Taking For Granted What You Don't Have

I go through cycles in my playtime with LOTRO. Sometimes I log in for a few hours every day. Other times I only log in twice a week. Just depends on my mood. But, when I know I can't log in, I really, really want to log in. It's just like anything else in life. You take for granted what you have all the time, but as soon as it's gone, you realize how much you want it. With my motherboard dead, LOTRO is just that for me.

And maybe it's partly the fault of all these awesome Mines of Moria dev diaries coming out of Turbine lately. Yesterday's one about legendary items really makes me want to be in there experimenting with the new content right now. But alas, I can't. Not only is MoM not released, but I don't have a system capable of playing the game at the moment.

I'm a bit worried about finishing the epic book quests, more than anything. I wanted to have them finished by the time MoM was released, so I can jump right into the new content with the rest of my kinmates. Certainly I don't have to have completed the Shadows of Angmar epic quests to start the MoM epic quests. But I like to keep my story in the proper order, so I've been doing the books in order, without skipping ahead. And with Moria only open to those who have completed the first chapter in Volume 2 and received a legendary weapon, a whole host of content will be unavailable to me - even if I get my gaming computer back up and running.

I've had little luck finding a motherboard that has an AGP slot for my current graphics card. I don't know if they make them anymore. It's old technology, with the current gen being the second iteration of the PCI-Express slot. Two stages removed from AGP. I'm going to investigate if changing the batter on the mobo makes any difference. The symptoms could be indicative of a dead battery. Which would be a relatively cheap and quick fix and get me back into LOTRO. We'll see how it goes. I'll keep you posted.