LoTRO: Ding! Welcome to level 10
We went on an old fashioned walk about. Working our way through quests is a pain, so we ignored them in favor of just wandering around. Sometimes we killed something, or discovered something, that moved a quest forward - great. Otherwise we just took a look, killed what was available, and moved on. Mark and I went down once, but if there is a death penalty, other than equipment wear, we were unable to find it. We returned to Mike just in time to battle the re-spawned mobs that jumped him. The fight that killed us wasn’t anything epic. I was just sloppy. Moving us forward too fast.
I had a good time exploring the zone. You can’t explore forever though. We’ve now seen what that zone has to offer. Another trip around would be grinding. We’ve got to find something interesting enough to keep us going. I feel we, maybe it’s just me, are in the doldrums with nothing to look forward to. Maybe I’m just in a crappy mood. I’ve got another week of play before a forced month of no gaming. I could lie and say I was spending that time in prison or something even worse, but truth is, I’m going camping in Canada. I’m not in a bad mood because of the camping trip, I’m looking forward to it, though I’ll miss the boys and our fight nights. It’s probably this bad tooth that’s bothering me. Stop whining.
Back to the doldrums. As boring as WoW and it’s repeated trips to the same instances were, we knew where we were going and what we were doing when we got there. We could easily plan a years play ahead of time, one instance then the next. How exciting is that? In comparison, with these new games, we have no idea where to go next. It’s easy to spend a whole game-evening with nothing to show for it. No accomplishments , no challenge. It’s different, but is it better? Beats me. I just want to have a couple of hours of fun with my buds. That and this tooth to stop bothering me.