My Precious

So... I've been playing Lord of the Rings Online.

Yep.

Mmm, I'm supposed to complain about stuff so let me think here for a second.

Hmm.

Nope, can't really think of anything.

Oh wait, my armor is pretty Greg Brady-looking.

Yah, they have that Asheron's Call Crayola Crayon thing going on (again).

And you need the help of a Grandmaster Historian and some Hair of Newt and Snail Feathers to make black dye.

And I don't even think you can make white dye, 'cause, as y'all know, bleach requires Griffon Spit from the Moon (in the Next Expansion) and a Nuclear Powerplant.

All I want is a dude that looks like a regular guy, y'know, and not one of santa's elves or one of their blasted christmas presents heh.

I dunno who does all the models for these games but its like the same damn guy every time and I'm just so fed up with getting leotards and scarves and curly-toed shoes and pope hats with jingling bells for quest rewards ahaha.

Ain't Hobbits s'posed to look kinda like little Huck Finn slash Angus Young guys in school boy uniforms?

With suit jackets and vests and pocket watches?

Or at least like Amish dudes with suspenders and stuff?

What the hell happened there?

I wish I had one of those nice, boring, monkish deathrobes from UO man, now there was something Raph did right fer once AHAHA.

Other than that, the game is pretty damn fun, but y'know, I only been playing it for a little while, so there's that whole "its shiny" thing.

Don't try the game and quit without checking out the Shire if yer a Tolkien Fan, its level of detail is fricking amazing.

And Weathertop is kickass too.

That's all I seen so far that really blew me away, the human and elf-dwarf areas were kinda ho-hum and blah, y'know, not enough to really suck or anything but it din't exactly make me tingle all over.

But then a lot of places in WoW didn't make me tingle all over either, and that game generally kicked the ass out of most of the other games heh.

You know what it reminds me of most is the first days of EQ, which is kinda weird, I guess.

I think its 'cause a lot of people are trying to roleplay and stuff 'cause the source material is so deep and junk or something, I mean, I seriously see a lot more true-blue Sindarin names than anything else, which is really not what I expected, especially 'cause there ain't no automatic name-generator for LotRO.

Yah, it actually makes me a little self-conscious about how bad I am at roleplaying and stuff, and that ain't happened since the first days of EQ.

That's a good thing, I guess.

And I know there's a lot of folks in LotRO that ain't never played a MMO before, so mebbe that's part of it.

Oh sure the servers are overcrowded and overcrowding breeds serial killers and everybody starts acting like nasty little human rats and stuff, especially around primetime, but if you get to a place where there ain't too many people, folks are actually pretty damn cool.

Its the first game in a very long time where I'm actually glad to meet a dwarf 'cause I know he'll do his best to keep me alive 'cause in this game they're all noble and filled with pride and stuff heh.

So that's kinda interesting.

Elves are still a bunch of horrible twits, though.

Yah, its apparently the Official Race of the Ninja Looting Cracker-asses and Delicate Flowers heh.

And the Human's newbie lands are a lot like Barrens Chat in Wow *shrugs* y'know, sometimes that crap is a laugh and not just an eyesore.

Yah, uh, sometimes.

So stick with the Hobbits, man, trust me, a Hobbit can always get help from folks, if there's any help to be had.

We look up to the dwarves, y'know, and the dwarves like that a lot, believe me, they're all like Big Brother Bodyguard Guys at heart or something.

And we remind Heroic Humans of small children, so its their genetic duty to help our hairy little hobbit asses.

And yer better off without the world-hating folks who won't help a Hobbit, so its not like yer losing out there.

Just don't name yourself anything you think is really "clever" and give yerself white hair or you'll kill what little amish cutie pie factor you have going fer ya and you'll remind people of annoying-ass gnomes.

"Yah, I'm roleplaying a hardass bald-headed Hobbit from the Hobbit Penal Colony Center For Burglar Rehabilitation and in Elvish my name means Ball-Bearings."

Yah, pick Hobbit (see above), Hunter (although you can solo with any class in the game... that doesn't answer the question heh), Explorer for a tradeskill (not picking Explorer is like choosing not to have keys to seventy-five percent of the treasure chests in the game ahaha), there you go, there's the LotRO No Bullshit Game Guide.

Or be a human champion if you wanna Rock Like Viggo Mortensen and you think you can handle all the Barrens Chat and lag over there in the human lands.

Or be a dwarf guardian if you think you can handle the gloomy place where those poor guys come from, compounded by all those horrible freaking elves running around everywhere.

But don't say I didn't warn you heh.

Oh man, I almost forgot, they got this thing where you get a special title for not dying, like Yoho the Undefeated, and Yoho the Immortal and stuff.

Yah, it sorta reminds me of Brave Brave Sir Robin, actually, y'know, like Yoho the Coward Who Runs From Battle To Fight Another Day heh.

But its interesting the way it affects people.

See, if they die, they lose the chance to get any future title, 'cause they get progressively more "awesome" (or whatever) as you go up every five levels without dying.

And so a lot of folks actually delete their characters and start over when they die.

Or they at least get kinda bummed out when they die the first time heh.

Even though most of them don't even use that title, or titles in general, I mean, its just kinda like a worthless badge.

It is very interesting though.

'Cause its almost like a self-enforced permanent death system, y'know?

For something so silly that nobody would've even thought of it.

Bah, whatever, here I go with that shiz again.

Its not worth worrying my pretty little head about, that's for sure heh.

Oh man, this weekend is my birthday party, I'm turning like nine hundred and eleventy-seven, but I can't wait to get me my Birthday Pancakes.

I'm telling you, those damn Hobbits know what its really all about, man.