h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

After seeing it mentioned in someone's journal (or maybe it was in a conversation thread?) I thought I'd give it a try.

And discovered that I already had tried it out, several months ago.

Still, this time around it seemed there had been some improvements made, and the unofficial RP server not quite so crowded by non-RPing lol kids.

In fact, I got interested enough to try it out 'for real' i.e. with all the features and not only those in the free 10-day trial game.

This turned out to be trickier than I thought. To begin with, when trying to add my payment details I only got four countries to choose from when trying to fill in my address (US, Canada, Australia and NZ).

After searching everywhere in the FAQs and even googling for it, I still couldn't find how to get around this.

I even opened a ticket ingame to ask for help. Without any indication on the ingame screen a GM posted a reply and closed my ticket, something I didn't notice until I went searching for my ticket wondering what had happened to it. The reply? He/she/it couldn't assist me ingame with an account question, I would have to look on the internet - which I already had tried!

Then I discovered I had to fill in a completely different section of my account management page *first*. There was nothing to indicate this anywhere - I had gone straight for 'upgrade'.

Now it tells me I haven't got enough funds on my card. Pah! I went shopping with that very card earlier today, and I can access my card balance online. There *are* enough funds, so there!

So I used their account support function - and now I'm told it might take 1-2 weeks before I receive a reply. Two weeks? My trial account is only valid for playing for three more days.

And to think that in Aion (that has far prettier graphics) I get a reply within 24 hours whenever I report gold selling spammers, confirming that my message has been received and acted upon. And this in a game that immediately got so popular there were logon queues the first couple of weeks after the official release.

So I'm sorry LOTRO, but unless I receive a reply before my trial period expires, you'll miss out on a paying customer.

Right, last day of my 10-day-trial account, and no response to my inquiry about why they won't accept my card payment. I've double-checked to make sure there *is* enough money to pay for the game and the first monthly fee (I only signed up for a month to being with) and there is, but I'm *still* getting the same error message that makes it look as if I haven't got enough money on my card.

You just lost a person willing to become a paying customer, LOTRO. Time to uninstall the game.

That's a shame. I've never done any of the online games. I'm afraid I'll get addicted to them.

Same here. it's bad enough being addicted to mah jongg and spider.

I follow Oscar Wilde's advice - 'the only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it'.

It actually works - kind of I get hooked on a specific game, play it every evening and most of the weekends until I get thoroughly fed up, then I quit and don't play for a while.

After some time (from one to several weeks later) I'll pick up another game, either a brand new one or an old one, play it until I get fed up, quit. Rinse and repeat.

I usually stick to online role-playing games, mostly because I enjoy the social bit (and the role-playing, obviously ).

Although I can totally see myself picking up Oblivion again in a couple of months' time. Now, if *that* game had been available for online playing, then I'd be *seriously* addicted.

Guess what? I just reached my blah limit.

Can't play LOTR any more, tried playing Aion, didn't feel like it, and just the thought of World of Warcraft or Entropia Universe makes me go even more blah.

So I'm momentarily cured of any gaming addiction, except for tending my online garden, which I really don't classify as 'gaming':
http://www.molehillempire.com

Heh, that blah only lasted two days, now I'm back to playing Aion.

It's now been exactly a week since I sent off an e-mail to LOTRO support, and not a word from them so far.

In a way, I'm happy to have found out before getting a subscription that issues that will prevent me from playing the game are in no way a priority to the support team. I wonder if they give you a discount on the monthly fee if you've been unable to play? Must remember to ask if/when I get a reply.

so now even questions are blowing in the wind

But is the answer, my friend, blowing in the wind?

Sorry. I'll get my hat.

be quick, before even the hat is blowing in the wind

I don't know where the answer lingered, in the wind or elsewhere, but it finally landed in my in-box last night, 11 days after I had sent off an e-mail to the LOTR support.

It basically contained a 'sorry' and then describing in detail how I should enter my card details into my account. Seems I shouldn't have ticked the 'use card on file' box on the payment page, but I honestly thought that if I had registered all my card details in a separate section of my account settings that that would *be* my 'card on file'.

