Category Archives: Inside Thyanel’s Head

I’m Attacking the Darkness!

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My first exposure to roleplaying (apart from games of make-believe when I was younger, of course) was in high school. A friend introduced me to the Dragonlance novels, and I was promptly hooked. It was only after I had been reading these books that I learned about Dungeons and Dragons, as I discovered Dragonlance was a D&D setting. Intrigued, my friends and I formed a little D&D group of our very own. I remember very little of our actual plots, as we tended to derail them quite a bit and upset our Dungeon Master in the process to the point where he threatened to set a never-ending pack of wolves on our characters in order to get us to move forward.

The Dungeons and Dragons love continued through to college, where my college friends and I would meet weekly on Saturdays for dungeoneering exploits, and even after, where I participated in an online Shackled City campaign with some of my internet friends. It wasn’t quite the same, due to the lack of dice rolling, pizza, and generally hearing everyone’s voices, but it was fun nonetheless. Unfortunately, due to circumstances entirely beyond my control, I no longer have people to play with.

Until now.

You see, new MMOs seem to be popping up quite a bit lately, from Star Wars to whatever else you might be able to think of. Dungeons and Dragons, however, has two to its name: Dungeons and Dragons Online, and most recently, Neverwinter. I tried DDO in the past and was unimpressed with it. Compared to LotRO (as both games are made by Turbine), the graphics seemed ridiculously sub-par, and I wasn’t entirely fond of slinging my weapons around every time I tried to left click on something.

Neverwinter, however, is a whole new ball game. It will immediately make you think of Neverwinter Nights (both one and two), and it rightly should, as they exist within the same world. I’d give you a proper timeline as to where Neverwinter falls in the grand scheme of things, but I’ve been searching for this information for two days, and I’ve come up with zip. I have no idea where this game falls in the Neverwinter timeline. What I do know, however, is that it’s fun.

Character creation is incredible. I come from World of Warcraft, where character customization is virtually nil. Neverwinter, however, takes the Guild Wars 2 approach to character customization. While you can choose a preset look to run around with if you really want to, you have the option to customize the look, therefore making your character feel like yours. Case in point, meet Kathra Mineshadow:

Kathra Mineshadow

Kathra Mineshadow, Devout Cleric, at your service

Kathra here is dwarven devout cleric of Moradin. She can heal, but she’ll also use the powers granted to her by Moradin to kick your butt. She’s generally unapologetic about it, but, then again, she’s also seen some things in her time. She knows she wants to keep her friends safe, and they’ll always be her priority. Well, they would be if I could wrap my head around how healing is supposed to work in this game.

The controls do take a bit to get used to, especially if you’re coming from other MMOs, but you get into the swing of it easily enough. There are a few other “drawbacks”, I suppose you could call them, but they’re mostly minor. For example, I miss a lot of the puzzles that come with playing Dungeons and Dragons in a tabletop setting, but it may be that I have yet to run into them in Neverwinter. The quests themselves seem to be a standard MMO fare, and they probably contribute to an overarching story, but so far, I have yet to see anything that links these quests to what we had to contend with in the tutorial zone. I’d really like to see all that tie together eventually, but Kathra’s only level eleven. I suppose I’ll just have to wait and see.

My favorite bit about the game so far, however, has to be a system called the Foundry. Now, the Foundry is a way for players to create their own Neverwinter-based adventures and share them with the rest of the community. I actually played a couple last night, and it was really entertaining. Mostly, I was fascinated that we could take the world and shape it as our own, if only for a little while. Not only that, but you can come across some pretty awesome bits of gear in those things, all of which seem to be randomly generated, but typically geared towards things your class can actually use.

The game itself is currently in pre-launch/open-beta-but-no-actual-wiping-is-happening-so-they-say, so if you don’t mind ridiculously long queue times, I highly encourage you to go check it out and draw your own conclusions. It’s also free-to-play, so if you’re like me and money’s tight, that’s incredibly convenient. Regardless, you really can’t go wrong with a D&D based game. Well, I don’t think so, but my bias is showing.

