Character Creation

Creating your character is a pretty standard process.  If you’ve played Everquest or similar before you know what to expect.  There are 19 different races to choose from ranging from the familiar, such as goblin, elf, human, and dwarf, to the more unique animal-humanoid races.  As far as character models and race selection goes, VSoH is less than impessive.  The races aren’t all that good looking or interesting and some of them even look downright awful.

There are 15 classes to choose from divided into four archtypes of Protective Fighter (tank), Offensive Fighter (Melee DPS), Healer and Caster.  There’s a good variety of classes, most of which are hybrids.  Supposedly group play is a major focus in this game.  As such, each class is designed to fill one of the main group roles.  Though solo play is certainly possible, it is more or less difficult for certain classes to pull off.

I created a Qaliathari Necromancer named Ishahn Moonsorrow.  I chose a necro because I always liked them and they sound like a lot of fun in this game.  Choice of race for necros was disappointing and I more or less settled on Qaliathari because it was the least-worst of the bunch.  Character customization was pretty mediocre too.  There are a lot of options, but half of them just make your character look silly.  Bad player models.

Starting Out on Isle of Dawn

First impressions upon starting up the game is that thankfully the world graphics are better than the character models.  The Isle of Dawn looks good.  Draw distance is long by design, which makes the world seem more massive.  You can see the trees sway in the wind.  It’s fairly immersive so far.  The background music is very nice and pleasing too.

Progression through the Isle of Dawn is pretty standard.  You talk to quest givers who give you quests to do which prove yourself and ready you for bigger and more challenging quests later on.  Between the beginning quests and the tip system, you learn how to play the game.

I am currently level 5 and have just started to check out harvesting and diplomacy.  I’ll investigate them in more detail tomorrow.  As far as very first impressions go, so far I am enjoying the game.

There is this phenomenon that I noticed in LotRO.  It goes something like this:  Blah blah blah, people are chatting in one of the game channels (usually the Looking For Fellowship or Trade channels that they shouldn’t be using for things that aren’t looking for group or trade related…) and someone mentions WoW.  All of a sudden someone else will completely rip on WoW for no reason other than the fact that it was mentioned.  Usually a “WoW is gay!” or “WoW sucks!” (usually in less legible form) is thrown in somewhere.  This is sometimes followed by the WoW-hater accusing the other of being a noob or to go back to WoW and leave them alone.  (Wow-hater must be role-playing that he is king of the universe.)  Usually a crowd is attracted and others weigh in with their opinions.  And things can get quite heated during the exchange.

This phenomenon isn’t unique to LotRO, though I find it particularly amusing for several reasons.  One is that LotRO, all things considered, compared to all the other games in the MMORPG genre, is about as similar in game play to WoW as you can get that you would think anyone that likes one would like the other.  You may prefer one over the other, but you certainly wouldn’t hate one if you like the other.  I’m not saying LotRO is a WoW-clone, far from it.  It’s a very good game with enough distinct characteristics to set it apart on its own.  But let’s face it, when LotRO came out, it was basically “WoW in Middle Earth.”  In the two years since, WoW has evolved into something quite different, but they are both essentially Theme Park, Solo-and-Casual-friendly, level-based, class-based, PvE games.

Are people like this seriously that insecure about their game of choice (in this case LotRO) that they feel the need to just rip another game (and its player base) that is successful and that someone might compare it with?  I mean I’ve seen this phenomenon happen when people weren’t even comparing LotRO with WoW – they were simply talking about which games they played.

Now obviously a lot of these types of people are just immature and/or assholes.  They delude themselves into thinking that they are cooler than others because they think the most popular and successful (and arguably the best created) MMORPG of all time is “gay.”  How fucking sad and pathetic.

Even better is when they actually try to give reasons why they think WoW is “gay.”  “It’s too easy” is probably my favorite.  Since when did being ACCESSIBLE mean “easy”?  There is the same amount of challenge in WoW as in most other games, you just don’t have to spend 40 hours a week accomplishing it.  That’s cool if you don’t like it.  But don’t ignorantly accuse it of being too easy just because you like something different.  Don’t accuse WoW players of being noobs, children, unskilled, or whatever other negative description gets ignorantly thrown out there just because they either can’t or don’t want to spend their entire free time playing a game.

More importantly, just enjoy your game and let others enjoy their game without being ridiculed and attacked for no god damn reason whatsoever other than to stroke your own fucking ego.

