Why the MMO tank life rarely appeals to me

In LOTRO, there exists an anomaly in my gaming career — the fact that a Captain, technically a “tank” class — was my main for a very long time. I’ve been playing MMOs so long that it’s hard to make an absolute statement here, but I almost never play tanks. And I definitely never tank dungeons.

It’s not that I don’t see the appeal. The armor tends to look fantastic, especially if you want to present yourself as an unstoppable wall of metal, and the survivability is a breath of fresh air if you’re used to playing clothies. But usually tank classes get ruled out when I’m narrowing down choices because of two factors:

1. They typically are straight-forward, dull-as-dirt classes without much flavor, variety, or utility outside of tanking. Plus they do less DPS, which isn’t a huge selling point.
2. If you play a tank, you’re going to be asked to tank. And that’s not a role I like to play.

I’m sure I could figure out tanking and be a fine tank if I set my mind to it. Despite what you hear from boastful elitist players, MMOs aren’t *that* complicated. They’re designed to get the broadest possible spectrum of players into group content. And who knows? Maybe one day I’ll be hard up for new experiences and push myself into the tank life.

The reason why I don’t is that when I have time to play, it’s the end of the day and I’m looking to relax — not step into a second job. Tanking is the most mindful role in a dungeon, where you have to guide everyone around, handle the bosses, and manage aggro. There’s nothing relaxing in that for me. For adrenaline junkies, it’s pure fuel, of course.

The biggest exception I have to my usual boycott of tank classes is when one is a hybrid, which usually comes in the form of a Paladin or Paladin-like character (such as LOTRO’s Cappy). Mix in heals, utility, and even pets, and I’ll be tempted. I probably won’t tank group content, but I’ll be tempted.

My portable music device library at the top of 2024

Even as society seems hellbent to continue its devotion to music streaming, I’m perfectly content holding onto the older ways of ownership, collection, and offline portable devices. I thought I’d share my current dedicated music player collection at the top of 2024 and what I use each for.

Going from left to right in the above picture:

iPod Nano 7th Generation (new battery, purple color) — Despite its 16 GB limitation, I deeply love this little player. It just oozes this cool small tech factor and is so light that it’s easy to bring almost anywhere. I created a slimmed down playlist to meet its storage size and will slip this into my pocket for trips or walks. I normally use this with wired headphones, but I have the option to connect it to my wireless ones as well. I wouldn’t mind a backup one of these, to be honest, but I shouldn’t get too greedy.

SanDisk Clip — These little things are wonders if you are looking for a cheap, durable, and rather good-sounding MP3 player. It stores 32 GB of music, has a useful little clip on the back, and boasts a battery life that is astounding. I don’t charge this thing for a month, and when I go to use it, it has a nearly full charge. Great for long trips. The little screen is hard to see, but at least it has one, and the buttons are very accessible.

iPod Mini 2nd Generation (new battery, modded with 64 GB flash storage) — This is my “old stuff is NEAT” device, especially with that monochrome display and blue blacklight. It can hold all my music and sounds great, so this is a perfect unit to use when I want to recline on the couch at night and have music with no distractions. The battery life isn’t the best because I guess the flash storage is more of a pull on it, but it’s perfectly acceptable for an at-home device.

HiBy M300 — This was a Christmas present last year, and to be honest, I’m still figuring out what I’m going to do with it. It’s a proper current-generation DAP with a Snapdragon Android chip, 128 GB mini SD, and some fairly good sound. Doesn’t like my more expensive headphones for some reason, and there aren’t any cases on the market yet for this, so I’m kind of afraid to take it anywhere.

And the ones not shown:

iPod 4th Generation Color — This unmodded unit is kept at work docked in a stereo unit and is loaded with Disney World music. It’s good background work music for me, so that works for this 32 GB drive that’s probably not super-long for this world.

Portable CD player — Oh yes, I have one of these as well. It’s at work too for when I want to pop in headphones and listen to CDs (my stereo doesn’t have a headphone jack, alas) in a more isolated fashion.