What about you, dear readers? Have you checked it out yet? What do you think about it? If you haven’t, are you going to?

Sad Realizations

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It’s a sad thing, seeing your server die.

I’m not saying it’s an official death sentence for my home server of almost four years now, of course, but I have the feeling it’s coming close. I took a hiatus for about a month in an attempt to try to straighten things out for myself and explore a few other games. When I came back, I was saddened to discover that the usual chat channels, once full of life and happy conversation, were dead. In fact, most of the time, it seemed like I was the only person in them. To say it broke my heart was an understatement. I love Thorium Brotherhood. It’s where I met a wonderful group of people, people I’m proud to call my friends to this day. Unfortunately, it seems as though most of my friends have moved on to other games. The majority of my friends list haven’t logged on in months, and while I still love my characters, I’m slowly realizing that I don’t think Thorium Brotherhood might ever be server that I knew again.

As a result, I’m server shopping once again. I haven’t done this in years, and it’s a little scary. As a roleplayer, I’m really only looking at RP server, maybe even RP-PvP. I know the “standards”, of course. Moon Guard and Wyrmrest Accord are certainly viable options, and the servers I see lots of people recommending, but at the same time, I’m a little worried about this. For one thing, I left Moon Guard to escape some particularly bizarre drama after I left my old guild. For another, Wyrmrest is where a couple of the dramamongers went to. If I went to WrA, would I run into them again? Would they even remember me? Also, I’m in Eastern Standard Time. Would going to a Pacific-based server throw me off too much? WrA does have a few points in it’s favor, however, as a few of my friends have gone there.

If not either of them, though, where do I go? What do I do? Do I just abandon the thought of RP entirely? The thought of that kills me, to be perfectly honest.

So, fellow Warcraft players, help me out. Any recommendations?

Getting Back in the Groove

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So quite a few of you, dear readers, follow me on Twitter. As such, most of you have been subjected to my ongoing tweets about messing around with Alliance-side RP. See, the majority of the people I know on my home server of Thorium Brotherhood have been taking a bit of a break due to various reasons. While I hope that things pick up come Mists of Pandaria next month, I did miss RPing with people, and with my druid almost at 85 and my other characters on standby until Mists drops, I figured it couldn’t hurt to try something new. After all, none of my Alliance characters have ever lasted very long. When I mentioned this on Twitter, Bricu of WTT: [RP] naturally suggested Feathermoon. I do follow a good number of Feathermoon people on twitter, and they all seemed ridiculously awesome. I figured that if I was going to try this anywhere, it should be on a server that I knew had awesome people. I was even told there was RP happening Tuesday night!

I had a bit of personal drama regarding what character I was going to roll (the race remained consistent, but the class changed several times), and, unfortunately, twitter got the brunt of it. (I do apologize for that, guys.) Ultimately, I went back to a dwarf priest, one I spent all of Tuesday leveling like mad so she could at least look decent for when she made her appearance. Finally, six p.m. server time rolled around, and I made my way to the Pig and Whistle in Old Town of Stormwind. I was all excited on the way there, and a little bit nervous, but it wasn’t until I got to the door of the inn that I realized something.

I was completely and utterly terrified.

I could see Tarquin and Threnn and even Aelflaed (whose blog, Too Many Annas, I also follow) already inside, and these are people I’ve spent at least two years reading about through various blog posts. And then I saw Bricu himself walk in, and I panicked. I couldn’t even get my little dwarf through the door! Yeah, suffice to say that I was incredibly starstruck already.

Eventually, I decided I just had to get in there, similar to ripping off a bandaid, so I just ran inside and hid upstairs for a few minutes before sneaking downstairs and hiding at the table under one of the staircases. Bricu, however, saw me, and he was nice enough to provide me with a way into the conversation. Everyone was wonderful, and even though I may have botched the dwarf accent horribly, I really did have a lot of fun. I didn’t say much, no, and I spent a good chunk of the time thinking it would probably be easier if the character was a hunter or some other class (and I did have to admit that a priest drinking seemed a little odd to me), but I still had a great time. So much fun, in fact, that I’ll probably be back next week, if the Feathermoon crew will have me.

