The Unbearable Longing for LOTRO Part 2: Utter Desperation

I think the music video above explains more or less what I feel in a couple of ways. Obviously, "I want Nobody but you" refers to my need to acquire a copy of LOTRO at the moment or a game key at least.

Furthermore, the uncontrollable desire I have for the game is much like the guy with loose bowel movements in the video.To be utterly crass about it, I can't control my desire much like his bowel movements, and the universe keeps conspiring to take away the means by which I can make everything right in my little gaming world (reference to Toilet Paper).

Anyway, what's happened since the last post?

I did some more digging and found some information on the Free Trial Assistance Forums. Basically, Turbine seems to have been having issues with the Trial Account system for a little bit now, and it hasn't been publicized yet. I think that my inability to purchase the game digitally through their online store is also due to this issue they're having.

It's annoying to have such bad timing on my part, but there's not much I can do there. What I CAN do, however, is become even more desperate.

Which is why I was lucky enough to stumble upon MMeOw.net. The site's author may actually be having a contest for game keys soon, and therefore, it seems like my final option at the moment. While informing people of this fact hurts my chances somewhat, it seems like common courtesy to note that he's awesome for putting out contests at least.

I just hope I can win a key.

The Unbearable Longing for LOTRO

Have you ever gotten this urge to play a game so badly that there was this utter longing for that specific game? I've felt it many times over the years, whether it was Super Smash Bros. Brawl or Fallout 3, but this is the first time I've ever felt the longing for a game so badly that not being able to play is actually depressing me.

So, a night or two ago, I decided to visit random blogs online in the hopes of finding something new to occupy my mind and I eventually found myself inextricably drawn to Massively.com. I decided to check out Massively's coverage of Lord of the Rings Online and my interest grew in the game. So much so that two days later, which is today, I decided to go out and pick up a copy of the full game and its expansion just to try it out.

Now, in my country, there's only one store chain that sells original PC games en masse, and it's called Data Blitz. I went there at 10 am, sleepless and hungry for LOTRO action, only to find out that the game was out of stock in the branch I went to. They mentioned a rumor to me that basically states that someone bought ALL the remaining copies of the game from all the stores.

"That's obvioiusly preposterous," I thought. A phone call later to a nearby neighboring branch revealed that it also had no copies in stock. Upon going home, I called up three of their other branches, and each one had nothing to offer me.

Fast forward to earlier this evening. The game was in my head, taunting me to go and find a way.

It was enough to drive me to do something drastic: I went online and applied for a free 10-day trial and the subsequent digital download.

Except, I couldn't.

When I tried to cre­ate the trial account through Fire­fox, it said that an error has occurred. When I tried to create the trial account through IE8, it redi­rected me back to Turbine’s Gen­eral Free Trial Area for LOTRO and DDO… it’s as if the sub­mit but­ton was the wrong link or some­thing.

Fazed, but undeterred, I resorted to the last possible option: buying a digital copy and enduring the horrendously slow download speeds of my connection.

Except, I couldn't, yet again.

I tried using Fire­fox and IE8 to buy the game from the link posted on the LOTRO ad page that comes up prior to load­ing the LOTRO site. Thing is, every time I tried, after submitting the payment infor­ma­tion, it said that it was unable to process the request, that I should ver­ify my infor­ma­tion, and then try again.

The proper term here now, is SIGH...

It's been six hours since I began my attempts to get an online version of the game to no avail. Perhaps the LOTRO site is borked, or maybe I'm just in the wrong region to download the game. I only wish I had an answer, not only to the question of why I can't get a digital copy of the game, but also to the strange, uncontrollable desire to play a game I barely know and whose source material I never fully read.

[General] Technical Difficulties

Just to let any of you folks out there reading this blog, I might not be able to post for a day or two.

My monitor's screen gets a little blurry when I try to use it, and I know it's not my eyesight failing, so I might have to buy a new monitor so I can use my computer again.

That said, expect a new post up as soon as I can manage to scrounge up the money.