That’s probably more than I need, but I do like casually collecting these, especially since I do use them. I don’t have my eyes set on anything specific for my next purchase, maybe a modded iPod 5.5 or 7th gen, but I’m more than satisfied right now.

LOTRO: Lukewarm to the 2024 roadmap

In Umbar, my poor Hobbit looks like she’s going to get sunburned at any moment. She’s got skin great for northern climes, but down here, she sticks out pretty bad. Time to hit a tanning bed, maybe!

The path to Umbar is very linear: You start in the north-west city on this peninsula, then go south, then work your way east. I kind of feel like I’m dragging my feet because I’m not the biggest fan of being plunged into large virtual metropolises.

There was a pretty cool quest instance here where I had to find, dig out, and rescue eight miners from a collapsing cave before the time limit ran out and we all died. I’m not normally one for timers on quests, but this one made sense.

With such beautiful tropical views, you’d think SSG would’ve been leaning heavily into the visuals for this expansion’s marketing. It really didn’t, which is a shame. I know a lot of FFXIV players are looking forward to similar areas in Dawntrail, but probably a lot of lower-level LOTRO players have no idea stuff like this exists in the game.

We’ve fought our fair share of walking trees in LOTRO, but still I did not expect to have to duke it out with a mobile palm tree. Looks pretty cool, though!

So we got the 2024 roadmap last week, which I appreciate. It wasn’t that many years ago that the studio would drag its feet until late March or April before putting out the year’s plan, and never with a graphic like this. It feels more reliable and regular, and I appreciate that.

My first reaction? It’s fine. Not thrilling, but fine. There’s nothing here that exactly has me vibrating with excitement, but I’m amenable to much of it. It’ll give me adventures for my high-level characters, especially when we reach the next expansion, and I’m certainly interested in what the next hobby will be. I am grumpy that SSG didn’t announce the new legendary server here, which I think is still coming but its absence from the roadmap makes it harder to plan out my year.

One small pet peeve I have with MMOs is when you go into a house or structure and the rooms are impossibly tall. Star Trek Online is notorious for this, mostly because the devs didn’t want the camera to be banging on the ceiling, but it makes you look like you’re a mite in a giant’s universe. Some of LOTRO’s houses are like this, although I’m never quite sure if it’s a camera thing or because the structures they’re based on would actually be like this for heating/cooling purposes.

In any case, I think you could bungee jump in the above room.

Free agent game: FFXIV reels me back in with a fresh start

This week’s roulette landed me back in the realm of Eorzea — somewhere I haven’t been in a few years, barring a couple of brief abortive attempts. But this time I’m coming back in a different fashion, as I started a new trial account and began anew. This was for a few reasons, mostly because it’ll give me financial flexibility to dip in and out for now without a sub price and because I felt like a fresh start. I think the trial extends all the way through level 70 and Stormblood, so that’ll be a good long while before I’d have to consider re/buying expansions.

This is my new character, another confused adventurer named Yeti Yesterday. I sort of had an image in my mind of how I wanted her to look and got about 70% of the way there with the options that the character creator had. I rolled up on the Siren server and began my journey.

After that long, long, long initial cutscene, I was back in Gridania, which was the first place I ever really saw in this game back when I first started. That, plus the “FINAL FANTASY XIV” title screen and the music jolted me with a warm sense of nostalgia. Time to settle in and get comfy as I retread this lengthy road.

This time around, I’m approaching the game a little differently than in the past. Rather than gunning the MSQ in hopes of catching up, I’m taking a much more laid-back, completionist route with sidequests and everything. I’ve also pinpointed which jobs I want to gain, starting with the Dragoon. When I first played FFXIV, I had a great time with this class until online commenters and in-game jokes made me feel like it was an undesirable job that got a lot of flak. This time, I don’t care. I’ll play what I want to play, and a melee spear-user is a good time for me. And so far it’s been very relaxing and engaging, perfect for what I’m looking for these days.