A Hobbit’s Tale

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Today, it occurred to me that I don’t talk about LotRO as much as I probably should. It may seem like a strange realization to come to, but, after all, I hold just as much love for Tolkien’s Middle Earth as I do Azeroth or the galaxy at large. In fact, I probably hold more love in my heart for Middle Earth than I do any other fantasy world currently in existence simply because I grew up with the stories. I remember stumbling upon my uncle’s boxed set of the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit and initially thinking they looked interesting. Because of my interest, my uncle would tell me what the books were about, and we’d write stories about what happened after the War of the Ring was ended up in his loft. Once I could actually read, I confiscated the books and read them in the early hours of the morning while I waited for everybody else to get up (he promptly bought me my own boxed set of the books, including the Hobbit, as a Christmas present). When the films came out, I naturally dragged my uncle along with me to go and see them, because, really, I couldn’t imagine anybody else going with me. He even bought me the extended edition DVD sets with their decorative boxes and little statues. To this day, I proudly display the Argonath bookends (though one of them sadly lost its hand) and the Minas Tirith box on my dresser.

Given all that, I’m sure you guys can imagine that when I discovered there was an MMO based on the books that held so many memories for me, I squeed like the dork I was, downloaded it, and played the hell out of it, though altoholism sunk it’s teeth into me very early on and I had a character list full of several characters that I’ve never really touched. They’ve since been deleted. I abandon the game every so often, but, in the end, I always come back to it, and I know that Middle Earth will always be there waiting for me.

It’s strange to think of how things would have been different if LotRO was the game that sunk its claws into me ages before Azeroth ever did. Pen and Shield might not even exist! I’d still be blogging, but the blog might have been titled something different, something hobbity (for I’m a hobbit at heart), and I’d be blogging under the name Anthyllis Greyburrow, the name of my main, a hobbit minstrel on the Landroval server. Speaking of, it occurs to me that I have yet to show off a picture of my girl, so… Meet Anthyllis!

Anthyllis says, "Hello, everybody!"

Anthyllis is, naturally, a hobbit of the Shire, who was fascinated by the stories of Bilbo’s adventures. Curious by nature, Anthyllis wanted to see everything Bilbo had seen, although the rest of the Greyburrows didn’t approve. She, however, was not to be deterred and set forth to Bree. Unfortunately, she didn’t exactly make it there. She got sidetracked by being attacked by brigands, seeing a Black Rider (scary stuff), and then getting sucked into the fate of Middle Earth while more hobbits were off bringing a ring to the elves and beyond. At that point, she was a bit too curious about the rest of the world to turn back. Besides which, all of this might make a good story to tell someday!

Unfortunately, LotRO is one of those “occasional” games for me, so poor Anthyllis only seems to get love from me every so often. It also doesn’t help that the game gets a bit lonely for me sometimes. Anthyllis is kinless and there isn’t random green text to keep me company as I go out and quest in the world. It’s hard finding a guild or group of people who are okay with you disappearing for several days at a time as you try to balance your free time between three different games and they won’t remove you due to inactivity. In spite of all that, though, I’ve been rather dedicated to LotRO over the past few days, putting in several hours worth of time to finally get Anthyllis to level 30 and hit the end of Book 2 of Volume One of the epic storyline. I’m very excited to keep going, though I’m getting little tired of fighting corrupted trees that decide to uproot themselves and attack me. I swear, they’re everywhere…

There’s No Place Like Home…

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In all of the virtual worlds I’ve played in, one thing seems to remain constant. We, as players, want a piece of that virtual world for our own. If you think about it, it makes sense. After all, our characters live within this world. They have to come from somewhere or have somewhere to go when they aren’t out adventuring. However, World of Warcraft seems to be the only MMO I play that doesn’t have some sort of “player housing”. One could argue that The Old Republic doesn’t have one, either, but that’s only if they don’t count the starship every class receives at around level 16 or so. Yes, every player of the same class gets the same ship. There’s no upkeep costs, really, save for fuel costs to get to various planets, but the ship still feels like ours. World of Warcraft, however, has nothing like this. Players (particularly the roleplaying crowd) will tend to take over various unoccupied homes or buildings and unofficially claim them for their own while others might say their character lives out of a room they rent in one of the various inns. There’s no true player housing, per se, despite the various cries for it from the roleplaying player base.

