The three buses games coming along at once being WoW and LOTRO expansions, and Guild Wars 2.

But first, where have I been?  I left you wondering how I would deal with my misgivings about SW:TOR.  Would changing to healer and PVPing save the day?  Unfortunately not.  Shortly after I last posted it was announced that level 50 players would receive a free month.  Just about everybody in my guild (and everybody playing SW:TOR, judging from the empty levelling planets) was level 50, so it felt as if a few of us were being singled out to pay for a month that everybody else was getting free.  I put a last effort into leveling, and sadly, it killed the game for me.  I was logging in and “working” at the game, when I’d rather have been doing other things, or when I had a headache.  At the same time, I was starting to realise that I spent too much time on gaming.  Maybe it took being “forced” to game (to avoid being financially penalised) to drive home that it wasn’t good for me.  I decided to cut down my gaming time, and to get fitter.  This was made easier by my new lack of interest in SW:TOR.

I have a lifetime LOTRO membership, so I decided to spend some of my now limited game time there.  There was so much to catch up on, including the last expansion.  To my surprise (given all the bad things you hear about free to play games), there seemed to be an active role-play community and a great atmosphere.  Seasonal events were buzzing with people, many carefully outfitted in cosmetic gear.   My son started a new character and we did skirmishes together.  I finally got my main (but not max level) character out of dark Mirkwood and into the light in a new, bustling area.  I realise that I am advantaged by being a lifetime member, but I still think that LOTRO is pretty good for a free game.  I will be returning now and then.  There’s the Rohan expansion out in September, with mounted combat.  I’ll probably wait until after release and buy it with turbine points.

For some time, I’d been keeping an eye on Guild Wars 2.   As it’s also free to play (once purchased) I’d pretty much made up my mind to buy it if it looked good.  I was hearing very good things about it, that it was the future of MMOs, and finally, the big draw was that many from my SW:TOR guild were going to be playing, so I paid the rather hefty £50 for the digital version and had a go at the beta.  My verdict, from my limited playtime (and given my lack of gaming knowledge), is that it’s not quite as revolutionary as it seems.   From what I’d read, it seemed as if hundreds of events could happen, but when I played it, it seemed to be the same old events happening over and over.  I worry about how much fun it will be when the leveling areas are quieter.  I loved the public quests in WAR, but they lost their appeal when I had to try to solo them after the first month.  Crafting looks more functional than fun (oh, for Everquest’s furniture making, or even the gadgets in WoW!), but I’ve only given it a cursory look.    I can’t put my finger on why, but I’m not quite as excited about the launch as I thought I’d be.  Maybe I’m just burned out with launches.

Meanwhile, I’ve been returning to my first MMO, World of Warcraft.   It doesn’t seem long since I was writing about the last expansion, Cataclysm, but time goes more quickly as you get older.  No really, it does.  If GW2 is the sequel everybody loves, Mists of Pandaria seems to be the expansion everybody hates.  And yet, I’ve been excited about it for months.  The more I hear about it being geared to casual players, the more I think it’s going to suit me.  Pet battles will take me back to the days of playing Pokemon with my son when he was little.  Fishing and farming are right up my street.  I love the eastern theme.  The new areas are beautiful.   I think it’s going to be exciting to not be able to fly again, and to see the world from the ground first of all.  I hate to say it, but I’m more excited about this than about GW2.  But I’m keeping an open mind.
Ah, World of Warcraft, my first (MMO) love!  It has an open world feel that SW:TOR was definitely lacking, and that I haven’t got from GW2 yet.  I know the graphics are cartoony, but I love that you don’t need a good computer to play.  Recently, instead of going off to do something else during long gryphon flights, I’ve been watching the world go by, and it’s gorgeous.