I’m also doing a bit more research into the different aspects of the game, settings, etc. For example, I didn’t know you could go to a vendor to turn in achievements for currency that could be spent on some cosmetics, pets, and mounts. New to me, even though I’d spent hundreds of hours on this game before.

The trial account seems almost perfect for my situation with no time pressure and tons and tons of content. Assuming that one day I get through Stormblood, then I can make the call to buy the newer expansions and sub up. But that’s many months away. The only restrictions that currently chafe are not being able to send tells, not being able to join a free company, and not being able to trade. The guild thing is partially solved by jumping into the Novice Network channel and chatting with those friendly folks.

Within two days, I was already level 15 on my Lancer and running through all of the Smiths quests for the gear and ring. I don’t think XP is going to be any sort of problem with the way I’m approaching this, but it’s still nice to have for future alt jobs.

And I know that it logically makes sense to level up two jobs in tandem with all of the XP rolling in, but there aren’t any other pre-expansion jobs I really want at the moment — and it’ll be lower stress on me right now to focus on this single class. It’s not like I can’t change my mind in the future. Plus, it does simplify gear acquisition and storage, which is important since I can’t use retainers anyway.

After a few days, I dinged level 20 and got the starter city MSQ done, moving on to the 200-or-so Realm Reborn MSQ series. I got a bit bogged down in clearing out piddly quests in Uldah and Limsa Lominsa, but it really wasn’t too bad — and I got a new dance move and three vanity pets out of my bother.

Oh, and I unlocked the Golden Saucer, so I need to remember to do the daily and weekly lotto. Can’t hurt to start saving up points here!

This is a new (to me) feature for FFXIV dungeons — they put up this screen of faceplates for you to check out when you jump into an instance. I think it’s kind of brilliant. It makes you consider your teammates as more than just a name or role.

Elder Scrolls Online: A mammoth undertaking

There’s nothing more frustrating than having a piece of long-unfinished content softly mocking you — and nothing more satisfying than finally knocking it off. I’ve been nibbling away at Elder Scrolls Online’s Eastmarch for the better part of a year now in my sporadic sessions, and so I decided that I’d give myself the satisfaction of wrapping up the zone for good. That’s a wise use of a day off from work, right?

My standard for “clearing” a zone in ESO is to do every quest (including the main storyline), finding all the points of interest, unlocking all the wayshrines, finding all the skyshards, defeating all the delves, and killing all of the zone bosses. This last one proves to be tricky, as some of the bosses really can’t be soloed — and if I can’t find someone to come help, I’m out of luck.

Getting to the end of the pseudo-civil war storyline felt great indeed and had a so-so resolution. As always, I like how the player is given some choice to see how the story ends, even if it makes no difference on the bearing of the rest of the game. I didn’t outright kill the mutinous brother, but the skald-king certainly did, so that’s that.

Polishing off the zone requires a lot of back-and-forth checking with the zone guide and online resources to see the places and tasks I missed. There was a short but kind of engaging quest where I got to champion a group of giants attempting to retake their city. I had a hoot when the one giant literally kicked me over the wall to get inside.

Bio Break Mix Tape: Sea of Stars, Bree Sharp, and more!

It’s the start of the week, so why not start it off right with some great tunes? Enjoy your latest Bio Break Mix Tape, a random collection of awesome songs that I’ve discovered lately and want to pass on to you to enjoy too…

Free agent game: City of Heroes gets official

I know, I’m such a FOMO fish-follower sometimes, but don’t lie — you do it too. When everyone’s pumped up about a game, especially about an MMO, there’s a special joy to be had experiencing that moment with everyone else. So with the recent news that City of Heroes’ Homecoming server is now officially licensed from NCsoft — it’s now proper legit — I had to spend a week back in my old stomping grounds of Paragon City.

For this stint, I rolled up a new Illusion/Dark Controller named Hope Sesame and gave her a bit of a Victorian magician outfit look. I have ideas for a mystical cyberpunk getup if I get around to it.

Word of the official licensing got around, as the server was absolutely hopping when I got there. It’s always a lot of fun to “people watch” at Atlas Plaza and see what folks come up with. Admiration and envy, that’s a good mix!