Personally, I don’t know that we’d ever see it in World of Warcraft, despite the leaps Blizzard’s made in their phasing technology. While they could use something similar to the system that Lord of the Rings Online has (and I know there are some who argue that they should), if you take a closer look at LotRO’s system, implementing something that mimics LotRO’s really isn’t practical in WoW. Now, I’ll be one of the first to admit that I love how LotRO’s housing system is set up. However, the scale of it is a bit huge and I’m not certain that Blizzard could implement the same exact model that Turbine used for LotRO, unless they were to make the style of the homes faction-specific and not racial-specific.

Confused? Well, I’ll explain.

LotRO is, of course, under a slightly different model than WoW. We don’t have factions, per se, save for “good” and “evil”. So, on that wonderful day when Turbine chose to give LotRO players player housing, they only had one “faction” to work with (if you can even call it that, really) and only four races to play with. As a result, there are four distinct homesteads you can move into, each based on one of the four playable races of Middle Earth (Men, Dwarves, Elves, and Hobbits). Within each homestead are instanced neighborhoods with a set number of homes in each, including a number of homes for your kinship (or guild) to occupy, providing you meet the requirements and have the gold for it. The best part, though, is that there’s never a shortage of homes. As each neighborhood fills up, new ones are automatically generated by the system. If a home you really want to move into is occupied, hang around by the housing broker. A new neighborhood might appear the next time you log in, and, if you’re quick, you can claim the house you really want.

Honestly, the hardest part is trying to determine where you want to live. You do have choices, and those are wonderful, but it’s the choices themselves that make the whole process much more complicated than it really has to be. Are you a human who loves elven architecture enough to live there or do you just want a tiny little farmhouse out in Bree-land? Will your hobbit stay in the Shire or branch out to live in the land of the dwarves? Or maybe you and your friends all want to live in the same homestead and are just trying to see which you all like best. Even if you aren’t committed to any one homestead, I do recommend visiting each and seeing what appeals to you. The best part is that other players will usually allow random visitors into their home (I do), and you can go in to see what they’ve done with it. Not only will you get decorating ideas for when it comes time to buy your own, but it gives you an idea of what you can do with the space. Homes in the elven homesteads, for example, tend to have notoriously high ceilings and it may be difficult to figure out how best to arrange things on the wall. Taking a look at how other players decorated their elven-style homes gave me ideas for mine should I ever decide to pack up and move into one.

As for me, well, I’m a hobbit at heart. Whether I had a character of another race or not, I’d probably still get a little hobbit house. I can’t afford a deluxe house, sadly. I’m still saving up. I long for the day when I have three rooms and I can turn one of them into a proper library (Anthyllis, my hobbit minstrel, loves her stories and maps, you see). For now, though, I suspect I’ll have to content myself with a standard home. If you’re on the Landroval server, feel free to come and visit the Greyburrow home in the Shire Homesteads. She resides in the Marebourn neighborhood at 2 Wending Way. If she’s at home, she’ll make you some tea. If she’s not, feel free to look through her books. The main room’s a bit covered by them. Just please put them back where you found them.

The main room in Anthyllis' home. Go ahead and curl up by the fire with a good book!

So was this post an excuse to go on about something I love in LotRO? Probably. To be fair, I would like to see actual player housing in World of Warcraft. Unfortunately, however, I can’t see Blizzard implementing it on the above scale. The main problem, of course, being that WoW is split into factions and they have multiple races in each. To implement something like this would probably be incredibly time-consuming, not to mention the headache of trying to figure out where to put the homesteads and how much that would cost for upkeep and whatnot. I can see some players complaining about gold sinks if they do that, too.

