A (small) step into the Road

I've never been a Massively Multiplayer Online game kinda guy. When World of Warcraft came out and it seemed like everyone was playing it our family was still on dial-up connected to a single shared computer, and I was a teenager with the kind of regular job that could support changing that state of affairs. While I've played my fair share of games in the years since acquiring the internet in my own space, I've never been able to develop the kind of regular and consistent hours that I've always assumed needed to be put in to a game in order to get a regular group together and flourish in an MMO environment.

But with the whole being locked in my house the whole time thing and the whole MMO gamers running another blogging festival thing, one would have thought that it was an excellent time to try and get into an MMO, right? I have a copy of Lord of the Rings Online just sitting around in Steam for some reason (I'm pretty sure I didn't buy it, maybe there was a giveaway at some point?), and then I hear they're running some kind of special event so that more areas are open to people who haven't bought all the DLC, so I caved and set steam to download.

22 GB! Even just a couple of years ago back in Australia that would be a deal-breaker right there. Not only would it have taken a week, it would have cost me a significant portion of my monthly download limit. Here in the land of cheap internet, though...sure, go on then.

That's....that's not good.

Turns out my virus protection, which I cannot deactivate, waited until the 22 GB was finished before deciding it was malware and deleting it. No problem, though, the downloader happily just started downloading the whole thing from the start again.

Luckily, I have a book I should be reading. But I sympathise with this orc.

Thankfully, by later in the evening this second attempt has successfully downloaded, and this time it isn't being identified as a virus. Not sure what's changed, but at least my whole LoTRO adventure hasn't been cut off before it could even begin.

But wait...there's more!

Another hour or so of tea and crosswords as various patches and supplementary bits and pieces are downloaded, and...is that a start button? I was beginning to think they didn't exist! If this is the life of an MMO gamer, I'm already pretty confident that it's not for me.

I feel your pain, buddy.

Still, we're in and can finally make a character. I make a dwarf (because of course I do) minstrel (because of course I do) called Wolomur. He has a moustache and a barrel chest and won't be taking any of that nonsense from you, laddie! Middle-Earth, here we come.

I like to think that he does his own embroidery.

Pity there's no time left for actually playing the game tonight, but there's always another chance next time around. Unless they release another patch and I have to download the whole thing all over again.