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Ten Ton Hammer Best of 2013

Best Community 2013

I hate Best-Of posts that make you click through endless pages. So here is a quick rundown of Ten Ton Hammer’s Best of 2013 Awards, plus some observations of my own.

The LOTRO Community

LOTRO does indeed have a fantastic community. It probably takes time for a great community to grow, so LOTRO’s longevity helps. And the Tolkien roots undoubtedly attract a proportion of people to the game that are wonderful community material. There are people who love the lore, and love to share it, and discuss it. There are people touched by the values embodied in Tolkien’s work: fellowship, goodness, service and sacrifice, the power of tales and music, and a boundless love of pies.

The Shire would be one of the pleasantest places to live imaginable, and the LOTRO community is one of the pleasantest MMO communities to live in imaginable.

I have to mention in passing that weirdly one the most fantastic, most helpful and nicest members of that fantastic community is banned from the official forums. Strange indeed. I was going to quote Frodo on how sometimes a person has to lose something so that it may be saved for others. But that doesn’t really fit the situation, so I won’t.

The guy is so nice he asked people not to make a fuss about this, so I won’t say any more. Paradoxically the way he handled being banned is itself a testament to the niceness and maturity of the LOTRO community.

For some of my favorite parts of our great community, see also My Favorite LOTRO Sites.

Best MMO – GW2?

I don’t play GW2, and there is a reason why I don’t play it. From all the stuff I have read about it I have got the clear impression it is as they say “A nice place to visit, not someplace you’d want to live.”

Its strengths seem to be that you can drop into it for half an hour after a gap of months and have fun right away. I can see the attraction of that, and maybe I will give it a go someday. But that’s not all I’d want from my “Best MMO” by a long way, and that does seem to be the main way that people whose tastes are like mine play that game.

Neverwinter

I also don’t play Neverwinter. But the more I hear about it, the more it sounds like something to look into and include in my game rotation. From what I hear, like GW2 it is excellent to drop into for half an hour now and then. But it seems it can also be played in many other ways. So this award is one more vote in favor of finding the time to try Neverwinter one of these days.

In conclusion…

Forth Eorlingas! (And Hobbits! And Elves, Dwarves, Breelanders, …)

Fear! Fire! Foes! Awake!

And bring plenty of pie.

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Night-time Gaming and Sleep Cycles

I don’t know about you but most of my gaming sessions tend to be later at night, which is when I have solid blocks of time. Also apart from gaming I’m often reading on a mobile device or watching TV of an evening. Which means I am quite intrigued and perplexed by research about the effects of the light from our screens on our sleep cycles.

First a health warning about scientific research… It is not always as conclusive as it sounds. It takes years of follow-up work, people trying to reproduce results, pull apart the findings, etc etc, before it really becomes definitive. Sometimes the reported findings are just random flukes, because positive findings get reported and negative ones don’t. (i.e. Twenty groups of people do various experiments. The one group that by chance got an interesting result publishes, the nineteen who could only say “We did X, but nothing much happened” don’t publish anything.) And even after all that, once something is well-established, eventually things often turn out to be far more nuanced and complex than anyone first thought. Those kind of considerations are understood by scientists but don’t make it into reporting or blogs, so we keep hearing about important findings about this and that, only to be told the very opposite some years later.

So, with those caveats in mind, there is research about the effects our screens have on us, and especially our sleeping patterns.

A good run down is in the following video:

The video goes with this paper, but it’s behind a paywall if don’t have already access to academic journals. The work is by the Sleep and Chronobiology Lab at Univ of Colorado and you can probably find more via Google if you want.

In short, the idea is…

  • Light, especially blue light, tells our bodies it is daytime
  • Modern screens give out a lot of blue light
  • Using screens at evening and night messes with your natural body clock
  • In the experiment they took people camping away from all artificial light, and their body clocks reset after just a week.
  • The differences between night owls and early birds reduced, and they both had their sleep cycles shifted to an earlier time.

Some related articles of interest:

So what to do?

Apart from not using tech at night, which would be very limiting, one option is f.lux. It is free software that adjusts the light given out by your screen depending on the point in the day-night cycle at your location. I downloaded it earlier and am giving it a try.

At first it’s like you just stepped out of your well lit room into the evening, you really notice the difference. But after a while you forget and adjust. Right now the WordPress screen I am typing into is a bit reddish-orangeish tinted, like piece of paper would be outside in the evening light. But I’m not really noticing that any more as I type, it’s just WordPress.