To make things simpler on the dev team, I could see Blizzard making player homes faction-specific as opposed to racially specific. The problem with that, though, is that the two iconic races for each faction (in this case, it really seems to be humans and orcs) have very distinct looks, which not everybody would be that into. Someone who plays a blood elf, for example, might not be all right with their character moving into an incredibly primitive-looking house. And then there’s the whole matter of interior decorating. Would they come pre-furnished or would Blizzard implement something like LotRO and let the homeowner decorate it? If it’s the latter, how crazy should Blizzard go trying to come up with unique furniture ideas?

Eventually, I’m sure it could be done, but I’m not sure Blizzard could do it at this very moment. Look at how long it took them to give us something remotely close to the cosmetic system some of us have been wanting….

Melee and Me

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Ages and ages ago, when your beloved author first began gaming, I was very clueless about role types when it came to games. Certainly, I knew that you had your warriors and your casters and people who could heal you, but I knew them by class name, not types. It wasn’t until years later, when I picked up World of Warcraft, joined my very first guild, and began raiding that I learned that class types even really existed. Before then, my only real experience in group combat had been in the form of Dungeons and Dragons, where I preferred to be a sorcerer, standing in the back and quietly shooting at things. This idea of class roles was completely foreign to me.

It didn’t take me very long to fall in love with the paladin class, though. I could hit hard, take damage, and heal myself if I needed to. Because I was so in love with the idea of the armored warrior with a sword and shield, I thought to myself that I’d be a tank (this was after I learned what class roles were, mind). How hard could it really be? So I dove in and it was awesome. Well, for a little while. Unfortunately, I realized being a tank was incredibly intimidating and definitely not for me. Besides which, my guild at the time needed healers, and paladins could spec into a tree that let them heal. It seemed like a good plan, so I switched to a holy spec and never looked back. Eventually, a server switch happened and, when it did, I tried all sorts of other classes. The next class I ever did any sort of raiding with was a rogue (Jinaki before I went and rerolled the poor girl multiple times). However, I soon learned this was also a bad plan. Because the computers I played on were less than optimal, any time I got close enough to a mob where multiple spell effects went off at any given time, lag happened. Sadly, I also couldn’t turn them off because, if I did, I’d be heavily SOL and die more often than any DPS class really should. The lag was so bad that I couldn’t do anything, and that effectively put an end to my melee career.

Since then, I went back to my roots, and stuck with my caster/ranged DPS classes. I love them. I did heal occasionally, but to be honest, no other healing class holds my love like paladin healing does. And yet, when SWTOR came out, I jumped at the chance to be a commando, solely because I could heal. The fact that I can heal at all has saved my butt more than once, I can tell you that. However, the trooper was one of those classes I honestly didn’t think I’d play come launch of the game, and, keeping that in mind and also taking into account that our guild Imperial-side needed healers, I decided I was going to try an Imperial Operative.

Yeah. It wasn’t happening.

You would think it would, because it had pretty much everything I loved about my commando when I first got her. I could heal if things got too bad. I could still attack things, still hide behind cover if I needed to. The problem was that the majority of my abilities required me to be in melee range. This meant I was mostly running up to things and shooting them in the face. You might say I should have stuck it out longer, but after twelve levels of running around and falling in love with cover and then suddenly not really having it as an option and gimping myself unless I refused to use it was just not for me. I couldn’t do it. It makes me sad, because I’ve seen some pretty badass Operatives. I know they can be bamfs. They’re just… not for me.

As a result, I started to think about why that was, and I thought back to Jinaki. I didn’t hate her as a character; I love her to bits. I (sort of) knew what I was doing. I mean, I didn’t top DPS charts or anything, but I like to think I wasn’t being carried. Taking the lag out of the equation (and, in fact, it’s a moot point since I got my new computer), why was I out of love with melee? And then I realized what it was.