Even though it’s been years since I’ve played — and longer still since I played with any regularity — the sounds, music, controls, and powers slammed a wave of nostalgia and familiarity on me. It was genuinely satisfying running around and spectral wounding bad guys to death, or tossing a deceive on a member of a gang and seeing him attack his friends. I went through the first quest arc to investigate the Hellions and some abductions in the area.

I’m finding that I actually like going through the small story arcs, even though it’s a lot of text reading. There are some clever little twists, such as a “hero” being the bad guy or a mission where you follow a reporter with a camera to film an encounter.

Anytime I come back to an old favorite MMO after a long time away, I start making a list of all of the features and design elements that I appreciated about it. One that doesn’t get mentioned often for CoH is how each of its villain groups is very iconic in their looks. They ooze personality, which makes them recognizable at a distance and a lot of fun to fight up close.

I dinged level 6 and got my travel power — super jump, of course. Actually, it came with DOUBLE jump too, which I didn’t know was a thing. That feature is apparently broken, because I won’t stop going up if I hold down the space bar. But yeah, super jump is just as amazing and enjoyable as it ever was. Navigating around the map is a breeze now.

LOTRO: Hobbits go Hawaiian

As I started to wrap up all of my adventures on the Shield Isles, I had a great time hanging out with a lady wanna-be adventurer and taking up whatever strange quests she fashioned. There was a great questline where we were to beat up some freebooters — but ended up making good friends with them instead. Another quest pitted us against the fearsome crab known as… Shelly.

I was strangely reluctant to leave the tropical paradise of the Shield Isles, especially with all of the treasure that one could literally stumble over. I made sure to take time to drink in the waves and palm trees before I said farewell…

The main questline told me to head off the Shield Isles and go to Umbar proper. On the map it looked like the destination icon was in the middle of the sea, so I just started swimming there, unaware until later I could’ve taken a boat instead. But then I wouldn’t have discovered the above floating artifacts at the midpoint between the zones.

With the Shield Isles fading into the distance, it’s time to begin the approach toward the City of Umbar. It might still be a while, as the map shows at least three potential quest hubs on the way. Eh, I’m not in a rush.

The new biome of Umbar continues to delight and encourage exploration. It’s so down-to-earth yet exotic, if that makes sense. And it has 100% more baboons than previous regions. I could watch that butt scratching all day long.

I still get these surreal moments when I see my Hobbit fighting on a Hawaiian-looking beach with the surf pounding in the background. I’m not complaining, mind you, but I’m not used to it yet.

World of Warcraft: The dreaded Deathwingurlugull

It’s truly helped both my stress level and focus to clear out my WoW quest log of everything but the main campaign quests. There’s simply too much trivial stuff in these expansions, especially when you come to them later on and just want to get the important goals done. Three questlines down, three to go: Theldraszus, Forbidden Reach, and Zaralek Cavern. Probably will do them in that order and get some heroics in on the side.

One thing’s for certain, these quests aren’t going to give me usable gear after doing Emerald Dream. But they can be interesting from a story perspective. I did like the time travel series that had me — for one bizarre moment — going all the way back to my character’s first appearance with the Lich King.

This alternate timeline where giant mutant murlocs took over Northrend is the expansion I never knew I truly wanted but now I do.

Taliesin had a recent video where he talked about how utterly confusing it is for returning players to jump into Dragonflight these days because of the sheer quest density, conflicting storylines, and no way to know which you should do in what order. I totally get that. Even trying to stick to a few main storylines has really tested my patience. I don’t know how much more I want to keep doing this. I always think, “I could just step away and when War Within has its pre-patch event, I’ll catch up with gear that way.”

Man, I miss when WoW felt really addicting.

Meanwhile in WoW Classic, my Shaman dinged 78 and continued her conquest of Howling Fjord. I can’t wait to hit 80 and get access to heroic dungeons, as the regular ones don’t seem to pay out in any gear upgrades these days. I might have capped out what I can accomplish in regular dungeons by now, I don’t know.