I also fired up LOTRO to see what the game looks like. Well it happens to be dusk in Breeland anyway. And it looks, well, dusky. Possibly more dusky than it usually does, though that might be a trick of the mind. Whether noon looks dusky as well is something I’ll have to find out another time. But I am feeling a bit sleepier now I must say.

I took a couple of screenshots to try to show the difference, but it looks like f.lux does not affect what is captured in screenshots, so you’ll have to take my word for it.

I think I’ll keep this experiment going for a while, and if there is anything worthwhile to say, I will write a follow up post or update this one.

UPDATE

I’ve been using f.lux for some months now. It’s definitely soothing on the eyes, so much so that the times when I turn it off for some reason the screen light seems pretty harsh. However I doubt it’s made any difference to my sleeping habits. I suspect that even if light is a factor in sleepiness, screen light is just so much less powerful than daylight that other things matter much more. Perhaps things like whether what you’re doing late on is highly stimulating.

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The Morning After the Sale Before

Steam Games List

In my last post I thought aloud about what I was looking out for in the sales. Well, now I’m done with my sales shopping, and to tell the truth I have mixed feelings about it. Hence the title of this post: “The morning after…”.

What I Bought

  • Skyrim
  • Papers Please
  • Hero Academy (Gold Pack)
  • The Secret World (Massive Edition)

What I Didn’t Buy

One thing above all is significant to me: I didn’t buy any LOTRO stuff at all. True there isn’t that much left that I don’t already have and still want. Mainly there’s just Helm’s Deep, which was not on sale. All the same, it feels strange considering LOTRO has been my main game for a couple of years.

I also didn’t buy a whole bunch of other things that were tempting, but those don’t much contribute to my mixed feelings today.

That Morning After Feeling

Here’s the jumble of thoughts and feelings that make up that bittersweet morning after sensation…

Overall, despite restraining impulse buying and taking the time to wait a bit and think first, I spent more than the budget I had set myself beforehand.

I’ve been intrigued about The Secret World for a long time, so I’m pleased I finally got it, and pleased with myself that I waited and got a pretty sweet deal on it. Yet it’s a new game, and who knows how much I will play it in the end? Splashing out for the Massive Edition may prove a great bargain, or a total waste of money.

Now I have a bunch of new games (from the sales and the recent Humble Bundle) which are calling to me to come and play them. Yet they all have their learning curves, and I am aware how I am fumbling around trying to make sense of the basics in them. In Skyrim, my LOTRO muscle-memory takes over and I end up lashing out with a sword when I meant to open a chest. All the games might be very good, but it takes time to get to grips with the most basic stuff, never mind mastering them and enjoying them to the full.

So it may be that I have bought yet more stuff that I will not in fact get around to playing. In other words, I wasted yet more money. (“Eyes bigger than your stomach” is one of the big issues in our times no? Well certainly for me.)

And even if I do end up playing these games a fair bit, inevitably that means I will be playing less LOTRO. Game time is finite, they’re not planning on adding any more hours to the week I don’t think. The idea of less LOTRO time does make me sad. But I can see myself playing a lot of TSW, which is why I went for the Massive Edition.

All of this means maybe my relationship with LOTRO is about to change, at least for some while. I’ll perhaps be seeing less of my characters that are like old friends, and less of the people there that actually are friends, old and new. And less of my beloved Middle Earth. It feels a bit like LOTRO is sailing into the West.

If there had been some kind of sale on Helm’s Deep, or come to that, if it had been priced more reasonably in the first place, things would probably have been different.

So it’s like the morning after the night before. Not quite sure what you’ve gone and done, and where it will all take you. Wondering if you did the right thing, but excited too.

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Black Friday Thoughts

My philosophy is: “Think first, buy later.” This post is what I’m thinking about the Black Friday sales which are already starting, and many of which last up to Dec 2nd or so.

This isn’t a comprehensive look at the sales by any means. The things listed are things I’m thinking about getting myself. The links to offers are as much for my benefit as anyone else’s, so I can find stuff easily again when I decide what to buy.

LOTRO

In the last couple of years, Turbine have saved their best sales for Black Friday itself. You’ve been able to get the latest expansion at half-price, and maybe with an extra-special offer on TP to add to the purchase during checkout. With Helm’s Deep having gone live barely a week ago, it’ll be interesting to see what they do this year.

