A little about who I am. Been a gamer before many here were probably born, started with the first 3d online game called Merdian 59. Before this, the closest thing was something like net-trek with about 8 max players on two teams, with pretty crude circles and dots as ships, a space station etc.

If I recall, Merdian 59 started around 1996, giving a first chance of player pvp. Quite the drama for some to be slaughtered by other players for the first time, and soon to be followed by hacked weapons and all kinds of mischief. Believe the game actually was hosted in Russia for a bit, in any case it had some pirated versions eventually pop up from code posted on the internet. Now is a free play if ya can find it hosted somewhere.

This predated Ultima online- UO, that soon had the arrival of many of the experienced 59er's.

In all, have way to many max characters sitting around on old games. Seen plenty, and been on most sides of gaming.

Keeping a eye out presently for the next same oh' with a few new shiny add ons, to leave the next batch of max characters.

How is Lotro doing now? Last I played it was to out of control with a few bosses always being camped, to get the one item needed for crafting the better items. Has level cap ever gone up?

The latest game I played well over too many 100's of hours was Age of Conan. With a short background, this was the latest game I have tried since starting back in the days of net-trek and a few dots and circles online. I left this a number of months ago due to what seems to be more a trend these days, company goes one way, while customers go another. AOC had such potential it was incredible. Great graphics and effects in battle, that started out just not ready on release with too many bugs. Just did not go the direction I believe most people hoped for and asked for, with Funcom choosing its own agenda in complete other directions. Characters were balanced and fun to play, with each having a couple different directions they could follow. A example of this would be a necromancer could follow a pet spec, or a casting spec called nightfall. Both equally balanced and playable in pvp, pve, or solo engagements. This I feel was when AOC was at its best, a Demonologist could play fire or lightning. A Tos play lightning bolt/healer or multiple target lightning damage/healer. Ranger play bow or crossbow. These are the things that make games fun, playing in different arenas, different styles or choices, and all being competitive. All I can wonder is what the hell happen? A update came out followed by others to prelude the god slayer update known as 1.05. For my experience most my maxed characters were ALL forced to take one direction only in how Funcom wanted customers to play the class. Nightfall massively declined to the pet spec, while pet spec increased for a necromancer. Dido for Demonologist, Tos and other classes. A hatred I had from the very beginning, of characters i built to be forced to play the other side of what I wanted, or be no fun, or even accepted in groups due to lack of help to the group. This era of unbalance to all characters I can only contribute to the age old squeaky wheel gets its way. A big problem I have yet seen done very well by any company that is trying to run a pvp environment and a pve. This case the pvp players being the strong daily complainers trying to get every one elses character decreased. The few or one out way the many. With most characters I had fully built to max, it ended with only one I would tolerate to play, the ranger that somehow was still balanced and not forced to one game play only. This was to result in a even bigger blow, I learned when the update arrived. A new feat tree was added, to increase skills, new areas, and the explosion of disaster to the ranger. So many failures here its hard to say what exactly effected so many to leave, that like 2 servers of 11 or so is all that is left now i believe. Myself it was the complete destruction on the ranger, the last class I had left I cared in any way to play, and enjoyed. Was suppose to be a revamp and improve the ranger and some of its weakness in melee combat while maintaining the range with a new combat style. So Bori came out in the pvp areas, giving top guild control of the area versus others, and pvp levels for standing around getting resources. Many lost to this who liked to pvp, to have to combat top level resources that just outright out geared them due to rank with no skill. Tokens drops added to raids that could be turned in, to support the lack of items and last pieces of gear players needed. A good concept, if only they let players have them, instead of the couple leaders and or cliques in the raids. New quests that could get competitive gear, if successful like 1000 or more times in hard mode. Completely unrealistic. New feats to add to skills, the result of all the nerfs to characters now could get a slight fraction of what was ripped away from characters in patches before the update, but not even close to original standings or back to balance the characters had before. New content such as a tiger or wolf mount, that ended only in complete disappointment . Long grinding to get a mount that none of its skills worked, was glitched, and only given skills to pvp servers, another slap in the face to everyone else who played including pvp on bigger servers. The ranger was it though, being the top ranked pvp ranger in a big guild it was ridiculous what they did to something you built and worked at. Ranger was given a revamp for only one thing pvp, it was over powered and boring in this area. Feat skills ya had previously they through all your hard earned points into the worst skills on the tree. Took away absolutely any favored skill, bow or xbow. Remade the original feat tree removing all used and favored skills. Combined the bow and xbow ranger as one. Forced junk on all the feat trees to be taken to reach any skills you wanted. Unbalance to the feat tree with skills only effective to pvp, while useless to any other part of the game. Removed many abilities. Removing everyone of the main skills I used, that did multiple target hits to a single target minor hit. All this for what nobody could understand, a over powered character in pvp, that eventually caused more than I could ever count to stop payment and leave. So playing pvp alot, I found the character a mess. I could kill others easy sure, whoopy-do, lost damage in everything else and made any other previous enjoyed game play boring. Raids, 6 man quests, solo hunting, solo quests all at a lost so rangers could go op other players in pvp. My favorite picture is the Ranger using a skill called clout hitting all enemies for 7-12k, and the revamp no lost to range character (sarcasim) using the same skill hitting one target of the many for 2k. The one only gain from all this was the one thing players asked for, a better combat system. With cheats aside, that this company did nothing about in the pvp environment, this is a example of what I want nothing to do with. Games I want and are looking for are games to have fun, to develop how and the direction you like as a player and customer. A company interested in developing characters a player works at, to increase the skills players like most. To add on to the fun sides of a character, to maintain a balance on the character. A character that is equally balanced to pvp, and pve, and solo, as well as within its own designs and directions taken by all players. The latest motto you can bet money on that has yet to be proven wrong is as follows: Company's that decrease and take away from what a customer wants and designs, takes away from their server size just as well. To do this soon after paying months in advance, this customer will not be a sucker again. So looking for that company if anyone knows of one not to caught up listening to the one squeaky wheel versus the thousands that don't.