Posted in Lord of the Rings Online

LOTRO: Turtles with gigantism

Posted on by Syp

It was certainly welcome to receive a partial roadmap for the first part of 2026 in LOTRO. There weren’t any huge surprises for the first update — although I’m excited about UI scaling — but the second was intriguing with the mention of a new zone in Q2 (which is reportedly another Umbar one). Better still was a reference at the end to returning to the North later this year for future adventures. I’ve been waiting for that for a couple years now, so it’s nice to see that we’re not staying in Umbar forever.

I’ve got one quest hub to go in Kighan before starting in on deeds, but I’m not rushing it. Rushing into a goblin outpost, I love to see that these dudes have fully embraced the pirate lifestyle. Some days I would love for there to be an enemy faction that you could actually play in LOTRO outside of PvP — or even say a “reformed” enemy race. There are so many cool ones.

This kid wanted me to find and rescue her “little” pet from an enemy camp, and it turned out to be Godzilla’s grandson or something. A touch of absurdity, I love it. And with that, my question in Kighan is done, and it’s on to a little bit of exploration and a LOT of slayer fun. Did I say fun? I meant “fun.” The sarcasm is in the quotes.

Moving into the deeds portion of this zone — still on track to finish by the end of the month! — I discovered that two of the explorer deeds can’t be finished until certain instances are patched in. So I’m ignoring those for now and moving onto slayers. That’s fine with me, as most of my essential five virtues are almost at 100 already, so there’s no pressing need to overdo it.

Posted in World of Warcraft

WoW Classic: 20 levels, 50 to go!

Posted on by Syp

By level 11, my new TBC Shaman stops feeling boring and awkward as she starts to gain some fun combat and defensive skills. I’ve always liked how the shammy’s kit grows at a steady pace through the levels, and I’ll never get tired of seeing procs happen.

I started the week on Azuremyst Isle, determined to clear both of these zones (because, I mean, why not? Good XP, good loot, good pacing). What I’m going to do AFTER that is more uncertain, although that’s not a question I have to answer right away. No, all I have to do is keep on questin’ while ignorin’ the more inane chatter that crops up when you shove a ton of immature people together in the same starting zone and feed them sugar.

So years and years ago I bought Joana’s leveling guide to the vanilla version of the game, probably for the 2019 Classic. I’ve leveled through that game countless times, but there’s something fun and even companion-y to do it with an optimized speed-leveling guide. Back then, I used the web version, but when I went to check on it now, I learned that there’s also an in-game mod that the purchase of that guide unlocked. So I switched to doing that, and so far it’s been a BLAST. Great pointers, quick progression, and that virtual companion angle that makes me feel as though I’m playing alongside a much more experienced person.

The WoW Classic community keeps impressing me. Not on the more public side of things, with toxic chat and trolling and all that, but in the small one-on-one interactions I have during my journeys. People are quick to help out, group up for difficult quests, and buff each other as they run by. I’ve long since had to put a “thanks!” macro on my hotbar for the number of times that I get buffed on the fly.

Even with limited gaming time, I zipped up to level 20 within the first week and enjoyed nearly every minute of it (other than being ganked by murlocs). It’s a satisfying gameplay loop of knocking out a bunch of quests while hoovering up loot to sell on the auction house. Our guild is chatting away merrily, spurred on by the prepatch excitement, and there’s a real buzz for Burning Crusade right now.

Hitting 20 was a blessing and a curse. The Shaman water totem quest was unnecessarily long and required just so, so much running everywhere. But when I got that done, I celebrated in a healing totem, ghost wolf form, and some other skill improvements.

Posted in Lord of the Rings Online

LOTRO: Drinking in the pinks and purples of Ered Luin

Posted on by Syp

Meanwhile, my lowbie Captain finished up the Shire and moved on to Ered Luin for another zone clear. Oh man, these wolves. I must’ve killed these same 90 wolves so many times that I’ve become a feared legend among their kind. But first time — in living memory — that I did so as a Dwarf!