I haven’t bought the expansion yet. I had enough doubts about the class changes that I wanted to give it a good try on live before deciding. Having done that I think the game is still enjoyable, so if there’s a good offer on Helm’s Deep I’ll probably go for it. If not, maybe I’ll wait til after Christmas, and the next round of sales. After all, I don’t anticipate having a vast amount of playtime between now and then, and for sure there will be more than enough other games to play in the meantime. (And of course, there’s always my many lower-level alts.)

The deals that are up so far are:

I’m pretty sure better LOTRO deals will come along later.

Update – No sign of any deals on Helm’s Deep this time round.

Other MMOs

  • Warcraft -75%

    For $5 you get 30 days game time, and all expansions up to level 85. Not Pandaria, which is on sale separately for $10.

    I’ve never played WoW, and without an exceptional sale there was not much chance of me ever trying it. For $5 it is tempting to go check it out just on the basis that it’s talked about so much by people like Balkoth and Brian of Moderate Peril, and I would at least find out what the heck it is they mean by the things they say!

    Overall I suspect it is too much like the other MMOs I play to be worth my time in the long run, especially with the subscription fees.

  • The Secret World -50%

    There’s no news of a TSW sale yet, but apparently they had a 50% sale for Halloween, so my guess is they will do the same or better for Black Friday. All the cool kids seem to be playing it and liking it, so it’s tempting to give it a go if the price is right. It sounds to be quite a bit different to other MMOs, and I like most of what I’m hearing about it. (Good storylines, challenging gameplay, no leveling, etc.)

    Update – Steam now has TSW and TSW Massive Edition at 50% off until 3rd Dec.

Other Games

  • Skyrim -75%

    I’m sure it’s a fantastic game. But that doesn’t guarantee I would get around to playing it enough to do it justice. I’ve already got a bunch of great games from past sales and from Humble Bundles which I’ve barely touched.

    Update – the 75% off daily deal is over. Still on sale, but smaller discount.

  • Papers Please -50%

    Different and unique game, that’s gotten great reviews. Sounds a strange idea at first, but on sale might well be worth a try.

  • Civ 5 Brave New World DLC -66%

    Civ 5 itself if probably also on sale, but I already have it. It’s a good game with some issues. Sounds like BNW DLC makes it better and fixes some of the not-so-good aspects. The thing is each Civ 5 game takes a very very long time to play, so I don’t play that many of them.

  • The Witcher & The Witcher 2 -75%

If I come across other deals that interest me, I’ll update this post later.

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LOTRO: Hunter Skills Lost and Gained

This is a look at the skills that I’ve lost and gained on my 85 hunter as a result of the Helm’s Deep class changes, plus my thoughts on what it all means for me and my playstyle.

Some of these skills are gone from the game, others lost to me because although they exist, I spent my points elsewhere. In the latter case, by the time I get to the new cap at level 95 I will have enough points to get one or more back depending on how I choose to spend the points.

These are based on my initial builds, and things could change with more practical experience. I had 55 points to spend, which is the max that a level 85 can have if they have done all their class quests and deeds.

Lost Skills

OldHunterHotbars

  • Hunters Art. It’s gone from the game, but I didn’t use it anyway. I think few hunters did.
  • Heart Seeker. It has its uses and is still available, but I didn’t prioritize it as other things are more important to my playstyle.
  • Strength of the Earth. Still exists, chose not to prioritize it.
  • Cry of the Predator. Gone from the game. Was occasionally useful esp at lower levels, but at 85 I won’t miss it much.
  • Split Shot. Still exists, but I never used it that much. Though I do like to have AoEs, the mix of narrow target area and inductions does not fit well for the times I really need AoEs. I also build to generate lots of focus, so chaining Rain of Arrows is usually an option when I want an AoE.
  • Blood Arrow. Still exists, I never used it much. For similar reasons to Split Shot, I build in a way that gives me better options than this. I rarely have power problems, so there is no need to spend morale instead of power.
  • Burn Hot. Still available and useful for the times when you need to do a big burst. But I usually build for sustained damage rather than burst, so I passed it up for other things I needed more.
  • Set Snare. A similar skill is avail in one of my tree setups, so it is only lost when I’m running with the more straight DPS set up.
  • The traps consumables are gone, so I can’t set triple traps or drop quick traps in a red line config. I wonder what will happen to the traps we have. Can we recover the mats? Use them in some way? Or are they now wasted?
  • Fleetness and Needful Haste are gone as skills, but can appear as buffs that randomly proc, and you can affect the chances of it happening with your build. But they are not something you can choose to use on purpose to suit the situation. I think fleetness is not available unless you specialize blue, but I could be misremembering.
  • Swift Stroke is gone from the game. You can get a somewhat similar effect from hopping into endurance stance and firing quickshot. Stances give a 10s buff as well, so stance dancing is going to be more common I guess.
  • Agile Rejoinder is gone. Endurance stance quickshot gives you some heals though, and Press Onwards can be used more often than before. So maybe Agile Rejoinder won’t be as sorely missed as we thought at first.
  • Scourging Blow. It still exists, but I never used it much. I used Barbed Arrow for fire DoT at range sometimes on mobs with big health, esp if they have poor fire mitigation. But I don’t often use Barbed Arrow in a melee situation, so Scourging Blow was not very useful to me.

