Tag: LOTRO

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Video Games

Hunting for a New MMO

I’ve made no secret that I’m a bit of a diehard LOTRO player. I’m not a hardcore raider, or anything like that, but I certainly enjoy the game because it visually realizes Middle Earth in a way that really appeals to me. Places like Weathertop, the Trollshaws, the place where Durin’s Bane met his end — all these and more make the game addictive and appealing to me. After all, that’s why I’m building a new gaming rig.

But time marches on, and there are other massive multiplayer games that might spark my interest.

Game of Thrones: Seven Kingdoms

I’m a huge fan of George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. It’s spawned a successful HBO TV series, and despite long waits between new installments and ever-lengthening word counts, it still is a fantastically realised world, with relatable, human (if somewhat inhumane) characters.

Unfortunately, the game is browser-based, which is probably not a good thing. I also have reservations about how one would bring a setting steeped in politics and innuendo to a market that is obsessed with DPS and heals. I’ll watch that space, but won’t hold my breath.

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Tech Video Games

Gaming Rigs

Arcade Machines

It’s been a long time since I really cared about gaming hardware. Indeed, I got into console gaming and Macs partly to get out of the eternal upgrade cycle that comes with PC gaming. But then I got hooked into Lord of the Rings Online, and discovered that my iMac is a decent low/mid-range gaming machine.

I’ve been puttering along for over 12 months, and with a few exceptions, I have been quite satisfied with the performance I’ve gotten. And then, E3 came along with all its demos (which I have been ignoring), but I couldn’t quite pass up news of the Riders of Rohan update for LOTRO. Massively had this to say:

What really shined was how the character was able to roam the rolling fields of Rohan freely. Wherever the character walked, grass, weeds, and flowers reacted and gave way. When the character stepped into the Fangorn Forest, the light shining through the trees was very dynamic. It’s clear there was a strong graphical upgrade from previous versions.

Now, it’s a given that any update to a 5 year old game is going to seem miraculous, but it got me thinking: my iMac is two years old. For most tasks, it’s fine; the most strenuous non-gaming activity I put it through is basic photo work, and it’s more than adequate at that. Also, the ATI HD4670 is getting a little long in the tooth: it doesn’t support DirectX 11, and was kind of old and cheap when I bought the iMac (which was a recent model).

So I asked myself, “Assuming that I have the finances and will, what are my options?”

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Video Games

The Road goes ever on and on…

If I have been conspicuous in my absence, it is because I have a new gaming machine. Not just any gaming machine, but an actual, honest-to-god computer running Windows. Of course, I can’t just get any machine when I have to use it as my day-to-day workstation, but an iMac can handle almost anything I throw at it these days. Naturally, it’s not just the fact that I have a new toy that’s kept me from writing.

Instead, I’ve been bitten by the MMO bug. Originally, I endured several weeks of being told by P of all the fun she was having. For a while, I escaped into Arkham Asylum, but eventually got sick of being ignored for several hours a night in  favour of people she had never met in real life. I threw a tantrum, which seemed to work for a few days but we went back to the same routine.

That’s when I resolved to get the iMac and see what Lord of the Rings Online is really like. Turns out, it’s a lot of fun. The world is vast, and perhaps more populated than Tolkien’s books ever hinted at. Still, I think it captures the essence of the setting very well. I’ve often wondered while playing, how much material is gleaned from official sources, how much from third parties (like ICE’s out of print Middle Earth Roleplaying game supplements), and how much is original content.

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