I certainly don’t mind soaking up the purples-and-pinks of this zone. Ered Luin really is one of the underrated greats of LOTRO’s zone design. For what it is, it packs in a whole lot more than you’d think, including a river, snowy regions, mountains, two seasons, several hubs, different kinds of trees, and even access to housing.

Even though I’ve gone through these zones and rolled new Captains countless times, there’s one element that’s making this run feel fresh — and that’s the race. Strange as it is to say, the Dwarf offers such a different vibe than the rest of the races. I’m smacking stuff around with axes, riding a boar, playing a male character, and yelling in Dwarvish, and all of that creates a more manly, imminent feel for the Captain. It’s very much a different experience, at least so far, and I like it.

Thrasi’s Lodge always sticks out as one of the most memorable little locales in Ered Luin. It’s got that wildnerness coziness to it — and it’s a shame we can’t go inside — and who can forget the quest chain to help Thrasi find and tame a little lynx cub? I almost wish there was more to do here, but touching base with it every time I come through this zone is a good feeling.

Posted in Lord of the Rings Online

LOTRO: Side adventures in a colorful bazaar

Posted on by Syp

Adventures in the second zone of Kingdoms of Harad eventually lead to the desert city of Zajana. To my delight, it’s both a visually attractive settlement and not overly large. In fact, there’s one main thoroughfare with a few offshoots, but nothing you can get that lost in exploring. That’s perfect for a guy like me.

Here I found a rather great storyline concerning a traveling troupe of theater performers (who took some time off to be warriors). Getting to watch them perform a short play starring their version of Gandalf — played by a Hobbit! — while the real Gandalf in the audience had a snit fit over the inaccuracies had me snorting with laughter.

I found this board with rather disturbing diagrams of anatomy in the library. LOTRO is an unexpected game at times.

I adore the color scheme of these Umbar towns. Again, it’s very Mediterranean in theme and contrasts well to the blue sky. It’s *cheerful* in a much different way than the Shire, for example, and does a pretty good job with environmental storytelling.

Posted in World of Warcraft

WoW Classic: Crystals and space goats

Posted on by Syp

Well, here we go again! That’s kind of the repeating mantra of WoW Classic, and it’s something that was ringing through my head when the Burning Crusade Anniversary prepatch came up last Tuesday. This was a case of very fortuitous timing for me, as January is such a drab and dead month that an exciting development and huge gaming project were just what I needed.

After more deliberation than I thought I’d have, I did end up putting my Druid to the side — she of only 36 levels — to roll up a fresh Draenei Shaman. I’m sure I’ll be the only one there in the newbie area, right? Probably. I’ve really been hankering to play a Shaman for a good half-year now but haven’t found the right opportunity for it. Now’s the time.

The Draenei opening zone gave me that predictable, but delightful, hit of nostalgia right away. Ugh, I love the music and vibes of this valley. It always takes me back to early 2007 when I was logging in all bleary eyed at 1:00 am in the morning after picking up my copy of The Burning Crusade and too excited to roll up a Shaman than go to sleep.

With the crush of players — an endless sea of shammys — on the first day, I resigned myself to more laid-back questing. Let everyone sprint in front of me and then enjoy lighter crowds, that’s my usual plan. It gave me some extra time to sight-see and simply enjoy the atmosphere. I also worked on setting up my UI, transferred over bags and gold, and ignored the inane general chat.

One thought I’ve had this time around is how much of a jump in quality The Burning Crusade gave us. The vanilla client had parts of the game that were originally made back in 1999, but by 2007, these new zones, races, and effects were much more advanced. Other than Shattrath — that city is an ugly pustule on this expansion’s rear end, and you can’t convince me otherwise.

Posted in Guild Wars

Guild Wars 2: Iron s’marches

Posted on by Syp

Stuck in a bit of a holding pattern waiting for World of Warcraft releases this January, I juked over to Guild Wars 2 to reconnect with my Ranger and — if nothing else — do some more mapping with my wolf, Lucky. The target? Iron Marches, in the effort to push my world completion from its current 74% to a bit more.