Overall this is not too bad at all, as I’ve mostly lost things that I didn’t use often. Except for Agile Rejoinder and Swift Stroke, which were melee staples.

Gained Skills – Config 1 – Red Specialization

Config1Red

Config1Hotbars

  • Explosive Arrow. Spreads its damage, so it can deliver a biggish hit to a single target or smaller hits to a bunch of mobs.
  • Pinning Shot. A 5s root with an 8s cooldown.
  • Upshot. The Bowmaster capstone, a big hitter with 25s cooldown, eats all focus.

I’ll have to figure out how to best use them, but on the whole they seem useful without offering any radically new possibilities for hunter playstyle.

Gained Skills – Config 2 – Yellow Specialization

Config2Yellow

Config2Hotbars

  • Piercing Trap. Somewhat similar to the now gone Set Snare.
  • Explosive Arrow. I picked it in both configs.
  • Deadly Decoy. Interesting skill! Creates a temporary tank for you that aggros mobs away from you for a short while before it explodes and does some damage. 45s cooldown, so can use a few times during a tough fight if needed.
  • Lingering Wound. It’s biggish DoT. Not much more to say about it.
  • Tripwire. In effect a 5s stun.
  • The One Trap. The Trap of Doom! The Trapper of Foes capstone, it does big damage and slows target.

One thing to note is that setting traps becomes a ranged skill. (If you spend your points in a way to make it so.) This has some important consequences. Less chance of traps being wasted because the mobs took a different path than you expected, you can wait and drop it in front of them as they arrive. Or even right on top of them, which in effect makes them ranged attacks, much like Rain of Thorns say.

Again it’ll take time to work out the best ways to use these skills. The Trapper of Foes line looks a lot more viable now, and could add some fun new ways to play a hunter.

What does it all mean?

Firstly, before Helm’s Deep I used to play the blue line! I didn’t put a single point into the blue line with either of my configs. I might try that later, but at first look what you can get by going blue didn’t seem worth the sacrifices. (Very little option for heals, AoE or CC, which are things I’ve always turned to in the more interesting tactical scenarios.)

Some of the most important parts of the old blue line have moved over to red now. If I’m remembering right, Deadly Precision, Arrow Storm and Strong Draw were blue, but now are red. So I am actually keeping a lot of my blue line playstyle intact by going red, and still running Precision stance mainly.

Overall the changes don’t seem to make the game radically better or worse. It still looks playable and enjoyable enough, and I can replicate my old playstyle pretty well.

I ran a couple of skirms, once with my red config and then with yellow. My feeling is both times they were a fair bit easier and quicker to do than with the old RoR skills. So hopefully there is still challenging stuff to do out there somewhere when I want to do that.

I haven’t yet checked how things work out at lower levels or on my other classes. I suspect around level 50-60 we’ll have a lot less skills than we used to, and at level 20 skills could be really thin on the ground. So leveling alts might be even duller, but maybe burning through mobs faster will help alleviate the tedium there.

Also I haven’t yet looked much at how to lay out my toolbars, or worked out how to have skills not move around when I swap configs. From what I’ve seen that won’t be hard to figure out though.

In summary… Helm’s Deep class changes are not as big a deal as I feared. There’s still quite a bit of scope to build how you like, and with the added bonus that the yellow line might be a fun alternative to try now.

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Tales of Creativity and Play

One of the themes of this blog is that play is an important part of our lives, and playing matters more than many people think.