…and right after writing that, I ran a dungeon where I got not one, not two, but THREE blue upgrades — one amazing trinket from the final boss and a chest and head slot from the dungeon quest. So maybe I need to whine about this more? Or less?

I remember when we first heard about the Wrath expansion, the common thought was, “A full expansion of snow zones? That’s gonna be boring.” I think we underestimated how many tools this gave Blizzard with these biomes.

I think I may take a break from WoW for a while. Feeling a little tinge of burnout and want to wade in other waters.

Free agent game: EverQuest II and the rat necromancer

To start my “free agent game” experiment for 2024, I whipped up a list of about 25 MMOs, hit the RNG, and ended up with… EverQuest II! Instantly I felt — for no good reason — nervous about this, a little voice chattering away, “you made a mistaaaaaake.” It’s the voice that comes out any time I push myself to get out of my comfort zone for a while and start second-guessing myself.

But no, I’ve committed to this, and I’m going to do it. EQ2 for a week. Let’s go!

After retrieving my login details from who knows how many years in the past, I logged in to find a little level 1 Ratonga Necromncer staring at me.  I have no idea when I made her, but it felt right to go ahead and adventure with her rather than start over. As a plus, she had gobs of veteran rewards waiting to claim — including a 4-year reward, so there’s some indication of time — so why not!

I started off in some dark wooded zone where giant golems were pounding on a town. After some time to get my UI and keybinds in order, I tentatively began questing and fighting. The good news is that EQ2 is about 90% familiar to any other tab-targeting MMO, so the learning curve is pretty shallow. I still find the graphics and overlay kind of tacky and floaty, but it’s serviceable. The quest back-and-forth chatter with NPCs may be one of my favorite ways that an MMO has dispensed with missions, as I really paid attention all the way through them.

Combat was a piece of cake. Apparently EQ2’s Necros are a lot like WoW’s Warlocks, in that you get a pet and then toss a lot of DoTs on a mob so that the DoTs and pet finish the job. My “undead knight” there is the saddest excuse for a skeleton pet I’ve ever seen. Not only is he tiny, but he has no weapons or armor and he kind of just “dances” at the bad guy instead of punching him or something.

EverQuest II is fully functional as an MMO, but every corner of it feels… archaic. You get this from older guard MMOs that never wanted to be user friendly, only functional to the indoctrinated. The way the UI looks to the sounds to the interactivity is not terrible, but it’s certainly not as smooth as WoW or RIFT. I guess it’s something I’d get used to and not even notice if I was playing this for a long time, but tossing me into this now makes all the rough edges very apparent.

Even the quest flow — I’m in Darklight Woods — isn’t the best. It’s a whole lot of “run all the way out, do a thing, run back to me, get another task, run out, do another thing, run back to me, etc.” I was dying for some multi-step quests that would update as you went along, which I’m sure this game has somewhere.

But even with these nitpicks, the core combat and questing loop is solid. I’m not struggling to figure out what to do or where to go, and that’s pretty big when it comes to getting acquainted with an unfamiliar (or long-lapsed) MMO.

As I was questing, a very nice Shadowknight came up to me and offered to buy a mount for me. I told her that I was just trying the game out, but she insisted and tossed me a huge bag as well. And then proceeded to try to teach me everything about the game in 20 minutes. I didn’t want to dampen her enthusiasm or be rude, so I made the appropriately encouraging noises and drank it in. Hey, it was the nicest thing anyone’s done for me in a game in a long time, so I wasn’t about to ruin it!

I did pick up a pony mount in the City of Hate (Detroit). Now I’m zooming all over the place with reckless disregard for speed limits.

I got this feisty little draggo pet from the new Year of Darkpaw celebration. My daughter was quite charmed by it, so I guess it stays out for now.

And my new favorite Necromancer ability is flinging vampire bats at the enemy. But egads, I forgot how much EverQuest II keeps throwing new skills at you. I’m not even level 10 and already I have like three hotbars full of abilities.