The Not-So-Rare Occurrence

Surprise! Long absence!

I can explain. See, there's this thing I'm going through that I'm trying to quit. It's called college. It's over now, though, so I'll have to come up with another excuse the next time I disappear for a few months.

Things are going pretty well, most things considered (and some things omitted). I 4.0-ed both semesters this year, so I'm pleased with that. Right now, though, I'm waiting to hear about summer jobs, which is never fun. Worse yet, the jobs I want are overseen by seemingly irresponsible individuals. One of them won't get back to me until (or perhaps unless) I call him at least one more time. The problem with that is if I call again too soon, I'm harassing him. If I don't call, he'll fill the position with some city employee's or council member's son or daughter. He's just like that.

On the games front, I don't have a lot of news, other than that I'm now playing Lord of the Rings Online and I haven't once had the urge to quit. Granted, I'm still in my 30 day free month from having bought the client. Regardless, I'm up to level 23 of 50, and it hasn't been much of a grind. The biggest difference between LOTRO and many other MMOs I've played is the players. On at least four occasions, someone in my group has gone away from the keyboard to calm a crying child, fix dinner, call their wife or husband, etc. My guess is that a lot of Tolkien fans play, and many of them are older.

My character is a human Lore Master. While it is not technically a wizard (as in LOTR lore, there are only a few wizards), it is essentially the attack casting class with a pet (currently, I have a bear). Many say it is a difficult class to play, and thus far in my experience, it is. The biggest problem I face is that I'm running out of quick bars on which to place spells and abilities and I'm not quite halfway to level 50. I've attempted to remedy the problem by switching my quick bar key bindings to the number pad. That way, I can control movement with my left hand (WASD) and skills with my right. This method alleviates my biggest problem with MMOs that use quick bars: It is difficult to use abilities above number 6, because I have to look down at them. With three rows of three and the zero key all at my right thumb, I can very easily locate my skills without looking. Once the initial quick bar is full, three more bars can be accessed by holding CTRL, ALT, or Shift. I use the main bar for attacks and debuff spells, the alt bar to control my pet and do various harvesting actions, and the CTRL bar for my healing and less commonly used spells. (The shift bar is currently unused, as there is some sort of bug in the key binding menu that does not allow the shift button to be used in conjunction with other keys, as it will only register the shift button being pressed.)

The no-look casting model that utilizes the number pad would be great for MMOs, if only we hadn't become so dependent upon the mouse. When I played FFXI, I never used the mouse. In more modern MMOs, the mouse is used for everything, in fact, I could very easily learn to play LOTRO without ever using the keyboard (other than to communicate), as my autorunning, turning, camera control, and quick bar buttons can all be executed by using the mouse. Granted, I have five buttons, including the wheel. Regardless, unless one is very, very proficient with keyboard controls, this model simply doesn't work well.

Fortunately, I was complimented last night on my Lore Master skills by a fellow guild member.

Near the end of the semester, Mattjew, Ryan, Spencer, and I started playing Command & Conquer 3 LAN-style. It was an unhealthy amount of fun, and I hope we'll be able to do that some over the summer.

Until next time, whenever that will be.