Here’s a TED video, from the Serious Play Conference of 2008. The main focus is on how playfulness is important for creativity, and it shares many examples of the use of play in designing better products and services.

MMO players might find the section on roleplay, starting at 19:40, especially interesting, though the whole video is well worth a watch. And fittingly it’s a fun watch as well.

MMO game companies and the gaming community might also want to think about the importance of a safe, non-judgmental environment for fostering playfulness. Worrying about what people will think of you isn’t conducive to play or creativity, but our game servers can sometimes be pretty judgmental places with trolling, one-upmanship and such.

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Reading Roundup

If you like what I write, you’ll probably like what I read too.

Plus in my reflections on the NBI I noted that oftentimes I don’t need to post about a topic that’s been on my mind because someone else has done it well already. If I do have anything extra to add, it often makes sense to just add that as a comment to the other person’s post.

Which gave me the idea of doing a roundup of posts and conversations that I’ve found particularly interesting this week.

So here goes…

News and Chat

Thirty thousand Orcs and you

At last we got a better look at LOTRO’s upcoming Big Battles system. This was still a guided tour, and only covered a small piece of the overall Big Battles content, but it fleshed out what we can expect much better than anything we’ve heard so far. And it sounds promising!

There’s a nice discussion of this on LOTRO Players too.


Bio Break’s 27 most anticipated games

I’m not one to follow all gaming news avidly, so this was an intriguing list for me. It prompted me to go read a bit about WildStar, and watch some of the dev videos…

Poll: How many MMOs are you playing right now?

Interesting to hear what people play, and how many things they play at once. I’ve been thinking about how many it makes sense for me to play and still be able to do them justice. I might write a post about that sometime.

The Newbie Blogger Initiative

NBI Logo

As the NBI came to an end, there was a flurry of last-minute advice and people taking a look back at the month. On top of that, while I was thinking about the NBI, I went and read a bunch of earlier posts. Here’s a selection of the best:

  • NBI: Write Your Worst Article – Some interesting advice on overcoming writer’s block, accepting that you have good and bad days, and avoiding excessive perfectionism.
  • Squeaking in with advice at the last minute! – I’m not sure if it’s all technically advice as such, more of it is funny and encouraging personal tales! Either way it’s a good and heartening read.
  • NBI: It’s almost over – Four bits of specific advice, which I have started to put into practice. Plus nice shout outs for three blogs, including this one.
  • NBI: Class of 2013 – A handy listing of all the blogs to come out of NBI 2013. Which is not otherwise that easy to find!
  • NBI 2013 – Aftermath Eternal and NBI Aftermath look back at the NBI and look forward to the future. Nice thought about what the dragon is sitting on Joseph!

Food for Thought

The Awkwardness of Games is thoughtful piece on whether games can be art, and comparing them to other forms like books and films.

I read a bunch of posts about what makes MMOs fun, and whether they once used to be much better than they are now. The posts aren’t all new by any means, but I read them all this week out of interest in the topic.

  • MMO Future: Understanding old memories – an interesting take from someone that thinks MMOs really used to be much better, with a lot of good discussion in the comments, even if some of it got a bit tetchy.
  • Skills and flow in MMORPGs is related in that it discusses how challenge relates to fun, and how players can inadvertently spoil their own fun.
  • Is MMO Combat Really That Bad? is a post from someone who likes the challenge of PVP and is happier with combat now than it used to be in past.
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Reflections on the NBI

NBI Logo

The Newbie Blogger Initiative (NBI) is the spark that led me to create this blog. Without it, I’d probably have been thinking the same thoughts that I now write here, but not putting them out there for people to read and discuss.

The NBI formally ran for the month of October, and comes to an end today, so now seems a good time to reflect on it. (I say “formally” because the NBI Forum will remain up, and I hope and believe the community that the NBI gave rise to will continue and grow.)

How the NBI Inspired Me

I’ve dabbled with blogging about various topics before, but it’s a long time since I had an active blog about anything. From time to time I thought about starting a blog about this or that, but it stayed as just a thought. And it never occurred to me to blog about games at all, even though I’ve been playing an MMO pretty extensively for a couple of years, and was a regular reader of at least a few game related blogs.

