Comment Spam

I don’t like spam, not like anyone does, but I understand why email spammers do it.  Send out enough email and you’ll get at least a few people to click on a link, it’s not like sending an email is expensive.  I don’t understand blog spammers though.  Why would a spammer take time to continually try to post spam comments to a blog?  Is it intern spammer training?  I don’t get it.

What prompted this whole train-wreck of thought was my comment spam queue.  I check my spam comment queue sporadically, sometimes daily, sometimes weekly.  When I checked the queue today, there were 248 spam comments ranging from 4/10 to 4/18.  What’s interesting though is they are all for the same post.

The spam filter I use works very well, I’ve had zero problems with spam comments showing up and I haven’t had to mess with moderating commenters, so the comment spam is more interesting than annoying.  Still, spammers seem to really like that one post.

Ered Luin Revisited

I haven’t been to Ered Luin since the game launched.  My first character was an Elven Hunter on Gladden that I got to 15 during the head-start week.  I ended up re-rolling a Man Hunter on Landroval after I read on the forums that it  was going to be the unofficial role-play server.  So it’s been nearly two years since I’ve spent any time there.  I have an Elven Rune-keeper, Calenel, that I’d started but only played to level 8, so Book 7 seemed a good time to get back to him and see what kind of changes Turbine had worked out.

First thing of course is the XP curve change, I killed a rat and dinged 9.  Pretty nice.

Celondim has been streamlined a bit.  I remember a fair bit more running from Celondim to Nen Hilith and to Limael’s Vineyard and back again.  Now there is a quest NPC that sends you out to Nen Hilith and then is a small quest hub of four NPC’s that the mouth of the dell.  The same thing Limael is now at the tower on the hill just before her Vineyard instead of back in Celondim.  So now instead of two or three trips out and back, it’s one.

Duillond has a bit more running, but it’s still much improved.

As Calenel reached the teen levels, I noticed I couldn’t find any elites and had no trouble soloing all of the quests I was given.  I was especially surprised to find that you can solo all the way through the Prologue now.  I’m working through the Bree Prologue quests on a Man Warden character and there are still Fellowship quests towards the end of that chain.  I’m interested to see if Turbine changes the Bree and Shire prologue quests as well with the next content release.

Overall, the new zone is much more streamlined and enjoyable.  I’m not sure why the Prologue quests were made solo-able but it might point to a general shortage of low-level players in the Ered Luin region.  It’s certainly nice to be able to join a Fellowship as an option, but not be blocked.  I remember the Lone-lands being especially bad for that, I would login with a quest log full of Fellowship quests that no one was doing.

Blog About Bloggers and Podcasters

I read a lot of blogs, i currently have 136 subscriptions in Google Reader and about 1/3 to 1/2 of those are gaming related.  Most bloggers, that I read, make at least some reference to their personal life, often to provide context for opinions, but no one really goes into detailed about their backgrounds or explores why they write.  For most of us it is enough to write without doing any writing about writing.

Randolph over at Grinding to Valhalla has started a project to change that.  He’s gotten quite a few bloggers (including me) to fill out questionnaires about themselves and their backgrounds.  One of the things I find interesting about his blog is the categories he’s put together.  You can look at bloggers by experience level (age), hearthstone (location), and profession (both actual and dream).

If you are a blogger and you want to participate, check out the Chapter 1 questions.

LoTRO 360

The Lord of the Rings Online for the Xbox 360 rumor has been making the rounds again.  The first one I saw was from Destructoid.  It was posted on April 1st, so I immediately assumed it was a joke, but if you check the comment thread Brad does say on the following day that it’s not an April Fool’s joke.  Tony at MMeOw picked it up as did Massively both of which source the Destructoid post.  Massively also references Joystiq who references Destructoid as well and followed up with Turbine PR:

“We’re not talking about what we’re working on specifically, only that we’re making a console MMO and actively working with Microsoft and Sony.”

Turbine has admitted working on a console MMO apparently planned for both the Xbox 360 and the PS3, but it’s much more likely to be a new design rather than a port of the existing game.  Jaxom92 makes several good points, but the biggest one is the controller/keyboard problem.  With the exception of Final Fantasy XI, all MMO’s have been designed around mouse and keyboard.  To go to a controller, the game would have to be drastically changed.  Either the game would have to be simplified or the pacing would have to be changed.  The alternative of course is to require players to get a USB keyboard to plug in or provide a peripheral, after all everyone was willing to buy a plastic guitar.  Even then you have an ergonomic issue.  When I play my 360, I play on the couch.  I’m not going to spend hours on the couch with a keyboard in my lap and a mouse on the armrest.