This is a perfect tourist MMO for me. I have established characters, can jump into it and do something meaningful right away, get involved in group activities if I want, and not have to spend a lot of time catching up on changes. The pew-pew Ranger with her pet even adds to this transitional status with its brain-dead combat. Very satisfying, though.

It’s also been a really good end-of-day activity to log into GW2, shut off my brain, and plow through these zones. Only occasionally does a heart quest or a particular POI require me to drag my consciousness to the party; for the most part, I can shoot things full of pointy things until they (the first things) stop moving and give me their stuff. I am the bully of the world, apparently.

I actually finished up Iron Marches way faster than I thought I would, so instead of going on to another zone, I took some time to hack away at my personal story. Dawnbreak Wild hasn’t done any of the storylines except a little bit of the original one, so that’s a mountain of content to climb right there.

Guild Wars 2 is one of those games that I absolutely wouldn’t mind getting completely sucked back into it. In fact, that’s the dare I issue every time I return. So much of this goes down easy, and there’s a metric ton of content that I’ve yet to see and conquer. Maybe I can get used to playing this as an on-the-side game, nibbling away at mapping and questing over the months.

Posted in Lord of the Rings Online

LOTRO: Stopping to smell the flowers

Posted on by Syp

While I didn’t exactly hate the fungus-infested swamp that marked the first zone of LOTRO: Kingdoms of Harad, y’know, it was a fungus-infested swamp. There’s only so much time you can spend in one before you have a hankering to not be there any longer. So it was a joy to ride down the road and into the second zone, Kighan. Hey, it’s sunshiny and full of flowers — I’m not complaining!

I think that the atmosphere and environment is one of the biggest arguments in favor of juggling multiple alts in LOTRO. If you’re spending too much time on a single character in a dreary, depressing, or ugly zone, it makes you want to leave the game and/or crave a nicer region. Having at least two characters to flip between ups the chances that you’ll have somewhere nice to visit every other play session.

I’m legit worried about going through this expansion too quickly and thus running out of new content to play in LOTRO. I don’t know why this feeling’s come over me, but I do sense that I’m breezing through these regions faster than normal. So I’m trying to pace myself and keep from consuming it all in a few weeks. I think we’re probably in for a long stretch before we see new non-dungeon content in LOTRO.

I’m just a little hobbit who continues to wonder why I got out of bed that day and thought that it would be a good idea to cross half the known world while playing exterminator to countless species. There were leftovers in the fridge and a full Tivo of house flipping shows to watch!

These chunky large flightless birds are a good addition to LOTRO’s bestiary. They genuinely look tough and act very aggressive. Taste like chicken, too.

Posted in World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft: Surfing the waves of waiting

Posted on by Syp

While there’s plenty of exciting things on the horizon for World of Warcraft, the first couple weeks of this month leave me floundering for direction. Lately, I’ve been combing through older expansions for housing decor quests and achievements, but that gets a little tiring when it’s all you’re doing. The problem is that there isn’t much else TO do, especially with a catch-up gear event on the way, Legion Remix in the rearview mirror, and the expansion fully done. I’d love to be doing more with housing, but there’s only so much I can decorate with the stuff I’ve got unlocked. So yeah, I guess I’ll keep plugging away at decor quests, but I kind of can’t wait for the prepatch now.

Talking with my guildies, everyone else echoes this “feeling lost and aimless” sentiment, especially for those who are done with Legion Remix and have all of the characters leveled that they want. I kind of wish that we had a mini-season to wrap up this expansion with some chase rewards and new delve iterations. There’s timewalking dungeons, so I guess I should do those… and weeklies… and plenty of other time sinks that don’t have much of a benefit to them right now.

In addition to doing the daily treasure hunt for decor, I want to make sure I get in the habit of checking with Pawdo here for a weekly quest to swap out some furniture and grab some extra decor in the process.

I dallied only briefly, only briefly with the idea of doing a hardcore character run to fill the wait for the prepatch in WoW Classic. But with some other gaming options on the table that would matter more than a character I’d be wiping out completely within days — if not accidentally sooner — I didn’t feel the experience was worth it. Hardcore was really interesting, but I think it’d need some sort of progression system to lock me into its ecosystem.