How did the NBI change all that? A few ways…

  • I was very impressed with the quality of the blogs I came across via the NBI, both the established “sponsor” blogs and the “newbie” ones. Here were a bunch of people who were interested in the same things as me, who had things to say that were worth reading, and seemed fun to hang out with.
  • There was good advice that helped with many of the decisions I’d have to make when starting. (Pen name or not? How often to write? How broad or narrow to make the blog? etc)
  • There was the prospect of at least a few people discovering the blog and reading it! It’s pretty discouraging when you take the trouble to write something and no-one even seems to see it, let alone respond to it. Normally it takes time to build a readership, but the early days are exactly when you need some encouragement and feedback. Without that, it’s hard to tell if there is any point in carrying on, whether you are doing something that will turn out to be very worthwhile eventually or you are doing something so wrong and hopeless that it’ll never have readers.
  • There was a time limit! The NBI was going to last a month only, and as anyone from psychologists studying procrastination to marketers planning a sales promotion will tell you, there’s not much like a limited window of opportunity to get people off their backsides and actually take action.

That’s what tipped me into starting a blog.

The NBI in Practice

So how did the NBI work out for me in practice? All good, with some surprises…

  • I wrote two posts before making my blog public. Thanks to links appearing on sponsor blogs, within a day I had a decent number of visitors, and some fascinating conversations going in comments.
  • Thanks to the advice of the veterans I kept to a comfortable pace for me, without feeling obligated to post more often. In fact I actively refrained from posting more, so as not to set unrealistic expectations, either for myself or for readers!
  • An unexpected benefit was that I found myself commenting on other people’s blogs much more than I used to, and feeling much more like a recognized member of the community. It feels like I’m on the way to making some new friends.
  • I came to realize that sometimes a comment on someone else’s post is as good or even a better way of adding your two cents worth on a given topic than writing a full post. There’s a lot of smart people out there thinking the same thoughts as I do, and there’s no need to go over the same ground which they’ve covered so well. Maybe I should figure out ways to show my comments elsewhere in this blog somehow. And find a good way to highlight other people’s posts when they say the things I’ve been thinking. Probably there are ways to do these things with widgets, reblogging, Twitter and such.
  • At the moment I have a lot more ideas for posts than I have time to write them. But following the advice, I am keeping a list of the ideas so I can use them in the future.

Summary

The NBI has been a success for me. It’s led me to actually start a blog for one thing, which is no small feat on its part! I also feel I’ve become a part of the game blogging community, and that I’ve set out on a path that is both enjoyable and sustainable.

Thanks to everyone that helped make the NBI what it is!

Thanks to Justin Olivetti for coming up with a fantastic idea and running the first initiative, and to Roger Edwards for reviving it in 2013. Many thanks to all the sponsors for their advice, encouragement and help. And last, but not least, thanks to my fellow NBI newbies for their fine blogs, and for creating a welcoming and fun community that makes blogging a pleasure.

Sometime I will write a post about my favorite NBI-spawned sites. In the meantime, thanks again, and I’ll see you in comment threads here and all over the web!

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My Favorite LOTRO Sites

mmorselI’ve been playing LOTRO for a couple of years now, and over time I’ve found some excellent sites. But as it did take me some time to find them, newer players might benefit from some recommendations. And even if you’re an old timer who’s lost count of how many level-cap chars you have, there might be one or two here that you haven’t come across.

Plus, these guys deserve a shout out and a round of applause.

Lotro-Wiki

If you’ve been playing for any length of time, you will know the treasure trove of information that is lotro-wiki.com. But I often see new players asking all kinds of questions in chat that they could easily find the answer to from the wiki. (“Where is such and such NPC?”, “What can I do with a sapphire shard?” and so on.)

When I first discovered it, I was wowed by the depth of information available. Everything from walkthroughs of puzzle quests that otherwise had me tearing my hair out in frustration to explanations of the most basic LOTRO and MMO jargon.

Casual Stroll to Mordor

This is now officially called Casually Strolling Through MMOs (CSTM), because it now covers more than just LOTRO. I just haven’t quite changed my mental name for it yet, and probably I’m not the only one.

I guess this is the most popular LOTRO blog there is, and it’s a great way to keep up with what’s happening in LOTRO and what players are thinking. It’s updated almost daily, so anything of note usually gets mentioned, and there is lively discussion in the comments to the posts. If there’s a change to some game mechanic or if there’s a great one-day-only sale for LOTRO stuff on Steam, you’ll most likely learn about it here.

Contains Moderate Peril

Contains Moderate Peril (CMP) is the site I enjoy most right now. There’s a great podcast that is a lovely mix of fun, gaming news, and thoughtful discussion. Sometimes I get impatient waiting for the next episode to come out, that’s how good it is!