Sometime before 1997: Read about Ultima Online in a gaming magazine.  Thought it was really cool.  Never actually played it.

2000: On and off Everquest. I had a love/hate relationship with this game.  This was the first MMORPG I played, so I really enjoyed the concept and wanted to play it, but the genre just wasn’t mature enough to keep me playing for too long.  In particular, EQ was very tedious and unfriendly to casual play.  I just didn’t have the time for that kind of game play as I was borderline flunking out of college at the time as it was.  I did get my friend hooked on it and he ended up playing it way, WAY, more than I ever did.

2003-2004: Anarchy Online. I don’t remember the exact dates, but sometime around this time frame I played Anarchy Online and loved it.  I know I stopped playing for a while and went back for a while again.  This was the first MMORPG that I really got into and played for more than a few weeks at a time.

Feb 2005 – May 2008: World of Warcraft. Originally I was not all that excited about WoW.  I was more looking forward to EQ2.  I think the cartoony graphics turned me off at first, but once I actually played the game, I realized that the graphics work very well and, more importantly, the game is just a blast to play.  I’ll delve more in-depth into my WoW gaming career later as that alone will take up several posts.

Various times between 2006-2008: I briefly checked out other games during these years, namely Guild Wars, EQ2, and Lord of the Rings Online.  Actually I bought all of them and played them for a maybe a month each, while still being active in WoW.

Summer 2008: Age of Conan. Having quit WoW, I needed something to play.  I really was not all that interested in AoC, but it just happened to come out around that time and I also had a friend playing.  So I checked it out knowing fully well that I was not going to be playing it for too long.  As most of you probably know, it was a pretty bad launch, so I didn’t even last the full summer as I had planned.

Sept-Nov 2008: Warhammer Online. This was the big hyped game of that year and just about everyone I knew was expecting great things from WAR.  It wasn’t too bad, but I didn’t particularly like it either.  Everyone complains about how easy WoW is, but PvE in WAR was ridiculously easy.  Of course the game was supposed to be more about PvP and especially RvR (realm vs realm), which I never have been into.  I gave it a try but ultimately didn’t find it all that interesting (and apparently neither did a lot of other people), so I left and went back to WoW just in time for WotLK.

Nov-Dec 2008:  WoW:WotLK. Again, I’ll spend more time on my WoW gaming career later.  At this point I attempted to rejoin my old guild and get back into raiding, but for various reasons it just didnt last.  I played maybe 4-5 weeks here.  Just enough time to check out all the new zones and a bit of everything else.  I still liked WoW but I just wasn’t in to it any more.

Dec 2008-Aug 2009: At this point I just went around checking out a lot of different games.  I probably can’t even remember them all, but here we go:  Runes of Magic, Star Wars Galaxies, Requiem: Bloodymare, Planeshift, Regnum Online, and revisted Guild Wars.  I’m probably missing something insignificant but as you can see, I definitely checked out a good number of free-to-play games.  Some were fairly good, but not enough to keep me around.

Aug 2008 – Present: Lord of the Rings Online.  I am currently having fun playing LotRO, a game that I had bought when it first came out and have played a few times here and there, but never really gave a chance, not because I didn’t like it, but because I was too involved in something else.  I’m enjoying being a very casual, solo player again.  I am eagerly looking forward to something more complicated and something I can get more involved in, but for now this is cool.  More on this later!

Epic Life Drain is going to be a blog about my experiences in playing MMORPG’s and news about MMORPG’s in general.  I’ve been playing MMORPG’s since Everquest and simply love the genre.  Even when I’m taking a break and not really playing any specific games, I still follow the news and happenings in the genre and community.  This is my main hobby and source of entertainment (and social interaction, sadly.)  So a blog about MMORPG’s makes sense for me.

I will probably publish interesting experiences I have while I am out adventuring.  I also plan to discuss new games or upcoming games.  I may make some game guides or post tips about how to play a game or class or how to defeat a boss encounter.  I will definitely post links to any interesting websites or articles about MMORPG’s that I come across.  If I’m motivated and feeling creative, I may also write some fan-fiction type stuff about my avatar.

Oh and about the title, Epic Drain Life, that is a nice little shout out to the Drain Life ability that is a stable of the typical Necromancer class.  Necros (or the Warlock in World of Warcraft) are my favorite classes.  The title also plays on the idea that MMORPG’s can really suck you in and take over your life.  They drain your life away, especially your social life!