I wanted to start this post by saying that I was surprised about the urge to return to Lord of the Rings Online, but honestly, I am not. This MMO – as well as the classic World of Warcraft – give me something that newer MMOs do not give me: Slower combat. No need to jump, dodge, hop, sprint away from any burning circles, rectangles or whatever as fast as I can. Just your good old tab-targeting. On top of that and contrary to WoW, LotRO stayed “old-school” and did not give its world a more modern feeling. There is something about the current WoW that makes me dislike it. LotRO still feels like it did in the good old days. And both these MMOs give me a mostly open world with no loading screens in between.
Recently, LotRO gave us a new zone: Yondershire. It’s actually a low level zone which is always nice. As much as I love LotRO, I do not like levelling in that game because there isn’t enough variety in zones to choose from. You basically do the same zones over and over again with every character. Or you do skirmishes (instanced content that can be done solo, with a duo, etc.). But skirmishes are even more repetitive.
The problem with LotRO is just that, even though I switched to Beorning and boosted her (I’m a lifetime player, so I get a monthly stipend of points to use), she’s just… not my Warden. There are memories attached to that character and she is the one that has the most content done and things unlocked. Which isn’t much by today’s standards, because as much as LotRO stayed “old school”, there was still much content added and unfortunately, a lot of things that need to be unlocked. Some features and mechanics were changed and not always for the better, apparently.
As Bree asked on MassivelyOP: No, I don’t often play the characters that I used level boosters on. I wish I did, but I guess there is a reason I use a booster instead of going through the level process. And in cases like LotRO, it feels like there’s too much catching up to do. Which leads me back to my Warden. I have played her and have loved playing her for years. However, that was before they changed the skill trees and Warden is not exactly an easy class to play. There is also the Runekeeper that I could get out and play again. Or I could stick with my new addition, the Beorning. She is a fun class to play! It’s just that there isn’t the connection that I feel with the other two who have been around ever since I stepped into LotRO. So how should I use my level booster? And should I even use it at all or keep it and level up my Warden or my Runekeeper the old-fashioned way? Or maybe, there is yet another option: Should I just start fresh with a completely new character? Although running through all the low-level content again that I’ve seen countless times already feels very tedious… so probably not.
Nerdy Bookahs 
Character boosts are like a monkey’s paw wish; you think you want it, then you get there and find yourself detached from your character and their surroundings. The continuity of their experience has been broken. The only time I have been happy with a character boost is when I have done it on a freshly rolled character, and even then I am mostly on the bad side of the experience.
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It works relatively well in Guild Wars 2 and in World of Warcraft for me. The latter mostly because I don’t do raids anyway, so I don’t need any equipment. And with Guild Wars 2, well, I don’t know what it is… maybe all the horizontal progression.
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WoW is the only place I have ever really been successful with character boosts. EQ, EQII, and LOTRO have all been problematic when I have tried, largely because the games introduced so many ongoing systems over the years. In EQ, as an example, the alternate advancements, their horizontal progression when they don’t do a level cap boost, are almost indecipherable at this point because the system has been growing for almost 20 years at this point.
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I think WoW did that reasonably well… introducing changes to make the game not seem like somebody slapped on feature after feature. Like with the level squish, for example. Not everybody likes it, but it does make starting to play easier than in other games.
I think I will either boost my warden or my runekeeper because I know I like playing them. And if I feel lost, then I can always take the other one to level through the content slowly… :p
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