I also think Turbine would do well to listen to this every week to find out how their players are feeling. Roger and Brian are level-headed folks who enjoy the game, but they’ll discuss the not-so-good aspects as well, all the time keeping a sense of perspective and having an appreciation of the real-world constraints that companies have to deal with.

They also discuss Guild Wars 2 (GW2) a lot. I don’t currently play it, but it’s interesting to hear about other MMOs from CMP because I have a good idea of where these guys are coming from. I know what their tastes are, and I know they’ll give an honest and balanced account of their experiences. It’s this kind of coverage that helps me decide it I want to give something a try, and if I do start playing GW2 at some point, it will be in no small part due to Roger and Brian.

LOTRO Combo Blog

LOTRO Combo Blog isn’t really a blog in its own right, it’s a compilation of stories from other sites. It’s a good way of keeping track of what’s new in the world of LOTRO, keeping up with what people are saying, and finding new sites that you might like.

LOTRO Players

Now that CSTM is broadening its scope and reducing the frequency of LOTRO-specific posts, LOTRO Players might become the new go-to site for all things LOTRO. It’s strong on news and guides to the game, and has picked up some things that CSTM used to do before, like a detailed guide to the weekly store sales that tells you what’s on offer and whether it’s worth getting.

Brrokk’s Lord of the Rings Links

Brrokk’s Links page is a great resource. It points to Brrokk’s own writings and to a nice collection of other sites. It has plenty of useful game playing info, but even more than that it is a treat for people who love Tolkien and his lore. Lots to discover via all the links.

Golden Treasure Inside is Hid

The tag line for Golden Treasure is: “A fan site dedicated to compiling Easter eggs, Middle Earth Lore, and other fun facts about the Lord of the Rings Online game.” This is a very accurate description of what the site has to offer, and it is another treat for lovers of lore.

The author is taking a break from LOTRO and so not adding new material right now. But the backlist has plenty to enjoy, and lots of nuggets that will surprise and delight even veteran players who thought they knew it all.

mmorsel for Lord of the Rings Online

This site is gone now, but it was my first and best resource for learning the game. It helped me pick class and race and server for my very first characters. If you knew and loved it, visit the archived version at the Wayback Machine and indulge in some nostalgia.

It might be eccentric to list a site that doesn’t exist any more, but it was so good it’s worth celebrating as a benchmark for just how good and how useful a site can be. Without it, how long would it have been before I even knew to subscribe to glff? Where would I have turned when deciding what quest pack to get next? How would I have figured out what those cryptic acronym-heavy LFF messages meant?

Wherever you are, thanks for that site guys!

And thanks to all of you that are keeping those other fantastic sites up and running. Whether you run a weekly podcast, or just add a few notes to the wiki now and then, or simply contribute to discussions in comment threads on other people’s blogs, you add a great deal to the pleasures of playing LOTRO. For that I thank and salute you.

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Is there still a stigma to gaming?

Recently some established gaming bloggers discussed the pros and cons of using real names versus screen names for their gaming blogs. (See Survival and Identity, Using a pseudonym and What’s in a Name?) They raised a lot of interesting points, but one major theme was whether there is any stigma nowadays to being identified as a gamer.

Here’s stand-up Dara O’Brien on the subject of gaming and how it’s perceived by some… (Note: Includes a bit of adult humor)…

The serious point is that while there are plenty of circles in which gaming is perfectly well accepted, there are others where it’s not much understood and people are likely to be judgmental based on stereotypes they’ve picked up. Times are changing, but they probably haven’t changed completely and everywhere yet.

The story of Colleen Lachowicz, a successful candidate for the Maine State Senate, cuts both ways. Her opponents tried to portray her as someone who “lives in a fantasy world”, which suggests there’s still plenty of stigma for them to work with. But whatever there was, it wasn’t enough to stop her winning the election.

An interview with Lachowicz and another about her unusual guild make for interesting reading. To some extent there’s a paradox in these interviews that while underlining that serious grownups play such games and there’s no shame to be attached to that, they also make a point of stressing not being “hardcore” and that the people in the guild aren’t “typical gamers”. Which maybe suggests that “typical” and “hardcore” players are viewed with disdain, perhaps even by those gamers that see themselves as non-typical.

Perhaps the thing is, none of us actually know if we’re what is typical, or if we’re exceptions.