I found it boring. I liked being able to pick things off from a distance or sending something else in to take care of it for me while I sat back and slowly picked things off at my own pace. It’s a game for me. How best to survive the encounter? What combination of abilities can I use to pick things off at my own pace? What can I do to ensure I live and they don’t? How much of their health can I take away before they get anywhere near me?

Healing is a bit like that for me, as well, where I can stand back, look at my healing spells, and say, “All right. What can I cast when to make sure my tank/DPS/whatever lives so the enemy can die?” Melee combat, however… where’s the challenge in it? Melee, you rush in head first, and, most of the time, you’re lucky to be alive by the time the thing you’re fighting dies. To me, that isn’t fun. That’s suicide. I can see where other people would find it fun, but, for me, not so much. So, if you want to rush right in, you go right ahead, my dear. I’ll just be back here, shooting at things or keeping you alive.

On Being a Server Hobo

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I think, as much as I am an altoholic, I’m also a server hobo. There are days when I sit and honestly wonder whether or not I’ll ever happen upon a server I like and want to make a permanent home. It’s funny, because I only seem to really have this problem in World of Warcraft. In LotRO, Landroval has been my home for years. Admittedly, yes, I started on a different server than I play on now. However, I’ve never actually moved off of it. My relationship with the game might be heavily on again, off again, but I’ve contemplated moving servers all of once. I played for a little bit on another one after that, but I immediately came back to Landroval. With SWTOR, it’s a bit too early to tell, as the game has only really been out for about a month. However, with World of Warcraft… oh my.

Believe it or not, I wasn’t always a roleplayer in WoW. No, I got my start in WoW on a normal, everyday PvE server with one of my college roommates who was showing me the ropes. From there, I discovered RP servers, and, well, the rest was history. I hung out for a little while on Argent Dawn, then somehow wound up on The Venture Co server for a bit to play with a friend (where I learned RP-PvP was not as bad as I had thought), stopped briefly on Thorium Brotherhood, and then went to Moon Guard. Before Moon Guard, I didn’t really have friends or know anything about a stable RP community. Before then, the concept was kind of foreign to me, as the RPers everywhere else were well-established and, being a noob to the community, I was too nervous to even approach them. But one thing led to another on Moon Guard, and I wound up with a guild and had a good old time on the server. But when the guild started to fragment a year or two later, I realized staying was only contributing to my mental distress, so… off I went to Thorium Brotherhood.

Thorium Brotherhood’s been my “home” for almost three years now. Three years. I honestly can’t believe it’s been that long. Now, I love (most) of the people. The friends I’ve made there have been absolutely wonderful. One would think that, after three years of being on a server, I’d be ready to call it home, right?

Apparently not.

To be honest, I have yet to really get a “home” feeling from any of the servers I’ve been on lately. They’re all wonderful, mind. They’re all great places to go back to, but none of them have felt like “home”. I say differently to other people, but the truth of the matter is that I haven’t actually found a server like that yet. What would it take for me to call one as such in World of Warcraft? I don’t know. I haven’t found it yet. I feel like just as I’m about to start setting down some sort of roots, something happens to completely dig all of those out and then I’m right back to square one. I start setting down a nice rapport with a guild or a group of people, and then suddenly all of that’s gone and then I honestly don’t know what to do. And at that point, when you don’t really have any ties left any more, you pack up and move on again to another server. Sometimes you take your things with you. Other times, you can’t afford to. But you move on, just looking for somewhere you can call home.

I’m jealous of all the people who have stayed on a server for longer than I have. You all have something I’d love to have, but can never seem to find.

The Year in Review

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Well, we’ve had some ups and downs this year, haven’t we? I’ve been quiet for God only knows how long (and, really, I do apologize for that; in the new year, I hope to be blogging so much that you’ll all get sick of me after awhile), I’ve actually obtained a new computer (yay!), but, in the process, lost my graphics programs (boo). However, today marks the close of 2011, and it seems only fitting to do a year in review post, doesn’t it? After all, tomorrow begins the new year.