We did get news of the February 5th launch for Burning Crusade Anniversary, which is totally fine. No matter what character I go with, I’m not going to be first in the door of Outland, nor do I want to be part of that hellish crush. My only goal is to take a single character through the core game and TBC and, presumably, into Wrath. Just to enjoy and document the journey at a relaxed pace.

Posted in Elder Scrolls Online, Fallen Earth, Fallout, Final Fantasy, Guild Wars

MMOs I have sitting on the backburner in 2026

Posted on by Syp

Now that we’re really settling into 2026, I suppose it’s as good a time as any to talk about long-term gaming plans for the year. Honestly, I haven’t made a whole lot of them. I’m going to see the current LOTRO expansion through to the end and then probably spend the rest of the year (until the next expansion/content patch) working on my lowbie Captain. WoW Classic sees me taking a Shaman through Burning Crusade, while WoW retail will shift into Midnight this March. That’s all pretty predictable and plenty to do — especially in the first quarter of the year.

But today I wanted to talk about some of the other MMOs that I’m not currently playing but are sitting on the backburner in my mind. There are no guarantees I’ll be dipping into these or even going all-out in them this year, but they’re better-than-average possibilities:

  • Final Fantasy XIV: I usually check in with this title at least once a year, so why break tradition? The big attraction here is the nostalgia-laced long main story and the cozy vibes.
  • Fallout 76: This is a very easy pick-up-and-put-down title in a lot of ways, and I haven’t played it for a long while now. Haven’t felt a huge need to, really, but every so often the Fallout/post-apoc craving hits.
  • Fallen Earth: Of course, I could go with this dark horse entry instead.
  • Guild Wars 2: I’ve already spent a week playing this in 2026, and it wasn’t half-bad. It’s always there, always reliable, and always full of stuff to do without a lot of expectations. Another good “on the side” MMO.
  • Loftia: I think I might actually be checking out this social MMO when it comes out later this summer.
  • Elder Scrolls Online: Been a good year or so since I played this regularly. There’s a ton of content I haven’t seen yet, but I’m most intrigued by a more difficult landscape combat option. That might necessitate a reroll.
Posted in Retro Gaming

GOG and taking back ownership of gaming

Posted on by Syp

 

While it’s not a new year’s resolution or anything, going into 2026, I’m determined more than ever to actually own my stuff. I hate the idea of buying licenses, especially for games, and have been drifting away from Steam and EGS for non-MMOs for a while now.

When I wanted to get back into CRPGs and the like last fall, I quickly determined that the company that’s going to get my business isn’t Valve — it’s GOG. Not only does this company really commit to supporting and preserving older games, but everything you buy here is DRM-free. You’re not buying a license, in other words; you’re purchasing the game itself. You can download all the files, the installer, everything, and then keep it if you like. GOG as a service could go down tomorrow, but all of your purchases are yours to keep and use.

As a bonus, many of these games also come with a native Mac version, which is kind of awesome to be able to put onto my Macbook Air for some couch gaming. That’s especially true for some of the older games.

That said, I acknowledge the big drawback to GOG, which is that its library isn’t nearly as big as Steam’s, nor do all of the newer titles get on there. That’s perfectly fine for me. What I’m looking for on here are great CRPGs, a smattering of JRPGs, adventure games, strategy titles, and a few older favorites. I already have a library of over 300 titles, and believe it or not, I’m actually played a decent chunk of these (including fully finishing a bunch of them).

So when I get a few spare bucks and titles on my wishlist go on sale, I snap them up. I’ve been doing that this fall and ended up with Fallout New Vegas, WAR40K Rogue Trader, Chained Echoes, Planescape Torment enhanced edition, and Avernum 2: Crystal Souls. My gaming dance card is pretty extensive right now as I eye all of these, but it’s not like I can blitz through them all in a few weeks.

There are always some classic games that I truly wish would come out on here (such as Sims 1/2/3) but probably won’t because of the controlling studios. I do keep an eye on new releases, though, and hope that we might get surprised with something amazing this year.