Lord of the Rings Online

I had stopped playing online computer games, mainly because the people in those games generally just kept pissing me off. I started with Ultima Online, migrated to Everquest, dropped it for Dark Age of Camelot, then joined every MMORPG that existed after that until World of Warcraft came along. This game did everything right, and it felt good playing it. Then, at one point, I realized that the game was so static it was never going to be a different experience playing it from one day to the next. So I discontinued playing and focused on other things.

So, what brought me back to the world of online gaming again so that I am now playing Lord of the Rings Online? Well, first off, I wouldn't argue that the game is better than WoW; it's not worse, but it's not much better when it comes to gaming.

However, there's something else that actually makes the game worth playing. There's actual lore to the story that the developers follow and follow well. For those who loved the books (and then the movies) this is the experience of actually living in that world, but you just don't happen to be one of the main characters, but you get to be important nonetheless.

Anyway, so I'm playing the game these days during my spare time. And I'm enjoying it. It's still an online game, so it's not the greatest platform to enjoy an experience, but the other players are nowhere as bad as they were in previous games. Most of the players actually seem interested in the lore of the story and you don't have these endless conversations in regional chat about Chuck Norris or who really has a girlfriend outside of the game.

Anyway, it's an enjoyable distraction. And I really need a distraction right now. It would be different if I was dating or involved in something significant, but I'm not. So there's this. And sometimes, you just have to be happy with what you've got.

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