In any case, it is sad that it took them so long to come to a reasonable arrangement to everyone instead of having things working like that from the beginning.

I hope that you were able to go back to the game without issues (I haven’t been keeping up with SOE so I don’t know if they shot themselves in the foot with something else) and you are having fun playing with your daughter again!

May well reload the game as I feel alittle bit down when she asks me why I don’t play it anymore, and wants company, as most gamers wouldn’t deal with her age and the view dungeons are only there to get more money for another house Cat and not gear

Whenever I can get my hands on them I will take some screenshots. I tried to take some from the preview windows and do collating them together but it looked horrible. Artistic skills I clearly have not!

*hugs back*

I like all the areas, personally. Well, ok, I don’t like Orr so much. But I completely agree about the story merging. I can see how merging the story made sense from a developing point of view (it is more cost-effective) and even an authorial one (the theme of the races/orders all uniting to defeat a common enemy) but I really wish things kept more personal just like in the beginning.

As far as leveling goes I am not having any more trouble leveling on this game than on in any other. I just tent to level one or two to cap (or as close to it as I can get) then the rest just get neglected, receiving some bursts of love from time to time.

I have no idea what changed for you either. I could theorize based on game mechanics and design. But that would be for Guild Wars 2. LotRO I am not knowledgeable enough to make theories about or to see if there are some common points with Guild Wars 2 that could explain why things changed for you. @_@

Right now I have a toon for each race (human female necro, norn female warrior, sylvari female ranger, asura female mesmer and charr male guardian.) Only the necro and warrior have made it to 80.. the warrior very recently. I’ve found I really enjoy the starting areas and the story up until it merges. After that, I have a hard time leveling in this game, I think because we get all of our skills so fast.

So whilst I’m tempted to have more alts and very tempted by multiple guardians as well (as I really want a male human toon), I sorta know my likelihood of leveling them are slim. I can’t level alts in Lotro either. I’m not sure what’s happened as I used to have extreme altitist.

My friend (the one who made me see how awesome guardians are) however was musing the other day about making a guardian of each race. If he saw your comment I am pretty sure it would be enough for him to just do it! XD

Right now my guardians are very low level. The human one is level 31 and the sylvari one is level 10. I am still getting a feeling for the class and trying to figure out what kind of traits and utility skills work best for me. So far I only settled on a weapon for the human guardian. She is using a hammer since there is nothing more fun than bashing someone in the face with a big hammer. For the sylvari I am thinking about following my friend’s suggestion and go with a burning build since the idea of sylvari putting himself on fire for the greater good just amuses me. I will probably use a sword and torch for it.

In any case, the way he and you talk about builds does bring me some comfort in that I can make the two feel sufficiently different that they will both be fun in their own ways.

I will just be leveling a few other characters for now since I’ve been spending the last few days leveling my human guardian and I need some variety. @_@

As for the other classes, the only one I have digged that deeply to look at all the possibilities so far have been engineers. Sometimes so much possibilities that it seems impossible to find a good discussion about my particular choice of weaponry! (the flamethrower, if anyone is wondering)

I really don’t think you’ll have an issue with the same class feeling redundant – at least not until they get us the option to save/load specs quickly. I dearly want to try out one of each class, but have been unable to get out of Guardian mode just yet and start seriously learning the others.

Offhand, I can think of at least three builds I’d love to be trying out on different Guardians. The standard altruistic healing crit hammer and shout builds I have yet to try, along with the more healing/support focused cleric gear staff builds.

Nor have I been able to tear myself away from the very funky spirit weapons and one-hand sword that my Charr is forever carting around, plus weapon variants.

Just recently, I figured out a perfect (for me) rotation for solo farming with a two-handed sword plus either sword or hammer pet for extra damage, including getting used to and counting the hammer strikes so that the 3rd strike knockback is anticipated, using the two-handed leap a half-second after activating the hammer’s attack so that I don’t have to chase after the mob at all, then spinning as the mob is already knocked down by the hammer. Charr poetry in motion.

I’m positive the other classes are just as chock full of possibilities, to the point I haven’t dared look at them closely yet.

Crafting is also my bane! In EQ2 one of the reasons for me to get alts was crafting since I wanted to be self-sufficient in that area (I hate having to ask people for help). Worse was when I decided to make a character in the Crushbone server too (my original server was Antonia Bayle) because I had a friend over there. I decided I was going to have all the crafters over there too. Alas, that never happened since I left the game before that.

I guess the closest thing to a cure to altitis is if a game allow us to have all the classes with the same character (like in Final Fantasy XIV) or be a pure-skill based system (like in Fallen Earth). Even then we might want to create alts with different races!