ideas.

I’m not super-keen on the idea of the spring zone being yet another expansion region, because I am over and done with the whole Umbar crusade. It was interesting for a while, then just fine, then increasingly wearisome. It feels like I’ve been on a vacation that lost its luster a while back and hasn’t let me leave to go back home.

A forced break or an event that makes you streamline life for a little while can be a welcome development. It’s been kind of an insanely busy March, and April doesn’t look any less crazy for me. Priorities being what they are, gaming time comes at the expense of all else — even rest, which I need a lot of these days.

I am looking forward to a couple of smaller spring and summer releases with Paralives (May 25) and Outbound (April 23). But those are really the only games that I am eager to experience outside of the handful I’m currently playing. After all, there are tons of titles, including plenty of RPGs, on my backlog if and when time permits.