So, shamelessly borrowing this from Miss Anexxia, today I give you Thyanel’s MMO year in review!

What were you most excited about in the past year?
Too many things to count. Chief amongst them, however, was probably SWTOR. I’ve been waiting impatiently for this game for what honestly seemed like forever, so to finally have the release date and joining the entire fandom in the countdown for it was nothing short of entertaining for me.

Troll druids, and goblin/worgen ladies were also very high up there on the list, and to actually see these things become a reality in World of Warcraft was probably the most fun I’ve had in that game. I was beyond excited to try out the worgen starting area and the redesigned questing zones, and I was most certainly not disappointed.

What was the best thing you bought?
I can’t think of anything major in World of Warcraft, but I can think of numerous things otherwise. Oddly, they’re both mount-related, though. Last night, I finally had enough credits to my name to spring for Vordane’s first speeder and training. I don’t know how I’m going to manage come 40 for the new one, but I suspect I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

In Lord of the Rings online, after driving myself insane trying to get the correct amount of tokens given to us during the various seasonal festivals and failing the race once or twice, I finally was able to obtain a Yule Festival Glittering Pony for Anthyllis, my hobbit minstrel. I love this pony so much that I have no intention of riding anything else ever again, and I’m currently in the process of re-dying most of her wardrobe so she can match it.

What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
Characters at the various level caps would be nice. I have yet to get a character anywhere near level cap in LotRO, despite it being out for ages, and I’m eager to get Anthyllis further out into the world and on to Isengard.

Also, once I get back to it and am no longer feeling burnt out, more roleplay for Adaret would be fantastic. The girl has been stuck in the closet for far too long.

What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Probably having enough money to get Vordane her speeder in SWTOR. I honestly thought I wouldn’t be able to do it. Also having enough gold in LotRO to even think about getting a nice little hobbit hole for Anthyllis.

What was your biggest failure?
Not listening to myself, I think. I wasn’t willing to admit to myself that I was feeling a bit burnt out on World of Warcraft at the beginning of December. I love the game still, but I needed a break. It wasn’t until SWTOR came out and I started playing it that I realized the burnout was there, I just hadn’t wanted to admit it.

What do you wish you’d done less of?
WoW: logging in pretty much daily and ignoring the burnout
LotRO: Hiding from the RPing folks on Landroval. They aren’t scary, I just need to tell myself that.
SWTOR: Queues. Oh, god, waiting in queues is terrible. :( Also getting stuck in Taris and stuck watching an elevator slowly moving up and down wasn’t very fun.

What did you do in your MMOs in 2011 that you’d never done before?
Apart from, at the very end, being able to run them in ridiculously high quality thanks to a new computer, probably explore like a fiend. There’s so much to see and do in all of my games, so much so that I never really got a chance to sit and just explore every inch of every world/zone that was there.

What’s your favorite new place that you’ve visited?
WoW: Mount Hyjal. I love that zone. That and Uldum. Two of my favorite zones because of everything ever in both of them.
LotRO: N/A; anywhere I’m able to get to, I’ve actually been before. It’s still pretty cool seeing Weathertop, though.
SWTOR: Probably Dromund Kaas. You get to see Coruscant, albiet a future version of Coruscant, in pretty much every single Star Wars thing ever. Dromund Kaas, nothing. So it’s pretty cool to see the home of the Empire.

What’s your favorite blog or podcast?
I don’t want to pick and choose and offend anybody, but all the bloggers I’ve met and all the blogs I read for any of my MMOs are amazing. We’re all a great bunch of people.

Before this year, though, I hadn’t really touched podcasting before. I’m now a big fan of A Casual Stroll to Mordor, though, on the LotRO front.

Tell us a valuable lesson you learned in 2011.
Have several.

- Admitting burnout isn’t a bad thing.
- Slicing is an awesome way to bring in the money.
- Every community is going to find something to bitch about; take it in stride.
- Not everything wants to be your friend. In fact, most of them will eat you.
- If all else fails, remember that shooting things in the face is a wonderful way to relieve stress at the end of the day.