See, when I hadn't entered my card details anywhere on site, the payment page only gave me the US, Canada, NZ and Australia to choose from for my location.

Anyway, my reply was:

'I am sorry to say that I find the support response time to be far too long, having been thoroughly spoilt while playing two other MMORPGs where the response time to my support e-mails has been less then 24 hours regardless of what time of day/night or day of the week they've been sent off (even getting replies on Sundays).

Unfortunately I'm not too keen on spending my money on overseas calls either (I live in Sweden).

So thanks, but no thanks - I am no longer interested in playing a game where I, should some trouble arise, might end up not being able to play it for at least a week while waiting for a reply.

Regards
Ti'

Overseas as in 'a US phone number'.

Now, *if* they are as keen to keep their customers as the company behind Aion (who gave all my 8 characters some cool ingame items to compensate for the server queues during the first few weeks), they'll reply to that with an apology and possibly an offer to get the first month of playing for free.

If they do, I might reconsider.

If they don't, I won't bother.

And yes, the older I get, the pickier I get as a customer

i sense sauron has hacked into this somehow

No reply so far, which doesn't surprise me. If their support section is so poorly manned that they need at least a week to get back to you, I don't really see why they should try to increase their work burden by adding more paying players.

i sense old man tolkien rotating wherever he is now. he absolutely loathed anything modern - like steam trains

Well, LOTRO is now free to play for unlimited time, but with certain restrictions. I've now been playing it for almost a month.

Unfortunately, during some time or another, the player accounts were transformed. I missed that (can't find any e-mail telling me about it) so my old account is gone, and I had to start anew.

Stuck at home on Christmas Eve with a tummy bug, I'm playing just to keep my mind occupied. And guess what? The nicest thing just happened to me!

I got an ingame mail with a robe attached - a robe with better stats than Aedreanna's current one. Surprised, I searched for a NPC with the name of the sender, but no. So I sent an ingame /tell to check if she (female name, at least) really had sent it to the right person.

And yes, turned out she's picking random players and crafting better gear for them, and then mailing it - because it's Christmas!

Oh, really now?

Two level 30 characters telling my level 27 hunter when looking for a team that 'you can solo it'.

Guess I need better gear then, because it was completely wrecked when I tried to 'solo' it. And I got killed X number of times. Easy for you, tricky for me. Stop assuming all classes are easy to play!

My main kinship is a bunch of looneys - based on something I posted last night, one of my characters is now known as 'X the Administerer and BA'

...which is supposed to refer to B A Baraccus for some reason...


And it's in the kin Message Of The Day to make sure nobody - absolutely nobody - misses it!

OK, once more I'm really ed off with the Turbine support - or lack thereof.

If I remember correctly, back in 2009, you got to play for free for a limited time, 20 days or so. After creating several characters, getting mounts and houses and joining a kinship, I tried becoming a paying player. My bank card wouldn't work, and I got no replies from the Turbine support.

Now, almost four years later, I have the same problem. I try to upgrade to VIP, but can't - even though I've used the very same card to buy LotRO points so, in my opinion, there's nothing wrong with my card.

5-7 workdays, they say. Well, today was the 7th day, and not a word.

In addition, when I accidentally stumbled upon my 2009 login details, everything has been wiped clean from that account. And after logging in for the third time to check another server, the launcher gave me an XML error instead of loading the login window.

After that, part of my sounds were very muted - voices in online TV channels, ingame sounds like my character's footsteps, shouts, crafting, you name it. Had to identify the driver and codec versions for my Realtek in order to restore them.

So yes, I'm ed off.

Oh bother!

Tonight, my kinship was going to throw a grand St Patrick's Day party, which was announced almost a month ago, with weekly reminders.

Until I pointed out to them, tonight, that they had also planned a run at the same time. Which the guild leader, as well as the officers, as well as the member in charge of planning the party had, somehow, completely overlooked.

Now, the party has been moved forward 1 hour, making it 2 am my time because, obviously, a run is more important than the social activities of this kinship.

Several members have left lately and I'm thinking I might leave it too, if this is the way they choose how to prioritize guild activites.

Run: only those of enough high level
Party: everyone regardless of level